Space News thread

[Takeovers]

For scale this photo is interesting.



Yusaku Maezawa standing in a barrel part of the tanks, made of carbon composite in the tent at the LA port I showed earlier. Showing the diameter of the BFR rocket.



Size comparison of the whole rocket. In case you don't know New Glenn is the new rocket that Jeff Bezos of Amazon is presently building.

A link to an article by nasaspaceflight.com

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018...arths-artists/

Probably the best source among many articles available if you are interested in the facts.

Pictures from that article:



The mission trajectory, not a very precise presentation but you get the general idea. Anyway the details are not yet decided.



The habitable part of the Spaceship BFS has increased in size from just over 800m³ to 1000m³. Goal is still to transport 80-100 people to Mars in it. A little more volume can help there.

[Luigi]

An amazing new age is beginning. Cheers TO.


BTW, just a small question, with about 3 or 4 private companies going after the same kinda thing, do they help each other out with stuff, or is there kind of an animosity between them?

I wouldn't expect it to be Bill Gates Vrs Steve Jobs, I'd actually expect them to be friendly and open about what they are discovering along the way, and sharing etc.

Is that the case, or do they all keep everything to their own companies in a kinda secretive manner?

[Takeovers]

BTW, just a small question, with about 3 or 4 private companies going after the same kinda thing, do they help each other out with stuff, or is there kind of an animosity between them?

There are a number of small companies who have little chance to grow into the major leage of large launch vehicles.

There are just SpaceX and Blue Origin of Jeff Bezos who are into building large reusable rockets. The two are somewhat hostile with each other. Blue Origin had a patent for landing rockets on ships which is ridiculous as the concept was around for many decades. SpaceX had to sue to cancel that patent. Blue Origin sued when NASA rented launch pad LC-39A to Spacex. Zero chance of winning but they succeded in delaying SpaceX to take over. Right now Blue Origin has filed a patent on using RCS thrusters for precision landing of rockets. Totally absurd but SpaceX may have to sue again to fight it.

SpaceX has to make profits to finance their developments. In contrast Blue Origin gets large financial support every year from Jeff Bezos, using his Amazon profits. These money infusions have recently been increased to $1 billion every year. Their New Glenn rocket which may fly in 2020/21 won't be competetive with Falcon for most payloads. But Jeff Bezos may sell at or under cost to undermine revenue flow of SpaceX.

However SpaceX and ULA, presently the big competitors did exchange information on their failures to facilitate increased safety of their launch vehicles.

Outside that group there is China. No way of knowing how fast they will rise. If SpaceX BFR is the expected huge success anyone including China will have major problems to compete.

[Luigi]

Cheers TO.

Bit of a pity that they can't all kind of work together (somewhat) for the greater good, and the development and progression of what all sides want. Oh well. That's humanity for ya.

[OhOh]

Space lab working beyond life span



"China's Tiangong II space laboratory, which has exceeded its designed life span, remains in space and is still able to conduct scientific tasks, according to its developer and a leading expert.

Pang Zhihao, a renowned space industry observer in Beijing, said despite the spacecraft's 24-month designed life span having been reached, it seems to be in good condition and is still carrying out work.


"Tiangong II is now like a large scientific satellite," he said on Wednesday.


The China Manned Space Agency said in an article published on Saturday on its WeChat account that the space lab, which was lifted into space on Sept 15, 2016, remains in orbit and is still "unswervingly carrying out its missions". It did not elaborate on the space lab's future agenda or when it would return back to Earth from its orbit nearly 400 kilometers above ground.


Tiangong II has helped to pave the way for China's plans for a manned space station, the agency said.


"In addition to scientific applications, the spacecraft can also perform orbit transfer experiments," Pang said. "Such experiments can help to explore methods of avoiding space debris for our future space station, and also can allow Tiangong II's cameras to take high-definition pictures of Earth."


Pang added that researchers can use the space lab to repeat some tests and experiments on equipment or technologies that will be used on the future space station, further verifying the reliability of the equipment and relevant technologies.


China plans to start putting together its first manned space station around 2020. The space station is expected to be fully operational around 2022 and is set to operate for about 15 years, according to the China Academy of Space Technology.


In 2024, it likely will become the world's only space station if the United States-led International Space Station is retired that year as planned.
The multimodule station, named Tiangong, or Heavenly Palace, will be mainly composed of three parts－a core module attached to two space labs－having a combined weight of more than 90 metric tons, the academy said.


