Space Stuff and Launch Info

[1oldman2]

The payload will be Elon Musk's private Tesla Roadster

When I heard about that, the first thing that came to mind was the opening scenes in "Heavy Metal" where the 'Vette does a reentry. from a shuttle. Makes me wonder what his long term plans are for the payload. One must admit it's going to be great advertising for his cars, if it makes it into orbit it will be another SpaceX first as well as an automotive first (Lunar Rovers notwithstanding). Crossing the Martian orbit will just be practice for upcoming events.

 

[Stavros Kiri]

https://www.space.com/39013-mars-rover-opportunity-eighth-martian-winter.html

 

[davenn]

This is worth zooming in, note the red and blue noise in the bottom left corner.

look like the typical "hot pixels" on the imaging chip. You will see them on most cameras

 

[ISamson]

What NASA's Mock Space Missions Tell Us About the Need for Martian Law

https://www.space.com/39034-nasa-mock-space-missions-martian-law.html

 

[Stavros Kiri]

What NASA's Mock Space Missions Tell Us About the Need for Martian Law

https://www.space.com/39034-nasa-mock-space-missions-martian-law.html

Heading for "Space Cops" too! (I have a couple of cops friends already strongly interested to promote to that era ...)

 

[1oldman2]

look like the typical "hot pixels" on the imaging chip. You will see them on most cameras

I had figured it was just random artifact business going on, I only mentioned it because I'm watching how the hardware fares in the radiation environment. They don't expect the cam to survive most of the orbits so I watch for degradation (Definitely have the "hot pixel" look as opposed to the Cosmic ray streaks one usually notices).

 

[Stavros Kiri]

The Sun is Dimming as Solar Minimum Approaches
(e.g. see https://www.physicsforums.com/threa...ther-update-thread.923468/page-3#post-5904218)

+ (quote from Spaceweather.com [a couple of days ago]) "Today (Dec. 15, 2017) at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, SpaceX launched a new sensor to the International Space Station named "TSIS-1." Its mission: to measure the dimming of the sun. As the sunspot cycle plunges toward its 11-year minimum, NASA satellites are tracking a slight but significant decline in total solar irradiance (TSI). TSIS-1 will monitor this dimming with better precision than previous satellites as Solar Minimum approaches in the years ahead. Visit today's edition of Spaceweather.com to learn more about TSIS-1 and natural variations in the sun's electromagnetic output."

 

[mfb]

In addition to the successful SpaceX recycling mission (two out of three parts reused!) we also had a successful Soyuz launch with crew. They do a slow approach and will reach the ISS on Tuesday.

The Electron rocket had ignition already, but the attempt was aborted, and after a few more delays the launch was shifted to the first quarter of 2018. We still get the second attempt to get SS-520 in orbit after the failure in January, unless that is shifted as well.

2018 in spaceflight will be very interesting as well. Dragon 2 and maybe CST-100 are planned to launch humans to the ISS, the first manned US launches since 2011. Falcon Heavy will become the largest operational rocket, and we'll see many more and probably much faster reflights of boosters. InSight goes to Mars, BepiColombo goes to Mercury, Hayabusa 2 and OSIRIS-REx arrive at their target asteroids. Some teams might finally launch something to the Moon to win the Google X-prize. China might launch something to the Moon and start their modular space station in Earth orbit.
All that (minus things that shift to 2019) in 12 monthsSpaceX first stage landing. The 16th successful landing in a row (and the second landing for this particular booster) - it is getting routine. Another reuse is planned for December 23.

 

[Stavros Kiri]

And the list goes on ...

 

[mfb]

SLS/Orion and JWST shifted to 2019 already. SLS/Orion are likely to shift to 2020.

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Seems that postponing is part of the game

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Space re-cap2017
The Greatest Space Science Stories of 2017
https://www.space.com/39109-greatest-space-science-stories-2017.html
(Which one do you think as your favourite, or the most important one?)

 

[mfb]

(Which one do you think as your favourite, or the most important one?)

The neutron star merger and Tabby's star. I like the others as well, but they mainly confirm things we strongly expected before already. Observing gravitational waves from neutron star mergers is something completely new. And KIC [number] is weird as always.

For spaceflight, my favorite is clearly the re-use of Falcon 9 boosters (another one coming up in precisely 24 hours).

 

[Stavros Kiri]

I like the others as well, but they mainly confirm things we strongly expected before already. Observing gravitational waves from neutron star mergers is something completely new.

True. My choices are pretty much along the same lines too.

the re-use of Falcon 9 boosters (another one coming up in precisely 24 hours)

SpaceX, Japan Launching Satellites Back to Back Tonight: Watch Live
Here is something interesting:
"The communications company Iridium is therefore poised to become the first SpaceX customer ever to fly multiple missions with the same Falcon 9 first stage.

