That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons bring us some web forums whereupon we can gather
https://octopusoverlords.com/forum/
I like to think that with today's technology, we're able to put many more sensors in more places on a rocket - especially in areas that could cause catastrophic failure. So even if we as the outside observer see something that just works, the actual engineers going over the sensor data will find stuff that could lead to catastrophic failure (and therefore fix it) or see something that requires additional monitoring and therefore additional sensors or testing.
Very true. Unlike most other vehicles, you don't recover much of new rockets. And even if you do recover the parts, you need to know what happened during the flight, not just what you can see afterwards. On the Space Shuttle Columbia there was a lot of DFI, Developmental Flight Instrumentation, that wasn't on the other ships, so for the first flights it was possible to see a lot of what happened to all the bits and pieces.
The first crewed flight of Boeing's Starliner astronaut taxi has been pushed back several additional months, with liftoff now targeted for July 21 at the earliest.
Last month, Boeing and NASA said that Starliner's astronaut debut, a mission to the International Space Station (ISS) called Crew Flight Test (CFT), was on track to launch in April.
That timeline was pushed back a bit last week, when NASA officials said that CFT will lift off after Ax-2, a private flight to the orbiting lab operated by Houston company Axiom Space that's tentatively targeted for early May.
But a spring liftoff for CFT is now off the table, agency officials announced today (March 29).
"We've deliberated and decided that the best launch attempt is no earlier than July 21 for CFT," Steve Stich, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, said during a press conference today.
To me astronauts were the folks we reluctantly let fly our Space Shuttles and hoped they didn't break anything
I think this, however, is the more likely situation:Scientists have explained what would happen if an asteroid was on a collision course with Earth to emphasize the need for planetary defense. The hypothetical asteroid scenario illustrates how an asteroid threat might evolve over several years and the potential devastation such a strike could cause.
The team led by the manager of NASA's Near Earth Object (NEO) Program Office Paul Chodas presented the exercise at the 8th Planetary Defence Conference in Vienna, Austria on Monday, April 4.
The hypothetical situation laid out by Chodas begins on January 10, 2023, with the discovery of a new asteroid that receives the name 2023 PDC. The object is initially designated a "potentially hazardous asteroid" (PHA), which NASA defines as any asteroid that intersects Earth's orbit at a distance from the planet of around 4.6 million miles (7.4 million kilometers) or less and that has a magnitude of 22.0 when discovered, which is only a little brighter than the faintest stars visible to the Hubble Space Telescope.
Ship 24 and Booster 7 – now returned to a full-stack stance – are waiting to attempt their historic test flight. While a launch date remains fluid, hopes remain high that the vehicle could rise out of Starbase in the second half of April.
Numerous prelaunch objectives have already been achieved before the approval of a launch license from the FAA, with final processing flow items lined up ahead of the launch attempt.
Direct link to the viewerIf you're the kind of person who can spend hours upon hours clicking around Google Earth, there's a new toy for you. NASA has just released the most detailed 3D map of Mars ever made.
Created by the Bruce Murray Laboratory for Planetary Visualization at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, the interactive Global CTX Mosaic of Mars map is a mosaic created from images taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter — more specifically, its black-and-white Context Camera.
The team developed the map over a period of six years, stitching together some 110,000 Mars images. Most of the images were organized using a computer algorithm, but 13,000 were added to the map manually by researchers.
On April 20, parts of the Pacific and Indian Ocean regions will experience a rare type of event called a hybrid solar eclipse.
Hybrid solar eclipses shift from total to annular as the moon's shadow races over Earth; in some places, the moon completely blots out the sun, whereas in others a ring of light is visible around the edge of our natural satellite. These eclipses are quite rare, occurring just a few times every century — and one will grace our planet's skies less than two weeks from now.
While not observable from the U.S., the hybrid eclipse will be visible from western Australia, East Timor, and eastern Indonesia beginning at 21:36 EDT on April 19 (0136 GMT on April 20) and ending at 2:59 a.m. EDT (0659 GMT) on the following day, according to In the Sky. (It will be April 20 in those regions where the eclipse is visible.)
SpaceX has shared some amazing photos of its giant Starship vehicle stacked for launch at the company's Starbase facility in South Texas.
The coming liftoff is a big one — the first-ever orbital test flight of a Starship vehicle.
"Starship fully stacked at Starbase. The team is working towards a launch rehearsal next week followed by Starship's first integrated flight test ~week later pending regulatory approval," SpaceX said via Twitter on Thursday (opens in new tab) (April 6), where it shared three images of the huge stainless-steel rocket.
Note that at T-0,The first integrated flight test of Starship is trending towards the third week of April, pending regulatory approval.
This will be the first flight test of a fully integrated Starship and Super Heavy rocket, a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, help humanity return to the Moon, and travel to Mars and beyond. With a test such as this, success is measured by how much we can learn, which will inform and improve the probability of success in the future as SpaceX rapidly advances development of Starship.
To date, the SpaceX team has completed multiple sub-orbital flight tests of Starship’s upper stage from Starbase, successfully demonstrating an unprecedented approach to controlled flight. These flight tests helped validate the vehicle’s design, proving Starship can fly through the subsonic phase of entry before re-lighting its engines and flipping itself to a vertical configuration for landing.