Tiangong II was lifted atop a Long March 2F carrier rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Northwest China's Gobi Desert two years ago. It is 10.4 meters high, 3.35 meters in diameter and weighs 8.6 tons.


Chinese astronauts Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong entered the lab on Oct 19 that year, after their Shenzhou XI spacecraft docked with the lab, and stayed inside for 30 days.


From April to September 2017, Tiangong II and the Tianzhou I cargo spacecraft fulfilled several docking and in-orbit refueling operations, which demonstrated resupply and refueling technologies applicable to the planned manned space station."

Space lab working beyond life span - People's Daily Online

This popped up today.

How does this station compare in size and ability to the ISS. It claims that Chinese rockets were used to place the modules are they as powerful as Russian and ameristani ones? Are they at similar altitudes and orbit orientation?

Lastly are there facilities for any safety related options if say the ISS suddenly developed a problem and vice versa? Are the docking modules compatible etc.?

[OhOh]

Oh well. That's humanity for ya

More, "National Security Concerns" from some countries leaders.

Others have a more inclusive view and are working towards common development in many areas of "humanity" opposed to applying sanctioning because of "human Rights" at the first opportunity however small.

[Luigi]

^ Was talking about the owners of the private companies. Musk and Bezos, mainly.


Good little piece here on New Horizons as it prepares for its next encounter on New Year's Day.

'Everything about this flyby is tougher': New Horizons just over 100 days from Ultima Thule | The Planetary Society

'Everything about this flyby is tougher': New Horizons just over 100 days from Ultima Thule

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is just over 100 days away from a high-risk, high-reward flyby of an ancient world on the outskirts of the solar system.


On New Year's Day 2019, the spacecraft will come within 3,500 kilometers of 2014 MU69, an estimated 37-kilometer-wide object the mission team has nicknamed Ultima Thule. The encounter will take place 6.6 billion kilometers from Earth, where it takes more than 6 hours for radio signals traveling at the speed of light to reach NASA's Deep Space Network.

[harrybarracuda]

I wouldn't expect it to be Bill Gates Vrs Steve Jobs, I'd actually expect them to be friendly and open about what they are discovering along the way, and sharing etc.

I wouldn't expect it to be Steve Jobs doing anything on account of him pushing up the daisies and all.

[harrybarracuda]

When the European Space Agency launched the SMART-1 probe back in the early 2000s it was designed to have a relatively short lifespan. The spacecraft was only meant to orbit the Moon for a few years before making a “controlled” impact with the lunar surface. Everything went according to plan… except for the fact that the ESA had no idea exactly where the probe actually struck.


That was back in 2006, and now over a decade later we finally know where the spacecraft ended up. In a recent news release, the European Space Agency reveals an image of the probe’s crash site, bringing a twelve-year mystery to its inevitable conclusion.

During its years orbiting the Moon, the probe did its job well. It was packed with a suite of instruments and sent back a wealth of data on the Moon, while also testing a number of new technologies related to space communication and propulsion. It was a success by pretty much any measure, but with only a small amount of fuel on board it was destined to call the Moon its final resting place.




When the impact happened, some astronomers on Earth actually spotted the brief flash it produced. Unfortunately, no observation tools were pointed at the probe when it made its final descent, and the ESA and NASA could only guess where it might have struck.

Twelve years later, NASA has come to the rescue. The NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been taking stunning photos of the lunar surface at a resolution never possible before, managed to actually spot the probe’s crash site.

“The spacecraft carved out a four-metre-wide and 20-metre-long gouge as it it impacted and bounced,” ESA explains in a press release. “It cut across a small crater and sent lunar soil flying outwards from its skidding, ricocheting path, creating the brighter patches of material seen either side of the crater, with debris from spacecraft and oblique dust ejecta coming to a halt several to tens of kilometres in the forward stream direction.”

RIP SMART-1.

https://bgr.com/2018/09/19/moon-probe-dead-crash-site/

[Luigi]

I wouldn't expect it to be Steve Jobs doing anything on account of him pushing up the daisies and all.

That's amazing information.




Sorry TO.

Back to the good stuff.

[Takeovers]

Tiangong II is a small testbed. It does not compare to the ISS, that's not its purpose.

From April to September 2017, Tiangong II and the Tianzhou I cargo spacecraft fulfilled several docking and in-orbit refueling operations, which demonstrated resupply and refueling technologies applicable to the planned manned space station."

These demos are important. Basically they have demonstrated every capability needed to maintain a space station. Particularly unmanned cargo flights and manned missions to send crew. Important also the ability to do orbit maneuvers as they have done in recent months and propellant transfer so they can restock for more maneuvers.

