[Shadowmuse Blown]

Atlas Rocket. First flown in 1957 as an ICBM, it was also used by NASA for the Mercury and Gemini manned launch programs. It is still used to launch payloads such as satellites and it was originally built by Convair which later on was absorbed by General Dynamics.

Atlas’ days are numbered, though.  They currently use Russian engines and even before the whole Ukraine war the federal government put a stop to US rockets using Russian engines. ULA only has about 23 left that were built before the ban.

[solvegas]

Here is an old rocket, the Mercury Redstone, which was used to launch the first American, Alan Shepard, to suborbital space over sixty years ago. This particular rocket is a static exhibit at NASA's Lyndon Baines Johnson Houston Space Center. The Redstone was an Air Force rocket made by ....Chrysler?  Anyways, it was a stopgap until they started to use the bigger and more powerful Atlas, Delta and Titan rockets later on for manned spaceflight.

[TheZookie007]

Curiosity rover on Mars takes a selfie before climbing up a hill.

How did it take this selfie?  I don’t see a boom running from the image back to the rover.

The same way 360-degree cameras like the Insta360 One X2 do: by using a specially-colored boom arm that is chromakeyed out.

[solvegas]

A Titan 2 rocket launching a Gemini capsule back in 1965. 

[TheZookie007]

SPACE.com, 19 May 2022: "Boeing Starliner capsule launches on critical NASA test flight to space station"
Starliner's second crack at a key shakeout mission is underway.

Boeing's Starliner spacecraft is finally on its way to the International Space Station (ISS).

Starliner lifted off today (May 19) atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket. The duo rose off a pad at Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station as planned at 6:54 p.m. EDT (2254 GMT), kicking off the crucial Orbital Flight Test (OFT-2).

Starliner separated from the Atlas V's upper stage right on schedule just under 15 minutes after launch, while the pair were over the North Atlantic Ocean. Then, 16 minutes later, the capsule aced its 45-second-long orbital insertion burn.

"We have a good orbital insertion burn," Boeing's Josh Barrett said during NASA TV's webcast of today's launch. "Starliner is on a stable, circular orbit, on its way to the International Space Station."

OFT-2 is an uncrewed mission to the ISS designed to demonstrate Starliner's readiness to carry astronauts for NASA — and it was a long time coming.

Boeing, NASA and ULA aimed to launch OFT-2 last summer. But routine preflight checks back then revealed more than a dozen malfunctioning oxidizer valves in Starliner's propulsion system, a problem that took about eight months to identify and mitigate. (Investigators determined that humidity in the air reacted with oxidizer to produce nitric acid, which then reacted with aluminum in the valves, generating corrosion products that impeded valve function.)

And, as its name suggests, OFT-2 is a do-over, an attempt to make up for Starliner's failure to reach the space station during its first orbital flight test in December 2019. The original OFT ended prematurely after Starliner suffered a series of software glitches and got stranded in the wrong orbit for an ISS meetup.

Such setbacks have delayed the certification of Starliner considerably compared to that of SpaceX's Dragon capsule, which has already carried astronauts on four operational missions to the ISS for NASA. (Both Boeing and SpaceX signed multibillion-dollar contracts with NASA's Commercial Crew Program back in 2014.)

NASA is relying on Starliner to add a "dissimilar redundancy" to the agency's regular rotation of crews to the ISS. Starliner's successful launch on OFT-2 puts NASA and Boeing one step closer to achieving that shared goal.

Starliner is on course to rendezvous with the space station on Friday evening (May 20). Once within range, Starliner's novel Vision-based Electro-optical Sensor Tracking Assembly, or VESTA, will lock on to the orbital lab using artificial intelligence to help guide and maneuver the spacecraft during its approach. Following a handful of small propulsion tests, Starliner is scheduled to dock with the ISS around 7 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT) on Friday.

Astronauts aboard the space station are planning to broadcast welcoming remarks before opening the hatches between Starliner and the ISS just before noon (1600 GMT) on Saturday (May 21). Crewmembers will then unload more than 400 pounds (180 kilograms) of cargo and supplies sent up for the current ISS occupants, most of it food.

Some cargo will remain aboard Starliner, including the test mannequin Rosie the Rocketeer, and a set of Boeing mementoes to be handed out to Starliner program employees as space-flown memorabilia following the vehicle's return to Earth.

Starliner will likely stay docked to the space station for four to five days, depending on weather conditions across the vehicle's descent path and landing site, NASA officials have said. Starliner will touch down in the western United States using a combination system of parachutes and airbags.

The capsule will then be examined extensively by NASA and Boeing and, if all goes well, will be certified for crewed flight. Starliner could then launch astronauts to the ISS on a test flight, perhaps in late 2022.

[solvegas]

Launch of Apollo 15 on a Saturn V rocket on July 26, 1971.

[solvegas]

A SpaceX Starlink satellite. One of many thousands launched, the system is a way to bypass the censored Internet systems of Russia and China for example. The Ukrainians have used the system to be able to have secured communications and even when the Russians tried to Jam it, a software patch within minutes defeated the Russian effort and both Russia and China are scared witless by Elon Musk's new system. 

[TheZookie007]

Astrum, June 2022: "The Final Images We Will Ever See of Pluto and Arrokoth"

Astrum explores everything NASA's New Horizons saw and discovered in the Kuiper Belt around Pluto, Charon and Arrokoth (Ultima Thule).

[TheZookie007]

Fraser Cain's Space Bites, 10 June 2022: "James Webb Mirror Damaged, Comet Interceptor Confirmed, NASA Investigates UFOs"

JWST got damaged by a micrometeoroid but seems to be okay, NASA buys more Crew Dragon flights, Mars rovers see interesting stuff, ESA confirms a comet hunter, UFOs get official NASA investigations, all planets get into order in the night sky and more.

[TheZookie007]

Everyday Astronaut, 12 June 2022: "Elon Musk Explains SpaceX's Merlin Engine!"

[solvegas]

SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. 

[TheZookie007]

SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. 

Must be a perspective thing but that building looks awfully close to the launchpad...

[Shadowmuse Blown]

Ship 24 in the Highbay.  Will it really launch next month?

Elon wants another to be ready for an August launch and then one each month, there after.

[TheZookie007]

Ship 24 in the Highbay.  Will it really launch next month?

Elon wants another to be ready for an August launch and then one each month, there after.

I wonder how much one of those hexagonal heat-ablating shields on the nose cone would cost? It'd make a great coffee table top!

[solvegas]

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch.