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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2019 5:03 pm
by Isgrimnur
RemoveDebris
The RemoveDebris satellite, which launched in mid-2018 from the ISS, is a test bed for technologies that may be able to help us clean up space trash. It already showed it could catch junk with a Spider-Man-style net. Now it has successfully demonstrated it can spear a target with a harpoon.

The University of Surrey in the UK posted details of the Feb. 8 test on Friday and shared a slow-motion video of the harpoon in action.


...
RemoveDebris has a final experiment set for March, and it involves the satellite's own demise. The satellite will attempt to inflate a sail that will drag it down into the Earth's atmosphere where it will burn up and not become a piece of space junk itself.

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2019 12:46 am
by Daehawk
https://abc7chicago.com/science/my-batt ... s/5137455/
The last message they received was basically, “My battery is low and it’s getting dark.” They hoped that the windy season would clear dust off the solar panels (if that was the problem). Since then they've been pinging her again and again, every way they knew…
Flight controllers tried numerous times to make contact, and sent one final series of recovery commands Tuesday night along with one last wake-up song, Billie Holiday's "I'll Be Seeing You," in a somber exercise that brought tears to team members' eyes. There was no response from space, only silence.

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2019 1:28 pm
by raydude

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2019 2:59 pm
by Daehawk
Thats pretty pathetic. I can get on Google Earth and zoom in to see a close up. Ive seen sat photos and see peoples faces. Must use crap to orbit the moon :)

I kinda joke as I know Earth sats are big and expensive and for good reasons. No need for one around the moon. But Id love the same type shots on the moons surface. Id enjoy finding the old Apollo stuff a lot.

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2019 9:34 am
by Max Peck
Israel's Beresheet robot sets its sights on the Moon
Israel is about to launch its first attempt to land on the Moon.

The Beresheet robot is a privately funded venture that aims to land and hop across the lunar surface.

It's a challenging prospect. Only government space agencies from the US, Russia and China have previously managed soft touchdowns.

The 1.5m-high, 585kg Beresheet will begin its mission with a ride to Earth orbit on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Once ejected from this vehicle, the robot will then use its British-built engine to propel itself to the Moon. The journey will take over two months to complete.

SpaceIL, the non-profit behind the project, hopes Beresheet ("In the beginning" in Hebrew) will prove an inspiration to all those who follow its progress.
Whatever happens, Beresheet will go down as a pathfinder. Other privately funded lunar spacecraft are set to follow it.

Both the US and European space agencies have stated their intention to use commercial landers to deliver some of their scientific payloads to the Moon.

The lift-off of the Beresheet's Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral is timed for 20:45 EST, Thursday (01:45 GMT, Friday).

The robot is actually piggybacking a ride on the flight, which has the primary function of placing a new telecoms satellite in orbit for the Indonesian company Pasifik Satelit Nusantara.

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2019 12:48 pm
by Daehawk
Wonder why it takes it 2 months to get to the moon? Apollo took 3 days.

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2019 1:35 pm
by Kraken
Daehawk wrote: Thu Feb 21, 2019 12:48 pm Wonder why it takes it 2 months to get to the moon? Apollo took 3 days.
I had the same reaction. Apparently the lander needs to achieve a specific lunar orbit before it can descend. There are various reasons that could take months, the most likely being limited fuel.

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2019 12:05 am
by Kraken
I found the answer to that today. The spacecraft starts out in an elliptical earth orbit. When it reaches its maximum speed at perigee it fires its engine to raise the apogee. After doing that three times, its apogee crosses the moon's orbit. Then it just has to be there when the moon is and get captured by lunar gravity. Physics! It's ingenious if you aren't in a hurry and don't have much fuel.

See the "How Israeli lander will reach the moon" video here: https://www.space.com/israel-moon-lande ... wsource=cl

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2019 6:51 pm
by Isgrimnur
Enlarge Image

This is Insider
Two weeks after SpaceX launched the first private lunar lander toward the moon, the Israeli spacecraft sent back a stunning selfie of itself with Earth in the background (above).

