Blog
NASA and Sierra Space Prepare for Dream Chaser’s Historic Flight to the International Space Station
“NASA and Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser spacecraft prepares to deliver cargo to the International Space Station, revolutionizing cargo resupply.”
NASA and Sierra Space are on the verge of a significant milestone in space exploration, as they make progress towards the first flight of the Dream Chaser spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS). This uncrewed cargo spaceplane, set to launch in 2024 as part of NASA’s commercial resupply services, showcases the advancements in reusable spacecraft technology and the growing collaboration between NASA and private space companies.
Sierra Space
Dream Chaser and Shooting Star:
At the heart of the Dream Chaser cargo system lies two essential components: the Dream Chaser spacecraft and the Shooting Star cargo module. The Dream Chaser, a lifting body spacecraft, is a modified version of the HL-20 spacecraft developed at NASA’s Langley Research Center. Designed for reusability, Dream Chaser can be utilized up to 15 times, distinguishing it from other cargo vehicles. The Shooting Star cargo module complements the spacecraft, enabling the delivery and disposal of pressurized and unpressurized cargo to and from the space station. While the cargo module is single-use and disposed of before re-entry, the Dream Chaser spacecraft itself can be relaunched within a remarkably short timeframe of just 24 hours.
Mission Overview:
Sierra Space’s first flight of Dream Chaser aims to conduct in-orbit demonstrations to certify the spacecraft for future missions. Teams at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Johnson Space Center, and the Dream Chaser Mission Control Center will closely monitor the flight. Sierra Space flight controllers will oversee the spacecraft until it is handed over to the ground operations team at NASA Kennedy following landing.
The mission involves both far-field and near-field demonstrations. Far-field demonstrations, conducted outside the vicinity of the space station, include showcasing attitude control, translational maneuvers, and abort capabilities. Near-field demonstrations, closer to the space station, involve using LIDAR sensors, responding to space station commands, and performing controlled approaches. Dream Chaser will approach the station, and a station crew member will use the Canadarm2 robotic arm to grapple the spacecraft’s cargo module, which will then be installed on the space station.
Cargo Delivery and Return:
Dream Chaser’s inaugural flight to the ISS has a payload capacity of over 7,800 pounds. Future missions are being designed to accommodate longer stays of up to 75 days and deliver as much as 11,500 pounds of cargo, with flexibility to load cargo up to 24 hours before launch. Upon departure, Dream Chaser can return over 3,500 pounds of cargo and experiment samples to Earth, while its cargo module can dispose of over 8,700 pounds of trash during reentry.
Return to Earth:
After approximately 45 days at the ISS, Dream Chaser will be uninstalled using Canadarm2. The spacecraft’s return journey begins with a deorbit burn, followed by re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. Dream Chaser will then glide to a runway landing at Kennedy’s Launch and Landing Facility, reminiscent of NASA’s space shuttle program. This landing marks the first time a spacecraft has touched down at the facility since the final space shuttle flight in 2011.
The upcoming flight of the Dream Chaser spacecraft to the International Space Station signifies a major step forward in NASA’s commercial resupply services. The collaboration between NASA and Sierra Space showcases the advancements in reusable spaceplane technology and paves the way for more frequent and efficient cargo missions to the space station. As Dream Chaser proves its capabilities, it opens new possibilities for delivering supplies, conducting experiments, and supporting future human space exploration endeavors.
For further updates on NASA’s commercial resupply services, visit the official NASA website at https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/launch/index.html. The future of space exploration is undoubtedly exciting, with Dream Chaser at the forefront of innovation and progress.
Author
Discover more from Daily News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
On December 1, 1948, a Kentucky Air National Guard pilot named Thomas Mantell was on a routine flight when he encountered an unidentified flying object (UFO) that would make him a part of UFO history. This incident is now known as the Mantell UFO Incident.
