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NASA to dispatch stadium-size balloon skyward to study the universe

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ASTHROS will utilize a telescope to watch frequencies of light not obvious starting from the earliest stage.

NASA is chipping away at another crucial it’ll send a 8.4-foot telescope high into the stratosphere on board a football arena size inflatable, the space office said Thursday. ASTHROS (short for Astrophysics Stratospheric Telescope for High Spectral Resolution Observations at Submillimeter-frequencies), will watch frequencies of light not noticeable starting from the earliest stage. It’s scheduled to dispatch in December 2023 from Antarctica, where it’ll float on air flows over the landmass.

ASTHROS will see far-infrared light, or light with frequencies that are any longer than what’s obvious to people. That implies it’ll have to arrive at a height of around 130,000 feet, or 24.6 miles. That is still beneath the limit of room, however it’ll be sufficiently high to see light frequencies that are obstructed by Earth’s environment, NASA says.

A locally available instrument will gauge the movement and speed of gas around recently framed stars. The mission will look at four key targets, including two star-shaping areas in the Milky Way. It’ll likewise plan the nearness of two sorts of nitrogen particles, which can “uncover places where twists from enormous stars and supernova blasts have reshaped the gas mists inside these star-shaping locales,” NASA said in a discharge.

Through a procedure called heavenly criticism, these fierce occasions can disperse encompassing material and impede or square star development. Then again, heavenly input can likewise drive material to bunch together, accelerating star development. The group plans to become familiar with how heavenly criticism functions and to offer new data that will improve PC recreations of world advancement.

The group as of late wrapped up the structure for the observatory’s payload, including its telescope, which catches the light, and subsystems, for example, cooling and electronic frameworks. Architects at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which deals with the strategic, begin to incorporate and test those subsystems toward the beginning of August to guarantee they fill in as expected.

Inflatable missions have the upside of costing not as much as space missions, yet the time range between early arranging and organization is shorter, NASA says. That implies inflatables can deal with the dangers of new advancements that haven’t been utilized in space yet, including “unknown technical or operational challenges that can impact a mission’s science output.” Balloon missions offer a chance to work through those difficulties and help future missions best utilize these innovations.

“Balloon missions like ASTHROS are higher risk than space missions but yield high rewards at modest cost,” JPL specialist and undertaking chief Jose Siles said in the discharge. “We’re aiming to do astrophysics observations that have never been attempted before. The mission will pave the way for future space missions by testing new technologies and providing training for the next generation of engineers and scientists.”

Matthew Ronald grew up in Chicago. His mother is a preschool teacher, and his father is a cartoonist. After high school Matthew attended college where he majored in early-childhood education and child psychology. After college he worked with special needs children in schools. He then decided to go into publishing, before becoming a writer himself, something he always had an interest in. More than that, he published number of news articles as a freelance author on apstersmedia.com.

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Astronauts Confront Vision Challenges in Space with Upcoming Dragon Mission

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The primary priorities for the Expedition 72 crew on board the ISS on Tuesday were preparing cargo for a future voyage and safeguarding astronauts’ eyesight to maintain their health.

Microgravity Eye Health

Body fluids rise toward an astronaut’s head in the weightless atmosphere of space. This fluid movement puts pressure on the eyes, which may have an impact on vision and eye anatomy. NASA astronauts Commander Suni Williams and Flight Engineer Butch Wilmore tried a modified thigh cuff that stops these headward fluid movements in order to combat this. As NASA and its international partners prepare for lengthier journeys farther into space, researchers are keeping a careful eye on these changes to create strategies to safeguard eye health.

Getting Ready for Resupply

On Earth, the SpaceX Dragon cargo spaceship is preparing for the next resupply mission to the space station, which is scheduled to launch next week. NASA Flight Engineers Nick Hague and Don Pettit got ready for Dragon’s arrival, which will include a delivery of new station hardware and scientific equipment. After docking and then returning to Earth, Pettit started packing and arranging the goods that would be stored aboard Dragon. Hague received training on how to use instruments that will monitor Dragon’s autonomous approach and docking procedure.

