Does anyone know if Dawn will still be transported to 17-B tomorrow? There're no photos on the KSC site of the payload canister arriving at Astrotech or anything

Naw, the New Horizons press kit looks the same



1 week, 4 days to be exact...though what's this about a new second stage being needed?

Considering the kind of trivial nonsense that delayed Dawn from June 20 to its current launch date... I wouldn't be surprised if any of that happened.

Greeaaat. Is this yet another situation where it wouldn't be a surprise if Phoenix (or Endeavour on STS-118) leave Florida first? Or am I just jumping the gun here?

How 'bout obscure sci-fi movie references?

"Armadillo" in honor of that vehicle in the movie Armageddon?

Or "Juggernaut" in honor of the clone tanks in Star Wars: Episode III?

"Dumb" and "Dumber" would've been a good name if both MERs didn't land safely on the red planet.

Or "Itchy and Scratchy" if you want to honor The Simpsons...

"Big Bertha" is my choice for MSL...in honor of the giant howitzer used by the, um, Germans in WWI, the line of golf clubs...and that lady wrestler who pummeled Al Bundy in one episode of "Married with Children." It's been gone for 10 years and I still love watching reruns of that TV show.

I live 30 miles east of L.A. (near Pomona)

While I was watching NASA TV, I was thinking, "When am I going to hear the sonic booms, darn it?"

I heard the sonic booms while watching the landing on NASA TV at home. They didn't seem as loud as when Endeavour landed here in late 2002, but they were still window rattlers.

New Horizons doesn't have a battery...which is why I think it actually has to dissipate the excess RTG power that it doesn't need to run its systems and instruments



Which is pretty funny...considering that all the recent RTG flights have provided some kind of significant discovery during their missions. Not to state the obvious:

Galileo (A possible ocean on Europa)
Cassini (Possible water activity on Enceladus, and maybe Dione)
New Horizons (the first flight to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt)

Not to jinx anything, but if these anti-nuke folks want to stop looking like a bunch of schmucks with lots of free times on their hands, try waiting for something to go wrong on the next RTG launch...and then protest the RTG launch that comes after that one. They'll look less foolish.

Yea, I think New Horizons would be ROYALLY screwed over if it spent 6 hours in LEO like Magellan and Galileo did onboard the shuttle. Well... Not really. If the payload bay was big enough to fit a third stage PLUS the Inertial Upper Stage, NH would probably be fine.



After that incident with the solar panel? You need a lot

It will immediately be in an Earth escape trajectory like every other interplanetary mission

Dawn is now attached to its third stage kick motor:

http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/search.cf...rch.cfm?cat=173

2 weeks from Saturday...

REVISED: Not to state the obvious, but the Skycrane DESCENT MODULE is gonna have to produce a (bleep)-load of thrust to get that behemeth on the ground safely...

There you go.

High quality photos of the ISS in its TIE Fighter configuration now online:

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images.../ndxpage30.html

I saw the "Scarecrow" at JPL's Open House on May 19... I'd post up the pictures I took of it, but my digicam is in my room upstairs. A mock-up of the rover's Multi-Mission RTG was also on display.

Not to state the obvious, but the Skycrane system is gonna have to produce a (bleep)-load of thrust to get that behemeth on the ground safely...

Great photos Ben... Wish I could be there to take photos of the launch on 7/7.

First stage for Phoenix's Delta II rocket now in place at Pad 17-A:

http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/search.cf...rch.cfm?cat=173

(Scroll down since the photos were put in Dawn's gallery section)

Solar panel repaired:

http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/search.cf...rch.cfm?cat=173

Or the bottle wouldn't have shattered at all

New pics of Dawn's Delta II continuing to be prepped:

http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/search.cf...rch.cfm?cat=173

GOOD GRIEF... Bad luck and incompetence is becoming the hallmark of this mission... Moreso, that is.

I think it's 14... 13 to ISS and the HST servicing mission. Though it may only be 12 to the ISS if NASA cancels the two "contingency" flights in 2010 for budget reasons

NASA's KSC video feed page contains a shot of Phoenix undergoing launch preps...as well as a shot of Dawn's Delta II rocket (with all SRBs now attached)

http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/countdown/video/

Crane has been fixed...and the launch date is now set for no earlier than July 7.

Delta II SRB mating should resume tomorrow

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/forums/th...31&posts=40

The Sports section in today's Los Angeles Times newspaper had an amusing article speculating on how Kobe Bryant would fare on Pluto (since he said on Wednesday that he'd rather play on the former 9th planet than with the Lakers). New Horizons is mentioned considerably in the article...

(The article's author is not mentioned)

"But could he get a ring on Saturn?

644: According to Sports Business Daily, that would be the vertical leap, in inches, of Kobe Bryant if he played basketball on Pluto, which he suggested in a radio interview Wednesday would be better than playing another season for the Lakers. The calculation is based on a 38-inch vertical leap and .059 ratio of Pluto's gravity to Earth's.

Of course, getting to Pluto could prove challenging. Only one spaceship, named New Horizons, has been sent there, and it lifted off in January 2006. Even if Bryant had been ready to go then, that spaceship was too small to carry a human passenger.

New Horizons is scheduled to arrive in July 2015. A spaceship with a cabin large enough for Bryant would take much more time. Flying at the orbiting speed of the space shuttle, if he left today, he would be about 43 years old by the time he landed.

By the way, Kobe, take a heavy coat. Pluto's surface temperature is between minus 210 and minus 235."