The satellite is called “Omid” which means “Hope” in Persian, and carries experimental control systems, communications equipment, and a small remote sensing payload, according to Iranian news reports.

I do find it a bit worrying that a nation with a stated hostile intent towards USA and Israel in particular, and the West in general, now has the capability to deliver whatever type of weapons they have (their secrecy about the nuclear installations, anyone ?) to any place in the world.

It remains, however, quite a feat from a nation to do what they have done, so we must have some respect for their technical abilities. Let us hope that they will learn the lesson of the Cold War – and that they will not start a “hot one”.

Find more information on Spaceflight Now

It comes due to the Martian Winter fast approaching, the solar panels are unable to keep the batteries charge…. and it is a little tricky to send someone to run a generator or change the batteries.

In a sense it is sad to lose a spacecraft, but Phoenix had done what it was supposed to do, and was operational for 2 months longer than its original 3 months mission. Not bad at all. The Odyssey orbiter appears to continue functioning, so not all is over yet, even if we are unlikely to hear it for some time while Mars passes behind the Sun (from our perspective).

I will set my receiver at 259.700 MHz (AM mode) listening for the possibly few seconds of communication to the ground.

Unless …. the launch is canceled at the last moment.

The three sites I looked up here are

NASA (of course)for general space travel and some astronomical images.

The Spitzer Space Telescope for images taken in infrared

and of course The Hubble Space Telescope with some of the most stunning astronomical images made

If you like images, maybe using them part of your web pages these are three very good sources.

Do not forget that many observatories and universities have images available. These include very old images from the classical telescopes in the world. I believe there is a project to scan all those ancient images before they are lost forever due to the deterioration pf the photographic material.

The old images *could* become important  for detecting transient events or variable phenomena, like recurring nova outbursts, so we can not afford to lose these images.

I did not understand much of it since the comms were in Russian. One word I did recognize the Russian word for “good” (or OK) was used frequently.

The communications can only be heard for about 5 minutes, because the spacecraft need to be “visible” for both my position and the ground station in Russia.

Nils in Germany made two mp3 recordings , with his permission I have uploaded them :

file1 and
file2

The plan is to have a Space Walk of about 40 minutes in order to test a newly made Chinese space suit, collect some scientific experiments from the outside of the craft and launch a small satellite sending images back to Earth. The Space Walk should happen on Friday or Saturday.

Exciting to see the Chinese emerge as a manned space faring nation. along with the US and Russia.

There are still not many nations/organisations capable of launching space craft into orbit. I count

- US
- Russia
- Europe (ESA)
- Japan
- India

did I forget anyone ?

I am curious to see when and if the Chinese will join the ISS. I think they belong there along with the others.