Space News thread

[Dragonfly]

Probably true in the society. Unfortunately not in the leadership. No money for space, plus what they get is mostly plundered by the corrupt leadership. While I respect past Soviet space achievements, Roskosmos is going down the drain. Once US money for buying soyuz seats and RD-180 engines stops it will only get worse.

this is a legendary place I plan to visit soon, I think they take tourist visitors in once this very secret base

tourism is certainly the future for Star City, maybe TELSA could open a launch pad there, or maybe another European space startup

[Takeovers]

this is a legendary place I plan to visit soon, I think they take tourist visitors in once this very secret base

tourism is certainly the future for Star City, maybe TELSA could open a launch pad there, or maybe another European space startup

Baikonur in Kasachstan and Star City are sure interesting sites and can be visited in guided tours.

[Takeovers]

Dragon has docked, all checks are done and the hatch is open. All run very smoothly and ahead of schedule. A major milestone achieved for SpaceX. Their first vehicle that is designed to take people into space.

Dragon seen from the ISS while approaching


Dragon already close, parts of ISS visible


ISS seen from Dragon camera



Split screen inside Dragon and inside ISS


Hatches open, some testing of the air, that's why they wear masks. Just for the off chance something has spoiled the air in Dragon


They immediately removed the first bag of cargo. There is always some treat brought up like fresh fruit or bell peppers or tomatoes. Dragon usually has operating freezers so they can bring ice creame, but not on this one.

[Buckaroo Banzai]

^^^excellent new on the spaceX achievement
On a totally unrelated subject I have being watching documentaries on future Mars colonization and they always talk about eventual Terraforming by introducing CO2 producing engines, developing an atmosphere that would support pants etc etc , but no one ever mentions the Magnetosphere problem and how they plan to overcome it.
Any Thoughts?

[Topper]

I wonder how well Ripley held up during the launch...

[Takeovers]

^^^excellent new on the spaceX achievement
On a totally unrelated subject I have being watching documentaries on future Mars colonization and they always talk about eventual Terraforming by introducing CO2 producing engines, developing an atmosphere that would support pants etc etc , but no one ever mentions the Magnetosphere problem and how they plan to overcome it.
Any Thoughts?

Yes, that's one problem. Without magnetosphere the new atmosphere would be gone in as short as a few hundred million years. But there are a few solutions, if need be.

A much bigger problem is the lack of nitrogen or another suitable buffer gas. It would need trillions of tons nitrogen to transport from the outer solar system.

I am not a fan of terraforming. One point I disagree with Elon Musk.

[Luigi]

Fantastic step in their development.



Just hope that Musky doesn't go all... you know... James Bond Super-Villain on us.

[Buckaroo Banzai]

Yes, that's one problem. Without magnetosphere the new atmosphere would be gone in as short as a few hundred million years. But there are a few solutions, if need be.

A much bigger problem is the lack of nitrogen or another suitable buffer gas. It would need trillions of tons nitrogen to transport from the outer solar system.

I am not a fan of terraforming. One point I disagree with Elon Musk.

Yes indeed!
Not only would any atmosphere developed be sripped off, but to develop such viable for humans atmosphere, and terraforming, there would need be planet wide vegetation to consume the CO2 and produce oxygen, without a magnetosphere to deflect cosmic rays any such vegetation would be sterilised. Not to mention its effect on Humans .

[Takeovers]

Just hope that Musky doesn't go all... you know... James Bond Super-Villain on us.

You mean like this?





He also once mentioned, when he gets the Falcon Heavy flying he will treat himself to a vulcan lair.

[harrybarracuda]

I wonder how well Ripley held up during the launch...

I reckon they're looking to see if Elon left a couple of copies of Razzle under the chairs.

[Luigi]

Just hope that Musky doesn't go all... you know... James Bond Super-Villain on us.

You mean like this?

The Fooker!

[harrybarracuda]

The old Russkies are a bit put out...

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019...g-left-behind/

[Takeovers]

The old Russkies are a bit put out...

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019...g-left-behind/

Yes, the death spiral of once great russian space flight continues. The worst is they don't fess up to the problems and keep closing their eyes on reality.

[Takeovers]

The Mars Insight lander has run into a major problem. Only 30cm under the surface it has hit an obstacle that they have not been able to overcome with extended hammering. 30cm down is not much. They would be able to gain some data but far from what they wanted to achieve. For that they would need to go down at least 3m of the possible 5m.

