Science
SpaceX launch: live stream, liftoff video replay, and what's happening now – TechRadar India
3pm EDT SpaceX update: New SpaceX launch video and video replays have been added embedded via YouTube and Twitter below, so you can rewatch the highlights, from liftoff on the Dragon Endeavor to docking with the International Space Station. Next up is a post-arrival news conference at the Johnson Space Center at 3:15pm EDT.
1:47pm EDT update: The live stream video just showed the Dragon Endeavor crew being greeted by NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, NASA Johnson Space Center Director Mark Geyer, US Senator Ted Cruz, and US Representative Brian Babin on a video call from Mission Control in Houston, Texas.
1:30pm EDT update: The two NASA astronauts who went up on the SpaceX Dragon capsule yesterday have joined three other astronauts on the ISS (International Space Station): American Chris Cassidy and Russians Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner.
1pmEDT update: The hatch is now open (as of 1:02pm EDT on March 31), meaning the hatch between the SpaceX Dragon capsule and the ISS is open and the two NASA astronauts can float through the International Space Station.
The live stream continues below via a YouTube video, and it’s happening after the two astronauts established pressure equalization in SpaceX Dragon capsule.
The SpaceX hatch is opening a little more than two hours after docking with the ISS. The SpaceX Dragon docking with the ISS was a success and happened autonomously, at first with a soft capture, then there were 12 latches around the docking ring that created a pressure-tight seal. An umbilical cord was then deployed to link the SpaceX Dragon and the ISS to share power and data – think of it has a giant USB-C cable in space.
It took a total of 19 hours for the SpaceX Dragon capsule to navigate to the ISS for docking on Sunday, following a successful SpaceX launch live stream. You can see a video replay of the liftoff below, along with four other can’t-miss highlight videos.
SpaceX live stream video
Here’s where you’re able to watch the NASA astronauts float around in space board the SpaceX Dragon capsule. The live stream commentary has been brilliant, insightful and inspiring regarding the future of commercial space travel.
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SpaceX video: see the NASA astronauts arrive at ISS
For the first time, NASA astronauts arrived at the International Space Station from a commercially-made spacecraft. Watch Doug and Bob join three other astronauts from the Dragon Endeavor (what they named their capsule after the launch).
This is the first time in human history @NASA_Astronauts have entered the @Space_Station from a commercially-made spacecraft. @AstroBehnken and @Astro_Doug have finally arrived to the orbiting laboratory in @SpaceX’s Dragon Endeavour spacecraft. pic.twitter.com/3t9Ogtpik4May 31, 2020
SpaceX hatch opening video replay
The SpaceX hatch opened at 12:45pm EDT, a little more than two hours after the Dragon capsule first linked up with the ISS. NASA astronauts equalized the pressure between the two spacecrafts so that they could move to the ISS.
They made it. After launching from @NASAKennedy on the @SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft yesterday, @AstroBehnken and @Astro_Doug have officially joined the @Space_Station crew today at 1:02pm ET — making history in the process. pic.twitter.com/A7oExw0SlDMay 31, 2020
SpaceX docking with ISS video replay
You can see the ISS docking in this video below. It shows the SpaceX Dragon and ISS linking up in what’s called a ‘soft capture’. It happened autonomously, and then a set a 12 latches or hooks create a pressurized seal so that the two crafts orbit together.
This particular SpaceX video is of the more visually-pleasing soft capture (there’s no good video vantage point for the more internalized hard capture with latches).
Docking confirmed – Crew Dragon has arrived at the @space_station! pic.twitter.com/KiKBpZ8R2HMay 31, 2020
SpaceX toy dinosaur floating in zero gravity
You can’t buy the “Ty Flippable Tremor The Aqua/Pink Sequin Dinosaur” on Amazon anymore. It’s sold out after it was seen floating in space. The NASA astronauts took it onboard for their kids to see it experience zero gravity.
Two humans (and one dinosaur) went to space today #SpaceX pic.twitter.com/U4CbHJShkwMay 30, 2020
Best SpaceX video replays
All of the important SpaceX video replays are below, from launch to right now.