Mantell was flying an F-51 Mustang when he received a message from the tower that an object was spotted in the sky that was “about one-quarter the size of the full moon and of a white color.” Mantell was ordered to investigate the object, which was reported to be moving in a southward direction at a high rate of speed.
At first, Mantell thought the object was a weather balloon or some other type of aircraft. However, as he approached the object, he realized that it was not any type of aircraft that he had ever seen before. According to reports, Mantell described the object as being “metallic in appearance and of tremendous size.”
Mantell continued to pursue the object, climbing to an altitude of 22,500 feet. He reported that the object was moving at a high rate of speed and was still climbing. Mantell’s last transmission to the tower was that he was closing in on the object and that it was “directly ahead and above him.”
Moments later, Mantell’s plane crashed, killing him instantly. The official cause of the crash was listed as “pilot error.” The incident immediately became a subject of controversy and speculation among UFO enthusiasts and skeptics alike.
The incident was investigated by the United States Air Force, which later released a report stating that the object was most likely a weather balloon. However, many UFO enthusiasts have remained skeptical of this explanation, citing the speed and altitude of the object as being inconsistent with a weather balloon. They argue that the maneuverability and velocity observed during the sighting are beyond the capabilities of conventional weather balloons, which are generally slow-moving and unable to achieve high altitudes and rapid directional changes reported in the Mantell UFO Incident. Additionally, some witnesses described the object as being metallic and appearing to have a purposeful navigation system, further fueling speculation that it was not a simple weather device.
Despite the official explanation, the Mantell UFO Incident remains one of the most well-known and debated UFO sightings in history. The incident continues to capture the imagination of UFO enthusiasts and skeptics alike, and has become a part of UFO lore and legend. Researchers and investigators often revisit the Mantell case in documentaries, books, and articles, attempting to provide new insights or uncover additional evidence that may have been overlooked. The enduring interest in the Mantell UFO Incident also highlights the broader fascination with the possibility of extraterrestrial life and the quest to explain unidentified aerial phenomena. This continued intrigue ensures that the Mantell UFO Incident remains a topic of discussion and speculation for years to come.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantell_UFO_incident
https://stmdailynews.com/category/stm-blog/blog/
Discover more from Daily News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
STM Daily News
Better but not stellar: Pollsters faced familiar complaints, difficulties in assessing Trump-Harris race
W. Joseph Campbell, American University School of Communication
An oracle erred badly. The most impressive results were turned in by a little-known company in Brazil. A nagging problem reemerged, and some media critics turned profane in their assessments.
So it went for pollsters in the 2024 presidential election. Their collective performance, while not stellar, was improved from that of four years earlier. Overall, polls signaled a close outcome in the race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
That is what the election produced: a modest win for Trump.
With votes still being counted in California and a few other states more than a week after Election Day, Trump had received 50.1% of the popular vote to Harris’ 48.1%, a difference of 2 points. That margin was closer than Joe Biden’s win by 4.5 points over Trump in 2020. It was closer than Hillary Clinton’s popular vote victory in 2016, closer than Barack Obama’s wins in 2008 and 2012.
There were, moreover, no errors among national pollsters quite as dramatic as CNN’s estimate in 2020 that Biden led Trump by 12 points.
This time, CNN’s final national poll said the race was deadlocked – an outcome anticipated by six other pollsters, according to data compiled by RealClearPolitics.
The most striking discrepancy this year was the Marist College poll, conducted for NPR and PBS. It estimated Harris held a 4-point lead nationally at campaign’s end.
‘Oracle’ of Iowa’s big miss
In any event, a sense lingered among critics that the Trump-Harris election had resulted in yet another polling embarrassment, another entry in the catalog of survey failures in presidential elections, which is the topic of my latest book, “Lost in a Gallup.”
Comedian Jon Stewart gave harsh voice to such sentiments, saying of pollsters on his late-night program on election night, “I don’t ever want to fucking hear from you again. Ever. … You don’t know shit about shit, and I don’t care for you.”
