SPACE - random thread about space stuff

[jztemple2]

Bezos named the landing barge after his mom, I think that's nice

Next Starship launch should towards the end of this week. Planning another booster catch, release of (dummy) Starlink satellites and more tweaks to the Starship soft landing in the Indian Ocean. If successful, they are planning to do a Starship catch on the following flight

[The Meal]

It’s not just a Musk thing. Check out some of the RocketLabs launches for fun naming conventions.

[Unagi]

Bezos named the landing barge after his mom, I think that's nice

On the planet I'm from, women don't like to have barges named after them.

[jztemple2]

Blue Origin to launch its 1st New Glenn rocket on Jan. 10

We now have a launch date for the debut mission of Blue Origin's powerful New Glenn rocket.

If all goes according to plan, New Glenn will lift off for the first time on Friday (Jan. 10) from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, during a three-hour window that opens at 1 a.m. EST (0600 GMT).

"This is our first flight and we’ve prepared rigorously for it," Blue Origin's Jarrett Jones, SVP, New Glenn, said in a Monday evening (Jan. 6) statement that announced the target launch date. "But no amount of ground testing or mission simulations are a replacement for flying this rocket. It’s time to fly. No matter what happens, we’ll learn, refine and apply that knowledge to our next launch."

They are planning to launch the booster on their barge, but it's the first try so they are fingers crossed. I'm usually still up at 1am so I'll give it a look.

[raydude]

Blue Origin to launch its 1st New Glenn rocket on Jan. 10

We now have a launch date for the debut mission of Blue Origin's powerful New Glenn rocket.

If all goes according to plan, New Glenn will lift off for the first time on Friday (Jan. 10) from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, during a three-hour window that opens at 1 a.m. EST (0600 GMT).

"This is our first flight and we’ve prepared rigorously for it," Blue Origin's Jarrett Jones, SVP, New Glenn, said in a Monday evening (Jan. 6) statement that announced the target launch date. "But no amount of ground testing or mission simulations are a replacement for flying this rocket. It’s time to fly. No matter what happens, we’ll learn, refine and apply that knowledge to our next launch."

They are planning to launch the booster on their barge, but it's the first try so they are fingers crossed. I'm usually still up at 1am so I'll give it a look.

I'm pretty sure you mean "land on the barge" but then again, I didn't think booster recovery was possible till SpaceX did it, so maybe it IS a barge launch

[Kraken]

Bezos gotta make those Amazon deliveries when Musk's crews settle on Mars.

I've been less than excited about another billionaire's vanity company following where SpaceX went a decade ago. But redundancy is good, competition is good, lower price to orbit is good. New Glenn has a much wider payload fairing than its competitors do, so they can steal some market share if they can make it operational before Starship comes fully on line.

[jztemple2]

They are planning to launch the booster on their barge, but it's the first try so they are fingers crossed. I'm usually still up at 1am so I'll give it a look.

I'm pretty sure you mean "land on the barge" but then again, I didn't think booster recovery was possible till SpaceX did it, so maybe it IS a barge launch

Yup, "land" on the barge <sigh>

I've been less than excited about another billionaire's vanity company following where SpaceX went a decade ago. But redundancy is good, competition is good, lower price to orbit is good. New Glenn has a much wider payload fairing than its competitors do, so they can steal some market share if they can make it operational before Starship comes fully on line.

Hmm, you say vanity company, I say wise investment . As you note, New Glenn brings something new to the table, and it's all gravy for me, more launches to watch

[Kraken]

Given New Glenn's lengthy development history, I'm skeptical that it will be operational before Starship is...especially if this first flight goes sideways. Blue Origin leans closer toward "failure is not an option" than it does to "fail fast." Should Starship come on line first, NG would have to beat it substantially on price since it would lose its payload size advantage.

It's an exciting time in the rocket biz, anyway.

