Space Stuff and Launch Info

AI Thread Summary
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.
  • #201
More "who would have guessed?"
http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/2885.htm
"The formation of sedimentary dunes requires the presence of grains and of winds that are strong enough to transport them along the ground. However, comets do not have a dense, permanent atmosphere as on Earth. Nonetheless, the OSIRIS camera on board the Rosetta spacecraft showed the presence of dune-like forms approximately ten meters apart on 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. They are found on the lobes of the comet as well as on the neck that connects them. Comparison of two images of the same spot taken 16 months apart provides evidence that the dunes moved and are therefore active."

http://spacenews.com/safety-panel-raises-concerns-about-crew-on-first-sls-launch/
WASHINGTON - A NASA independent safety committee wants NASA to provide a "compelling rationale" for putting astronauts on the first flight of the Space Launch System, a proposal NASA is currently studying.
 
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Physics news on Phys.org
  • #202
http://www.spacex.com/news/2017/02/27/spacex-send-privately-crewed-dragon- spacecraft -beyond-moon-next-year - for a manned trip around the Moon. No landing, and probably no orbit either - just a free-return trajectory (similar to what Apollo 13 did). Currently announced for "late 2018", so probably in 2019 or maybe 2020.

Unexpected, but a great example of "why not?". SpaceX is developing the crewed version of Dragon anyway, they want to launch NASA astronauts to the ISS with Falcon 9 and Dragon in 2018. They want to launch FH this summer. Put a Dragon on a FH and you can go to Moon.

If the mission works out, the two undisclosed passengers will be the first people to leave low Earth orbit since 1972 (Apollo 17) and will become number 25 and 26 to fly to the Moon. Depending on their precise orbit they might set a record for the largest distance from Earth, and they will certainly set the quite obscure record "largest distance to the second nearest other human" as Apollo missions to Moon always had a crew of three.

For SpaceX, it is a nice new source of funding, but it is also a massive PR boost.Will we see more of those missions? I can imagine that. The price for the mission is not public, but it is probably somewhere at 200-400 millions (all numbers in USD). There are 1800 billionaires worldwide who could book such a mission without too much trouble. The Dragon capsule has 7 seats, so if you are fine with a crowded capsule for about 5 days, costs per seat are "just" 30 to 60 millions. It is estimated that 200,000 people have a net worth 30 millions or more, I didn't find numbers in between that and the billionaires. If just 0.1% of those who can afford a trip want to go to Moon, SpaceX will have a busy schedule.
 
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  • #203
Wow, interesting reading, I hadn't come across that news. Thanks for the link. :thumbup:
mfb said:
Unexpected, but a great example of "why not?".
This is what makes SpaceX so interesting, the bureaucracy has been for the most part replaced with something far more productive. I hope to be alive twenty years from now to see how far they go. (I think people will be surprised)
mfb said:
For SpaceX, it is a nice new source of funding, but it is also a massive PR boost.
I couldn't agree more, priceless PR.

Here is another take on SpaceX's plans.
http://spaceflight101.com/spacex-announces-lunar-dragon-missions/

Cool "Stuff"
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6758
 
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  • #206
mfb said:
Any idea when it is?
It seems to be ongoing over the last several days, not sure when the next segment begins but the playback option let's you catch up on what has been missed in the mean time.

http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/nr/stars-ripped-apart-black-holes-1.684679
"Astronomers based at the University of Sheffield have found evidence that stars are ripped apart by supermassive black holes 100 times more often than previously thought."
 
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  • #207
The XMM-Newton and NuStar are certainly paying off lately.
http://www.caltech.edu/news/temperature-swings-black-hole-winds-measured-first-time-54263
"Supermassive black holes can be voracious, devouring gas, dust, and other material pulled in by their gravity. These feeding frenzies can get messy: the disks of matter surrounding black holes can fling out ultrafast streams of hot gas, or "winds," that blast through their host galaxies. These winds, according to new measurements of a nearby supermassive black hole obtained with NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) telescope, can heat up and cool down in the span of just a few hours."

