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Updates from the week ending Sunday, July 25th
This summary is generally published every Monday, and is a list of SL viewer / client releases (official and TPV) made during the previous week. When reading it, please note:
It is based on my Current Viewer Releases Page, a list of all Second Life viewers and clients that are in popular use (and of which I am aware), and which are recognised as adhering to the TPV Policy. This page includes comprehensive links to download pages, blog notes, release notes, etc., as well as links to any / all reviews of specific viewers / clients made within this blog.
By its nature, this summary presented here will always be in arrears, please refer to the Current Viewer Release Page for more up-to-date information.
Note that for purposes of length, TPV test viewers, preview / beta viewers / nightly builds are generally not recorded in these summaries.
Official LL Viewers
Release viewer: Fernet Maintenance RC, version 6.4.21.561414, dated July 14th, promoted July 19th – NEW.
Release channel cohorts:
CEF91 RC viewer, version 6.4.22.561752, issued July 24.
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery – miu miu miu’s Stamp, July 2021Miu miu miu (miumiumiusecond) is an artist who – I believe I’m correct in saying – tends not to exhibit to frequently within Second Life, preferring, as many do, to use Flickr as the medium to present her work.
What is striking about her work – as revealed by even the most casual flip through her Flickr photostream – is that whether focused on avatar studies or landscapes, whether posed or offered as a “natural” take, miu miu miu’s art is always given a sensitive touch of post-processing that allows her to offer pieces that are evocative of many different genres and presented in different styles – but which are all connected through an undeniable richness of narrative and content.
She is also an artist who is not afraid to express her joy in creating images or to openly publish multiple versions of the same image as she experiments with technique, colour and light. And both of these aspects of her work appear within in the portfolio she currently has offered for display within Dido’s Space at Nitroglobus Roof Gallery.
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery – miu miu miu’s Stamp, July 2021
Entitled miu miu miu’s Stamp, this is in some respects an impromptu exhibit; Dido explained that she’d been trying to get miu miu miu back to Nitroglobus since much earlier in the year, but schedules and inspiration hadn’t been good enough to align themselves. Then miu miu miu came across a folder of previously unpublished images on her computer, and decided to offer them as a collection to exhibit.
The central focus of the images is that of the COCO ball joint dolls (BJD) avatars produced by Cocoro Lemon and available through her in-world store, with the emphasis on head-and-shoulder portraits. While the doll avatars might not be everyone’s cup of tea, miu miu miu has used them here to great effect, the individual pieces offering what might be regarded as a surprising wealth of emotion considering their construct – and I’d cite in particular Indigo through Turquoise as they share one wall of the gallery as evidence of this, although every single piece carries an emotional depth.
There is also a sense of joy that permeates these pieces, mainly that is transmitted through the post-process colour palette that suggests miu miu miu genuinely lost herself in both the creation of the look, mood and tone of each piece and the the joy of simple experimentation with both the doll avatar and within PhotoShop itself.
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery – miu miu miu’s Stamp, July 2021Captivating, warm and marvellously expressive, miu miu miu’s Stamp also sits as an excellent companion / contrast to Mihailsk’s Baptism of Fire within the main hall of the gallery, and with which Stamp currently overlaps (and you can read about here).
An image of the International Space Station as it will look once all six iROSA solar arrays have been deployed and unfurled over three pairs of the the station’s existing primary arrays. Credit: NASA
It’s getting to be another busy period at the International Space Station, with a lot of comings and goings, together with the on-going upgrade work.
In June, NASA / SpaceX launched the CRS-22 resupply mission to the station carrying 3.2 tonnes of equipment and supplies. A part of that cargo comprised a pair of new “roll out” solar arrays (i.e. they are stowed as a tube, and then unfurled when mounted on the space station). Their arrival marked the start of a major plan to completely overhaul the station’s power generation capabilities by supplementing the current arrays.
Referred to as iROSA, the new arrays were installed over pairs of existing panel which have been getting steadily less efficient in converting sunlight into electrical power. Once the work has been completed – there are two more pairs of iROSA arrays to be delivered in upcoming resupply missions – the station’s ability to produce electrical power via sunlight will be increased to ~215 Kilowatts, well about the ~160 Kilowatts needed to power it at the moment.
How the ISS looked after the departure of the CRS-22 Cargo Dragon. Credit: NASA
The CRS-22 Dragon vehicle actually departed the ISS on July 10th, leaving two Russian Progress resupply vehicles (77/MS-16 and 78/MS-17), the Soyuz MS-18 crew vehicle and the Endeavour Crew-2 Dragon vehicle docked at the station.