In addition to the testing of Starship’s upper stage, the team has conducted numerous tests of the Super Heavy rocket, which include the increasingly complex static fires that led to a full-duration 31 Raptor engine test – the largest number of simultaneous rocket engine ignitions in history. The team has also constructed the world’s tallest rocket launch and catch tower. At 146 meters, or nearly 500 feet tall, the launch and catch tower is designed to support vehicle integration, launch, and catch of the Super Heavy rocket booster. For the first flight test, the team will not attempt a vertical landing of Starship or a catch of the Super Heavy booster.
A live webcast of the flight test will begin ~45 minutes before liftoff. As is the case with all developmental testing, this schedule is dynamic and likely to change, so be sure to stay tuned to our social media channels for updates.
As we venture into new territory, we continue to appreciate all of the support and encouragement we have received from those who share our vision of a future where humanity is out exploring among the stars!
00:00:00 Excitement Guaranteed
See the diagram above, but yes both parts will be doing a water landing. I don't know if they will try for a controlled descent but I would think that likely.
That's the scuttlebutt I've heard. They're likely to treat it as though it was a landing so that they can get as much useful data as possible. If all goes well, they'll have much more confidence next time that they can try for an actual landing with minimal (acceptable?) risk of a RUD on their shiny new launch pad.
Thanks for the answers, I've been pretty pumped about this stuff. I watch the launches when I can, but I'm a teacher so don't have a lot of free time during the day...I find space and all things related to be absolutely fascinating. If I wasn't allergic to math I would have LOVED to be an astronomer or scientist.Zaxxon wrote: ↑Wed Apr 12, 2023 1:24 pmThat's the scuttlebutt I've heard. They're likely to treat it as though it was a landing so that they can get as much useful data as possible. If all goes well, they'll have much more confidence next time that they can try for an actual landing with minimal (acceptable?) risk of a RUD on their shiny new launch pad.
Eight years is a long time when you're 66...well, one more reason to keep hanging on.The European Space Agency (Esa) is set to launch a satellite to the planet Jupiter, one of the organisation's most ambitious missions ever.
The satellite will leave Earth on Thursday on an eight-year journey to reach the giant planet's major moons.
There's good evidence that these icy worlds - Callisto, Europa and Ganymede - hold oceans of liquid water at depth.
The Esa mission aims to establish whether the moons might also have the conditions needed to sustain life.
Sounds like they'll sidestep the closed-ecosystem aspect that brought down the Biosphere 2 experiment.Starting this June, four volunteers will spend a year pretending to live on the red planet inside the Mars Dune Alpha habitat
Charlie Scudder in Houston, Texas
Wed 12 Apr 2023 03.30 EDT
Last modified on Wed 12 Apr 2023 16.31 EDT
Red sand shifts under the boots of the crew members. In the distance, it appears that a rocky mountain range is rising out of the Martian horizon. A thin layer of red dust coats the solar panels and equipment necessary for the year-long mission.
This landscape isn’t actually 145m miles away. We are in a corner of the Nasa Johnson Space Center in Houston, in a large white warehouse right next to the disc golf course and on the tram route for tourists and school groups.
But starting this June, four volunteer test subjects will spend a year locked inside, pretending to live on Mars.
Nasa researchers say they’re doing everything they can to make it as realistic as possible so they can learn the impact that a year in isolation with limited resources has on human health.
“As we move from low Earth orbit, from moon to Mars, we’re going to have a lot more resource restrictions than we have on the International Space Station and we’re going to be a lot further from Earth or any help from Earth,” said Dr Grace Douglas, the principal investigator for the Crew Health Performance Exploration Analog, or Chapea for short.
Missing out on the future of space exploration is one of my main gripes about mortality. There isn't much else in the world that makes me feel good about the future. I was born 6 months before the Space Age started and I deserve to see how it all turns out.
Monday
Sunny, with a high near 80. East wind 6 to 16 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph.
Tuesday
A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 82. Breezy, with a south southeast wind 13 to 22 mph, with gusts as high as 33 mph.
Wednesday
Partly sunny, with a high near 84. Breezy, with a south southeast wind 10 to 20 mph, with gusts as high as 29 mph.
8 am EDT is too early for me to get upWhen SpaceX attempts to launch its Starship, the world's biggest rocket, for the first time on April 17, the world will be watching and you can, too, with a free webcast from the private spaceflight company.
SpaceX's first Starship test flight is currently set to launch from the company's Starbase facility near Boca Chica Village in South Texas no earlier than Monday, April 17. Liftoff is targeted for 8 a.m. EDT (7 a.m. CDT/1200 GMT) at the start of a launch window that runs for 150 minutes (through 10:30 a.m. EDT/1430 GMT). SpaceX's webcast is scheduled to begin 45 minutes before liftoff, making its start at 7:15 a.m. EDT (1115 GMT). You can watch it live above and on the Space.com homepage at start time, or watch it directly from SpaceX's webcast and its YouTube channel.
but since I'm not taking a morning walk on Monday and we won't be leaving for lunch till about 10:30 am EDT, at least I can check in on the second half of the launch window.
