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NORAD_Tracks_Santa_2007_Ops_Center

Everyone seems to be casting their optics to the moon lately. Between the three supermoons and the lunar eclipse, NASA's tentative overtures toward manned lunar exploration, and the Lunar X Prize, the moon has been a abiding presence in the news. Even the ESA is leaning toward literal moonshots; every bit part of "Space iv.0," their General Director wants to build a hamlet on the moon. The Lunar Village is less a pattern for physical structures than it is a vision for pan-Europe cooperation on a persistent or permanent moon base. Simply they're putting some money down, likewise. The ESA is developing a lunar lander, and they've got a slick website nearly "the why and how of lunar exploration."

RocketLabElectron

Rocket Lab has declared that their Electron spacecraft is ready for test flights. Would that be alpha or beta hardware testing? The Electron's first stage booster uses 9 Rutherford engines linked together, and a single vacuum-optimized Rutherford engine powers the second stage. They designed the Rutherford engine, along with basically every other part of the rocket, in-house. Rocket Lab is planning to do commercial infinite flight, considering everybody who'south anybody makes a foray into commercial infinite flight. Their spacecraft are tiny — max payload, 225 kilograms — and they plan to put payloads in space "with unprecedented frequency."

While Europe's over there singing kumbaya well-nigh tourism on the moon, Nihon just launched a satellite to study the Van Allen belts. It's called the Exploration of energization and Radiation in Geospace satellite, or only ERG, for short. Radiation is hard on spacecraft, and especially computers in space. ERG's purpose "is to reveal how these high-energy electrons are accelerated and created, and how infinite storms develop," co-ordinate to the official PDF fact sheet. "ERG will brand a comprehensive ascertainment of the electrons and ions near the equatorial plane in geospace, which is thought to exist the area where the acceleration of such electrons is occurring." Much satellite. Very scientific discipline.

But I shouldn't rag on Europe too hard. The ESA only launched their ain $17 billion constellation of GPS satellites, called Galileo, to shake off their dependence on the United states of america-based GPS organisation. Information technology'll exist able to localize devices to within a meter. They've fabricated access to the system complimentary for people with smartphones or navigation devices. For devices congenital with Galileo-friendly chips, they (optimistically, but then this is Europe) say a software update may be all that's necessary to enable the new navigation system.

Also, if yous didn't know this: NORAD tracks Santa on Christmas Eve. Apply this tool to look like a rockstar to your kids.