logo
321 Launch: Space news you may have missed over the past week (July 7)

321 Launch: Space news you may have missed over the past week (July 7)

Yahoo9 hours ago
SpaceX is planning to ring in July with a doubleheader launch day.
SpaceX has plans to launch the first rocket between 5:03 p.m. and 8:15 p.m. on July 1 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center Pad 39A. This mission is known as MTG-S1, and is the European Space Agency's (ESA) Meteosat Third Generation Sounder satellite.
Read the full story here.
Launch recap: Scroll down to read live updates from the launch of the MTG-S1 weather satellite, which launched on time at 5:04 p.m. July 1 from Kennedy Space Center Pad 39A.
Read the full story here.
Read the full story here.
Launch recap: Scroll down to read live updates from the Starlink 10-25 mission which launched 2:28 a.m. July 2 from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
Read the full story here.
Read the full story here.
During the first six months of the year, an array of 56 orbital rockets took flight from Florida's Space Coast. This unpreceded pace will zoom beyond 2024's freshly established annual record of 93 launches — should the cadence continue through year's end.
Will a new launch record materialize at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASA's neighboring Kennedy Space Center? Stay tuned.
Read the full story here.
In another post-midnight launch, SpaceX is targeting Tuesday, June 8, for an early morning Falcon 9 rocket liftoff from Florida's Space Coast, a Federal Aviation Administration operations plan advisory indicates.
This Starlink 10-28 mission will lift another payload of broadband satellites on a northeasterly trajectory into low-Earth orbit. The 4½-hour launch window extends from 1:48 a.m. to 6:18 a.m.
Read the full story here.
For the latest news from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASA's Kennedy Space Center, visit floridatoday.com/space. Another easy way: Click here to sign up for our weekly Space newsletter.
Rick Neale is a Space Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Neale at Rneale@floridatoday.com. Twitter/X: @RickNeale1
Space is important to us and that's why we're working to bring you top coverage of the industry and Florida launches. Journalism like this takes time and resources. Please support it with a subscription here.This article originally appeared on Florida Today: 321 Launch: Space news you may have missed over the past week (July 7)
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

It's Hard to Create a Third Party, Even for Elon Musk
It's Hard to Create a Third Party, Even for Elon Musk

New York Times

time3 hours ago

  • New York Times

It's Hard to Create a Third Party, Even for Elon Musk

Launching a new national political party in the United States may be more difficult than sending a man to Mars. Elon Musk, the world's richest man, who last year was the nation's biggest known political donor, now says that he is trying to do both. But while the effort to achieve interplanetary travel has made slow progress for over 20 years, the past several decades of American politics are littered with abandoned attempts to disrupt the two-party system. It remains to be seen how serious Mr. Musk is about the new political project, and whether it will evolve from musings on his social-media platform to a fact of real life. While he declared on Saturday that 'Today, the America Party is formed,' so far he has yet to register it with the Federal Election Commission. As with many of his tweet-length proclamations, Mr. Musk's plans for the new party are opaque. His private conversations about it so far have been conceptual and not focused on the details of what it would take to bring it to fruition, according to two people briefed on those talks. Some advisers to Mr. Musk who have also been involved in these early talks, however, appear more focused on those details and are soliciting more feedback from experts, according to one of the people. Mr. Musk has said the America Party would be a new entity and would have the goal of disrupting the two major parties' hold on the federal government. Should he eventually tire of the idea, it would not be the first time he offered a grand pronouncement in an X post before either walking it back or letting it wither as he moved on to a new pursuit. Still, some notions that originated as seeming jokes by Mr. Musk — like his early purchase of shares in Twitter — have ended with world-altering investments. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Alien planet lashed by huge flares from its 'angry beast' star
Alien planet lashed by huge flares from its 'angry beast' star