NASA has released a ton of software, here's a PDF catalogue if anyone is interested.
https://software.nasa.gov/
 
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  • #208
Pictures of micrometeorite damage - open surfaces have a hard time in space. Hubble has been in space since 1990, but the solar panels are from the first service mission December 1993, 23 years ago. Vanguard 1, the oldest object still in orbit (and the first with solar panels), has been in space for 58 years - imagine how those panels looks now.
 
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  • #209


http://spaceflight101.com/akatsuki-venus-orbiter-loses-infrared-vision-after-electrical-fault/
"Japan’s Akatsuki spacecraft in orbit around Venus has suspended operating two of its five scientific cameras after the craft’s electronics units showed considerable degradation in December, just one year after the mission’s arrival at Venus following an extended odyssey through the solar system."

http://www.astrowatch.net/2017/03/an-extraordinary-celestial-spiral-with.html
"An international team of astronomers, led by Hyosun Kim in Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA, Taiwan), has found a way of deriving the orbital shape of binary stars that have orbital periods too long to be directly measured. This was possible thanks to an observation toward the old star LL Pegasi (also known as AFGL 3068) using the state-of-the-art telescope, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). This work appears in the journal Nature Astronomy this week, and is selected as the cover story of the March issue."
 
  • #211
Just waiting for outgassing would take too long I guess, but we could speed that up by sublimating some CO2 from the ice caps.

The idea of a magnetic field at the Lagrange point is certainly interesting. You could keep the coils superconducting with passive cooling and they would maintain a circular shape based on their self-interaction. The L1 point is not stable, but the interaction of solar wind with the coils would suggest you can do some steering based on that interaction.
 
  • #215
Some very cool concepts being discussed here.
http://www.universetoday.com/134274/exploring-titan-aerial-platforms/
http://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/V2050/pdf/8177.pdf
"These concepts can be divided into two categories, which are Lighter-Than-Air (LTA) craft and Heavier-Than-Air (HTA) craft. And as Pauken explained, these are both well-suited when it comes to exploring a moon like Titan, which has an atmosphere that is actually denser than Earth’s – 146.7 kPa at the surface compared to 101 kPa at sea level on Earth – but only 0.14 times the gravity (similar to the Moon)."
 
  • #216
While it would have a bad efficiency, you could fly on Titan using liquid oxygen (stable at surface conditions) as fuel and "burn it" using the methane and hydrogen in the atmosphere.

All the designs would fly "blind" - humans can program the long-term plan, but all flight decisions have to be done faster than humans can react due to 2.5 hours light-speed delay. A 1 hour multicopter would be back (or not) before we even get confirmation that it started.
Flight was also discussed to explore the gas giants. The hydrogen/helium atmosphere and the strong winds make lighter than air impractical, and the strong gravity would need supersonic flight. How do you power such an aircraft?

Yes.
Nuclear powered supersonic ramjets.
Not so different from Project Pluto, but much more compact, and with a different purpose.
 
  • #219
Around 6 am in Central Europe.
Potentially the last expendable F9 launch ever - as soon as Falcon Heavy is ready they would fly missions like this with a reusable Falcon Heavy.
 
  • #220
mfb said:
Potentially the last expendable F9 launch ever
Yes, I see they are planning on at least six re-use flights this year, trying to catch up on the back log. I hope the Heavy works out as well as they are expecting, problems with that one would really set things back.
 
  • #221
Well, they don't want to re-launch many of the current boosters, as they plan to introduce a new version ("block 5") later this year.

According to some scattered quotes, launch pad 40 (where the rocket with AMOS exploded) is planned to be ready again in summer. Then they can launch F9 from there while preparing launch pad 39 for Falcon Heavy, which is expected to take 2 months. It doesn't make sense to block the only available launch pad on the East Coast for 2 months, so both things have to happen sequentially.

Related to the launch pads: SpaceX switched to an automated system to ensure range safety. No human has to sit at the self-destruct switch. Computers are faster and more reliable, and the whole system is in the rocket itself, it does not depend on ground infrastructure.
Range safety is an important factor for available launch windows. The existing system can only handle one rocket, reprogramming it takes something like a day, and SpaceX is not the only company launching rockets at Kennedy Space Center. With the automated system, this is no longer an issue. With two launch pads they can launch two rockets at the same day. They can also return two or even three boosters of FH at the same time, something not possible with the manual and ground-based system.
 
