SPACE - random thread about space stuff

[Hrdina]

NASA has a number of podcasts. One of those is Houston, We Have A Podcast.

Their 27 September episode is called "Call Sign: White Flight".

Oldsters/history nerds like me will immediately get that reference to the one and only Gene Kranz.

Edit: Since this is the first post of page 100, I have to add a picture.

[raydude]

Clipper Launch Delayed

Well dangit, I was all set to fly down today, attend some science team meetings, and watch the launch on Thursday. But then Milton happened. I could fly down later once the new launch date is set but then it will be on my own dime. I'll just have to wish Clipper godspeed remotely.

[jztemple2]

Clipper Launch Delayed

Well dangit, I was all set to fly down today, attend some science team meetings, and watch the launch on Thursday. But then Milton happened. I could fly down later once the new launch date is set but then it will be on my own dime. I'll just have to wish Clipper godspeed remotely.

That's disappointing, but it's the launch biz. The weather will postpone one launch, but then surprisingly let another one happen, like the Hera mission which managed to squeak through some iffy conditions this morning.

ESA’s Hera spacecraft launches on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket as Hurricane Milton takes aim at Florida

The European Space Agency and SpaceX managed to find good enough weather right in the nick of time to launch a mission to a binary asteroid Monday morning.

The Hera mission is a follow-on operation, which will examine Didymos and it moon, Dimorphos, after the latter was struck by NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft.

“It’s been 18 years we’ve been working to put this mission together, so you can imagine our emotions, not only mine, but the whole team,” said Ian Carnelli, the Hera project manager, during a prelaunch media briefing.

Liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station happened at 10:52 a.m. EDT (1452 UTC).

On Sunday, the 45th Weather Squadron based at Patrick Space Force Base, issued its forecast, showing just a 15 percent chance of favorable weather at launch time.

During a prelaunch briefing Sunday morning with reporters, Ian Carnelli, the Hera project manager, said weather had been the biggest X-factor for them at this point.

“The last hurdle is the weather. So, please, please I need you to do something about it. It’s the only thing I really cannot control,” Carnelli said jokingly to reporters. “So I checked… and it looks like we have some opening around the time of launch, but it’s really impossible to say at the moment.”

In a statement on Sunday, the Federal Aviation Administration said the Falcon 9 rocket was approved for one mission as the investigation connected to the Crew-9 upper stage anomaly continues.

“The FAA has determined that the absence of a second stage reentry for this mission adequately mitigates the primary risk to the public in the event of a reoccurrence of the mishap experienced with the Crew-9 mission,” the agency wrote. “Safety will drive the timeline for the FAA to complete its review of SpaceX’s Crew-9 mishap investigation report and when the agency will authorize Falcon 9 to return to regular operations.”

The FAA said SpaceX submitted its investigation report on Friday, Oct. 4, along with a request to return to normal flight operations.

SpaceX will be launching the Hera mission using one of its flight leaders, Falcon 9 booster tail number B1061. It will fly for a 23rd and final time on this mission.

“Due to the additional performance required to deliver the payload to an interplanetary transfer orbit, this mission marks the 23rd and final launch for this Falcon 9 first stage booster, which previously launched Crew-1, Crew-2, SXM-8, CRS-23, IXPE, Transporter-4, Transporter-5, Globalstar FM15, ISI EROS C-3, Korea 425, Maxar 1, ASBM, and 10 Starlink missions,” SpaceX wrote on its launch page.

[Hrdina]

Yeah, I was more than a little surprised that Hera made it out of town before the storm arrived.

[jztemple2]

FAA clears SpaceX to resume Falcon 9 rocket launches

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has given SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 rocket a green light to return to flight.

The Falcon 9 had been grounded since Sept. 28, when the rocket suffered an issue with its upper stage during the launch of the Crew-9 astronaut mission for NASA. (A Falcon 9 did launch Europe's Hera asteroid-inspection probe on Oct. 7, but that was a one-time exception granted by the FAA.)

"The FAA notified SpaceX on Oct. 11 that the Falcon 9 vehicle is authorized to return to regular flight operations," agency officials said in an emailed statement on Friday afternoon. "The FAA reviewed and accepted the SpaceX-led investigation findings and corrective actions for the mishap that occurred with the Crew-9 mission (Sept. 28)."