Today's liftoff will be the last one for this particular first stage, however: SpaceX does not plan to bring it down for a landing, company representatives have said.

To date, SpaceX has landed first stages 20 times during Falcon 9 launches and has reflown four of these landed boosters."
(From the linked source)

See also:
"Watch Live Tonight! SpaceX & Japan Launching Satellite Missions @ 8:26 pm ET"
(https://www.space.com/17933-nasa-television-webcasts-live-space-tv.html)

 

[Stavros Kiri]

https://www.space.com/39197-spacex-spectacular-rocket-launch-views.html

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Wow! Check out those photos. In some it looks like the Enterprise.
UFO? No, It's a SpaceX Rocket! These Falcon 9 Launch Photos Are Just Amazing

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Exoplanet re-cap 2017 ...
The Most Intriguing Alien Planet Discoveries of 2017

(Should we renounce 2017 as "Exoplanet year", or something, ... ?)

 

[mfb]

If we go by raw number of discoveries, 2016 wins.
Towards the end of 2018 we might get first results from TESS. In 2019 we will probably get first results from JWST and CHEOPS, in the following year we'll get many more results from all three. Around 2022 we get thousands to tens of thousands of exoplanets from Gaia, although they will all be Jupiter-like. Starting 2024-2025 we get results from ELT. From 2027+ on PLATO will find Earth-like exoplanets routinely.

Which year is not an exoplanet year?

 

[Stavros Kiri]

If we go by raw number of discoveries, 2016 wins.
Towards the end of 2018 we might get first results from TESS. In 2019 we will probably get first results from JWST and CHEOPS, in the following year we'll get many more results from all three. Around 2022 we get thousands to tens of thousands of exoplanets from Gaia, although they will all be Jupiter-like. Starting 2024-2025 we get results from ELT. From 2027+ on PLATO will find Earth-like exoplanets routinely.

Which year is not an exoplanet year?

True. Trappist-1 was in 2017 though! ...
(https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/7-exoplanets-around-trappist-1.904810/)

 

[Stavros Kiri]

(Should we renounce 2017 as "Exoplanet year", or something, ... ?)

May be "TRAPPIST-1 [System] year" then. That perhaps was a breakthrough and a turn point in the "exoplanets business" ... [in 2017] and more significant events this year in that era, each one unique in their own way (see quoted re-cap link above). That makes 2017 overall a significant year for those matters, I think.

Note: TRAPPIST alone is a name (acronym as well as backronym) for a pair of telescopes project (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRAPPIST)

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Full Wolf Moon last night, the first of two Supermoons in 2018, both of them in January. Thus, also, Blue Moon this month. And check this out: the second one (Jan. 31), [blue supermoon] happens during a total lunar eclipse. The first Blue Moon Total Lunar Eclipse in 150 Years!

Full Wolf Moon: New Year's Supermoon Is the Biggest of the Year

The full moon was at 9:24 p.m. EST [Jan 1] (0224 GMT Tuesday Jan. 2). That peak came hours after the moon reached perigee, its closest point to Earth for the month, at 4:54 p.m. EST (2154 GMT).

["At that time, according to EarthSky.org, the moon will be about 221,559 miles (356,565 kilometers) from Earth. [Supermoon Secrets: 7 Surprising Big Moon Facts]" ]But, actually we are talking about a Supermoon Trilogy:

"January's supermoon is actually the second of three back-to-back supermoon full moons to come in the next two months. The full moon also occurred near perigee on Dec. 3 and will again on Jan. 31, according to NASA, which billed the line up as a supermoon trilogy. The Jan. 31 supermoon is also the second full moon of January, making it a blue moon, and also occurs during a total lunar eclipse."

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Kilopower Project: NASA Pushes Nuclear Power for Deep-Space Missions

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Don't forget (cf. post #475): Super Blue Blood Moon 2018: When, Where and How to See It
+ something interesting:
Super Blue Blood Moon Will Force NASA to Shut Down Lunar Spacecraft Instruments

 

[mfb]

The Electron rocket had ignition already, but the attempt was aborted, and after a few more delays the launch was shifted to the first quarter of 2018. We still get the second attempt to get SS-520 in orbit after the failure in January, unless that is shifted as well.

Both launched and reached orbit in the meantime, SS-520 today.

Electron is the first rocket with an electric turbopump to reach orbit, and the first orbital launch from the southern hemisphere in several decades. RocketLab claims they can launch more than one rocket per week, targeting the small satellite and cubesat market with the payload of up to 200 kg. The Electron rocket has a mass of 10.5 tonnes.

