Moonshots Beyond the Cloud

Celestia for Android , my favorite universe simulation app, supports downloading add-ons from the project’s repository . This extensive archive hosts digital models of asteroids, deep-sky objects, exoplanets, spacecrafts, and more. The add-ons of spacecrafts are interesting as they let you examine the environment and context of historical space exploration missions , such as the views the vehicles had of their target bodies. But historical add-ons pose a potential pitfall. The Mariner 4 add-on in Celestia for Android on my Pixel 4 XL phone. The simulation date and time are set to a moment a few hours prior to the closest approach to Mars. Consider, for example, the add-on of Mariner 4 , the first human-made vehicle to fly by the planet Mars. If you download the add-on and go to it with the Celestia browser (menu > Browser > Spacecraft > Mariner 4 > GO ), the app will navigate to the 3D model of the spacecraft and make it fill up most of the field of view. But where is Mars?...

 What's the first thing to do after installing an astronomy or space app on Android? Turn off any alarms and notifications in the app's settings. Although these apps try to be helpful, they are noisy and alert you of interesting celestial phenomena or space events, such as the phases of the Moon, planetary conjunctions, satellite passes, and rocket launches. The option to turn off alarms in the ISS passes screen of the ISS onLive Android app. I learnt it the hard way when alarms in the wee hours of the night showed up on my Pixel 4 XL phone. It turned out an update of the ISS onLive app had set up alarms for International Space Station passes.

I wrote Spacestills , a Python program for viewing NASA TV still frames. The main window of Spacestills running on Replit. As a hobbyist wishing to improve my Python programming skills, for some time I’ve wanted to work on learning projects more substantial than code snippets , throwaway tools, or short scripts. Spacestillschecks several boxes. The problem domain is one of my primary interests, space exploration. At about 350 lines of code, it’s a non-trivial system with a GUI. It accesses the network to download data from the web. Finally, the program relies on a few Python libraries. About the program Spacestills periodically downloads NASA TV still frames from a web feed and displays them in a GUI. The program allows to correct the aspect ratio of the frames and save them in PNG format. It downloads the latest frame automatically and gives the option to reload manually, disable the automatic reload, or change the download frequency. As a learning exercise, Spacestillsis a basic pro...

On December 1, 2020, an uncrewed vehicle of the Chinese Chang'e 5 sample return mission was about to land on the Moon. There was a lot of excitement. As an astronomy and space enthusiast, I shared the interest and anticipation. These fields are a major part of my creative endeavours. An opportunity Space experts, scientists, enthusiasts, and reporters were sharing online a lot of information on the mission and the vehicles. But they were hardly talking about Mons Rümker (Latin for mount Rümker), the spacecraft's landing area. The Mons Rümker area is of great scientific interest. However, it's a subtle lunar feature that may be difficult to locate even if you know where to look for. So I played with Google Maps a bit to explore this area of the Moon and get a refresher ahead of the landing. Mons Rümker looked great in Google Maps. Therefore, the night before the landing I made a video to share and contribute to the online mission coverage and conversation. It's a simp...

NASA SpaceTime is an Android app for displaying the time on Mars and the schedule of the operations teams of NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance rovers. The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory runs the missions and developed this official app. The NASA SpaceTime app on my Pixel 4 XL phone. The app shows the local time at the rover sites on Mars along with a list of upcoming events, planning activities, and key meetings of the mission operations teams. The entries provide the times at your location and countdowns to the events. The descriptions of the entries are terse and worded with obscure acronyms, so it may be hard to figure what they’re about. Ex Mars rover driver Scott Maxwell helped me make sense of the acronyms and jargon. Here’s what they mean. Keep this list handy when running the app: Ace : call sign of the team member who triggers the uplink, among other things CI: Campaign Integration (the equivalent of Curiosity's supratactical process ) D/L: downlink EDR: Experiment Data ...

I published version 10 Jan 2021 of my ebook Space Apps for Android: Discover the Best Astronomy and Space Apps . The readers who purchase it get free lifetime updates. So, if you bought the book, you can download the latest files in PDF, Mobi, and ePub format where you originally got it at Gumroad or Leanpub . Meteor Shower Calendar, an app my ebook Space Apps for Android covers in chapter Meteors. In this release I added an introduction to chapter Meteors, reported on how the listed apps work on Chrome OS, and revised the chapter. Among the astronomy apps for Android, few are about observing or learning about shooting stars and meteor showers. As a result, this is a brief chapter. Space Apps for Android is a work in progress. I regularly update and expand the book with the Lean Publishing process.

Mons Rümker is the Moon landing site of the lander-ascender spacecraft of Chang’e 5, China’s lunar sample return mission. It’s one of the most interesting volcanic areas of the Moon. To explore this unique feature, I made a video of Mons Rümker in Google Maps . Mons Rümker in Google Maps. The video opens with the bright crater Copernicus at the center of the view. It then centers on and zooms in on Mons Rümker, rotating around the plateau to show its 3D structure and relief. I made the video by recording on my Chromebox a screencast of Google Maps at 1080p. Finding Mons Rümker may not be easy, as it's a subtle area and you need to know where to look for. Unfortunately, Google Maps doesn’t let you search for or share features on planetary bodies other than the Earth. The video hopefully helps to locate the area in Google Maps, here’s how: visit maps.google.com zoom all the way out click Satellite click  ☰ to open the menu click Globe zoom out more click Moon click 3D to show the c...

