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Does that topic sound exciting? This last few weeks have been a great if you’ve got an interest in spaceflight. Some pretty cool stuff has happened, it’s just a shame so few know about it.

Phoenix

• The most recent mission to Mars, the Phoenix lander, safely landed on the 26th in a near perfect landing.  Since then Phoenix has been proceeding well with it’s science mission, there’s been some problems, but most of them have been overcome due to the great work of the team.
• To keep track of Phoenix, the Planetary Society Blog gives wonderful sol by sol summaries and brilliant round-ups of all the news in unmanned exploration through the week
• Also, the Phoenix Lander home page for the latest raw photos down from Mars.
• Or if twitter is your thing, Phoenix is twittering

• The Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter took this incredible photo of Phoenix landing while itself travelling at orbital velocity, and Phoenix at hundeds of km/h.

STS-124 – Discovery

• Launched in spectacular Shuttle style last week, taking the laboratory for the Japanese Kibo Module to the International Space Station. The launch was nearly perfect, with no concerning foam losses from the External Tank.
• This mission there’s been three space walks, which have been aiding the installation of Kibo, investigation of a problematic Solar Array Rotary Joint (on which one of the Solar power arrays turns to track the sun) and housekeeping tasks for the station.
• To keep track of and learn about Discovery’s mission, take a look at SpaceflightNow or for all of the unpublished and raw details NASASpaceFlight.com
• Or for video, take a look at ReelNASA
  
  

SpaceX Test Firing

• SpaceX tested five of their Merlin 1C engines on their Big Falcon Test Stand (BFTS) and are on track to add more. They’ll eventually reach 9 Kerosene/Liquid Oxygen powered engines, which will be used on their Falcon 9 launch vehicle.
• For a video and more details see the press release or the YouTube video