SPACE - random thread about space stuff

[jztemple2]

Artemis I rolls to the pad for the first time.

[Kraken]

Squee! Despite being a frequent critic of the SLS, I can't wait to see that magnificent candle lit.

[Isgrimnur]

https://www.npr.org/2022/03/18/10874170 ... launch-pad

The wet dress rehearsal is set to begin April 3 and Artemis engineers and technicians will be keeping a watchful eye out for any kinks or issues.
...
If all goes well at the pad, the rocket will make its way back to NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building one last time before repeating the 4-mile journey, then launching to the moon as early as June.

[Zaxxon]

[jztemple2]

Artemis I rolls to the pad for the first time.

This reminded me of the first time a Space Shuttle stack rolled to the pad. It was the day after Christmas, 1980. Normally as a contractor we'd get off from just before Christmas to New Years Day, but with the Shuttle a couple of years behind schedule we were working through the holidays. I was working software debug or verification in Firing Room 2 of the LCC (Launch Control Center) and the view you see in the picture above was pretty much the view I got of that first Space Shuttle stack heading from the VAB to Pad A.

This is a picture of the rollout of STS-1 from a different angle. I've circled in red where I was working.


Another view:

[jztemple2]

Well, since I'm posting these old photos I figure I'd post an image of where I was seated during the first twenty-five launches. It was in Firing Room 1 at the console circled in red. You can't see the actual position because unlike the control room you saw in Houston, we have these tall consoles that were higher than our heads when we were seated. The tall windows you can see in the previous post were behind the people sitting close to the camera on the right.


By the way, those consoles we sat at were the old Apollo era launch room consoles used at KSC. They were stripped of equipment, reskinned and flipped on their top, with aluminum feet attached at the bottom (what was the old top) to give them stability.

[jztemple2]

OK, one more. This is what the consoles actually looked like in Firing Room 1 for those early missions. This isn't my console, but it gives you an idea of the working environment. Our C3/C4 console actually had about twice as many people seated there, most on cheap folding chairs since they took up less room than the nice blue swivel chairs. I (of course) always rated a swivel chair

[Kraken]

Great pics, thanks for sharing. NASA only painted the external shuttle tanks white for what, the first four flights? before they decided they'd rather have hundreds of pounds more payload than hundreds of pounds of paint.

[jztemple2]

Great pics, thanks for sharing. NASA only painted the external shuttle tanks white for what, the first four flights? before they decided they'd rather have hundreds of pounds more payload than hundreds of pounds of paint.

First two flights. I actually had the question "Why is the External Tank painted orange?" asked of me by Jules Bergman during STS-3 (IIRC) preps. The proper answer is of course as you noted, the tanks are actually orange but were spray painted white for those first two flights.

Bergman also asked, if we used so many automated procedures and software to do launch countdown, why we still had so many engineers on the consoles for launch. I gave the answer that we had to be there to jump in if something went wrong. It was a good enough (smart ass enough?) answer that my (short) interview was actually broadcast over ABC coverage of that launch, my wife very excited to see it. Sadly, in the days before VCRs, I have no recording of it . However, I did get this neat little pin from Bergman, or rather his assistant

[Blackhawk]

Square with us - you were the guy playing Galaga, weren't you?

[jztemple2]

Square with us - you were the guy playing Galaga, weren't you?

You mean, on the computers? We wish. No, we were running a language called GOAL, Ground Oriented Aerospace Language. Someone said it was like a cross between BASIC and FORTRAN. It was a pretty simplistic language, I learned it by taking a week long class and then by looking through printouts of existing programs. I was a field engineer who got moved up to write procedures, then to work with the programmers who were writing code. There weren't enough programmers so I volunteered to take and course and ended up writing a lot of code myself.

Those were the wild west days of aerospace software. I wrote automated sequencers, then wrote and ran the verification procedures for the software running against a math model, then wrote and ran the validation procedures that ran the software against the actual hardware at the pad. I signed off as the software engineer and the hardware engineer. Something that a few years later was absolutely against the rules . Man, that was a lot of fun while it lasted.

[Blackhawk]

Square with us - you were the guy playing Galaga, weren't you?

You mean, on the computers? We wish.

Spoiler:

[jztemple2]

Square with us - you were the guy playing Galaga, weren't you?

You mean, on the computers? We wish.

Spoiler:

Didn't get the reference as I've never seen an Avengers movie. The only Avengers I know about are John Steed and Emma Peel. Well, Catherine Gale and Tara King too, but Mrs Peel was the sine qua non sidekick to Steed IMO.

[jztemple2]

From XKCD:

[raydude]

Those were the wild west days of aerospace software. I wrote automated sequencers, then wrote and ran the verification procedures for the software running against a math model, then wrote and ran the validation procedures that ran the software against the actual hardware at the pad. I signed off as the software engineer and the hardware engineer. Something that a few years later was absolutely against the rules . Man, that was a lot of fun while it lasted.

