SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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SpaceX preparing to launch third GPS Block III satellite. Launch time is now 4:10 pm EDT, pushed back 15 minutes due to winds aloft.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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It's almost as if people are the problem.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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jztemple2 wrote: Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:01 pm SpaceX preparing to launch third GPS Block III satellite. Launch time is now 4:10 pm EDT, pushed back 15 minutes due to winds aloft.
Whats with all the towers around the launch tower?
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Daehawk wrote: Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:27 pm
jztemple2 wrote: Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:01 pm SpaceX preparing to launch third GPS Block III satellite. Launch time is now 4:10 pm EDT, pushed back 15 minutes due to winds aloft.
Whats with all the towers around the launch tower?
Lightning protection. I believe they are composite construction with wires wrapped around them.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Now that the proper answer has been posted...

5G towers to load the Covid-19 payload.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Ahh ok.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Happy 23rd Anniversary Mars Pathfinder and little Sojourner pal

Other than the Apollo missions and the Hubble Telescope this is my favorite space NASA mission / vehicle. I sat mesmerized watching the photos coming back on the net. I even bought a red/blue 3d Mars book. I loved this little rover. Its still my favorite. Man 97 was great.

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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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This one has a little bit from another video I posted but doesn't go into detail here. The part where when the suns are dead how a civilization may build rings around a white dwarf to survive. I find that fascinating to the max. Also I wonder of all the white dwarf stars out there now how many had planets and did any of them have a civilization around them. Did it kill them off to history or did some escape to another system some how if they were advanced enough.

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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Cool promo video of the NASA Psyche mission I'm working on. It showcases a few of the engineers and scientists on the GRNS Investigation team.



Edited to embed the youtube video.
Last edited by raydude on Tue Jul 07, 2020 5:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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raydude wrote: Tue Jul 07, 2020 4:49 pm Btw, how are you guys embedding your youtube videos like that?
Just paste the YouTube link directly into the message, no embedding needed.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Wonder when we will have space mining? Go out and lasso a asteroid and bring in back to stable orbit and have a space elevator for hauling whats mined down to Earth.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Daehawk wrote: Tue Jul 07, 2020 6:21 pm Wonder when we will have space mining? Go out and lasso a asteroid and bring in back to stable orbit and have a space elevator for hauling whats mined down to Earth.
I don't see a space elevator ever happening. Assuming you could possible create a fiber strong enough to reach from the surface to space, just the possibility of it being broken by a stray meteor, aircraft or mechanical mishap would entail adding so many backups and contingencies as to make it economically unfeasible. It would be much easier to use large deceleration structures to allow big pieces of space rock to survive reentry.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Comet Neowise is here! Catch it right before sunrise in the NE. This fall you can catch it in the evening.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/10/2131 ... aphy-space

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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Good Kindle book on sale: The Search for Life on Mars: The Greatest Scientific Detective Story of All Time. This is a newly released title, not a reissue of an older book.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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NASA
The first images from ESA/NASA’s Solar Orbiter are now available to the public, including the closest pictures ever taken of the Sun.

Solar Orbiter is an international collaboration between the European Space Agency, or ESA, and NASA, to study our closest star, the Sun. Launched on Feb. 9, 2020 (EST), the spacecraft completed its first close pass of the Sun in mid-June.

“These unprecedented pictures of the Sun are the closest we have ever obtained,” said Holly Gilbert, NASA project scientist for the mission at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “These amazing images will help scientists piece together the Sun’s atmospheric layers, which is important for understanding how it drives space weather near the Earth and throughout the solar system.”

“We didn’t expect such great results so early,” said Daniel Müller, ESA’s Solar Orbiter project scientist. “These images show that Solar Orbiter is off to an excellent start.”


...
Principal investigator David Berghmans, an astrophysicist at the Royal Observatory of Belgium in Brussels, points out what he calls “campfires” dotting the Sun in EUI’s images.

“The campfires we are talking about here are the little nephews of solar flares, at least a million, perhaps a billion times smaller,” Berghmans said. “When looking at the new high resolution EUI images, they are literally everywhere we look.”

It’s not yet clear what these campfires are or how they correspond to solar brightenings observed by other spacecraft. But it’s possible they are mini-explosions known as nanoflares – tiny but ubiquitous sparks theorized to help heat the Sun's outer atmosphere, or corona, to its temperature 300 times hotter than the solar surface.

To know for sure, scientists need a more precise measurement of the campfires' temperature. Fortunately, the Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment, or SPICE instrument, also on Solar Orbiter, does just that.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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engadget
NASA has announced a new target launch date for the James Webb Space Telescope after it was delayed — yet again — due to the coronavirus pandemic and some technical challenges. The agency moved the target date from March 2021 to October 31st, 2021 based on “recently completed schedule risk assessment of the remaining integration and test activities...” Of course, it remains to be seen whether the Hubble successor will actually be blasting off to outer space by October next year.

