The events took place on February 3, 2015, but the US Air Force disclosed them only a few days ago. DMSP-F13 (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Flight 13), the oldest military meteorological satellite constellation still in use, apparently exploded producing a series of fragments following a sudden spike of temperature with subsequent loss of control.
Yesterday, Commander Barry Wilmore and astronaut Terry Virts completed the third spacewalk in eight days to install various new equipment on the International Space Station. They’re part of the system called C2V2 (Common Communications for Visiting Vehicles) that will serve to allow the docking of the new private spacecraft that will enter service in a few years.
Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, announced the plan to keep on supporting the collaboration with the International Space Station until 2024. Subsequently, Russia’s plan is to build its own space station that will serve for the national space activities. It could also be used as a basis for future Russian expeditions to the Moon to begin around 2030.
NASA’s space probe Dawn continues its approach to the dwarf planet Ceres. This allows to send on Earth better and better photographs with greater details of its surface. The previous images were clear enough to make it possible to see some light-colored areas and in particular a really bright one, which had puzzled scientists. A photo taken on February 19 at a distance of about 46,000 km (about 29,000 miles) shows a second bright area close to the one already identified.
The SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) space probe has the primary purpose of keeping an eye on the Sun but when a comet passes close to our star is also useful to track its trajectory. Last week, SOHO identified a new comet because passing near the Sun it’s become bright enough to be detected.
This comet was originally called SOHO-2875 because in the course of over 19 years of mission in a collaboration between ESA and NASA this is the 2875th comet identified by the SOHO space probe. Subsequently officially named C/2015 D1 (SOHO), it survived a flyby with the Sun and may also be visible from Earth in the coming weeks.