Nice! That brings to mind one of my first missions. Someone had the bright idea that we needed to have our data processing software validated whenever we had updates. So on one of the forms I wrote down: "Updated software due to request by instrument scientist for additional data products. Sent by: me. Approved by: me. Validated by: me." It was quickly realized that the software validation process was fine for large teams, but overkill for a very small one.

[Daehawk]

NASA flyby of Jupiter's big moon Ganymede reveals auroras and huge unknown craters

Two missions have previously imaged Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system, Voyager 1 mission in 1979 and the Galileo spacecraft in the mid 1990s. Some of those images, however, were taken at a less than ideal angle, leaving large blank spots that scientists knew nothing about; technology has also improved dramatically since those missions launched. So scientists were thrilled when NASA's Jupiter explorer Juno revealed the moon's crater-covered surface in the greatest detail ever and spotted shimmering auroras stretching between Ganymede's poles and equator.

These images outlined a plethora of new features on Ganymede's surface, including impact craters as large as 60 miles (100 kilometer) wide

[jztemple2]

I drove by the Blue Origin facility near the Kennedy Space Center today, it's about ten minutes from my home. Pretty huge place!


This is a plan of the facilities there from just over a year ago. They have added since then. You'll notice the OneWeb satellite manufacturing facility is just across the street.


And this is what their launch site at Complex 36 will eventually look like.

[jztemple2]

Good article about the Artemis stack at LC39B, EGS,Jacobs preparing Artemis 1 vehicle at pad for final pre-launch countdown test

The launch team, made up of people from NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) program and prime launch processing contractor Jacobs, is preparing to conduct the final test prior to the launch of the Artemis 1 mission to the Moon. Following the rollout of the first integrated Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System (SLS) rocket to Launch Pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida overnight on March 17 into March 18, the Artemis 1 vehicle and the Mobile Launcher are being connected to pad services and powered up for testing.

The launch control team is conducting the tests out of firing rooms in the Launch Control Center of Launch Complex 39, while ground support crews are overseeing hands-on work at the pad. The vehicle was rolled to the pad for a last big test; a full countdown demonstration called the Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR). Currently scheduled for April 1 through April 3, the test will culminate with propellant loading and a near-complete countdown.

[disarm]

Guess who just booked travel plans for Florida next month and will be taking his 7yo son to Kennedy Space Center on 4/19...the day SpaceX is scheduled to launch astronauts to the space station!

I know there are a lot of ways we could miss out, but we're really hoping to see the launch!

[jztemple2]

Guess who just booked travel plans for Florida next month and will be taking his 7yo son to Kennedy Space Center on 4/19...the day SpaceX is scheduled to launch astronauts to the space station!

I know there are a lot of ways we could miss out, but we're really hoping to see the launch!

Congrats! As way of reference, the KSC Visitor Complex is just to the right of the top image of my post above and just above the words "North Campus" on the second image. You actually have to drive right in front of Blue Origin to get to the visitor center.

[jztemple2]

In today's space news, a couple of items. FAA delays SpaceX Starship environmental review another month to April 29

The U.S Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has delayed completion of an environmental review of SpaceX's Starship program by at least another month, to April 29 at the earliest. The FAA has been working on a programmatic environmental assessment (PEA) of Starbase, the South Texas site where SpaceX develops, builds and tests its next-generation Starship vehicle, for months now. The agency published a draft PEA in mid-September, estimating at the time that the final report would be done by the end of the year. That didn't happen; the FAA pushed the completion date back to Feb. 14, citing the need to consult further with other agencies and analyze the thousands of public comments submitted in response to the draft PEA.

The target date slipped again, to March 28, for similar reasons. And the FAA announced today (March 25) that the same factors have pushed the target date to the right yet again, to April 29. Today's news likely won't have much of an impact on Starship's development timeline, however. SpaceX is gearing up to launch the first-ever Starship orbital test flight, but the company likely won't be ready for that milestone until May at the earliest, Elon Musk said recently.

SpaceX's private Ax-1 astronaut flight cleared for launch pending NASA Artemis 1 moon rocket test

The commercial spaceflight company Axiom Space is cleared to launch the world's first all-private mission to the International Space Station in April, but only after a critical test of NASA's new Artemis 1 moon rocket. The Ax-1 mission to the International Space Station passed its flight readiness review Friday (March 25), allowing the launch to proceed no earlier than April 3 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The mission will launch from Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, where SpaceX launches astronaut missions for NASA on Crew Dragon spacecraft.