Altitude is quite similar to ISS, ISS just over 400km, Tiangong II a little below 400km. But no way to get from one station to the other. Their orbital inclination is different and inclination change takes a lot of propellant.

Important to know that even at that altitude there is still a lot of atmosphere. The ISS loses on average 2km/month altitude and needs to do regular orbit raising maneuvers to avoid crashing back to earth in quite a short while. Tiangong II has done several such maneuvers recently, essential ability for a long term space station.

[BaitongBoy]

Nuclear Pasta: Universe's Strongest Material Discovered


The strongest material in the universe has been discovered: nuclear pasta from neutron stars. The material is so intense it could never exist on Earth—if somehow a tiny amount were transported here, it would explode like a nuclear bomb.

Instead, it can be found deep inside the crust of the smallest, densest known stars, scientists have discovered via computer simulations.
Matthew Caplan, a postdoctoral research fellow at McGill University, and colleagues have had their findings on nuclear pasta accepted for publication in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Neutron stars form when the core of a massive star collapses under the weight of its own gravity. What emerges is a star that has around double the mass of the Sun crammed into a 20km-wide sphere. According to NASA, a sugar cube-sized piece of a neutron star would weigh about the same as Mount Everest.

Because of the immense gravity, the outer layers of neutron stars freeze solid to form a crust that surrounds a liquid core. Below the crust, protons and neutrons compete and end up forming long cylindrical shapes or flat planes. These have become known as "spaghetti" and "lasagne"—or nuclear pasta.
Scientists know nuclear pasta exists from observations of neutron stars—the pressure from the gravity is too high for anything other than a solid crust to form.

Caplan ran computer simulations where he stretched and squeezed nuclear pasta to see how it breaks. “These simulations allowed me to calculate the strength of nuclear pasta,” he told Newsweek. “The materials in neutron star crusts can't exist on earth, they only form when matter is under the kind of immense pressure that you can find on a neutron star, which is why we use computer simulations to study them.

“But if somehow a teaspoon of nuclear pasta magically teleported into the palm of your hand you'd die instantly because without the pressure of the star to hold it together it would explode like a nuclear bomb. Put simply, despite its strength, no one is going to build anything out of this stuff.”

According to phys.org, the nuclear pasta would be around 10 billion times stronger than steel.

Understanding the strength of nuclear pasta will help astronomers studying neutron stars to better understand their physical properties—allowing them to test out theories and models. It also opens up the possibility of observing gravitational waves.

At present, gravitational waves have only been observed coming from cataclysmic events—two black holes merging, for example. But isolated neutron stars with a “mountain” on it could also produce gravitational waves, Caplan said. “Knowing the strength of the neutron star crust is like knowing the strength of rocks on earth; it tells you about how big earthquakes can be and how tall mountains can get,” Caplan said.

“On a neutron star, those 'starquakes' or breaking events can release light while 'neutron star mountains' can make gravitational waves, which are both things astronomers would like to observe.”

The researchers plan to continue to study neutron stars and their super-strong crusts. “This work only studied lasagna, but pasta comes in a lot of shapes. Maybe I'll try spaghetti next,” Caplan said.

[Luigi]

Japanese Probe Drops Tiny Hopping Robots Toward Big Asteroid Ryugu

Two tiny hopping robots have begun their historic attempt to land on a big asteroid in deep space.
Japan's Hayabusa2 probe, which has been circling the 3,000-foot-wide (900 meters) asteroid Ryugu since late June, deployed two little "rovers" called MINERVA-II1A and MINERVA-II1B at 12:06 a.m. EDT (0406 GMT) today (Sept. 21). The event occurred when the mother ship was about 180 feet (55 meters) above Ryugu's pockmarked, boulder-strewn surface, mission team members said.
"The separation of MINERVA-II1 has been confirmed! The state of the spacecraft is normal," JAXA officials announced via Twitter just after the rovers deployed. That confirmation came after an apparently tense descent for Hayabusa2 flight controllers. "In the control room, you can hear the sound of deep breaths around the room," JAXA officials wrote just before the rovers were released. [Japan's Hayabusa2 Asteroid Ryugu Sample-Return Mission in Pictures]



https://www.space.com/41898-hayabusa...oid-ryugu.html

[harrybarracuda]

Nuclear Pasta: Universe's Strongest Material Discovered


The strongest material in the universe has been discovered: nuclear pasta from neutron stars. The material is so intense it could never exist on Earth—if somehow a tiny amount were transported here, it would explode like a nuclear bomb.

