Space Stuff and Launch Info

[1oldman2]

I almost suffocated...
It took me about 30 seconds to remember to breathe.

Me 2, I was videoing when I saw the shadow racing across towards us. from there on out it was so surreal I couldn't believe what I was seeing. As you can see in my still life shot the crowds (cows) were really pushing us around.

 

[OmCheeto]

Me 2, I was videoing when I saw the shadow racing across towards us. from there on out it was so surreal I couldn't believe what I was seeing. As you can see in my still life shot the crowds (cows) were really pushing us around.
View attachment 209676

Cows, coyotes, and flying monkeys. What a grand adventure astro-science can be.

I too, took a "still life" of the junk required to do astro-science.

Just 5 minutes after totality.

ps. Pretty much missed the "shadow race". I was in a valley, surrounded completely by 500 ft tall hills. (44.52353 N 120.04811 W)
Doh!

 

[mfb]

It makes me wonder if SpaceX will try to do something special after the nominal mission.

The special thing was the mission profile. The satellite was put in an orbit 700 km high. The typical flight profile would launch it to an orbit with 200 km perigee and 700 km apogee, coast for half an orbit and then circularize an orbit.

The rocket was massively overpowered, they didn't have to follow the usual approach. They could launch much more vertically to gain height quickly, and let the second stage gain nearly all the horizontal velocity. That way they didn't need a coast phase. It reduces the risk a bit as the second stage doesn't have to reignite its engine.
The first stage typically reaches a height of ~130 km. This time it reached 247 km, a very high speed, and a very steep descent angle. It looks like a stress-test of the first stage re-entry procedure.

It worked. The rocket landed less than a meter away from the center. The barge can tolerate ~10 meter deviation according to this article. Musk estimates that ITS has to land with an accuracy of about 2 meters to land in its mount. They are practicing already?

 

[1oldman2]

They are practicing already?

You can count on it.

 

[smartalek86]

One question comes to mind,
How much does it cost to meet regulatory requirements to launch rockets?

 

[mfb]

In which country?

Typically there will be a large initial cost to get a rocket certified and then a smaller cost per launch. None of these numbers is public as far as I know.

 

[smartalek86]

The USA, unless you know of what legal hurdles lie in other western countries. The thing that I find confusing is how do you manage aspects that are classified/ information not for export? If you want to show off parts of the rocket to impress the market/file patents it comes into conflict with legislation that restricts what you can publish...

 

[mfb]

In the US that is regulated by ITAR. Some things you cannot show/describe publicly, what exactly will be decided on a case-by-case basis.

 

[nikkkom]

If you want to show off parts of the rocket to impress the market

Launch vehicles are not Iphones: people who buy rides to orbit are almost certainly knowledgeable enough to not be easily impressed by marketing tricks. They are impressed by past reliability record and price.

 

[Borg]

Boom! SpaceX's Rocket Landing 'Blooper Reel'. Love the Monty Python theme!

 

[1oldman2]

Boom! SpaceX's Rocket Landing 'Blooper Reel'. Love the Monty Python theme!

Wow! a great collection, thanks for posting that. The entertainment value certainly wasn't lacking. (Love that line "Entropy... is such a lonely word")

 

[Borg]

I'm not sure if it's been posted before but I saw this while listening to the final Cassini mission this morning. Looks interesting if I ever find the time.

NASA’s Eyes

Experience Earth and our solar system, the universe and the spacecraft exploring them, with immersive apps for Mac, PC and mobile devices.

 

[mfb]

https://citizen.co.za/news/news-world/1654671/astronomers-bid-farewell-to-3-9-billion-saturn- spacecraft /

Actually, that is the end of received transmission, so it is probably getting destroyed right now.

 

[smartalek86]

on that topic, how hard is it to park it on a small moon(asteroid), I am not familiar with its orbit.?

 

[mfb]

There are no small moons nearby that could have been reached with the fuel, and "parking" would still mean impacting it.

 

[OmCheeto]

I'm not sure if it's been posted before but I saw this while listening to the final Cassini mission this morning. Looks interesting if I ever find the time.

