Space Stuff and Launch Info

[mfb]

Nice picture of Dragon entering the atmosphere.

No launch today. 5th or 6th.

 

[SamBeer]

Does anyone know anything about electrogravitics??

 

[1oldman2]

Does anyone know anything about electrogravitics??

electrogravitics... That would be a very brief conversation on this Forum.

 

[mfb]

Please see our guidelines.

 

[1oldman2]

An interesting Video, It's a little rough so a higher Definition setting and full screen mode is recommended, it doesn't look good for AMC 9.
From, https://spaceflight101.com/amc-9-restores-contact-with-ground-sheds-debris/

 

[mfb]

it doesn't look good for AMC 9.

Well, the satellite is old already, had 14 of its 15 years design lifetime.

No launch today. 5th or 6th.

5th - today.
23:37 UTC (6.5 hours after this post) or up to one hour after that.

 

[1oldman2]

Well, the satellite is old already, had 14 of its 15 years design lifetime.

Good point, The article mentions a Kinetic event, any word on the cause ? Debris collision vs. Equipment failure ?

5th - today.
23:37 UTC (6.5 hours after this post) or up to one hour after that.

This will be a test of the "Third Times a Charm" theory. I'm betting the bugs are worked out and they will fly today.

 

[1oldman2]

https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing/
https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/07/12/first-images-of-jupiters-great-red-spot-reach-earth/
http://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley....N)1944-8007.JUNO1/?campaign=dartwol|427538210

 

[1oldman2]

A better idea in the works ?
http://spacenews.com/spacex-drops-plans-for-powered-dragon-landings/
WASHINGTON - "SpaceX no longer plans to have the next version of its Dragon spacecraft be capable of powered landings, a move that has implications for the company’s long-term Mars plans."

"There was a time that I thought the Dragon approach to landing Mars, where you’ve got a base heat shield and side-mounted thrusters, would be the right way to land on Mars," he said. "Now I’m pretty confident that is not the right way and there’s a far better approach."

Quoting Musk
"Plan is to do powered landings on Mars for sure, but with a vastly bigger ship"

 

[mfb]

He also confirmed that SpaceX works on a smaller version of ITS.
The impact on the planned path to Mars is huge, but it also impacts other parts of SpaceX operation.

• The largest thing humans landed on Mars so far (Curiosity) had a mass of 900 kg. Red Dragon would have landed multiple tons. A downscaled ITS would probably land with ~100 tons. Without previous experience of propulsive landings on Mars in general, and without any landing experience from SpaceX.
• Before humans can be sent to Mars, spacecraft there have to demonstrate the landing capability, and they have to demonstrate that fuel production is feasible. Previously this was expected for the Red Dragon missions in 2020 and 2022. If a downscaled ITS is the first spacecraft to do go to Mars, then 2022 is a super optimistic timescale, and 2024 or later is more likely. You probably want another round to refine that - 2026. That means humans won't go there before 2029, even if everything goes well.
• Currently they can reuse the pressure vessel of Dragon, but not the full capsule. The salt water landing corrodes other parts. A propulsive landing on land would have made full reuse much easier. Musk mentioned a possible landing on a soft surface, but that didn't look like a real plan. Landing in a lake might be possible.

On the positive side, the business model will probably look much better now. A rocket with a payload in the 100 ton range, where both stages are reusable very often, can take over the full commercial launch market, even the parts that do not exist yet (e. g. LEO satellite internet constellations or space tourism besides short ISS visits).
With a lot of in-orbit refueling, such a system could go to Moon as well. NASA or ESA might buy a few trips.

 

[1oldman2]

It's interesting to hear about the Heavy's plans for this year, hope all goes well. They should be able to get several wheels of cheese in orbit with the maiden flight.
https://phys.org/news/2017-07-space...e=menu&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=item-menu

Here's a good one, thought it was a joke but unfortunately just another "sign of the times".
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...martian-civilizations/?utm_term=.d6810cfcbe35

 

[1oldman2]

News on the Heavy.
https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/07/25/musk-sets-expectations-low-for-maiden-falcon-heavy-launch/
"When SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket finally takes off for the first time, a debut now scheduled this fall, there’s a good chance the commercial heavy-lifter will falter short of reaching orbit, company founder and chief designer Elon Musk said last week."
"There’s a lot of risk associated with Falcon Heavy, a real good chance that that vehicle does not make it to orbit," Musk said, referring to the inaugural test launch. "I want to make sure to set expectations accordingly. I hope it makes it far enough beyond the pad so that it does not cause pad damage. I would consider even that a win, to be honest."