 I released version 17 Nov 2020 of my ebook Space Apps for Android: Discover the Best Astronomy and Space Apps . If you purchased the book, the latest version is available for free download in ePub, Mobi, and PDF format where you originally downloaded it, on Gumroad or Leanpub . The cover of the Space Apps for Android ebook in the Kindle app on my Pixel 4 XL. Chapter The Planets now has an introduction. I also revised the chapter’s text and added the Mars Explorer app. Some apps are no longer available in the Play Store, so I removed their entries from that chapter: Physical Mars, Pluto Safari, Space Weather, and The Red Planet Mars. I removed Mars Explorer (unrelated to the app by the same name I added) too, as it now serves ads and no longer meets the book inclusion requirements. It’s amazing how many Android developers remove their apps from the Play Store, including several Space Apps for Android covers. But the ebook is a work in-progress and I regularly update it with the L...

Mars Explorer is an Android app for viewing the raw images of the surface of Mars taken by NASA’s Curiosity, Spirit, and Opportunity rovers, and the InSight lander. Mars Explorer on my Pixel 4 XL phone. You can get the latest images from the active missions, Curiosity and InSight, and browse the image archives of the completed missions, Spirit and Opportunity. The app lets you view, save as favorites, and share the images. To drill down to the ones you’re interested in, there are options for selecting the relevant Sol (Martian day) or terrestrial date. In Mars Explorer you’ll also find general information on Mars, the vehicles that take the images, and their instruments. Weather reports and environmental measurements from the Curiosity rover complete the feature set. The app runs well also on Chrome OS, where it takes advantage of the large screens of Chromebooks by providing an alternate layout that better organizes the content and the navigation elements. The layout activates on And...

The March 1, 2020 update of my book Space Apps for Android: Discover the Best Astronomy and Space Apps is out. If you purchased the book, the latest version is available for free download in ePub, Mobi, and PDF format in your Leanpub library . The cover of Space Apps for Android in the Google Play Books app on my Lenovo Tab E7 tablet. In chapter Introduction , I moved the description of my blog to the new subsection Learn more and mentioned my newsletter there, too. Chapter Ephemeris and Astronomical Phenomena has a new entry for the app Nightshift: Stargazing & Astronomy . Finally, the new appendix Release Notes lists the changes in all the versions of the book. I updated the book because I’m self-publishing it as a work in-progress with the Lean Publishing process. Therefore, I constantly revise and expand it.

Mars Sky is an Android app for viewing at a glance the major planetary objects in the sky of Mars at a given location. The main screen of the Mars Sky app on my Pixel 2 XL phone. This unusual app doesn’t show an accurate representation of the sky but a simplified view of the celestial sphere with the major Solar System objects . The view places the planetary bodies at their approximate positions in the sky. The celestial objects Mars Sky features are the Sun, the planets (including the Earth and our Moon), and the moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos. You can get position and visibility data of each body such as the coordinates, the angular size, the brightness, and more. A list of major events like the rising and setting times of the objects is also available. There are some preset observing locations to choose from, such as the landing sites of spacecrafts , but you can add more. Mars Sky displays dates and times using a martian calendar you may not be familiar with. So be ...

See A Satellite Tonight is an app for showing where to view artificial satellites in the sky with the naked eye. The See A Satellite Tonight app showing a satellite pass in Chrome on my Pixel 2 XL phone. The app simulates the motions of satellites across the sky by overlaying them to a Google Street View panorama. This makes it straightforward to spot satellites, especially for users with no space or astronomy background. During a pass you can see where the satellite is in the sky at your location with respect to landmarks and buildings you are familiar with. It’s a brilliant twist on an ephemeris interpretation problem. Most apps for showing the positions of satellites or predicting passes give guidance through astronomical references such as star charts, the horizon, or coordinates. Googler James Darpinian developed See A Satellite Tonight . It’s a web app designed to work on both the desktop and mobile devices, such as with Chrome on Android. The app has a few limitat...

Spaceflight News is an Android app that aggregates space news stories and data on space events such as launches and orbital maneuvers. The main screen of the Spaceflight News app on my Pixel 2 XL phone. The app lists the headlines of the stories and links to the respective sites and blogs for reading the full text. The headlines come from the Spaceflight News API , a project by the same author of the Spaceflight News app. The API lets developers add to their own apps spaceflight news from selected sources. So it doubles as a demo app for the API. The Spaceflight News API is inspired by the Launch Library , a project to provide developers with an API for adding to their apps a wealth of data on space launches collected and maintained by a group of volunteers. The Spaceflight News app provides also Launch Library data, and other information on space events such as vehicle rollouts, docking and berthing maneuvers, and more. Although there are great and more advanced launch dat...