NASA’s Eyes

I've been using it since at least March of this year.

I've used it to monitor the flight path of the Dawn mission, the Cassini mission, and preparing for the eclipse last month.

My younger brother emailed me two days ago, and asked if I was going to set up my telescope to watch Cassini vaporize.
I was able to determine that Saturn was going to be below the horizon during the "vaporization" phase, so I didn't bother.

One of the best pieces of software around, IMHO, and I highly recommend it.

 

[mfb]

I was able to determine that Saturn was going to be below the horizon during the "vaporization" phase, so I didn't bother.

Oh, that was the problem, not the multi-kilometer-sized telescope you would need to watch it?

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.chinaspaceflight.com%2Fsatellite%2FLinkspace%2FLinkspace.html&edit-text=&act=url is working on reusable rockets. Apparently they did hover tests already, similar to the Grasshopper SpaceX used. 15 to 30 million CNY are 2.3 to 4.6 million USD, comparable to the Electron rocket (not reusable) with the same payload range (about 150-200 kg) for $5 million.

 

[OmCheeto]

Oh, that was the problem, not the multi-kilometer-sized telescope you would need to watch it?

Well, given that I could barely make out Saturn with my new/old telescope, I hadn't really given it a thought until he mentioned it.
Had I had more time, I'd have tried and figured out if Hubble could have witnessed the "blink".
And I couldn't remember if Hubble was the one to capture Shoemaker-Levy 9 making a splash into Jupiter, (looks like it did: ref) so, I didn't bother calling NASA.

 

[davenn]

And I couldn't remember if Hubble was the one to capture Shoemaker-Levy 9 making a splash into Jupiter, (looks like it did: ref) so, I didn't bother calling NASA

ohhhh I remember that ... I saw the big black impact points soon after they occurred through my then 8" Newtonian scope back on New Zealand
seems a lifetime ago LOLDave

 

[Borg]

ohhhh I remember that ... I saw the big black impact points soon after they occurred through my then 8" Newtonian scope back on New Zealand
seems a lifetime ago LOL

Dave

I was able to see the same with mine also. Pretty exciting to see something like that from my backyard.

 

[1oldman2]

I'm not sure if it's been posted before but I saw this while listening to the final Cassini mission this morning. Looks interesting if I ever find the time.

NASA’s Eyes

If you like NASA's Eyes, check this out also.
https://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/naif/cosmographia.html

 

[mfb]

The Cassini impact had an energy of ~150 tonnes TNT equivalent;
The largest Shoemaker-Levy 9 fragment had an impact energy of 6000000000000 tonnes TNT equivalent (6*10¹²), the total energy was even higher.

 

[davenn]

The Cassini impact had an energy of ~150 tonnes TNT equivalent;
The largest Shoemaker-Levy 9 fragment had an impact energy of 6000000000000 tonnes TNT equivalent (6*10¹²), the total energy was even higher.

kinda puts things into perspective, ayeD

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Interesting alignments and occultations these days (Sept. 18-20):
[I quote directly from spaceweather.com, for better accuracy of the complete story]

"PLANETS FOR BREAKFAST: Are you awake before sunrise? Look east! Three planets have lined up in the pre-dawn sky--and the crescent Moon is gliding among them. This morning in Malaysia, Shahrin Ahmad photographed Venus just a fraction of a degree from the lunar disk:

About 20 minutes later, the Moon completely covered Venus. "I almost saw it," says Ahmad, "but the clouds came in just as the occultation began." Later today, the Moon will pass Mars and Mercury as well, producing three lunar occultations in a single day.

Tomorrow offers something new: Venus approaches Regulus, a bright blue star in the constellation Leo. The two will pass less than 1 degree apart on Sept. 19th and 20th forming a bright "double star" in the morning sky. Set your alarm for dawn and enjoy the show! Sky maps: Sept.18, 19, 20."

 

[UsableThought]

Interesting alignments and occultations these days (Sept. 18-20):

Neat!

