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Postby Shyster » Mon Mar 05, 2018 5:57 pm

If all goes well, SpaceX will be launching the Hispasat 30W-6 communications satellite shortly after midnight tonight from SLC-40 at CCAFS. Weather is 90% favorable for the two-hour launch window, which opens at 12:33 a.m. EST. SpaceX has announced that they will not be attempting to land the Falcon 9’s first stage after launch because while the weather is fine at the Cape, the weather in the recovery area offshore is apparently too rough and windy to attempt a recovery. That's too bad, because I believe this launch is a brand-new Block 4 core. I wonder if SpaceX had time to yank off the landing legs and grid fins.

ULA recently had a successful Atlas V launch. The payload was the GOES-S weather satellite for NASA. It was flying in the 541 configuration with a five-meter fairing, 4 solid rocket motors, and a single-engined Centaur upper stage. The Atlas V is a unique bird in many ways, such as the fact that every configuration that uses SRBs is asymmetrical. It's further unique in that the two fairing sizes (four and five meters) have two different attachment methods. The smaller four-meter fairing attaches to the top of the Centaur upper stage. The larger five-meter fairing attaches to the top of the first stage, and it encapsulates both the payload and the entire Centaur upper stage. So when you're flying the five-meter-fairing version, you have to be high enough to deploy the payload fairing before you can stage, because the entire second stage is inside the fairing.


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Postby Kaiser » Tue Mar 06, 2018 12:48 am

That was a badS staging camera view

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Postby Shyster » Fri Mar 09, 2018 5:00 pm

You Will Not Go To Space Today - A Musical Tribute To Rocket Crashes


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Postby Lemon Berry Lobster » Mon Mar 12, 2018 2:54 pm

http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2018/03/ ... unter-ufo/
Videos Released Of U.S. Navy Pilots Encountering A Possible UFO
CBS Local — Has the U.S. military released visible proof of alien spacecrafts flying over Earth? The Pentagon has released three videos taken by the flight recorders of U.S. Navy fighters in 2015, which seem to show evidence of a UFO encounter.

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Postby shmenguin » Wed Mar 14, 2018 5:17 pm

Whoa...some nerds recently discovered that all disc galaxies rotate once per billion years no matter how big they are.

This is amazing to me and I will proceed to draw my own conclusions.

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Postby shafnutz05 » Wed Mar 14, 2018 8:24 pm

Whoa...some nerds recently discovered that all disc galaxies rotate once per billion years no matter how big they are.

This is amazing to me and I will proceed to draw my own conclusions.
That is remarkable...thank you for sharing. Link for the lazy:

http://astronomy.com/news/2018/03/all-g ... lion-years

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Postby Lemon Berry Lobster » Thu Mar 15, 2018 8:23 am

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolog ... id=UE07DHP
Astronomer Scott Kelly spent a year in space and returned a changed man.

Kelly, who lived on the International Space Station while his identical twin Mark Kelly stayed on Earth, returned after 340 days with 7% of his genes altered, according to NASA.

...

Some changes — like the lengthening of Scott’s telomeres, or the endcaps of chromosomes that shorten over time — reversed once he was subject to Earth’s gravity again.

But other changes persisted after six months. Researchers found a deficient amount of tissue oxygenation in Scott’s cells, along with stress to mitochondria, which transform nutrients into energy, and increased inflammation.

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Postby shafnutz05 » Fri Mar 23, 2018 2:43 pm

Our local high school is having a celebration in May for the reopening of their planetarium. Growing up, Altoona High had a planetarium, and I really enjoyed the astronomy courses I took there. They are giving out free tickets for an open house/planetarium show, so I snagged them. This is the one they are showing...yes, that's Benedict Cumberbatch narrating:


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Postby Shyster » Thu Mar 29, 2018 2:20 pm

Tiangong-1 space station crash window gets narrowed down

https://www.cnet.com/news/where-chinese ... h-april-1/

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Postby dodint » Thu Mar 29, 2018 2:29 pm

Loose definition of narrow, that.

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Postby Shyster » Thu Mar 29, 2018 4:11 pm

That's certainly true, but it's better than what we had up until now, which was pretty much just "somewhere between 42.8° North and 42.8° South latitude."

On another subject, assuming their launch facilities are not damaged by a falling Chinese space station, SpaceX will be attempting two launches over the next few days. The Iridium Next 41-50 mission is scheduled to launch tomorrow, March 30, from Vandenberg Air Force Base, with a liftoff time of 10:13 a.m. EDT / 7:13: a.m. PDT. The CRS-14 cargo mission to the ISS is then scheduled to launch from CCAFS on April 2, with a liftoff time of 4:30 p.m. EDT.

Globally, there were three launches scheduled for today. The Indian space agency launched a commercial communications satellite aboard a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mk. 2; Roscosmos launched a classified satellite aboard a Soyuz-2.1v, and the Chinese government launched a pair of navigation sats aboard a Long March 3B. All launches appear to have been successful. I'm disappointed (but not surprised, given it was classified) that the Russians didn't release any video of their launch. The Soyuz-2.1v is a relatively rare rocket. It's basically the center core of the regular Soyuz without the traditional four tapered strap-on boosters, and instead of the usual four-chamber RD-107A engine used on the standard Soyuz is uses one of those surplus NK-33 engines left over from the old Soviet N1 moon-rocket program. Given the troubles that Orbital had with those engines (including the engine explosion that catastrophically destroyed the Antares on the CRS ORB-3 mission), it's a little bit of a surprise the Russians still trust them, but then again history shows that the Russians seem to be more tolerant of the risk of failure when it comes to space.

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Postby shafnutz05 » Sun Apr 01, 2018 2:27 pm

If any of yinz are interested in watching a Chinese space station fall out of control through the atmosphere, it's supposed to be sometime tonight between 8pm and early Monday. It's still anyone's guess where it will land, but there are changing prediction bands here:

http://www.satflare.com/track.asp?q=37820#TOP

Doesn't look like we will get in on the action :( Should be some good videos though.

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Postby Shyster » Mon Apr 02, 2018 6:25 pm

Successful launches for SpaceX last Friday and today. And the Tiangong-1 space station ended up pretty close to where it would have ended up anyway: the South Pacific Ocean. There's a whole lot of nothing between New Zealand and South America, so that part of the world is the disposal site of choice for deorbited satellites and stations. From what I've read, it's a pretty low-traffic area for shipping, and due to ocean currents that part of the Pacific isn't very rich in food sources for wildlife, so there isn't much fishing going on either. That makes it the part of the world with the lowest likelihood of hitting anything on the surface.

SpaceX has two more launches scheduled for April. The first is the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) satellite for NASA, which is NET April 16. The second launch is the Bangabandhu-1 communications satellite for the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, which is NET April 24. The Bangabandhu launch will represent a major milestone launch for SpaceX: the first launch of the ultimate Block 5 version of the Falcon 9, which has been redesigned for rapid and repeated reuse. SpaceX has been disposing of a lot of its older previously flown cores (including the core on today's CRS cargo mission, which was not recovered) in anticipation of Block 5 cores coming on line. In addition to a little more thrust, improved navigation computers, and improved heat shields and thermal protection, I understand one of the modifications for Block 5 is improved landing legs that can be refolded. Right now, SpaceX has to take the landing legs completely off the core and replace parts order to prep a core to fly again. For Block 5, SpaceX will just pick the core up with a crane and fold the legs back up. The idea is that a Block 5 core can fly repeatedly (up to 10 times) with only inspections and checks between uses—no refurbishment needed.

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Postby Shyster » Mon Apr 23, 2018 7:10 pm

Uranus smells like farts:

Astroboffins find the stink of eggy farts wafting from Uranus
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/2 ... om_uranus/

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Postby Gaucho » Mon Apr 23, 2018 7:13 pm

Image

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Postby Freddy Rumsen » Thu May 03, 2018 10:46 pm

NASA has released new images of Jupiter, taken by the Juno Spacecraft.
https://t.co/rf9hCLNlcJ

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Postby Shyster » Fri May 11, 2018 8:41 pm

Successful first launch today for the first Block 5 version of the SpaceX Falcon 9. An attempt yesterday was aborted shortly after handover to the Falcon 9's internal computer at T-58 seconds, but today's attempt went off without a hitch.



Posters on Reddit compiled the following list of changes from Block 4 to Block 5.

