MASS

 

Blog for Sunday, July 16, 2023

I’m glad that our MASS meeting was scheduled a week earlier, otherwise we would have been hunkered down in my basement last Friday at 9PM waiting for the tornado sirens to cease. Hope everyone finds themselves ok from our recent rash of violent weather.

SpaceX sets new record for booster reuse – SpaceX started the week with the launch on July 9 of 22 StarLink satellites and setting a new record with the 16^th reuse of one of its booster rockets. Core 1058 set the record but many other cores are right behind with 15 and 14 reuses. The number of StarLink satellites launched is quickly approaching 4800. It was the 44^th launch of the Falcon 9 rocket in 2023 and the 47^th launch for SpaceX this year. They have a good chance of reaching their goal of 100 launches.

By the time I published this accomplishment, SpaceX tied the record of 16 launches with a booster on Saturday night, July 15. This time booster core 1060 launched 54 more Starlink satellites. With their booster landings on a barge at sea (now at 207 successful landings on both land and barge), SpaceX launches continues to amaze me.

Rho Ophiuchi Star Forming Region

Webb Telescope celebrates 1 year of operation – On July 12, 2023, JWST dropped a new picture of the star forming region called Rho Ophiuchi 390 light-years from earth. Even at that distance, it is the closest star forming region to earth. There are about 50 stars breaking out of their dust cocoons (yellow in the image). Molecular hydrogen is colored red in the image. The Sun probably formed out of a similar cloud with 10’s of siblings about 4.5 billion years ago. Astronomers hope that JWST will give us 20 years of great pictures.

Indian launches Chandrayaan 3 to the moon – On July 14, Indian launched its second attempt at a moon landing. This time the probe will attempt a landing near the south pole of the moon and it carries a small rover. Landing is anticipated on August 23. The considerable time between launch and landing is due to the low energy trajectory that the probe will take, making numerous ever-increasing orbits around the earth and then making ever-decreasing orbits around the moon. The lander is expected to last only 1 lunar day of 14 earth days. If successful, India will be the 4^th country to soft land on the moon, joining the US, Russia and China.