Shyster's thread of Spaaaace.

Post by **shafnutz05** » Fri May 10, 2024 7:09 am

We are experiencing the strongest geomagnetic storm in decades, with a pretty decent chance of seeing the Northern Lights in PA tonight. Thanks clouds.

Don't be surprised if you have sudden network issues this afternoon.

Post by **Kaiser** » Sat Jun 01, 2024 12:08 pm

Boeing Starliner launch in about 15 mins

Post by **Kaiser** » Sat Jun 01, 2024 12:33 pm

Kaiser wrote: ↑Sat Jun 01, 2024 12:08 pm Boeing Starliner launch in about 15 mins

edit: or not
Scrubbed

Post by **Shyster** » Tue Jun 04, 2024 4:39 pm

Next Starliner CFT attempt tomorrow; Starship IFT-4 on Thursday.

The Starliner scrub was caused by one of the three redundant ground-launch-sequencer computers. The problem was traced to a bad power supply for the third computer, which has been replaced.

Post by **Kaiser** » Tue Jun 04, 2024 5:03 pm

They've also added bringing a toilet pump to the ISS, which has been storing waste water for a few days. If the Starliner had gone up on schedule, they'd be in deep ****.

Post by **Shyster** » Wed Jun 05, 2024 12:14 pm

Looks like a nominal launch for Starliner, with a successful insertion burn, and the first burn to intercept the ISS was also successful. The next round of maneuvering won't be for something like 20 hours.

Post by **tifosi77** » Wed Jun 05, 2024 3:46 pm

Watched until BECO and had to bounce for work. Space is great.

Post by **Shyster** » Thu Jun 06, 2024 8:40 am

Inside 10 minutes.

Post by **Shyster** » Thu Jun 06, 2024 8:59 am

Looked like a pretty successful soft booster splashdown for Super Heavy. Nominal orbital insertion for Ship.

Post by **Shyster** » Thu Jun 06, 2024 9:18 am

Post by **Shyster** » Thu Jun 06, 2024 9:50 am

Whelp, they know they need more heat shielding at that flap joint.

Still have telemetry, and even though the flap has melted, it seems like the vehicle is still stable.

Post by **Shyster** » Thu Jun 06, 2024 9:51 am

It looks like at least some of the flap is still there. Camera died, but telemetry still coming.

Post by **Shyster** » Thu Jun 06, 2024 9:54 am

Holy crap that flap is still moving!!

Post by **Shyster** » Thu Jun 06, 2024 9:57 am

Landing burn! Ship is in the water!

Post by **Shyster** » Thu Jun 06, 2024 10:00 am

The team that designed the joint on that flap not only deserves a raise, they all deserve an all-expenses-paid vacation. That was amazing.

Post by **Shyster** » Thu Jun 06, 2024 10:05 am

Post by **Shyster** » Thu Jun 06, 2024 10:07 am

Post by **tifosi77** » Thu Jun 06, 2024 1:25 pm

"....they all deserve an all-expenses-paid vacation...." that Musk would fire them for taking.

Post by **RonnieFranchise** » Fri Jun 07, 2024 10:44 pm

Saw tonight’s SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket go over in Emerald Isle. Booster dropped out over the ocean. Took a while to figure out what was going on. Not much for space stuff but that was super cool to see.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2024/06/07/l ... canaveral/

Post by **Shyster** » Sat Jun 08, 2024 1:09 pm

Looks like SpaceX had an aircraft and I think also a remote buoy to film the Super Heavy splashdown. That it came down near the camera likely indicates that it landed at least pretty close to where it was supposed to.

Post by **Shyster** » Sun Jun 16, 2024 9:08 pm

SpaceX has started construction on a second Starship pad and tower in Texas. Most of the sections for the tower have already been constructed in Florida and shipped to Texas by barge, so once the base here is all set and cured, the rest of the tower should go up pretty quickly.

Elon has said that IFT-5 will include an attempt to catch the Super Heavy booster on the "chopstick" arms that are mounted on the Starship's launch tower. That fifth test will probably wait until this new second tower is complete and operational, with Pad 1 used for the launch and the new Pad 2 used for the catch attempt. Pad 2 will be just the tower and launch mount and won't (at least yet) have the tank farm and other fueling infrastructure around it, so if the landing attempt doesn't work out and goes all explody, there would be much less stuff to fix / replace than at Pad 1. I would expect a "launch at Pad 1 and catch at Pad 2" pattern to continue until SpaceX is very sure they have the landings down pat.

Post by **Shyster** » Tue Jun 25, 2024 2:04 am

There may be an attempt late Tuesday afternoon to launch NASA's latest GOES weather satellite, which would be the first Falcon Heavy launch of the year. Liftoff is scheduled for 5:16 p.m. EDT, but the latest weather forecast is only 30% favorable for "go" conditions at the time of launch (lots of thunderstorms in Florida in the summer). The side boosters will conduct RTLS landings, while the center core will be expended. SpaceX hasn't tried to recover a FH core since 2019. The next FH launch after this one will be the NASA "Europa Clipper" mission in October, for which all cores will be expended.

Post by **Shyster** » Wed Jun 26, 2024 9:21 pm

ELON MUSK IS GOING TO DESTROY THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION!

Literally. NASA has been soliciting a contract for a contractor to develop and launch a "tugboat" vehicle that, once the ISS reaches its end of life around 2030, will dock to the ISS, provide the requisite delta-v to deorbit the station, and then guide the ISS to a controlled destruction into the South Pacific. NASA announced today that SpaceX has been awarded that contract. No details on the vehicle design, but the expectation is that it will probably be based on Dragon. NASA has specified that the vehicle can only produce a fairly low amount of thrust becuase it's worried about snapping the station's trusses. Starship would certainly be capable of the deborbit, but the thrust of even one Raptor would likely rip the ISS apart.

Post by **Shyster** » Mon Jul 01, 2024 6:56 am

This is a bonkers story. Tianlong-3 is a rocket being developed by one of the new "private"* Chinese space companies, called Space Pioneer. Space Pioneer has already reached space with its smaller Tianlong-2 rocket. Tianlong-3 looks a heck of a lot like a Falcon 9, with nine first-stage kerolox engines, a single vacuum-optimized version of that engine on the second stage, and a plan for the first stage to land propulsively for recovery. The company was conducting a static-fire test of the first stage, and it broke free of the launch mount and actually launched (not very far, but it launched). Then things got explody.

* I put this in quotes because if you trace the money back for any of these companies, you eventually end up with the Chinese government or Chinese military. They might be "private" companies in that the people running them aren't official government bureaucrats or Peoples Liberation Army officers, but the money is coming from the chicom government.

Post by **Shyster** » Thu Jul 04, 2024 12:29 am

Space Pioneer apparently had a drone in the air to record their static test, and it recorded more than they expected. It looks like it wasn't a failure of the clamps that were holding the vehicle down, but rather a failure of the structure of the vehicle itself where it connected to four v-shaped hooks that were holding the vehicle down. Those also seem to be the mounting locations for where the future landing legs would attach. Seems like either a bad design or bad metallurgy/construction for the parts.

Whatever happened, it looks like it imparted a roll to the vehicle as it lifted off, and that might have stabilized it enough that it kept flying upwards rather than veering off and heading towards populated areas, which from the videos aren't too far away. Very lucky.