They have stopped for the moment and are now considering their options. They try to sound optimistic and of course I hope with them.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/spa...robe-is-stuck/

NASA’s InSight Lander has only been on the surface of Mars for a few months, but it seems to already be running into problems. According to an announcement from NASA, the lander’s ground probe, which was designed to tunnel several feet into the ground, has hit some sort of obstacle and gotten stuck.
NASA’s InSight lander is a bit different from a typical NASA mission to Mars. Insight is a stationary lander primarily designed to carry one scientific instrument: a probe several feet long intended to bury itself several feet into the ground. From there, the probe will measure temperature variations in the soil and learn more about the planet’s soil and the inner workings of its core.
At least, that was the plan. However, after the probe descended about a foot into the soil, it stopped. Images from the lander show that the probe has also rotated slightly and got knocked about 15 degrees away from vertical. The consensus from NASA is that the probe hit something on the way down.
That was one of NASA’s biggest fears going into this mission. It’s too tough to send a drill to Mars, so the probe actually works like a mini jackhammer that pounds its way through the soil. The downside of this approach is that the probe can get stuck if it runs into a large enough rock. The landing site NASA picked, Jezero Crater, was chosen in part because the surface was sandy and contained few rocks.
Still, there’s no way for NASA to know what lies beneath the surface before InSight could land, so this mission always carried some risk. NASA did prepare for this possibility and will spend the next two weeks figuring out their next move. Even in a worst-case scenario where the probe can’t descend any further, NASA can still learn a great deal about the subsurface of Mars.
But it’s also a strong possibility that there’s only a layer of gravel or some small rocks causing InSight’s problems. If that’s the case, the probe should be able to force its way through and extend to its full length. We’ll find out sometime in the next few weeks which one of those scenarios is correct.

[Takeovers]

Crew Dragon DM-1 mission, unmanned is back on Earth dropping at the precise planned landing location.

The crew recovery ship


Infrared during hot reentry, captured by a NASA chase plane


Inside the capsule during reentry


Under 4 parachutes


Touchdown

[Takeovers]

Getting the capsule out of the water.

When asked what a possible problem could be, he said the reentry of the capsule. It has a different shape than previous capsules, not as symmetric due to the abort engines in the side of the capsule. They have run a thousand simulations but doing it for real the first time is the proof.

It worked flawless and precise.



The recovery ship has a helicopter landing pad. Not useful this time as they are 600km out in the ocean, for safety reasons, on this first attempt. But manned missions are supposed to land 50km off the Florida coast. In emergencies they could recover an injured astronaut and ferry him off quickly.






Recovery from touchdown to safely on the ship 1h5m. With crew on board they hope to be much faster than that. Brilliant for the first attempt far out at sea.

[OhOh]

Is the capsule "re-usable" and if so how quickly?. You may have covered this previously. If so a link will suffice.

[harrybarracuda]

Is the capsule "re-usable" and if so how quickly?. You may have covered this previously. If so a link will suffice.

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-no-...onaut-launches

[Takeovers]

Is the capsule "re-usable" and if so how quickly?. You may have covered this previously. If so a link will suffice.

Too lazy to look up a link.

NASA at this time at least, is opposed to reusing the capsules for crew, don't rule it out for later though.

This particular capsule will be reused for an in flight abort. They will launch it and fire the abort engines at the worst possible moment when there is maximum atmospheric drag to prove they can save the crew if something goes wrong.

Later crew capsules will be reused for cargo services.

Boeing will reuse but they are doing land landing. Also Boeing has no cargo contract to reuse the capsules on. They drop their service module with all the tanks and propulsion engines before reentry. Expensive to replace but as they are always new easier to requalify the capsule than a Dragon that brings down the whole service section.

[Takeovers]

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-no-...onaut-launches

I am surprised Teslarati takes that interpretation of NASAs position.

[harrybarracuda]

I am surprised Teslarati takes that interpretation of NASAs position.

So you're not to lazy to look up a link but you're too lazy to say why.



( I was too lazy to reformat that page though <heh>)

[Takeovers]

So you're not to lazy to look up a link but you're too lazy to say why.

I am following this for years and this is the only article taking that position I have ever seen. NASA did not explicitly exclude reuse but put up hurdles that are so high, costly and time consuming to overcome that it equals a direct no.

[Takeovers]

For the Dragon landing here a comparison of the landing ships used by different capsules.

Apollo recovery by an airplane carrier, of course accompanied by a whole carrier group.


The new NASA Orion capsule presently under development


The commercial crew recovey ship by SpaceX

[harrybarracuda]

Musk tweeted something nice to the Russians to console them for the huge drop in revenue they are facing, and they tweeted nicely back "It's hard to argue with Elon on it".

[Takeovers]

Elon Musk always made very complimentary remarks about the RD-180. At the same time he derided american companies like Aerojet Rocketdyne who were never able to match it. He also called for a ban on RD-180 for US government launches. It is somewhat ironic that on every Atlas V launch for super secret Airforce launches russian engineers are present for the RD-180 engines.