James Webb was originally scheduled for a 2018 launch, which got moved to May 2020 and then again to March 2021 due to its complex construction needs and a series of technical issues. It wasn’t even until April this year that NASA was able to put its enormous mirror to the test for the first time. There’s also this continued uncertainty around the pandemic, which could still cause further delays.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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This is turning into a Duke Forever kinda thing. by then new tech will be out and they'll want to add it first which delay it again :)
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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With the amount of time and money invested in JWST, they have got to make sure they get it 100% right on the first try. If the spacecraft fails in any way, there's no do-over like Hubble got -- no possibility of a service mission.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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This is interesting, NASA jettisons Apollo moon landing stats to reach 300th American spacewalk
To prepare for two of its astronauts marking a new milestone in space, NASA has decided to rewrite the records for many of its historic missions, including the first moon landing.

As history records, Apollo 11 crew members Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin performed the first-ever moonwalk on July 20, 1969, 51 years ago Monday. The astronauts' 2-hour, 31-minute and 40-second outing to explore the lunar surface was recorded by newspapers, historians, authors and by NASA, itself, as the mission's only extravehicular activity, or EVA, the technical term for spacewalks.

But with a recent press release, NASA effectively added a second EVA to the first moonwalkers' credit — and the agency did not stop there. It has now changed its log books to add an additional EVA to the second, third, fourth and fifth moon landings and increased the count for the sixth and last Apollo lunar landing by two.

This was not a mistake, a NASA spokesperson said. "The EVA office triple checked their stats." Rather, the change was made on purpose, though what that reason was was not explained.

"[The] definition of an EVA with a crew member exposed to vacuum evolved throughout the years and definitions changed somewhat regarding the semantics of what constituted an EVA for history," the official at Johnson Space Center in Houston told collectSPACE...
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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jztemple2 wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 11:33 pm This is interesting, NASA jettisons Apollo moon landing stats to reach 300th American spacewalk
To prepare for two of its astronauts marking a new milestone in space, NASA has decided to rewrite the records for many of its historic missions, including the first moon landing.

As history records, Apollo 11 crew members Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin performed the first-ever moonwalk on July 20, 1969, 51 years ago Monday. The astronauts' 2-hour, 31-minute and 40-second outing to explore the lunar surface was recorded by newspapers, historians, authors and by NASA, itself, as the mission's only extravehicular activity, or EVA, the technical term for spacewalks.

But with a recent press release, NASA effectively added a second EVA to the first moonwalkers' credit — and the agency did not stop there. It has now changed its log books to add an additional EVA to the second, third, fourth and fifth moon landings and increased the count for the sixth and last Apollo lunar landing by two.

This was not a mistake, a NASA spokesperson said. "The EVA office triple checked their stats." Rather, the change was made on purpose, though what that reason was was not explained.

"[The] definition of an EVA with a crew member exposed to vacuum evolved throughout the years and definitions changed somewhat regarding the semantics of what constituted an EVA for history," the official at Johnson Space Center in Houston told collectSPACE...
In other words, when Buzz stepped out to take a leak, that was an EVA.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Kraken wrote: Tue Jul 21, 2020 12:49 am
jztemple2 wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 11:33 pm This is interesting, NASA jettisons Apollo moon landing stats to reach 300th American spacewalk
To prepare for two of its astronauts marking a new milestone in space, NASA has decided to rewrite the records for many of its historic missions, including the first moon landing.

As history records, Apollo 11 crew members Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin performed the first-ever moonwalk on July 20, 1969, 51 years ago Monday. The astronauts' 2-hour, 31-minute and 40-second outing to explore the lunar surface was recorded by newspapers, historians, authors and by NASA, itself, as the mission's only extravehicular activity, or EVA, the technical term for spacewalks.

But with a recent press release, NASA effectively added a second EVA to the first moonwalkers' credit — and the agency did not stop there. It has now changed its log books to add an additional EVA to the second, third, fourth and fifth moon landings and increased the count for the sixth and last Apollo lunar landing by two.

This was not a mistake, a NASA spokesperson said. "The EVA office triple checked their stats." Rather, the change was made on purpose, though what that reason was was not explained.