 

[mfb]

It is the pad they want to use for the manned missions to the ISS next year. If they would think damage to the pad was a likely outcome they wouldn't do that. More delays of Dragon 2 would make NASA a very unhappy customer, and so far it is the most important customer.

On the other hand, the US has some more military satellite contracts they want to award soon, for a total of $2 billion. For SpaceX to participate, they need at least one FH launch before the end of this year.

 

[1oldman2]

On the other hand, the US has some more military satellite contracts they want to award soon, for a total of $2 billion. For SpaceX to participate, they need at least one FH launch before the end of this year.

The STP-2 launch should make a pretty good proving ground for that. Any Idea what the payload mass is on that flight?

 

[mfb]

The demo mission with the dummy payload is all that counts. STP-2 will be too late.

I don't think the payload is the point, no one questions that FH will be able to lift every satellite currently designed. The interesting part is the flight dynamics. Does the rocket survive the vibrations induced by 27 rocket engines, is the aerodynamics simulation accurate, does the separation work?

ISAT has a mass of more than 5000 kg, COSMIC-2 adds 1700 kg, no idea about the other payloads but they should be lighter.
ISAT and COSMIC-2 go to LEO, but with different orbital planes. The total payload mass is probably not too high but the second stage will need fuel for all the plane changes.

 

[1oldman2]

Does the rocket survive the vibrations induced by 27 rocket engines

Good question, I see they have redesigned the core stage air-frame in anticipation of the new stress involved.

 

[1oldman2]

If your a fan of JWST, here's a teaser.
https://asd.gsfc.nasa.gov/luvoir/media/Flyer_v5.pdf

 

[mfb]

After the JWST cost overruns, I'm not sure how happy the US would be with another telescope that looks like JWST.
The European ELT will be faster and it can make exoplanet pictures as well. The sensitivity is a bit lower, but picturing exoplanets is limited by the resolution, and ELT has a slightly better resolution.

 

[1oldman2]

After the JWST cost overruns, I'm not sure how happy the US would be with another telescope that looks like JWST.

Granted there is an image problem associated with JWST, I think the LUVOIR is just a concept on the wish list, but a pretty cool one. These projects seem to get weeded out by economics and given that climate lately its a miracle any of them see first light. I noticed the new design only uses one layer of sunshade, they must have improved the performance or found a new material.

 

[OmCheeto]

After the JWST cost overruns, I'm not sure how happy the US would be with another telescope that looks like JWST.
...

After some maths, I wouldn't be unhappy.

Om goes googling:

James Webb Space Telescope:

Cost: $10,000,000,000 (er mehr gerd!)

hmmmm:
≈100,000,000 taxpayers
divided into 10 billion yields: $100/person

Not too bad, but $100 is one months of my disposable income.

hmmmm...
2018: launch date
1996: inception date

≈22 years

$100/22 = $4.54/year ≈ 1¼¢/day​

I can afford a penny a day.

 

[mfb]

I can afford a penny a day.

If you have $100/month disposable income, you probably pay less tax than the average taxpayer. Your contribution would be even smaller.

All these projects are cheap per person and day. There are many of them, of course.
Divide the highest ITER cost estimates by 2 billion (population of participating countries) and you get $10 per person, or ~0.1 cent per day over 25 years. For the option to have a very clean energy source in the future? Build two of them!

The US and many European countries spend about 3% of the federal/country budget on research. We could double science funding if everyone would be fine with paying 3% higher taxes. In the US that would be about $1.2 per person and day on average, in Germany it would be something similar but estimating the number is complicated.
I'd happily pay that. Okay, I am biased, because my income is from this budget item...

 

[OmCheeto]

If you have $100/month disposable income, you probably pay less tax than the average taxpayer. Your contribution would be even smaller.

All these projects are cheap per person and day. There are many of them, of course.
Divide the highest ITER cost estimates by 2 billion (population of participating countries) and you get $10 per person, or ~0.1 cent per day over 25 years. For the option to have a very clean energy source in the future? Build two of them!

The US and many European countries spend about 3% of the federal/country budget on research. We could double science funding if everyone would be fine with paying 3% higher taxes. In the US that would be about $1.2 per person and day on average, in Germany it would be something similar but estimating the number is complicated.
I'd happily pay that. Okay, I am biased, because my income is from this budget item...

I paid 23% last year, with an income of ½ the national average.
I'm not sure what the average person paid last year.
Though, some of that was a "wealth" tax, so I'm not sure if that counts.

ps. Whatever you are paid, it is not enough.
pps. I think we're getting off topic...

