Moderators: Bakhtosh, EvilHomer3k
Wrong link
. I was looking for the one you cited about changes to the Moonship/Starship HLS. Those solar panels are interesting in that they seem to be lowering/dropping down from the compartments above. I was wondering if they are on some flexible material.
Ah crap. The story I meant to link was in my Facebook news feed, so it's just gone now. Sorry, I don't remember the source.jztemple2 wrote: ↑Sun Dec 03, 2023 2:33 pmWrong link
The space station turned 25 years old on Wednesday (Dec. 6), and NASA is preparing for the pioneering outpost's end.
The agency just celebrated the milestone mission that docked the first two International Space Station (ISS) modules on Dec. 6, 1998. In the runup to that event, NASA updated its private proposal request to help deorbit the station when it retires in 2030 or so. And early stage funding is underway for several commercial replacements that would be run by private companies, with NASA as a customer. The agency wants all these vehicles ready by the time the ISS' work is done.
Commercial activity will allow more astronauts, from more countries, to "conduct science and technology development," ISS Expedition 70 commander Andreas Mogensen said during a livestreamed event on Wednesday marking the 25th anniversary.
"I think that's incredibly exciting, to see how many countries [will fly], and hopefully also in the future private companies are interested in utilizing a laboratory in low Earth orbit," said Mogensen, who is with the European Space Agency.
My company is involved with what were supposed to be the first two NSSL (national security space launch) payloads to go up on Vulcan. The schedule has become a bit fluid due to all the issues with Vulcan. ULA need to get a couple of successful launches first, though, so I'll be watching and hoping that the mission on Dec 24 goes smoothly.jztemple2 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 4:37 pmTrue, but is there a backup plan for those who are flying experiments on the Peregrine? Do they get a second attempt on a later launch vehicle? Just wondering.
No Vulcan launch this year, sorryHrdina wrote: ↑Sun Dec 10, 2023 12:58 amMy company is involved with what were supposed to be the first two NSSL (national security space launch) payloads to go up on Vulcan. The schedule has become a bit fluid due to all the issues with Vulcan. ULA need to get a couple of successful launches first, though, so I'll be watching and hoping that the mission on Dec 24 goes smoothly.jztemple2 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 4:37 pmTrue, but is there a backup plan for those who are flying experiments on the Peregrine? Do they get a second attempt on a later launch vehicle? Just wondering.
As 2023 draws to a close, the US Department of Defense’s X-37B spaceplane is being prepared to return to space on the OTV-7 mission aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. USSF-52, the fifth Falcon Heavy flight of the year, and ninth overall, is scheduled to fly on Monday, Dec. 11, 2023, at 8:14 PM EST (01:14 UTC Dec. 12) from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center at the start of a 10-minute launch window.
The Space Launch Delta 45 launch forecast for Monday is 75 percent favorable, as a cold front will be leaving Florida. Liftoff winds are the primary concern. The forecast was only 40 percent favorable with a Sunday launch, with liftoff winds and cumulus cloud rule being the primary concerns. The launch was pushed back for this reason and to allow for more pre-launch checkouts.
USSF-52 will be the 92nd SpaceX Falcon-family orbital flight of 2023, and the fifth SpaceX flight this month if the mission launches on time, with Starlink 6-34 scheduled to fly on a single-stick Falcon 9 just two hours and 51 minutes later from nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
The Falcon Heavy for this mission is using B1084 as the core vehicle for its first and only flight. While the core, specially built as a Falcon Heavy core vehicle, is expended, the side boosters B1064-5 and B1065-5 are to return to the launch site for touchdowns on Landing Zone-1 (LZ-1) and Landing Zone-2 (LZ-2) concrete pads.
Yeah, I saw that was posted as I was off to bed last night. At least this time they are blaming ground equipment, rather than the LV itself.jztemple2 wrote: ↑Sun Dec 10, 2023 7:00 pmNo Vulcan launch this year, sorryHrdina wrote: ↑Sun Dec 10, 2023 12:58 amMy company is involved with what were supposed to be the first two NSSL (national security space launch) payloads to go up on Vulcan. The schedule has become a bit fluid due to all the issues with Vulcan. ULA need to get a couple of successful launches first, though, so I'll be watching and hoping that the mission on Dec 24 goes smoothly.jztemple2 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 4:37 pmTrue, but is there a backup plan for those who are flying experiments on the Peregrine? Do they get a second attempt on a later launch vehicle? Just wondering.