  • #222
mfb said:
: SpaceX switched to an automated system to ensure range safety
These guys just keep on racking up "firsts", makes one wonder what they will accomplish next.

Hey did anyone notice I recently "racked up" a couple hundred posts on my count. my goal of perfect symmetry on post/like counts is totally blown. :cool:

Also here is the Technical webcast for those who don't care for the "extras"


Now this makes "perfect sense"
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/13/world/trappist-exoplanet-belgian-researchers/index.html
"The researchers also nicknamed each exoplanet -- those that orbit stars outside our own solar system -- after monastic Trappist beers like Rochefort, Orval and Westvleteren, some of which have been brewed for centuries."
 
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  • #223
SpaceX launch got delayed to Thursday due to strong wind. Again in the night for Europe.
1oldman2 said:
Hey did anyone notice I recently "racked up" a couple hundred posts on my count. my goal of perfect symmetry on post/like counts is totally blown.
At some point you had the symmetry.
 
  • #224
https://phys.org/news/2017-03-trump...e=menu&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=item-menu
http://spacenews.com/white-house-budget-proposal-targets-arm-earth-science-missions-education/
"Targeted for cancellation in the budget proposal is ARM, a NASA program to fly a robotic spacecraft to a near Earth object, retrieve a boulder from its surface and fly back to lunar orbit, where astronauts would visit it on a future Orion mission." :frown:

"We will continue the solar electric propulsion efforts benefitting from those developments for future in space transportation initiatives,":thumbup:

"It specifically targets four planned or ongoing missions for termination: the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite, the Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory (CLARREO) Pathfinder and the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) 3 instruments for the International Space Station, and "DSCOVR Earth-viewing instruments," an apparent reference to Earth observation instruments on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), launched in 2015.:sorry:

"Mick Mulvaney, director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, alluded to the lack of funding for a Europa lander mission in a briefing with reporters March 15. "I think we changed one of the missions to a moon at Saturn or Jupiter, but I can’t remember the details on that," he said. Europa is a moon of Jupiter.":doh:

China gets another observatory.:partytime:
http://www.nature.com/news/chinese-mountain-observatory-to-probe-cosmic-ray-origins-1.21631

And,
http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1709/
http://www.mpe.mpg.de/6698274/news20170316
 
  • #225
1oldman2 said:
he said. Europa is a moon of Jupiter.":doh:
That one is nailed now then.
 
  • #226
1oldman2 said:
"Mick Mulvaney, director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, alluded to the lack of funding for a Europa lander mission in a briefing with reporters March 15. "I think we changed one of the missions to a moon at Saturn or Jupiter, but I can’t remember the details on that," he said.
No need to remember details (like the mission target) if you move billions of dollars around.

The fly-by mission still gets funding.

DSCOVR is in space already, all they would have to do is to continue receiving its data. I guess it gets canceled on a purely political basis.
1oldman2 said:
China gets another observatory.:partytime:
http://www.nature.com/news/chinese-mountain-observatory-to-probe-cosmic-ray-origins-1.21631
Looks like a second version of HESS.SpaceX has a launch date for the first re-flight of a booster: March 27. The booster has shot CRS-8 Dragon on the way to the ISS already, now it launches a communication satellite for SES. This will be a big milestone - not just for SpaceX, but for orbital spaceflight in general.
 
  • #227
mfb said:
No need to remember details (like the mission target) if you move billions of dollars around.

The fly-by mission still gets funding.

DSCOVR is in space already, all they would have to do is to continue receiving its data. I guess it gets canceled on a purely political basis.
Purely political... that's a pretty accurate summation. I'm struggling to not include analogies with the dark ages.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/trumps-first-budget-analysis-and-reaction

mfb said:
SpaceX has a launch date for the first re-flight of a booster: March 27. The booster has shot CRS-8 Dragon on the way to the ISS already, now it launches a communication satellite for SES. This will be a big milestone - not just for SpaceX, but for orbital spaceflight in general.
Going to be very popular in the future.
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/poli...a-developing-system-recover-reuse-parts-space
 
  • #228
1oldman2 said:
Going to be very popular in the future.
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2079822/china-developing-system-recover-reuse-parts-space
New Glenn is also planned with a reusable booster, and recovering the engines of Ariane 6 and Vulcan is considered.

