The German Aerospace Center's MASCOT "rover" successfully detached from the Japanese Hayabusa2 spacecraft and landed on the asteroid Ryugu. The probe completed its intended scientific observations before battery power ran out.
NASA's Parker Solar Probe flies by Venus, lowering orbit to approach the Sun. The spacecraft has now set a new record for distance from the Sun. Closest approach is expected for November 5th.
Boeing wins the contract for a new Air Force training airplane, set to replace the aging-but-storied fleet of T-38 Talons.
This month in exponential curves: half of all human experience has happened since the 14th century. 15% happened to people currently living. Almost a third has happened during the life of the oldest person currently living. There's been a bit more turn-over in world's oldest person than usual this year, though it's hard to establish the "normal" range for a sample size this small.
This month is ballistic curves: the Soyuz launch failure. The spacecraft set to carry NASA astronaut Nick Hague and cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin aborted after a launch vehicle failure, landing safely in Kazakhstan. At this point, it's unclear how the Soyuz ISS launch schedule will be adapted, but Roscosmos is carrying on with uncrewed Soyuz launches as the investigation continues. Results are expected in the next week, with current speculation focusing on a failure of a side boosters to separate cleanly from the central sustainer stage. The next Soyuz launch date has yet to be announced, but will need to come relatively soon. Neither commercial crew capsule is ready for flight (arguably because Congress raided the funds to pay for the Space Launch System), so either another Soyuz will have to go up by January or the ISS will have to go uncrewed temporarily.
It's been a bad month for space telescopes, as well: Chandra and Hubble both went into safe mode this month, but have since resumed science operations. Kepler, however, has exhausted its fuel supply and was officially retired by NASA. Losing Kepler is less of a blow to the astronomy community given than TESS is now operational, but still a sad moment.
This month is ballistic curves: the Soyuz launch failure. The spacecraft set to carry NASA astronaut Nick Hague and cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin aborted after a launch vehicle failure, landing safely in Kazakhstan. At this point, it's unclear how the Soyuz ISS launch schedule will be adapted, but Roscosmos is carrying on with uncrewed Soyuz launches as the investigation continues. Results are expected in the next week, with current speculation focusing on a failure of a side boosters to separate cleanly from the central sustainer stage. The next Soyuz launch date has yet to be announced, but will need to come relatively soon. Neither commercial crew capsule is ready for flight (arguably because Congress raided the funds to pay for the Space Launch System), so either another Soyuz will have to go up by January or the ISS will have to go uncrewed temporarily.
It's been a bad month for space telescopes, as well: Chandra and Hubble both went into safe mode this month, but have since resumed science operations. Kepler, however, has exhausted its fuel supply and was officially retired by NASA. Losing Kepler is less of a blow to the astronomy community given than TESS is now operational, but still a sad moment.
In related news, NASA is winding down the efforts to contact the Opportunity rover, which has been silent since June 10. The probe may still be capable of operations if the solar panels are covered by dust, so listening won't cease for several more months, but NASA wants to focus its resources on Mars InSight's arrival next month.
Internal prediction markets may or may not be something of a corporate fad lately, but Robin Hanson argues that anonymous "bad-news boxes" will work just as well. They're a lot easier to implement and so far seem to have a proven track record.
National Review discusses problems with the technocratic left, in a way that really illustrates the contradictory meanings of the word technocratic in contemporary discourse. The story's examples are interesting but ultimately less important than the fact that "evidence-based policy" often entails cherry-picking the evidence. For me, though, that's not a condemnation of basing your policy on evidence so much as a reminder that epistemic honesty is difficult and rarely cleaves cleanly down ideological lines.
