NASA & World Space Exploration...News, Views, Photos & videos

It seems that JWST is going well

"Lots of praise in this briefing for JWST’s optics:
- “working better than the most optimistic predictions”;
- “aligned as closely as the laws of physics allowed”;
- “so far everything we dared hope.”

A slew of built up news:

Iran's launch:


Japan is working on its H3 rocket engine:


NASA is delaying, changing the Mars Sample Return Mission:


Rogozin (russian ROSCOSMOS head) is 'chasing' china:

Russian cooperation with Chinese Space Station will be difficult because Russian launch sites aren't in appropriate latitude to reach it.

gelgoog said:

Russian cooperation with Chinese Space Station will be difficult because Russian launch sites aren't in appropriate latitude to reach it.

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iirc, the delta v for a degree change is 100 m/s. Isn't Baikonur at 41.58 deg north and the CSS at 41.68? Been a long week, so forgive me if my coffee stream still has too much blood in it...

Vostochny is supposed to be the main launch site in the future. While Baikonur will still have a manned Soyuz launch pad the Angara launch pads are at Plesetsk and later there will be one at Vostochny. This will limit the amount of participation Russia could do. They wouldn't be able to launch heavy modules to a station. Soyuz-5 might be able to be launched from a site at Baikonur, but it remains to be seen if this will happen. Russia and Kazakhstan had issues with regards to the amount of funding they wanted for Russia to be able to rent Baikonur. I think this was solved a couple of years back but do not know the current situation. We might see Russian crews visit the Chinese space station but I kind of doubt they will travel in Russian rockets at least initially.

Whole bunch of news. Starting with Russia is leaving the ISS and giving the 1 year notice as per required:


Russia launched its first Angara 1.2 with a military payload:


Russia wants to deepen cooperation with China:


NASA's Ingenuity helicopter on Mars found Perseverance's backshell and parachute:


Webb has finished its aligment and is doing its final calibrations:


Boeing to try again with its Starliner capsule on May 19th:


First Dreamchaser space plane (flight article) is taking shape:


And the moon rocket for NASA (SLS) had massive problems on the wet run. Lots of coverage all over for that.

ESA's Euclid space telescope news:


(forgot that, sorry)

gelgoog said:

Vostochny is supposed to be the main launch site in the future. While Baikonur will still have a manned Soyuz launch pad the Angara launch pads are at Plesetsk and later there will be one at Vostochny. This will limit the amount of participation Russia could do. They wouldn't be able to launch heavy modules to a station.

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I would not expect Russia to get the go ahead to add modules to the Chinese station, at least in the current station iteration. If/when China builds the next gen station, Russia might participate, but IDK what state the Russia aerospace will be at that point.

I agree Russia would need a much larger launcher to place any modules to the current station inclination: that's a 10 deg difference and 1 km/s dV. yikes.

gelgoog said:

We might see Russian crews visit the Chinese space station but I kind of doubt they will travel in Russian rockets at least initially.

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IDK if the Chinese built in compatibility with the Soyuz or not. That would be very important even if the Chinese used the universal docking stations. It will be interesting to see. Related, but China got blasted by the head of the Russian Academy of Sciences 3 weeks ago for pausing research with Russia. That may have an impact. Or may not. China may have resumed everything. I've not seen information since to say either way.

starship gets delayed for orbit launch, Roscosmos states their new heavy rocket which is methane based to launch in 2030 after cancelling their 2028 design, SLS launch was delayed. Everyone still optimistic we will get a man to mars before 2030?

panzerfeist1 said:

starship gets delayed for orbit launch, Roscosmos states their new heavy rocket which is methane based to launch in 2030 after cancelling their 2028 design, SLS launch was delayed. Everyone still optimistic we will get a man to mars before 2030?

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the man on mars before 2030 has always been a joke basically lol.