Octopus Overlords

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 27, 2022 6:16 pm From my post back on September 6th. Italics added.

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 06, 2022 10:24 pm Anyway, what this does mean to me at least is that some bright person will suggest that if you are going to flow LH2 and may have to flow LOX, why don't you do another Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR)? It would be good to make sure that everything is working OK and makes sure that the bleed issue has been addressed.

And then some really bright person will suggest that maybe someone can lean on the range safety folks and get the waiver that extended the period for the Flight Termination System (FTS) extended some more. Like enough to change that proposed next Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR) into another launch attempt.

So if the tanking test done on 9/21 had been a launch attempt, we would be orbiting the moon right now instead of sitting in the VAB and looking at a late October/early November launch. Just saying

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Wed Sep 28, 2022 5:45 pm And they still couldn't prevent a touchdown.

NASA and SpaceX signed an unfunded Space Act Agreement Thursday, Sept. 22, to study the feasibility of a SpaceX and Polaris Program idea to boost the agency’s Hubble Space Telescope into a higher orbit with the Dragon spacecraft, at no cost to the government.

There are no plans for NASA to conduct or fund a servicing mission or compete this opportunity; the study is designed to help the agency understand the commercial possibilities.

SpaceX – in partnership with the Polaris Program – proposed this study to better understand the technical challenges associated with servicing missions. This study is non-exclusive, and other companies may propose similar studies with different rockets or spacecraft as their model.

Teams expect the study to take up to six months, collecting technical data from both Hubble and the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. This data will help determine whether it would be possible to safely rendezvous, dock, and move the telescope into a more stable orbit.

Teams at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida conducted initial inspections Friday to assess potential impacts from Hurricane Ian. There was no damage to Artemis flight hardware, and facilities are in good shape with only minor water intrusion identified in a few locations. Next, engineers will extend access platforms around the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft inside the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) to prepare for additional inspections and start preparation for the next launch attempt, including retesting the flight termination system.

As teams complete post-storm recovery operations, NASA has determined it will focus Artemis I launch planning efforts on the launch period that opens Nov. 12 and closes Nov. 27. Over the coming days, managers will assess the scope of work to perform while in the VAB and identify a specific date for the next launch attempt. Focusing efforts on the November launch period allows time for employees at Kennedy to address the needs of their families and homes after the storm and for teams to identify additional checkouts needed before returning to the pad for launch.

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Thu Sep 29, 2022 5:04 pm Interesting. I wonder if there will be any servicing of Hubble? Probably not, you'd need a space shuttle for that

Zaxxon wrote: ↑Sat Oct 01, 2022 12:37 am Specifically, they're looking into whether they could replace the expired gyros.

SpaceX's Crew-5 astronaut mission is still on target to launch Wednesday (Oct. 5), though there are a few caveats.

NASA and SpaceX teams held a launch readiness review (LRR) today for Crew-5, which is scheduled to lift off from Pad 39A at Florida's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on Wednesday at noon EDT (1600 GMT).

That remains the plan, for today's review identified no serious issues with Crew-5's Falcon 9 rocket, Dragon capsule or any other aspect of the mission. Teams are still working on three open issues, but both SpaceX and NASA expressed confidence that all of them will be cleared up relatively quickly.

Here are some statistics on today's launch:
• 178th launch of a Falcon 9 rocket since 2010
• 186th launch of Falcon rocket family since 2006
• 1st launch of Falcon 9 booster B1077
• 153rd Falcon 9 launch from Florida's Space Coast
• 149th launch overall from pad 39A
• 55th SpaceX launch overall from pad 39A
• 9th orbital launch of a Crew Dragon spacecraft
• 2nd flight of Crew Dragon Endurance (Dragon C210)
• 8th Falcon 9/Crew Dragon flight with humans on-board
• 44th Falcon 9 launch of 2022
• 44th orbital launch by SpaceX in 2022
• 43rd orbital launch based out of Cape Canaveral in 2022

When Dmitry Rogozin left the Russian space agency Roscosmos this summer, he apparently took his famous bluster with him.

Rogozin headed Roscomos from 2018 until July 15 of this year, when he was replaced by Yuri Borisov. Rogozin's tenure was a controversial one, marked by a variety of combative statements and stunts that ramped up after Russia invaded Ukraine this past February.

For example, Rogozin threatened to pull out of the International Space Station (ISS) partnership unless the West dropped invasion-related economic sanctions against Russia. And in July, Roscosmos published photos of cosmonauts on the ISS holding up the flags of Ukrainian regions under occupation by Russian forces. This display drew criticism from both NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), who decried it as an inappropriate politicization of the orbiting lab.

Borisov, who served as deputy prime minister of Russia before taking the reins at Roscosmos, has taken a more measured approach.

Borisov has reiterated Russia's desire to leave the ISS program, but he has stressed that this will happen "after 2024" as part of a highly regulated process. And the Roscosmos chief has said that an exit is unlikely before 2028, the earliest possible year that Russia's planned Earth-orbiting space station could get up running.