It's mind-boggling that they will probably be able to fix it 46 years and 15B miles after it left Earth. I hope V'ger gets one light-day away before falling silent.In order to come up with a solution for the space probe, NASA engineers are looking through original documents that were written decades ago. “As a result, it takes time for the team to understand how a new command will affect the spacecraft’s operations in order to avoid unintended consequences,” the space agency wrote.
The spacecraft is so far away that it takes 22.5 hours for commands from Earth to reach Voyager 1 and vice versa. That means the mission team has to wait 45 hours to find out whether the command they sent out was effective.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) should evaluate and improve the way it investigates space launch mishaps, according to recommendations from a government agency.
A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report published on Dec. 7 looks at data from 2000 through mid-January 2023, which show that 50 out of 433 commercial space launches during this time resulted in "mishaps" — a term used to describe events such as catastrophic explosions and other failures.
The FAA has been the lead investigative agency for 49 of the 50 mishaps, the report notes, with the exception being the fatal 2014 Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo crash. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigated that incident.
Though the FAA oversees inquiries, the agency says it determines if the launch operator will conduct investigations itself on a case-by-case basis. However, the GAO found that, in practice, the FAA has authorized the operator to conduct investigations.
A recent, high-profile mishap occurred in April, when the debut launch of SpaceX's giant Starship rocket ended in a spectacular explosion. SpaceX led that mishap investigation, with FAA oversight. The resulting report called for 63 corrective actions that SpaceX needed to take before being able to apply for a license for its second test flight. The FAA is also supervising the investigation into Starship's second test launch, a Nov. 18 liftoff that ended in a fiery demise and was also deemed a "mishap."
The new GAO report recommends that the Office of Commercial Space Transportation, under the FAA, comprehensively evaluate the effectiveness of its mishap investigation process.
A second recommendation calls for the FAA to define criteria for when an investigation should be led by the launch operator with FAA oversight or by the FAA itself.
The report notes that FAA officials told the GAO that it relies on an operator-led approach because the agency does not have adequate resources for in-house investigation, given highly specialized vehicle designs among companies. In-house mishap investigations would be "an immense undertaking that would mean investigations would take 10 to 20 times longer, officials told us," the report stated.
The 2022 failure of Blue Origin's New Shepard research flight was also conducted with oversight from the FAA. The company led the investigation, which the FAA oversaw. The NTSB and NASA's Flight Opportunities Program and Commercial Crew Office also had observer status. New Shepard also carries crew for short suborbital flights.
The FAA agreed with Blue Origin's determination of the cause of the incident — a structural issue with a nozzle — and the agency closed the investigation this past September. However, Blue Origin needed to implement 21 corrective actions to "prevent mishap reoccurrence, including redesign of engine and nozzle components to improve structural performance during operation as well as organizational changes," before it could fly again, the September FAA report stated. The company is now preparing for an uncrewed flight scheduled for Dec. 18, some 15 months after the failure.
The GAO report states that the Department of Transportation, the FAA's parent agency, "concurred with our recommendations." The department committed to providing a detailed response to each GAO recommendation within 180 days of the report's issuance.
Amazon's upcoming satellite broadband network, dubbed "Project Kuiper," just passed a key test test that paves the way for a 2024 launch.
Similar to SpaceX's Starlink, Project Kuiper is Amazon's plan to provide high-speed internet by launching and connecting 3,236 satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO). The firm launched two prototype satellites in October and began testing the systems required for the network to operate. One key test was validating the optical inter-satellite link (OISL) technology, which uses infrared lasers to send data between the spacecraft.
Now, Amazon says the prototypes have passed this important hurdle. In testing, the two prototype satellites maintained a stable connection speed of 100 gigabits per second.
OISL has long been used to maintain connections between satellites further away from Earth. But earlier generations could only link two satellites together. Beyond verifying the two satellites could maintain a high-speed link, additional data suggested Amazon's version of OISL should be able to connect its entire constellation of 3,000-plus satellites together to create a mesh network.
Currently, Earthbound optical fiber cables power high-speed internet services by using light to transmit data over great distances. Project Kuiper, however, transmits light in space, which travels 30% faster than light racing through cables on Earth, according to Amazon. With OISL, Project Kuiper will be able to move data throughout the network, meaning it can receive data from anywhere on Earth and route it efficiently based on factors such as network traffic.