[raydude]

The LA fires have even affected JPL and DSN (Deep Space Network) operations. JPL closed until Monday and DSN ops moved to a backup facility.

[jztemple2]

SpaceX to launch Starship megarocket's Flight 7 test mission on Jan. 13

SpaceX's Starship will fly for the seventh time ever early next week, if all goes according to plan.

SpaceX announced today (Jan. 8) that it's targeting Monday (Jan. 13) for Flight 7 of Starship, the 400-foot-tall (122 meters), fully reusable megarocket designed to help humanity settle the moon and Mars.

Starship is scheduled to lift off Monday at 5 p.m. EST (2200 GMT) from Starbase, SpaceX's manufacturing and launch site in South Texas.

SpaceX will attempt to break some new ground on the upcoming mission as well. For example, for the first time ever, Ship will attempt to deploy payloads in space — 10 mock satellites, "similar in size and weight to next-generation Starlink satellites as the first exercise of a satellite deploy mission," SpaceX wrote in a Flight 7 mission description. (Starlink is SpaceX's broadband megaconstellation in low Earth orbit. The company is counting on Starship to finish building the huge network, which could eventually feature more than 40,000 spacecraft.)

"The Starlink simulators will be on the same suborbital trajectory as Starship, with splashdown targeted in the Indian Ocean," SpaceX added.

Super Heavy will also sport reused hardware for the first time on Flight 7 — "a Raptor engine from the booster launched and returned on Starship’s fifth flight test," according to the mission description.

[jztemple2]

Blue Origin was counting down toward the launch of its first New Glenn heavy-lift rocket at 1:00 a.m. EST (0600 GMT) on Friday (Jan. 10), but rough weather in the Atlantic Ocean — where part of the rocket is expected to land — forced a two-day delay. The launch is now set for Sunday (Jan. 12) at the same time from Blue Origin's pad at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. You'll be able to watch the New Glenn launch live on Space.com, courtesy of Blue Origin

[Kraken]

Good overview of the upcoming Starship launch. To those of us watching from the cheap seats, it will look a lot like the previous two launches. The ship is 6' taller and the flaps are farther forward. Engineers will find a whole lot of novelty, such as testing different heat shield tiles.

Other changes debuting with Starship Version 2 next week include:

Vacuum jacketing of propellant feedlines
A new fuel feedline system for the ship's Raptor vacuum engines
An improved propulsion avionics module controlling vehicle valves and reading sensors
Redesigned inertial navigation and star tracking sensors
Integrated smart batteries and power units to distribute 2.7 megawatts of power across the ship
An increase to more than 30 cameras onboard the vehicle.

[jztemple2]

Another Scott Manley video, Blue Origin New Glenn Finally Ready To Beat SpaceX's Old Rockets.... Is It Too Late

https://youtu.be/xKt0hn4R_uU?si=G15GpIMZmL3c-D62

[Hrdina]

Looks like New Glenn is still counting down to launch tonight about 0100 EST.

https://www.youtube.com/live/7YBAsi5pY2o

[jztemple2]

Looks like New Glenn is still counting down to launch tonight about 0100 EST.

https://www.youtube.com/live/7YBAsi5pY2o

I'm staying up for the attempt, if it goes early in the window. Unfortunately there is a layer of clouds that will block direct viewing, so I'll just watch it on TV as our local station is covering the launch live.

[jztemple2]

New T-0 for New Glenn is now 01:30am EST... I'm getting sleepy

[Hrdina]

Looks like New Glenn is still counting down to launch tonight about 0100 EST.

https://www.youtube.com/live/7YBAsi5pY2o

I'm staying up for the attempt, if it goes early in the window. Unfortunately there is a layer of clouds that will block direct viewing, so I'll just watch it on TV as our local station is covering the launch live.

Well, they pushed it back to 1:30 just a few seconds ago. I am normally up that late but I've been under the weather lately so probably won't last that long.

Edit:

[jztemple2]

Launch has been pushed back again, I'm going to bed. Good luck to them; it might wake me up anyway.

[Hrdina]

I gave up after they pushed the launch time past 0130.

Blue Origin scrubs first New Glenn launch attempt

"It may be several days before the company can try again, based on range and weather issues. SpaceX, for example, is scheduled to launch a Falcon 9 carrying two lunar landers early Jan. 15, during the window that Blue Origin had been using for New Glenn launches."

[jztemple2]

Watch SpaceX launch 2 private moon landers on a single rocket early Jan. 15

SpaceX plans to launch two private moon landers early Wednesday morning (Jan. 15), and you can watch the action live.

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying the robotic Blue Ghost and Resilience landers — built by Firefly Aerospace and Tokyo-based ispace, respectively — is scheduled to lift off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday at 1:11 a.m. EST (0611 GMT).

SpaceX and NASA will webcast the launch, and Space.com will carry the agency's feed if it's made available. NASA's coverage will begin at 12:30 a.m. EST (0530 GMT).

The mission plan calls for Blue Ghost to circle Earth for 25 days, then head for the moon. The lander will spend 16 days in transit and four days in lunar orbit before making a landing attempt in Mare Crisium ("Sea of Crises"). Blue Ghost will then operate on the surface for two weeks, before darkness falls at its touchdown site and brings the solar-powered mission to a close.

Resilience will take a more leisurely route to the moon than Blue Ghost does; the Japanese lander is expected to make its touchdown try in the Mare Frigoris ("Sea of Cold") region, four to five months after launch. Among its payloads is a microrover named Tenacious, which will collect a sample of lunar dirt and rock as part of a contract with NASA.

[Kraken]

Here's a good rundown of the scientific payloads on the Blue Ghost lander. There are four instruments just to study regolith -- the bane of any and all future astronauts. One will try to use electromagnetism to remove the dust from surfaces; another will measure the interaction between the lander's exhaust plume and the regolith, which will be significant when the massive Starship starts landing there. And there's a grand finale:

The setting sun will leave Blue Ghost without a source of energy, leaving about five hours of juice left in the lander's batteries. But, before it powers down, two solar events will occur at the dusk of Blue Ghosts mission.

First, the Earth will pass in front of the sun, and the lander will witness a lunar solar eclipse for the first time.

Then, with its last bit of power, Blue Ghost will use its 360-degree camera to capture a phenomenon observed by Gene Cernan during the end of his time on the moon on Apollo 17, wherein a glow on the horizon shines while lunar dust begins levitate on the surface.

[jztemple2]

Couldn't sleep so I'm in a hotel room watching the New Glenn launch. Booster stage worked great and upper stage as well, achieving orbit on first try. No word as to whether the booster was able to land on the barge, but probably not since they would probably have mentioned it.

[jztemple2]

Booster was lost according to Blue Origin, but that's a minor setback, reaching orbit on the first launch is pretty major. More details will no doubt come in the next few days.

[jztemple2]

[Isgrimnur]

reddit /r/aviation posts with video:

Starship blew up in front of us. Had to divert

Starship Flight 7 breakup over Turks and Caicos

[jztemple2]

We were on the road all day so I completely forgot about the Starship flight. No doubt we'll learn more from the next Scott Manley video

Not exactly the first fireworks folks might expect to see on their vacation:



One wonders if those people will listen to themselves on the video . Glad I don't have the cabana next to them.

I found this interesting:

The Federal Aviation Administration issued directives to multiple airports to delay or divert traffic to avoid falling debris.

Airpots impacted included Miami International Airport and Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport. Shortly before 8 p.m. EST (0100 UTC), the agency issued an all clear.

“The FAA briefly slowed and diverted aircraft around the area where space vehicle debris was falling. Normal operations have resumed,” the agency wrote.

The FAA has the purview to activate what’s called a Debris Response Area if there’s a case, like with Flight 7, where there is an anomaly with a space vehicle outside of the previously identified closed hazard areas.

