Collaborate Disseminate
On April 11, 1970, at 19:13 GMT, Apollo 13 lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Atop the giant Saturn V booster sat Command Module 109 and Service Module 109, which together formed CSM-109 (otherwise known as Odyss… Continue reading “Houston, we’ve had a problem”: The story of NASA’s most successful failure
Apollo astronaut Colonel Alfred Merrill “Al” Worden has died at the age of 88. In a Twitter post, his family revealed that the former Command Module Pilot for the 1971 Apollo 15 lunar landing mission passed away in his sleep on March 18, 2020, at his h… Continue reading Apollo 15 astronaut Al Worden dies age 88
The Apollo missions still inspire people today, decades after they took place. A fortunate side effect of the global public relations campaign is that a lot of information is publicly available for us to review and process. We’re right around the 19th anniversary of Apollo 14 mission, so it was …read more
Continue reading Deploy Workaround Code To The Field When “The Field” Is Lunar Orbit
Ever since humans came up with the bright idea to explore parts of the Earth which were significantly less hospitable to human life than the plains of Africa where humankind evolved, there’s been a constant pressure to better protect ourselves against the elements to keep our bodies comfortable. Those first …read more
Continue reading Apollo’s PLSS And The Science Of Keeping Humans Alive In Space
On July 22nd, India launched an ambitious mission to simultaneously deliver an orbiter, lander, and rover to the Moon. Launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on a domestically-built GSLV Mk III rocket, Chandrayaan-2 is expected to enter lunar orbit on August 20th. If everything goes well, the mission’s lander …read more
Continue reading India Launched a Moon Orbiter, Lander, and Rover All In One Shot with Chandrayaan-2
[Cole Price] describes himself as a photographer and a space nerd. We’ll give that to him since his web site clearly shows a love of cameras and a love of the NASA programs from the 1960s. [Cole] has painstakingly made replicas of cameras used in the space program including a …read more
It’s been fifty years since man first landed on the Moon, but despite all the incredible advancements in technology since Armstrong made that iconic first small step, we’ve yet to reach any farther into deep space than we did during the Apollo program. The giant leap that many assumed would …read more
Continue reading Why Spacecraft of the Future will be Extruded
NASA needed a small and lightweight computer to send humans on their journey to the Moon and back, but computers of the day were made out of discrete components that were heavy, large, complicated, and unreliable. None of which are good qualities for spaceflight. The agency’s decision to ultimately trust …read more
Continue reading Apollo Guidance Computer Saved From The Scrap Yard
There’s a galaxy of products commemorating Apollo 11’s 50th anniversary, from coins to cushions, tumblers to tote-bags. But for those who really want to wear their astro-hearts on their sleeve (or wrist), the Trappist-1 NASA edition might jus… Continue reading Apollo 11 50th anniversary watch puts a glowing star system on your wrist
When [Patrick Hickey] spent a tidy sum on eBay to purchase a pair of seven-segment displays used in the Launch Control Center at Kennedy Space Center during the Apollo program, he could have just put them up on a shelf. It’s certainly what most people would have done. Instead, he’s …read more
Continue reading Preserving Historic NASA Display Technology