By coincidence, I have just this morning been searching for calculators to generate an ephemeris for night sky visibility of the planets from my location; so far this site looks the most immediately useful: https://www.calsky.com

However there is a fair bit of learning involved just to understand the charts, let alone how they are produced; so I have to buckle down.

 

[OmCheeto]

The Cassini impact had an energy of ~150 tonnes TNT equivalent;
The largest Shoemaker-Levy 9 fragment had an impact energy of 6000000000000 tonnes TNT equivalent (6*10¹²), the total energy was even higher.

I spent most of yesterday, and much of this morning trying to analyze this.
My conclusion was that Hubble might have spotted the "blink". (≈10% chance)

ps. Talk about a maths problem from hell...
pps. This assumes of course, that I interpreted everything* correctly, which I have a confidence level of about zero, so my conclusion may be off by a factor of "A LOT!".
ppps. I think my "always suspicious maths" was spot on, but there are so many unknown variables, that I would advise everyone to just ignore this post.*:
1. Light gathering power: Hubble is apparently 120,000 times better than we are (7mm vs 2.4 m) [ref: googled it]
2. Hubble faint object camera: Can amplify light by 100,000. [ref]

Multiplied together, gives 12 billion, which was at least 1 order of magnitude too small to see "the blink". (this was best case.)​

3. Another bazzilion assumptions.

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Occultation alert! The moon blocks 3 planets and a star tonight ...
(from space.com)
https://www.space.com/38181-moon-blocks-venus-mars-mercury-regulus.html?utm_source=notification

[Next Moon's occulting of 3 planets: July 2036.
So don't miss it! ...]

 

[1oldman2]

JWST material to ponder.
https://jwst.stsci.edu/
https://jwst.nasa.gov/resources/JWST-Observations-of-Titan.pdf
https://jwst.nasa.gov/resources/JWST-MARS.pdf
https://jwst.nasa.gov/resources/JWST-GiantPlanets.pdf
https://jwst.nasa.gov/resources/JWST-Solar-System.pdf
https://jwst.nasa.gov/resources/JWST-Rings.pdf
https://jwst.nasa.gov/resources/JWST-Asteroids.pdf

 

[mfb]

Hubble faint object camera: Can amplify light by 100,000.

Saturn is not a faint object. Even if the camera would still be flying (it was removed in 2002): If you point that thing on Saturn at best you overexpose everything, at worst you damage the equipment. Even a 21st magnitude object saturates the system.

Saturn receives 36,000,000 tonnes TNT equivalent in sunlight every second, and the disintegration of the probe took minutes.

 

[1oldman2]

Hubble has imaged an Asteroid with a personality disorder. http://hubblesite.org/news_release/news/2017-32
"NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope helped an international team of astronomers find that an unusual object in the asteroid belt is, in fact, two asteroids orbiting each other that have comet-like features. These include a bright halo of material, called a coma, and a long tail of dust."

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Spectacular! :

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Look Up and Wave! OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Probe Flies by Earth Today
In 52min ...

Also happy fall equinox ...

 

[1oldman2]

Look Up and Wave! OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Probe Flies by Earth Today
In 52min ...

Also happy fall equinox ...

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddar...escopes-to-photograph-osiris-rex-during-flyby
http://www.asteroidmission.org/upload- spacecraft -imagery/

 

[Stavros Kiri]

CONFIRMED: A Huge Gravitational Wave Announcement Is About to Happen
(From the LIGO team ...)

http://flip.it/FnvTBH
"Update 27/09/17: It's happening! We have confirmation that the LIGO team will go ahead with the rumoured announcement today at 6:30pm Italian time (that's 12:30pm EST)."
"At this stage, we're in the realm of speculation - nothing has been officially confirmed or denied. But there are pretty exciting hints out there that, for the first time, astrophysicists might have detected gravitational waves from a new source: merging neutron stars."

 

[mfb]

GW170814, observed by LIGO and Virgo together. Again two black holes with tens of solar masses, nothing new in that aspect. New is the accurate localization in the sky and the first measurement of the polarization (yes, spin 2 as expected) thanks to the third detector.