January 9, 2014

Orbital Sciences Cygnus spacecraft atop an Antares rocket right after lift-off (Image NASA TV)

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A little while ago, Orbital Sciences Corporation’s Cygnus spacecraft lifted off on an Antares rocket from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS), part of NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) on Wallops Island, Virginia. After about 15 minutes it successfully separated from the last stage of the rocket and started its journey. This is its first official mission, Orbital-1 or simply Orb-1, of transport of supplies to the International Space Station for NASA.

Coyote by Allen Steele

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The novel “Coyote” by Allen Steele was published for the first time in 2002 fixing-up some stories published separately between 2001 and 2002 in versions that sometimes a little different. It’s the first novel in the Coyote series.

Coyote is a moon of a gas giant planet type in the system 47 Ursae Majoris, 46 light years from Earth and can support life. In 2070, the regime of the nation built after the fall of the USA decides to send to Coyote the URSS Alabama, a spaceship capable of interstellar travel carrying a crew in suspended animation.