Spacecraft Docking and Manoeuvre

However, Hague will take Williams, Wilmore, and Roscosmos astronaut Aleksandr Gorbunov on a brief ride onboard the SpaceX Dragon Freedom spacecraft to a new docking site prior to the supply mission blasting out toward the space station. On Sunday, November 3, the four will board Dragon. They will undock from the forward port of the Harmony module at 6:35 a.m. EDT and then navigate the spaceship to Harmony’s space-facing port for a docking at 7:18 a.m. The Dragon cargo mission’s forward port is made available by the relocation.

Earth Observations and Maintenance at Night

Gorbunov installed and turned on equipment to observe Earth’s nighttime atmosphere in near-ultraviolet wavelengths following a training session on the exercise cycle of the Destiny laboratory module at the start of his shift. Ivan Vagner and Alexey Ovchinin, two of his fellow cosmonauts, collaborated on inspection and maintenance tasks in the Zvezda service module’s aft end.

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SpaceX launches the year’s 99th operational flight

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On Friday night, SpaceX successfully completed its 99th flight of the year with a Starlink mission from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

At 7:31 p.m. Eastern time, a Falcon 9 carrying 20 Starlink satellites blasted out from Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 40.

The Just Read the Instructions droneship’s first-stage rocket completed a downrange recovery touchdown in the Atlantic on its seventeenth flight.

It was the 71st flight from the Space Coast in 2024, just one less than the record-breaking 72 launches in 2023. United Launch Alliance has launched the remaining ones, while SpaceX has flown all but five of those.

There have only been two Falcon Heavy missions this year, with the remainder being Falcon 9 launches.

Along with the other 18 from KSC, this was the 53rd launch from Cape Canaveral.

Together with the two Falcon Heavy missions, SpaceX has performed 33 missions from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California this year, for a total of 97 Falcon 9 launches, including this one.

From its Starbase test site in Boca Chica, Texas, it has also launched three test flights of its in-development Starship and Super Heavy rocket, all of which have reached orbit.

Adding to the success of the March and June missions, last Sunday’s launch included the first on-target controlled landing of the second stage in the Indian Ocean and the first land capture of the Super Heavy booster back at the launch tower.

In 2023, SpaceX completed 98 operational missions, including 91 Falcon 9 and 5 Falcon Heavy missions. The company also attempted two Starship test flights, both of which ended explosively before reaching orbit, though one of them managed to reach space for a brief period of time before being destroyed by its flight termination system.

Officials from the business stated at the beginning of 2024 that it could reach 144 launches for the year, or 12 launches per month. However, weather and the three different groundings of its Falcon 9 rocket due to various problems have caused some obstacles to that pace.

This launch is only the sixth of October thus far. It flew nine times in September, eleven times in August, six times in July, ten times in June, thirteen times in May, twelve times in April, eleven times in March, nine times in February, and ten times in January.

Most of them have been for Starlink, which has launched over 7,100 versions since the first functional versions were sent up in 2019.

This marked SpaceX’s 67th Starlink launch in 2024.

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20 Starlink internet satellites are launched by SpaceX from Florida

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According to a summary of the SpaceX mission, it was the booster’s seventeenth launch and landing.

Meanwhile, the Starlink satellites were still being transported to low Earth orbit by the upper stage of the Falcon 9. If all goes as planned, it will deploy them there approximately 64 minutes after liftoff.SpaceX launched a new set of Starlink broadband satellites into orbit this evening, October 18.

At 7:31 p.m. EDT (2331 GMT) tonight, a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 20 Starlink spacecraft—13 of which were equipped with direct-to-cell capability—blasted out from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

About 8.5 minutes after takeoff, the first stage of the Falcon 9 returned to Earth as scheduled, landing on the SpaceX drone ship “Just Read the Instructions” in the Atlantic Ocean.

According to astronomer and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell, the new group will join the massive and constantly expanding Starlink megaconstellation, which presently comprises of over 6,400 active spacecraft. Of those satellites, about 230 are direct-to-cell vehicles.

Two-thirds of SpaceX’s 96 Falcon 9 flights flown in 2024 have been devoted to expanding the Starlink network. This year, the corporation has also launched three test flights of its Starship megarocket and two Falcon Heavy missions.

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