TYB
SpaceX - Iridium OneWeb Mission
SpaceX is targeting Saturday, May 20 at 6:16 a.m. PT (13:16 UTC) for launch of the Iridium OneWeb mission to a low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission previously launched Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, DART, Transporter-7, and seven Starlink missions. After stage separation, the first stage will land on the Of Course I Still Love You droneship, which will be stationed in the Pacific Ocean.
https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=iridium-oneweb
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crdFx4HiSFw
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
May 20, 2023
Galileo's Europa
Looping through the Jovian system in the late 1990s, the Galileo spacecraft recorded stunning views of Europa and uncovered evidence that the moon's icy surface likely hides a deep, global ocean. Galileo's Europa image data has been remastered here, with improved calibrations to produce a color image approximating what the human eye might see. Europa's long curving fractures hint at the subsurface liquid water. The tidal flexing the large moon experiences in its elliptical orbit around Jupiter supplies the energy to keep the ocean liquid. But more tantalizing is the possibility that even in the absence of sunlight that process could also supply the energy to support life, making Europa one of the best places to look for life beyond Earth. What kind of life could thrive in a deep, dark, subsurface ocean? Consider planet Earth's own extreme shrimp.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html?