Launch of SpaceX Falcon Heavy on debut test flight from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Feb. 6, 2018.  Credit: Ken Kremer/SpaceUpClose.com/kenkremer.com Ken Kremer  —SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM –11 January 2019 CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – The hugely ambitious new space aerospace firm SpaceX plans to lay off about ten percent of its total workforce numbering some 6000

The crew access arm, or astronaut walkway, at Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, FL, is extended to the SpaceX Crew Dragon DM-1 spacecraft soon after the Falcon 9 rocket was erected vertical on Jan. 3, 2019. Credit: SpaceX Ken Kremer  —SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM –8 January 2019 CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – The launch target date for SpaceX’s first unpiloted

China’s Yutu 2 rover lands on the far side of the moon and drives off the Chang’e 4 landing platform on Jan 3, 2019. Credit: CNSA/CASC/CLEP Ken Kremer  —SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM –6 January 2019 JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERISTY APPLIED PHYSICS LABORATORY, LAUREL, MD –  China because the first nation in history to land a robotic spacecraft on the far side of Earth’s

Video Caption: Brian May – New Horizons (Ultima Thule Mix) [Official Music Video]. Celebrating the whole 13-year Journey of New Horizons probe. This is Brian’s personal tribute to the on-going NASA New Horizons mission, which on New Years Day 2019 achieved the most distant spacecraft flyby in history at Ultima Thule.  Credit: Brian May Ken Kremer  —SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM –6 January

Ultima Thule in 3D: The New Horizons science team created the first stereo image pair of Ultima Thule. This image can be viewed with stereo glasses to reveal the Kuiper Belt object’s three-dimensional shape. The images that created the stereo pair were taken by the Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) at 4:23 and 5:01 Universal Time on January 1, 2019 from

This image taken by the Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) is the most detailed of Ultima Thule returned so far by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft. It was taken at 5:01 Universal Time on January 1, 2019, just 30 minutes before closest approach from a range of 18,000 miles (28,000 kilometers), with an original scale of 459 feet (140 meters) per pixel.

At top is a composite of two images taken by New Horizons’ high-resolution Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), which provides the best indication of Ultima Thule’s size and shape so far. Preliminary measurements of this Kuiper Belt object suggest it is approximately 20 miles long by 10 miles wide (32 kilometers by 16 kilometers). Team members at the Jan 1, 2018

This image shows the first detection of 2014 MU69 (nicknamed “Ultima Thule”), using the highest resolution mode (known as “1×1”) of the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) aboard the New Horizons spacecraft. Three separate images, each with an exposure time of 0.5 seconds, were combined to produce the image shown here. All three images were taken on Dec. 24, 2018,

Illustration of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft encountering 2014 MU69 – nicknamed “Ultima Thule” – a Kuiper Belt object that orbits one billion miles beyond Pluto. Set for New Year’s 2019, New Horizons’ exploration of Ultima will be the farthest space probe flyby in history. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI Ken Kremer  —SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM –28 December 2018 JHU APPLIED PHYSICS LABORATORY, MD / KENNEDY

Released from the Transporter-Erector 9 Merlin 1D first stage engines soar past gripper arm in Up Close view as SpaceX Falcon 9 soars to MEO carrying GPS III SV01 from Space Launch Complex 40 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, Dec. 23, 2018 at 8:51 a.m. EST for USAF. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/spaceupclose.com Ken Kremer  —SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM –25 December 2018