Launch Alert - SpaceX taking Bigelow testbed to ISS

Bigelow Expandable Activity Module

LAUNCH ALERT

Only a few minutes until #SpaceX launch their next Dragon 9 rocket to the International Space Station #ISS, with the launch scheduled for 1643 Miami time, or 2043 UTC, 0643 AEST.

Watch live on http://www.spacex.com/webcast.
Alternative: www.nasa.gov/ntv

This launch is particularly interesting for two reasons:

SpaceX robotic landing barge

1/ SpaceX will attempt another landing of the reusable first stage on their robotic landing barge. They've successfully landed a first stage on solid ground, back at the launch pad it took off from. But so far success has eluded them for barge landings. The barge is important because it doesn't require the first stage to essentially turn around and double back to the landing pad - something that requires a lot more fuel.

Transit of the Sun by the International Space Station caught on camera

That might not look like much, but I've wanted to try to catch the International Space Station in flight for a looong time.

This was my very first attempt, with the added complexity of it being a transit across the face of the Sun.

The alert said the viewing opportunity was centred 130 kms away from my location. I recorded for several minutes but thought I'd missed it. Until I looked at the recording the next day!

Commander Hadfield does Major Tom and wins the internet today, hands down.

Commander Chris Hadfield handed over the reins to the International Space Station overnight to Pavel Vinogradov , and will be climbing into the Soyuz capsule together with Tom Marshburn and Roman Romanenko for a wild three-hour ride back to Kazakhstan later today.

Prior to his departure, he tweeted the following musical number. What else, but David Bowie's Space Oddity! And like so many of his posts, it created a social media sensation! Understandably: this was an outstanding post. Enjoy!



I found myself thinking that his singing voice was not what I expected—a lot higher pitched. But then I remembered that the ISS atmosphere is thinner than on Earth, noticably changing vocal pitches.

I do wish the one scene where he sang:
"Floating in a most peculiar way..."
was flipped 180 degrees so he was hanging from the 'ceiling'.

Nice to see towards the end that the guitar was caught just before it crashed into anything. That is going to be one incredibly valuable guitar once it's back on Planet Earth!

Hadfield's return to Earth will bring to an end what I'm sure was the most shared and publicly followed six months in ISS history. When I started following him on Twitter while he was still training for this mission, he had a few thousand followers. As he is leaving the ISS he has an amazing 777,000 followers!

Take a full tour of the International Space Station with former Commander Suni Williams

The ISS is bigger than a football field, orbits the Earth 16 times per day, at about 360 kilometres altitude. Back in November, as Station Commander Suni Williams prepared to board a Soyuz capsule to return to Earth, she recorded a tour of the full station. Not sure why I've never comes across it before, but here it is for your viewing pleasure.

Photos from tonight's very bright ISS pass

It was quite windy so I wasn't going to try to take photos of the magnitude -3.3 ISS pass tonight, but at the last moment changed my mind. So it was a rushed setup, plus I was trying to let a few people know via social media. So these photos are heavily cropped to remove a neighbour's treetops, as this was the only place I was semi-sheltered from the wind. And just 10 second shots too, due to the near full moon.

But interesting nonetheless. The first shot was as the space station was passing the Orion Constellation. Those are red supergiants Aldebaran in bottom left and Betelguese in bottom centre. Orion's belt and sword centre top. The stars in those are clearly blue, meaning they are extremely hot. Type O blue stars are typically >33,000 degrees, against Sol's 5770 degrees. (The middle one of the sword is actually the Orion Nebula.)



Tricky shooting straight into the moon! Had to boost the black and the contrast to counter the moon's wash-out. That's Betelguese again top centre-left.

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