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Postby Shyster » Wed May 23, 2018 7:57 pm

The chief executive of the Ariane Group, Alain Charmeau, recently did an interview with Der Spiegel, and Ars Technica reports on the interview below. There's a link in the article to a translation of the full interview. I wouldn't call it a good interview, and it has sour grapes in spades. Mr. Charmeau is clearly frustrated that SpaceX is disrupting an industry that Ariane used to dominate (at one point over 50% of all commercial satellites in orbit had been launched by Ariane rockets). But he doesn't appear to be prepared to actually compete with SpaceX. For example, he says that reusability isn't something that makes sense for Ariane to pursue, but one of the reasons he cites for that assertion is that reusable rockets would cut down on the number of employees:
"Let us say we had ten guaranteed launches per year in Europe and we had a rocket which we can use ten times—we would build exactly one rocket per year," he said. "That makes no sense. I cannot tell my teams: 'Goodbye, see you next year!'"
It's no surprise that a largely government-funded operation like the Ariane Group would see itself every bit as much as a jobs program as a launch provider, but that isn't going to make it competitive when companies like SpaceX is bringing free-market principles to the field. Instead, Mr. Charmeau complains that SpaceX is essentially being funded by overcharging the US government for launches. But he's ignoring the fact that: (1) SpaceX charges the US government far less than what United Launch Alliance charges for equivalent launches; and (2) SpaceX has said that they make money on their commercial launches, which negates the idea they are "dumping" commercial launches only to make up the losses on the government launches.

Ariane chief seems frustrated with SpaceX for driving down launch costs
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05 ... nch-costs/

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Postby Kaiser » Wed May 23, 2018 8:11 pm

Cry more

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Postby Shyster » Thu May 24, 2018 2:37 pm

If anyone would like more news on the space industry, Ars Technica just launched a weekly "Rocket Report" email newsletter. You can sign up here:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05 ... your-help/

Each issue includes a schedule of upcoming launches and news sections that are divided by the type of vehicle: small, medium, and heavy lift.

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Postby shafnutz05 » Thu May 24, 2018 7:54 pm

If anyone would like more news on the space industry, Ars Technica just launched a weekly "Rocket Report" email newsletter. You can sign up here:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05 ... your-help/

Each issue includes a schedule of upcoming launches and news sections that are divided by the type of vehicle: small, medium, and heavy lift.
:thumb: Signed up--thanks!

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Postby Shyster » Mon Jun 04, 2018 10:02 pm

Successful launch early this morning for SpaceX and the SES-12 communications satellite, which was sent into geostationary transfer orbit. SES-12 is a big honking comsat (a shade under 12,000 lbs) that was built by Airbus and will provide direct-to-home TV broadcasting and high-speed data services over the Middle East and Asia-Pacific regions. The launch used a hybrid configuration with a Block 4 core (which was not recovered) coupled with a Block 5 upper stage. We should soon be seeing the end of the Block 4s and the non-recovery launches. According to the core catalog on Reddit, there are only two Block 4 cores left that haven't been expended or retired. One of them (core B1045, which is the final Block 4) was used on the TESS launch in April and will be used again on CRS-15 at the end of June. The second (core B1042) was used on Koreasat 5A in October 2017 and isn't yet scheduled for a future mission.

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Postby Kaiser » Thu Jun 07, 2018 1:25 pm

NASA has "big news" from Curiosity, coming at a press conference at 2ET today. There's plenty of streams available.

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Postby Viva la Ben » Thu Jun 07, 2018 1:37 pm

Fossilized plant life.

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Postby shafnutz05 » Thu Jun 07, 2018 1:43 pm

I am guessing that they have found further evidence of water being on the planet at some time, but still haven't actually found any.

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Postby Gaucho » Thu Jun 07, 2018 1:45 pm

We found asbestos!

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Postby shafnutz05 » Thu Jun 07, 2018 1:46 pm

We found asbestos!

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Postby Kaiser » Thu Jun 07, 2018 1:55 pm

I am guessing that they have found further evidence of water being on the planet at some time, but still haven't actually found any.
That's what I expect. They found something that might possibly be a sign of maybe at some point in time, Mars could have been able to host life, if the exact conditions have been met, which they can't be sure of.

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Postby Viva la Ben » Thu Jun 07, 2018 2:23 pm

Moar methane in the Martian atmosphere....space farts.

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Postby Shyster » Fri Jun 08, 2018 7:05 pm

The proposed acquisition of Orbital ATK by Northrop Grumman received final FTC approval and closed earlier this week. Orbital is now Northrop's fourth business division under the name "Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems." The funny thing is, NG already had a division called "Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems," which is the existing division of NG that constructs aircraft and satellites. I think there might be some renaming and realignment in the future.

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Postby Viva la Ben » Wed Jun 20, 2018 8:57 am

Japanese probe approaching unusual asteroid

Image

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread1209937/pg1

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Postby Viva la Ben » Wed Jun 20, 2018 9:01 am

Motivation behind the sudden announcement of Space Force?

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Postby Lemon Berry Lobster » Wed Jun 20, 2018 9:01 am

That's a sugar cube, duh.

