Space News thread

[Dragonfly]

Thanks.

Is that called just 'The Planets'? They remade it in 2019.

I can't find 'Inside the planets'.

Cheers.

yes, that's the one in 2019, the subtitle in some episodes is "Inside the Planets"

not to be confused with a US version in 2017 that is said to be narrated by an annoying astronaut

make sure to watch also the 5 mini-episodes of 15min, very insightful

[Luigi]

Cool, cheers.

The original from around 2004 is brilliant too. Hard to beat the BBC when it comes to such documentaries.

[Dragonfly]

since 2004, a lot of new discoveries, and Prof. Brian Cox does a good job explaining those newly found discoveries

some fooking amazing stuff, it seems we were wrong about of a lot of things

yes hard to beat the BBC,

[Luigi]

Yup, not to mention the development in resolution.

Downloading it again now.

https://teakdoor.com/the-multimedia-...ts#post4019849 (Movie/tv download recommendations)

[Dragonfly]

in 4K, that looks nice

[Luigi]

Earth has a new mini-moon after a 3.5 meter asteroid has been temporarily captured by Earth's gravity.


New mini-moon discovered orbiting Earth - but it's only temporary | Science & Tech News | Sky News


Has been there for 3 years.


Not sure how far out is its orbit, or how long it will hang about, with plans to capture an asteroid and to bring it into orbit at around one Lunar Distance, hopefully it will be hanging around.

[Dragonfly]

it could crash on Earth, and bring a new kind of Coronavirus

[Dragonfly]

The nearby Kepler belt seems to have a thousands of those waiting to crash on earth, or Jupiter, or the Sun, depending on their position and who the fuck knows what else

[Takeovers]

The nearby Kepler belt seems to have a thousands of those waiting to crash on earth, or Jupiter, or the Sun, depending on their position and who the fuck knows what else

Minor nitpick. I assume that you mean the Kuiper belt which lies just beyond Pluto? Yes that't a likely origin of a potential planet cracking asteroid.

[Dragonfly]

Minor nitpick. I assume that you mean the Kuiper belt which lies just beyond Pluto? Yes that't a likely origin of a potential planet cracking asteroid.

right, pronunciation sounded like Kepler

[Takeovers]

Today the 20ieth and last launch of SpaceX Dragon 1 for ISS resupply has successfully launched. Future resupply missions will use the new Dragon 2 which was developed for crew. Dragon was deployed and is scheduled to reach the ISS in 2 days.

The launch


The booster landed back at Cape Canaveral. The 50iest successful booster landing, a great achievement.

They sure have cute lead engineers at SpaceX. She was the host of todays launch coverage. They don't hire media professionals, they let their engineering staff do the job.

[Dragonfly]

like they used to do in the early days of the Apollo mission,

you must watch that documentary HD re-mastered of the Apollo Mission 11, with undisclosed footage, gives a whole new dimension to the first moon mission, and the original accompanying speech during the footage has the right tone and the information to make it exciting. Loved the beep thing in all communication exchanges.

[Saint Willy]

like they used to do in the early days of the Apollo mission,

you must watch that documentary HD re-mastered of the Apollo Mission 11, with undisclosed footage, gives a whole new dimension to the first moon mission, and the original accompanying speech during the footage has the right tone and the information to make it exciting. Loved the beep thing in all communication exchanges.

Any danger of you sharing the name or link?

[lom]

^ Apollo 11 (2019) on your favorite torrent site

[Saint Willy]

just checked, netflix doesnt have it. will torrent, cheers.

[Dragonfly]

I think we posted the link in the Documentary thread, search for "Armstrong", that's how I got the Apollo 11 mission on x1337

[Takeovers]

Space Center Houston gets a Falcon 9 booster for display. It is an older previously flown booster.



It is horizontal for now. It may be raised vertical later. Like the one they have installed at their factory in Hawthorne, California, near Los Angeles. Also a pre flown booster but they painted it fresh. They no longer do that, they fly them again with the soot from previous flights.

[Saint Willy]

It is horizontal for now. It may be raised vertical later. Like the one they have installed at their factory in Hawthorne, California, near Los Angeles. Also a pre flown booster but they painted it fresh. They no longer do that, they fly them again with the soot from previous flights.

They could at least let the work experience boy wash them?

[Takeovers]

They could at least let the work experience boy wash them?

Letting them fly as is is a statement on reuse.