Space and Stuff!

 

[stefan r]

Granted there is an image problem associated with JWST, I think the LUVOIR is just a concept on the wish list, but a pretty cool one. These projects seem to get weeded out by economics and given that climate lately its a miracle any of them see first light. I noticed the new design only uses one layer of sunshade, they must have improved the performance or found a new material.

It is a UV telescope. A single layer of aluminum foil or plastic with aluminum coat will reflect/adsorb all of the UV/vis light. An IR telescope needs to be cold. JWST should be kept around 50K. LUVOIR can run at 280K. Spacial resolution is proportional to wavelength. A UV telescope should create much sharper images.

JWST is designed to get images in the infrared which are hard to get on Earth's surface.

After some maths, I wouldn't be unhappy...

Cost: $10,000,000,000 (er mehr gerd!)...​

I can afford a penny a day.

EELT is expecting to cost around $10⁹. EELT should be able to get boring pictures of a wet rock. JWST will get interesting images of Jupiter sized structures which cannot be acquired from earth.

I think mfb is right that the US public wants a wet pixel. Might disturb some people if ESO gets it first while we spent 10x the cash.

 

[1oldman2]

Space and Stuff!

 

[1oldman2]

It is a UV telescope. A single layer of aluminum foil or plastic with aluminum coat will reflect/adsorb all of the UV/vis light. An IR telescope needs to be cold. JWST should be kept around 50K. LUVOIR can run at 280K. Spacial resolution is proportional to wavelength. A UV telescope should create much sharper images.

Good point, thanks for the answer.

I think mfb is right

He has a habit of that.

 

[OmCheeto]

...

I think mfb is right

He has a habit of that.

I've only know him to be wrong, once, in my 10 years here, at PF.

ps. Somewhat off topic: I used to be a nuclear power plant technician, whilst in the Navy, and developed a habit of "never being wrong".
Being wrong back then, meant everyone would be dead.
Fast forward 20 years, to my civilian-hood, dollar store job, and after everyone was so pissed at me for never making a mistake after 10 years of perfection, one day, I made a mistake.
All I can remember was, that they danced.

I think I danced the day mfb made a mistake, because I FINALLY correctly did a maths problem.

I am very bad at maths.

 

[mfb]

I've only know him to be wrong, once, in my 10 years here, at PF.

It happens, but I try to avoid it.

EELT is expecting to cost around $10⁹. EELT should be able to get boring pictures of a wet rock. JWST will get interesting images of Jupiter sized structures which cannot be acquired from earth.

I think mfb is right that the US public wants a wet pixel. Might disturb some people if ESO gets it first while we spent 10x the cash.

JWST can do infrared spectroscopy of some exoplanets, especially in transits.
For direct imaging ELT is better - better resolution and contrast, and more light. It will be able to take direct pictures and spectra of many planetary systems up to ~100 light years away, and some even further out.
Here is a simulation for GMT. ELT will have nearly three times the mirror area and about twice the angular resolution..

JWST will be much earlier - 2018, while ELT has first light planned for 2024.

 

[1oldman2]

Speaking of JWST...
At some point this baby's going to fly, I just hope I live long enough to see it.
http://spacenews.com/spaceport-schedule-conflict-could-delay-jwst-launch/
WASHINGTON - "NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is facing a schedule conflict for its Ariane 5 launch with a European planetary science mission that could, in one scenario, delay the telescope’s launch by several months."

 

[mfb]

That schedule conflict is due in part to delays in the development of BepiColombo. The mission’s launch has slipped several times in the last decade. In 2007, when ESA approved moving the mission into its development phase, it was expected to launch on a Soyuz rocket in 2013.

In 2011, ESA announced the mission would instead launch on a more powerful Ariane 5 in July 2014. The launch slipped in 2012 to August 2015, then later to July 2016, January 2017 and April 2018. Last November, ESA announced that the launch was now scheduled for October 2018 because of a problem with a power processing unit on the spacecraft .

Looks like there are a lot of launch windows for BepiColombo, and these dates are not even necessarily all launch options. Just shift it once more.

 

[johnsherdy10]

https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing/
https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/07/12/first-images-of-jupiters-great-red-spot-reach-earth/
http://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley....N)1944-8007.JUNO1/?campaign=dartwol|427538210
View attachment 207044

Nice pic! I spend more 1 hour to read all page in topic.

 

[1oldman2]

Nice pic! I spend more 1 hour to read all page in topic.