Megyn Kelly, a former Fox News host, also denounced pollsters, declaring on her podcast the day after the election: “Polling is a lie. They don’t know anything.”
Two factors seemed to encourage such derision – a widely discussed survey of Iowa voters released the weekend before the election and Trump’s sweep of the seven states where the outcome turned.
The Iowa poll injected shock and surprise into the campaign’s endgame, reporting that Harris had taken a 3-point lead in the state over Trump. The result was likened to a “bombshell” and its implications seemed clear: If Harris had opened a lead in a state with Iowa’s partisan profile, her prospects of winning elsewhere seemed strong, especially in the Great Lakes swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
The survey was conducted for the Des Moines Register by J. Ann Selzer, a veteran Iowa-based pollster with an outstanding reputation in opinion research. In a commentary in The New York Times in mid-September, Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson declared Selzer “the oracle of Iowa.” Rachel Maddow of MSNBC praised Selzer’s polls before the election for their “uncanny predictive accuracy.” Ratings released in June by data guru Nate Silver gave Selzer’s polls an A-plus grade.
But this time, Selzer’s poll missed dramatically.
Trump carried Iowa by 13 points, meaning the poll was off by 16 points – a stunning divergence for an accomplished pollster.
“Even the mighty have been humbled” by Trump’s victory, the Times of London said of Selzer’s polling failure.
Selzer said afterward she will “be reviewing data from multiple sources with hopes of learning why that (discrepancy) happened.”
It is possible, other pollsters suggested, that Selzer’s reliance on telephone-based surveying contributed to the polling failure. “Phone polling alone … isn’t going to reach low-propensity voters or politically disengaged nonwhite men,” Tom Lubbock and James Johnson wrote in a commentary for The Wall Street Journal.
These days, few pollsters rely exclusively on the phone to conduct election surveys; many of them have opted for hybrid approaches that combine, for example, phone, text and online sampling techniques.
Surprise sweep of swing states
Trump’s sweep of the seven vigorously contested swing states surely contributed to perceptions that polls had misfired again.
According to RealClearPolitics, Harris held slender, end-of-campaign polling leads in Michigan and Wisconsin, while Trump was narrowly ahead in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Nevada.
Trump won them all, an outcome no pollster anticipated – except for AtlasIntel of Sao Paulo, Brazil, a firm “about which little is known,” as The New Republic noted.
AtlasIntel estimated Trump was ahead in all seven swing states by margins that hewed closely to the voting outcomes. In none of the swing states did AtlasIntel’s polling deviate from the final vote tally by more than 1.3 points, an impressive performance.
AtlasIntel did not respond to email requests I sent requesting information about its background and polling technique. The company describes itself as “a leading innovator in online polling” and says it uses “a proprietary methodology,” without revealing much about it.
Its founder and chief executive is Andrei Roman, who earned a doctorate in government at Harvard University. Roman took to X, formerly Twitter, in the election’s aftermath to post a chart that touted AtlasIntel as “the most accurate pollster of the US Presidential Election.”
It was a burst of pollster braggadocio reminiscent of a kind that has emerged periodically since the 1940s. That was when polling pioneer George Gallup placed two-page advertising spreads in the journalism trade publication “Editor & Publisher” to assert the accuracy of his polls in presidential elections.
Underestimating Trump’s support again
A significant question facing pollsters this year – their great known unknown – was whether modifications made to sampling techniques would allow them to avoid underestimating Trump’s support, as they had in 2016 and 2020.
Misjudging Trump’s backing is a nagging problem for pollsters. The results of the 2024 election indicate that the shortcoming persists. By margins ranging from 0.9 points to 2.7 points, polls overall understated Trump’s support in the seven swing states, for example.
Some polls misjudged Trump’s backing by even greater margins. CNN, for example, underestimated Trump’s vote by 4.3 points in North Carolina, by more than 6 points in Michigan and Wisconsin as well as Arizona.