SS-520 is the smallest and lightest rocket to ever reach orbit, with a total mass of just 2.6 tonnes, a height of 9.5 meters and a diameter of just 52 cm. You might be able to reach fully around it with your arms (163 cm circumference). It can deliver just 4 kg to orbit - still enough for a cubesat that doesn't find a launch opportunity elsewhere.SpaceX plans to do about half of the planned 30 launches in 2018 with reused boosters.

The planned FH launch is just 3 days 2 hours away.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Falcon Heavy discussion moved to
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/spacex-falcon-heavy-launch.939036/

 

[Stavros Kiri]

NASA Budget Proposal Plans End of NASA Funding of ISS, Seeks Commercial Transition
! ... Ooups! There's no dislike button in the forum ...

Edit: +
Trump's 2019 NASA Budget Request Puts Moon Ahead of Space Station

 

[OmCheeto]

This "anniversary" photo popped up in my twitter feed this morning:

March 6, 1994
STS-62
Atomic oxygen glow around the rear section of the space shuttle.
[refs: wiki Day 3, NASA Day three? see below]

NASA STS-62

Launch March 4, 1994; 8:53:01am EST
On Flight Day Three (Sunday, March 3, 1994)
Flight Day 4 began Monday, March 7, 1994 at 12:53 a.m.​

It would appear, that those rocket scientists, can make typos, also.
Either that, or they've been doing time travel experiments.

 

[OmCheeto]

Weird coincidence? This just popped up in my Facebook feed:

APOD, 2016.03.06
Colorful Airglow Bands Surround Milky Way
Image Credit & Copyright: Xiaohan Wang

Is it "Atomic glow day", or something?

 

[nsaspook]

https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk...tealthy-startup-of-launching-rogue-satellites

The only problem is, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had dismissed Swarm’s application for its experimental satellites a month earlier, on safety grounds. The FCC is responsible for regulating commercial satellites, including minimizing the chance of accidents in space. It feared that the four SpaceBees now orbiting the Earth would pose an unacceptable collision risk for other spacecraft .

If confirmed, this would be the first ever unauthorized launch of commercial satellites.

 

[JMz]

The neutron star merger and Tabby's star. I like the others as well, but they mainly confirm things we strongly expected before already. Observing gravitational waves from neutron star mergers is something completely new. And KIC [number] is weird as always.

For spaceflight, my favorite is clearly the re-use of Falcon 9 boosters (another one coming up in precisely 24 hours).

You nailed it, IMO!

 

[Stavros Kiri]

How would you like to become yourself an alien planet hunter? I have just the code! ...

You Can Hunt for Alien Planets in Kepler Data Using Newly Released Google Code

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Stephen Hawking died today March 14, on Einstein's birthday! ...
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/stephen-hawking-dies-14-03-2018.942073/

 

[JMz]

Stephen Hawking died today March 14, on Einstein's birthday! ...
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/stephen-hawking-dies-14-03-2018.942073/

Well, there is some evidence that dying people can hang on until some date or event occurs that is especially meaningful to them. E.g., Muslims & Ramadan: Since, over time, Ramadan occurs throughout the year, it's possible to control for seasonal effects. (However, that's a finding of many years ago, so it's possible that it's been disproven since.)

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Well, there is some evidence that dying people can hang on until some date or event occurs that is especially meaningful to them. E.g., Muslims & Ramadan: Since, over time, Ramadan occurs throughout the year, it's possible to control for seasonal effects. (However, that's a finding of many years ago, so it's possible that it's been disproven since.)

What about being born (i.e. Hawking) on Galileo's death date? [Jan 8] (Another Physicist's coincidence, I guess ...)

 

[JMz]

What about being born (i.e. Hawking) on Galileo's death date? [Jan 8] (Another Physicist's coincidence, I guess ...)

I don't believe he had much choice about that. But it's a nice one, to be sure!

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Bad news:
NASA's Prolific Planet-Hunting Kepler Spacecraft Is Running Out of Fuel

 

[mfb]

That is unfortunate, but not too tragic. It surpassed its goals by a huge margin. Even the K2 mission alone would have been great. In 2013, as the critical reaction wheel failed, someone wanted to put the whole German Wikipedia article into the past ("was a space telescope") and so on. See how much it discovered since then!
Kepler revolutionized our knowledge about exoplanets, and lead the way to the next-generation telescopes.

We don't have to wait long: TESS will be launched April 16th. CHEOPS will be launched towards the end of the year. While TESS should find more planets than Kepler did, the focus is now on measuring their properties instead of just collecting them.

 

[mfb]

NASA Hosts Media Teleconference on Status of James Webb Space Telescope

The current official estimate is March to June 2019, but the safety margin is very narrow - it is quite likely that it gets delayed more. The cost limit of $8 billion is close as well.

 

[mfb]

JWST has been pushed to May 2020. Nearly one year delay, mainly due to problems with the sun shield.

 

[JMz]

:-( (There is no button for "Thanks for the post, but I regret the content of what you posted.")

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Galaxy with no Dark Matter?
https://www.physicsforums.com/threa...o-will-discover-it-first.917387/#post-5970577

 

[mfb]

TESS will be launched on Wednesday 22:51 UTC (time zone reference: this post was made Tuesday 01:25 UTC).
Originally it was planned for Monday, but an issue with the guidance system delayed it for two days.

It is the successor to the Kepler mission. It is expected to find more than 20,000 planets (as comparison: we currently know about 3800) - most of them much larger than Earth, but 500-2000 should be roughly Earth-sized, many of them in the habitable zone around their star. TESS targets bright stars, which means they will all be accessible to follow-up observations with other telescopes to confirm their existence, to measure their mass, to look for atmospheres and so on.

The Falcon 9 rocket launch of the satellite could be interesting as well. Apart from the usual livestream (including landing the first stage on the barge) Elon Musk tweeted "SpaceX will try to bring rocket upper stage back from orbital velocity using a giant party balloon". The second stage was expected to leave Earth orbit permanently, but entering the atmosphere again is easy as well. Surviving the reentry, on the other hand...

Edit: Hans: The second stage will not be de-orbited on this mission but it will be put in a hyperbolic disposal orbit.
I guess Musk's comment applies to future missions, not TESS.
Also upcoming: Gaia's second data release (April 25). A total of 1.7 billion sources. 1.3 of them with positions, parallaxes and proper motion together with some other basic parameters. It should allow a re-calibration of the whole cosmic distance ladder, and should resolve a couple of puzzles about stellar distances.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

TESS will be launched on Wednesday 22:51 UTC

I love this photo of the TESS rockets. That fuel is beautiful!

 

[Stavros Kiri]

I love this photo of the TESS rockets. That fuel is beautiful!

... as long as you're not nearby!

 

[mfb]

Blue Origin is preparing a new launch of New Shepard in a few minutes.

Livestream

New Shepard is a fully reusable suborbital rocket and the rocket (the individual object!) made several flights already. While it is planned to launch humans to space in the capsule, New Shepard is also the precursor to New Glenn, a partially reusable orbital rocket with a planned maiden flight in 2020. It will be quite similar to Falcon 9, but larger and potentially a bit cheaper.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Blue Origin

Maybe I am wrong but it seems like Blue Origin is trailing SpaceX? I find this surprising considering Bezos insane fortune.

 

[mfb]

He invests about $1 billion per year in the company. The approach is different - Blue Origin is behind but we don't know how much.
SpaceX started with a (relatively) small amount of money and no big investor backing it; they had to launch stuff to space quickly to get funding, and they still have to launch things while developing upgrades and new rockets at the same time.
Blue Origin has basically unlimited funding. They can directly develop a big, partially reusable orbital rocket, with just some tests (New Shepard) on the way. If their planned launch date of 2020 holds they will have something comparable to Falcon Heavy, just 2-3 years later.

 

[mfb]

7 minutes until the maiden flight of Falcon 9 Block 5.

Livestream

The final iteration of the rocket, made for much easier reuse. The booster is supposed to be able to fly up to 100 times, with 10-20 flights being a more typical number, and without refurbishment between flights. At least one individual booster is planned to fly 10 times until the end of next year to demonstrate this capability, and a reflight within 24 hours is planned as well. Launching a new booster will become the exception for SpaceX.

It is the first large satellite for Bangladesh.

Edit: The booster did its job, now it will land on the drone ship while the second stage proceeds to orbit. This particular booster will be taken apart to confirm in detail that taking apart Block 5 boosters is not necessary.
Edit2: The booster has landed! The second stage made it to the planned temporary orbit, in about 20 minutes it will make another burn to geostationary transfer orbit.

 

[nikkkom]

Maybe I am wrong but it seems like Blue Origin is trailing SpaceX? I find this surprising considering Bezos insane fortune.

Past worldwide experience in developing large rocket engines is that they take at least a few years to develop, no matter how large a pile of $$$ you throw at the problem.

 

[Borg]

JWST has been pushed to May 2020. Nearly one year delay, mainly due to problems with the sun shield.

XKCD

Since delays should get less likely closer to the launch, most astronomers in 2018 believed the expansion of the schedule was slowing, but by early 2020 new measurements indicated that it was actually accelerating.