Space Stuff and Launch Info

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The discussion highlights the ongoing advancements and events in the aerospace sector, including the upcoming SpaceX Dragon launch and its significance for cargo delivery to the ISS. Participants share links to various articles detailing recent missions, such as NASA's Juno spacecraft studying Jupiter's Great Red Spot and the ExoMars mission's progress. There is also a focus on the collaboration between government and private sectors in space exploration, emphasizing the potential for technological advancements. Additionally, the conversation touches on intriguing phenomena like the WorldView-2 satellite's debris event and the implications of quantum communication technology demonstrated by China's Quantum Science Satellite. Overall, the thread serves as a hub for sharing and discussing significant aerospace developments.
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  • #483
Stavros Kiri said:
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.)
 
  • #484
JMz said:
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 ...)
 
  • #485
Stavros Kiri said:
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!
 
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  • #487
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.
 
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  • #490
:-( (There is no button for "Thanks for the post, but I regret the content of what you posted.")
 
  • #492
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.
 
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  • #493
mfb said:
TESS will be launched on Wednesday 22:51 UTC
I love this photo of the TESS rockets. That fuel is beautiful!

DbVxmhvVMAEWz42.jpg
 

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  • #494
Greg Bernhardt said:
I love this photo of the TESS rockets. That fuel is beautiful!
... as long as you're not nearby! :nb):smile:
 
  • #495
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.
 
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  • #496
mfb said:
Blue Origin
Maybe I am wrong but it seems like Blue Origin is trailing SpaceX? I find this surprising considering Bezos insane fortune.
 
  • #497
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.
 
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  • #498
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.
 
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  • #499
Greg Bernhardt said:
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.
 
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  • #500
mfb said:
JWST has been pushed to May 2020. Nearly one year delay, mainly due to problems with the sun shield.
jwst_delays.png

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.
 

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  • #501
Mars is redier (to us) perhaps than ever (due to the raging dust storm since May), this Summer, and increased noticably in size (due to its closest approach to earth, within this Summer [2018]), after since 2003 ...
 
  • #502
JWST is a trainwreck. Just think of all the other projects which for the last decade were, and still are robbed of $$$ to cover for the ever-increasing price tag of that thing. I bet people on those other projects have "warm" feelings about JWST managerial team...
 
  • #503
SpaceX will reuse one of their Block 5 boosters for the first time on a Falcon 9 launch Aug 7, 5:18 UTC (one day and 18 h after this post). This type flew just three times so far, the first booster has been inspected (and potentially refurbished) now and is ready to fly again. SpaceX wants to fly at least one booster a third time this year, this one is a likely candidate. Time between reuse goes down over time as the company learns what exactly needs to be checked between flights and how to make important parts less likely to get damaged. The first few (of an older version) needed about one year, currently the time is down to 2-3 months. The ultimate goal is 24 hours, potentially in 2019. Land, refuel, launch again.
The mission will carry an Indonesian communications satellite to a transfer orbit to geostationary orbit - a routine mission in that aspect.NASA selected astronauts for the first flights of the commercial crew program. Unmanned demonstration flights are expected later this year and the first crewed flights from the US since 2011 are expected for 2019. The only country so far to give up the capability to launch humans will get crewed spacecraft again.
 
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  • #504
Launch will be in 27 minutes. Livestream here, coverage should begin in about 12 minutes.

Edit: Success! Both launch and landing.
 
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  • #505
1.
Stavros Kiri said:
and increased noticably in size (due to its closest approach to earth, within this Summer [2018]), after since 2003 ...
Closest approach happened on July 31. Next one in 2035 (i.e. in 17 years). In August 2003 Mars was a bit closer (2 million Km difference). [And, actually, when that last approach occurred, it was the first time in 60,000 years that Mars had come that close!] Next so close one in 2287.
Well, stick around, do some anti-aging and ... be patient! ... :smile::wink:

In case you missed all that, there's still time to catch and see the bright and red planet, still fairly close, for a few more days ...

2. New green comet in the sky tonight (Aug. 7) etc. ...
 
  • #507
Aeolus will launch on a Vega rocket in 10 hours from now (edit: 2 days 10 hours after this comment). It will be the first satellite to measure wind in three dimensions on a global scale, which should improve weather models for forecasts.
I'm not sure if there will be a livestream, this page doesn't mention anything. This youtube channel had a stream for the last Vega launch. Will be a routine launch of Vega - 12th mission in total after 11 successes.

Meanwhile SpaceX is working on the crew access arm to let astronauts board Dragon 2 in April 2019. There was a lot of discussion about the fueling procedure. SpaceX prefers to load fuel as late as possible (with astronauts on board) as this allows supercooling it - increasing rocket performance. NASA usually prefers loading fuel first and letting the astronauts enter later. NASA is now fine with the approach of SpaceX given nothing goes wrong with the next missions (especially the uncrewed demonstration mission in November and the in-flight abort in March).

Edit: https://i.redd.it/ezsmiapvbah11.jpg. Looks strange to see such a modern style arm at the old support tower.
Edit2: Arm has been installed

Edit3: Aeolus delayed due to wind (!). Now Aug 22, 21:20 GMT
 
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  • #510
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