"[The] definition of an EVA with a crew member exposed to vacuum evolved throughout the years and definitions changed somewhat regarding the semantics of what constituted an EVA for history," the official at Johnson Space Center in Houston told collectSPACE...
In other words, when Buzz stepped out to take a leak, that was an EVA.
It's unfortunate that I have to think this way, but this smells like political involvement. LIke a higher up decision to put out something positive that the administration can point to so as to distract from the depressing news about the pandemic.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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It does. You cant trust any Gov office these days.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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It's almost as if people are the problem.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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I was just about to post about that! Space.com had an article about the deepfake, Apollo 11 'disaster' video project highlights growing danger of deepfake tech
You can watch Nixon reading these words, which were penned by speechwriter William Safire, in this dramatic and disturbing video. The most disturbing thing about it, of course, is that it's a fake, and a very convincing one.
Spooky, I tell you!
raydude wrote: Tue Jul 21, 2020 7:09 am
Kraken wrote: Tue Jul 21, 2020 12:49 am
jztemple2 wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 11:33 pm This is interesting, NASA jettisons Apollo moon landing stats to reach 300th American spacewalk
To prepare for two of its astronauts marking a new milestone in space, NASA has decided to rewrite the records for many of its historic missions, including the first moon landing.

As history records, Apollo 11 crew members Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin performed the first-ever moonwalk on July 20, 1969, 51 years ago Monday. The astronauts' 2-hour, 31-minute and 40-second outing to explore the lunar surface was recorded by newspapers, historians, authors and by NASA, itself, as the mission's only extravehicular activity, or EVA, the technical term for spacewalks.

But with a recent press release, NASA effectively added a second EVA to the first moonwalkers' credit — and the agency did not stop there. It has now changed its log books to add an additional EVA to the second, third, fourth and fifth moon landings and increased the count for the sixth and last Apollo lunar landing by two.

This was not a mistake, a NASA spokesperson said. "The EVA office triple checked their stats." Rather, the change was made on purpose, though what that reason was was not explained.

"[The] definition of an EVA with a crew member exposed to vacuum evolved throughout the years and definitions changed somewhat regarding the semantics of what constituted an EVA for history," the official at Johnson Space Center in Houston told collectSPACE...
In other words, when Buzz stepped out to take a leak, that was an EVA.
It's unfortunate that I have to think this way, but this smells like political involvement. LIke a higher up decision to put out something positive that the administration can point to so as to distract from the depressing news about the pandemic.
I don't think is was a nefarious as something to distract us from the pandemic, but I do think it was something so that the upcoming spacewalk will garner more media attention, hence more funding. As noted in The Right Stuff, "No bucks, no Buck Rogers" :D

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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Its like The Running Man where Arni refuses to fire on civilians but the video shows him doing just that. Back then it was a fantasy. Today it seems easy.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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It's almost as if people are the problem.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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An important anniversary for my county and for America's space program:

70 Years Ago, Bumper 8 Launched Brevard's Future as Space Coast
Seventy years ago, on July 24, 1950, the very first rocket blasted off from Brevard County, further ushering in America's quest for reaching for the stars. But there was a period of time when Brevard's Space Coast might have never come to be. At 9:28 a-m, July 24th, 1950, a V-2 rocket known as Bumper 8 lifted off the newly completed Launch Complex 3 at Long Range Proving Ground Base on Cape Canaveral. It was a history-making moment that set the tone for an area that would become the premiere launch area of the United States and Florida. "Some 60 feet tall, about 5-1/2 feet in diameter, with fins on it," according to John Hilliard, a volunteer with Sands Space History Center at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station whose family moved to the area in 1953. "Basically the bottle rocket of today's technology." Despite just a 2-minute, 200-mile downrange flight, Bumper 8 cemented itself in space lore, with the first launch from the Atlantic coast.

It was not the first such launch attempt, though. Previous Bumpers were tested in White Sands, New Mexico. The government wanted to find a new missile range for testing in California, but the Mexican government wouldn't permit flight ground stations in its country. "So U.S. space pioneers went to the second choice, which is here [Brevard County]," Hilliard said. Had that move not happened, the Cape would have lost seven decades of Space Coast launches. So as crewed missions resume, continue exploring the universe with probes, and land rovers on places like Mars, Floridians can look back to Bumper 8's history-making flight so many years ago.​ That flight and others came after World War II, when the United States captured German V-2 missiles and some of the original V-2 team members, leading to the development of America’s own rockets into the high tech ones of today.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Interesting...I knew about the V-2s but had never heard that story. Thanks, Hitler!
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Another reason I don't like SpaceX's sats.

SpaceX Satellites Ruin Photographer’s Shots of Comet NEOWISE
As NASA recently warned, the light pollution caused by the boom in satellites is indeed “wreaking havoc” on astrophotography. Photographer Daniel López tried to shoot a telephoto timelapse of Comet NEOWISE this week but was thwarted by SpaceX’s Starlink satellites.
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Perseverance, Ingenuity ready for seven month journey to Mars
With all major pre-launch preparations complete, United Launch Alliance stands ready to launch NASA’s latest mission to Mars: the Perseverance rover and accompanying Ingenuity helicopter.