The Crew-9 incident — which did not affect mission success but did result in the upper stage falling back to Earth outside its planned disposal area — was the third Falcon 9 issue in less than three months.

NASA delays Europa Clipper launch to Jupiter to Oct. 14 amid post-hurricane checks

NASA has postponed the launch of its next flagship mission to Jupiter by at least another day as the agency and SpaceX conduct additional checks to ensure the spacecraft is ready to fly after Hurricane Milton battered its Florida launch site.

The mission, called Europa Clipper, is now targeted to launch to Jupiter's icy moon Europa no earlier than Monday (Oct. 14) atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Pad 39A of NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The launch has been delayed since Oct. 10, first to Oct. 13 as Hurricane Milton approached Florida on Wednesday, and now another day due to additional checks in the storm's wake.

"Following Hurricane Milton, teams are continuing to do checkouts to ensure flight readiness," NASA wrote in an update late Friday (Oct. 11). The storm hammered Florida on Wednesday and Thursday. NASA and SpaceX have until Nov. 2 to launch Europa Clipper in the current planetary window, mission managers have said.

[Kraken]

FAA grants license for a Starship launch as early as next Sunday.

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a new license on Saturday allowing Elon Musk’s SpaceX company to launch its Starship rocket again from South Texas, and it included new requirements to limit the harm to birds’ nests and other wildlife in an adjacent state park and National Wildlife Refuge.

The action by the F.A.A., which came after weeks of pressure by Mr. Musk on the agency to speed up its latest review, allows Mr. Musk to go ahead with his next test of Starship, with a launch now set to take place as early as 8 a.m. Eastern time on Sunday.

So far, SpaceX has been required to obtain a license for each launch. With the latest license, the F.A.A. is allowing the company to launch more than once, unless it modifies its procedures.

Also, "Separate from Saturday’s action, the F.A.A. is still considering a request by SpaceX to allow it to increase launches from the Texas site from five a year to 25." If they can really get their cadence up to twice a month, Moonship might have a shot at being ready for Artemis III.

[jztemple2]

Here's some more details on tomorrow's (today's!) flight: Starship Flight 5 The Catch. Note that the FAA authorization also includes flight 6, although if something goes wrong with flight 5 that would bring in another FAA investigation.

[Kraken]

Oy, I thought they meant a week from tomorrow/today. Now I have to set my alarm. Dammit.

[Kraken]

SpaceX continues to amaze. I really thought we were going to see an explosion and launch tower collapse; couldn't believe they nailed that on the first try. Flight 5 basically remedied everything that went wrong last time, so what's next? Orbital insertion and recovery for Starship?

[Hrdina]

Here is the replay of NASASpaceFlight coverage.

Launch was at about 3:25:00, and the descent and catch happens at about 3:30:00.

[jztemple2]

Another good video, including coverage of Starship landing in the water... they had a ship nearby to film it.

https://www.youtube.com/live/PyR_M5rCL6 ... ldoWFUpnLC

[jztemple2]

Europa Clipper, a $5-billion NASA mission to study the salty ocean beneath the ice of Jupiter's moon Europa, will launch on its way Monday atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. Liftoff is set for 12:06 p.m. EDT (1606 GMT) from NASA's Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral, Florida.

[Kurth]

SpaceX continues to amaze. I really thought we were going to see an explosion and launch tower collapse; couldn't believe they nailed that on the first try. Flight 5 basically remedied everything that went wrong last time, so what's next? Orbital insertion and recovery for Starship?

I am also amazed. But I don’t know shit about this stuff. More importantly, my engineer son who follows this stuff closely, is amazed. Chopsticks catching a rocket returning from space? Passes the smell test for absolutely crazy!

Edited to add: Just wish this wasn’t an Elon thing. That guy is so toxic, it actually reduces my enjoyment of these kinds of incredible human achievements by 38%.

[Kraken]

Just wish this wasn’t an Elon thing. That guy is so toxic, it actually reduces my enjoyment of these kinds of incredible human achievements by 38%.

I can celebrate art without loving the artist. Reprehensible people often achieve great things. Musk isn't a rocket scientist, but he assembled and financed and motivated a team that revolutionized rocketry and brought the Space Age to a new level. He's our Howard Hughes or Tony Stark. You don't have to admire the man (I don't) to appreciate what he created. We wouldn't even be discussing this if he hadn't turned Twitter into his own toxic propaganda toy.

