Toggle light / dark theme

Earth Views from the Space Station

Behold, the Earth! See live views of Earth from the coming to you by NASA’s High Definition Earth Viewing (HDEV) experiment.


Behold, the Earth! See live views of Earth from the International Space Station coming to you by NASA’s High Definition Earth Viewing (HDEV) experiment.

While the experiment is operational, views will typically sequence through the different cameras. If you are seeing a black image, the Space Station is on the night side of the Earth. If you are seeing an image with text displayed, the communications are switching between satellites and camera feeds are temporarily unavailable. Between camera switches, a black & gray slate will also briefly appear.

The experiment was activated on April 30, 2014 and is mounted on the External Payload Facility of the European Space Agency’s Columbus module. This experiment includes several commercial HD video cameras aimed at the Earth which are enclosed in a pressurized and temperature controlled housing. To learn more about the HDEV experiment, visit: https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/ESRS/HDEV/

The rockets that are pushing the boundaries of space travel

Friday morning at 5:24 am (0924 GMT), a rocket owned by the US company SpaceX will blast off from Florida carrying two and a half tons of gear from NASA, only to dock three days later and 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth at the International Space Station.

The itself is not new. It launched a NASA satellite into orbit two months ago, then landed back on Earth—upright—on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Canaveral.

Even the Dragon capsule, carrying the cargo and affixed to the top of the rocket was used before, having flown a mission to the ISS in 2016.

Aevum’s New Rocket-Drone Airplane Duo Could Launch Satellites Every 3 Hours

A space launch every 3 hours may soon be possible using rockets carried on a fully autonomous unmanned airplane, a new startup company suggests.

Alabama-based startup Aevum aims to per mission, using an air-launch system called Ravn.

“Ravn is designed to launch every 180 minutes,” Jay Skylus, Aevum’s CEO and chief launch architect, told Space.com. “Other launch vehicles fly only a handful of times a year with an average of 18 months of lead time.” [Rocket Launches: The Latest Liftoffs, Photos & Videos].

Chinese satellite snags new views of Earth from lunar orbit

On May 20, China launched Queqiao, a lunar communications relay satellite for the upcoming Chang’e 4 lander and rover mission. On the way out to the Moon, it dropped off a pair of small satellites bound for lunar orbit called Longjiang-1 and Longjiang-2. The satellites weigh just 45 kilograms each and measure 50-by-50-by-40 centimeters. Their purpose is testing out future radio astronomy and interferometry techniques, and one also has a camera built by Saudi Arabia.

Unfortunately, Longjiang-1 had a problem and didn’t make it into lunar orbit. Longjiang-2, however, was successful, and sent home a few pictures! Check them out:

In-orbit services poised to become big business

A transition is happening in the satellite business. Fast-moving technology and evolving customer demands are driving operators to rethink major investments in new satellites and consider other options such as squeezing a few more years of service out of their current platforms.

Which makes this an opportune moment for the arrival of in-orbit servicing.

Sometime in early 2019, the first commercial servicing spacecraft is scheduled to launch. The Mission Extension Vehicle built by Orbital ATK on behalf of subsidiary SpaceLogistics, will the first of several such robotic craft that are poised to compete for a share of about $3 billion worth of in-orbit services that satellite operators and government agencies are projected to buy over the coming decade.