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Postby count2infinity » Tue Jul 17, 2018 1:28 pm

I love the sky guide app on my phone. "Huh... wonder what that super bright one is..." *check app* "Oh, Venus. Cool."

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Postby Shyster » Tue Jul 17, 2018 1:50 pm

Britain is building a new launch site in Scotland for small launch vehicles, and Lockheed Martin and a British startup company called Orbex will be the first customers. Lockheed Martin is an investor in Rocket Labs and the Electron Launch vehicle, and that is rumored to be the launch vehicle that LM will use at this site.

https://spacenews.com/lockheed-martin-o ... spaceport/

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Postby shafnutz05 » Thu Jul 19, 2018 9:20 am

I love the sky guide app on my phone. "Huh... wonder what that super bright one is..." *check app* "Oh, Venus. Cool."
I use Google Sky Map which is solid.

However, I strongly recommend the "Heavens Above" app, it's a small download and it will tell you every single visible satellite, rocket, ISS, etc that will be visible from your location that night. If you click on that particular man-made object, it will show you its path across the sky. You will also be able to see exactly what time it rises, sets, and what the magnitude is.

It's really cool to step outside and see the ISS, for example, speeding across the night sky. At its brightest, the ISS is nearly as bright as Venus.

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Postby tifosi77 » Fri Jul 20, 2018 10:57 am

Happy Apollo 11 moon landing day!

This is perhaps the most significant event in modern human history, and it saddens me that people don't 'think big' like this any more.

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Postby Shyster » Tue Jul 24, 2018 8:21 pm

Two launches scheduled for early tomorrow morning. Arianespace is scheduled to launch the final quartet of Galileo GPS satellites for Europe at 7:25 a.m. EDT, and SpaceX is scheduled to launch the next-to-last batch of Iridium NEXT satellites at 7:39 a.m. EDT from Vandenberg Air Force Base.

https://www.space.com/41267-spacex-irid ... -pair.html

This will be the final launch of the "ES" version of the Ariane 5. The ES version uses a hypergolic upper stage powered by hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide. Every launch from this point until the replacement of the Ariane 5 with the Ariane 6 will use the ECA variant with a hydrolox upper stage. The SpaceX launch is using a new Block 5 booster, which will land on the west-coast droneship Just Read the Instructions.

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Postby eddy » Wed Jul 25, 2018 10:41 am

Using a radar instrument on an orbiting spacecraft, scientists have spotted what they said on Wednesday appears to be a sizable salt-laden lake under ice on the southern polar plain of Mars, a body of water they called a possible habitat for microbial life.

The reservoir they detected — roughly 12 miles (20 km) in diameter, shaped like a rounded triangle and located about a mile (1.5 km) beneath the ice surface — represents the first stable body of liquid water ever found on Mars.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-spac ... ium=Social

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Postby Shyster » Thu Jul 26, 2018 8:50 pm

Here's a great in-depth article on the proposed OmegA rocket from Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems (formerly Orbital ATK).

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3539/1

NGIS is hoping to get federal funding for the development through the Air Force's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle competition. The design is similar to what was proposed for the Ares I of NASA's Constellation program (which was canceled in favor of the Space Launch System): a hydrolox liquid second stage sitting on top of big honkin' solids derived from the Shuttle SRBs. The OmegA takes that formula and mixes it up with two different sizes of first-stage solids and the option of additional small GEM solid boosters, depending on the payload and mission.

While I don't like the fact that NGIS is basically looking for government handouts to fund the development of this rocket, I do like the design. The concept of solid rockets attached to solid rockets has a very Kerbal feel to it (moar boosters!). I also think NGIS has a pretty good chance of getting some Air Force money thrown its way. The OmegA is basically off-the-shelf technology. The solids are all Shuttle-derived (the Castor stages) or existing designs (the GEMS), and the upper stage uses the tried-and-true Aerojet RL-10 engine that's been around forever. Government likes to keep it safe and use tested tech. Congress critters will also like the fact that the vehicle will be 100% made in the USA by big familiar military contractors (Northrup Grumman, Aerojet Rocketdyne, etc.) rather than uppity billionaires who don't necessarily make big campaign contributions or agree to locate their production facilities in as many Congressional districts as possible.


