Skynet Tonight! "TON 618 of Fun!" & Constellations "Canis Minor" and "Monoceros" 9 PM CT
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SKYNET!!!!? 9PM CT - 10:30 PM CT ? Saturday’s Topic: “TON 618 - Tons of Fun!” & Constellations “Canis Minor, the Little Dog, and Monoceros, the Unicorn”? ? Net Control: Billye KF5PDS ? Afterglow Movie 10:30PM: “King Dinosaur” (1955) 2-Meter Repeater W5FC: 146.880MHz, PL 110.9, - Echolink: W5FC-R, node 37247. ? Youtube.com Search “DARC Skynet” Facebook.com Search “DARC Skynet” ? Direct Video Link: ? IO Group:/g/DARCskynet/topics Facebook Group: Saturday’s DARC SkyNet is at 9PM CT. ? Recent Astronomical Discoveries?Flickers and flares: Milky Way's central black hole constantly bubbles with light Artist’s Concept - Black Hole Discussion Topic of the Evening.TON 618 of Fun! The Universe's Largest Black Hole Ton 618 Compared with Earth’s Orbit TON 618 Compared With Our Solar System? Sky and Telescope NASA.gov Wikipedia TON 618 Waz UpSpace Exploration and Space History?Space Exploration News Water ice has officially been found on Mars. Earth is now surrounded by a radiation belt that has never been observed before! Space-Related Birthdays February 16, 1953: Michael Ray Mantz (Scheduled for STS-62A but mission cancelled) February 19, 1932: Joseph Kerwin (Skylab 2) February 19, 1948: Byron Lichtenberg (STS-9, STS-45) February 19, 1956: G. David Low (STS-32, STS-43, STS-57) February 20, 1921: Joseph Walker (X-15 Flights 77, 90 and 91) February 21, 1964: Mark Kelly (STS-108, STS-121, STS-124, STS-134) February 21, 1964: Scott Kelly (STS-103, STS-118, Exp. 25/26, Exp 43/44/45/46) February 22, 1952: James P. Bagian (STS-29, STS-40) February 23, 1959: Clayton Anderson (STS-117, Exp 15/16, STS-120, STS-131) This Week in Space History 1959 February 17 Vanguard 2 Launched 1965 February 17 Ranger 8 Launched Ranger 8 Spacecraft Impacts the Moon 1973 February 17. MSC Renamed Lyndon B Johnson Space Center 1930 February 18: American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto.? 1473 February 19: Revolutionary astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus was born. Copernicus, in formulating a heliocentric model of the universe, provided the ignition for one of the most significant scientific revolutions in history—the aptly named Copernican Revolution.? 1962 February 20: At 9:47 am EST, astronaut John Glenn launched in Friendship 7 on Mercury-Atlas 6.? 2006 February 22: The Hubble Space Telescope discovery of 2 new moons of Pluto was confirmed.? Miss Carolyn’s Constellation of the WeekCanis Minor, the Little Dog, and Monoceros, the Unicorn Space Launches For This WeekSpace Flight Now Launch Schedule NET February 26 Falcon 9 ? IM-2 Launch time: TBD Launch site: Launch Complex 39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch Intuitive Machines’ second robotic mission to the Moon. Onboard will be a Nova-C class lander named Athena or Attie, for short. It will fly several commercial payloads along with three NASA science payloads as part of the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. NASA also has its Lunar Trailblazer spacecraft launching as a rideshare payload, which will be deployed separately. The Lunar Trailblazer was selected as part of NASA’s Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration (SIMPLEx) program in 2019. Updated: February 19 February 26 Ariane 6 ? CSO-3 Launch time: 1:24 p.m. local time (11:24 a.m. EST, 1624 UTC) Launch site: Europe's Spaceport, Kourou, French Guiana An Ariane 6 rocket managed by Arianespace will launch the Composite Spatiale Optique-3 (CSO-3) satellite on the second flight in the Ariane 6 program. This will be an Ariane 62 configuration, meaning there will be two solid rocket motors on the vehicle. It will send the CSO-3 satellite into a Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) at an altitude of about 800 km (497.1 mi). The CSO-3 is a military Earth imaging satellite for the French defense procurement agency, DGA., and is expected to operate for at least 10 years. Updated: February 12 February 27/28 Soyuz 2.1a ? Progress MS-30 / 91P Launch time: 10:24 p.m. MSK on Feb. 28 (4:24 p.m. EST, 1924 UTC on Feb. 27) Launch site: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan An uncrewed Progress cargo ship will launch atop a Russian Soyuz rocket to deliver supplies to the International Space Station. It is expected to dock with the station at 6:03 p.m. EST (2303 UTC) on March 1. Updated: February 05 NET February 27/28 Falcon 9 ? SPHEREx and PUNCH Launch time: 7:10 p.m. PST (10:10 p.m. EST, 0310 UTC) Launch site: SLC-4E, Vandenberg Space Force