Clearly none of these so called "experts" has ever tasted my ex-wife's spaghetti bolognese.

[Takeovers]

It claims that Chinese rockets were used to place the modules are they as powerful as Russian and ameristani ones?

Latest news about chinese rockets brings me back to this.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018...y-lift-rocket/

China has been working on a new Super Heavy Lift rocket for a while. The Long March 9 is going to be as powerful as the Saturn V was and much more powerful than the hugely expensive NASA development SLS block 1 and 1B. Target date was 2030 but that has now been advanced to 2028. With this rocket they can go manned to the moon and probably even to Mars. It is yet unclear if a SLS block 2 will be financed and even if it is it won't be more capable than Long March 9 and probably come later.

Presently for building the coming space station China has the Long March 5 rocket which is in the same class to LEO as the US ULA rocket Delta IV Heavy. So already plenty capable to build a big space station. Both Long March 5 and Long March 9 are the new generation of rockets that has been developed independently from russian designs. To be clear, these are LEO capacities. US rockets with their very capable liquid hydrogen upper stages still have the edge for high energy trajectoires like probes to the outer solar system and the recent Parker Solar Probe.

What we don't know is how much these rockets cost. Already years back there were remarks that they can not compete on price with SpaceX. That was even before reuse which brings cost down for SpaceX rockets. The chinese government program rockets are not reusable but a small semi private startup is working on this. They will catch up sooner or later with reuse.

[OhOh]

Alleged accounting differences for rocket launches. Is this info available publicly or is somebody selling pork pies?

Are the comparison launches prime cut steak pies v minced rat tails pies?



"If you look at the price at which [Musk] sells Falcon [rocket launch vehicles] to the Pentagon and what its price is on the market, you'll see that it is pure dumping. In order to drive Russia out of this market he sells launches for $40-50 million, sometimes $50-60 million," Rogozin told Russia's Channel One.

The Roscosmos head indicated that the US Defense Department, in turn, paid Musk an average of $150 million for every launch."

https://sputniknews.com/business/201810021068502176-spacex-dumping-drive-russia-out-market/


This articles doesn't seem to clarify anything, to me.

Air Force budget reveals how much SpaceX undercuts launch prices


"The Air Force recently released budget estimates for fiscal year 2018, and these include a run out into the early 2020s. For these years, the budget combines the fixed price rocket and ELC contract costs into a single budget line.(See page 109 of this document). They are strikingly high. According to the Air Force estimate, the "unit cost" of a single rocket launch in fiscal year 2020 is $422 million, and $424 million for a year later.

SpaceX sells basic commercial launches of its Falcon 9 rocket for about $65 million. But, for military launches, there are additional range costs and service contracts that add tens of millions of dollars to the total price. It therefore seems possible that SpaceX is taking a loss or launching at little or no profit to undercut its rival and gain market share in the high-volume military launch market."

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017...launch-prices/

The linked PDF (in green) appears to show a minimum of US$150m - US$200m per "unit", which I presume is a "launch" cost. The quoted tens of millions is more like a hundred million plus.

[David48atTD]

A dwarf planet nicknamed the Goblin has been discovered well beyond Pluto, further redefining our solar system.

Key points:

• Frozen dwarf planet about 300km across was discovered on the outskirts of our solar system with an elongated orbit
• Dubbed 'the Goblin', it was discovered in 2015 around Halloween, but has only now been publicly unveiled
• At its most distant, the Goblin is 2,300 times further from the sun than Earth is

A round frozen world just 300 kilometres across, the Goblin was spotted by astronomers in 2015 around Halloween, thus its spooky name. But it wasn't publicly unveiled until now following further observations with ground telescopes.

One of the astronomers who made the discovery, Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science, said the Goblin was on the small end for a dwarf planet. It is officially known as 2015 TG387 by the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Centre.\

This is the third dwarf planet recently found to be orbiting on the frigid fringes of our solar system.



Goblin's orbit is extremely elongated — so stretched out, in fact, that it takes 40,000 years for it to circle the sun.
At its most distant, the Goblin is 2,300 times further from the sun than Earth. That's 2,300 astronomical units (AU).

One AU is the distance from Earth to the sun, or roughly 150 million kilometres.

At its closest, the Goblin is 65 times farther from the sun than Earth, or 65 AU.
Pluto, by comparison, is approximately between 30 and 50 AU.

[Takeovers]

I think the article about Goblin needs some clarification.

First the picture is an artists impression. There is no photo of it except possibly a 1 digit spot.