•Titanium grid fins, which won't melt in the high heat of reentry. The previous aluminum fins sometimes fried.
•New landing legs with the ability to be retracted by the ground crew instead of having to be removed after landing. These legs will be black instead of white.
•Changes to the engine turbopumps to prevent turbine blade microfractures. This was never considered a risk by SpaceX, but NASA asked SpaceX to fix the issue, and from all reports they have.
•Some painted areas replaced with an improved thermal-protection coating.
•Improved heat shielding around the engines to improve reusability.
•The octaweb (the thrust structure that holds the engines) will be bolted instead of welded, to reduce time for inspection/repair/refurbishment and to allow easier changeover from F9 to FH side booster.
•The interstage will be black instead of white—likely unpainted carbon fiber (saves time and weight).
•Upgraded fairing, which is slightly larger and has changes to allow for recovery and reuse. It is also easier to make and lighter than previous fairings.
•Upgraded COPVs (composite overwrapped pressure vessels). These are composite tanks located inside the oxygen tanks in the first and second stage. They hold pressurized gases like helium. The upgrade is to prevent incident like the Amos-6 pad explosion, which SpaceX believes was caused by oxygen ice forming between the layers of carbon fiber in the COPVs.
•Another improvement in thrust for the Merlin 1D engines (roughly an 8% increase) to 190,000 lbf (845 kN) at sea level. This makes the Block 5's Merlin 1Ds 36% more powerful than the original 1D version and 144% more powerful than the Merlin 1C that powered the original Block 1 version of the Falcon 9.
•Upgrades to valves and other parts to allow for easier re-use.
•Improved flight control, angle-of-attack, and control authority, which should allow for landings with less fuel (and therefore the ability to land after lofting heavier payloads).

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Postby Shyster » Fri May 18, 2018 2:37 pm

Orbital ATK is scheduled to launch its Antares rocket this Sunday on the next Cygnus cargo-freighter mission to the International Space Station. Like prior Antares launches from Wallops Island, Virginia, there's a good chance that the launch will be visible for a lot of people up and down the east coast. The bad news is that liftoff window on Sunday is 5:04-5:09 a.m. EDT, so viewers would have to be up really freaking early on a Sunday.

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Postby Shyster » Fri May 18, 2018 4:45 pm

Spoke too soon. Orbital just announced that it is moving the Antares launch to NET Monday, May 21, at 4:39 a.m. EDT in order to "support further pre-launch inspections and more favorable weather conditions." Weather chance for Monday is currently 80% favorable.

https://www.orbitalatk.com/news-room/fe ... x?prid=283

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Postby Freddy Rumsen » Mon May 21, 2018 11:02 am

Did it go off?

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Postby shafnutz05 » Mon May 21, 2018 12:28 pm

Damn it, I had no idea this thing was launching from Wallops. Viewing conditions would have been perfect this morning.

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Postby shafnutz05 » Mon May 21, 2018 9:20 pm

Astronomers believe they have found the first new permanent resident from outside the solar system, an asteroid that seems to have been pulled into Jupiter's orbit.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/201 ... 629520002/

https://twitter.com/coreyspowell/status ... 8310125569

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Postby count2infinity » Mon May 21, 2018 9:59 pm

Heard this on the way home from work today:

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way ... py-gravity
Over the past 15 years, GRACE has watched as 4,000 gigatons of Greenland ice melted. Landerer says that's enough to inundate the lower 48 states some 19 inches deep.

Luckily, that melted ice-water is still in the ocean. But it's not near Greenland. "Counterintuitively," Landerer says, "if you were to stand on the Greenland coastline and the ice melted, you would actually see the sea level in the ocean around you go down."

That's right — go down.

That's because the Greenland ice sheet is so massive that it exerts its own gravity field on the surrounding ocean. It pulls water toward itself, and when the ice sheet shrinks, or melts, the pull on the surrounding water diminishes. The weird result is that Greenland's meltwater can actually raise the sea level in places thousands of miles away more than it's raised nearby.

GRACE picks up on that, too.
That's incredible to me... the ice sheet is so massive it has its own gravitational pull.

Also the possibility of detecting massive earthquakes a month or so before they happen is mindboggling.

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Postby Shyster » Mon May 21, 2018 10:02 pm

Successful launch of the Antares rocket carrying the Cygnus cargo vehicle. Rendezvous and docking should take place on Thursday.


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Postby Shyster » Tue May 22, 2018 7:36 pm

Speaking of the GRACE mission, SpaceX had a successful launch today from SLC-4E at Vandenberg of five satellites for the Iridium NEXT constellation and two GRACE-FO (GRACE-follow up) satellites for NASA. The second stage stopped in a lower parking orbit, released the two GRACE-FO sats, and then restarted to move to a higher orbit for the Iridium sats. Iridium and NASA agreed to share the launch. The launch was on a reused Falcon 9 (previously used on the ill-fated ZUMA mission), which was not recovered. SpaceX also tried to recover the fairing, but they apparently "just missed" catching either half with the big-ass net on the Mr. Steven recovery vessel.

Detailed article on the mission:

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/05 ... fo-launch/

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