Base, California A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch two co-manifested missions on behalf of NASA. The primary payload is the Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) observatory, which is designed to map the entire sky in infrared light. The total mission cost for SPHEREx, including launch is about $488 million. Sharing the Falcon 9 rocket is the Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH), which consists of four suitcase-sized satellites designed to map a region around the Sun where the corona transitions to solar wind. Both missions will launch to a polar orbit and will be deployed about 11 minutes apart. A little less than eight minutes after liftoff, the Falcon 9 first stage booster will target a touchdown at Landing Zone 4 back at VSFB. Updated: February 01 NET March Falcon 9 ? Transporter-13 Launch time: TBD Launch site: SLC-4E, Vandenberg Space Force Base, California A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch a dozens of satellites on the company’s 13th smallsat rideshare mission to a sun-synchronous orbit. Among those satellites are a trio of CubeSats for NASA’s Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer (EZIE) mission; Arvaker 1, the first microsatellie for Kongsberg NanoAvionics’ N3X constellation; and the Botsat-1 satellite from Botswana. Less than eight minutes after liftoff, the first stage booster will return for a touchdown at a landing pad near the launch site. Updated: January 31 NET March 12 Falcon 9 ? Crew-10 Launch time: 7:48 p.m. EDT (2348 UTC) Launch site: Launch Complex 39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch three astronauts and a cosmonaut to the International Space Station. The quartet will fly onboard the Crew Dragon spacecraft named ‘Endurance.’ Originally, the crew was to fly on the C213 Crew Dragon (yet unnamed), but swapped the vehicle to compensate for the fact that C213 still needs additional work before it can fly. The mission will carry NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers along with Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov. This will be the second spaceflight for both McClain and Onishi and the first for both Ayers and Peskov. Updated: February 11 NET Spring 2025 New Glenn ? EscaPADE Launch time: TBD Launch site: Launch Complex 36, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station A Blue Origin New Glenn rocket will launch a pair of identical spacecraft on NASA’s Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (EscaPADE) mission. The two satellites, named Blue and Gold, will make a roughly 11-month journey to Mars where they will then perform about an 11-month science mission while orbiting the Red Planet. Blue and Gold were manufactured by Rocket Lab over about 3.5 years and carry science experiments from the University of California, Berkeley. This launch of the New Glenn rocket will also feature a landing attempt on its landing barge in the Atlantic Ocean. Delayed from October 13. Updated: September 11 NET April 8 Soyuz 2.1a ? Soyuz MS-27 / 73S Launch time: 8:47 a.m. MSK (1:47 a.m. EDT, 0547 UTC) Launch site: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Site 31 A Russian Soyuz 2.1a rocket will launch a three-man crew to the International Space Station. Crew commander Sergey Ryzhikov will be joined by fellow cosmonaut Alexey Zubritsky and NASA astronaut Jonny Kim. The Soyuz is set to dock with the ISS at about 5:04 a.m. EDT (0904 UTC). The spacecraft will remain docked with the orbiting outpost until about Dec. 8, 2025. This will be the third spaceflight for Ryzhikov and the first for both Zubritsky and Kim. Updated: February 05 TBD 2025 Vulcan Centaur ? Dream Chaser 1 Launch time: TBD Launch site: SLC-41, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida A United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rocket will launch on its second demonstration flight with Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser cargo vehicle for the International Space Station. The Dream Chaser is a lifting body resupply spacecraft that will launch on top of a rocket and land on a runway. This will be the Dream Chaser’s first flight to space. The Vulcan Centaur rocket will fly in the VC4L configuration with four GEM-63XL solid rocket boosters, a long-length payload fairing, and two RL10 engines on the Centaur upper stage. Delayed from August 2022, December 2023, January 2024,? April 2024 and September 2024. Updated: October 17?? Visible satellite passages over the next couple of days.?All times are “local” (Dallas) time. ISS NO PASSES Tiangong Feb. 27 Mar. 1 ? |
Tom General