The dishwasher-sized robot is a four-legged lander called Beresheet, which is Hebrew for "in the beginning" — the first words of the Bible. The $100 million mission is headed by a nonprofit called SpaceIL, which is based out of Tel Aviv University and backed primarily by the South African billionaire Morris Kahn.

In Beresheet's new selfie, which it took 23,364 miles from Earth on Tuesday, a placard of the Israeli flag is visible and reads "small country, big dreams."

If the robot successfully touches down on the lunar surface on April 11 as planned, Israel will become the fourth nation in history to pull off a moon landing. But first, Beresheet has to close the 239,000-mile gap between Earth and the moon.

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2019 7:06 pm
by Isgrimnur
Daehawk wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 12:51 am https://www.engadget.com/2019/02/06/hay ... ding-date/
Hayabusa 2 will finally start mining an asteroid on February 22nd
Space.com
First, the spacecraft eases itself down toward the asteroid's rocky surface. Then, it immediately bounces back up, leaving a burst of flying rubble in its wake as it retreats up to safety.
...
What we don't see in that video is what caused the chaos: the spacecraft firing its sampling apparatus — basically a sophisticated bullet — and sucking up some of the debris it created. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) practiced the procedure earlier this year on Earth, using an artificial asteroid — a glorified bucket of gravel — designed to mimic Ryugu's structure and rock composition.

But knowing that it worked on Earth isn't nearly the same as watching the procedure unfold on a distant space rock. The footage was captured by a camera that was funded by public donations, JAXA noted.

Although the sampling procedure was the spacecraft's masterpiece maneuver, the mission still has a few tasks to accomplish before Hayabusa2 heads for home. First, in April, the spacecraft will create an artificial crater, then examine it to see what happened.

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2019 9:59 am
by AWS260

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2019 11:31 am
by Isgrimnur
Japan moon rover
Toyota is going to the moon. The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has teamed up with the carmaker to build a pressurized self-driving rover that will land on the lunar surface in 2029. The six-wheeled transporter will be able to carry two humans for a distance of 10,000 kilometers using solar power and Toyota's fuel cell technology. The rover will be about the size of two minibuses, with 13 square meters of habitable space, and the astronauts on board will be able to take their suits off inside the vehicle as they explore. It will land on the moon before the human expedition arrives, and travel independently to meet them.
Here's hoping that they get the airbag situation settled by then.

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2019 11:34 am
by Kraken
That's ambitious for a country with essentially no crewed space program. I wonder how they're planning to get that rover there. It looks big and heavy and a little fragile.

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2019 12:56 am
by AWS260
The new Apollo 11 documentary is really, really good. Highly recommended if you're interested in the space program. I encourage you to see it in the theater, since the sound and picture quality is fantastic.

There's no new information here, but a lot of the footage is new (to me, at least), and they put it together brilliantly. My favorite part is the lunar landing -- they show the last 3-4 minutes of the landing in real time, without cuts, with a countdown timer showing time left to bingo fuel. Even knowing what's going to happen, the tension is palpable.


Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2019 1:23 am
by Isgrimnur
One thing they don't bother to explain is the 1202 alarm.

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2019 5:49 pm
by Jaddison
Listening to "Shoot for the Moon: The Space Race and the Extraordinary Voyage of Apollo 11"

Interesting fact I had never heard before. Yuri Gagarin actually ejected out of his capsule at 22k feet on his reentry flight.

He was selected to fly for two reasons. He was very short, 5'2", and he was pure bred Russian.

Turns out the organization that certifies flight records only counts the record if the pilot/astronaut actually lands with the craft......they did not know Gagarin didn't land with the capsule.

Another interesting fact- John Glenn was initially dropped from consideration for the astronaut program because he did not have a degree. He dropped out to join the military. He had taken night classes and his technical flight reports as a test pilot were enough to have him "reconsidered" when someone asked the board to reevaluate him.

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Mon Apr 08, 2019 3:37 pm
by Max Peck
In astrophysics milestone, first photo of black hole expected
Scientists are expected to unveil on Wednesday the first-ever photograph of a black hole, a breakthrough in astrophysics providing insight into celestial monsters with gravitational fields so intense no matter or light can escape.

