Shyster's thread of Spaaaace.

[tifosi77]

There is also the Mojave Air & Space Port in Kern Co. I think the poison pill in the proposal is that it would impede CA's ability to launch its own climate study satellites, which is currently a policy objective of Gov Brown.

[Shyster]

A new commercial space company—Rocket Lab—is attempting its first launch this week. The Rocket Lab Electron vehicle is a two-stage rocket designed to cover the market for small satellite launches such as cubesats and similar nanosatellites and microsatellites. It can lift roughly 150 kg to a low-Earth orbit such as a sun-synchronous orbit. The Electron is made from carbon fiber and stands 17 m tall with a diameter of 1.2 m. The Electron's design is very similar in philosophy to SpaceX's Falcon 9. The first stage uses a cluster of nine of Rocket Lab's kerolox-burning Rutherford rocket engines, and a tenth vacuum-optimized Rutherford is used on the upper stage. By way of comparison, the nine-engine cluster together provides about 1/4 of the thrust of a single SpaceX Merlin 1D. The Rutherford engine is unique in that its fuel and oxidizer pumps are powered by electric motors powered by a battery bank.

Rocket Lab is a U.S./New Zealand joint venture, and the launch site for the Electron is located on the tip of the Mahia Peninsula on the North Island of New Zealand. I would say it by far has the most epic scenery for any launch facility in the world:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl3L9tyStsg

[Shyster]

The first Rocket Lab Electron launch did not reach the intended orbit, but it went pretty well for the first launch of a new rocket from a new company. The flight went through staging, ignition of the second stage, and separation of the payload fairing. There was a significant roll starting moments after liftoff, and I don't think that was supposed to happen. The payload ended up well short of orbital velocity. Still, the flight did go much better than the first SpaceX launch. The first launch of the SpaceX Falcon 1 had an engine failure after about 30 seconds, and SpaceX didn't get to orbit until its fourth launch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vE2AnwJ2Qs

[Kaiser]

From Juno:

[Freddy Rumsen]

Beautiful

[Shyster]

SpaceX had a successful static fire for the CRS-11 cargo mission to the ISS, which is scheduled to launch on Thursday, June 1, at 17:55 EDT. For this launch, the Falcon 9 first stage is new, but the unmanned Dragon cargo vehicle is reused. CRS-11 is using Dragon capsule C106, which flew the CRS-4 mission in September/October 2014. SpaceX designed the Dragon from the outset to be reusable, but this is the first time one is being reflown. This will be the first vehicle to revisit the ISS since the final flight of Space Shuttle Atlantis back in 2011.

[Willie Kool]

NASA Plans To Launch A Probe Next Year To 'Touch The Sun'

It's worth noting that the probe will not literally touch the sun's surface — the closest it will get is about 3.9 million miles away.

But Congdon says that's actually very close. "If you think about a football field and the sun's sitting on one side and the Earth's sitting on the other, we're getting within the 5-yard line," she says. It's about seven times closer than any previous mission.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/ ... ch-the-sun

[shafnutz05]

I stepped outside last night, and just as I went out saw a really nice meteor streaking across the sky. That never gets old.

[Shyster]

SpaceX is counting down to the planned 17:55 launch of the CRS-11 cargo mission to the ISS. The launch window is instantaneous and there are a lot of storms in the area of Cape Canaveral. Those storms seem to be dissipating. It might be a last-minute decision as to whether conditions are acceptable for launch. At the moment everything seems to be "go" except for the weather.

[Shyster]

Launch scrubbed due to weather, including lighting strikes in the vicinity. The next launch attempt will be on Saturday.

[Shyster]

SpaceX's launch was scrubbed, but Arianespace had no problems with weather and is about 20 minutes into the dual launch of the ViaSat-2 and Eutelsat 172B communications satellites. ViaSat-2 was built by Boeing, and it will be used to provide broadband communications over North and Central America, the Caribbean, northern South America, as well as aeronautical and maritime routes in the Atlantic Ocean between North America and Europe. Eutelsat 172B was built by Airbus and will be positioned over the Pacific ocean to provide broadband communications coverage from Alaska to Australia. Among other services, it will also be used for in-flight and maritime connectivity.

[Silentom]

Mars in 4 Billion pixels, complete 360 degree view

[columbia]

Mars in 4 Billion pixels, complete 360 degree view

The night time views of the sky are amazing grace.

[Gaucho]

Gaze Upon Jupiter’s Enormity in This Amazing Fly-By Video

http://www.wired.com/2017/06/juno-jupit ... nsiteshare

[Kaiser]

I need a cigarette and a pregnancy test after that

[Shyster]

Good launch today for the SpaceX CRS-11 mission. The first stage landed back at LZ-1 at the Cape. Rendezvous of the Dragon with the ISS is on June 5. In the mean time the Cygnus spacecraft that has been docked at the ISS for the last month or so will undock on Sunday. It's been filled with trash for disposal when the Cygnus burns up on reentry.