But NASA's Artemis 1 moon rocket, parked at a nearby Launch Pad 39B, will need to complete its so-called "wet dress rehearsal," a vital fueling test, before Axiom Space can proceed with its Ax-1 mission. That fueling test is scheduled to run from April 1 to April 3, NASA has said. "Artemis 1 has the range," said Kathryn Lueders, associate administrator for NASA’s space operations mission directorate, during a press teleconference Friday. Regarding the Artemis 1 testing, Lueders added, "our plan is to get that done as early as possible." The wet dress rehearsal will see Artemis 1 do a simulated countdown on the pad to ensure the mission's debut Space Launch System rocket is ready for its first voyage, an uncrewed flight around the moon.

Both Artemis 1 and Axiom 1 are parked nearby each other at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Artemis 1 may be able to complete its wet dress rehearsal on the morning of April 3, at Launch Complex 39B. Assuming the rehearsal goes to plan, Axiom 1 may blast off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at Launch Complex 39A that afternoon, at 1:13 p.m. EDT (1713 GMT). But the schedule will be tight and is subject to change, NASA emphasized.

[Daehawk]

[Jaymann]

Makes me wonder how those mountains formed on Mars. I don't think there is tectonic plate movement and those do not look volcanic. Plus no water and weak atmosphere for wind erosion, yet they look very earth like.

[Unagi]

They are volcanic but without plate tectonics, they build up unlike our volcanos.

[jztemple2]

[jztemple2]

Good but long article, "Missile Row” pads at Cape Canaveral returning to action

Cape Canaveral has been at the heart of America’s space program since the very beginning. A hub for rocketry research and development in its early days, the Cape served as a test center not just for spaceflight and research but also for the US missile development programs. With so many projects, the landscape was littered with launch complexes, and along the eastern coastline, the iconic “missile row” of Atlas and Titan launch complexes dominated the skyline.

Many of the Cape’s launch facilities have long since fallen silent, but with newcomers Firefly and Relativity preparing for their first launches from Cape Canaveral, the sight of rockets lifting off along the “row” is about to return.

[Kraken]

This is pretty interesting: With some help from a gravitational lens, Hubble spies Earendel, the most distant single star ever seen (12.9B light years).

This newfound star, detected by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, is so far away that its light has taken 12.9 billion years to reach Earth, appearing to us as it was when the universe was about 900 million years old, just 7% of its current age. Until now, the most distant single star detected, discovered by Hubble in 2018, existed when the universe was about 4 billion years old, or 30% of its current age.
...
He also noted this star was distant, but not old. "We see the star as it was 12.8 billion years ago, but that does not mean the star is 12.8 billion years old," Welch said. Instead, it's probably just a few million years old and never reached old age.

"Given its mass, it almost certainly has not survived to today, as more massive stars tend to burn through their fuel faster and thus explode, or collapse into black holes, sooner," he added of Earendel. "The oldest stars known would have formed at a similar time, but they are much less massive, so they have continued to shine until today."

[jztemple2]

Guess who just booked travel plans for Florida next month and will be taking his 7yo son to Kennedy Space Center on 4/19...the day SpaceX is scheduled to launch astronauts to the space station!

I know there are a lot of ways we could miss out, but we're really hoping to see the launch!

Sorry disarm ... NASA, SpaceX delay Crew-4 launch to April 20 due to busy space schedule

NASA and SpaceX are pushing the Crew-4 mission back one day because of a jam-packed launch schedule, officials announced today (March 31).

The upcoming SpaceX Crew-4 mission is set to fly a crew of three NASA astronauts and one European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut to the International Space Station, where they will live and work in orbit around Earth. However, as Steve Stich, the manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program at the agency's Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Texas shared during a news conference today, the launch for Crew-4 has been moved from April 19 to April 20.

This will allow more time between this mission and Axiom Space's Ax-1 mission, which will launch a private astronaut crew to the station aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule on April 6, Stich said.

"Because of the complexity of the Axiom mission and where we're at with Crew-4 preparations," Stich said during the news conference, "we are going to adjust the launch date a little bit for Crew-4."

"We are in the midst of an extremely busy spring," Dana Weigel, deputy manager for NASA's International Space Station program at JSC, added during the same news conference.

Stich added that, on April 20, they expect Crew-4 to lift off at 6:37 a.m. ET (1037 GMT), with docking likely taking place around 6 a.m. ET (1000 GMT) on April 21. The crew will launch from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

If you should happen to still want to see the launch, sunrise on 4/20 (that date seems familiar ) is at 6:52am, so at least you won't be looking straight into a rising sun, as long as launch goes on time. Since it is going off LC39A, you should be in Titusville early to either get a parking spot right on the edge of the river, or park and walk there. Best spot is in the parking lot of the Dogs R Us at 4200 S Washington Ave, Titusville, FL 32780. The launch will happen just to the left of the VAB. Since it will be just before sunrise you ought to get some awesome back-lighting of the ascent plume.

UPDATE: Fair warning, since this is a manned launch there will be a lot of spectators, expect traffic jams going there and leaving.

