ScientistPankaj: Russian Soyuz rocket suffers rare last-minute abort during launch of 3 astronauts to ISS (video)

Thursday, March 21, 2024

Russian Soyuz rocket suffers rare last-minute abort during launch of 3 astronauts to ISS (video)

Russian Soyuz rocket suffers rare last-minute abort | Space Quiz! How long until our sun runs out of fuel? | Watch SpaceX launch 30th Dragon cargo mission to the ISS

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March 21, 2024

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The Launchpad

Russian Soyuz rocket suffers rare last-minute abort

(NASA TV)

A Russian Soyuz rocket carrying three astronauts bound for the International Space Station experienced a rare abort on the launch pad on Thursday (March 21) while the crew waited expectantly inside their spacecraft. The abort occurred just 21 seconds before the Soyuz rocket was to launch NASA astronaut Tracey Caldwell Dyson, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy and spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus to the International Space Station (ISS) from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Full Story: Space (3/21)

Space Quiz! How long until our sun runs out of fuel?

Learn the answer here!

Watch SpaceX launch 30th Dragon cargo mission to the ISS

(NASA/Kim Shiflett)

SpaceX will launch its 30th cargo mission to the International Space Station for NASA this afternoon (March 21), and you can watch it live. Lift off is scheduled for today at 4:55 p.m. EDT (2055 GMT) from Space Launch Complex-40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The mission, known as CRS-30, will be the first cargo launch from SLC-40 since March 2020. Since then, the pad has been outfitted with a new launch tower, which allows for more efficient cargo loading and upgrades the facility to support crewed launches as well.

Full Story: Space (3/21)

Total Solar Eclipse 2024

'99% totality' does not exist! You need to get to the path.

(Michael Zeiler/GreatAmericanEclipse.com)

There's a reason why the path of totality is called what it is. Mistakes will be made by many would-be eclipse-chasers during the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. Inside the 115-mile wide path of totality -- which will stretch across North America that day - some will forget to take off their eclipse glasses (during the moment of "totality"), missing a once-on-a-lifetime view of the solar corona.

Full Story: Space (10/19)

These ISO CE certified solar eclipse glasses are 50% off

Full Story: Space (3/21)

Spaceflight

Rocket Lab launches mysterious spy satellites (video)

(Rocket Lab)

Rocket Lab launched from the U.S. for the fourth time ever on Thursday morning (March 21), sending mystery payloads aloft for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). The NROL-123 mission - or "Live and Let Fly," as Rocket Lab called it - lifted off from the company's Launch Complex 2 (LC-2) at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on Thursday at 3:25 a.m. EDT (0725 GMT). Like all 45 of Rocket Lab's previous orbital missions to date, NROL-123 employed Electron, a two-stage, 59-foot-tall (18 meters) rocket that gives small satellites dedicated rides to space. (The company is also developing a larger launch vehicle called Neutron, but it has yet to fly.)

Full Story: Space (3/20)

Science & Astronomy

'Singing' giants offer way to measure universe expansion

(International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M. Garlick/M. Zamani)

A team of researchers led by EPFL scientist Richard I. Anderson has suggested that the acoustic oscillations, or "singing," of red giants at different ages can be used to more precisely measure cosmic distances. Just as music is said to soothe the savage beast, this celestial melody could help solve a savage cosmological problem called "Hubble tension."

Full Story: Space (3/21)

SpaceX

SpaceX's Starship could fly again as soon as early May

(SpaceX)

"We'll figure out what happened on both stages" during descent "and get back to flight, hopefully in about six weeks," SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell said at the Satellite 2024 conference in Washington on Tuesday (March 19). Such a timeline would place liftoff "at the beginning part of May," she added. (Technical readiness isn't the only issue, however; SpaceX will still need to secure a launch license from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, which is overseeing an investigation into what happened on the March 14 flight.)

Full Story: Space (3/20)

Whee! Zip down SpaceX launch tower in escape slide video

(SpaceX)

SpaceX just tested a new astronaut ride - one that takes folks down to the ground rather than high above it. That ride is a deployable slide installed atop the tower at Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40), a pad at Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. It's designed to get astronauts off the tower in a hurry in the event of an emergency before liftoff.

Full Story: Space (3/20)

Technology

New NASA astronaut helps build Japanese Mars mission

(JAXA)

A new NASA astronaut already has a space mission ready for launch, but (spoiler alert!) he won't be on the rocket. NASA astronaut Andre Douglas, and a large international team, worked on the Martian Moons Exploration (MMX) mission, which is slated lift off in late 2026. Douglas played a role in creating a key Mars instrument while he was employed at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Baltimore, prior to joining NASA.

Full Story: Space (3/20)

Entertainment

Wage interplanetary war in upcoming 'Falling Frontier'

(Stutter Fox Studios)

This highly-anticipated PC-only release from Stutter Fox Studios and Hooded Horse invites astro-gamers to navigate a recently-discovered solar system where curious voyagers can construct their own frigates, destroyers, cruisers, and battlecruisers, raid enemy supply depots, launch probes, select command crews, stock up on ordnance, gather critical intel, deposit disruptive mines, commandeer orbiting stations and surprise enemy flotillas amid swirling nebulae and asteroid fields.

Full Story: Space (3/20)