Liftoff of the third of our world’s three missions to Mars during the current interplanetary transfer window is targeted for Thursday, 30 July 2020 in a two hour launch window that opens at 07:50 EDT and closes at 09:50 EDT (11:50–13:50 UTC).
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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And...

How NASA's Demo-2 astronauts will make a historic splashdown on Earth
Just over 45 years since the last American astronaut splashed down in the ocean, NASA and its partner SpaceX are set to land astronauts in the sea again on Aug. 2.

The agency announced last week that SpaceX's Demo-2 commercial crew mission, carrying NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, is set to return to Earth, splashing down in the ocean near Florida in one of seven designated landing sites. The mission is expected to land at 2:42 p.m. EDT (1842 GMT), as long as the weather and technical systems co-operate, NASA said in a statement.

Coverage will be streaming on NASA Television, with the astronauts landing in one of these locations: off the coasts of Pensacola, Tampa, Tallahassee, Panama City, Cape Canaveral, Daytona or Jacksonville, NASA said in the same statement. The return time for the astronauts will take between six and 30 hours, depending on the exact undocking and splashdown zones chosen. For now, NASA and SpaceX expect to undock Crew Dragon from the International Space Station at 7:34 p.m. EDT (2334 GMT) on Aug. 1.
UPDATE: Graphic...
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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NASA: Mars rover Perseverance in 'safe mode' after launch, but should recover
NASA is celebrating the launch of its most advanced Mars rover ever today (July 30), even as engineers tackle a glitch that left the spacecraft in a protective "safe mode" shortly after liftoff.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance rover launched toward the Red Planet at 7:50 a.m. EDT (1150 GMT), riding an Atlas V rocket into space from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The rover experienced minor communications and temperature glitches after launch, but the issues aren't expected to harm the mission as a whole, NASA officials said.

"It was an amazing launch, right on time," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said during a post-launch news conference. "I think we're in great shape. It was a great day for NASA."

Shortly after the conference, NASA confirmed that Perseverance slipped into "safe mode" due to an unexpected temperature difference.

"Data indicate the spacecraft had entered a state known as safe mode, likely because a part of the spacecraft was a little colder than expected while Mars 2020 was in Earth's shadow," NASA officials said in a statement. "All temperatures are now nominal and the spacecraft is out of Earth's shadow."

...
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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SpaceX Crew Dragon undocks from space station to bring NASA astronauts home for 1st time
The first astronauts to fly in SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft are on their way back to Earth from the International Space Station.

NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, who spent about two months at the space station following the historic launch of the Demo-2 mission on May 30, climbed aboard their Crew Dragon spacecraft today (Aug. 1) and began their 19-hour trip home with a smooth undocking at 7:35 p.m. EDT (2335 GMT). Both craft were sailing nearly 270 miles (430 kilometers) above Johannesburg, South Africa at the time.

...

The Crew Dragon spacecraft, called Endeavour, should splash down off the coast of Pensacola, Florida on Sunday at approximately 2:41 p.m. EDT (1841 GMT). But that landing site is not set in stone; NASA and SpaceX have selected seven different possible splashdown sites for the crew's return, with four sites located in the Gulf of Mexico and three off of Florida's east coast.

The ground teams select the splashdown site based on the local weather conditions and other factors, like the amount of time it will take Crew Dragon to reach the area and the time of day that a splashdown might occur. According to a NASA fact sheet, the teams will "prioritize locations which require the shortest amount of time between undocking and splashdown based on orbital mechanics, and splashdown opportunities that occur in daylight hours."

About six hours before splashdown — and five hours before the spacecraft conducts a deorbit burn that will send it plummeting through the atmosphere — NASA and SpaceX will decide whether the weather is acceptable for a water landing. You can watch the landing live here on Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV.
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Isgrimnur
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by Isgrimnur »

I doubt the weather in the Atlantic is going to be suitable.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by jztemple2 »

Isgrimnur wrote: Sat Aug 01, 2020 11:22 pm I doubt the weather in the Atlantic is going to be suitable.
They undocked last night and are now aiming for a splashdown off Pensacola.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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I'm watching the re-entry live feed, which is not very exciting because there's no telemetry or animation, just a shot of the Space X control room. (Plenty of social distancing and masks, except for maskless Elon Musk who doesn't even need to be in the control room in the first place.)
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by AWS260 »

Good news: someone told Elon to put his mask on.

Also, the capsule landed safely. Pretty cool to see the first human water landing in my lifetime.
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