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Postby shafnutz05 » Sun Jul 29, 2018 10:01 pm

I just stood outside for 15 minutes with the Heavens Above app. Spotted about a half dozen satellites and an old Atlas Centaur rocket streaking across the sky. So cool.

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Postby Shyster » Fri Aug 10, 2018 5:23 pm

If anyone is up very late tonight (on the east coast) or not so late (on the west coast) NASA's Parker Solar Probe is scheduled to launch during a window that opens around 3:30 a.m. EDT Saturday morning aboard a Delta IV Heavy from CCAFS. If the launch is successful, it will be the start of a seven-year mission to fly through the sun's atmosphere. The probe has a massive heatshield that will shield the scientific instruments during the approach to the sun. In order to give the Parker Solar Probe extra escape velocity, the Delta IV Heavy is flying with a Northrop Grumman Star 48BV third stage. The Star 48BV is a small solid-rocket motor that is used either to give large payloads extra velocity or as an upper stage on smaller rockets (such as the Minotaur IV). This is the first time the Delta IV Heavy has flown with a third stage. I believe this is also the final non-military launch of any form of the Delta IV, so this might be the last time we'll see video from the upper stage. Military launches usually cut off video feeds shortly after liftoff because the government doesn't want to show the payload or reveal the type of orbit (even though space fans figure both of those out anyway). The launch will be streamed on NASA TV.

The Parker Solar Probe will be launched on a transfer orbit to Venus and will use seven Venus flybys over seven years to gradually shrink its orbit around the sun. It's not intuitive, because you'd think it would easy to just chuck something into the sun, but it's actually very difficult to get a low solar orbit. It takes a huge amount of delta-v to lower an orbit that far, and that's why it will take so many gravity assists from Venus to accomplish.

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Postby eddy » Sun Aug 12, 2018 8:59 am

Saw some very nice meteors last night, sounds like tonight may be the better night for them. Zero gravity chair is ready

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Postby shafnutz05 » Sun Aug 12, 2018 1:14 pm

Saw some very nice meteors last night, sounds like tonight may be the better night for them. Zero gravity chair is ready
Nice! I'm so annoyed... I swear every year it is cloudy for the fcking Perseids. I went outside at like 3am and saw maybe three before the clouds got bad again. Mosquitoes were wicked too.

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Postby Ad@m » Mon Aug 13, 2018 12:17 pm

:o The Perseids over Sinemorets, Bulgaria

https://mobile.twitter.com/tingfengxing ... 00/photo/1

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Postby Lemon Berry Lobster » Mon Aug 13, 2018 12:40 pm

*unzips*

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Postby Ad@m » Mon Aug 13, 2018 12:54 pm

The Milky Way during the Perseids meteor shower last night at Joshua Tree! (Straight white lines are shooting stars)
https://mobile.twitter.com/StatchoGit/s ... 7534128128

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Postby Lemon Berry Lobster » Mon Aug 13, 2018 1:23 pm

Wish I took the time to figure out what I needed to do when I was out there. The sky at night is absolutely stunning there.

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Postby shafnutz05 » Mon Aug 13, 2018 1:45 pm

:o The Perseids over Sinemorets, Bulgaria

https://mobile.twitter.com/tingfengxing ... 00/photo/1
Beautiful. I hope it is clear, cool, and breezy next year.

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Postby Shyster » Sat Sep 15, 2018 11:10 pm

An era ended early this morning with the final launch of a Delta II rocket. The payload was the Ice, Cloud,and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) satellite for NASA, which will be used to measure ice, clouds, and other weather conditions over the poles.