The U.S. National Science Foundation has scheduled a news conference in Washington to announce a “groundbreaking result from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project,” an international partnership formed in 2012 to try to directly observe the immediate environment of a black hole.

Simultaneous news conferences are scheduled in Brussels, Santiago, Shanghai, Taipei and Tokyo.

A black hole’s event horizon, one of the most violent places in the universe, is the point of no return beyond which anything - stars, planets, gas, dust, all forms of electromagnetic radiation including light - gets sucked in irretrievably.

While scientists involved in the research declined to disclose the findings ahead of the formal announcement, they are clear about their goals.

“It’s a visionary project to take the first photograph of a black hole. We are a collaboration of over 200 people internationally,” astrophysicist Sheperd Doeleman, director of the Event Horizon Telescope at the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian, said at a March event in Texas.

The news conference is scheduled for 9 a.m. (1300 GMT) on Wednesday.

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Mon Apr 08, 2019 5:57 pm
by Redfive
I wonder how you get a picture of something that light cannot escape from? Maybe it's an image of everything 'circling the drain'? Probably turn out to look nothing like that at all.

Enlarge Image

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Mon Apr 08, 2019 6:52 pm
by Holman
Black Hole selfies expected by 9:15.

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Mon Apr 08, 2019 6:55 pm
by Holman
AWS260 wrote: Sun Mar 17, 2019 12:56 am The new Apollo 11 documentary is really, really good. Highly recommended if you're interested in the space program. I encourage you to see it in the theater, since the sound and picture quality is fantastic.

There's no new information here, but a lot of the footage is new (to me, at least), and they put it together brilliantly. My favorite part is the lunar landing -- they show the last 3-4 minutes of the landing in real time, without cuts, with a countdown timer showing time left to bingo fuel. Even knowing what's going to happen, the tension is palpable.
Kubrick always delivers!

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Mon Apr 08, 2019 8:26 pm
by Jaddison
Just finished this - Shoot for the Moon: The Space Race and the Extraordinary Voyage of Apollo 11

On the Apollo 11 landing they didn't really know how much fuel they had left because of fuel sloshing around

Also on getting back to Columbia, Eagle was a little off on docking, 15 degrees and the clamps had them at an angle that wasn't get to let them dock completely. Michael Collins was able to use thrusters to align Columbia and allow full engagement of the clamps

did everyone know the launch from the moon knocked the American flag over? for some reason I thought it was still up there standing tall.

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Mon Apr 08, 2019 9:11 pm
by AWS260
Jaddison wrote: Mon Apr 08, 2019 8:26 pmdid everyone know the launch from the moon knocked the American flag over? for some reason I thought it was still up there standing tall.
Even if it was still up, it would have long since been bleached white by the sun. Symbolizing our surrender to the moon overlords, I assume.

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Tue Apr 09, 2019 5:22 am
by raydude
AWS260 wrote: Mon Apr 08, 2019 9:11 pm
Jaddison wrote: Mon Apr 08, 2019 8:26 pmdid everyone know the launch from the moon knocked the American flag over? for some reason I thought it was still up there standing tall.
Even if it was still up, it would have long since been bleached white by the sun. Symbolizing our surrender to the moon overlords, I assume.
I remember there was much to-do about the film "First Man" not showing Armstrong planting the flag on the moon, because that made it "unpatriotic" or something. Then I read an article that talked about the flag planting and how hard it was for the astronauts to plant it in the ground and that because it was only 27 feet from the lander it was blown over by the exhaust when they left.

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Tue Apr 09, 2019 5:26 am
by raydude
There is an LROC image of Apollo 11 site in this article that talks about the current status of the flags planted by Apollo crews.