Also the soot enabled Matt Desch, CEO of Iridium, to write something on the body of a rocket with his fingers. Before it launched their next Iridium satellites into orbit.

The next generation of Spacex rockets, Starship and the booster Superheavy, are made of steel, not painted and they use methane as propellant which should not cause any sooting. No time to clean those. The declared goal is that they are capable to refly 1 hour after landing.

[Saint Willy]

The declared goal is that they are capable to refly 1 hour after landing.

Wow. Serious work.

[Takeovers]

Wow. Serious work.

It is an aspirational goal. It will need years of optimization. The biggest obstacle is the engines. Rocket engines were previously 1 use and then drop into the ocean, or on villages in the case of China. Now they need to refly without as much as a checkout except for reading sensor data.

Raptor, the most complex engine ever designed. The engine with extremes in pressure and in efficiency. Cost per engine right now below $1million, planned to go down to $250,000 or less. Compared to $25million or more for the engine that will drive the NASA/Boeing SLS rocket. Sure SLS needs 4 engines and the much more capable Starship superheavy needs 30+ engines.

[OhOh]

needs 30+ engines.

Full power from all of them is going to be a challenge.

What is the minimum number required to be launch committed?

[Takeovers]

Full power from all of them is going to be a challenge.

What is the minimum number required to be launch committed?

We don't have numbers. But to reach the fast launch rate they will need to be able to launch safely with one or a few engines out of order. Though they need to be extremely reliable.

[Klondyke]

Sea Launch command ship arrives in Russia from US




The Sea Launch Commander command ship, which left the United States at the end of February, has arrived in Slavyanka in the Primorsky Territory in Russia's Far East, according to global ship-tracking website MarineTraffic: Global Ship Tracking Intelligence | AIS Marine Traffic.

The ship left the port of Long Beach near Los Angeles on 28 February.

The Sea Launch Commander is a mobile maritime spaceport, designed to launch commercial payloads near the equator using specially-made rockets.

The vessel, along with the Odyssey launch platform, is a part of the Sea Launch project, developed as a joint venture of companies from Russia, Ukraine, the US and Norway in 1995.

The project was used to deploy nearly three dozen commercial satellites into orbit between 1999 and 2014. In 2014, the joint venture was abandoned. In April 2018, the project was purchased by the private Russian airline and aerospace company S7 Group.

In 2019, Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin stated that the Sea Launch vessels could be relocated to Russian Far East's Sovetskaya Harbour to launch the Soyuz-5, a new rocket, being developed by the Progress Rocket Space Centre.

Sea Launch command ship arrives in Russia from US

[Takeovers]

NASA is planning a space station around the moon as a staging point for lunar landings, the lunar gateway. I am not going to comment on that plan as such because I could not do that without being rude.

But I like it when SpaceX can make money from it while they design and build their own architecture.

NASA has issued a RFP, a request for proposal to deliver cargo to the gateway. SpaceX has proposed a vehicle they call Dragon XL. It is a new design but uses a lot of components they have developed for their crew Dragon. A nice video of Scott Manley mostly about Dragon XL. Ignore the rest. It is mostly obsolete.




The video was made very early after the announcement and it has a few inaccuracies. One is the needed delta-v. We don't have precise numbers on it but the cargo vehicle does not need to go fast. There are slow trajectories that require very little delta-v from the cargo vehicle. The slow trajectories still need the same or even slightly higher delta-v from the launch vehicle but the cargo vessel can fly with very little propellant. Another is that Scott Manley mentioned a trunk, or frunk as he calls it. Dragon XL does not have that, the vacuum cargo is mounted outside on the vehicle without any cover.

The plan had been to select 2 proposals for the service but they ended up contracting only SpaceX with Dragon XL.

There were 4 proposals, SpaceX, Northrup Grumman with a variant of the Cygnus cargo vessel that delivers to the ISS already, Sierra Nevada who are scheduled to deliver cargo to the ISS with their Dreamchaser winged vehicle, and a proposal by Boeing.

Boeing was eliminated even before detailed evaluation because their proposal was not only the most expensive by far, it also failed on a variety of technical and contractual requirements.

Northrup Grumman was slightly better than Sierra Nevada but more expensive. The two proposals were both considered adequate and reasonably priced.

SpaceX Dragon XL was the cheapest by far and it was also the best and most capable design by far. So NASA selected only this one, with an option to revisit the decision later and select a second provider.