NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

July 6, 2024

NGC 7789: Caroline's Rose

Found among the rich starfields of the Milky Way, star cluster NGC 7789 lies about 8,000 light-years away toward the constellation Cassiopeia. A late 18th century deep sky discovery of astronomer Caroline Lucretia Herschel, the cluster is also known as Caroline's Rose. Its visual appearance in small telescopes, created by the cluster's complex of stars and voids, is suggestive of nested rose petals. Now estimated to be 1.6 billion years young, the galactic or open cluster of stars also shows its age. All the stars in the cluster were likely born at the same time, but the brighter and more massive ones have more rapidly exhausted the hydrogen fuel in their cores. These have evolved from main sequence stars like the Sun into the many red giant stars shown with a yellowish cast in this color composite. Using measured color and brightness, astronomers can model the mass and hence the age of the cluster stars just starting to "turn off" the main sequence and become red giants. Over 50 light-years across, Caroline's Rose spans about half a degree (the angular size of the Moon) near the center of the sharp telescopic image.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html?

SpaceX targeting July 31 for launch of historic Polaris Dawn astronaut mission

July 3, 2024

The first commercial spaceflight mission with a spacewalk now has a launch date.

Polaris Dawn, part of a private human spaceflight program funded by billionaire Jared Isaacman, will launch no earlier than July 31, project representatives announced today (July 3) in a brief statement on X.

Isaacman and SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk, whose company will provide Polaris Dawn's Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket, have not yet put statements out on social media.

The crew plans to conduct the first-ever private spacewalk with bespoke SpaceX spacesuits made for the effort, along with a raft of experiments.

Polaris Dawn's orbit will take the mission about 435 miles (700 kilometers) above Earth, in the highest-altitude crewed flight since the Apollo moon missions of the 1960s and 1970s.

For comparison, the International Space Station orbits at roughly 250 miles (400 km).

Polaris Dawn will be the first of a trio of missions of the Polaris Program, all funded and commanded by Isaacman.

The Shift4 founder also helmed and bankrolled the all-civilian Inspiration4 launch in September 2021, which raised $250 million for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Tennessee along the way; Isaacman plans to continue that support with the Polaris missions.

Related: How SpaceX's private Polaris Dawn astronauts will attempt the 1st-ever 'all-civilian' spacewalk

Aside from Isaacman, the mission includes retired United States Air Force (USAF) Lieut. Col. Scott "Kidd" Poteet as pilot and mission specialists Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, both SpaceX operations engineers.

The complexity of the mission, according to project representatives, required delays during development from an initial launch target of late 2022.

The most recent major delay in February 2024 pushed the projected April launch into summer.

"The additional time continues to provide necessary developmental time to ensure both the completion of these mission goals and a safe launch and return of Dragon and the crew," the Polaris Program said via X at the time.

The training schedule has been evolving as well, Poteet stressed in a "Spaces" discussion on X on May 4.

"We've kind of piled on to what NASA has done over generations as far as identifying environments and situations that are stressful," he said, noting that part of the work has been learning about where teammates do well and where they may need help.

https://www.space.com/spacex-polaris-dawn-astronaut-launch-july-31

SpaceX

@SpaceX

The fourth flight of Starship brought us closer to a rapidly reusable future

9:29 AM · Jul 4, 2024

https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1808900954730942940

Ovzon’s debut broadband satellite ready for commercial service

July 5, 2024

Ovzon’s first fully owned satellite is ready to start commercial services following successful tests in geostationary orbit, the Swedish broadband operator announced July 5.

Company CEO Per Norén said the first full-service customer for Ovzon 3 will be GIGN (Groupe d’Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale), France’s elite police tactical unit, which plans to use the satellite for connectivity as the country prepares to host the Summer Olympics later this month.

According to Norén, Ovzon’s proprietary T7 mobile user terminal has also achieved 135 megabits per second download and 10 Mbps upload speeds with Ovzon 3, “significantly higher than our threshold and objective design specifications.”

When T7 was first deployed last year, the operator said it was receiving 60 Mbps and transmitting 10 Mbps using geostationary satellites Ovzon leases from other companies.

The Maxar Technologies-built Ovzon 3 has five steerable beams and a proprietary reprogrammable onboard processor that is designed to create a mesh network, enabling remote user terminals to operate independently of a terrestrial teleport.

The U.S. Department of Defense has traditionally been Ovzon’s biggest customer; however, the operator sees strong demand from government customers in Europe for what is also the first satellite owned by a commercial company in Sweden.

Years of launch and manufacturing setbacks forced Ovzon to twice get regulatory extensions for the satellite’s “Bring into Use” (BIU) deadline or risk losing priority spectrum rights for the 59.7 degrees East orbital slot.

Norén said Ovzon 3 arrived at this orbital slot May 26, after launching on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in January, and started providing the signals needed to achieve BIU before the extended July 4 deadline.

He said Ovzon had notified international regulators through the Cyprus administration that the satellite had successfully arrived at its orbital slot.

The final step in the regulatory process is for Cyprus to re-confirm BIU 90 days after the satellite reaches its orbital position.

https://spacenews.com/ovzons-debut-broadband-satellite-ready-for-commercial-service/