[jztemple2]

It also brings up an interesting question; is there a scenario where debris from a disintegrating Starship can fall on land? I've not seen that addressed, nor have I seen a flight profile that shows what landmasses a Starship test flight goes over. Wonder if the FAA will now address this?

[Kraken]

It seems odd that I've seen many videos of debris burning up, but no telephoto footage of the RUD itself. Too high?

[Unagi]

We were on the road all day so I completely forgot about the Starship flight. No doubt we'll learn more from the next Scott Manley video

Great video






The booster catch is absolutely unbelievable

[Max Peck]

It seems odd that I've seen many videos of debris burning up, but no telephoto footage of the RUD itself. Too high?

I'd guess that it's mostly just a matter of the debris being highly visible over a long period of time so a lot of people on the ground or in aircraft saw it and had the opportunity to record it, whereas seeing the actual explosion would require someone to be actively tracking the launch that far into the flight, about 8.5 minutes after launch, at an altitude of roughly 150 km and about 1000 km down range.

[Max Peck]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfVm4DTv6lM

I found it a little ironic (Or is it? Thanks Alanis...) that Manley talks about not wanting to steal views from people posting videos of the debris on social media, while showing the video that Musk posted, which was stolen from the Xeet that jztemple2 posted upthread.

OK, technically Musk probably didn't steal it because I'm sure that the Xitter terms of service say something along the lines of "All your posts belong to me, Leon the Magnificent" but still, it amuses me.

[Unagi]

Who would have thought? It figures.

[Blackhawk]

It may have been a disaster, but gosh, it were a pretty one.

[Max Peck]

It may have been a disaster, but gosh, it were a pretty one.

It was a test flight with a dummy payload and nobody was hurt by the debris, so it seems more like a successful failure than a disaster. As I understand it, SpaceX already has a pretty good idea what went wrong and how to fix the problem. Better for it to happen now then in a launch with a real payload or crew on board.

[Isgrimnur]

It may have been a disaster, but gosh, it were a pretty one.

I reserve 'disaster' for when lives are lost, but that's my quibble.

[jztemple2]

It may have been a disaster, but gosh, it were a pretty one.

I reserve 'disaster' for when lives are lost, but that's my quibble.

Our location ABC affiliate is using the screen logo for the event saying "ROCKET DISASTER"

[Isgrimnur]

Won't someone think of the shareholders‽

[jztemple2]

The Scott Manley video was excellent and I learned a lot. He also expressed a number of opinions about the Starship breakup, which he feels was due to the Flight Termination System rather than an atmospheric event. That makes sense to me, since even without gimbaling engines providing directional control, once the Starship entered atmosphere thick enough it would align itself aerodynamically.

He also makes an interesting point that perhaps it would have been better that the Flight Termination System (FTS) not be used, since it resulted in a cloud of pieces coming down over a large area rather than one big lump hitting one spot. I would wonder if the FTS initiated automatically (which I expect it would) or from a ground command. As I understand it, the FTS has certain parameters which if exceeded would result in the FTS automatically firing. I'm wondering if there is also some protocol which allows it to be initiated with a ground command as well.

Also I'm wondering if SpaceX still had communication and control over Starship when the FTS fired. Could they have instead guided it to a specific landing point?

Finally I grabbed this screenshot from Manley's video. He was using it to demonstrate the aircraft flights that went into a orbital delay paths or diverted due to the FAA alert. I found it interesting that it shows that the Starship flight path is aligned to avoid overflying as much land mass as possible, with just a few islands of the Bahamas plus the Turks and Caicos Islands. It would be interesting to see how the T&C folks feel about the Starship routing now

[Isgrimnur]

Phys.org

[Musk] added the cause of the explosion appeared to be an "oxygen/fuel leak" and that the company would take corrective steps.

[jztemple2]