January 2023 – Page 12 – NeRDs Moonbase

1st orbital rocket launch by ABL Space Systems fails

January 11, 2023 NeRD

A powerful new small-satellite launcher failed to earn its wings on its first attempt. ABL Space Systems’ RS1 rocket launched on its very first orbital mission Tuesday (Jan. 10), rising off a pad at the Pacific Spaceport Complex on Alaska’s Kodiak Island at 6:27 p.m. EST (2327 GMT; 2:27 p.m. local time in Alaska). The two-stage rocket fell short on the debut flight, failing to deliver a pair of cubesats to low Earth orbit (LEO) as planned, ABL representatives said. (The launch was not livestreamed.) “After liftoff, RS1 experienced an…

Final ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ trailer dives into the Quantum Realm

January 10, 2023 NeRD

During Monday night’s (Jan. 9) serious 65-7 smackdown of the woefully overmatched TCU Horned Frogs by the Georgia Bulldogs in the College Football National Championship Game, a clash of a different nature took place between Ant-Man and Kang the Conqueror in Marvel Studios’ newest trailer for “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” This action-packed teaser highlighted much more of the film’s astounding special effects and teases an intense battle between the time-dealing supervillain named Kang and Ant-Man in director Peyton Reed’s third installment in the “Ant-Man” trilogy. This $200 million sci-fi…

SpaceX fires up Falcon Heavy rocket ahead of Saturday launch (photo)

January 10, 2023 NeRD

SpaceX’s powerful Falcon Heavy rocket has flexed its muscles ahead of a planned liftoff this weekend. SpaceX just performed a “static fire” test with the Falcon Heavy at Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, lighting up the rocket’s 27 first-stage Merlin engines while the vehicle remained anchored to the ground. Static fires are common prelaunch tests for SpaceX, and the Falcon Heavy is indeed gearing up for a liftoff in the near future. “Full duration static fire of Falcon Heavy complete; targeting no earlier than Saturday, January…

NASA to Host Media Update on Space Station Plans, Soyuz Status

January 10, 2023 NeRD

NASA will host a media teleconference at 9 a.m. EST Wednesday, Jan. 11, to discuss results from the investigation of the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-22 external coolant leak and the forward strategy for uninterrupted human operations aboard the International Space Station.

Space Station Peek

January 10, 2023 NeRD

NASA astronaut and Expedition 68 Flight Engineer Nicole Mann peers through one of the seven windows in the cupola, the International Space Station’s “window to the world” on Jan. 2, 2023.

NASA, NOAA to Announce 2022 Global Temperatures, Climate Conditions

January 10, 2023 NeRD

Climate researchers from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will release their annual assessments of global temperatures and discuss the major climate trends of 2022 during a media briefing at 11 a.m. EST Thursday, Jan. 12.

Virgin Orbit rocket suffers anomaly during 1st launch from UK

January 10, 2023 NeRD

NEWQUAY, U.K. — The first-ever orbital mission to lift off from the United Kingdom did not go as planned. That flight, the “Start Me Up” mission by Virgin Orbit, started out well enough. The company’s carrier plane, known as Cosmic Girl, lifted off from Spaceport Cornwall here on schedule Monday (Jan. 9) at 5:02 p.m. EST (2202 GMT). Cosmic Girl dropped Virgin Orbit’s 70-foot-long (21 meters) LauncherOne rocket at 6:09 p.m. EST (2309 GMT), while the plane was off Ireland’s southwest coast. The rocket’s first stage did its job, and…

Huge solar flare erupts on the sun from ‘hyperactive’ sunspot

January 9, 2023 NeRD

A massive explosion on the sun unleashed a powerful solar flare from a new sunspot on Monday (Jan. 9), one that is slowly turning to face the Earth. The solar flare erupted at 1:50 p.m. EST (1850 GMT) as a X1.9-class sun storm that caused a temporary, but strong, radio blackout across parts of South America, Central America and the Pacific Ocean, according to a statement (opens in new tab) from the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. X-class flares are the strongest types…

SpaceX could launch 1st Starship orbital flight in February, Elon Musk says

January 9, 2023 NeRD

SpaceX’s huge Starship vehicle could go orbital for the first time next month, if all goes according to plan. For months, SpaceX has been gearing up for the first-ever orbital test flight of Starship, its next-generation deep-space transportation system. The company may now be in the home stretch of such prep work, potentially allowing Starship to get off the ground in just six weeks or so. “We have a real shot at late February. March launch attempt appears highly likely,” SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said via Twitter on…

NASA Selects Experimental Space Technology Concepts for Initial Study

January 9, 2023 NeRD

Imagine a future in space where pellet-beam propulsion systems speed up travel to other worlds, pipelines on the Moon transport oxygen between settlements, and Martian bricks grow on their own before being assembled into homes.