Results that misfire in the same direction suggest that adjustments to sampling methodologies were inadequate or ineffective for pollsters in seeking to reach Trump backers of all stripes.
W. Joseph Campbell, Professor Emeritus of Communication, American University School of Communication
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
STM Daily News is a vibrant news blog dedicated to sharing the brighter side of human experiences. Emphasizing positive, uplifting stories, the site focuses on delivering inspiring, informative, and well-researched content. With a commitment to accurate, fair, and responsible journalism, STM Daily News aims to foster a community of readers passionate about positive change and engaged in meaningful conversations. Join the movement and explore stories that celebrate the positive impacts shaping our world.
Discover more from Daily News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
In a remarkable turn of events, recently released documents have confirmed the recovery of debris from a UFO that was shot down by a U.S. F-16 fighter jet over Lake Huron on February 12, 2023. This incident marked the third notable UFO occurrence in North America within that month, following a high-profile engagement involving a Chinese surveillance balloon just days earlier.
The octagon-shaped object, which had strings dangling from it, raised eyebrows when U.S. military forces targeted it. The F-16 pilot fired at the unidentified flying object twice, successfully striking it with one missile before it plummeted into Canadian waters. The incident sparked immediate attention from both American and Canadian authorities.
According to a Freedom of Information request filed by CTVNews.ca, the wreckage was located on the shoreline of Lake Huron, yet this significant discovery went largely unreported to the public at the time. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), alongside the American and Canadian Coast Guard, initiated a brief search for the debris. However, they concluded their efforts prematurely, citing deteriorating weather conditions and a low likelihood of recovery as the main factors.
In March 2023, the RCMP managed to recover the UFO wreckage from its crash site. In communications obtained through the documents, a member of the RCMP informed a Canadian military general that the module was traced back to a company specializing in weather monitoring equipment, shedding light on the mysterious object.
The series of UFO incidents in February 2023 has piqued the interest of lawmakers and the public alike, especially in light of the U.S. military’s actions against the Chinese surveillance balloon. The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability has held multiple hearings on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs), with the latest session occurring on November 13, 2023. Experts like Michael Gold, a former NASA leader and member of the independent UAP study team, emphasized the importance of courage in seeking the truth about such phenomena.
As the conversation surrounding UAPs continues to evolve, the recovery of debris from Lake Huron serves as a reminder of the ongoing mystery and intrigue that surrounds unidentified objects in our skies. The implications of these incidents extend beyond mere curiosity, potentially impacting national security and public perception of aerial phenomena. Stay tuned for further developments as authorities continue to unravel the truth behind these intriguing occurrences.
Related Links
STM Daily News is a vibrant news blog dedicated to sharing the brighter side of human experiences. Emphasizing positive, uplifting stories, the site delivers inspiring, informative, and well-researched content. With a commitment to accurate, fair, and responsible journalism, STM Daily News aims to foster a community of readers passionate about positive change and engaged in meaningful conversations. Join the movement and explore stories that celebrate the positive impacts shaping our world.
Discover more from Daily News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
-
Urbanism1 year agoSignal Hill, California: A Historic Enclave Surrounded by Long Beach
-
News2 years agoDiana Gregory Talks to us about Diana Gregory’s Outreach Services
-
Senior Pickleball Report2 years agoThe Absolute Most Comfortable Pickleball Shoe I’ve Ever Worn!
-
Senior Pickleball Report2 years agoACE PICKLEBALL CLUB TO DEBUT THEIR HIGHLY ANTICIPATED INDOOR PICKLEBALL FRANCHISES IN THE US, IN EARLY 2023
-
STM Blog2 years agoWorld Naked Gardening Day: Celebrating Body Acceptance and Nature
-
Automotive2 years ago2023 Nissan Sentra pricing starts at $19,950
-
Travel2 years agoUnique Experiences at the CitizenM
-
Senior Pickleball Report2 years ago“THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARDS OF PICKLEBALL” – VOTING OPEN