Space - The Final Frontier

[Freedom56]

Blue Origin Launch happening soon with Captain Kirk (William Shatner).

 

[frayne]

Set phasers to pun !

 

[audreyh1]

The Lucy Spacecraft mission to explore several asteroids will be launching early Daturday morning from Cape Canaveral. https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-lucy-mission-prepares-for-launch-to-trojan-asteroids

The James Webb Space Telescope will be launching from French Guiana in December. https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/...ope-arrives-in-french-guiana-after-sea-voyage

 

[REWahoo]

The Lucy Spacecraft mission to explore several asteroids will be launching early Daturday morning...

That's a day of the week that only occurs in New Orleans when the Saints are playing, right?

 

[Chuckanut]

That's a day of the week that only occurs in New Orleans when the Saints are playing, right?

Best to use Stardates to avoid confusion.

The Daturday Stardate is 99389.76.

This should end any consternation in the ranks.

 

[CaptTom]

Best to use Stardates to avoid confusion.

I read somewhere that stardates were not used consistently between, and even within, the various Star Trek series. But let's not get started on all the other inconsistencies in those shows, we'd fill the forum!

 

[CaptTom]

I just watched another interview with Shatner. I'm really starting to like this guy. When asked about being called an "Astronaut" he had a great answer. Paraphrasing, he said something like this:


Well, I'm not sure you should really call us astronauts. More like half-astronauts.


Say it out loud if you didn't catch the double entendre.I'm going to use that one!

 

[Chuckanut]

Lucy is on her way to explore the asteroids in Jupiter's orbit. She certainly has an interesting flight plan.

https://apnews.com/article/space-ex...ts-asteroids-274ed33d961a59f0c8297b5701a614a1

Drawing power from two huge circular solar wings, Lucy will chase down five asteroids in the leading pack of Trojans in the late 2020s. The spacecraft will then zoom back toward Earth for another gravity assist in 2030. That will send Lucy back out to the trailing Trojan cluster, where it will zip past the final two targets in 2033 for a record-setting eight asteroids visited in a single mission.


It’s a complicated, circuitous path that had NASA’s science mission chief, Thomas Zurbuchen, shaking his head at first. “You’ve got to be kidding. This is possible?” he recalled asking.

 

[Chuckanut]

It appears that Lucy has a solar array that isn't properly locked into its deployed position. So far it's producing power (good) and the technical folk are looking at how to get it to properly lock.

https://www.cnet.com/news/nasas-luc...roblem-with-solar-array-shortly-after-launch/

"Lucy's two solar arrays have deployed, and both are producing power and the battery is charging," NASA said Sunday in a blog post. "While one of the arrays has latched, indications are that the second array may not be fully latched."

In the latest news about the Boeing Starliner:

Here is the working hypothesis on why the valves in the Boeing Starliner got stuck. Apparently it is an issue with high humidity + oxidizer = nitric acid, which corroded the valves enough that they did not operate properly. Apparently they are looking at 2nd half 2022 for the unmanned test launch. Maybe 2023.

https://arstechnica.com/science/202...ht-to-first-half-of-2022/?comments=1&start=40

At some point during the 46-day period when the vehicle was fueled—and when the valves were found to be stuck—humidity must have gotten into the spacecraft. This moisture combined with the oxidizer and created nitric acid, beginning the process of corrosion.

What I don't understand is why this problem would happen to this spacecraft. It's not as though all our other spacecraft are launched from low humidity areas. Most are launched from high humidity Florida. Humidity issues must be well understood by now. Is there something different about the Starliner?

Perhaps our resident rocket scientists can offer some enlightenment.

 

[USGrant1962]

This is a really cool launch system being tested. It basically uses a centrifuge to accelerate a rocket/vehicle to extremely high speed and launch it. The cool part is the rocket doesn't need to carry the fuel to get out of the deepest part of the gravity well, which fuel makes it harder to get out of the deepest part of the gravity well!

https://www.space.com/spinlaunch-first-test-flight-success

Not likely to be useful for manned craft.

 

[mpeirce]

This is a really cool launch system being tested. It basically uses a centrifuge to accelerate a rocket/vehicle to extremely high speed and launch it. The cool part is the rocket doesn't need to carry the fuel to get out of the deepest part of the gravity well, which fuel makes it harder to get out of the deepest part of the gravity well!

https://www.space.com/spinlaunch-first-test-flight-success

Not likely to be useful for manned craft.

Sounds perfect for lunar use.

 

[CaptTom]

This is a really cool launch system being tested. It basically uses a centrifuge to accelerate a rocket/vehicle to extremely high speed and launch it...

Nice! I always thought systems like this, or air-launch, or linear accelerators were more elegant than burning massive amounts of fuel to get out of the deepest part of the gravity well and the densest part of the atmosphere.


It's good to see so much innovation. Not all technologies will be winners, but in the end society wins.

 

[Alan]

NASA set to launch a spacecraft to try a game of celestial snooker.

https://www.theguardian.com/science...id-to-avoid-armaggedon?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

That’s one large rock, one momentous shift in our relationship with space. On Wednesday, Nasa will launch a mission to deliberately slam a spacecraft into an asteroid to try to alter its orbit – the first time humanity has tried to interfere in the gravitational dance of the solar system. The aim is to test drive a planetary defence system that could prevent us from going the same way as the dinosaurs, providing the first real data about what it would take to deflect an Armageddon-inducing asteroid away from Earth.

