SPACE - random thread about space stuff

[jztemple2]

Sadly I don't think Luke is going to destroy the Death Star this time

Thaaaat's a Viper from Battlestar OG.

I thought those were all destroyed in the war between the Romulans and the Klingons

You're thinking Dr.Who

First base?

[Unagi]

Sadly I don't think Luke is going to destroy the Death Star this time

Thaaaat's a Viper from Battlestar OG.

I thought those were all destroyed in the war between the Romulans and the Klingons

You're thinking Dr.Who

First base?

Naturally.

[jztemple2]

[jztemple2]

Russia unveils timeline for building its new space station, starting in 2027

Russia has unveiled a comprehensive roadmap for building its newest space station and associated Earth-based infrastructure, with the first modules expected to launch within three years.

On July 2, the leadership of Russia's space agency Roscosmos described their upcoming to create the nation's newest space station, currently known as the Russian Orbital Service Station (ROSS), according to Russian news agency TASS.

The first module of the X-shaped outpost, a research and power node, is expected to be launched into a near-polar orbit in 2027, TASS reported. By 2030, it plans to have docked its four major modules, with two "special-purpose" modules scheduled for attachment by 2033. Roscosmos plans to send the first cosmonauts to the station in 2028 and has suggested the station can be operated without crew.

The Russian Orbital Service Station would orbit at the same altitude as the International Space Station, around 250 miles (400 km) above Earth, in a polar, sun-synchronous orbit. The route is particularly useful for observing the entire surface of the planet, according to Roscosmos, and also provides a valuable view over "the strategically important Northern Sea Route". The estimated cost is about $7 billion USD.

From Wikipedia:

A Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO), also called a heliosynchronous orbit, is a nearly polar orbit around a planet, in which the satellite passes over any given point of the planet's surface at the same local mean solar time. More technically, it is an orbit arranged so that it precesses through one complete revolution each year, so it always maintains the same relationship with the Sun.

A Sun-synchronous orbit is useful for imaging, reconnaissance, and weather satellites,because every time that the satellite is overhead, the surface illumination angle on the planet underneath it is nearly the same. This consistent lighting is a useful characteristic for satellites that image the Earth's surface in visible or infrared wavelengths, such as weather and spy satellites, and for other remote-sensing satellites, such as those carrying ocean and atmospheric remote-sensing instruments that require sunlight. For example, a satellite in Sun-synchronous orbit might ascend across the equator twelve times a day, each time at approximately 15:00 mean local time.


Diagram showing the orientation of a Sun-synchronous orbit (green) at four points in the year. A non-Sun-synchronous orbit (magenta) is also shown for reference. Dates are shown in white: day/month.

[jztemple2]

Florida startup Star Catcher snags $12 million to help develop 1st off-Earth energy grid

Space-based solar power may not remain a mere sci-fi dream for much longer.

Florida startup Star Catcher Industries just scored $12.25 million in seed funding to develop its planned constellation of power-beaming satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO), the first of which could take flight as early as next year.

"We're confident Star Catcher will do for orbital power what SpaceX has done for launch. They're a proven, veteran commercial space team executing on an audacious vision at high speed," Andrew Sather, principal at Initialized Capital, which led the seed funding round along with B Capital, said in a statement today (July 24).

"What they're building has the potential to transform the economics, capabilities and even configuration of most everything we put into orbit," Sather added.

Jacksonville-based Star Catcher plans to provide juice not to customers on Earth but rather to satellites in orbit. That's a rapidly growing market, thanks to megaconstellations like SpaceX's Starlink; LEO is expected to harbor about 50,000 spacecraft by 2030 (a roughly five-fold increase from today), according to the company.

Star Catcher aims to launch a network of "power node" satellites to LEO, sending them to an altitude of about 900 miles (1,500 kilometers). These craft will soak up solar energy and beam it to customer satellites in a usable form.

