Archives for September 2008
Hubble Suffers Critical Failure
Published on 29 Sep 2008 at 2:59 pm.
1 Comment.
Filed under space telescopes.
The aging Hubble Space Telescope has suffered one of its worst failures since launch. This weekend, the Science Data Formatter suffered an irrecoverable failure on one side. It cannot be fixed by uploading new software. It is dead. It must be replaced. This effectively makes the Hubble useless unless some […]
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CoS #72
Published on 26 Sep 2008 at 3:08 pm.
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Filed under blogging.
The Carnival of Space, 72nd Edition, is now live. Jennifer is hosting it at Twisted Physics this week. So, go take a look at the carnival’s collection of links to space related blog postings of the past week.
-Astroprof
Shenzhou-7 Lifts Off
Published on 25 Sep 2008 at 2:31 pm.
2 Comments.
Filed under space exploration.
This morning, at 8:10 am Central Daylight Time, 13:10 UT, China’s Shenzhou-7 mission lifted off from its Gansu Province Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center launch pad atop a Long March 2 rocket. Aboard the spacecraft were three taikonauts: Liu Boming, Jeng Haipeng, and Zhai Zhigang (commander). This is China’s first three man crew. Scheduled for […]
A Sunspot!
Published on 24 Sep 2008 at 4:13 pm.
2 Comments.
Filed under Sun.
A few days ago, a sunspot appeared on the Sun. It was a nice one, too. It was a classic bipolar spot group (with one end a magnetic north pole, and the other end a magnetic south pole). A lot of people got excited. After all, the Sun has been in a protracted solar minimum, […]
Satellite Insurance
Published on 22 Sep 2008 at 10:36 am.
1 Comment.
Filed under space businesses.
Usually, I write about astronomy and space exploration topics. But I read this article, and that got me to thinking about the commercialization of space. If we are ever to develop a true space-faring civilization, then we need to go beyond just exploring space to working, living, and doing business in space. […]
Carnival of Space #71
Published on 19 Sep 2008 at 7:44 pm.
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Filed under blogging.
I have been busy with Hurricane Ike, grading papers, writing labs, and doing some NASA paperwork. So, I’ve slacked off the past few days. However, you can find a ton of really great astronomy posts at this week’s Carnival of Space, hosted at the dotastronomy conference site. The host did a great job with it. […]
JSC closed for at least one week
Published on 14 Sep 2008 at 5:40 pm.
1 Comment.
Filed under NASA.
The team that rode out the storm at the Johnson Space Center continues to assess the damage and is beginning to work on repairs to infrastructure at the space center. The space center will not resume operations right away. It appears that it will take at least a week for recovery operations to get things […]
