Image credit to "Craig_VG" on nasaspaceflight.com.
Shyster's thread of Spaaaace.
Shyster's thread of Spaaaace.
SpaceX hasn't released any videos from the SES-9 attempted barge landing. But it must have been kinetically rich, because it punched a sizable hole in the Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship:
Image credit to "Craig_VG" on nasaspaceflight.com.
Image credit to "Craig_VG" on nasaspaceflight.com.
Shyster's thread of Spaaaace.
The first step of the ExoMars program launched earlier today atop a Russian Proton-M rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Exobiology on Mars, or ExoMars, program is a collaboration led by the European Space Agency in partnership with the Russian national space agency, Roskosmos. There are two phases. Phase 1 is a probe called the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), along with a technology-demonstration lander called Schiaparelli. Phase 2 will be a lander and rover, which will use data learned from the Schiaparelli landing to guide design principles. The TGO carries a suite of instruments to study the surface and atmosphere of Mars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypgUzXJt004
Like the Soyuz rocket, the Proton is a "mature" design that first flew in the 1960s. It occupies the heavy-lift role in Russia's portfolio of rockets. It's slated to be replaced by the new Angara rocket due to its toxic fuels. The Proton is powered by engines that burn a combination of dimethylhydrazine and dinitrogen tetroxide. Those fuels are hypergolic, which means that they spontaneously ignite when mixed together. That makes them advantageous as rocket fuels because you don't have to worry about ignition systems, and further both fuels are liquids at room temperature and don't require any cooling (which we can see from SpaceX can be a problem). Hypergolic engines are inherently more reliable and are capable of multiple restarts. The downside for hypergolic fuels is that they are all extremely nasty chemicals. Both hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide are toxic and corrosive, and hydrazine is also carcinogenic. While hypergolic fuels are still used for things like reaction-control thrusters and similar upper-stage functions, all of the U.S. and European rockets that used hypergols to power the main engines have been phased out (the last was the Titan IV). The Russians, Indians, and Chinese still fly rockets with hypergolic main stages.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypgUzXJt004
Like the Soyuz rocket, the Proton is a "mature" design that first flew in the 1960s. It occupies the heavy-lift role in Russia's portfolio of rockets. It's slated to be replaced by the new Angara rocket due to its toxic fuels. The Proton is powered by engines that burn a combination of dimethylhydrazine and dinitrogen tetroxide. Those fuels are hypergolic, which means that they spontaneously ignite when mixed together. That makes them advantageous as rocket fuels because you don't have to worry about ignition systems, and further both fuels are liquids at room temperature and don't require any cooling (which we can see from SpaceX can be a problem). Hypergolic engines are inherently more reliable and are capable of multiple restarts. The downside for hypergolic fuels is that they are all extremely nasty chemicals. Both hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide are toxic and corrosive, and hydrazine is also carcinogenic. While hypergolic fuels are still used for things like reaction-control thrusters and similar upper-stage functions, all of the U.S. and European rockets that used hypergols to power the main engines have been phased out (the last was the Titan IV). The Russians, Indians, and Chinese still fly rockets with hypergolic main stages.
Shyster's thread of Spaaaace.
A bit of an interesting political kerfuffle in the space world. For years, the big player in space in the United States was United Launch Alliance, which is a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed. While ULA admittedly launches good rockets, the company only exists because it had a monopoly lock on launches for the U.S. government and was the recipient of literally billions of dollars of federal largesse. ULA is hyper expensive and is completely uncompetitive when it comes to price, but it could count on receiving 100% of government launches, so it didn't give a crap about costs. SpaceX's entry into to the market has completely blown apart ULA's comfy monopoly, and ULA isn't happy. And on top of those woes, the RD-180 main engine for ULA's workhorse rocket—the Atlas V—is made by the Russians, and many members of Congress (especially Senator McCain) are highly frosted that a Russki engine is launching military and national-security payloads. ULA has started the development of a new rocket—the Vulcan—largely because of Congressional restrictions on future use of the RD-180. ULA doesn't want the Vulcan; they want to keep flying the Atlas. And they would really like Congress to change its mind on the engine restrictions.
A couple days ago, ULA vice president Brett Tobey gave a talk to engineering students at his alma mater, and he candidly said a bunch of stuff that pretty much everyone knows already, such as the fact that ULA isn't price competitive. The talk was recorded. It's described in the first link below. As the second and third links describe, the release of that recording on the internet went over so well that Mr. Tobey resigned the next day. As noted by the third article, the swift canning is interesting in light of the fundamental fact that everyone who follows this area knows that most of what Mr. Tobey said "is beyond serious question."
ULA Intends to Lower Its Costs, and Raise Its Cool, to Compete with SpaceX
http://spacenews.com/ula-intends-to-low ... YLzVi.dpuf
This Rocket Executive Pissed off Everyone in Space and Lost His Job the Next Day
http://qz.com/641738/this-rocket-execut ... -next-day/
ULA VP Resigns Following Remarks on Company’s Competitive Position, Strategy
http://spacenews.com/ula-vp-resigns-fol ... 0il8o.dpuf
A couple days ago, ULA vice president Brett Tobey gave a talk to engineering students at his alma mater, and he candidly said a bunch of stuff that pretty much everyone knows already, such as the fact that ULA isn't price competitive. The talk was recorded. It's described in the first link below. As the second and third links describe, the release of that recording on the internet went over so well that Mr. Tobey resigned the next day. As noted by the third article, the swift canning is interesting in light of the fundamental fact that everyone who follows this area knows that most of what Mr. Tobey said "is beyond serious question."
