Earth from the Rosetta Spacecraft (NASA APOD for November 23, 2009)
Good day everyone and welcome to the inaugural edition of “This Week In Space”. A place to check in on events happening within the world’s space programs in the upcoming week. Every week we’ll try to capture as many planned launch events, landing events, activities with different missions, and other activities as we can. We’ll never capture everything but hopefully we will consistently give our readers a resource for educational activities, events, and other information.
Launches (Source: Spaceflight Now World Launch Schedule)
Monday November, 23 –
- Launch Site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, USA
- Launch Vehicle: Atlas V
- Payload: Intelsat 14
- Launch Window: 05:50 – 07:20 GMT
- Notes: This launch took place successfully this morning.
- Launch Site: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
- Launch Vehicle: Proton
- Payload: Eutelsat W7
- Launch Window: Launch Delayed
- Notes: New launch window to be announced later today.
Saturday November, 28 –
- Launch Site: Tanegashima Space Center, Japan
- Launch Vehicle: H-IIA
- Payload: IGS (Information Gathering Satellite)
- Launch Window: 01:05 – 03:32 GMT
- Notes: Satellite for gathering defense information.
Sunday November, 29 –
- Launch Site: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
- Launch Vehicle: Land Launch Zenit 3SLB
- Payload: Intelsat 15
- Launch Window: 21:00 GMT
- Notes: Communications Satellite
Interesting Hubble Observations
In many ways, all of the Hubble observations are interesting, but here is a list of some of the standouts in the coming week. A more complete list can be found at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) This Week On HST Website.
Building on the Significant NICMOS Investment in GOODS: A Bright, Wide-Area Search for z>=7 Galaxies
Star Formation In Nearby Galaxies
Characterizing Atmospheric Sodium in the Transiting hot-Jupiter HD189733b
Direct Observations of Dark Matter from a Second Bullet: The Spectacular Abell 2744
This is a small list of the overall observations. You may also see some of these observations popping up in other weeks as many observation programs consist of several observations over time.
International Space Station (With STS-129)
Today the third and final spacewalk for the STS-129 mission of Atlantis to the International Space Station (ISS) will take place. The other spacewalks for this mission have gone so well, a number of the activities for today are “get-ahead” tasks. The Shuttle will detach from the ISS later this week with a landing planned for Friday at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida (Planned for 9:41 AM EST). Atlantis will return Astronaut Nicole Stott (Twitter: @Astro_Nicole) to Earth from her time on the ISS. This also marks the last crew rotation utilizing the Space Shuttle.
Don’t forget to check out when the ISS will be visible over your area this week!
Mars
This week the team at JPL will continue to attempt to extract the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit from it’s current spot after some progress was made last Thursday. Opportunity will continue the study of “Marquette Island”. Check out the current position of the two rovers here.
There are, of course, many other events occurring with many other missions this week. This is a small sampling of events and also the prototype weekly post on space activities. As we continue these posts we will work to refine the resources we utilize and add information from other worldwide space agencies.
Have a great week everyone!