Here is another,

NASA posted it as pic of the day

 

[johnsherdy10]

Nice pic! I spend more 1 hour to read all page in topic.

Here is another,View attachment 208518 NASA posted it as pic of the day

Wow. Thank you! Beautiful

 

[mfb]

Four Earth-sized planets around Tau Ceti
The star is Sun-like, just 12 light years away and bright enough to be visible with the naked eye. Two of the planets are probably in the habitable zone.

Not from Kepler this time - it is a radial velocity measurement! ~0.2 m/s, an incredible precision, and slowly moving towards the precision to detect perfect Earth analogs.

JWST might measure the inclination, ELT will certainly be able to do it, that gives a proper mass estimate.

Edit:
Mayak failed to deploy its solar reflectors. It would have been the brightest artificial object in the sky, surpassing the ISS under good viewing conditions.

 

[1oldman2]

Four Earth-sized planets around Tau Ceti
The star is Sun-like, just 12 light years away and bright enough to be visible with the naked eye. Two of the planets are probably in the habitable zone.

Not from Kepler this time - it is a radial velocity measurement! ~0.2 m/s, an incredible precision, and slowly moving towards the precision to detect perfect Earth analogs.

Great article, thanks. (love the name of that Star, I get that Ceti refers to the "Whale" but the Tau part, that ones a bit ambiguous.)

JWST might measure the inclination, ELT will certainly be able to do it, that gives a proper mass estimate.

I'll bet we will be rewriting a few textbooks after those projects get to spend a little up time, the Super Earths sound cool but the gravity would be pretty hard to take. I found it interesting that the first average sunlike star used as a "benchmark" to test the process on came up with this many finds, looks as if the universe is likely lousy with Exoplanets.

Mayak failed to deploy its solar reflectors. It would have been the brightest artificial object in the sky, surpassing the ISS under good viewing conditions.

Hope there are plans to try another project like that, I hadn't even heard of it before it failed.

 

[mfb]

I'll bet we will be rewriting a few textbooks after those projects get to spend a little up time, the Super Earths sound cool but the gravity would be pretty hard to take.

Just a few?
Even many species from Earth could easily survive in 2 g, life that evolved there wouldn't have an issue with it. 2 g is about 7-8 Earth masses at a similar composition.Upcoming in spaceflight: CRS-12, SpaceX will launch another Dragon spacecraft to the ISS on Monday 17:31 UTC.
It will be the last new Dragon 1 capsule, all following flights will all re-use capsules from earlier missions. From counting capsules we can learn something SpaceX didn't announce yet: At least two capsules have to fly a third time (or one has to fly four times, but that sounds unlikely).
- the capsules of CRS-1 to 3 are too old to be reused.
- CRS-4 and CRS-11 had the same capsule
- CRS-7 failed during launch
- that leaves 5 capsules with one flight so far: from CRS-5, 6, 8, 9, 10.
- after CRS-12 we have 6 capsules for 8 remaining flights

The Falcon Heavy maiden flight is now expected for November.

 

[1oldman2]

The weathers looking good for today's show.

 

[nikkkom]

http://www.gao.gov/assets/690/686613.pdf
The GAO have an estimate of the launch cost of the current launch vehicles on page 35 of the linked report.

Check out "price per kg" column. F9 is a monster already (everybody but Proton are utterly noncompetitive against it), Falcon Heavy with 64 tons to LEO (!) for ~$100m (!) will be even scarier.

 

[mfb]

They are doing it wrong. They divide the cost for a reusable F9 by the payload of an expendable F9.
The payload to LEO with a reusable configuration is not known, probably about 15 tonnes. That leads to ~$4000/kg. The price of a expendable F9 is not known either.

Similar for FH. The $90 million are probably for a mission where two cores return to the launch site, which will limit payload to ~25 tonnes.

Currently most commercial launches are communication satellites that get launched to GTO. Ariane 5 is specialized on these missions, and can deliver about 11 tonnes to GTO, about half its potential LEO payload of 21 tonnes. As comparison, F9 is more efficient for LEO missions, its maximal GTO payload is just ~1/3 the LEO payload.

 

[nikkkom]

The page certainly simplifies the picture, as a minimum both LEO and GTO performance should be compared: both are meaningful for real customers.

However, with price of F9 being nearly THREE times lower than Ariane and ULA, its lower-performance 2nd stage do not save them - they are still utterly noncompetitive.

Proton's 2nd stage has worse parameters (Isp) than F9's. On July 5 2017, Falcon sent Intelsat-35e to GTO, with the weight right at Proton's maximum payload, 6750kg.

