Kentucky Space

More on Dnepr delays

Live Science blogger Leonard David briefly mentions a couple of projects with a Kentucky connection. The scheduled KySat launch has been pushed back, as Kris has already mentioned, and the Bigelow Genesis 2 module, for which Jim notes University of Kentucky IDEA Lab graduate Casey Harr will provide avionics and computer control, has been shipped to the launch site from Nevada.

The Genesis launch window begins on April 19.

Wayne

Color image of Tvashtar's plume

Space Daily has posted a dramatic color picture of Io's Tvashtar plume taken by New Horizons. I linked to a higher resolution gray scale image earlier this month, which was interesting enough.

But according to the site, the red at the base of this 330 kilometer high volcanic plume is glowing lava.

Jeepers.

Wayne 

Image: New Horizons, NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

KySat launch update

The Dnepr launch at Kazakhstan with 7 CubeSat's on-board originally set for late March, has been officially delayed until April 17, 2007. KySat Online will keep you posted on any developments concerning this upcoming mission.

Kris

Cosmic Log on the rocketeers

Alan Boyle at Cosmic Log offers more news on rocket ventures now underway.

Wayne

Richard Hackney

Richard Hackney, a key KySat leader, died late last week. Richard, a faculty member at Western Kentucky University (WKU), had been a long and tireless advocate for space, science and mathematics education in Kentucky. He along with his wife Karen, also a professor at WKU, were founders of the Kentucky Space Grant Consortium and led the NASA EPSCoR program in the state as well. I knew Richard as a true, but unassuming leader who to my recollection never seemed to be in a bad mood (even when dealing with a prolonged chronic illness) and who ever had a bad word to say about anyone. He just followed his passion and did his job to the best of his ability. He accomplished a great deal in his life for education, students and Kentucky. He will be missed.

Kris

Flight video from Falcon

Here is some video telemetry from Falcon's flight I ran across at Wired. The stage separation at around T+2:50 is really neat. There is a lot more related video at YouTube.

Wayne

Elon Musk, Rocket Man

The Economist has published a piece on the man behind the SpaceX, Elon Musk, a.k.a. Rocket Man. In a recent test his craft, the Falcon, failed to achieve orbit, but Personal SpaceFlight characterized the mishap as perhaps the happiest launch failure ever. Nature has more on Falcon's flight.

Wayne

Kentucky Connection to DNEPR Launches

Mr. Casey Harr (recent graduate from the IDEA lab at UK) is heading to Russia today to prepare for the launch of Bigelow Aerospace Genesis II inflatable space station aboard a DNEPR launch vehicle. While the Genesis II is not going up with the Cubesats on March 27th from Baikonur (for the time being Bigelow has exclusive use of the Yansy launch base), Casey and the other Bigelow Engineers will be watching the launch closely as the March 27th launch will be the first since the failure of a Dnepr last July. 

Casey is responsible for the avionics and computer control for the Genesis II space station.  If all goes well it will launch April 25th.  I will try to get Casey to give us a few blog entries about his month on a Russian Military Base and I will post a few blogs leading up to launch on the Bigelow Stations and how inflatable space stations work.

FYI, Robert Bigelow made his fortunes as owner of Budget Suites of America and his vision for space includes affordable space tourism. Perhaps in a few years we can just reserve a room in a Bigelow Space Station and hand-launch future KySat Satellites!

God speed Casey, Good luck in Russia.

Jim

Hubble images stitched together to create Saturn video

Three brief videos of a rotating Saturn and its moons have been pieced together from images taken by Hubble, according "Saturn gets star treatment in trio of Hubble movies" from NewScientist. Use the link to get to the brief clips.

Wayne

Ten technologies to watch in 2007

Guest blogging at Lunch over IP, futurist Michele Bowman offers a "cheat sheet" to Ten Emerging  Technologies of 2007, recently published by MIT in Technology Review.   

Wayne