Blue Origin's New Glenn poised to disrupt heavy-lift rocket market
Blue Origin has moved its New Glenn rocket to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station for preflight testing. Towering taller than a football field, the New Glenn rocket is a potential game-changer in the heavy-lift space market.
While no official launch date has been announced, Blue Origin officials stated on Monday that they still hope to launch the rocket by the end of the year. Preflight preparations included an upper-stage tanking test on Tuesday at Launch Complex 36.
Solar power continues to shine brightly in Florida
A new study says nearly thirty thousand [30,000] Floridians installed solar panels, bringing the total number of installations to more than a quarter million.
Sean Gallagher is a senior vice president at the Solar Energy Industries Association. He credits the rebound to clean energy tax incentives passed by Congress a couple of years ago. This comes despite pushback from electric providers like Florida Power and Light against net metering, which allows excess energy to be sold back to the power companies.
“ FPL has made several runs at getting rid of net metering, and in fact, Governor DeSantis had to veto a bill a couple years ago that would have changed net metering very badly, and the governor recognized that customers ought to be able to have the choice to do what they want to with their own energy systems on their own homes.”
He said public acceptance of solar panels has increased recently. And that has only gone up with the power outages caused by this year's hurricanes.
Saildrone gets contract to survey part of Florida’s coastal waters
Saildrone, a company that pioneered using uncrewed vessels to study hurricanes and related weather off Florida, is now helping map the state's coastal waters. Brian Connon (Con-Unn), Saildrone vice president of Ocean Mapping, tells a bit about the effort:
In order to support any of the modeling that we're trying to do for coastal resilience, or for storm surge and things are happening with the heavy weather events, you've got to have a really good knowledge of the bottom of the ocean, because it really impacts the water as it's moving.
Connon said mapping the coasts will help manage Florida’s resources and the state’s dependency on the ocean
The data Saildrone’s uncrewed vessels collect will be available for immediate use to update navigational charts and identify navigation hazards, provide fundamental baseline data for scientific research, and provide information for use by emergency managers and responders.
Rescued sea turtles are warming up in the Florida Keys
Twenty critically endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtles arrived in the Florida Keys yesterday (Thursday). They’re being treated after suffering "cold stunning." They were rescued after getting trapped in the waters off Cape Cod.
“Sea turtles are ectothermic. What that means is they take on the temperature of the air and the water surrounding them. Anything below 50 degrees Fahrenheit can become a mortality event for a sea turtle.”
Bette (Betty) Zirkelbach (ZIR kull back) greeted the Kemp’s ridleys as they arrived in banana boxes, flown by volunteer pilots. She manages the Turtle Hospital in Marathon.
“We are lucky that it's already warm here, so not only will we warm them up, but we're gonna deal with all the things that happen from those cold temperatures.”
That could mean treatment for pneumonia, infections, or other ailments.
More: www.floridatoday.com
