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The Soyuz ST-B awaiting its October 20 launch from the European Spaceport in French Guiana. Credit: ESA - S. Corvaja, 2011

This Thursday morning (Update: Launch was postponed to Friday due to a fueling problem) when a Soyuz rocket lifts off from French Guiana, it will mark a couple of important milestones: the first Soyuz to launch outside of Russia or Kazakhstan in the rocket’s 44-year history, and the first step in assembling Europe’s new Galileo satellite navigation system.

The French first built this launch facility near Kourou in 1964. The European Space Agency started funding the spaceport when the agency was created in 1974, and now uses the prime location — just five degrees north of the equator — for launching geostationary satellites. In 2003, the spaceport began construction of a launch site for the newest model of the Russian vehicle, a version of the Soyuz-2 called the Soyuz ST. Construction was completed in 2008 and, though not planned at this time, the pad can be adapted for human-rated Soyuz launchers, of the kind used to send cosmonauts and astronauts to the space station.

The three-stage Soyuz ST-B was lifted into vertical position on the launchpad last Friday, while the Arianespace team — which runs launch operations in French Guiana — went through full dress rehearsals to prepare for the launch tomorrow. You can see a slideshow of the launch preparations here.

The vehicle carries two Galileo In-Orbit Validation satellites, the first in Europe’s planned navigation system. These two testbed satellites will eventually be joined by about 30 fully operational spacecraft; the ESA and the European Union hope the system will be fully functional by 2014. Galileo is built to be even more accurate than the U.S. GPS (Global Positioning System), and will be freely available to civilians, giving European nations their own independent system.

You can watch the launch online at Arianespace’s good-looking new website that went live earlier this week.

In our December 2009 issue we noted that: “Operationally, the X-37 could become a space version of a long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle—the world’s first space UAV.”

Now it looks like we might be about to see that happen.  The second test mission for the U.S. Air Force semi-secret spaceplane, launched in March, has passed 200 days in orbit, and is on track to continue past the initial flight’s 225-day run.  The original plan was for the X-37B to orbit for 270 days, but as Space.com has reported, the Air Force seems confident that it will extend the test if everything continues to operate normally.

The Air Force hopes its unmanned X-37 (in taxi tests in 2007) will take on some of the functions of the shuttle. Courtesy USAF.

After years of speculation about the vehicle’s ultimate purpose, we’re also starting to see some solid information, including a paper presented by Boeing’s Chief Engineer for the Experimental Systems Group, Arthur C. Grantz, at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics SPACE 2011 conference in September. In it, Grantz discusses the benefits and uses of an unmanned, reusable space vehicle and the option for a derivative vehicle that can carry humans, as well.

Boeing bills the X-37 as, of course, a replacement and an improvement over NASA’s space shuttle orbiter, at least when it comes to carrying experiments to and from low-Earth orbit. Unlike the shuttle, the unmanned X-37B can stay in orbit for months. With the shuttle retired, it offers a way to gently return fragile experiments from the space station, saving them from a risky high-impact landing aboard a Soyuz. (It can also carry much more mass than the cramped Soyuz). Grantz says the X-37 will “operate more like [an] airborne space platform” where the reusable bus can adapt to a variety of payloads with “a true ‘plug and play’ integration environment.”

The X-37B is the model currently in orbit, but Boeing has on the drawing board a 160- to 180-percent larger version called the X-37C. Though still significantly smaller than the space shuttle, the X-37C could “provide both cargo and crew transport to and from the ISS, Bigelow Space Habitats, or other forms of space tourism in LEO,” writes Grantz, and could be launched “comfortably” atop an Atlas V-type rocket.

Inside the cargo bay, pressurized and unpressurized modules could be adapted to fit any combination of cargo and up to six people. All of the space plane’s maneuvering — rendezvous, docking, deorbiting, re-entering, and landing – would be done autonomously, but there’s room for a back-up pilot who would have “a virtual wind screen view and direct optical periscope views.”

With this summary from Boeing and the declaration that future versions of the X-37 would be directed at the space tourism industry, it seems that the once super secret Air Force space plane might soon be ready to take off the veil.

Cue the Lawrence of Arabia theme. Actually, I prefer the soundtrack that the Mars Exploration Rover team used for this time-lapse video showing Opportunity’s 13-mile trek from Victoria crater to Endeavour crater. They took accelerometer data from the rover and converted it to audible sound, which gets louder when the robot is moving over rocky ground, and quieter when it’s crossing sand dunes. The trip to Endeavour took three years, compressed here to three minutes. Here’s a view from Opportunity‘s navigation camera, taken just last Monday.

Pretty, pretty outer space. Credit: NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI)

As Oscar Wilde said, “Aestheticism is a search after the signs of the beautiful. It is the science of the beautiful through which men seek the correlation of the arts. It is, to speak more exactly, the search after the secret of life.” So what better place to turn the lens of aestheticism than images from our universe?

Researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have been doing just that though the Aesthetics and Astronomy project. They hoped that by studying how the public reacts to the beauty of nebulas and far-off galaxies, they can foster fascination with the science behind the images as well.

Turns out, however, that people don’t always choose beauty over science.  From The Harvard Crimson:

People responded more positively to images that were accompanied by an explanation, suggesting curiosity about the nature of the celestial event or object pictured, according to [Randall] Smith.

“There is a devaluing when you separate out function and form,” [Kimberly Kowal] Arcand said.

The A&A researchers said they believe that an understanding of the scientific nature of astronomical imagery can let people more fully appreciate its beauty—and conversely, that its aesthetic appeal can increase appreciation of the science.

The group’s research is ongoing, as they try to develop the best ways to convey scientific information through astronomical images, like using the “Cocktail Format” in captions — quick, memorable facts instead of lengthy, descriptive text.

Detail of "Underwater" by Stanley Goldstein, featured in Celestial Matters

And while we’re talking about pretty things in space, we should mention an unusual art exhibit appearing next weekend. Celestial Matters features ten artworks that spent time on the International Space Station. Well-known space tourist Richard Garriott de Cayeux, who hitched a ride on a Soyuz up to the ISS in 2008, commissioned a handful of artists to create pieces for the trip.  They were given weight, size, and material restrictions, but otherwise just instructed to “present a compelling interpretation of space and how it impacts and inspires the human perspective.” The exhibition is by Zero G Art and supports the Challenger Center.

You have to head to the Lower East Side to see it in person, but at least it’s a bit more doable than low-Earth orbit.  (You can see the works online, too.)  The exhibit is on display at the Charles Bank Gallery at 196 Bowery, New York City, from Friday through Sunday, Oct. 14-16, 12 to 7 p.m.

What draws me to Titan is the mystery. After 50 years of robotic exploration most other objects in the solar system have given up their secrets, at least to a first order. But Saturn’s largest moon is hidden by a perpetual cloud cover, so we have to work harder to see what’s underneath.

Which is why I find maps like this so appealing. A research team led by the University of Nantes in France stitched together six years’ worth of infrared images taken by the Cassini spacecraft over the course of 70 Titan flybys to produce a global mosaic. Because infrared penetrates the clouds, the surface is revealed. In this false-color composite, highlands appear bright and equatorial dune fields appear dark.

The mosaic varies in resolution, depending on how close Cassini was to the surface at the time a particular image was taken. But some of the fuzzy areas will get sharper. Another 48 Titan flybys are planned between now and 2017.