From rogers at ISI.EDU Mon Feb 2 03:08:44 2009 From: rogers at ISI.EDU (Craig Milo Rogers) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 00:08:44 -0800 Subject: [oasis-members] Upcoming Vandenberg AFB Launch Message-ID: <20090202080844.GA26125@isi.edu> According to Brian Webb's LAUNCH ALERT mailings, a Delta II carrying the NOAA-N Prime weather satellite is scheduled to launch from Vandenburg AFB on Wed 4 Feb 2007, between 0222 and 0232 PST. The Moon will be gibbous, setting at 0217. The weather forecast is generally favorable for viewing the launch from the Los Angeles area, although we've had a bit of fog in the Santa Barbara Channel tonight. http://goespoes.gsfc.nasa.gov/poes/index.html http://www.osd.noaa.gov/POES/noaa_n_prime.htm http://www.spaceflightnow.com/delta/d338/090201preview.html This is the weather satellite that tipped over at the Lockheed Martin factory, 6-Sep-2003. According to the NASA NOAA-N-Prime mishap report, the proximate cause of the mishap was that the workers forgot to bolt the satellite to the work stand. The deeper cause was due to factors such as poor management practices by Lockheed Martin and insufficient customer (government) oversight. Since the accident, it's been rebuilt, mainly using spare parts. Lockheed Martin footed some of the repair bill, about $30 million. http://www.space.com/spacenews/businessmonday_041011.html http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=15189 NOAA and NASA later gave Lockheed Martin an additional $34 million, to pay for costs relating to delaying the satellite's launch for one extra year. http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/releases2007/aug07/noaa07-r309.html There's also the question of why this satellite is named "NOAA-N-Prime" (aka "NOAA-N Prime" and "NOAA-N'"), instead of, say, "NOAA-O". According to the Spaceflight Now article cited above, was that NOAA planned to develop NOAA-O, P and Q satellites. They got cancelled, so when NOAA decided to launch one more satellite in the TIROS series, they couldn't call it NOAA-O, because, after all, that program had been cancelled already. Craig Milo Rogers From rogers at ISI.EDU Wed Feb 11 20:41:35 2009 From: rogers at ISI.EDU (Craig Milo Rogers) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:41:35 -0800 Subject: [oasis-members] Collision in Orbit Message-ID: <20090212014135.GA19330@isi.edu> A dead Russian satellite killed an Iridium satellite by accident. http://www.space.com/news/090211-satellite-collision.html http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE51A8IA20090212 Craig Milo Rogers From rgounley at earthlink.net Sun Feb 22 10:36:31 2009 From: rgounley at earthlink.net (Robert Gounley) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 07:36:31 -0800 Subject: [oasis-members] Green Comet in Pre-Dawn Skies Message-ID: <49A170FF.9040603@earthlink.net> For the full article, go to National Geographic News . For many more photos, and a sky-map to view Comet Lulin yourself, go to spaceweather.com . ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Sky Show This Month: "Two-Tailed" Comet Nearing Earth* Victoria Jaggard National Geographic News January 26, 2009 A fresh new face has moved into our neighborhood, but once it swings by Earth next month, it may never come back. Comet Lulin is currently sailing through the inner solar system and is getting closer to our home planet, with its nearest approach expected in late February. comet lulin picture (snip) Although it will probably be hard to see with the naked eye, the comet "should be a fairly easy object [to see with] modest amateur telescopes or even binoculars," said Don Yeomans, a comet expert at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. In fact, notes astronomer Mark Hammergren of Chicago's Adler Planetarium, "it's visible right now with a small telescope if you know where to look." But Hammergren notes that the icy body has the potential to do something unexpected. Comet Lulin is arriving from the far reaches of the solar system on a nearly parabolic orbit?"it's almost as if it comes from infinity and goes back out to infinity," he said. (Explore an interactive solar system.) This means Lulin could be on its first pass by the sun, so the comet should still be encrusted in "fresh" ices preserved by the freezing environment of the outer solar system. As the object is exposed to the sun's heat for the first time, those ices will vaporize, possibly causing the comet to brighten rapidly or even break apart. What's more, the comet's orbit is in nearly the same plane as Earth's but is traveling in the opposite direction. This causes Lulin to appear to move unusually fast and display a rare anti-tail?an optical effect that creates a secondary "tail" pointing toward the sun. /*For full article, GO TO http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/01/090126-comet-lulin.html*/ From rogers at ISI.EDU Mon Feb 23 16:28:33 2009 From: rogers at ISI.EDU (Craig Milo Rogers) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 13:28:33 -0800 Subject: [oasis-members] Orbiting Carbin Observatory's Vandenberg Launch Tonight Message-ID: <20090223212833.GA7629@isi.edu> We're scheduled to have another Vandenberg orbital launch tonight, which will be quite visible from Southern California if the clouds permit. The launch is planned for the usual time, 01:51:30 PST, with a window of 4 minutes and 20 seconds. The payload is NASA's Orbiting Carbin Observatory. It has a mission goal of collecting data on natural and man-made CO2 emissions. http://oco.jpl.nasa.gov/ http://www.spaceflightnow.com/taurus/oco/status.html Craig Milo Rogers