[jztemple2]

SpaceX finds cause of Falcon 9 failure, eyes return to flight as soon as July 27

SpaceX says it has identified and fixed the problem that caused its Falcon 9 rocket to fail during a launch earlier this month.

That failure occurred on July 11, as a Falcon 9 carried 20 of SpaceX's Starlink broadband satellites toward low Earth orbit. The rocket's first stage performed normally that day, but its upper stage sprang a leak of liquid oxygen, which prevented it from conducting an orbit-raising burn as planned; the Starlink satellites were deployed too low as a result and came back down to Earth in relatively short order, burning up in our planet's thick atmosphere.

The cause of the leak is a mystery no longer. It resulted from "a crack in a sense line for a pressure sensor attached to the vehicle’s oxygen system," SpaceX announced in an update on Thursday afternoon (July 25). "This line cracked due to fatigue caused by high loading from engine vibration and looseness in the clamp that normally constrains the line."

The upper stage's single Merlin engine performed its first burn as planned on July 11, entering a coast phase in an elliptical orbit right on schedule. But the leak prevented the engine from conducting a second burn, which was designed to circularize its orbit ahead of Starlink satellite deployment, according to SpaceX's anomaly investigation, which was overseen by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The leak "led to the excessive cooling of engine components, most importantly those associated with delivery of ignition fluid to the engine," the company wrote in Thursday's update. "As a result, the engine experienced a hard start rather than a controlled burn, which damaged the engine hardware and caused the upper stage to subsequently lose attitude control."

The upper stage was able to deploy all 20 satellites, but, as noted above, they didn't stay in orbit long.

SpaceX says it has taken action to prevent the recurrence of the anomaly.

SpaceX has submitted its mishap report to the FAA. In a post on X on Thursday afternoon, the company said that it's "poised to rapidly return to flight as soon as Saturday, July 27."

[Kraken]

That was *fast*. I was afraid they'd be grounded for months while NASA is still dealing with an iffy Starliner. I suppose that with 350 flights under your belt, you know your vehicle's every conceivable quirk.

[jztemple2]

That was *fast*. I was afraid they'd be grounded for months while NASA is still dealing with an iffy Starliner. I suppose that with 350 flights under your belt, you know your vehicle's every conceivable quirk.

Also they must have a lot of instrumentation which provides the data to analyses these problem. I'm also assuming that the Falcon 9 stages use the same system as does Starship, which continuously feeds a data stream back to SpaceX via the Starlink satellites. In older vehicles, the amount of data transmitted from an upper stage was limited to non-existent.

Back when the Space Shuttle Columbia was lost, the recovery of the intact OEX recorder on the ground in Texas meant that there was a lot more information available from the DFI (Developmental Flight Instrumentation) to analysis the accident. Only Columbia had the DFI and the recorder, had it been one of the other shuttles lost it would have been a lot harder to pinpoint the initiating problem.

[jztemple2]

New from Scott Manley,

[Kraken]

Anybody know if this is real?

[Isgrimnur]

It is.

[Punisher]

It is.

Legend has it that was added after Bob tried inserting it black side up.

[Daehawk]

Ive lost me and my wife's ticket to Mars.

Years ago on here i think was posted about. You filled it out online and they sent you what looked like a reserve ticket to mars with your names on them. I swear i saw it months back but heck where.

[Isgrimnur]

NASA says it is “evaluating all options” for the safe return of Starliner crew

One week ago, the last time NASA officials spoke to the media, the agency's program manager for commercial crew, Steve Stich, would not be drawn into discussing what would happen should NASA conclude that Starliner's thrusters were not reliable enough for the return journey to Earth.
...
For a long time, it seemed almost certain that the astronauts would return to Earth inside Starliner. However, there has been a lot of recent activity at NASA, Boeing, and SpaceX that suggests that Wilmore and Williams could come home aboard a Crew Dragon spacecraft rather than Starliner. Due to the critical importance of this mission, Ars is sharing what we know as of Thursday afternoon.