On July 21st, the Crew Dragon Endeavour, which carried NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur and Thomas Pesquet and Akihiko Hoshide (ESA and Japan’s JAXA respectively) to the station, also undocked, but not to return to Earth. Instead, it was piloted around the station to be re-attached to the International Docking Adaptor 3 port vacated by the CRS-22 Cargo Dragon, in order to make way for the upcoming CST-100 Starliner test flight to the ISS, of which more below.
Caught from a camera on the ISS, Crew Dragon Endeavour, with its nose cone open to expose the forward docking mechanism and hatch, makes a soft dock at the IDA-3 docking port of the ISS, July 21st, 2021. Credit: NASA
The next ISS launch to take place came out of Russia on July 21st, when a Proton-M booster lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 14:58 UTC, carrying the Nauka Multipurpose Laboratory Module (MLM) on its way to the station.
Designed to provide dedicated space for Russian activates on the ISS, the 20-tonne module – the largest component of the ISS built and launched by Russia, combines additional living space with working space, cargo storage, a dedicated external robotic arm courtesy of the European Space Agency, and attitude control system to supplement those already on the station. It is also around 14 years overdue, having originally been intended for launch in 2007 – and parts of it are approaching 30 years of age, having been originally built in the 1990s as the Functional Cargo Block-2 (FGB-2), built alongside the station’s Zarya module.
A Proton-M lifts-off on July 21st carrying the Nauka MLM on its way to the ISS. Credit: Roscosmos
Following a 9-minute ascent to orbit, Nauka successfully detached from the booster’s upper stage and deployed its solar panels and communications arrays at the start of an 8-day flight to rendezvous and dock with the ISS. This lengthy rendezvous being designed to allow ground engineers to carry out a range of checks ahead of the module reaching the station.
After the launch, reports circulated that the module had encountered assorted problems with its automatic docking system, various sensors and its motors. Neither Roscosmos nor NASA have commented on these reports, other than Roscosmos stated the module was in a safe orbit, and there has been no change in the planned rendezvous and docking date of July 29th.
British skywatcher Martin Lewis snapped this picture of Nauka passing over southern England some 6 hours after launch. Credit: SkyInspectorAhead of that, the Progress 77/MS-16 vehicle will depart the station, taking the Russia Pirs docking / mini- science module with it. Once clear of the station, the Progress vehicle will de-orbit, burning up in the atmosphere with the 20-year-only Pirs. The module has already been subject to an EVA by Russian cosmonauts on the ISS, who severed all non-essentially connections to the module and ensured it was ready for the undocking manoeuvre.
The undocking / detachment had originally been scheduled for Friday, July 23rd, but was postponed for twenty-four hours, ostensibly to give the the Russia crew on the station more time in which to complete tasks in preparation to detach Pirs. As it is, the undocking / detachment is now expected to occur on Monday, July 26th.
The Nauka MLM being prepared for launch integration. Credit: Rsocosmos
CST-100 Demo 2 Set To Launch
Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner is ready to make its second attempted to make an uncrewed rendezvous with the ISS.
If all goes according to plan, the flight will commence at 18:53 UTC on Friday, July 30th, 2021 when an Atlas V rocket will lift-off from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. once in orbit, the capsule – which will be used alongside the SpaceX Crew Dragon to ferry crews to / from the space station – will be put through a series of tests prior to performing an automated rendezvous and docking with the ISS.
The flight – called Orbital Flight Test 2 (OFT-2), comes after an 18-month delay in the Starliner programme, in part the result of the OFT-1 having to be aborted without any rendezvous and docking with ISS after a software issue caused things to go slightly awry, although the capsule did make a successful return to Earth an landing (see: Space Sunday: Starliner’s First Orbital Flight).
The CST-100 Starliner due to fly the OFT-2 mission is moved from Boeing’s vehicle preparation facilities at Kennedy Space Centre ahead of integration into its United Launch Alliance Atlas V launch vehicle. Credit: Greg Scott
Following that flight, an extensive review of Boeing / NASA CST-100 flight operations resulted in a wide-ranging series of recommendations being made, including that of a second uncrewed test flight and rendezvous. Originally, it had been hoped OFT-2 could be completed by the end of 2020, but several factors – including the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic – put paid to that. Even so, while “late”, the July 30th target launch date is ahead of the August / September period NASA had been looking at.
After launch, the Demo-2 flight should see the capsule reach its initial orbit some 31 minutes after lift-off, allowing the initial in-flight tests to be carried out under the eyes of ground control. After this, the vehicle will proceed to catch-up and rendezvous with the ISS, with docking scheduled for `9:06 UTC on Saturday, July 31st.
If all goes well, I’ll have an update on the flight in my next Space Sunday update.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 