The passing of John Glenn on December 8th, 2016, signified the end of an era in American spaceflight in more ways than one. The loss of Glenn marked not only the death of the first American to orbit the Earth, but also the last of the famed “Mercury 7” group of test pilots who formed […]
Just in time for yesterday’s transit of innermost planet Mercury across the face of the sun, NASA released the first global elevation model of the sun scorched world, courtesy of the MESSENGER spacecraft. While Mercury is hardly at the top of anyone’s list of habitable planets, it is at least worth recalling that among its […]
For what is now the fourth time, a Space Exploration Technologies Dragon spacecraft has successfully returned from Earth orbit to a well executed landing in the Pacific ocean. Following its release from the International Space Station, which took place in the early morning hours, the SpaceX CRS-2 Dragon performed three inital burns, followed by a sustained 10 minute de-oribit burn […]
At first glance, the solar system’s innermost planet generally conjures up images of a blistering hot, sun-baked ball of rock which would be one of the last places one would expect to find water ice. That was considered to be the case until 1991, when the Arecibo radar telescope in Puerto Rico, as well as NASA’s Goldstone/VLA detected reflections from Mercury which appeared to indicate the presence of water ice […]
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