The price of a expendable F9 is not known either.

Wrong. Most F9 missions to date were expendable: out of 38 successful missions, so far 14 first stages landed. Ergo, expendable Falcon price is known (customers can't possibly be paying "an unknown price"). For example, Intelsat-35e launch was expendable.

 

[mfb]

For example, Intelsat-35e launch was expendable.

And how much did they pay? SpaceX only publicly announced prices for up to 5.5 tonnes to GTO. Intelsat-35e had 6.6 tonnes.

Customers negotiate the price with SpaceX. The customers know the price, in general we as third party do not. For reusable GTO launches, and only for them, SpaceX made the baseline price public. http://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities.

 

[nikkkom]

The customers know the price, in general we as third party do not.

This was generally the case in this business for its entire history: prices were not publicly stated at all. There was no page on the ULA homepage with a price. SpaceX was the first company which did put a definite price on their official website, instead of asking potential customers to give them a call.

In years past, this did not stop people interested in the topic from digging for data and discovering approximate prices of launches. One source is launch costs for government payloads, such as NASA planetary probes. By looking at various data, it was determined that Delta IV Heavy costs $400m a pop. Atlas V used to start at around $180m in the least powerful configuration. Now they are forced by competition to lower the costs and now they say the price is $109 million for the smallest configuration (Atlas 401) up to $153 million for Atlas 551. They also followed SpaceX example and set up a website with pricing information (RocketBuilder). It's amazing what happens when you suddenly have a competitor.

 

[mfb]

SpaceX lists a price publicly - but only for missions that allow first stage recovery.

Using this price for the higher capacity of a more expensive expendable flight is wrong. It is like using a Delta IV price and the Delta IV Heavy payload.

 

[mfb]

A surprisingly reasonable article by futurism.com: NASA Chief: "There is More Going on Right Now in Space Than I've Ever Seen in My Career"
Mentioning new rockets, new manned spaceflight options, and some unmanned spaceflight projects.

SpaceX will launch Formosat-5 tomorrow (18:50–19:34 UTC). Originally planned to launch on a Falcon 1, it has a mass of only 475 kg. It launches from Vandenberg, where SpaceX doesn't have permission to land on the ground pad yet, so the first stage will land on the drone ship, increasing the potential payload mass even more. As far as I know, this is the most overpowered rocket launch (with actual payload) ever. The rocket can launch 50 times the payload (expendable), and it has launched more than 20 times the payload with a first stage landing. It makes me wonder if SpaceX will try to do something special after the nominal mission. The second stage should have enough fuel left to change its velocity by 3 to 4 km/s - enough to halve its speed for a softer re-entry, and potentially enough to reach escape velocity. The FH maiden flight is supposed to test second stage recovery, but this mission could be used for initial tests at lower speeds or with second stage modifications.

A small advertisement: The Wikipedia list of Falcon 9 / FH launches was nominated to become a featured list. If you have suggestions how to improve the list, feel free to add them here. You don't even need a Wikipedia account to add a comment there.Edit: For the watchlist: Rumors that a binary neutron star merger might have been observed by LIGO+VIRGO.

 

[nikkkom]

DSCOVR is also very light (only 570 kg) and it was launched by F9 in 2015.

 

[mfb]

DSCOVR was launched to nearly escape velocity, Formosat-5 is launched to LEO.

T-1h 40min, 90% chance of favorable launch conditions.

 

[1oldman2]

Upcoming attractions.
https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/08/24/falcon-9-formosat-5-mission-status-center/
https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/08/24/falcon-9-launch-timeline-with-formosat-5/

 

[OmCheeto]

Upcoming attractions.
https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/08/24/falcon-9-formosat-5-mission-status-center/
https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/08/24/falcon-9-launch-timeline-with-formosat-5/

seems kind of "leaky"

but then again, I'm not a rocket scientist.

 

[1oldman2]

seems kind of "leaky"

Ya... you think they would fix a leaky fuel tank.

but then again, I'm not a rocket scientist.

Me too!
(Sooo... How about that Eclipse!)

 

[OmCheeto]

Ya... you think they would fix a leaky fuel tank.

Me too!
(Sooo... How about that Eclipse!)

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

 

[mfb]

seems kind of "leaky"

All liquid fuel rockets have that - you cannot fully close the tank, heat would make the pressure rise too fast. The tanks allow some propellant to boil off, where the cold gas streams out into the atmosphere you get water vapor.

The mission was a success, the landing worked as well - the 11th consecutive landing that worked.