The Delta II was the last US launch vehicle derived from a 1960s ICBM design. The Titan was retired years ago, and Delta IV and Atlas 5 rockets share only their names with their ICBM-based predecessors. The first stage of the Delta II can also be called an "Extra-Extended Long Tank Thor," and it dates its design the whole way back to the PGM-17 Thor intermediate-range ICBM, which was the first ICBM to enter US service in 1959. The name "Delta" comes from the fact that the Delta rockets were the fourth variants of the Thor rocket used for space launches. This was also the last launch for the venerable Rocketdyne RS-27 engine. The PGM-17 Thor originally used a hypergolic engine burning hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide. The space-launch versions used the same tank design but switched to the kerosene/LOX Rocketdyne MB-3 engine. In the 70s the Delta switched again to the Rocketdyne RS-27 engine, which was just a rebranded H-1 engine from the Saturn I and IB rockets used in the Apollo program. There were a bunch of leftover H-1s from Apollo, so McDonnell Douglas bought them and used them on the Delta. The RS-27A version was the restarted-production version that was used when the surplus H-1s ran out.

In addition to military use, which among other mission saw Delta rockets lift dozens of GPS satellites and other military payloads, NASA made extensive use of the Delta and Delta II, and many significant NASA missions launched aboard a Delta, including the Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Pathfinder probes, the Opportunity and Spirit Mars rovers, and the Dawn mission to dwarf planets Ceres and Vesta. There were more than 300 Delta launches, with a 95% success rate and a streak of 100 successful launches in a row at the end.

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Postby Shyster » Mon Sep 17, 2018 9:15 pm

SpaceX announced a few days ago that they've signed up a passenger to fly around the Moon aboard one of the first launches of the BFR (which won't take place for quite a few years yet). SpaceX is going to announce the passenger tonight. The stream is also showing new renders of the BFR, which has a slightly different look than previous renderings. I must note that the new renders remind me quite a but of the Planet Express Ship from Futurama.

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Postby Shyster » Mon Sep 17, 2018 9:40 pm

And the person who has signed up to be the first commercial passenger to orbit the moon is Japanese billionaire entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa.

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Postby eddy » Sun Sep 23, 2018 9:21 am

This dynamic photo was captured by Rover-1A on September 22 at around 11:44 JST. It was taken on Ryugu's surface during a hop. The left-half is the surface of Ryugu, while the white region on the right is due to sunlight. (Hayabusa2 Project) https://t.co/IQLsFd4gJu

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Postby eddy » Thu Sep 27, 2018 8:12 pm

Incredible

Rover-1B succeeded in shooting a movie on Ryugu’s surface! The movie has 15 frames captured on September 23, 2018 from 10:34 - 11:48 JST. Enjoy ‘standing’ on the surface of this asteroid! [6/6] https://t.co/57avmjvdVa

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Postby Freddy Rumsen » Thu Sep 27, 2018 8:13 pm

That was really cool.

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Postby Shyster » Fri Sep 28, 2018 10:11 am

Not much of a surprise, since United Launch Alliance said all along that it was the frontrunner, but ULA has selected the Blue Origin BE-4 main engine as the engine for the upcoming Vulcan launch vehicle.The BE-4 is being developed to power Blue Origin's New Glenn vehicle, which will use seven BE-4s on the first stage. The Vulcan will use two, supplemented by up to six optional GEM 63XL solid-rocket boosters.

https://spacenews.com/ula-selects-blue- ... in-engine/

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Postby count2infinity » Fri Sep 28, 2018 8:01 pm

I got a chance to meet with the heads of this mission on Monday: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAESAR_(spacecraft)

It sounds awesome. I'll be working with them over the next few months to evaluate the best ways for the sample return to Earth, and they'll find out in July-ish whether their mission gets picked to move forward. It's them vs. dragonfly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(spacecraft)

According to the Caesar guys, "We're the sensible pick that has a great chance of working... they're the sexy pick that is a long shot of actually working". Obviously, I'm hoping Caesar wins, but both sound cool as hell.

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Postby Freddy Rumsen » Fri Sep 28, 2018 8:05 pm

That's fantastic

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