What could possibly go wrong?
Anyway more launches for us to watch 
December 26, 2023
— The first U.S. commercial rocket to launch astronauts into orbit has met its end after being destroyed during its latest post-flight recovery.
Referred to by SpaceX by its serial number, B1058, the Falcon 9 first stage was being transported back to shore after its record-setting 19th flight when "the booster tipped over "due to high winds and waves," the company reported on X, the social network previously known as Twitter, on Sunday (Dec. 25). Two days earlier, the stage had helped launch 23 of SpaceX's Starlink broadband satellites before successfully touching down on the company's droneship "Just Read the Instructions," which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Florida.
Photos shared online of the returning ship revealed that only the lower segment of B1058 remained, with three of its four landing legs still deployed and all nine of its Merlin engines still intact.
"We are planning to salvage the engines and do life leader inspections on the remaining hardware. There is still quite a bit of value in this booster. We will not let it go to waste," wrote Jon Edwards, SpaceX's vice president of Falcon launch vehicles, on X on Tuesday (Dec. 26).
Lost with the upper segment of B1058 was a unique, tell-tale marking that it had been used to launch the first astronauts for NASA. The booster was the only stage in SpaceX's fleet to be adorned with the space agency's "worm" logotype.
On May 30, 2020, B1058 lifted off for the first time on SpaceX's Demo-2 (DM-2) mission carrying NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley aboard the company's Crew Dragon capsule "Endeavour." The two-month long mission to the International Space Station was the first to launch American astronauts from the United States since the end of NASA's space shuttle program in 2011.
Since that flight, B1058 was used in the launch of SpaceX's 21st cargo delivery to the space station (CRS-21), a dedicated satellite launch for South Korea (ANASIS-II), two shared ride satellite launches (Transporter-1 and Transporter-3) and 14 Starlink missions. The stage, like the other "Block 5" boosters in SpaceX's fleet, had been certified for 20 launches.
"This one reusable rocket booster alone launched to orbit two astronauts and more than 860 satellites, totaling 260+ metric tons, in about 3.5 years," SpaceX posted on X.
Other Falcon 9 first stages might have survived the rough sea conditions given improvements made to their landing legs.
"We came up with self leveling legs that immediately equalize leg loads on landing after experiencing a severe tippy booster two years ago on Christmas," wrote Kiko Dontchev, SpaceX's vice president of launch, on X. "The fleet is mostly outfitted, but 1058, given its age, was not. It met its fate when it hit intense wind and waves resulting in failure of a partially secured OG ["octograbber" hold-down clamp] less than 100 miles [160 kilometers] from home."
"One thing is for sure we will make lemonade out of lemons and learn as much as possible from historic 1058 on our path to aircraft like operations," he wrote.
With the loss of 1058, SpaceX is believed to have 16 flight-proven, active Falcon 9 first stages still remaining and three pending their first use.
Fans of the company reacted to the news of 1058's destruction with regrets that it had not made it into the Smithsonian or another museum to be preserved.
To date, SpaceX has retired four of its earlier-flown Falcon 9 stages for public display. B1019, the first to return to its launch site for a successful landing, today stands outside the company's headquarters in Hawthorne, California. B1035, which launched two Dragon cargo missions to the International Space Station, is now exhibited on its side at Space Center Houston in Texas.
B1023, which helped launch Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster into space as a side booster on the first Falcon Heavy rocket launch, is now a part of "Gateway: The Deep Space Launch Complex" attraction at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. And B1021, the first booster to be re-flown and the first to land on a droneship, was just recently installed outside Dish Network's headquarters in Littleton, Colorado.
Satellites in geosynchronous orbit are going to stay there a long, long time. The low-altitude stuff like Starlink and even the ISS will only last a few years without periodic boosts.
The final quarter of 2023 saw the International Space Station (ISS) celebrate 25 years in orbit, though there was no letup in the ongoing work as the Expedition 70 crew settled into the tasks and experiments that are carried out onboard the orbital laboratory. Cargo spacecraft arrived at the Station carrying supplies and fresh experiments and departed, taking scientific results, redundant equipment, and trash down to Earth.
And I was there for every Space Shuttle launch that carried up parts for the ISS assemblyDec. 6, 2023, marked 25 years since the first two modules of the ISS — Zarya and Unity — were mated during the STS-88 mission. Shuttle Endeavour‘s Canadarm robotic arm reached out and grappled Zarya, which had been in orbit for over two weeks, and attached it to the Unity module stowed inside Endeavour’s payload bay. Endeavour would undock from the young dual-module station one week later, beginning the era of the Station’s assembly.
The Expedition 70 crew celebrated with a call to NASA’s Associate Administrator Bob Cabana and ISS Program Manager Joel Montalbano to discuss the orbital outpost’s accomplishments since its assembly began on Dec. 6, 1998. Cabana served as commander on STS-88 when both modules were robotically mated and then outfitted during a series of spacewalks. Montalbano, NASA’s sixth Station leader since the program’s inception, remarked, “We want to celebrate today all the people who designed, built, and operate the International Space Station.”
"Rocket debris from China’s recent satellite launch fell to ground near inhabited areas, where bystanders caught the fiery touchdown on tape.
The China National Space Administratio launched two satellites into orbit on Monday (Dec. 25) at 10:26 p.m. EST (0326 GMT Dec. 26 or 11:26 a.m. local time in China) from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province. The Long March 3B rocket carried two satellites for China’s Beidou Navigation Satellite System, which is roughly equivalent to the GPS system used in North America.
While the satellites were successfully delivered into medium Earth orbit (MEO), side boosters of the Long March 3B multistage launch vehicle fell back to Earth and landed in South China’s Guangxi region, SpaceNews.com reported.
Bystander footage shared on X (formally Twitter) by space journalist Andrew Jones, originally from Weibo, apparently shows one of the boosters falling within a forested area. The video shows an explosion. Reports also emerged of wreckage from the other booster that were said to have landed near a home.
To answer my own question: they made it to 98. Next year's goal is 144, or 12 launches per month.
Will you be in Shadowland, Texas, to see the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024? How about watching the lunar disk cross the solar disk from Moon Beach, New York, or glimpsing the sun's halo from Corona, Missouri?
You could visit thousands of locations to experience totality in Mexico, the U.S., and Canada, but make sure you are within the path of totality. Only then will you experience darkness in the middle of the day and be able to see the sun's corona with your own eyes, at all other times precautions must be taken. About 115 miles wide, it will stretch 10,000 miles across the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans via North America, making land at Mazatlán, Mexico and departing from Newfoundland, Canada.
In between, it will cross parts of 15 U.S. states — and dozens of eclipse-themed place names. "I found a database of every single place name in North America, and I just searched through this database for eclipse-related place names," Michael Zeiler, an eclipse cartographer and historian at GreatAmericanEclipse.com, told Space.com. "These were the best ones that I found." Some have a history associated with historic solar eclipses; others are by pure chance.
You should totally (hah!) see it, meeting or no meeting. In fact, call in sick that day. I'm bummed as it's looking like we won't be able to see it - as it's not near any school days off. So glad the 2017 total solar eclipse happened during the summer and that my family was able to see it. Seriously, a total solar eclipse should be on everyone's bucket list.coopasonic wrote: ↑Mon Jan 01, 2024 6:11 pm Conveniently, I'll just step out the front door and observe totality... you know, unless I have a meeting.
Same for me. I will only miss 2 seconds of totality vs the centerline near me in the Indianapolis area. I did go down to Gallatin TN for the 2017 eclipse and it was majestic. I fear for the weather here though.coopasonic wrote: ↑Mon Jan 01, 2024 6:11 pm Conveniently, I'll just step out the front door and observe totality... you know, unless I have a meeting.
Earth will be struck today by a coronal mass ejection from a huge solar flare that erupted from the sun on New Year's Eve.
The New Year's Eve flare created a CME, a huge bubble of plasma from a region of the sun called the corona, which is equivalent to the sun's outer atmosphere, and this has an Earth-directed component. Though this massive ejection of plasma will only graze the magnetic bubble surrounding our planet Tuesday (Jan. 2), the magnetosphere, it could trigger a geomagnetic storm that could affect communications and power infrastructure.