Both SpaceX and NASA are providing a bunch of footage – both live video and video replays – to capture this space mission. Here are the best videos to check out.
1. SpaceX launch video replay – see the liftoff again
Liftoff happened at 3:22pm EDT Saturday, and it was spectacular, especially after a nine-year hiatus for NASA launches on US soil. You can rewatch the launch again.
Liftoff! pic.twitter.com/DRBfdUM7JAMay 30, 2020
2. SpaceX Falcon 9 booster returns to Earth
Just beyond the T-0 countdown, we saw the SpaceX Falcon 9 booster return to Earth – and land successfully. Having a reusable rocket is a huge milestone for the future of space travel when it comes to cost.
Commentators on the SpaceX live stream compared the Space Shuttle era rockets falling into the ocean (and being scrapped) as throwing away an airplane engine every time a plane pulled into an airport gate. It’s a great analogy to explain why what SpaceX pulled off on Saturday was a huge deal for space exploration.
Falcon 9 booster has landed on the Of Course I Still Love You droneship! pic.twitter.com/96Nd3vsrT2May 30, 2020
3. Falcon 9 second stage separates from Dragon capsule
Here’s some great footage of the Falcon 9 second stage rocket separating from the Dragon Capsule and falling back to Earth.
Crew Dragon has separated from Falcon 9’s second stage and is on its way to the International Space Station with @Astro_Behnken and @AstroDoug! Autonomous docking at the @Space_Station will occur at ~10:30 a.m. EDT tomorrow, May 31 pic.twitter.com/bSZ6yZP2bDMay 30, 2020
4. NASA astronauts’ first video transmission
Right now, NASA astronauts are above Earth in the SpaceX-made Dragon capsule as you read this (they’ll be up there for 19 hours), and they’re wearing SpaceX-designed spacesuits. The US government’s Space Shuttle program ended nine years ago and the private SpaceX has picked up where NASA left off. It’s a giant step for space exploration.
Amazing. 🚀 https://t.co/hamiC8PDqZMay 30, 2020
5. Live views of the SpaceX Dragon orbiting the Earth
The SpaceX cameras were able to capture some amazing live views of Earth as the Dragon capsule orbited the planet on its way to dock with the ISS. Here’s a short clip of exactly that.
Tune in to hear @AstroBehnken and @Astro_Doug on Crew Dragon and for live views of Earth → https://t.co/bJFjLCzWdK pic.twitter.com/P5nxAyAJFnMay 31, 2020
The first hours of Saturday’s SpaceX livestream felt like deja vu if you watched the SpaceX live stream Wednesday. But unlike that first launch attempt, Saturday’s launch countdown didn’t stop at T-minus 17 minutes. Instead, history was made.
It wasn’t always clear that Saturday’s launch would happen, even minutes before the launch window. “We are predicting a 50/50 shot of going this time,” said NASA administrator NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine at the top of the SpaceX live stream. “But given the fact that we are in late May – in Florida – we have to take every shot that we can get.” They’re glad that they did, despite the gloomy forecast.
Saturday’s SpaceX Demo-2 mission was a delayed and a second attempt, but it was always going to be historic, as it’s happening at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. It’s the first such launch on US soil in nearly a decade – since NASA retired the Space Shuttle nine years ago. It’s also the first time that a SpaceX reusable spacecraft has sent NASA astronauts into space. It’s the birth of commercially-backed human space travel.
The destination of this SpaceX launch is the International Space Station (ISS) for a one- to four-month duration for NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, according to our friends over at Space.com.
SpaceX launch – as it happened on Saturday, May 30
The official Demo-2 SpaceX launch time, Saturday, May 30 at 3:22pm EDT, so the times across the continental US were 2:22pm CDT / 1:22pm MDT / 12:22pm PDT.
The UK SpaceX launch time was 20:22 BST. In addition to tuning into the video live stream, you were able to go outside soon afterward and maybe catch a glimpse of the SpaceX-built spacecraft in the night sky at around 20:40 BST.
In Australia, it was already Sunday morning, with the new launch time occurring at 5:22am AEST.