One informed source said it was greater than a 50-50 chance that the crew would come back on Dragon. Another source said it was significantly more likely than not they would. To be clear, NASA has not made a final decision. This probably will not happen until at least next week. It is likely that Jim Free, NASA's associate administrator, will make the call.

Asked if it was now more likely than not that Starliner's crew would return on Dragon, NASA spokesperson Josh Finch told Ars on Thursday evening, " NASA is evaluating all options for the return of agency astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams from the International Space Station as safely as possible. No decisions have been made and the agency will continue to provide updates on its planning."

[Kraken]

If those astronauts don't come home in Starliner it could spell the end of the program. Boeing has already lost a few $billions despite starting with a more generous subsidy, and repeating the crewed test mission would cost them another fraction of a billion, and probably another year. ISS only has 5-6 years left and Starliner has no purpose without ISS, so there's a lot riding on a successful de-orbit. There's a lot more to lose from an unsuccessful one, though, however unlikely NASA and Boeing engineers believe it to be. I don't envy whoever has to make the call.

[jztemple2]

Canadarm2 was not designed to catch spacecraft at the ISS. Now it's about to grab its 50th

A Canadian robot arm on the International Space Station is days from a big milestone.

MDA Space's Canadarm2 will celebrate its 50th cosmic catch no earlier than Aug. 5, when a Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo ship berths with the International Space Station (ISS) with thousands of pounds of experiments, supplies and food for the Expedition 71 astronauts, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) announced today (Aug. 2).

Cygnus will launch to the ISS no earlier than 11:29 a.m. EDT (0329 GMT) on Aug. 3, and you can watch the mission here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA+, formerly NASA Television. If Cygnus launches on time, will be captured by Canadarm2 and will dock with the ISS on Aug. 5 at approximately 3:55 a.m. EDT (0755 GMT). Coverage will start at 2:30 a.m. EDT (0630 GMT) on NASA+. [Cygnus actually launched at midday today]

Canadarm2, managed by MDA Space under CSA funding, was first launched to space April 19, 2001 on space shuttle mission STS-100. Mission astronaut Chris Hadfield performed the first-ever CSA spacewalks to install the arm, a milestone celebrated by playing the Canadian national anthem in space and jokingly referring to fellow spacewalker Scott Parazynski (of NASA) as "an honorary Canadian."

The arm's first spacecraft catch was on Sept. 17, 2009 when it captured Japan's HTV-1 ("HTV", a now-retired cargo spacecraft series, stood for H-II Transfer Vehicle). In the 15 years since, spacecraft berthing with Canadarm2 ranged from SpaceX's Cargo Dragon to Northrop Grumman's Cygnus.

Canadarm2 forms part of a series of Canadian robotic arms based on generations of telescoping tube technology seen in space examples ranging from extendable antennas to the Apollo program's lunar legs, according to "Canadarm and Collaboration" (Elizabeth Howell, ECW Press, 2020.)

an astronaut beside a space station module and above a solar panel during a spacewalk. above him is a robotic arm with the word "canada" on it
Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Chris Hadfield during the installation of Canadarm2 in April 2001, on the International Space Station. (Image credit: NASA)

Canadarm was first flown in space Nov. 12, 1981 during shuttle mission STS-2 with Spar Aerospace and Canada's National Research Council (the government council that managed astronauts before the CSA was formed in 1989). Canadarm was used for spacewalking, several Hubble Space Telescope missions and some impromptu maneuvers such as knocking an ice plug off a frozen shuttle drain line, according to NASA.

[jztemple2]

Text from the tweet, in case you are having issues (I was)

Roundup of today's @NASA
Teleconference about @Space_Station Operations and @BoeingSpace's Starliner CFT mission:

Crew-9
- NASA has set up the Crew-9 Dragon to have the flexibility to launch with 2 astronauts, and return with 4 in Feb 2025; SpaceX Suits for Butch & Suni [Starliner crew] are ready, SpaceX Seats for Butch & Suni are ready.
- However, the Crew-9 contingency has not been “formally” enabled yet.
- Steve Stich would not say which 2 astronauts would not fly on Crew-9 at this time.
- They have another contingency to allow 3 crew members on the Crew-8 cargo pallet if they need to undock Starliner autonomously prior to the arrival of Crew-9 - which would leave Butch & Suni without their spacecraft accessible as a Safe Haven.