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Tue Apr 09, 2019 7:24 am
by Jaddison
raydude wrote: Tue Apr 09, 2019 5:22 am
AWS260 wrote: Mon Apr 08, 2019 9:11 pm
Jaddison wrote: Mon Apr 08, 2019 8:26 pmdid everyone know the launch from the moon knocked the American flag over? for some reason I thought it was still up there standing tall.
Even if it was still up, it would have long since been bleached white by the sun. Symbolizing our surrender to the moon overlords, I assume.
I remember there was much to-do about the film "First Man" not showing Armstrong planting the flag on the moon, because that made it "unpatriotic" or something. Then I read an article that talked about the flag planting and how hard it was for the astronauts to plant it in the ground and that because it was only 27 feet from the lander it was blown over by the exhaust when they left.
The book goes into a fair amount of detail over who would walk on the moon first. From Earth to the Moon had it as Aldrin wanting a "religious" person being first. The book has NASA saying Aldrin would be first in early mission planning but they hadn't seen a finished LEM yet. NASA then had a change of heart and put some consideration into having a non-active military person be first. Aldrin and Aldrin's father lobbied hard to change it back including trying to get Congress involved. Then they got a finished LEM and realized it had to be Armstrong out first.
Once they were actually fully suited up and in the LEM on the moon it was clear Aldrin could never have gotten out the door first.
The book has an interesting take on the crew- unlike most other crews they were not "tight". They didn't hang out together much and both Collins and Armstrong had to figure out how to adapt to Aldrin with Armstrong having to assure Deke Slayton that he could make it work with Aldrin.
Aldrin's talent that made him invaluable was orbital rendezvous- he could figure them out quickly and without computers so if something went wrong with guidance on the moon Buzz could probably get them back to Columbia.

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Wed Apr 10, 2019 10:30 am
by AWS260
Enlarge Image

The first-ever picture of a black hole. The NY Times story is packed with enthusiastic metaphors:
The image, of a lopsided ring of light surrounding a dark circle deep in the heart of the galaxy known as Messier 87, some 55 million light-years away from here, resembled the Eye of Sauron, a reminder yet again of the power and malevolence of nature. It is a smoke ring framing a one-way portal to eternity.
***
The image offered a final, ringing affirmation of an idea so disturbing that even Einstein, from whose equations black holes emerged, was loath to accept it. If too much matter is crammed into one place, the cumulative force of gravity becomes overwhelming, and the place becomes an eternal trap, a black hole. Here, according to Einstein’s theory, matter, space and time come to an end and vanish like a dream.
***
General relativity led to a new conception of the cosmos, in which space-time could quiver, bend, rip, expand, swirl like a mix-master and even disappear forever into the maw of a black hole.
***
Nor do scientists know what ultimately happens to whatever falls into a black hole, nor what forces reign at the center, where according to the math we know now the density approaches infinity and smoke pours from God’s computer.

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Wed Apr 10, 2019 10:33 am
by Zaxxon
Today is just nuts. The black hole image, then Beresheet's moon landing attempt, then Falcon Heavy first commercial launch.

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Wed Apr 10, 2019 9:45 pm
by Daehawk
Still surprises me we can take a pretty good picture of something 55 million light years away but cant take a picture of say Mars without an orbiter there at it. And ya I know they are different types of objects and sizes and light. But still I feel we should be able to take HD pics of Mars that allow us t ozoom in for detail. Heck we cant even see any detail in the Apollo landing sites on our own moon.

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Wed Apr 10, 2019 9:57 pm
by Isgrimnur
Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Wed Apr 10, 2019 11:11 pm
by Max Peck

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2019 5:56 am
by raydude
Daehawk wrote: Wed Apr 10, 2019 9:45 pm Still surprises me we can take a pretty good picture of something 55 million light years away but cant take a picture of say Mars without an orbiter there at it. And ya I know they are different types of objects and sizes and light. But still I feel we should be able to take HD pics of Mars that allow us t ozoom in for detail. Heck we cant even see any detail in the Apollo landing sites on our own moon.
Dude, I know its fun to rag on the Apollo images from LROC but:

LRO was launched in 2009. The critical design review for it was done in 2006, which is when the LRO camera hardware would have been fixed - as in unchanging, this is what we're going to build, test and fly. For point of reference with smartphone technology, Apple released the 1st gen iphone in 2007.

