Chandra is again operative, while Hubble is still under scrutiny. Both have passed many times their planned time, as has the Opportunity Rover on Mars.

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they need to send another rover on Mars called DustCleaner

Or install windshield wipers on the next model, or better yet, rely more on RTG's.

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

On October 20 an Ariane 5 heavy launcher is scheduled to launch the BepiColombo mission to Mercury, which should take seven years to reach. You need eight times more energy to go to Mercury than to go to Mars since you must spend the angular momentum of the Earth's orbit to go to Mercury. It will make several flybys of Earth, 1, Venus, 2, and Mercury, 6, to achieve this, a technique pioneered by Giuseppe "Bepi" Colombo of Padua University in the Mariner 10 mission. The spacecraft carries two orbiters, an ESA one, MPO, and a JAXA one, MMO, with different instruments and targets. The overall cost of BepiColombo, an ESA mission, is of 1.85 billion dollars.
Tullio
The spacecraft has an ion thruster like the Dawn mission to Vesta and Ceres. This may explain the seven years necessary to reach a Mercury orbit.

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BepiColombo has launched from Kourou, French Guyana, and has started its seven years trip to Mercury.
Tullio

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This is strange. One would think it should be the opposite.
Because of Mercury's proximity to the sun and the star's huge attraction, more energy is needed to send a probe to Merkurius than it does to Pluto.

post withdrawn

It's a matter of angular momentum, equal to mass times radius times speed. The Earth's angular momentum is much greater than Mercury's and you have to decrease the AM of any Earth bound object by the method pioneered by Bepi Colombo in the Mariner 10 mission.
Tullio

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I forgot that we on Earth are moving at 30 km/s around the Sun.
If our solar system was static then it would be completely different.
I can say that I'm not very good at thought experiments as Einstein and Newton.
But I know the maths behind.
Why didn't I used math instead of using my "intuity" ? LOL:)

Oh. Swedens contribution to the BepiColombo project.

Elea was a computer line built by Olivetti Divisione Elettronica in the Sixties, one of the first to use transistors, not yet microprocessors that did not yet exist. Then Olivetti sold this unit to General Electric, which sold it to Honeywell, which sold it to Bull, which killed it. I have worked at the former Olivetti plant in Pregnana Milanese, which was in Via ai Laboratori Olivetti.
Tullio

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When I got out of college my first job was as a programmer on a GE 635 mainframe.
Holorith cards and all, such joy. Make a change to a program and wait half a day to see what happened.

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When I was a student at the Trieste Physics Department of the University there was a girl taking measurements on bubble chamber photos sent by CERN. Then she punched Hollerith cards which we carried to the only computer in town, a UNIVAC I believe. On the way down we took icecream and cassate at a gelateria. All this is gone. No girls, no cards, no icecream, only Internet.
Tullio

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BepiColombo sent its first selfie, showing its large solar panels.

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A Russian Soyuz 2,1B has put in orbit a military satellite from the Plesetsk base.
Tullio

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The launch of Zhuque-1, China's first private-sector carrier rocket, will help gather experience for future launch missions, according to its developer, Landspace Technology Corp. An issue with the third stage resulted in the spacecraft failing to achieve the orbit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25FDKanOGmI
https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d414f3459544d30457a6333566d54/share_p.html
The Zhuque-1 orbital launch attempt was the first by a Chinese firm, following a government decision in late 2014 to open the space sector to private capital in the spheres of launch vehicles and small satellites.

One good news and one bad. Hubble is up and working again, Kepler is moribund due to finished fuel.
Tullio

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The International Astronomical Union voted with a 78% majority that the Hubble law shall now be called the Hubble-Lemaitre law from the name of priest astronomer Georges Lemaitre who preceded Hubble by two years but published his ideas in a little circulated Belgian magazine written in French.
Tullio

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Also Dawn is orbiting Ceres, discovered by Father Giuseppe Piazzi, on January 1 1801. Those damned priests making fools of astronomers!
Tullio

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Carl Sagan's 1994 Lost Lecture, "The Age of Exploration"

HAPPY BIRTHDAY – CARL SAGAN’S “LOST LECTURE” - NOVEMBER 9, 2018
http://carlsaganinstitute.org/2018/11/happy-birthday-carl-sagans-lost-lecture/

Carl Sagan's 1994 Lost Lecture, "The Age of Exploration" (Cleaned Up, Audio Only)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snFWUAlNBFY

Originals, Audio and Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_-jtyhAVTc

#CarlSagan #science #birthdays #history #SpaceExploration

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Apr 3, 1999 - May 3, 2020

Awesome! Thank you!

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

Adding Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot," as read by Neil deGrasse Tyson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ7nXOkgTWo