Yahoo

time4 hours ago

  • Yahoo

Alien planet lashed by huge flares from its 'angry beast' star

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Scientists are tracking a large gas planet experiencing quite a quandary as it orbits extremely close to a young star - a predicament never previously observed. This exoplanet, as planets beyond our solar system are called, orbits its star so tightly that it appears to trigger flares from the stellar surface - larger than any observed from the sun - reaching several million miles (km) into space that over time may strip much of this unlucky world's atmosphere. The phenomenon appears to be caused by the planet's interaction with the star's magnetic field, according to the researchers. And this star is a kind known to flare, especially when young. "A young star of this type is an angry beast, especially if you're sitting as close up as this planet does," said Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy astrophysicist Ekaterina Ilin, lead author of the study published in the journal Nature. The star, called HIP 67522, is slightly more massive than the sun and is located about 407 light-years from Earth in the constellation Centaurus. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km). This star and planet, as well as a second smaller gas planet also detected in this planetary system, are practically newborns. Whereas the sun and our solar system's planets are roughly 4.5 billion years old, this star is about 17 million years old, with its planets slightly younger. The planet, named HIP 67522 b, has a diameter almost the size of Jupiter, our solar system's largest planet, but with only 5% of Jupiter's mass. That makes it one of the puffiest exoplanets known, with a consistency reminiscent of cotton candy (candy floss). It orbits five times closer to its star than our solar system's innermost planet Mercury orbits the sun, needing only seven days to complete an orbit. A flare is an intense eruption of electromagnetic radiation emanating from the outermost part of a star's atmosphere, called the corona. So how does HIP 67522 b elicit huge flares from the star? As it orbits, it apparently interacts with the star's magnetic field - either through its own magnetic field or perhaps through the presence of conducting material such as iron in the planet's composition. "We don't know for sure what the mechanism is. We think it is plausible that the planet moves within the star's magnetic field and whips up a wave that travels along magnetic field lines to the star. When the wave reaches the stellar corona, it triggers flares in large magnetic field loops that store energy, which is released by the wave," Ilin said. "As it moves through the field like a boat on a lake, it creates waves in its wake," Ilin added. "The flares these waves trigger when they crash into the star are a new phenomenon. This is important because it had never been observed before, especially at the intensity detected." The researchers believe it is a specific type of wave called an Alfvén wave, named for 20th century Swedish physicist and Nobel Prize laureate Hannes Alfvén, that propagates due to the interaction of magnetic fields. The flares may heat up and inflate the planet's atmosphere, which is dominated by hydrogen and helium. Being lashed by these flares could blast away lighter elements from the atmosphere and reduce the planet's mass over perhaps hundreds of millions of years. "At that time, it will have lost most if not all the light elements, and become what's called a sub-Neptune - a gas planet smaller than Neptune," Ilin said, referring to the smallest of our solar system's gas planets. The researchers used observations by two space telescopes: NASA's TESS, short for Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, and the European Space Agency's CHEOPS, short for CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite. The plight of HIP 67522 b illustrates the many circumstances under which exoplanets exist. "It is certainly no sheltered youth for this planet. But I am not sad about it. I enjoy diversity in all things nature, and what this planet will eventually become - perhaps a sub-Neptune rich in heavy elements that did not evaporate - is no less fascinating than what we observe today."

NASA pumps millions into TN's economy. Trump's cuts pose an existential threat
NASA pumps millions into TN's economy. Trump's cuts pose an existential threat

Yahoo

time4 hours ago

  • Yahoo

NASA pumps millions into TN's economy. Trump's cuts pose an existential threat

The passing of the U.S. FY 2026 budget, presented by President Donald Trump on May 2, 2025, will put an end to all STEM programs supported by NASA. This will cause a historic 39% reduction to space science programs and a 53% reduction to earth science programs. And it will dramatically impact Tennessee. NASA STEM programs are currently in use at the Adventure Science Center, where camps and exhibits incorporate STEM concepts. A full-size model of the Mars Curiosity Rover, on loan from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is on display. Meharry Medical College and Fisk University, with NASA support, offer a program that introduces students to computer science, robotics and engineering concepts. Opinion: Students' math proficiency is falling. Here are some solutions to the problem. The Tennessee Minority University Research and Education Project (MUREP) collaborates with NASA on the Aerospace Academy. All of these programs and initiatives may end. Vanderbilt University's Earth observation satellite mission, which includes ice-cloud radiometry and atmospheric sensing (TROPICS), faces termination. The school's leadership in developing radiation-hardened integrated circuits for outer planetary missions, pioneering advanced atmospheric remote sensing, and advancing gravitational astrophysics will be curtailed with the loss of $8 million in NASA grants. The University of Tennessee also contributes significantly to planetary geology, astrobiology and the understanding of Mars's early crust. UT will lose NASA grants totaling $5 million. At the K-12 level, the Tennessee Space Grant Consortium supports STEM education and research aligning with NASA priorities. Jack Anderson Elementary in Hendersonville is a Tennessee STEM/STEAM Designated School with a STEM lab and outdoor classroom. Robertsville Middle School in Oak Ridge partnered with NASA to design, 3-D print, and launch a CubeSat named Ram-Sat into space, making them the first middle school in the country to achieve this. Opinion: School vouchers are not the answer. Here's how to make education better in TN. And both Middle Tennessee State University and Tennessee State University have a partnership with NASA to promote STEM education in high schools. These crippling NASA budget cuts would devastate the scientific talent pipeline managed by Oak Ridge Associated Universities through the NASA Postdoctoral Program that cultivates the next generation of scientific leaders. NASA distributes approximately 75% of its annual budget to private industry in the form of government contracts. These contracts can range from janitorial services to rocket design. Jacobs Technology in Tullahoma is the fifth largest recipient of NASA's contracts. SpaceX, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed-Martin are the only corporations that receive more than this Tennessee company. While investing $24.3 million in Tennessee, NASA helped generate $68 million through job creation. These jobs led to increased revenue for our state and local governments by stimulating economic activity and generating greater sales tax revenue. These contracts stimulate innovation, create new industries, and spin-off technologies that can be commercialized and adapted by businesses. For example, NASA software can aid in the interpretation of medical imaging and in the field of materials science. NASA has made profound educational, scientific and fiscal impacts in our state, with contributions stimulating improvements across industries, from computer chips to structural steel. But a 47% budget cut to NASA's Science Mission Directorate is an extinction-level event. Is this what we want for our children and their generations to come? Suzanne W. Zellem is a retired RN, MSN and former educator living in Hendersonville. She is the mother of two and grandmother to three. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Under Trump, STEM education may be going extinct | Opinion

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store