[disarm]

I saw this announcement earlier today and am pretty bummed. Unless we can adjust our plans, we won't be in the area to see it on the 20th...will be near Ft Myers by Tuesday evening

[jztemple2]

I saw this announcement earlier today and am pretty bummed. Unless we can adjust our plans, we won't be in the area to see it on the 20th...will be near Ft Myers by Tuesday evening

Going to see the Edison-Ford winter homes in Fort Myers? They are definitely worth a visit.

[Max Peck]

I dunno, moving a launch to 4/20 feels like Elon Musk would do just for the lulz.

[jztemple2]

Interesting book suggestion for this Space thread:
Safe is Not an Option: Overcoming the Futile Obsession with Getting Everyone Back Alive that is Killing our Expansion into Space



I came across mention of this book, oddly, in the notes section of another book called George Washington, Entrepreneur: How Our Founding Father's Private Business Pursuits Changed America and the World by John Berlau. Since Safe is Not an Option deals with human space travel I thought I'd post about it here. I've added it to my various wishlists and when I get around to reading it I'll discuss it further, unless of course someone else beats me to it.

[Kraken]

Without reading that fellow's case, I'd just propose that safety has to be foremost in an environment that doesn't tolerate mistakes...but maybe NASA's approach of triple-redundant everything is overkill in commercial operations.

[jztemple2]

You can read the introduction, written by astronaut Ed Lu, of the book on the Amazon page. In my opinion, safety has to be limited to what can be implemented while accomplishing the mission. Like Ed Lu, I would also cringe when I constantly was told "Safety is our number one priority". No, it's not. Statements like that were made for touchy-feely, public relations purposes. There is no number one priority, it's all a compromise. It's managed risk. But of course you dared not say that out loud at work...

[Kraken]

Government programs must factor in public reaction to an Apollo 1 or a Challenger or a Columbia, because their funding depends to some degree on popular support. NASA has to demonstrate that it did everything possible to make the crew and vehicle safe, because oh boy is there going to be an inquisition. We don't have any examples of commercial crew loss yet, but that might turn out to be less sensitive to public sentiment. If SpaceX get to the launch frequency that it projects for Starship, some accidents are inevitable. But SpaceX doesn't need to consider voters.

[The Meal]

Transporter 4 deployments begin in about 15 minutes.

spacex.com

[raydude]

You can read the introduction, written by astronaut Ed Lu, of the book on the Amazon page. In my opinion, safety has to be limited to what can be implemented while accomplishing the mission. Like Ed Lu, I would also cringe when I constantly was told "Safety is our number one priority". No, it's not. Statements like that were made for touchy-feely, public relations purposes. There is no number one priority, it's all a compromise. It's managed risk. But of course you dared not say that out loud at work...

Maybe not out loud, but it's implied in all the risk tables.

[jztemple2]

Government programs must factor in public reaction to an Apollo 1 or a Challenger or a Columbia, because their funding depends to some degree on popular support.

Having been around for all three of those events, I have to say that the public officials rather underestimate the determination of the American people to continue with programs of these types that carry risk.

[jztemple2]

Interesting article: Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: Meet the woman who will call 'Go for Launch' for NASA’s moon-bound rocket

Starting at 5 p.m. ET Friday, NASA began the final big test of the rocket that will be kicking off the Artemis program, a wide-ranging effort to bring humans back to the moon.

The Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion crew capsule will go through roughly 45 hours and 40 minutes of a continuous testing collectively known as the wet dress rehearsal. The test at Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39B is highlighted by the loading of the liquid propellants for the rocket, oxygen and hydrogen.

Overseeing this historic undertaking is Charlie Blackwell-Thompson. The Clemson University graduate got her start in the space industry shortly after leaving college, beginning at KSC in 1988 as a payload flight software engineer for the Boeing Company.

She joined the NASA side of the center in 2004 as the test director in the Launch and Landing Division. More than 30 years later, she still vividly remembers taking a tour of the firing room as a college senior.

“I walked into firing room one and was amazed at the work that the team was doing,” Blackwell-Thompson said. “That same young woman who thought ‘How do I get a spot in this room?’ And I look at the path that has led me to where I am today and the only words that come to mind is just, what a blessing.”

I worked with Charlie towards the end of the Shuttle program when she was the NASA Test Director (NTD) for some of our simulation runs. A very nice person.

[Kraken]

Government programs must factor in public reaction to an Apollo 1 or a Challenger or a Columbia, because their funding depends to some degree on popular support.

Having been around for all three of those events, I have to say that the public officials rather underestimate the determination of the American people to continue with programs of these types that carry risk.

Yes, but the program has to overcome an existential crisis. While I'm sure SpaceX's first crew loss will require major engineering review, I'm not sure it will involve the same soul-searching.