I released a new update of my book Space Apps for Android: Discover the Best Astronomy and Space Apps on September 8, 2019. If you purchased the book, you can download the latest version for free from your Leanpub library . Chapter The Sun of my book Space Apps for Android in Google Play Books on my Pixel 2 XL phone. This new version comes with the complete rewrite of chapter The Sun , which now has an introduction. I removed all the material on Solar Observer because the app is partially obsolete and doesn’t provide much value. I also added the entries for Eclipse Calculator 2 , the best eclipse app, and SunViewer 2, which lets you view the latest solar images. Why an update? Because I’m self-publishing the book as a work in progress with the Lean Publishing process, so I’m constantly updating and expanding it.

The HDEV experiment on the International Space Station stopped working sometime in July 2019. The official NASA app for Android removed HDEV support in version 1.90, released on August 30, 2019, as its change log entry notes: Removed the ISS HDEV section which has reached end of life HDEV (High Definition Earth-Viewing ) was a set of commercial HD video cameras mounted on the exterior or the ISS and aimed at the Earth . The purpose of this NASA experiment was to evaluate the effects of long-term exposure to space radiation of off the shelf video equipment. The cameras streamed beautiful live images of the Earth from space and worked continuously, except for the night side of the orbit or when operational constraints prevented it. The end of life notice in the video feed of NASA's HDEV experiment. Credit: NASA. The loss of the payload is not unexpected as the harsh environment was eventually going to damage the devices. Still, the general public loved these views and...

From July 2013 to September 2015 ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti posted to her Google+ profile hundreds of entries of the Logbook , a mostly daily journal of the training and space flight for her first mission to space. The Logbook is a unique resource and public outreach project, likely the most extensive such account by any astronaut. For example, on launch day she shared her thoughts just hours before riding a rocket and blasting into space. No astronaut had ever done that. Samantha Cristoforetti on the International Space Station. Original image: astrosamantha photostream . Credit: ESA/NASA. Samantha is an European astronaut and, although her home country is Italy, she wrote the Logbook in English for reaching a wider audience. I had the privilege and opportunity of providing the official Italian translation of all the Logbook entries , which were published to the AstronautiNEWS website and later also to ESA’s Avamposto 42 mission website. Following so closely Sa...

Here are the cool Apollo-themed t-shirts I bought from The High Frontier spaceflight apparel , an online store selling unique, well done designs inspired by the history of space exploration. The ones I got feature the Apollo Lunar Module and the Command and Service Module. My Apollo-themed t-shirts by The High Frontier spaceflight apparel.

Rocket scientist and Apollo flight controller Poppy Northcutt shared some photos of the slides rules aerospace corporation TRW Systems Group, an Apollo contractor that designed and built the LM descent engine, gave away as promotional materials for the early Apollo missions. Digging thru one of my “space” boxes in storage, turned up this nifty Apollo 11 slide rule that TRW Systems was handing out. Also found an Apollo 13 slide rule. Needless to say, the latter rapidly became inaccurate. pic.twitter.com/UgD63RiEca — Poppy Northcutt (@poppy_northcutt) July 14, 2019 These amazing pieces of 1960s engineering could compute and display several flight parameters and mission events based on the nominal flight plan. That’s why, as Northcutt noted, the Apollo 13 slide rule rapidly became inaccurate. Half a century later, in these days of ubiquitous smartphones and tablets, aerospace companies or space agencies develop and publish free mobile apps for space missions and science. They d...

Ten years ago, on May 20, 2009, I watched the live stream of a press event the European Space Agency (ESA) held in Paris to introduce an international group of candidates selected to become the new European astronauts. As the six members of the new group entered the room I instantly recognized my friend Samantha Cristoforetti , who was the first to take the floor for a short statement . I had known Samantha since a couple of years earlier, before she applied to become an ESA astronaut. I had the opportunity of following her progress in the selection and, as the date of the ESA event approached, I noticed something was off. She had deleted her Facebook profile a few days earlier and kept radio silence. This was a hint she had a chance, which turned out to be true. Samantha was launched into space for the first time on November 23, 2014 and spent almost exactly 200 days on the International Space Station.

As a longtime space geek I’m familiar with the history of space exploration and the Apollo program. I read the classics and after so much time it’s difficult to tell something new or from a different angle. So I’m selective with what I read, especially with anything published long after the facts or that’s not technical. The cover of Shoot for the Moon in the Google Play Books app on a Pixel 2 XL. But although Shoot for the Moon: The Space Race and the Extraordinary Voyage of Apollo 11 by James Donovan is a recent work published in March 2019, ahead of the upcoming 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, deciding to pick it up was a no brainer. The reason is this blurb by legendary astronaut Mike Collins who was a crewmember of the historical mission: This is the best book on Apollo that I have read. Extensively researched and meticulously accurate, it successfully traces not only the technical highlights of the program but also the contributions of the extraordinary people who made i...