Fifth Avenue Forum

Successful launch today for SpaceX. They launched the Taiwanese FORMOSAT-5 Earth-observation satellite into north/south heliosynchronous orbit from Vandenberg AFB. The first stage landed successfully on the "Just Read The Instructions" west-coast ASDS. It's not clear why a droneship landing was necessary. FORMOSAT-5 only masses 475 kilograms, which is feathery light in terms of the Falcon 9 FT's lift abilities. In fact, I'd be surprised if the Falcon 9's engines were running at full throttle at any point after liftoff. The lightness of the payload is also shown by the fact that the second stage made it to orbit and shut down more than a minute before the first stage came back down for the landing. So the first stage could easily have done a boostback burn to come back for an on-shore landing at Vandenberg. Either SpaceX isn't done constructing the landing facilities back at Vandenberg, or they haven't yet received the permits and approvals for west-coast landings.

Launch video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NCCIKw_FFc

Here's an article from Wired explaining why such a small satellite is being launched alone on such a powerful rocket:

https://www.wired.com/story/spacex-will ... ite-launch

Orbital ATK is preparing tonight's scheduled launch of a Minotaur IV rocket carrying the ORS-5 satellite for the Air Force. The ORS-5 spacecraft will be used for "space situational awareness": monitoring other satellites in orbit. The rocket will also be carrying several small cubesats. The launch is scheduled for a four-hour window that opens at 23:15 EDT, so it could go into the early hours of the morning. The launch is from Launch Complex 46 at CCAFS in Florida. Weather forecast is currently at 60% chance of "go," and there don't seem to be any problems.

The Minotaur IV is an all-solid rocket that is partially constructed from retired Peacekeeper ICBM stages. Surprisingly, if the launch is successful this would be the first orbital launch of an all-solid rocket from Cape Canaveral. The only previous orbital launch attempt from the Cape Canaveral to use a ground-launched all-solid rocket was way back in 1961, and that Blue Scout II rocket failed to reach orbit.

This is the first launch from LC-46 in 18 years. That complex was constructed back in the '80s as a test site for Trident II submarine ballistic missiles. In the 1990s it was leased to Space Florida, which is the aerospace economic-development agency of the State of Florida, as part of an effort to establish commercial launches at Cape Canaveral. Orbital is leasing LC-46 from Space Florida. Space Florida also controls LC-36 at CCAFS, which it has leased to Blue Origin for future launches of the New Glenn rocket.

Here's Orbital's webpage for this launch. If anyone wants to watch, there should be a video stream starting around 11 p.m. eastern.

https://www.orbitalatk.com/news-room/fe ... fault.aspx

A failure for the Indian PSLV launch vehicle today. The launch was carrying the IRNSS 1H navigation satellite, which was supposed to be the eighth spacecraft in the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (India's regional GPS system). The payload fairing never separated, which resulted in an underspeed and lower orbit for the launch as well as the payload trapped uselessly inside the fairing. It will eventually decay from orbit and burn up, most likely in a matter of days to weeks.

The PSLV is the workhorse of India’s space program and prior to today had a record of 38 successful missions out of 40 launches. It's a four-stage rocket using an alternating combination of solid and liquid-fuelled stages. The two previous failures came early on the program; the last 36 launches—spanning nearly 20 years—were all successful.

From a dwarf galaxy 3 BILLION light years away.
https://twitter.com/gizmodo/status/903281292367814656

I'd say about 99% of the time they find out the signals were actually just from a microwave or something equally stupid instead of deep space.

I'd say about 99% of the time they find out the signals were actually just from a microwave or something equally stupid instead of deep space.

Wow. From the only PhD scientist on the board, this is very disappointing. Maybe you should stick to your test tubes.

Unless its some decode-able message from aliens, its about as useful, seeing how any response from us will arrive at least 6 billion years after the source.

"send noods"

The value is the quality and range of data collected.

Bursts from this source have never been seen at such high frequencies, explained Andrew Siemion, director of the Berkeley SETI Research Center and Breakthrough Listen, the highest of which reached 7 GHz. The Berkeley researchers say the high resolution data that they acquired will now enable scientists to measure the properties of FRBs at higher levels of precision than ever before. Over 400 terabytes of data was pulled in over a five hour period, as the researchers scanned the 4 to 8 GHz frequency band. The analysis by Siemion and Breakthrough Listen postdoctoral researcher Vishal Gajjar revealed the 15 new pulses.

“The extraordinary capabilities of the backend receiver, which is able to record several gigahertz of bandwidth at a time, split into billions of individual channels, enable a new view of the frequency spectrum of FRBs, and should shed additional light on the processes giving rise to FRB emission.” Gajjar said.

We don't know what gives rise to FRB's, and this will likely help.

PM ME YOUR TITS

Diamond rains sounds like it's straight out of some Ballard story.

PM ME YOUR TITS

done

looool

For the record, I find these things interesting and they should be investigated, but I'm not spending my evenings reading all the literature about these signals. meowshrug.txt

There was a post-main-engine-ignition launch abort today for the Ariane 5, which was slated to carry the Intelsat 37e and BSAT-4a communications satellites to orbit. Initial reports point to problems with the Vulcain main engine. Ariane 5 has a seven-second delay between Vulcain ignition and the ignition of the solid-rocket, during which sensors make sure the Vulcain is operating properly. Even if the engine ends up checking out, the vehicle is still going to need to be rolled back into the assembly building to reconnect the umbilical arms and connectors and replace the igniters on the Vulcain engine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAiNx3eHU54

Another successful launch/landing for SpaceX today. They managed to get the Falcon 9 carrying the OTV-5 mission off the ground before the impending weather from Irma shuts down the space coast. SpaceX will need to work quickly to secure the landed first stage and get it under cover before Hurricane Irma hits Florida.

The OTV-5 mission is the fifth launch of one of the Air Force's X-37B spaceplanes and the first launch for the X-37B on the Falcon 9 (the four prior launches used an Atlas V). X-37B missions are all classified, so the launch stream focused solely on the first stage after stage separation. Interestingly, the Air Force revealed that at least part of this X-37B mission will be orbital testing of
Hall Effect ion thrusters. Normally it's "None of your business" when it comes to what exactly the X-37B is doing. Of course, the fact that this mission will be doing thruster testing doesn't mean that it's not also going to be testing other stuff like surveillance equipment, orbital death lasers, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD7meE2ExeI&t=0s

Feel like scrolling through the Solar System scaled to the size of a pixel?

http://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pix ... ystem.html

New crew headed to the ISS today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eqsq3nKhe5M

This Soyuz mission is using a "fast track" series of orbital maneuvers, which means that it will rendezvous with the ISS in approximately six hours from the time of launch. The traditional maneuver sequence took more than a day.

SpaceX just released a compilation video of never-before-seen clips from various failed landing attempts and other mishaps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvim4rsNHkQ

Stuff like this video is why I like SpaceX so much. Not many other companies would release a "best of" video of their own failures and mistakes.

I love the slow motion tip overs with giant explosions at the end, reminds me of CHiPs

Guy Boucher will be on at 12:30 ET tonight to update his mars plan for SpaceX, streaming on youtube.

For reddit users: r/astrophotography has some great pictures.