 

[Yoheadden]

NASA set to launch a spacecraft to try a game of celestial snooker.

https://www.theguardian.com/science...id-to-avoid-armaggedon?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

There are some interesting videos on YouTube about this. It’s the DART project.
They expect the movement to be so small, they had to pick an asteroid that orbits a larger one in order to measure the slight course adjustment.

 

[Chuckanut]

If the dinosaurs only had space travel.......

NASA is testing a defense against asteroids.

https://apnews.com/article/nasa-dart-spacecraft-asteroid-1f351c9ce5890c275f1f9b2c884a0278

NASA launched a spacecraft Tuesday night on a mission to smash into an asteroid and test whether it would be possible to knock a speeding space rock off course if one were to threaten Earth.

If all goes well, the boxy, 1,200-pound (540-kilogram) craft will slam head-on into Dimorphos, an asteroid 525 feet (160 meters) across, at 15,000 mph (24,139 kph) next September.

Dimorphos orbits a much larger asteroid called Didymos. The pair are no danger to Earth but offer scientists a better way to measure the effectiveness of a collision than a single asteroid flying through space.

 

[Chuckanut]

It seems that planetary scientists are getting excited about the SpaceX Starship.

https://arstechnica.com/science/202...ing-to-get-stirred-up-by-starships-potential/

Just as we're learning that the Solar System holds far more secrets than we might have imagined—which makes our inability to fly out there and unlock them especially frustrating.

Some planetary scientists have started warming to the idea that SpaceX's new Starship rocket, with its unprecedented lift capabilities and potentially paradigm-shattering low costs, could open up the Solar System to a new era of exploration. Imagine sending a lander to Europa, which harbors a vast, warm, subsurface ocean. During recent NASA planning meetings, scientists contemplated sending a complex spacecraft, costing billions of dollars, to conduct science on Europa. At best, they were hoping to land a payload of science instruments about the size and mass of a mini-refrigerator there.
With Starship, by contrast, NASA might land a cache of scientific payloads the size of a single-story unfurnished house.
"You can really take advantage of the Starship architecture and get to the outer Solar System in ways we haven't thought about before," Heldmann said. "It could provide a revolutionary new way of exploring these worlds."

 

[clifp]

I listened to the talk Elon had with the Space board and other scientists. Elon went into a great deal of depth on variety of subjects, like why is the Starship made with stainless steel. He was uncharacteristically patient and respectfully.

It was clear that most of the scientists were excited, but many also were skeptical. It seems to me the smart betting regarding Spacex is to be skeptical about the timelines, but you should plan on them being successful.

 

[CaptTom]

...With Starship, by contrast, NASA might land a cache of scientific payloads the size of a single-story unfurnished house....

I'm waiting until they can fly payloads the size of a furnished house.


But seriously, interesting article, thank you!


The biggest issue it raised is something I hadn't really thought about. The NASA budget is approved (and tightly managed) by Congress. Congress loves to spread lots of government money around to lots of different districts and subcontractors.


SpaceX works in an almost opposite way. Minimize costs and do the work in-house at a few locations. Getting congresscritters to see the big picture instead of their own self-interest is going to be difficult.

 

[Chuckanut]

SpaceX had completed its 100th successful booster landing. Of the 31 launches this year only two were using new boosters.

https://www.space.com/spacex-dragon-crs-2-launch-100th-rocket-landing-success

"There it is! So this is the first landing for this particular booster but the 100th successful landing for an orbital class rocket," said Andy Train, a SpaceX production supervisor, in a live webcast. "What a way to end off the year."

 

[audreyh1]

We’re getting up early tomorrow (Christmas morning) to watch the launch of the Webb space telescope from French Guiana at 7:20am ET. I expect coverage starts a couple of hours before.

It’s so complex - so many single points of failure - and will take about a month to fully deploy and cool down enough. I sure hope it works.

Pretty good preview

 

[tulak]

Fingers crossed that the Webb telescope launch and deployment goes well. I’d love to watch the launch, but too early for me. I’ll watch a replay later in the day.

 

[JoeWras]

It launched okay this morning. Rocket did not blow up, etc.

It is oriented okay and solar panels and shield is okay.


It has quite a few weeks of more unpacking to do. Still not out of the woods.

 

[CaptTom]

So far so good. I caught the launch almost live. I was about 7 minutes late, so I just clicked back the slider on the video to just before the launch. Then when there was a 7 minute gap with not much going on, I brought it back up to the live feed.

Not as cool as the SpaceX launches. They use more on-board cameras. But still an amazing process. The feed even showed the solar array unfolding in the final view from the second stage toward the (now released) telescope. The feed was intermittent, but there were some fantastic frames in there, showing the telescope moving away from the second stage, with the earth in the background. Gotta find some of those stills. They'll make great Zoom backgrounds!

Anyway, fingers crossed for all the upcoming milestones. So many complicated components, and everything needs to go just right.

 

[MichaelB]

I thought it was pretty cool. Not sure what it is, but space launches always leave me in awe, and with great respect for the engineering skills and vision shown by the people who make them happen.

 

[Chuckanut]

Great launch! I had to brush up on my Lagrange points so as to understand why it would work well at L2. For those of you interested, here's a nice discussion of Lagrange points and how they can be used by spacecraft.

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/754/what-is-a-lagrange-point/

Lagrange points are positions in space where objects sent there tend to stay put. At Lagrange points, the gravitational pull of two large masses precisely equals the centripetal force required for a small object to move with them. These points in space can be used by spacecraft to reduce fuel consumption needed to remain in position.