Moderators: Bakhtosh, EvilHomer3k
This, in itself, is not so unusual. We've detected thousands of exoplanets – planets outside the Solar System. Presumably they all had to be newborn at some point too. What makes this exoplanet special is that astronomers obtained a direct image of it – an almost vanishingly rare feat.
About 28 minutes after liftoff, Webb will detach from its launch vehicle and begin "the most complex sequence of deployments ever attempted in a single space mission," according to NASA. This deployment, which will see Webb unfold and unfurl its sun shield once in space, includes quite literally hundreds of "single points of failure," Mike Menzel, Webb lead mission systems engineer for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, said Tuesday (Nov. 2) during a news briefing.
344 points of failure
"There are 344 single-point-of-failure items on average," Menzel said about the Webb mission, adding that "approximately 80% of those are associated with the deployment … It's hard to avoid when you have a release mechanism. It's hard to put full redundancy into that."
Webb has 144 release mechanisms "which all must work perfectly," Krystal Puga, Webb spacecraft systems engineer for Northrop Grumman, which built the spacecraft, said during the briefing.
"Like an origami object, proper folding and unfolding is necessary in order to achieve a specific shape," Alphonso Steward, Webb deployment systems lead for NASA Goddard, said during the briefing.
Menzel explained that the team decreased the number of release mechanisms as much as possible. "We found the sweet spot between getting the control that we want, with these large flexible membranes," without adding too many single points of failure, he said.
However, while the mission, and especially the deployment stage, have such a large number of single points of failure, Menzel emphasized the extensive work that the mission team has done to ensure success. "When we identify a single point failure, we give it very special treatment. We have what we call a critical item control plan, and we always throw in extra inspection points. And we've done extra offline testing on these devices," Menzel said.
He added that for every one of these items identified, NASA and Northrop Grumman have done extra inspections and tests to understand the different ways that it could fail, to be as prepared as possible. "We've given our single-point-failure items a lot of attention," he said.
Nice picture. Too bad it got hit by the Death Star superlaser.Daehawk wrote: ↑Wed Nov 03, 2021 1:30 pm Jaw-Dropping Direct Image Shows a Baby Exoplanet Over 400 Light-Years Away
This, in itself, is not so unusual. We've detected thousands of exoplanets – planets outside the Solar System. Presumably they all had to be newborn at some point too. What makes this exoplanet special is that astronomers obtained a direct image of it – an almost vanishingly rare feat.
Kerbonauts! Show us how you'd deflect an asteroid. Use #DARTMission so we can check out your skills.
that IS the Deathstar and its targeting us!Nice picture. Too bad it got hit by the Death Star superlaser.
I have watched a few videos about the Rare Earth Hypothesis which is quite intriguing. Here are some of the main points:
Alright, a photo of my test lab finally makes its way into the media (you have to scroll most of the way down the page to see it).
Nice! That MethaneSAT sounds pretty cool. Good luck!
NASA has let go of its goal to return humans to the moon's surface by 2024.
"2024 was not a goal that was really technically feasible," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said during a news conference today (Nov. 9). "We are [now] estimating no earlier than 2025."
In a timeline set by the Trump administration, NASA has been working toward landing humans on the moon by 2024 as part of its Artemis program. That already aggressive target was recently made more challenging, as the agency experienced delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic and a lawsuit filed by Blue Origin, which paused development on the landing system to be used for the initial crewed touchdown. Now, Nelson has formally announced that the agency has a new lunar timeline.
For some definition of early, yes.
Yes, I believe the No Early Than date is February 22, 2022.
) the meeting would be over and an official KSC photographer would come in with his ladder and take photos of the schedule wall. These were developed, trimmed and printed, then reproduced and distributed to recipients (I think a couple of hundred folks or departments). And that's how we all kept to the same schedule. There are a lot of books by Shuttle astronauts and the big bosses, but the best stories are from the folks in the trenches
NPRHrdina wrote: ↑Wed Oct 13, 2021 1:21 am One of them at least should have insisted on wearing a blue uniform:Glen de Vries, co-founder of the clinical trial software company Medidata Solutions. He’s also the vice chair of life sciences and healthcare at Dassault Systèmes, a French software company that acquired Medidata in 2019.
A man who traveled to space with William Shatner last month was killed along with another person when the small plane they were in crashed in a wooded area of northern New Jersey, according to state police.
The one-time space tourist Glen M. de Vries, 49, of New York City, and Thomas P. Fischer, 54, of Hopatcong, were aboard the single-engine Cessna 172 that went down Thursday.
De Vries was an instrument-rated private pilot, and Fischer owned a flight school. Authorities have not said who was piloting the small plane.
The plane had left Essex County Airport in Caldwell, on the edge of the New York City area, and was headed to Sussex Airport, in rural northwestern New Jersey, when the Federal Aviation Administration alerted public safety agencies to look for the missing plane around 3 p.m.
In this eclipse, up to 99.1% of the Moon’s disk will be within Earth’s umbra.
The best viewing will be right around the peak of the eclipse, on November 19th at 9:03 UTC/4:03 AM EDT/1:03 AM PDT. This part of the eclipse is visible in all of North America, as well as large parts of South America, Polynesia, eastern Australia, and northeastern Asia.
Sub-orbital flight.
At least he got to sub orbit the Earth before he died.