SpaceX launch weather concerns subsided
Up until the last few minutes of Saturday’s SpaceX launch, weather was a concern. It wouldn’t have been time, as we saw this play out on Wednesday: “The weather got us,” admitted NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine in a somber 30-second Twitter video on Wednesday. “I know there was a lot of disappointment today.”
Bridenstine went on to explain the reasoning behind what we all saw: the SpaceX launch was scrubbed just 17 minutes inside the launch window, with NASA hanging on until the last minutes in an effort to save its efforts. The weather didn’t cooperate.
NASA has strict weather rules for clearing spacecraft launches and noted that three weather violations existed, including the chance of the craft triggering ‘natural lightning’. If they would have been able to wait ten minutes beyond the countdown, they could have cleared those three violations, according to SpaceX and NASA officials.
Waiting even ten minutes wasn’t an option, though. Both Saturday’s successful launch and Wednesday’s scrubbed launch had what’s known as an ‘instantaneous launch window’, meaning due orbital mechanics a delay wasn’t possible if the crew wanted to get to the International Space Station (ISS) on time and lock in accurately. Blame Newtown’s law of universal gravity, if you’d like.
The good news is that everything technical with the SpaceX craft and NASA crew was ‘go for liftoff’ on both days when the hatch door successfully closed. Weather was the only concern, according to NASA during the live streams.
Even with all of the exceptional planning ahead of this SpaceX launch, NASA and SpaceX can’t control the weather (not yet anyway). Florida, while normally sunny, does have frequent quick-moving thunderstorms (anyone who has ever visited nearby Disney World knows that), and that’s what the crew faced Wednesday and most of Saturday until the final half-hour.
.@AstroBehnken and @Astro_Doug arrive at historic Launch Complex 39A → https://t.co/bJFjLCzWdK pic.twitter.com/EZATwbKWfAMay 30, 2020
Another weather variable is the fact that the weather conditions need to be good everywhere this spacecraft might be. For example, if the crew had to abort anywhere along their ascent and come down, recovery crews would need to access the capsule, so it’s more than just the immediate Florida launchpad that needs ideal weather.
What happened before the SpaceX launch
The live stream saw SpaceX founder Elon Musk visit suited-up astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken and exchange a few words before liftoff time. Sadly, there was no audio during this portion of the live stream on Wednesday.
Musk then greeted US Vice President Mike Pence, who is there to watch the launch, while President Donald Trump joined soon after. Hurley and Behnken traveled to the launch site in a Tesla Model X (Tesla being another company Musk founded). Both the President and Vice President returned to see the launch Saturday.
The moment @SpaceX founder @elonmusk gives NASA’s @AstroBehnken & @Astro_Doug the keys to the Dragon 2. #SpaceLaunchLIVE #SpaceXDragon pic.twitter.com/nHb1uCVR9uMay 27, 2020
NASA continued to monitor the weather via data sensors around the launch site in an effort to get everything into ‘the green position’ on their maps. At the time, NASA said, “the weather is trending in the right direction,” but as the countdown got to T-minus 17 minutes, favorability went the other direction.
This meant that the crew was seated in the capsule after crossing the crew access arm, and the crew arm had already retracted. Steam started to come off of the rocket before the launch was called off. It was that close to liftoff.
SpaceX spacecraft, SpaceX suits and NASA astronauts
NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken are inside the SpaceX Dragon capsule, which sat atop the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for liftoff. It was situated on a launch pad at legendary Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida’s Cape Canaveral.
LC-39A was originally built for the Apollo missions and remodeled for the Space Shuttle program. Now it’s home to the first space flight to send astronauts into space using a private aerospace company.
Hurley (the spacecraft commander) and Behnken (the joint operations commander) are NASA astronauts, engineers and both former members of US military (Hurley is a former marine, while Behnken was in the US Air Force).
The two-man NASA crew are not only be flying in a SpaceX-built spacecraft, but also outfitted in SpaceX pressurized suits, first shown off in 2017.
Science
NASA to launch sounding rockets into moon's shadow during solar eclipse – Phys.org
NASA will launch three sounding rockets during the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, to study how Earth’s upper atmosphere is affected when sunlight momentarily dims over a portion of the planet.
The Atmospheric Perturbations around Eclipse Path (APEP) sounding rockets will launch from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia to study the disturbances in the ionosphere created when the moon eclipses the sun. The sounding rockets had been previously launched and successfully recovered from White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico, during the October 2023 annular solar eclipse.
They have been refurbished with new instrumentation and will be relaunched in April 2024. The mission is led by Aroh Barjatya, a professor of engineering physics at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, where he directs the Space and Atmospheric Instrumentation Lab.
The sounding rockets will launch at three different times: 45 minutes before, during, and 45 minutes after the peak local eclipse. These intervals are important to collect data on how the sun’s sudden disappearance affects the ionosphere, creating disturbances that have the potential to interfere with our communications.
The ionosphere is a region of Earth’s atmosphere that is between 55 to 310 miles (90 to 500 kilometers) above the ground. “It’s an electrified region that reflects and refracts radio signals and also impacts satellite communications as the signals pass through,” said Barjatya. “Understanding the ionosphere and developing models to help us predict disturbances is crucial to making sure our increasingly communication-dependent world operates smoothly.”
The ionosphere forms the boundary between Earth’s lower atmosphere—where we live and breathe—and the vacuum of space. It is made up of a sea of particles that become ionized, or electrically charged, from the sun’s energy or solar radiation.
When night falls, the ionosphere thins out as previously ionized particles relax and recombine back into neutral particles. However, Earth’s terrestrial weather and space weather can impact these particles, making it a dynamic region and difficult to know what the ionosphere will be like at a given time.
It’s often difficult to study short-term changes in the ionosphere during an eclipse with satellites because they may not be at the right place or time to cross the eclipse path. Since the exact date and times of the total solar eclipse are known, NASA can launch targeted sounding rockets to study the effects of the eclipse at the right time and at all altitudes of the ionosphere.
As the eclipse shadow races through the atmosphere, it creates a rapid, localized sunset that triggers large-scale atmospheric waves and small-scale disturbances or perturbations. These perturbations affect different radio communication frequencies. Gathering the data on these perturbations will help scientists validate and improve current models that help predict potential disturbances to our communications, especially high-frequency communication.
The APEP rockets are expected to reach a maximum altitude of 260 miles (420 kilometers). Each rocket will measure charged and neutral particle density and surrounding electric and magnetic fields. “Each rocket will eject four secondary instruments the size of a two-liter soda bottle that also measure the same data points, so it’s similar to results from fifteen rockets while only launching three,” explained Barjatya. Embry-Riddle built three secondary instruments on each rocket, and the fourth one was built at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.
In addition to the rockets, several teams across the U.S. will also be taking measurements of the ionosphere by various means. A team of students from Embry-Riddle will deploy a series of high-altitude balloons. Co-investigators from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Haystack Observatory in Massachusetts and the Air Force Research Laboratory in New Mexico will operate a variety of ground-based radars taking measurements.
Using this data, a team of scientists from Embry-Riddle and Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory are refining existing models. Together, these various investigations will help provide the puzzle pieces needed to see the bigger picture of ionospheric dynamics.
When the APEP-sounding rockets launched during the 2023 annular solar eclipse, scientists saw a sharp reduction in the density of charged particles as the annular eclipse shadow passed over the atmosphere.
“We saw the perturbations capable of affecting radio communications in the second and third rockets, but not during the first rocket that was before peak local eclipse,” said Barjatya. “We are super excited to relaunch them during the total eclipse to see if the perturbations start at the same altitude and if their magnitude and scale remain the same.”
The next total solar eclipse over the contiguous U.S. is not until 2044, so these experiments are a rare opportunity for scientists to collect crucial data.
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Science
Royal Sask. Museum research finds insect changes may have set stage for dinosaurs' extinction – CTV News Regina
Research by the Royal Saskatchewan Museum (RSM) shows that ecological changes were occurring in insects at least a million years before dinosaur extinction.
Papers published in the scientific journal, Current Biology, describe the first insect fossils found in amber from Saskatchewan and the unearthing of three new ant species from an amber deposit in North Carolina, according to a release from the province.
The amber deposit from in the Big Muddy Badlands of Saskatchewan, which was formed about 67 million years ago, preserved insects that lived in a swampy redwood forest about one million years before the extinction of dinosaurs.
“Fossils in the amber deposit seem to show that common Cretaceous insects may have been replaced on the landscape by their more modern relatives, particularly in groups such as ants, before the extinction event,” Elyssa Loewen, curatorial assistant, said.
The research team was led by Loewen and Dr. Ryan McKellar, the RSM’s curator of paleontology.
“These new fossil records are closer than anyone has gotten to sampling a diverse set of insects near the extinction event, and they help researchers fill in a 17-million-year gap in the fossil record of insects around that time,” Dr. McKellar said.
The three ant species discovered in North Carolina also belonged to extinct groups that didn’t survive past the Cretaceous period.
“When combined with the work in Saskatchewan, the two recent papers show that there was a dramatic change in ant diversity sometime between 77 and 67 million years ago,” Dr. McKellar said in the release.
“Our analyses of body shapes in the fossils suggests that the turnover was not related to major differences in ecology, but it may have been related to something like the size and complexity of ant colonies. More work is needed to confirm this.”
Science
Meteors, UFOs or something else? Dawson City, Yukon, residents puzzled by recent sightings in night sky – CBC.ca
Some residents in Dawson City, Yukon, say they’ve been seeing unusual things in the night sky lately — and it’s not the Northern Lights.
But some might say it’s equally as fascinating.
Over the past few weeks, some residents have taken to social media to report seeing what they described as a fireball or meteor overhead. And last week, two residents said they both saw something similar.
Naomi Gladish lives in Henderson Corner, a subdivision approximately 20 kilometres from downtown Dawson City. She told CBC News she saw something while walking her dog Friday morning.
“I looked up and saw a bright star,” Gladish said. “Or what I thought was a star.”
“Within a fraction of a second, I realized it was actually moving quickly. And then as I watched it, a second later it grew a long tail.”
Gladish said the unknown object started to change into a pale blue colour, like a gas flame. Then, a few seconds later, it appeared to burn out.
“I could see fire, or coal,” Gladish said. “Like red glowing bits, breaking off of it. And then that was it. I tried watching to see if I could see any dark chunks falling from that spot, or carrying on from that spot, but the sky was dark.”
A minute or two after Gladish saw what she thought was a meteor, she heard a boom in the distance.
“My dog and I both turned our head to that exact direction that I had just seen it,” she said.”I figured it was related.”
Dawson resident Jeff Delisle reported seeing something similar at about the same time. He then took to social media to ask if anyone else had seen it. Two people responded saying they had.
“It flew right above me,” Delisle wrote.
“Pretty cool looking…. What is it?”
Likely not a meteor, says astronomer
Christa Van Laerhoven, president of the Yukon Astronomical Society, came across Delisle’s post and got in touch. She asked about what he’d seen, such as how long it was in the sky and the colour.
Van Laerhoven told CBC News that based on descriptions from both Delisle and Gladish, she doesn’t believe it could have been a meteor.
She says a meteor would have been moving much faster, and the colouring would have appeared differently.
“Meteors can be any colour but … as a rule, are a consistent colour. What these people were describing had different colours. So the head looked blue and then the tail was more of an orange,” van Laerhoven said.
“That’s just something that doesn’t happen with meteors.”
Van Laehoven believes there may be another explanation for the recent unusual sightings: space junk, falling to earth.
“Space junk, when it comes in … comes through the atmosphere and starts glowing that can be more irregular, because of the variety of materials that go into a spacecraft.”
Van Laerhoven also suggested it could a very fast plane, or someone playing with rockets.
Gladish, however, doesn’t think anyone in Dawson was playing with rockets on Friday morning.
“Unless they’re talking about someone in China, or like a distant land playing with very high, powerful rockets … then sure,” she said.
“This was not something that someone in Dawson was doing … This came from much, much higher and it was much, much different to anything that would be locally caused.”
Van Laerhoven also dismissed another possibility: alien visitors.
“If aliens were coming to Earth, we would know,” she said.
“Simply because it would take them so much effort to get here that it would be very hard to imagine them getting here and not doing something dramatic enough that we would actually know about it.”
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