Next launch for SpaceX is the BulgariaSat 1 communications sat for Bulgarian telecom provider Bulsatcom, which scheduled for June 15 from LC-39A at KSC. BulgariaSat 1 will provide satellite-television and data-communications services over eastern Europe. The satellite was built by Space Systems Loral, which is located in tifosi's neck of the woods in Palo Alto, CA. It will be the second launch using an already-flown first stage; the core first flew back in January 14 on the Iridium NEXT launch from Vandenberg AFB in California.

[Shyster]

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) earlier today conducted a successful launch of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III (GSLV Mk.III). While parts of the GSLV Mk.III have flown before in prior tests, this was the first "all up" launch.

I've groused before that ISRO has the most boring names in rocketry, and this is no exception. The "Mk.III" name makes it seem like a mere evolution of the GSLV Mk.II, but it's practically an all-new rocket. The existing three-stage GSLV Mk.II uses a solid first stage supplemented by four hydrazine-burning strap-on boosters, each with a Vikas engine (the Vikas is a licensed version of the Viking engine used on the Ariane 1–4 rockets), a second stage with a single Vikas, and a third stage with a single Indian-built CE-7.5 hydrolox engine. The two/three-stage GSLV Mk.III reverses the recipe and uses a liquid first stage with two Vikas engines supplemented by two large solid boosters and a second stage powered by the new Indian-built CE-20 hydrolox engine, which is much more powerful than the CE-7.5. In appearance and in flight the GSLV Mk.III is similar to many versions of the U.S. Titan III and IV families. Like the Titans, the GSLV Mk.III ignites only the solid boosters at launch. The pair of Vikas engines (like the pairs of LR87 engines on the Titan III and IV) are lit in the air shortly before booster burnout. The GSLV Mk.III is capable of lifting 8,000 kg to LEO or 4,000 kg to GTO, which puts it on par with the Atlas V 401 (the version with no supplemental SRBs) in terms of lift capacity. ISRO hopes to eventually use the GSLV Mk.III to launch manned missions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhqOQObM3fA

[count2infinity]

https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/gra ... /overview/

Sucks that cassini has to die, but the way they're killing it is actually pretty neat. Making it plunge into Saturn to protect Enceladus and Titan from any sort of contamination. The other really cool part: one of the components of cassini was made with my company's coating on it.

[Shyster]

Due to the two-day delay for CRS-11, the Bulgariasat SpaceX launch has been moved two days to the right and is now NET June 17.

In other SpaceX news, during a Congressional hearing yesterday Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson mentioned that the next launch of the Air Force's classified X-37B unmanned shuttle will be aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 some time in August. The four prior X-37B missions were all taken to space by a United Launch Alliance Atlas V. This will be SpaceX's first mission for the Air Force.

[Shyster]

The Russian Proton rocket finally returned to flight today after a one-year hiatus and successfully launched the EchoStar-21 communications satellite for EchoStar. EchoStar-21 will be used to provide mobile-satellite services across Europe.

Proton was supposed to have been retired before now, and its continued use is actually a demonstration of just how slowly the Russian space program is moving on development. Way back in 1992 Russian space agency Roscosmos decided to develop a new launch vehicle, named Angara, to replace vehicles such as the Proton, Dnepr, Tsyklon, and Rokot with a new unified launch system. The idea was that Angara would use a "Universal Rocket Module" (URM) as both a first stage and strap-on booster. The lightest version would fly with the URM alone as a first stage, a medium version would use three URMs (core + two strap-on boosters), and a heavy version would use 5 URMs (core + four strap-on boosters). Upper stages would be shared across versions. It's the same way SpaceX is making the Falcon Heavy by using two more first-stage cores as strap-on boosters and ULA makes the Delta IV heavy by strapping on two more Delta IV cores as boosters. The URM engine is the RD-191, which is a variant of the well-tested RD-170 family. Those kerolox engines are much more environmentally friendly than the seriously toxic hypergolic fuels used on rockets like the Proton and Rockot.

Despite being in development for more than 20 years, the Angara has only ever flown twice on test flights (both back in 2014), and it's not expected to go into full service until the 2020s. To put that in perspective, the Angara has been in development more than twice as long as SpaceX has been launching rockets.

[Shyster]

It's the 60th anniversary of the Atlas rocket, and Scott Manley has a wonderful video detailing the history of the Atlas series of rockets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeGmIeu0xvI

[Shyster]

Yesterday's launch of an uncrewed Progress spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan was successful, and it's now well on its way to the ISS. Unfortunately, the launch resulted in a tragedy. Unlike launches from Cape Canaveral or Vandenberg, where spent stages always fall into the ocean, spent stages for Baikonur launches fall back on the Kazakhstan steppes. One of the spent boosters from the Soyuz 2.1a rocket triggered a grass fire when it crashed back to Earth. Firefighters were dispatched to put out the blaze, but reports say they encountered sudden high winds and their truck was engulfed by the fire before they could get away. One firefighter has died and a second firefighter has been hospitalized with burns.

[Kaiser]

Too much oxidizer, not enough gypsy tears.

[eddy]

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... tter-Share

Elon Musk Publishes Plans for Colonizing Mars

[Silentom]

Future sight of the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards?