Saturday, August 17 2019
Rocket Launch

First night launch of SpaceX Falcon Heavy lofts 24 science satellites into orbit

Mars

NASA’s Martian helicopter enters final test phase for 2020 rover

HubbleSolar System

Hubble captures rare self-destructing asteroid

Universe

See the first-ever image of a black hole

Human SpaceflightISS

SpaceX Crew Dragon completes successful first mission to ISS

Human SpaceflightISS

International Space Station’s 20 years of transformation

ApolloEarthHuman SpaceflightPlaces & Events

America’s gateway to space: LC-39A

Solar System

Mining the sky

EarthHuman SpaceflightMars

Stuck on Mars: Comparing Mars analog simulations to ‘The Martian’

Fun & Games

Kerbal Space Program: Bringing rocket science to games

ApolloHuman SpaceflightInterviewMoon

Al Worden on the honor of being an astronaut

ApolloBusinessesHuman SpaceflightPeople

The difference it made: Building a car for the Moon

Rocket Launch

When good rockets go bad

AstronomyHubble

Hubble’s Top 100 images

Solar System

Exploring the Dawn of the solar system

Human Spaceflight

Land, sea and space: Naval aviators have led the way

Fun & GamesMuseums & Science Centers

National Flight Academy makes learning an adventure

Human SpaceflightInterviewISS

Tim Peake ready to become United Kingdom’s official ISS resident

Human Spaceflight

Setting the record: Fourteen months aboard Mir was dream mission for Polyakov

InterviewSolar System

Charley Kohlhase has been our ambassador to the planets

ApolloEarthPlaces & EventsSolar System

Deep Space Network: Finding the signal for 50 years

Solar System

Rosetta is deciphering comet’s tale

BusinessesEarth

Spaceport America: A convergence of ideas and events

Astronomy GuideSolar System

How to photograph the planets

ApolloHuman SpaceflightMoonPlaces & Events

A look at ‘The Last Man on the Moon’

EducationISS

SSEP: Sending student experiments to the ISS

ApolloInterviewMarsMoon

Buzz Aldrin: It’s time to colonize the Red Planet

ApolloMoonPeople

Unsung heroes of the Apollo program

ApolloHuman SpaceflightMuseums & Science Centers

Learning celestial navigation at Morehead Planetarium

Earth

Project Morpheus: Flying a test bed for future landers

EarthMarsPeople

HI-SEAS 2: Living on a simulated Mars

Interview

Brian Greene and the challenges of physics

Saturn

Cassini at Saturn: A decade exploring the ringed system

EducationPlaces & Events

Zooniverse enables anyone to participate in science

Interview

Jim Adams: Keeping NASA’s technology on the right track

Astronomy Guide

Starting in astrophotography

EducationPlaces & Events

‘Smoke and fire’ rise over Utah Salt Flats as student rockets soar

InterviewMars

Kim Lichtenberg spends her days sampling Martian soil and rocks

AstronomyUniverse

The Spitzer Space Telescope: 10 years of viewing the Universe’s dark side

AstronomyMuseums & Science CentersPeople

David Hearn takes outreach to new level with Kissimmee Park Observatory

People

Ann Druyan preserves the legacy of Sagan’s ‘Cosmos’ with ‘A Spacetime Odyssey’

Interview

Jackee Mohl looks to the future as a structural engineer for Boeing’s V-22 Osprey

Interview

Wonders of the Cosmos: Neil deGrasse Tyson answers readers’ questions

Human SpaceflightPeople

Bond’s Skylon to achieve dream of single-stage-to-orbit vehicle

ApolloInterviewMoon

Gene Cernan: A conversation with the last men on the Moon

Most Recent Articles

ApolloPeople

Apollo 11 Astronaut Neil Armstrong is rightfully remembered for taking mankind’s first steps on the Moon nearly 50 years ago on July 20, 1969. Less well known, perhaps, is LSU Mechanical Engineering alumnus Maxime “Max” Faget, who designed the spacecraft responsible for that “giant leap for mankind.” Born in Stann Creek, British Honduras (now Belize) …

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ApolloShelf Space

Piers Bizony is an accomplished science journalist, space historian and documentary film maker. His books have explored the enormity and spectacle of the Universe as well as focused all way down to the sheer emptiness of a single atom. In his 2017 book Moonshots, Bizony takes readers on a photographic journey of 50 years of …

Read More
ApolloShelf Space

All across America and throughout the world, celebrations are being held this month to mark the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11’s first landing on the Moon. Well-traveled author Jerome Pohlen was just a kid when the Saturn V rockets were launching astronauts to the Moon from 1968 until 1972, but that era still has left …

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Beginner's Astronomy Guide

AstronomyAstronomy Guide

Stellar Clusters are groups of stars that fall into two broad categories: Open Clusters or Globular Clusters. Both types of cluster are formed from gas clouds and dust coalescing into a multitude of stars, but this is where the commonality ends. Open Clusters Open Clusters can contain up to a thousand stars which are normally …

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AstronomyAstronomy GuideHubble

Everyone has seen the dramatic images produced by the Hubble Telescope from the iconic Pillars of Creation to the hundreds of galaxies in one shot, but how are these images created? The Hubble Telescope captures images in monochrome, just like the old black and white photographs with no color, but the images we see are …

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AstronomyAstronomy Guide

Following on from last issue where we looked at the equipment and capture of video to produce a photograph of the planets this issue looks at the processing of the video into an image. This article really only scratches the surface of image processing as there are so many variables and methodologies that can be …

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Educational Resources

Education

Objective Apply trigonometric ratios to the NASA Mars Helicopter Scout so that flight data such as climb angle and average speed can be calculated given initial flight parameters. Vocabulary • Slope: The angle the rille wall makes to the horizontal. • Above Ground Level (AGL): The altitude as measured from the local area. • Altitude: …

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EducationMars

Vocabulary • Carbon (C): Element with a mass of 12 g/mole • Hydrogen (H): Element with a mass of 1 g/mole • In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU): Taking advantage of a planet’s natural resources to supplement a space mission • Low Mars Orbit (LMO): The minimum altitude above the Martian surface necessary to maintain a stable …

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Education

Vocabulary • Depth: ​How deep the rille is. • Distance: How far from the edge of the rille to its center. • Rille:​ A collapsed lava tube that resembles a small canyon. • Rope Length: The amount of rope needed to descend Hadley Rille. • Rope Weight: The mass of the rope per standard length. …

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Interviews

ApolloHuman SpaceflightInterviewMoon

“Do you know what they did down on the Moon? What those guys’ primary job was? They picked up rocks and dirt. Now, myself, in lunar orbit…” — Al Worden, Apollo 15 CMP USAF Colonel Alfred Worden served as Command Module Pilot for Apollo 15 – the fourth manned lunar landing mission. He also holds the …

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Human SpaceflightInterviewISS

On 20th November this year, a Union Jack Flag will be safely stored on board a Soyuz rocket, and, along with its owner, will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and make its way to the International Space Station. This is not the first time that a British born citizen has flown in space, …

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InterviewSolar System

Charley Kohlhase officially ‘retired’ from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1998. At his retirement party, a recording was played of Carl Sagan, who had died two years previously. ‘…. His voice suddenly, pleasingly rang through the room. From the afterlife, Sagan implored, “Charley Kohlhase’s name should be as well known as Michael Jordan’s!”’ (from ‘Ambassadors …

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Shelf Space

ApolloShelf Space

Piers Bizony is an accomplished science journalist, space historian and documentary film maker. His books have explored the enormity and spectacle of the Universe as well as focused all way down to the sheer emptiness of a single atom. In his 2017 book Moonshots, Bizony takes readers on a photographic journey of 50 years of …

Read More
ApolloShelf Space

All across America and throughout the world, celebrations are being held this month to mark the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11’s first landing on the Moon. Well-traveled author Jerome Pohlen was just a kid when the Saturn V rockets were launching astronauts to the Moon from 1968 until 1972, but that era still has left …

Read More
ApolloShelf Space

With the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon rapidly approaching, there has been a plethora of books about the Apollo program released during the past year. We’ve been deluged with such books here at RocketSTEM in the past couple of months. That has been a good thing too. The ever-rising stack …

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Earth and the ISS

AstronomyEarthPeopleSolar System

When NASA scientists assembled telescopes in her home country of Senegal, Binita Yanni knew very little about astronomy and didn’t realize a career in planetary sciences was even a possibility. Determined to learn why 21 U.S. telescopes were stationed throughout the Senegalese countryside, the 20-year-old chemical engineering student approached lead scientist Adriana Ocampo on the …

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Earth

From major hurricanes in the U.S. and Caribbean islands to floods in India, NASA and U.S. satellites have helped countries better forecast and respond to extreme weather events. Currently, U.S. satellites are tracking a typhoon in the East China Sea and hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean using big-picture data from space. During the recent hurricanes Harvey and …

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ApolloEarthHuman SpaceflightPlaces & Events

The iconic launch pads, Pads 39A and 39B at Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39, have been the starting point for many space flights including the first manned lunar landing. The original design for Launch Complex 39 called for three to five launch pads, designated 39A – 39E, that would have been spaced approximately 1.6 …

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Apollo 50th Celebration

Lunar Exploration

Moon

After a gallant effort worthy of the celestial goal the small privately built Israeli moon lander Beresheet fortified with high hopes failed in the final minutes of its autonomous descent to Earth’s nearest neighbor and crash landed onto the lunar surface Thursday afternoon, April 10. The Beresheet team, led by main investor Morris Kahn, soon …

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EarthMoon

This animation features actual satellite images of the far side of the moon, illuminated by the Sun, as it crosses between the DSCOVR spacecraft’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) and telescope, and the Earth – one million miles away. Credit: NASA Moon seen crossing the face of the Earth A NASA camera aboard the Deep …

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ApolloHuman SpaceflightMoon

Premier of the J-series mission changed the game for Apollo 15 Four hundred miles (640 km) to the north of the Moon’s equator lies a place called Hadley: a small patch of Mare Imbrium at the base of the Apennine Mountains, some of which rise to 4,000 feet (1,200 meters), and a 25-mile (40 km) …

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Mars

Mars

Going where no helicopter has gone before, humanity’s maiden Martian chopper has entered its final testing phase with the goal of proving the rather difficult feat that a heavier-than-air vehicle can fly in the Red Planet’s extremely thin atmosphere. If all goes well, the Martian helicopter will be mated to the belly of NASA’s 2020 …

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Mars

The longest surviving robot ever to explore the surface of Mars – the Opportunity Mars Exploration Rover – was declared dead by NASA officials on February 13, 2019, after conducting a record-setting 15 year mission on the Red Planet, when she failed to respond to a final set of “phone home” commands sent last night …

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Human SpaceflightMarsSolar System

It has long been known that SpaceX’s long term goal is the colonization of Mars. Everyone from the engineers to their CEO, Elon Musk, dreams of a world away from home. In September of 2016, we got a glimpse of how SpaceX is going to get there. At last, the long rumored Interplanetary Transport System …

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Around the Solar System

HubbleSolar System

Thanks to the advanced imaging capabilities of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in cooperation with other observatories, astronomers were able to identify and explain a rare and beautiful object in the distant sky: an active asteroid that is in the process of coming apart. The image of the asteroid known as 6478 Gault shows two narrow, comet-like tails …

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AstronomyEarthPeopleSolar System

When NASA scientists assembled telescopes in her home country of Senegal, Binita Yanni knew very little about astronomy and didn’t realize a career in planetary sciences was even a possibility. Determined to learn why 21 U.S. telescopes were stationed throughout the Senegalese countryside, the 20-year-old chemical engineering student approached lead scientist Adriana Ocampo on the …

Read More
Human SpaceflightMarsSolar System

It has long been known that SpaceX’s long term goal is the colonization of Mars. Everyone from the engineers to their CEO, Elon Musk, dreams of a world away from home. In September of 2016, we got a glimpse of how SpaceX is going to get there. At last, the long rumored Interplanetary Transport System …

Read More

Gazing at the Universe

Universe

Until now, everything we’ve known about black holes — celestial objects with intense gravitation — has been from theories and illustrations. Now, thanks to an international collaboration called the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a cosmic portrait of a supermassive black hole exists. At the center of the galaxy Messier 87 (M87) in the Virgo constellation, the …

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Universe

For a planet, this would be like a day at the spa. After years of growing old, a massive planet could, in theory, brighten up with a radiant, youthful glow. Rejuvenated planets, as they are nicknamed, are only hypothetical. But new research from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has identified one such candidate, seemingly looking billions …

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HubbleUniverse

Whilst looking closely at a massive elliptical galaxy and its associated galaxy cluster MACS J1149+2223 — whose light took over 5 billion years to reach us — astronomers have spotted a strange and rare sight. The huge mass of the galaxy and the cluster is bending the light from a much more distant supernova behind …

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