ISS, STARLINER, JPL, E OS 50 ANOS DA MISSÃO APOLLO 15.

Video from the channel OLHAR SIDERAL about Apollo 15, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 49:51. Language: Portuguese. Video type: News.

Live broadcast of the Brazilian channel Olhar Sideral, hosted by Robson Rodrigues, covering several space news items from late July 2021. The main one is the postponement of Boeing's Starliner capsule second test flight (Orbital Flight Test-2), scheduled for July 30 and moved to the next opportunity, Tuesday August 3 at 13:20 US East Coast time, atop an Atlas V rocket. The mission was meant to test the spacecraft from start to finish: launch, docking at the International Space Station and return to Earth in the US western desert, as a step prior to certification and the first crewed flight.

The delay was due to the arrival of the Russian multipurpose laboratory module Nauka. Hours after its docking, on July 29, 2021, its thrusters fired unexpectedly and pushed the station out of its orientation; ground teams regained attitude control and the crew was never in danger. Days earlier, on July 26, the Pirs module had separated along with a Progress spacecraft, having served since 2001 as a docking port for Russian spacecraft and an airlock for spacewalks. The program adds two other news items: archival data from the Hubble telescope revealing water vapor in the atmosphere of Ganymede, Jupiter's moon, formed when the ice on its surface turns directly into gas; and an index developed by Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists with international researchers to track how tropical forests respond to warming and human land use.

The segment devoted to Apollo 15 marks the 50th anniversary of the 1971 mission, with David Scott, Alfred Worden and James Irwin. It was NASA's fourth crewed mission to land on the Moon and the first to use the Lunar Roving Vehicle, with which Scott and Irwin spent over 18 hours exploring the surface while Worden remained in the command module. A testimony from John Tribe, Apollo propulsion and launch team supervisor, is announced, though his audio is not intelligible in the transcript. The rest of the broadcast covers the host's opinions on the Brazilian space program, promotion of the channel's sponsors, and a review of weather maps of Brazil.