Starliner CFT
- Ken Bowersox and Dana Weigel would not say which vehicle for Butch & Suni's return they’re leaning towards right now as “it could change drastically” over time.
- NASA could certify Starliner for operational crewed missions without bringing Butch & Suni back onboard the vehicle, pending data reviews of the thruster/helium issues.
- The Starliner software is the same whether crewed or uncrewed. What needs to be updated is a “specific set of mission parameters”. NASA calls those Mission Data Loads.

July SpaceX Task Order
- The SpaceX Task Order in July was for a contingency where Tracy Caldwell Dyson would return on Dragon, and not Soyuz MS-25. Similar to Frank Rubio & Soyuz MS-22.

Fleet Management
- Crew-9’s Falcon Booster is now going to be flying on a Starlink mission prior to Crew-9, because of the 1 month slip.

[The Meal]

My friend (just had shrimp tacos at their place last Saturday) got to interview Suni yesterday.



I’ll get you an address if you want to send them M&Ms.

[jztemple2]

China launches 1st batch of satellites for planned 14,000-strong megaconstellation

China has begun building a huge satellite-internet constellation in low Earth orbit.

A Long March 6A rocket lifted off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in north China today (Aug. 7) at 2:42 a.m. EDT (0642 GMT), carrying 18 Qianfan ("Thousand Sails") satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO).

Everything went well, according to the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, which declared the mission "a complete success.

A Chinese Long March 6A rocket launches the first 18 satellites for the Qianfan ("Thousand Sails") internet megaconstellation, which is expected to host up to 14,000 satellites eventually. (Image credit: CCTV)

Qianfan will be a Chinese version of SpaceX's Starlink LEO megaconstellation, which beams internet service to users around the world using more than 6,200 satellites.

That number is growing all the time; SpaceX has already launched more than 50 dedicated Starlink missions this year, with many more on the docket. Elon Musk's company already has permission to deploy 12,000 Starlink spacecraft in LEO, and it has applied for approval for another 30,000 on top of that.

Qianfan won't be quite that big, but it's in the ballpark.

"The satellites are similar to the V1 Starlinks, with flat-panel morphology and a mass of 300 kg [660 pounds] each. This 'G60' constellation is planned to eventually have 14,000 satellites," astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, posted on X shortly after today's Qianfan launch.

[Isgrimnur]

Kessler syndrome intensifies

At around 400 kilometers and into the 500-km realm — home to ISS and the SpaceX Starlink satellites among others — atmospheric drag plays a major role. Dead satellites and debris usually slow and burn up in the atmosphere in just a few years. This natural cleansing process accelerates when the sun becomes more active and solar coronal mass ejections strike Earth and cause the atmosphere to swell.

“In those altitudes, we can probably do a lot and we will be forgiven,” Linares says.

But this atmospheric drag drops off quickly as one goes higher. By the time you get around 600 km, the altitude of the Hubble Space Telescope, “now you’re talking about decades for things to drag down,” Matney says.

“When you get up to 800 or 900 km, we’re now talking about centuries for things to drag down,” he adds. “When we get up to 1,000 km, you’re talking about millennia.”
...
Matney puts it like this: Kessler Syndrome “won’t cause orbital altitudes to be unusable. It’s more like a gradual degradation that’s going to cost everybody more money.”

[The Meal]

t -30 minutes to the Transporter-11 video (and ultimately launch) from Vandenberg. I’ve got a few items on this launch to which I’ve glued accelerometers. There’s a nice photo of the stack on this page: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2024/08/transporter-11/

[Isgrimnur]

That second pic looks like a sale carousel at Microcenter.