Although it's going to be a major player for the foreseeable future, I suspect that SpaceX won't be the visionary driving force that it is today after Musk is gone.

[Kurth]

Just wish this wasn’t an Elon thing. That guy is so toxic, it actually reduces my enjoyment of these kinds of incredible human achievements by 38%.

I can celebrate art without loving the artist. Reprehensible people often achieve great things. Musk isn't a rocket scientist, but he assembled and financed and motivated a team that revolutionized rocketry and brought the Space Age to a new level. He's our Howard Hughes or Tony Stark. You don't have to admire the man (I don't) to appreciate what he created. We wouldn't even be discussing this if he hadn't turned Twitter into his own toxic propaganda toy.

Although it's going to be a major player for the foreseeable future, I suspect that SpaceX won't be the visionary driving force that it is today after Musk is gone.

That’s a good perspective and one I’ll try to keep in mind. I know SpaceX is a lot of really talented and committed people that are NOT Elon Musk, but it’s hard not to see his stupid face now every time SpaceX does something amazing. Or every time I drive my Model Y (which I am loving, btw).

[Max Peck]

He's our Howard Hughes or Tony Stark. You don't have to admire the man (I don't) to appreciate what he created. We wouldn't even be discussing this if he hadn't turned Twitter into his own toxic propaganda toy.

I'll grant you that Phony Stark is even crazier than late-stage Howard Hughes, but what SpaceX has achieved has far more to do with the likes of Tom Mueller than it does with Musk.

Also, he was a toxic POS on social media long before he bought Twitter. People would still be talking about him and the various ways he's shitting up the world if he'd never even thought about buying it.

[raydude]

Europa Clipper, a $5-billion NASA mission to study the salty ocean beneath the ice of Jupiter's moon Europa, will launch on its way Monday atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. Liftoff is set for 12:06 p.m. EDT (1606 GMT) from NASA's Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral, Florida.

With added pic. Bon Voyage Psyche boosters!

[jztemple2]

SpaceX plans to catch Starship upper stage with 'chopsticks' in early 2025, Elon Musk says

SpaceX doesn't plan to rest on its rocket-catching laurels.

The company made spaceflight history on Sunday (Oct. 13) during the fifth test flight of its Starship megarocket: About seven minutes after liftoff, the vehicle's first-stage booster, known as Super Heavy, came back to its launch mount, where it was caught by the "chopstick" arms of the launch tower.

And SpaceX aims to do the same with Starship's 165-foot-tall (50 meters) upper-stage spacecraft — known as Starship, or simply Ship — in the coming months as well, according to company founder and CEO Elon Musk. "Hopefully early next year, we will catch the ship too," Musk said Tuesday (Oct. 15) in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

[jztemple2]

This company is just a few miles north of me at a local airport. Also, it will not actually be reaching space, but that's just a little nit.

Billionaire Richard Branson to be co-pilot for Titusville company's first space balloon launch

On Thursday, Space Perspective announced that billionaire Sir Richard Branson will be a co-pilot for the Titusville-based company’s first space balloon launch.

“Space Perspective is excited to announce that @richardbranson will co-pilot Space Perspective’s first crewed test flight next year, alongside Founder, Jane Poynter and Founder and CTO, Taber MacCallum,” the company posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. However, the company deleted the post after the announcement, but reposted it with additional information later on.

Space Perspective had a successful first flight of its Neptune capsule (and its second uncrewed test). This unique craft is designed to be fastened to a huge balloon where tourists can view Earth just like astronauts.

Each flight lasts approximately six to seven hours, where tourists will reach a height of 100,000 feet (30,480 meters), where they will stay for two hours and then there is the descent stage where people will splash down and be recovered by the Marine Spaceport Voyager.

[jztemple2]

How much do SpaceX's reentering Starlink satellites pollute Earth's atmosphere?

Satellite megaconstellation operators are getting a lot of flak from atmospheric scientists lately for polluting Earth's upper atmosphere. But is the criticism justified? Who is the biggest contributor to the emerging environmental problem?

About 40% of disused satellites burning up in Earth's atmosphere these days belong to SpaceX's Starlink megaconstellation, according to Andrew Bacon, the chief technology officer and co-founder of U.K.-based in-orbit manufacturing firm Space Forge.