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Postby Shyster » Wed Jun 27, 2018 6:03 pm

Here's a Reason article reporting on an interesting new paper that addresses the Drake equation. The Drake Equation is a formula that attempts to estimate the number of active, communicative extraterrestrial civilizations in the galaxy. The problem with the equation is that many of the elements are guesses at this point. The authors of a new paper have attempted to fill the numbers with "realistic distributions of uncertainty," and their conclusion is that advanced civilizations are rare to the point where we might not only be the only civilization in our galaxy, we might be the only civilization in the entire observable universe:
When we take account of realistic uncertainty, replacing point estimates by probability distributions that reflect current scientific understanding, we find no reason to be highly confident that the galaxy (or observable universe) contains other civilizations, and thus no longer find our observations in conflict with our prior probabilities. We found qualitatively similar results through two different methods: using the authors' assessments of current scientific knowledge bearing on key parameters, and using the divergent estimates of these parameters in the astrobiology literature as a proxy for current scientific uncertainty.

When we update this prior in light of the Fermi observation, we find a substantial probability that we are alone in our galaxy, and perhaps even in our observable universe (53%–99.6% and 39%–85% respectively). 'Where are they?' — probably extremely far away, and quite possibly beyond the cosmological horizon and forever unreachable.

Reason article on paper: https://reason.com/blog/2018/06/22/we-a ... e-universe
Link to paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1806.02404.pdf

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Postby Shyster » Fri Jun 29, 2018 10:26 pm

SpaceX went to space today, with the final launch of a Block 4 Falcon 9 on the CRS-15 cargo mission for NASA:



Interstellar Technologies Inc., which was trying to be the first private Japanese company to reach outer space, had a bad time and did not go to space today:


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Postby shafnutz05 » Fri Jun 29, 2018 10:53 pm

This sounds awful, but I would just assume that the Japanese would have their sht together and be able to get into space just as quickly as us. Obviously lower population, but still they have the reputation for being, well, smarter than us :lol:

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Postby Lemon Berry Lobster » Tue Jul 03, 2018 9:02 am

https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2018/07 ... -unveiled/
(CNN) — A planet-hunting instrument has captured the first confirmed image of a newborn planet that’s still forming in our galaxy.


To the right of the black circle at the center of the image, the round bright planet can be seen within the disk of gas and dust around the young dwarf star PDS 70. Of course, the center isn’t naturally this dark. Instead, the researchers used a coronagraph to block the bright light of the star in order to look at the disk and the planet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYCKQWE ... e=youtu.be

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Postby Kaiser » Wed Jul 04, 2018 10:38 pm

Complex organic molecules discovered on Enceladus

http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/missi ... bial-life/

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Postby Shyster » Mon Jul 09, 2018 8:03 pm

The Russian space agency has launched the Progress MS-09 cargo mission to the ISS. This mission is attempting to rendezvous with the ISS in just 2.5 orbits and four hours. This is the third attempt of this fast-track rendezvous profile. The two prior attempts both had launch scrubs that unfortunately ruined the attempts. This sort of fast-track approach requires an instantaneous launch window based on a precise alignment between the launch site and the ISS's ground track.



This is the 161st Progress mission since the program began in 1978 for resupply efforts to the Salyut 6 space station, and the 72nd Progress mission to the ISS. Just like no manned space vehicle has flown more than the Soyuz, no unmanned cargo vehicle has flown more than the Progress.

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Postby Shyster » Wed Jul 11, 2018 6:10 pm

Interesting. NASA and Northrop Grumman conducted a brief test to see if the Cygnus cargo vehicle could reboost the ISS. The station's orbit is fairly low, and it experiences a fair bit of atmospheric drag, which means that it needs periodic boosts to raise its orbit. The Shuttle used to be the main vehicle to do that, but with the Shuttle's retirement the Russian Progress cargo vehicles have been the only visiting vehicles that could do the job (the ISS has its own engines, but the fuel supply for those is limited). It would be very useful for the Cygnus to also be able to offer that capability.

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/07 ... ucted-iss/

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Postby Gaucho » Tue Jul 17, 2018 1:19 pm

Astronomers discover 12 new moons orbiting Jupiter - one on collision course with the others

https://www.theguardian.com/science/201 ... are_btn_tw

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Postby shafnutz05 » Tue Jul 17, 2018 1:26 pm

Astronomers discover 12 new moons orbiting Jupiter - one on collision course with the others

https://www.theguardian.com/science/201 ... are_btn_tw
Viewing Jupiter's four biggest moons (Io, Ganymede, Callisto, Europa) through a telescope for the first time was one of my fondest amateur astronomy memories.

Meanwhile, Mars is making its closest approach to Earth since 2003. It rises in the evening (10ish) and is visible all night in the southern sky. It will be the second brightest planet in the sky for some time, a position normally held by Jupiter. There are actually a lot of good planetary views right now--Venus, Mercury, and Jupiter are all visible right now--you can't miss Venus looking west at sunset.

I saw Mars before dawn this morning, it is absolutely striking how big it appears.

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