The coronal mass ejection CME was hurled into space by an X-class solar flare that burst from the surface of the sun at 4:55 p.m. EST (2155 GMT) on Sunday (Dec. 31). It is the most powerful flare that has happened on the sun during the current solar cycle, solar cycle 25, which began in Dec. 2019. In fact, the flare that ended 2023 with a bang is the largest that has been observed since Sept. 10, 2017, according to the Space Weather Prediction Center of the National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
This Earth-directed CME component has the potential to trigger a minor or "G1" geomagnetic storm. Storms like this have the capability to cause weak fluctuations in power grids and could have minor impacts on satellite operations. In addition to this, G1 geomagnetic storms can give rise to striking auroras, beautiful light shows seen over Earth, usually at higher latitudes.
One of my favorite bits of "gee whiz" stuff to impress the relativesJust days after it was taken off exhibit and as its external tank is scheduled for its brief return to flight, NASA's retired space shuttle Endeavour is heading under wraps.
With the new year getting underway, the California Science Center in Los Angeles is expecting to complete its unprecedented "Go for Stack" campaign, ultimately taking Endeavour vertical to create the world's only exhibit of a fully authentic, 20-story-tall space shuttle as last seen on the launch pad. Endeavour, with its twin solid rocket boosters and external fuel tank, is set to become the star attraction of the science center's new Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, which is slated to open in the next few years.
is to mention that I'm probably one of the few people who have both been in the aft compartment of a Space Shuttle Orbiter (Challenger) and the intertank of an External Tank (which one I don't remember, but it was an early one). That is, as long as the relative isn't from my county, where most of those "few people" live. The private Peregrine lunar lander is scheduled to launch toward the moon on Jan. 8, and you can prepare for the mission with prelaunch events this week.
Peregrine, built by the Pittsburgh-based company Astrobotic, will launch atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan Centaur rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 2:18 a.m. EST (0718 GMT) on Jan. 8. This will be the first-ever launch of Vulcan Centaur, ULA's next-generation rocket.
With a lunar landing attempt slated for Feb. 23, Peregrine could become the first private mission to successfully touch down on the moon. The lander is targeting a lunar region called Sinus Viscositatis to demonstrate its ability to deliver payloads to the moon's surface for NASA's Artemis program. Peregrine payloads will also study the moon's exosphere, regolith, magnetic fields and radiation environment on this first mission.
Well, maybe not Monday... Navajo Nation objects to private moon mission placing human remains on the lunar surface
For better or worse, the moon is officially open for business.
On Monday (Jan. 8), United Launch Alliance's shiny new Vulcan Centaur rocket will launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida carrying Astrobotic's Peregrine lunar lander and the Celestis and Elysium memorial payloads containing human remains and DNA.
Of the two memorial companies, only Elysium Space will potentially deliver a symbolic portion of remains to the surface of the moon as one of their services, with Celestis' precious cargo pushing out beyond the Earth-moon system into interstellar deep space to establish the most remote human presence among the stars. The Celestis Enterprise Flight will include cremated remains and/or DNA material from numerous "Star Trek" icons such as Nichelle Nichols, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, series creator Gene Roddenberry and his wife Majel Barrett Roddenberry, "2001: A Space Odyssey's" VFX guru, Douglas Trumbull, as well as the DNA of current ULA CEO Tory Bruno, his wife Rebecca, former Presidents of the United States, and many others.
But not everyone is exactly rejoicing over the upcoming flight. As reported by Arizona Public Radio on Dec. 28, the President of the Navajo Nation, Buu Nygren, is unhappy with the notion of human remains being deposited on the moon's and is formally requesting that NASA postpone this January launch due to the space agency's promise to advise them prior to the authorization of future memorial flights.
In a Dec. 21 letter to NASA and the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), Nygren expressed his thoughts on the troubling matter. "It is crucial to emphasize that the moon holds a sacred position in many Indigenous cultures, including ours," Nygren wrote. "We view it as a part of our spiritual heritage, an object of reverence and respect. The act of depositing human remains and other materials, which could be perceived as discards in any other location, on the moon is tantamount to desecration of this sacred space."
Nygren added that the Navajo Nation believes that both NASA and the USDOT should have consulted with them before authorizing a company to transport human remains to the moon.
However, despite the Navajo Nation's strong objections, this technically is not a NASA-run mission. The mission will be the first launch of the Vulcan Centaur and the first mission under NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which seeks to leverage private companies to help place agency-led science payloads on the lunar surface.
The mission is technically a private commercial launch by Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic Technology made possible via the CLPS and NASA has no jurisdiction over exactly what additional payloads are included.
