From NASA
From the Moon, a lunar eclipse looks like a total solar eclipse, but it lasts a LOT longer. For NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, that means the team has to plan carefully for the 4 hours that the spacecraft — and its solar panels — will be in the dark and the cold.
🌑🛰
haha, I’m just dense today 🤣
Wish we had crossed paths. I dig your music! Yeah, I was the Mechanical Flight System Engineer for Clipper, at JPL.
huh? which word?
I developed the solar array pointing system for Europa Clipper. It’s inconceivable that an error like this could sneak past design reviews and tests, even on a shoestring budget. Just takes 1 competent and curious engineer to ask the right question.
oh NO
Alerts are flowing from Rubin Observatory!
There will be a proper press release in the coming hours, please see all the details then, and meanwhile, your favorite alert broker probably has public data available to peruse *now*!
We are up to well over 20k alerts after 20 min on sky 🔭
Excerpts from a NASA public info publication in my collection. This one, published by NASA in 1972, features the distinctive artwork of Robert McCall.
Pre-Internet, these were a major means by which NASA informed the public.
I post one of these in its entirety on my Patreon every Sunday.
congrats!
Meanwhile at NASA JSC, Blue Origin MK1 lunar lander, has entered Chamber A for approximately 11 days of TVAC
Source: David Limp on the other site.
I revisited my parallel IK system for the first time in awhile to make some ergonomic improvements & got perf improved by over 50% in some cases 🦾🤖
I still have some more improvements in mind, though, when I have some more time. Repo link below 👇
#threejs #webgl #robotics
Blue Origin halts New Shepard flights
Blue Origin announced Jan. 30 that it will halt flights of its New Shepard suborbital vehicle for at least two years as it shifts its focus to human lunar exploration.
unfair to actual scowling voids of nothingness
Still no date for WDR or launch, but Artemis II crew is getting ready. Entered quarantine on Friday in Houston. Pending outcome of WDR or other operations considerations they can come out and reenter 14 days before any launch date, flying to KSC 6 days before launch.
www.nasa.gov/blogs/missio...
NASA Selects Participants to Track Artemis II Mission.
www.nasa.gov/technology/s...
An image of Estes Rocket's new 1/100th scale flying model kit of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket.
Estes and Blue Origin have been cooking! 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀
estesrockets.com/products/new...
alas, it wasn’t meant to be for SoCal last night. We caught the faintest glimpse of pink glow, barely discernible even in long exposures. Looks like Europe got all the fun this time!
Good chance for #Aurora tonight! I’ll be somewhere in Angeles Forest with cameras ready.
The Artemis II mission rolling out to Launch Complex 39B The SLS rocket is stood atop a large grey mobile launcher, with the lower platform adorned by an Artemis flag and a United States of America flag. A large metal truss tower is behind the rocket, providing vehicle support during launch operations. Under the launcher is a Crawler Transporter, with 4 sets of tracked carriers moving the rocket at roughly 1 mile per hour.
We're going back.
Mars Express image of Olympus Mons volcano showing frost, 2024
In the difficult years ahead, we should remember that the snows of Olympus lie silent beneath the stars, waiting for our grandchildren.
- Arthur C. Clarke
Happy Perihelion Day! Today Earth reaches the closest point to the Sun in its orbit. Here are two images I took of the Sun last year showing that the Sun does indeed look a bit bigger in January when we are closest to the Sun than it does in July when we are farthest. 🔭
Nice capture! Great start to 2026
Highlights from my space-related endeavors of 2025. New job (same company), observed Supernova SN2025rbs & Comet 3I-ATLAS, & co-discovered a near-Earth object with my kids. Not shown: countless hours developing a telescope dome control system & hunting for asteroids ☄️
#astrophotography 🔭 🧪
“trying to understand why it would not stop … on this 26 degree angle” 🤦♂️
just passed 5” around noon here in La Crescenta, a suburb north of LA
✨ 🤙 ✨
Melotte-15, an emission nebula in Cassiopeia, imaged from Stony Ridge Observatory.
Happy holidays from Stony Ridge Observatory!
#Astrophotography 🔭 🧪
great image!
I have been neglecting Uranus system for a long time now.
So I decided to change that. Here's Uranus and Miranda visible above the canyons of Ariel.
#SciArt #spaceart #astronomy #solarsystem #Uranus
That’s gorgeous! I spotted that high altitude pink glow from all the way down here in Los Angeles!