That amounts to "a minimum of 500 kilograms [1,100 pounds]" of incinerated satellite trash a day, added Bacon, who presented those numbers at the workshop on Protecting Earth and Outer Space from the Disposal of Spacecraft and Debris held at the University of Southampton in the U.K. on Sept. 23 and Sept. 24.

These satellites are mostly made of aluminum, which turns into aluminum oxide when burned at high temperatures, such as those experienced by satellites hurtling through Earth's atmosphere at orbital speeds. This aluminum ash accumulating at high altitudes worries scientists because of its potential to damage Earth's protective ozone layer and alter its albedo — the ability to reflect sunlight — which could result in changes in the temperature of the upper atmosphere.

Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at Harvard and Smithsonian and a leading space debris expert, agreed that Starlink satellites "are dominating" among the clutter incinerated in Earth's atmosphere.

"There is now a Starlink reentry almost every day," McDowell told Space.com. "Sometimes multiple."

[WYBaugh]

How much do SpaceX's reentering Starlink satellites pollute Earth's atmosphere?

Satellite megaconstellation operators are getting a lot of flak from atmospheric scientists lately for polluting Earth's upper atmosphere. But is the criticism justified? Who is the biggest contributor to the emerging environmental problem?

About 40% of disused satellites burning up in Earth's atmosphere these days belong to SpaceX's Starlink megaconstellation, according to Andrew Bacon, the chief technology officer and co-founder of U.K.-based in-orbit manufacturing firm Space Forge.

That amounts to "a minimum of 500 kilograms [1,100 pounds]" of incinerated satellite trash a day, added Bacon, who presented those numbers at the workshop on Protecting Earth and Outer Space from the Disposal of Spacecraft and Debris held at the University of Southampton in the U.K. on Sept. 23 and Sept. 24.

These satellites are mostly made of aluminum, which turns into aluminum oxide when burned at high temperatures, such as those experienced by satellites hurtling through Earth's atmosphere at orbital speeds. This aluminum ash accumulating at high altitudes worries scientists because of its potential to damage Earth's protective ozone layer and alter its albedo — the ability to reflect sunlight — which could result in changes in the temperature of the upper atmosphere.

Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at Harvard and Smithsonian and a leading space debris expert, agreed that Starlink satellites "are dominating" among the clutter incinerated in Earth's atmosphere.

"There is now a Starlink reentry almost every day," McDowell told Space.com. "Sometimes multiple."

That just makes me very angry. 40,000 satellites. Great idea.

[gilraen]

Scientists have been sounding the alarm for a number of years now about the volume of garbage in Earth's orbit (as well as the space between Earth and Moon and surface of the Moon itself). But obviously Starlink is a "standout" in that they are making it progressively worse.

[Isgrimnur]

Deorbiting is better than leaving it up there. Marginally.

[Montag]

Scientists have been sounding the alarm for a number of years now about the volume of garbage in Earth's orbit (as well as the space between Earth and Moon and surface of the Moon itself). But obviously Starlink is a "standout" in that they are making it progressively worse.

I think you need to rephrase this to express your intent. SpaceX and Starlink are not leaving debris in orbit. The 2nd stages of Dragon de-orbit and the Starlink satellites will actively be deorbited or will passively decay in 5 years.

[gilraen]

Scientists have been sounding the alarm for a number of years now about the volume of garbage in Earth's orbit (as well as the space between Earth and Moon and surface of the Moon itself). But obviously Starlink is a "standout" in that they are making it progressively worse.

I think you need to rephrase this to express your intent. SpaceX and Starlink are not leaving debris in orbit. The 2nd stages of Dragon de-orbit and the Starlink satellites will actively be deorbited or will passively decay in 5 years.

I suppose you can distinguish between the garbage in orbit and garbage/burn byproducts in Earth's atmosphere. Starlink satellites account for almost 60% of all satellites in Earth's orbit and are now considered the number one source of collision hazard by spaceflight safety experts (and yes, many of those satellites qualify as "garbage" because they are no longer functional, they just haven't deorbited yet).

The article was just eye-opening that not only are they treating space like humanity historically treated the oceans ("dump the garbage in the ocean, it's big enough where it won't bother anyone"), but they are actually damaging Earth's atmosphere as well.

[Max Peck]

To be fair, Leon won't need the Earth's atmosphere once he colonizes Mars, so no harm, no foul.

