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September 15, 2021 Archives

Wednesday, September 15, 2021

TRACKING WITH CLOSEUPS: What Can You Get for £0.12 in Today’s Britain?

Posted at 12:17 Permalink

CONTINUITY: The UAC TurboTrain—America's Failed Attempt at High-Speed Rail

I do not use “America” as a sloppy synonym for the United States: the trains were manufactured and used both in Canada and the U.S. Here is more on the UAC TurboTrain.

Posted at 11:36 Permalink

CONTEXT: Stop Digging—You're Headed for the Indian Ocean!

Posted at 11:10 Permalink

THE HAPPENING WORLD: SpaceX Inspiration4 Launch

The Inspiration4 launch, the first completely privately funded and crewed orbital space mission, is scheduled for 2021-09-16 at 00:02 UTC, which is in the evening hours of Wednesday the 15th of September in Western Hemisphere time zones. As this is not a rendezvous with the space station, there is a five hour launch window should delays occur. At this writing, weather is predicted to be 80% favourable at the start the launch window. Launch opportunities are available on subsequent days in case the launch is scrubbed on the first attempt. Expected mission duration is around three days, with splashdown off the Florida coast.

Everyday Astronaut has complete details of the planned mission in the Inspiration4 Prelaunch Preview.

This will be the first crewed orbital launch not bound for the International Space Station since Space Shuttle STS-125 in May 2009, which performed the final repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. The Crew Dragon spacecraft, C207-2, was previously flown on the NASA Crew-1 mission in November 2020, and Falcon 9 booster B1062 is making its third flight. The Crew Dragon has been modified by removing the docking adaptor, replacing it with a bubble cupola which will provide panoramic views of the Earth and sky.

Here is a pre-flight question and answer session with the crew the day before launch.

Posted at 10:34 Permalink