Not a coincidence, it can reduce launch costs by a big margin. Rockets that cannot be reused will be too expensive - probably within the next 10 years.
 
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  • #229
The debate won't die.:sorry:
https://phys.org/news/2017-03-scien...e=menu&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=item-menu
http://releases.jhu.edu/2017/03/16/scientists-make-the-case-to-restore-plutos-planet-status/

http://www.universetoday.com/134509/trappist-1-an-evening-with-fraser-cain/ :smile:
"In case you haven’t heard, some new potentially habitable planets were discovered, and they’re named after beer. To celebrate two of our favorite things finally coming together, Forbidden Brewing Co. welcomes local space expert Fraser Cain for an evening of space talk, beer, and pizza.

Whether you’re just curious, or you’re a bona fide astronomy nerd, this is a great opportunity to rub shoulders with others who share your curiosity. And your love of beer."

And thought I'd throw in this view of Uzboi Vallis, there's a lot of cool things going on in this image.
pia21563.jpg
 
  • #230
1oldman2 said:
The debate won't die.:sorry:
https://phys.org/news/2017-03-scien...e=menu&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=item-menu
http://releases.jhu.edu/2017/03/16/scientists-make-the-case-to-restore-plutos-planet-status/
I would like to see exoplanets included in the planet definition. In other words, remove the requirement of orbiting the sun for the planet status.
Or make up a new word for "planets and exoplanets". It is annoying that there is no word for both together.

I don't care about Pluto, but adding Pluto without adding many more objects is inconsistent, and adding many more objects will lead to a potentially very large number of planets.
 
  • #232
In other news...
http://www.universetoday.com/134567/stephen-hawking-going-edge-space/
"Stephen Hawking has spent decades theorizing about the Universe. His thinking on black holes, quantum gravity, quantum mechanics, and a long list of other topics, has helped shape our understanding of the cosmos. Now it looks like the man who has spent most of his adult life bound to a wheel-chair will travel to the edge of space."

A very informative article on space junk, I highly recommend this site.
http://www.universetoday.com/134560/eye-opening-numbers-space-debris/
"According to various statistical models, there is an estimated 166 million objects in orbit that range in size from 1 mm to 1 cm in diameter. There is also another 750,000 objects that range from being 1cm to 10 cm in diameter, and about 29,000 objects that exceed 10 cm in diameter. The ESA and other space agencies around the world are responsible for tracking about 42,000 of the larger ones."

Interesting goings on with a familiar Comet.
http://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-017-0092
 
  • #233
  • #234
:smile:
Technical

Hosted
 
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  • #235
The first stage went to space for its second flight, and landed again.

Reusable orbital rockets are a thing. Since March 2017.

SpaceX also tries to recover the payload fairing this time. It looks like a simple component, but it is actually a huge high-tech element, with a price estimate of $2 to $4 million per piece. The huge oven needed to make them is currently one of the limits on the flight frequency.

Edit: Satellite deployed. No news about the fairing yet. We'll probably get a video if they can recover it.

Edit2: Fairing not recovered.
 
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  • #236
:thumbup:
This is from http://www.universetoday.com/134812/arca-unveils-worlds-first-single-stage-orbit-rocket/
"When the Haas 2CA rocket launches, it will be the first rocket in history to place itself entirely into orbit. This opens new frontiers for exploration of the Solar System as the rocket can be refueled in-orbit and re-utilize its aerospike engine thus eliminating the need for additional upper stages. After the full qualification, the vehicle could be operated from inland spaceports as there are no stages that fall on the ground at burnout. Staged rockets, even though they provide more payload performance for the same takeoff mass, are less reliable because of an increased number of parts due to flight events requested by staging and ignition of the upper stage engine. Also, staged rockets are deemed to be more expensive because they are literally made up of more than one rocket. Manufacturing and assembling more rockets in one launcher requires more, time, money, and personnel. The SSTO technology, once implemented, will increase the space flight responsiveness and lower the cost to values expected by the industry for decades. This rocket will also be the fastest vehicle to reach orbit, taking less than 5 minutes."
 