Former cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, Roscosmos' executive director of human spaceflight programs, has also emphasized the importance of cooperation between the Russian space agency and its American counterpart.

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 11, 2022 3:17 pmWe can go on about this being a watershed moment, but considering how many years it took to plan and execute, I'd still be more comfortable with a better long term plan. But then there are so many other things that will kill us off first

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 11, 2022 3:17 pm Well, at least he got one of the names right, not bad for a politician

We can go on about this being a watershed moment, but considering how many years it took to plan and execute, I'd still be more comfortable with a better long term plan. But then there are so many other things that will kill us off first

Jeff V wrote: ↑Wed Oct 12, 2022 10:57 am

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 11, 2022 3:17 pm Well, at least he got one of the names right, not bad for a politician

We can go on about this being a watershed moment, but considering how many years it took to plan and execute, I'd still be more comfortable with a better long term plan. But then there are so many other things that will kill us off first

The thought is with advances in tracking and predicting which objects might be a threat (none are currently thought to be), we would have decades -- perhaps centuries, to fine tune a plan. A substantial deviation in orbit far in advance could very well eliminate a threat.

NASA is targeting the next launch attempt of the Artemis I mission for Monday, Nov. 14 with liftoff of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket carrying the Orion spacecraft planned during a 69-minute launch window that opens at 12:07 a.m. EST. Artemis I is an uncrewed flight test to launch SLS and send Orion around the Moon and back to Earth to thoroughly test its system before flights with astronauts.

Inspections and analyses over the previous week have confirmed minimal work is required to prepare the rocket and spacecraft to roll out to Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida following the roll-back due to Hurricane Ian. Teams will perform standard maintenance to repair minor damage to the foam and cork on the thermal protection system and recharge or replace batteries on the rocket, several secondary payloads, and the flight termination system. The agency plans to roll the rocket back to the launch pad as early as Friday, Nov. 4.

NASA has requested back-up launch opportunities for Wednesday, Nov. 16, at 1:04 a.m. and Saturday, Nov. 19, at 1:45 a.m., which are both two-hour launch windows. A launch on Nov. 14 would result in a mission duration of about 25-and-a-half days with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean Friday, Dec. 9.

A fully stacked Starship is still set to conduct the next round of tests for its fully reusable launch system ahead of its debut orbital launch attempt as soon as later this year. This is despite a surprise destack of Ship 24 on Sunday, although this does not preclude restacking ahead of the next phase of testing during the coming week.

The new test campaign begins as Starship itself gains another announced crew flight to the Moon, this time for 10 paying passengers on a lunar free return trajectory excursion.

Per the currently understood plan, SpaceX will first attempt to static fire a subset of the engines on Booster 7 before proceeding incrementally up from there to ultimately firing all 33 engines at the same time.

If the full stack cryogenic test goes well this coming week, a static fire could follow as soon as a few days thereafter.

The ultimate plan of firing all 33 engines will help verify computational fluid dynamics calculations of what the exhaust environment will be like, what it will do, and where it will go.

The tests will also validate the modeling of the acoustic environment all 33 Raptor 2 engines will unleash and how well the sound suppression system, now installed at the OLM, will be in deadening enough of the sound to allow for safe operations of the system.

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 11, 2022 3:17 pm Well, at least he got one of the names right, not bad for a politician

We can go on about this being a watershed moment, but considering how many years it took to plan and execute, I'd still be more comfortable with a better long term plan. But then there are so many other things that will kill us off first

raydude wrote: ↑Mon Oct 17, 2022 10:04 am

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 11, 2022 3:17 pm Well, at least he got one of the names right, not bad for a politician

We can go on about this being a watershed moment, but considering how many years it took to plan and execute, I'd still be more comfortable with a better long term plan. But then there are so many other things that will kill us off first

You realize many factors went into increasing the planning time, right? We had to find a binary asteroid system, develop the autonomy guidance software, prove to NASA that the advanced ion propulsion system was worth testing out, and coordinate with other space agencies to get other spacecraft to take pictures of the impact. In fact, ESA was supposed to try and get a spacecraft out in time for the DART impact as part of the Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA) collaboration. Instead, ESA's Hera spacecraft is getting there 3 years later and we signed on the Italian Space Agency to provide LICIACube.

If we have to do this for real we'll be doing it with technologies we already developed on DART, don't need a ride-along, don't need another collaboration, and don't need to predict whether or not the impact will move the asteroid trajectory to a collision course with Earth because the trajectory will already be on a collision course.

Mapped: The World’s Rocket Launch Sites

From Sputnik 1 to today’s massive satellite constellations, every object in space was launched from just a handful of locations.

The map above, from BryceTech, is a comprehensive look at the world’s spaceports (both orbital and sub-orbital) as well as ballistic missile test sites.

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Tue Oct 18, 2022 6:31 pm How big are that dude’s hands?