The LROC narrow angle camera (NAC) has a 0.5m per pixel resolution. That means something that is 0.5 meters across shows up as one pixel. The lunar lander is 9.4 meters wide, so it shows up as 19 pixels. At the time the images were taken LRO was 31 miles away, traveling at an average speed of 1.6km/s or about 3500 miles/hour. So no, I'm not surprised we don't see any detail in an image of something that is only 19 pixels.

Or can't we? I'd say seeing where the astronauts walked, parked the rover, and left a bunch of equipment is a lot of detail

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:54 am
by Max Peck
Daehawk wrote: Wed Apr 10, 2019 9:45 pm Still surprises me we can take a pretty good picture of something 55 million light years away but cant take a picture of say Mars without an orbiter there at it. And ya I know they are different types of objects and sizes and light. But still I feel we should be able to take HD pics of Mars that allow us t ozoom in for detail. Heck we cant even see any detail in the Apollo landing sites on our own moon.
I recently read a Straight Dope article that touches on this. The physical universe places restrictions, such as diffraction limitation, on how well you can resolve an image at a distance. One example that they gave is that in order for the Hubble telescope to resolve "human scale" artifacts, it would need to be within a range of 5630 miles of the object it was imaging.

It's also worth noting that they didn't just look through a sufficiently powerful telescope to see the black holes. They relied on sophisticated image processing algorithms that were developed in just the last three years.

Katie Bouman: The woman behind the first black hole image
A 29-year-old computer scientist has earned plaudits worldwide for helping develop the algorithm that created the first-ever image of a black hole.

Katie Bouman led development of a computer programme that made the breakthrough image possible.

The remarkable photo, showing a halo of dust and gas 500 million trillion km from Earth, was released on Wednesday.

For Dr Bouman, its creation was the realisation of an endeavour previously thought impossible.

Excitedly bracing herself for the groundbreaking moment, Dr Bouman was pictured loading the image on her laptop.

"Watching in disbelief as the first image I ever made of a black hole was in the process of being reconstructed," she wrote in the caption to the Facebook post.

She started making the algorithm three years ago while she was a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

There, she led the project, assisted by a team from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the MIT Haystack Observatory.

The black hole image, captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) - a network of eight linked telescopes - was rendered by Dr Bouman's algorithm.

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2019 3:47 pm
by stessier
Zaxxon wrote: Wed Apr 10, 2019 10:33 am then Beresheet's moon landing attempt
Looks like they didn't make it. :(

Well, they found the moon. Not exactly a soft landing though.

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2019 3:48 pm
by Holman
stessier wrote: Thu Apr 11, 2019 3:47 pm
Zaxxon wrote: Wed Apr 10, 2019 10:33 am then Beresheet's moon landing attempt
Looks like they didn't make it. :(

Well, they found the moon. Not exactly a soft landing though.
Yeah, I just read that the lander hit the moon at more than 130m/s.

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2019 3:49 pm
by stessier
Holman wrote: Thu Apr 11, 2019 3:48 pm
stessier wrote: Thu Apr 11, 2019 3:47 pm
Zaxxon wrote: Wed Apr 10, 2019 10:33 am then Beresheet's moon landing attempt
Looks like they didn't make it. :(

Well, they found the moon. Not exactly a soft landing though.
Yeah, I just read that the lander hit the moon at more than 130m/s.
Yeah, if I'm reading the display right, it was 130 m/s vertical and 950 m/s horizontal. That would leave a pretty good smear, I would think.

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2019 3:51 pm
by Zaxxon
The moon is a harsh mistress.

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2019 3:51 pm
by TheMix
Zaxxon wrote: Thu Apr 11, 2019 3:51 pm The moon is a harsh mistress.
:clap:

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2019 4:49 pm
by Holman
They should hold a crater-naming contest.

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2019 4:59 pm
by Kraken
Bummer. But to me, they already accomplished the coolest thing: Using Earth gravity boosts to turn an elliptical Earth orbit into a lunar orbit. AFAIK that's a first (somebody please set me right if not).

Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Posted: Thu Apr 11, 2019 5:01 pm
by Jaymann
Yet in 1969, Apollo 11 supposedly soft landed in a lander made of cardboard and tin foil :think: