Space Stuff and Launch Info

[Flyboy]

 

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It turns out that Odysseus landed on the Moon without any altimetry data
Interesting article by Eric Berger. The spacecraft was supposed to land with its own range finders. A few hours before the planned landing they discovered that they wouldn't work so they rewrote the software to use a hosted NASA payload for an estimate, but it could only provide data down to 15 km above the surface. The lander landed without reliable altitude measurements - at the time of touchdown it expected to be 100 meters above the surface. The mission had many more close calls, but still managed to get to the surface gently and make most of its payloads work well. The company has more landers planned.

Crew-8 is planned to fly on Dragon Friday March 1, 5:04 UTC. That's a night launch in Florida.

 

[difalcojr]

How come they could land on the moon almost 55 years ago but not now?! And not since then?!

So, a "knee-jerk" landing like this is not-so-good news for possible new investors like myself. And why the software problem right at the crucial time to land, yikes?!

Maybe a lower center of gravity is needed, four rubber tires on the bottom like a '55 Chevy, maybe training wheels on the sides, even some spare Apollo retro rocket parts, these might be part of the changes needed, possibly.

 

[Astronuc]

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/intuitive-machines-faces-early-end-213530800.html

Intuitive Machines’ historic landing is due in no small part to extremely quick thinking on the part of flight controllers, who had to improvise a navigation solution after they learned the spacecraft’s onboard laser range finders — which collect essential landing data, like altitude and horizontal velocity — were not working. Remarkably, they turned instead to one of the payloads on the lander, a doppler lidar technology demonstrator from NASA, to help land the vehicle on the surface.

Company officials later revealed that the laser range finders stopped working due to human error and trade-offs made to save time and money, rather than any technical issues. Engineers chose not to test fire the laser system on the ground due to cost and scheduling, Intuitive Machines’ head of navigation systems, Mike Hansen, told Reuters yesterday. Engineers also failed to toggle a physical safety switch on the system prior to launch.

Edit/update: I heard on a news program news program last night that Odysseus landed a bit too hard and one of legs broke, which caused the lander to tip over on the side with the main solar panel.

 

[berkeman]

How come they could land on the moon almost 55 years ago but not now?!

I think a big part of it is that those missions had human pilots that could take over and do final adjustments in the landing to miss rocks and ridges and such. Apparently the autonomous systems are not quite to the human-pilot capability level yet.

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/apollo-11-plus-45-how-neil-armstrong-saved-day-moon-n160386

Luckily, the Artemis II moon lander will have people on board, including a pilot to help avoid such issues. With such a low high aspect ratio, a ridge or boulder could tip it over...

https://www.clickorlando.com/news/s...-moon-landing-may-be-pushed-back-report-says/

 

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Artemis II will fly a free-return trajectory, no orbit and no landing. Artemis III is the planned landing, and Starship will fly autonomous - the crew will have some abort buttons and maybe some choice of the specific landing location but won't fly it manually.

How come they could land on the moon almost 55 years ago but not now?! And not since then?!

The Apollo program spent $180 billion to make 6 Moon landings.
Intuitive Machines spent $0.1 billion for one landing.

 

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Launch of Crew-8 in 1.5 hours
Jeanette Epps was originally assigned to Starliner and was moved to Dragon to finally give her an actual flight. Out of the 4 people on board (3*US, 1*Russia), only one has been in space before.

 

[difalcojr]

Wow, that's impressive to watch live!! Thanks. Packed in like sardines, huge acceleration, speed. Precision in space. Wonder how much g-force they felt? Or how fast their hearts were beating? Fantastic!

 

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Here is a profile of Demo-1, the acceleration went up to ~3.5 g.
Crew-2 reached 4.5 g, and its astronauts enjoyed the ride.
It's in the range of the peak acceleration of large roller-coasters, but sustained for a longer time.

Starship is getting ready for its third test flight

 

[nsaspook]

Finding and Digitizing the Apollo 11 Moon Landing on NBC (July 20, 1969 - Partial Broadcast, B/W)​

 

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Crew-7 will reenter and land in the very early morning for the US. It should be nicely visible everywhere along its reentry path (weather permitting):



(Link if the embedding doesn't show up)

 

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A bit like a slow shooting star, just more controlled and with 4 people sitting inside.




Starship is still no earlier than March 14, in less than 2 days.

 

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The maiden flight of KAIROS, a privately developed Japanese rocket, had the rocket explode after a few seconds for unknown reasons.
Very oversized fireworks rocket

 

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The last Delta IV Heavy launch, a military satellite, is scheduled for March 28. It is also the final launch of the whole Delta rocket family. Its first launch was in 1960, just two years after the first orbital launch of the US. It stayed one of the most popular launch families for decades. Now it gets replaced by Vulcan, which is cheaper and more powerful.

