Space - The Final Frontier

[6miths]

Does the sight of a group of StarLink satellites going overhead make anyone else feel a little disoriented. I have seen a train a couple of times in the past week and it takes a second for my brain to figure out what it is seeing.

 

[Chuckanut]

Voyager 1 has been fixed by NASA.

https://apple.news/AS5Q1ude5Q1-LlGWKZq_W7A

“But that’s not how NASA works. Instead, they started working on a remote diagnosis and fix for the record-breaking spacecraft. Now, some four months later, they are triumphant. Voyager 1 is back online and communicating perfectly with ground control as if it never happened. In fact, the fix turned out to be relatively simple — or as simple as anything can be with a 22-hour communications lag in each direction and billions of miles of space in between.”

 

[Gumby]

Voyager 1 is indeed the Little Engine That Could.

 

[Gumby]

Voyager 1 is indeed the Little Engine That Could.

And today is the 45th anniversary of its launch.

 

[Chuckanut]

Today's launch of the Falcon Heavy rocket gave us the 150th and 151st successful landing of a booster rocket. It should be ho-hum stuff. IMO, it never gets boring.

 

[ls99]

Today's launch of the Falcon Heavy rocket gave us the 150th and 151st successful landing of a booster rocket. It should be ho-hum stuff. IMO, it never gets boring.

I watched that this morning. Beyond impressive as the two came in for a landing.

 

[Chuckanut]

Good news, IMO.

Elon Musk is supposedly going to put Gwynn Shotwell in charge of the Starship program.

She is , IMO, the person who focused Musk while SpaceX was maturing and helped keep Musk’s quirky behaviors in check.

 

[kgtest]

Artemis I launch is less than 5 days away. We are going back to the moon!

A briefing can be listened to here:
https://www.wesh.com/article/nasa-artemis-1-mission-nicole/41937636#

 

[Chuckanut]

The Capstone spacecraft launched by an Electron rocket is now in orbit around the Moon after a five month journey.

“The spacecraft launched at the end of June on an Electron rocket from New Zealand. Electron is the smallest rocket to launch a payload to the Moon, and its manufacturer, Rocket Lab, stressed the capabilities of the booster and its Photon upper stage to the maximum to send CAPSTONE on its long journey to the Moon. This was Rocket Lab's first deep space mission.

After separating from its rocket, the spacecraft spent nearly five months traveling to the Moon, following what's known as a ballistic lunar transfer that uses the Sun's gravity to follow an expansive trajectory. Along the way, flight controllers managed to solve a spinning issue that otherwise could have led to loss of the spacecraft. This was a roundabout path, bringing the spacecraft to a distance of more than three times that between the Earth and Moon before arcing back, but required relatively little propellant to reach its destination.”

 

[Walt34]

It's always interesting to see developments like that - smaller, lighter, and (presumably) cheaper ways to get there.

 

[Texas Proud]

How big is the payload?

 

[CaptTom]

How big is the payload?

It's a small cube sat. Easy enough to look up it's exact size and weight if you need to know. But the point is, there's real science to be done with these small payloads, which can be launched (relatively) cheaply.


It's great that we've got so much progress at all scales, from cube sats to Elon's monster rocket.


As far as I can tell, the Artemis countdown is continuing. Maybe they'll finally get that thing off the ground this time. Fingers crossed!

 

[Texas Proud]

It's a small cube sat. Easy enough to look up it's exact size and weight if you need to know. But the point is, there's real science to be done with these small payloads, which can be launched (relatively) cheaply.


It's great that we've got so much progress at all scales, from cube sats to Elon's monster rocket.


As far as I can tell, the Artemis countdown is continuing. Maybe they'll finally get that thing off the ground this time. Fingers crossed!

Agree that a lot of science can be had with small payloads... I was thinking that it might be a cheap way to send stuff to the moon base whenever it is a reality...


DANG... missed the rocket launch... forgot about it and fell asleep on the recliner and it was done when I awoke...

 

[DrRoy]

Artemis 1 launch.
Ulalaunch photo

 

[Walt34]

View attachment 44122
Artemis 1 launch.
Ulalaunch photo

Wow. That is a neat picture!

 

[Sunset]

Agree that a lot of science can be had with small payloads... I was thinking that it might be a cheap way to send stuff to the moon base whenever it is a reality...
.....

As long as it's small and light, and they don't mind waiting 5 months for it.

 

[Chuckanut]

The Orion spacecraft has successfully landed in the Pacific Ocean.

Given what all the gear that left the launchpad and what we got back, I suspect the moon-men hornswoggled us!

 

[Gumby]

As someone with a longstanding interest in the weather on Mars*, I found this article about recording a dust devil passing over the Perseverance rover to be interesting. https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/mars-dust-devil-audio-nasa-perseverance-224215815.html

* In 1980, I wrote my final paper in my USNA meteorology class about frontal systems on Mars, using primary data from the 1976 Viking landers.

 

[Chuckanut]

Here's a quick update on the SpaceX Starship which may launch sometime in the first half of 2023:

“There’s a lot of risks associated with this first launch, so I would not say that it is likely to be successful, but I think we’ll make a lot of progress,” Mr. Musk said last year, during an appearance before a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine panel.

Starship is made up of a 230-foot-tall booster called Super Heavy that would power a 164-foot-tall spacecraft, also called Starship, into orbit, according to SpaceX.

For the first orbital test, SpaceX expects to bring the booster down in the Gulf of Mexico and land the Starship spacecraft in the Pacific Ocean, according to a company filing with the Federal Communications Commission.

 

[Chuckanut]

Starship being mounted on top of its booster using the chopsticks.

SpaceX is lifting Starship 24 onto Super Heavy Booster 7 at the orbital launch mount. Teams are currently working up to a full wet dress rehearsal and 33 engine static fire

Sorry, I have only found this video on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1612601348234817536

 

[audreyh1]

Wow! Having seen those pieces in person this looks amazing! I think DH was watching longer video.

 

[Yoheadden]

https://interestingengineering.com/science/nasa-chief-warns-china-moon

We haven’t even made it back to the moon yet and we are already talking about claiming areas of it.

 

[cyber888]

I hope the Aliens or the Advance Race from inside the hollow earth will come out with their Spacecraft and get humanity up to date on Inter-stellar travel. Today (Jan. 13, 2023), the Pentagon reports 510 UF0 sightings.

 

[clifp]

Buzz Aldrin is my hero so many different ways. I think she is about 50.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1616600085441159168

 

[Texas Proud]

Buzz Aldrin is my hero so many different ways. I think she is about 50.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1616600085441159168

Looked it up, about 65...