  • #237
I'll believe it if it flies. There were so many SSTO proposals in the last decades, one more is not particularly notable.
Several existing rocket stages could achieve SSTO - with a tiny payload. So tiny that it is not worth doing that. The interesting statement is the price. If they can keep that as low as announced, it is great.
 
  • #238
mfb said:
The interesting statement is the price. If they can keep that as low as announced, it is great.
I was thinking the same.
 
  • #239
Detection of the atmosphere of the 1.6 Earth mass exoplanet GJ 1132b
The smallest planet with a measured atmosphere so far. Probably water vapor and methane, but that is not sure. The planet is way too hot to have liquid water (supercritical water would be possible).

The planet is just 40 light years away, so this is one of the easiest targets, but it makes hope that we can measure more atmospheres in the future. JWST will certainly be able to do that.

phys.org news article with some context.
 
  • #240
This could be pretty interesting, I'm wondering what they have found to rate a news conference?
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/...ies-in-news-conference-on-oceans-beyond-earth
"NASA will discuss new results about ocean worlds in our solar system from the agency’s Cassini spacecraft and the Hubble Space Telescope during a news briefing 2 p.m. EDT on Thursday, April 13. The event, to be held at the James Webb Auditorium at NASA Headquarters in Washington, will include remote participation from experts across the country."
 
  • #241
This could be related. :smile:
http://hubblesite.org/news_release/news/2017-17
"The location of the plumes corresponds to the position of an unusually warm spot on the moon's icy crust, as measured in the late 1990s by NASA's Galileo spacecraft . Researchers speculate that this might be circumstantial evidence for material venting from the moon's subsurface. The material could be associated with the global ocean that is believed to be present beneath the frozen crust. The plumes offer an opportunity to sample what might be in the ocean, in the search for life on that distant moon."
low_STSCI-H-p1717a-d-1280x720.png

 
  • #242
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  • #243
Dust...



The problems you run into, in outer space.
​


Wondering if this is serendipity, or did someone know this?
 
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  • #245
A SpaceX launch is upcoming, 11:00 to 13:00 UTC (9-11 hours after this post). The first stage will land on the ground pad. It is a military satellite, no details about it are known, not even the target orbit (although I'm sure many amateurs will quickly track it). This also means we won't get a video of the second stage, but we can watch the first stage return to Cape Canaveral.

Livestream

Edit: Shifted to tomorrow due to an issue with the first stage.

Edit2: Looking good so far, at T-0:17:00.

Edit3: Success!
Well, they didn't show the second stage, but at least the first stage worked nicely and landed again, and I guess they would report a loss of mission.
 
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  • #246
NROL-76 footage has the first complete uninterrupted video of first stage flight, through MECO, boostback, flyback and landing. And it's jaw-dropping.

 
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  • #247
This should be an interesting launch to follow, a lot of new systems designs going on with "It's a test"
https://spaceflight101.com/launch-week-arrives-for-rocket-labs-electron/
"Rocket Lab’s Electron is targeting liftoff between May 24 and June 2 with daily windows stretching from 1 through 5 UTC, 1 - 5 p.m. local time at the company’s launch facility at Mahia Peninsula on New Zealand’s North Island."
 
  • #248
As far as I know, it will be the first orbital launch from the southern hemisphere.
The British launched a few sounding rockets from Australia and New Zealand, and Argentina/Brazil launched a few from Brazilian spaceports, but none of them went to orbit.
 
  • #249
mfb said:
it will be the first orbital launch from the southern hemisphere.
That is what I understand also, a first from the southern Hemisphere.
Also I've been waiting for this for a long time.
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6852
"Scientists from NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter will discuss their first in-depth science results in a media teleconference at 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. EDT) Thursday, May 25, when multiple papers with early findings will be published online by the journal Science and Geophysical Research Letters."
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/junoteleconference
http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2
 

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