[jztemple2]

Tortoise Takes a Leisurely Stroll

A NASA photographer captured this gopher tortoise walking on the Launch Pad 39B beach road at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 4, 2014.

The undeveloped property on Kennedy Space Center is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service through the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge provides a habitat for 14 species federally listed as threatened or endangered, including the leatherback, green, Kemps Ridley, loggerhead and Atlantic hawksbill turtles.

I worked for a number of years out at the Launch Complex 39 pads, both A and B, and it really was amazing how much wildlife I saw. One evening a Florida bobcat, pretty rare, scooted by across the road from me. And in the culvert right underneath my trailer there lived an alligator for awhile, probably hoping for the odd scrap of food, but even then it was absolutely verboten to feed alligators as it made them want to get close to humans .

[jztemple2]

How SpaceX modified a Dragon crew capsule for Polaris Dawn's historic private spacewalk

Polaris Dawn's spacecraft will be like no Dragon ever flown before.

The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule for the Polaris Dawn mission sports modifications for the first-ever private spacewalk, which will take place after the scheduled launch on Aug. 27. Polaris Dawn's Dragon will also soar higher than any crewed spacecraft since the Apollo missions, flying above Earth at an altitude of about 435 miles (700 kilometers).

Read more below about the changes to Polaris Dawn's Dragon, which will carry four astronauts to orbit: billionaire funder and commander Jared Isaacman, who also flew, funded and commanded the Inspiration4 mission in September 2021; pilot Scott "Kidd" Poteet, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel; and mission specialists Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, both of whom are SpaceX engineers.

[Kraken]

NASA made up its mind: Starliner will return to Earth uncrewed. The "stranded" astronauts will be assigned to Crew 9, which will launch with two members rather than four, and will spend another six months in space (the planned Crew 9 rotation) before returning home in a Dragon.

Left unanswered is whether Starliner will be declared operational after a successful reentry or required to perform another test mission, whether Boeing will swallow a few hundred million dollars in further development costs or instead scrap the program, and whether NASA will split those costs in order to obtain the desired redundant launch system.

Every Starliner mission so far has suffered from some sort of problems. NASA would be foolish to call it operational until it completes a mission with no drama.

[jztemple2]

Thanks for posting this info, I've been busy and hadn't checked out the results of the latest news conference.

NASA made up its mind: Starliner will return to Earth uncrewed. The "stranded" astronauts will be assigned to Crew 9, which will launch with two members rather than four, and will spend another six months in space (the planned Crew 9 rotation) before returning home in a Dragon.

I read an article early this week about the Starliner astronauts and the prospect of them going from a two week mission to an eight(?) month one. This has to be gutting to their families.

Left unanswered is whether Starliner will be declared operational after a successful reentry or required to perform another test mission, whether Boeing will swallow a few hundred million dollars in further development costs or instead scrap the program, and whether NASA will split those costs in order to obtain the desired redundant launch system.

Every Starliner mission so far has suffered from some sort of problems. NASA would be foolish to call it operational until it completes a mission with no drama.

I agree, I don't see any way that Starliner could be declared operational.

You bring up an interesting point... what if Boeing says they can't afford to do more development? Does NASA bail them out? How will Congress feel about that? It is an election year, but then Starliner is small potatoes in the huge federal budget.

I imagine that Boeing stock is going to take a hit yet again.

[Kraken]

I keep seeing the tagline "If it's Boeing, it's not going."

NASA paid Boeing more money to develop Starliner than it gave SpaceX for Dragon. Dragon has been operational for four years. Starliner's likely to need another year and a billion or so more.

[Blackhawk]

This has to be gutting to their families.

It's got to be tough, but if it were my family member up there, I'd be relieved that they were coming back on something proven rather than something that will probably bring them home alive.