ULA Intends to Lower Its Costs, and Raise Its Cool, to Compete with SpaceX
http://spacenews.com/ula-intends-to-low ... YLzVi.dpuf
This Rocket Executive Pissed off Everyone in Space and Lost His Job the Next Day
http://qz.com/641738/this-rocket-execut ... -next-day/
ULA VP Resigns Following Remarks on Company’s Competitive Position, Strategy
http://spacenews.com/ula-vp-resigns-fol ... 0il8o.dpuf
Shyster's thread of Spaaaace.
Optics. And I don't mean rifle scopes.
Shyster's thread of Spaaaace.
If everything goes as planned and the weather cooperates, in a little more than 24 hours Orbital Sciences Corporation will be launching one of its unmanned Cygnus spacecraft to the ISS under its the Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA. This launch will be from Cape Canaveral aboard an ULA Atlas V rocket in the 401 configuration (meaning a 4-meter fairing and no supplemental solid boosters). This is the second and final "gap filler" launch using the Atlas V, and Orbital expects the next flight of the Cygnus after this one will return to the (newly re-engined) Antares rocket flying from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops. Liftoff is scheduled for 11:05 p.m. EDT Tuesday night, and there's a 30-minute launch window in case a brief delay comes up. The launch will be broadcast online on NASA TV.
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Viva la Ben
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Shyster's thread of Spaaaace.
There are an astounding number of people who think that is actual footage from kepler
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Silentom
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Shyster's thread of Spaaaace.
Just a cartoon, I know. Figured I'd throw up the vid so people didn't have to clock the link.There are an astounding number of people who think that is actual footage from kepler
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MrKennethTKangaroo
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Shyster's thread of Spaaaace.
how many years ago did that mf'er actually blow up?
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Viva la Ben
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Shyster's thread of Spaaaace.
1.2 billion years ago
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sweet lawn chair
Shyster's thread of Spaaaace.
Minor anomaly confirmed on this week's launch of the Orbital Cygnus spacecraft to the ISS. For reasons as yet unknown, the first stage on the Atlas V shut down about 6 seconds before it was supposed to. That early shutdown meant that the Centaur upper stage had to burn for almost a minute longer than planned to make up for the shortfall in ΔV. It had no impact on the mission, but ULA has delayed the next launch of the Atlas V (which will be the launch of a military communications satellite) to review the data and see if they can figure out the cause.
Next Atlas 5 flight delayed after launch "anomaly"
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ula-delays- ... y-tuesday/
Next Atlas 5 flight delayed after launch "anomaly"
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ula-delays- ... y-tuesday/
Shyster's thread of Spaaaace.
sweet lawn chair
I posted this from my phone without comment with the intent of swinging back around in case nobody spotted the fun.
Apollo 17 broke the fender off of the lunar rover and kept getting pelted with rocks while they drove around. So they took some duct tape and maps and fabricated a fender, pictured.
Thought it was cool.
Shyster's thread of Spaaaace.
These space hacks are breaking the internet, you wont believe #17!
Shyster's thread of Spaaaace.
What they did with Tang will amaze you.
Shyster's thread of Spaaaace.
What they did with Tang will amaze you.
Shyster's thread of Spaaaace.
Japan’s recently launched ASTRO-H X-ray astronomy satellite appears to have suffered a RUD of some sort. Communications were lost on March 27, and at the same time: (1) ground radar shows several new returns coming from the satellite's location, and (2) the satellite's orbit changed slightly. Ground observations show rapid changes in brightness, which means that the satellite is likely tumbling. In order to produce the orbital change, something imparted some ΔV to the spacecraft. Suspects would be events like a gas leak, a failure of one of the satellite's propellant-storage tanks, or a battery explosion.
Shyster's thread of Spaaaace.
From an email from my brother, the space geek, to pass along. Didn't see a link posted here.
Good morning,
https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/sightin ... Pittsburgh
Good morning,
Shyster's thread of Spaaaace.
SpaceX today will (if all goes well) launching the CRS-8 supply mission to the ISS. Liftoff is scheduled for 4:43 pm EDT, and the launch window is instantaneous, so it's either launch at that time or scrub for the day. Weather seems to be cooperating, with a 90% "go" probability at the moment. In addition to supplies and experiments, the Dragon is also carrying an inflatable habitation module—the Bigelow Aerospace Expandable Activity Module—which will be attached to the ISS for testing purposes. Bigelow would eventually like to construct its own space station using inflatable modules. You can read more about the launch here: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2016/04 ... n9-launch/
Because this is a NASA mission, there will be coverage on NASA TV at http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/ in addition to the SpaceX streams at https://www.youtube.com/user/spacexchannel.
Because this is a NASA mission, there will be coverage on NASA TV at http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/ in addition to the SpaceX streams at https://www.youtube.com/user/spacexchannel.
Shyster's thread of Spaaaace.
Good deploy of Dragon, and SpaceX sticks the barge landing for the first stage!
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robbiestoupe
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Shyster's thread of Spaaaace.
That's awesome. Just sent a text to my brother for the congrats. He's saying there are high seas, so they're a little nervous.
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