The New York Times reports, “After launching early on Tuesday, the billionaire Jared Isaacman and his crew traveled to altitudes not visited by any astronaut since the Apollo moon missions of the 1960s and ’70s. … Two of them, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, have now gone farther from the planet than any other women ever.”
Full Story (New York Times – Subscription Publication)
Tag: Orbit
SpaceX Launches Bicoastal Missions Putting 124 Payloads into Orbit
CBS News reports that in a Monday doubleheader, SpaceX “launched 52 Starlink internet satellites from Florida and then fired off another Falcon 9 from California, putting 72 small payloads from multiple vendors into orbit in the company’s eighth low-cost ‘rideshare’ mission.” The Florida-based mission launched 52 Starlink satellites into orbit from Cape Canaveral in a pre-dawn flight to bring the company’s satellite constellation total to 4,595. The Transporter 8 mission “took off from Vandenberg Space Force Base northwest of Los Angeles at 5:35 p.m. EDT, carrying 72 rideshare payloads provided by multiple vendors and launch brokers.” Transporter missions are “intended to provide low-cost access to space for small payloads that might otherwise have to wait for rides on missions dedicated to larger satellites.” SpaceX “charges $275,000 for a 110-pound payload, and $5,500 for each additional 2.2 pounds.”
Full Story (CBS News)
ISS Adjusts Orbit to Avoid Collision
Space News reports that the International Space Station “adjusted its orbit March 6 to avoid a close approach by an imaging satellite operated by Satellogic, the latest evidence of growing congestion in low Earth orbit.” A March 6 blog post from NASA said “that the Progress MS-22 spacecraft docked to the station fired its thrusters for a little more than six minutes, raising the station’s orbit to move out of the way of what the agency called an Earth observation satellite.” The satellite would have passed within 3 kilometers of the ISS without the maneuver.
Full Story (Space News)
CAPSTONE Reaches Lunar Orbit
In what UPI describes as a “major win” for NASA, the CAPSTONE CubeSat probe “arrived in orbit around the moon Sunday night.” NASA “made the announcement Monday amid a flurry of test missions in recent months that set the stage for astronauts to return to the lunar surface for the first time in more than 50 years.” CAPSTONE “was disabled for several weeks after a faulty engine burn sent it careening into outer space on Sept. 8.”
Full Story (UPI)