On Sunday, June 21, NASA’s Pegasus barge arrived at the Launch Complex 39 turn basin at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida carrying NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.
Our next major space telescope has arrived at the launch site! On Sunday, June 21, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope completed its voyage from our Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland down to our Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Now, the observatory will undergo final preparations before liftoff on Sunday, Aug. 30.
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope was carefully packed into a protective container for its eight-day voyage to the launch site.
Engineers loaded Roman into a protective container and drove it to the Port of Baltimore. Over the course of the next eight days, the observatory traveled over 800 nautical miles down the Atlantic coast on NASA’s Pegasus barge to its new temporary home in Florida. Roman also brought a buddy along for the ride: a weather cover for the Artemis III SLS (Space Launch System) core stage.
A variety of specialists attended the Roman observatory’s journey from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., to the port it shipped from at Baltimore. That includes tree trimmers who periodically cleared the path for the large transportation vehicle to pass through.
Upon arrival, technicians moved Roman into a massive airlock within Kennedy’s Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility. This facility has an air filtration system that removes the contaminants that entered the building when the massive door opened. This step protects the spacecraft when it comes out of its transportation container.
Fittingly, our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope traveled to the launch site in a special transport vehicle called the CHARIOT (Conditioned Housing for Air, Road, Imaging optics assembly, and Observatory Transport) on a barge known as the Pegasus.
Next up is a grand unboxing! Technicians will use powerful cranes to move Roman to its work platform, called the Pantheon. The team will test Roman’s solar panels and inspect its insulation and thermal blankets to ensure the observatory is fully protected and flight ready. Then they’ll load about 290 gallons (roughly 1,100 liters) of hydrazine fuel into the tanks.
Once in space, Roman will deliver mind-boggling observations at a rapid rate. The mission will pair a large field of view with crisp infrared vision to scan vast, deep swaths of sky. That will help astronomers explore dark matter, dark energy, exoplanets, and much more. Since each of Roman’s surveys will sample such a large volume of the cosmos, very little will be beyond Roman’s reach.
Follow along with Roman’s road to launch at science.nasa.gov/blogs/roman.
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International cooperation is actually so effective that most people don’t even notice it happening, and then erroneously believe it can’t solve anything.
Fixing issues before they develop into actual disasters is such an underappreciated thing it hurts at all levels.
We don't talk about acid rain because there isn't any more acid rain because when acid rain started happening and we learned that the cause was mainly sulphur oxide and carbon monooxide from car exhausts, countries all over the world made it a law that car companies had to produce cars that produced less exhaust with better effectivenes (burning the fuel all the way to CO2 instead of the halfassed CO) and oil rafineries to remove the sulphur from the gasoline in the first place.
We don't talk about computers crashing because of the turn of the century, because thousands of programmers worked very hard to write updates and patches for Every Single Program humanity as a whole used back in 1999 and then somehow managed to failtest, distribute, and update every single device and system, be it an online or offline one before the midnight of the 1st january of 2000.
On a much smaller scale, no one ever commenta or notices cleaners and housekeepers doing their job - be it at home or at whole buildings - because they always make sure that there's nothing to notice. But don't be fooled - at any point of your life you are one week of them not doing away from swimming in trash and filth with nothing to eat and nothing clean to wear. Only then you would notice.
Now it's time to do that thing again and make sure that we don't kill our whole planetary ecosystem within the next century.
I like to fuck around and waste time for at least ~6-10 hours per day, and let me tell you, that really puts some pressure on your schedule. you have no idea how busy I am
This is all GREAT. I turned 40 last week, so permit me to add what I learned in my 30s:
keep on not working for startups
sometimes there comes a point where the thing (fandom, hobby, friendship, romantic relationship) you loved no longer brings you joy. And that's okay. Try to mourn the loss, take joy in the memories, and don't burn any bridges in case ten years go by and you find yourself back in that fandom/hobby/relationship again
it turns out that (ugh) moderate regular exercise is (spit) good for you. The sooner you make it part of your life, the easier it'll be
related: if you throw yourself into a new exercise regime too hard and too fast, without stopping to rest or consider whether a particular move is good for you ... well, shoulder injuries are painful and consults with orthopedic surgeons are expensive
knees are bastards too
don't even get me started on ankles
there may come a time when your digestive system is too fragile for ibuprofin. I'm sorry
one day you're gonna wake up and realise you no longer give any fucks about some things that used to bother you
on the other hand, you might be alarmed to realise what you still give a fuck about
never get down on the floor without an exit strategy for getting back up
I turn 50 this year. what I have learned in my 40s:
"loving yourself" is less of a feeling and more of an action. you can start doing it any time and it will make your life better and better as you go on
this will happen incrementally - be patient
along those lines, if you haven't started making an active effort to quit shit-talking yourself, suck it up and do it
no, shut up. do it. "but it's haaaaard!" don't care. do it.
whether you like it or not, you are mortal and you need to go to the doctor for an annual checkup
stretch regularly - your future self will thank you
at some point you will encounter people much younger than you arguing passionately and incorrectly about history you personally remember and experienced
this will be infuriating and annoying
otoh, most other things just... will not matter to you as much
at some point you will shift from wanting to go out to being like "eh" and deciding to stay in. this is okay.
you will have absolutely no idea what The Youth are talking about and you will not care
but if you keep your mind open to new ideas you'll never be irrelevant
your company still doesn't love you - don't give them more than they pay you for
get a fucking hobby, especially a hobby that involves physically creating/handling something and/or moving your body in physical space. it will do you more good than you can imagine
I'm talking that massive, never-ending Discord chat with your bestie? The one that makes you giggle through the day? It's not a "waste of time," it's what time was made for
If that's fanfic for your favorite characters who never even met on screen celebrate that!
If that's building a tiny fleet of snake villagers for your snake town and they just cover your mantel hell yes!
If that's collecting pillows and making a fort of them every weekend I'll be right over
areudirty
titsay