[Max Peck]

The people I'd expect to be gutted are the 2 astronauts that just got booted from Crew 9. Do they get a consolation prize?

[Hrdina]

The people I'd expect to be gutted are the 2 astronauts that just got booted from Crew 9. Do they get a consolation prize?

They haven't yet identified which two of the four Crew 9 members are being Left Behind.

The Roscosomos cosmonaut (Gorbunov) will not be booted; it will have to be two of the three NASA astronauts (Zena Cardman, Nick Hague, Stephanie Wilson).

Maybe they'll send a bill to Boeing for an extra Dragon flight.

[Punisher]

This sounds pretty cool...and dangerous..

https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/19/science/ ... index.html

Wishing them luck!

[jztemple2]

This sounds pretty cool...and dangerous..

https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/19/science/ ... index.html

Wishing them luck!

Not to be all grumpy and everything, but this mission does smack of being some rich guy's stunt. Sure, there is science and everything, but there are a lot of parts of the spacecraft and the crew going through procedures which they weren't originally designed for. Hopefully it all won't end up in disaster...

[Kraken]

This sounds pretty cool...and dangerous..

https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/19/science/ ... index.html

Wishing them luck!

Not to be all grumpy and everything, but this mission does smack of being some rich guy's stunt. Sure, there is science and everything, but there are a lot of parts of the spacecraft and the crew going through procedures which they weren't originally designed for. Hopefully it all won't end up in disaster...

First crewed polar orbit! First private crew spacewalk! Highest flight since Apollo! Are we not entertained?

[jztemple2]

First crewed polar orbit! First private crew spacewalk! Highest flight since Apollo! Are we not entertained?

If they hadn't launched in the middle of the night and woken me up I'd be more entertained

[Hrdina]

First crewed polar orbit! First private crew spacewalk! Highest flight since Apollo! Are we not entertained?

If they hadn't launched in the middle of the night and woken me up I'd be more entertained

????

They haven't launched, yet. August 30 earliest from what I've read.

[jztemple2]

First crewed polar orbit! First private crew spacewalk! Highest flight since Apollo! Are we not entertained?

If they hadn't launched in the middle of the night and woken me up I'd be more entertained

????

They haven't launched, yet. August 30 earliest from what I've read.

Well dammit, something launched in the middle of the night, but it was some other Falcon rocket

And, oops!

[Daehawk]

I hate Starlink.

[jztemple2]

FAA requires investigation into SpaceX Falcon 9 landing failure

SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 rocket has been grounded, at least for a little while.

A Falcon 9 successfully launched 21 of SpaceX's Starlink satellites this morning (Aug. 28), sending them to orbit on the record-breaking 23rd mission for the rocket's first stage. That booster encountered a problem during its return to Earth, however, toppling over shortly after landing at sea on a SpaceX droneship.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced today that it's requiring an investigation into the failed touchdown — and that the Falcon 9 won't fly again until that inquiry has wrapped up.

SpaceX will conduct the investigation, but the FAA will oversee the work and assess its findings.

"A return to flight of the Falcon 9 booster rocket is based on the FAA determining that any system, process or procedure related to the anomaly does not affect public safety," FAA officials said in an emailed statement.

"In addition, SpaceX may need to request and receive approval from the FAA to modify its license that incorporates any corrective actions and meet all other licensing requirements," they added.

[Isgrimnur]

Seems a bit much, as the usual method up until this centruy has just been dropping them into the ocean. But the technology they pioneered failed after 200+ successes. Better shut them down until they prove it's safe.

[jztemple2]

Seems a bit much, as the usual method up until this centruy has just been dropping them into the ocean. But the technology they pioneered failed after 200+ successes. Better shut them down until they prove it's safe.

I think it's more of a matter of SpaceX demonstrating that the failure cause was not something that might effect the future flight of another booster after liftoff when it would be a hazard to people and things.

If the FAA did nothing and subsequently a Falcon 9 launch had a failure, then everyone would be all over the FAA for not doing an investigation.