[Isgrimnur]

Interestingly, the Earth gets showered in almost 100 tons of meteoric dust each day.

[Montag]

Interestingly, the Earth gets showered in almost 100 tons of meteoric dust each day.

This is why there was a fear that the lunar landing would just sink in a powder instead of some solid ground.

[jztemple2]

[Isgrimnur]

NASA astronaut remains at hospital after returning from an extended stay in space

A NASA astronaut was taken to the hospital for an undisclosed medical issue after returning from a nearly eight-month space station stay extended by Boeing's capsule trouble and Hurricane Milton, the space agency said Friday.

A SpaceX capsule carrying three Americans and one Russian parachuted before dawn into the Gulf of Mexico just off the Florida coast after undocking from the International Space Station mid-week. The capsule was hoisted onto the recovery ship where the four astronauts had routine medical checks.

Soon after splashdown, a NASA astronaut had a “medical issue" and the crew was flown to a hospital in Pensacola, Florida, for additional evaluation “out of an abundance of caution” the space agency said in a statement.

The astronaut, who was not identified, was in stable condition and remained at the hospital as a "precautionary measure,” NASA said.

[jztemple2]

The astronaut went home the next day, that's good.

Meanwhile, SpaceX's Starship booster was '1 second away' from aborting epic launch-tower catch

SpaceX's historic rocket catch earlier this month was even more dramatic than it looked.

That catch occurred on Oct. 13, during the fifth test flight of SpaceX's Starship megarocket. Starship's huge first-stage booster, known as Super Heavy, came back to Earth about seven minutes after liftoff, nestling next to its launch tower, which secured the rocket with its "chopstick" arms.

But that epic moment almost didn't happen: Super Heavy was just one second away from aborting the launch-tower landing and crashing into a patch of nearby ground, SpaceX engineers told company founder and CEO Elon Musk recently.

Musk revealed part of that conversation on X on Friday (Oct. 25), in a post that showed the billionaire's progress in the online game Diablo IV. That post depicted three minutes of Musk's Diablo IV gameplay, which occurred while he was talking to three unnamed SpaceX engineers about the Starship test flight.

"We had a misconfigured spin gas abort that didn't have quite the right ramp-up time for bringing up spin pressure," he explains. "And we were one second away from that tripping and telling the rocket to abort and try to crash into the ground next to the tower instead of [landing at] the tower — like, erroneously tell a healthy rocket to not try that catch."

The conversation also touches on some damage that Super Heavy endured during Flight 5. A cover protecting a longitudinal structure on the booster called a chine came off during its descent — and that could easily have scuttled the tower catch as well.

"We were worried about these spot-weld margins on chine skin before flight," one of the engineers says. "We wouldn't have predicted the exact right place, but this cover that ripped off was right on top of a bunch of the single-point-failure valves that must work during the landing burn. Thankfully, none of those or the harnessing got damaged, but we ripped this chine cover off over some really critical equipment right as landing burn was starting. We have a plan to address that."

[jztemple2]

This is a current image of the SpaceX facility on Roberts Road at the Kennedy Space Center. There will be more buildings and facilities as SpaceX starts building the Super Heavy Booster and the Starship there.

[Kraken]

A peek at SpaceX’s prototype Moonship (as I will call it with my dying breath)

SpaceX's multi billion dollar Starship Human Landing System (HLS) rocket for NASA's Artemis program to land the first humans on the Moon since the Apollo program will have at least two floors and be capable of carrying a crew of 20 astronauts suggest fresh details on X. While SpaceX has been busy testing the full Starship test in Boca Chica, Texas, the firm has shared little details about the $2.9 billion contract that NASA awarded it in 2021 to build the HLS.

Now, according to an educator who recently visited SpaceX's Texas facilities, Starship HLS' early design mock ups include two floors and space sufficient to support 20 astronauts in a space with a 40 feet high ceiling.

The Starship prototype X user and educator Tom Blackmore viewed during his visit to SpaceX's Boca Chica, Texas facilities, is a subscale variant of the final HLS ship. Since HLS is in the early stages of design and SpaceX has yet to manufacture the ship, the firm is working with NASA and astronauts to fine-tune its design.

IDK how much we can read into this mockup but it's pretty frelling cool if it pans out.

[jztemple2]

World's 1st wooden satellite arrives at ISS for key orbital test

This new spaceflight tech has a very retro feel.

