Category: Space News

Construction began on Columbia in 1975 at Rockwell International’s (formerly North American Aviation/North American Rockwell) principal assembly facility in Palmdale, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. Columbia was named after the American sloopColumbia Rediviva which, from 1787 to 1793, under the command of Captain Robert Gray, explored the US Pacific Northwest and became the first American vessel to circumnavigate the globe. It is also named after the Command Module of Apollo 11, the first manned landing on another celestial body.Columbia was also the female symbol of the United States. After construction, the orbiter arrived at Kennedy Space Center on March 25, 1979, to prepare for its first launch. Columbia was originally scheduled to lift off in late 1979, however the launch date was delayed by problems with both the Space Shuttle main engine (SSME), as well as the thermal protection system (TPS).^[ On March 19, 1981, during preparations for a ground test, workers were asphyxiated while working in Columbia’s nitrogen-purged aft engine compartment, resulting in (variously reported) two or three fatalities.^[

The first flight of Columbia (STS-1) was commanded by John Young, a veteran from the Gemini and Apollo programs who was the ninth person to walk on the Moon in 1972, and piloted by Robert Crippen, a rookie astronaut originally selected to fly on the military’s Manned Orbital Laboratory (MOL) spacecraft, but transferred to NASA after its cancellation, and served as a support crew member for the Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz missions.

Columbia spent 610 days in the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF), another 35 days in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), and 105 days on Pad 39A before finally lifting off.^[ Columbia was successfully launched on April 12, 1981, the 20th anniversary of the first human spaceflight (Vostok 1), and returned on April 14, 1981, after orbiting the Earth 36 times, landing on the dry lakebed runway at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Columbia then undertook three further research missions to test its technical characteristics and performance. Its first operational mission, with a four-man crew, was STS-5, which launched on November 11, 1982. At this point Columbia was joined by Challenger, which flew the next three shuttle missions, while Columbia underwent modifications for the first Spacelab mission.

In 1983, Columbia, under the command of John Young on what was his sixth spaceflight, undertook its second operational mission (STS-9), in which the Spacelab science laboratory and a six-person crew was carried, including the first non-American astronaut on a space shuttle, Ulf Merbold. After the flight, Columbia spent 18 months at the Rockwell Palmdale facility beginning in January 1984, undergoing modifications that removed the Orbiter Flight Test hardware and bringing it up to similar specifications as those of its sister orbiters. At that time the shuttle fleet was expanded to include Discovery and Atlantis.

Columbia returned to space on January 12, 1986, with the launch of STS-61-C. The mission’s crew included Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz, as well as the first sitting member of the House of Representatives to venture into space, Bill Nelson.

The next shuttle mission, STS-51-L, was undertaken by Challenger. It was launched on January 28, 1986, ten days after STS-61-C had landed, and ended in disaster 73 seconds after launch. In the aftermath NASA’s shuttle timetable was disrupted, and Columbia was not flown again until 1989 (on STS-28), after which it resumed normal service as part of the shuttle fleet.

STS-93, launched on July 23, 1999, was the first U.S. space mission with a female commander, Lt. Col. Eileen Collins. This mission deployed the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Columbia’s final successful mission was STS-109, the fourth servicing mission for the Hubble Space Telescope. Its next mission, STS-107, culminated in the orbiter’s loss when it disintegrated during reentry, killing all seven of its crew.

Consequently, President George W. Bush decided to retire the Shuttle orbiter fleet by 2010 in favor of the Constellation program and its manned Orion spacecraft. The Constellation program was later cancelled with the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 signed by President Barack Obama on October 11.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Columbia

Expedition 59 is the 59th Expedition to the International Space Station, scheduled to start on 28 February 2019 with the arrival of the Soyuz MS-12 spacecraft carrying Aleksey Ovchinin, Nick Hague and Christina Koch. The three will subsequently transfer to the Expedition 60 crew, with Ovchinin as commander, after the undocking of the Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft, scheduled for July 2019.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expedition_59

On the evenings surrounding Tuesday, February 12, Mars’ faster eastward orbital motion will carry it closely past Uranus, which will be more than 12 times farther away from Earth. Their smallest separation of only 1 degree (a finger’s width) will happen on Tuesday evening, when the red and blue planets will appear together in the eyepiece of a backyard telescope at low magnification. While much brighter Mars will be north (to the upper right) of Uranus, your telescope might flip the view. (Use the nearby moon to test how your telescope alters the view.)

Source: https://www.space.com/16149-night-sky.html

February 5^th this week will mark the date when Mariner 10 became the first spacecraft ever to test out and execute a technique known as a planetary gravity assisted flyby used to alter its speed and trajectory- in order to reach another celestial body.

Mariner 10 flew by Venus 45 years ago to enable the probe to gain enough speed and alter its flight path to eventually become humanity’s first spacecraft to reach the planet Mercury, closest to our sun.

It was the first spacecraft to visit two planets.

From that moment on, gravity assisted slingshot maneuvers became an extremely important technique used numerous times by NASA to carry out planetary exploration missions that would not otherwise have been possible.

The Mariner 10 probe used an ultraviolet filter in its imaging system to bring out details in the Venusian clouds which are otherwise featureless to the human eye – as you’ll notice when viewing it through a telescope.

Venus’s surface is completely obscured by a thick layer of carbon dioxide clouds.

The hellish planet’s surface temperature is 460 degrees Celsius or 900 degrees Fahrenheit.

Following the completely successful Venus flyby, Mariner 10 eventually went on to conduct a trio of flyby’s of Mercury in 1974 and 1975.

It imaged nearly half of the planet’s moon-like surface, found surprising evidence of a magnetic field, discovered that a metallic core comprised nearly 80 percent of the planet’s mass, and measured temperatures ranging from 187°C on the dayside to minus 183°C on the nightside.

Mercury was not visited again for over three decades until NASA’s MESSENGER flew by and eventually orbited the planet.

Mariner 10 was launched on Nov. 3, 1973 from the Kennedy Space Center atop an Atlas-Centaur rocket.

Shortly after blastoff if also took photos of the Earth and the Moon.

Ultimately it was the last of NASA’s venerable Mariner planetary missions hailing from the dawn of the Space Age.

Mariner 11 and 12 were descoped due to congressional budget cuts and eventually renamed as Voyager 1 and 2.

Source: https://www.universetoday.com/109035/mariner-10-best-venus-image-and-1st-ever-planetary-gravity-assist-40-years-ago-today/