Second the impression is most likely wrong. At a diameter of only 300km it is too small to be formed into a sphere by gravity, which is the definition of a dwarf planet. Forming a sphere requires about 500km diameter.

But finding a celestial body this size is an interesting discovery even if it does not qualify as a dwarf planet.

[Takeovers]

Alleged accounting differences for rocket launches. Is this info available publicly or is somebody selling pork pies?

Please don't look at sputnik news unless you know about things and want a laugh. It is hilarious russian propaganda.

I have no explanation for these launch prices. That is about what a Delta IV Heavy, the biggest ULA rocket, would cost. Payloads that need this performance are maybe 2 a year. But Falcon Heavy can fly those missions for about half the price or less.

Of course ULA tries to play the reliability card. But that advantage is fast disappearing. The difference in cost remains even if ULA tries to claim differently.


ULA and SpaceX charge much higher prices to NASA and the Airforce than to commercial customers. That is because there is huge additional complexity to those sales. Both NASA and Airforce demand deep insight into building their launch vehicles. Basically they want to know the history of every single nut and bolt in the rocket, the supplier of them and the supplier of the raw materials to make each piece. Plus of course who installed that nut or bolt and who supervised that person installing it. Supervising as in looking over his shoulder while he does it.

Commercial customers don't want this involvement. But they can afford to lose a payload and their insurance will cover the cost of building a replacement in 2-3 years. With government payloads it is different. Those payloads are often 15-20 years in the making and cost billions of $ and many years to replace. So more oversight is to some extent understandable but cost/effect ratio is still bad.

The arsTechnica article quotes launch prices of $83 million and 96.5 million for GPS satellites which are replaceable but the Airforce still demands that high level of insight. Commercial launch prices are in the range of $63 million and recently ~50million for reuse launches. It was a common argument by insiders that the $83 million with Airforce overhead is too low and SpaceX need to quote higher for a reasonable profit. They did quote $96.5 million for the second contract.

As additional info, the arsTechnica writer Eric Berger is very critical of ULA and a great supporter of SpaceX.

[Maanaam]

URANUS WILL LOOK SPECTACULAR THIS MONTH

https://www.sci-techuniverse.com/201...r-tonight.html

just a small question, with about 3 or 4 private companies going after the same kinda thing, do they help each other out with stuff, or is there kind of an animosity between them?

Errrm, they all spend millions to try to be pioneers and reap the profits, so no, they're not very chummy. Hyper-secure secrets that they're not going to share with anyone. It's called competition, not animosity. Look it up.
Duh.

[OhOh]

They did quote $96.5 million for the second contract

So you're suggesting the $96m is a more realistic figure for a standard commercial GTO GPS type satellite launch?

[Takeovers]

So you're suggesting the $96m is a more realistic figure for a standard commercial GTO GPS type satellite launch?

It is what SpaceX charges and probably make a good profit on. It is what europes Arianespace and Russia blame them for as receiving government subsidies they can't compete with. It is way below what ULA can offer even when they get an additional $ 800 million for maintaining their facilities which is not counted as part of the launch cost.

[David48atTD]

Maybe someone has a better clip?



SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket launch confuses and amazes observers in California

When SpaceX launched a rocket carrying an Argentine Earth-observation satellite from California's central coast, both the night sky and social media lit up.
People as far away as San Francisco, Sacramento, Phoenix and Nevada, posted photos of the Falcon 9 rocket's launch and return on Sunday night (local time).


It was the first time SpaceX landed a first-stage booster back at its launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base, about 210 kilometres north-west of Los Angeles.
The Air Force warned residents they might see multiple engine burns by the first stage and hear one or more sonic booms as it returned.

[Luigi]

NASA has announced the first crewed flight by a SpaceX rocket to the International Space Station (ISS) is expected to take place in June 2019.



It will be the first manned US launch to the orbiting research laboratory since the space shuttle program was retired in 2011, forcing US astronauts to hitch costly rides aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
A flight on Boeing spacecraft is set to follow in August 2019.


The timetable for both launches has already been postponed several times, but NASA said Thursday it would now be providing monthly updates on deadlines.

https://phys.org/news/2018-10-debut-...-capsules.html

[harrybarracuda]

It is what SpaceX charges and probably make a good profit on. It is what europes Arianespace and Russia blame them for as receiving government subsidies they can't compete with. It is way below what ULA can offer even when they get an additional $ 800 million for maintaining their facilities which is not counted as part of the launch cost.

But OhOh has to post whinging sputnik articles saying it isn't fair boo hoo sob sob etc.

He feels for his Russian comrades you know.