Delta IV (Medium/Heavy) was the only rocket to reach orbit purely with liquid hydrogen and oxygen as propellant. It provides a high specific impulse but low thrust so it's commonly used together with solid rocket motors (high thrust, low specific impulse) or only on upper stages.
It burns a lot of hydrogen before takeoff, which always makes it look like the whole rocket is going to blow up on the launch pad. It doesn't, all the flames are supposed to be there.

 

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After some delays the Delta IV Heavy launch is now scheduled for April 9, 16:53 UTC, or 24 hours after this comment.

The Falcon rocket family has reached 300 successful missions in a row (301 right now). 8 more launches to give Falcon 9 alone a streak of 300, too.

 

[Tom.G]

Upcoming launch... but from where?

If it's Vandenberg, I'll get up early.

 

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Delta IV Heavy was from Florida. Wikipedia has a list of launches

A Falcon 9 will launch from Vandenberg on Thursday 5 am local time.

 

[Tom.G]

If it's Vandenberg, I'll get up early.

A Falcon 9 will launch from Vandenberg on Thursday 5 am local time.

Welll... maybe not THAT early, especially as it has a 4.5hr. launch window.

 

[mfb]

Might be close to sunrise, has a chance to get a space jellyfish. A launch early in the window is the most likely.

Shutdown of vacuum-optimized raptor in slow motion. The pressure of the exhaust is below atmospheric pressure, which leads to the weird effects seen in the video:

 

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2023 launch statistics and analysis

Mass to orbit by rocket:

SpaceX launched 5 times more mass than the rest of the world combined.

 

[Tom.G]

2023 launch statistics and analysis

Mass to orbit by rocket:

View attachment 343648

SpaceX launched 5 times more mass than the rest of the world combined.

When a consumer-product company does that it is labelled a Monopoly, and often broken up.

 

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Only if they abuse the monopoly.

SpaceX saves its customers billions.

 

[Flyboy]

When a consumer-product company does that it is labelled a Monopoly, and often broken up.

Most of that launch capacity has been for in-house missions: Starlink.

 

[Astronuc]

The Aerospace Corporation
https://aerospace.org/about

I interact with folks from this organization.

 

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Starliner passed its flight readiness review for the crewed flight test, scheduled for May 7. It is expected to stay at the ISS for about one week.
If successful, it will become the second privately developed spacecraft to launch astronauts to orbit, four years after Dragon. It will be the first maiden flight of a spacecraft with a woman on board, and the first American (orbital) capsule to land on solid ground.

China plans to launch Chang'e 6 on May 3. It will be the first sample return from the far side of the Moon.


A Falcon 9 is scheduled to launch two Galileo satellites tomorrow (28 April, 00:34 UTC). This is an unusual launch in several aspects:
* It's an ESA payload not flying on a European rocket. It was originally supposed to fly on Soyuz, after the Russian invasion in Ukraine it was planned to fly on Ariane 6, as that rocket accumulated delays it was finally moved to Falcon 9.
* The booster will be expended, something that hasn't happened for the last 140 Falcon 9 flights. It's a heavy payload that needs to go to a medium Earth orbit.
* It will be the 20th flight of this booster. That is "only" a tie with the current record, but usually these fleet leaders are launching Starlink (i.e. the risk is internal to Falcon 9), not government satellites. Retiring an older booster makes sense for SpaceX, of course.

 

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NASA’s Readiness for the Artemis II Crewed Mission to Lunar Orbit - report by the Office of Inspector General

We knew there were concerns about the heat shield after Artemis I, but as far as I know we never got to see pictures before. I can see why NASA is concerned:

 

[berkeman]

What is "heat shield char"? When I do a Google search, all that comes up is how to char-broil on a BBQ.

 

[renormalize]

What is "heat shield char"? When I do a Google search, all that comes up is how to char-broil on a BBQ.

One of the dictionary definitions of char as a noun is: "a charred material or surface".

 

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China has launched Chang'e 6, planned to return samples from the far side of the Moon for the first time. The mission profile is similar to Chang'e 5, but landing on the far side means you need a relay satellite for communication. Samples are expected to land on Earth in late June.
Chang'e 7 is planned to repeat that with a landing near the South Pole.

Boeing's crewed flight is still on track for a May 7, 02:34 UTC launch. Evening of May 6 in the US. A bit over three days away.

 

[Tom.G]

Boeing's crewed flight is still on track for a May 7, 02:34 UTC launch. Evening of May 6 in the US. A bit over three days away.

Maybe, just maybe, Boeing can get something to stay together if they get out of that pesky atmosphere.
(but there is not enough money in the World to get me on THAT crew!)