The world's first wooden satellite, a tiny Japanese spacecraft called LignoSat, arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) today (Nov. 5) aboard a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule. LignoSat measures just 4 inches (10 centimeters) on each side, but it could end up having a big impact on spaceflight and exploration down the road.

"While some of you might think that wood in space seems a little counterintuitive, researchers hope this investigation demonstrates that a wooden satellite can be more sustainable and less polluting for the environment than conventional satellites," Meghan Everett, the deputy chief scientist for NASA's International Space Station program, said in a press briefing on Monday (Nov. 4), a few hours before the Dragon capsule lifted off.

Conventional satellites are made primarily of aluminum. When they burn up in Earth's atmosphere at the end of their lives, they generate aluminum oxides, which can alter the planet's thermal balance and damage its protective ozone layer.

These impacts are becoming more of a concern as the orbital population grows, thanks to the rise of megaconstellations like SpaceX's ever-growing Starlink broadband network, which currently consists of about 6,500 active satellites.

Wooden satellites like LignoSat — which substitutes magnolia wood for aluminum — could be part of the solution going forward; they wouldn't pump such damaging pollutants into the atmosphere when they fell back to Earth, mission team members have said.

"Metal satellites might be banned in the future," retired Japanese astronaut Takao Doi, an aerospace engineer who's now a professor at Kyoto University, told Reuters. "If we can prove our first wooden satellite works, we want to pitch it to Elon Musk's SpaceX."

[jztemple2]

SpaceX targets Starship Flight 6 launch on November 18

Less than a month after launching its Starship rocket and catching its booster, SpaceX is targeting a sixth test flight of its gleaming stainless steel rocket which towers almost 400 feet tall (121 meters).

The company announced on Wednesday a target launch date of Nov. 18, along with lessons learned from Flight 5 and mission objectives for Flight 6.

Unlike every other mission launch, this time around, SpaceX didn’t need to hedge its bets on the timing of the launch based on regulatory approval. When the Federal Aviation Administration cleared the Flight 5 mission, they also approved the company’s plan for Flight 6.

“The FAA determined the changes requested by SpaceX for Flight 6 are within the scope of what has been previously analyzed,” the FAA wrote in an Oct. 12 statement. “Any modifications requested by SpaceX to the approved Flight 6 scope of operations may require further FAA evaluation.”

To a large extent, Flight 6 will be a repetition of Flight 5, featuring another suborbital flight with a splashdown of the Ship upper stage in the Indian Ocean. However, the mission will include a few key differences.

This time around, SpaceX is reviving a mission milestone from Flight 3 with its intent to demonstrate a relight of one of the Raptor vacuum engines during the rocket’s coast phase. That objective was abandoned on that mission when the rocket began to roll much more aggressively than intended.

“Starship did not attempt its planned on-orbit relight of a single Raptor engine due to vehicle roll rates during coast,” SpaceX said in a post-launch statement on March 14.

With two successful coast phases during the most recent flights, SpaceX said this test is now within reach and will serve to demonstrate “the capabilities required to conduct a ship deorbit burn prior to orbital missions.”

Also the launch from Boca Chica will be in late afternoon to allow a daytime splashdown of Starship in the Indian Ocean.

[Kraken]

Space nerds who usually avoid R&P might want to make an exception for this post on US space policy under the Musk regime. I won't sully EBG with it.

[Kraken]

Somebody moved Skynet, and nobody knows who or why.

Someone moved the UK's oldest satellite and there appears to be no record of exactly who, when or why.

Launched in 1969, just a few months after humans first set foot on the Moon, Skynet-1A was put high above Africa's east coast to relay communications for British forces.

When the spacecraft ceased working a few years later, gravity might have been expected to pull it even further to the east, out over the Indian Ocean.

But today, curiously, Skynet-1A is actually half a planet away, in a position 22,369 miles (36,000km) above the Americas.

Orbital mechanics mean it's unlikely the half-tonne military spacecraft simply drifted to its current location.

Almost certainly, it was commanded to fire its thrusters in the mid-1970s to take it westwards. The question is who that was and with what authority and purpose?

[Blackhawk]

Skynet can choose to move itself.

[gilraen]

Is this where they send Clint Eastwood into space to debug the code?

[Isgrimnur]

Spoiler:

https://bsky.app/profile/jwstfeed.bsky. ... u5ohfxcc2t