Space News thread

[Takeovers]

Deja Vu all over again.



Boeing delays key uncrewed test flight to ISS

Boeing keeps making confident noises. I believe it when it docks at the ISS. They say they got 7 of 13 troubled valves operational. Would that make you optimistic?

[Latindancer]

You'd think that Boeing would have gotten valve design right by now !

[Takeovers]

That's a good one from Boeing.

Test teams are now applying mechanical, electrical and thermal techniques to prompt the valves open.

As in they used a hammer, overvoltage and a blowtorch to get the valves moving.

[OhOh]

Boeing keeps making confident noises.

In one of your recent links, there were some suggesting the recent Russian docking event may be behind the NASA launch delay.

[Takeovers]

In one of your recent links, there were some suggesting the recent Russian docking event may be behind the NASA launch delay.

Boeing would have loved to make us think this was the cause. In fact it caused a 1 day delay. Then Boeing tried to bullshit about a thunderstorm that might have caused the damage. While in fact there was a thunderstorm but no lightning hit inside the perimeter of the launch pad, which is quite large. If that caused the problem, Starliner is not fit to fly. They need to throw it away and start from scratch. 13 valves failing and finding out 2 hours before launch is ludicrous. The whole thing is a fail on epic scale.

[harrybarracuda]

Did they copy any elements from the 737 MAX?

[harrybarracuda]

35 minutes of things not going so well.

[Takeovers]

Boeing decided to demate Starliner from the rocket and take it back to the factory. Very likely no flight this year. The ISS schedule is quite full.

My take on it: They did get 9 valves operational, but 4 still don't. They do not know why the valves failed and NASA does want to know.

LOL, in the media conference they still whine about the Florida weather.

[Takeovers]

35 minutes of things not going so well.

LOL

Reminds me of an old story. When Elon Musk decided to start a rocket company his friends assembled videos of this kind to try and talk him out of it. The chance of success was just too small in their opinion.

[Takeovers]

Another LOL

Roskosmos accuses a NASA astronaut to have drilled that hole in their Soyuz vehicle to force an early abort of his mission. Was just mentioned in the Boeing Media Teleconference.

[harrybarracuda]

Another LOL

Roskosmos accuses a NASA astronaut to have drilled that hole in their Soyuz vehicle to force an early abort of his mission. Was just mentioned in the Boeing Media Teleconference.

I suspect the stoopid Russians have been keeping this in their pocket for just such an occasion as their recent fuck up.

It's what hoohoo likes to call the "Whatabout" - in this case an absurd fairy tale - only NASA have decided not to push back too hard to try and preserve the fragile relationship with the grumpy Russians, and in the process somewhat thrown their astronaut to the wolves.

From the beginning, NASA has known these claims were nonsensical. Back in 2018, senior NASA officials were briefed on the matter, a source who participated told Ars. The agency's space station program, based in Houston, was able to immediately determine that pressures began falling on the space station in late August 2018. They knew the precise locations of the US astronauts before the leak occurred and at the moment it began. None of the US astronauts on the station were near the Russian segment where the Soyuz vehicle was docked. US officials shared this data with Russians to no avail.

So it was probably a Russian wot did it, by accident or design, and this is classic Soviet-era bollocks to try and deflect the blame.

NASA stands by its astronaut after incendiary Russian claims | Ars Technica

[Takeovers]

So it was probably a Russian wot did it, by accident or design, and this is classic Soviet-era bollocks to try and deflect the blame.

I think that hole was drilled during assembly back on Earth and inexpertly fixed. The quick fix then failed on the ISS. Just my personal theory. Anybody drilling that hole while on the ISS does not make any sense.

[Takeovers]

A short video about the Chinese Mars lander. They have released a number of pictures. Scott Manley did some analysis, very interesting.

[Latindancer]

First evidence of cell membrane molecules in space

All cells on Earth are made of phospholipid membranes. Now astronomers have found the component molecules in interstellar space.


The origin of life is one the great unanswered questions in science. One piece of this puzzle is that life started on Earth 4.5 billion years ago, just a few hundred million years after the formation of the Solar System, and involved numerous critical molecular components. How did all these components come to be available so quickly?
One potential explanation is that the Earth was seeded from space with the building blocks for life. The idea is that space is filled with clouds of gas and dust that contain all the organic molecules necessary for life.
Indeed, astronomers have observed these buildings blocks in interstellar gas clouds. They can see amino acids, the precursors of proteins and the machinery of life. They can also see the precursors of ribonucleotides, molecules that can store information in the form of DNA.

But there is another crucial component for life – molecules that can form membranes capable of encapsulating and protecting the molecules of life in compartments called protocells. On Earth, the membranes of all cells are made of molecules called phospholipids. But these have never been observed in space. Until now.

Precursors of life

Víctor Rivilla at the Spanish Astrobiology Centre in Madrid and colleagues, have made the first detection in space of ethanolamine, a crucial component of the simplest phospholipid. The discovery suggests that the interstellar medium is brimming will all the precursors for life. “This has important implications not only for theories of the origin of life on Earth, but also on other habitable planets and satellites anywhere in the Universe,” say the team.
The group made their discovery by analyzing light from an interstellar cloud of gas and dust called Sagittarius B2, just 390 light years from the center of the Milky Way. Astronomers have long known of this region as a rich reservoir of organic molecules, ices and dust particles.
Ethanolamine has the chemical formula NH2CH2CH2OH. The team simulated the spectrum that this molecule ought to produce at the cold temperatures thought to exist in the cloud. They then looked for, and found, clear evidence of this spectrum in light that had passed through the cloud.
Although never before spotted in space, astronomers have found ethanolamine in meteorites. How it got there has been an issue of some debate with some researchers arguing it could only have formed through an unusual set of reactions on a parent asteroid.
The new discovery suggests ethanolamine is much more widespread. On Earth, it forms the hydrophilic head of phospholipid molecules that self-assemble into cell membranes. Rivilla and colleagues say its discovery in interstellar clouds suggests “ethanolamine could have been transferred from the proto-Solar nebula to planetesimals and minor bodies of the Solar System, and thereafter to our planet.” That could have led to the formation of cells in the prebiotic soup from which our earliest ancestors emerged.

Radical idea

A more radical idea is that ethanolamine might allow the formation of protocells in the interstellar medium itself. This is rich in other prebiotic components such as water and amino acids, which these protocells would have naturally encapsulated. The result would then be ready-made melting pots of prebiotic goop ready to seed the Earth, or any other body that passes by.
Of course, none of this ultimately answers the question of how life began on Earth. But the work does show that there is no longer any mystery about where the building blocks of life might have come from. “These results indicate that ethanolamine forms efficiently in space and, if delivered onto early Earth, it could have contributed to the assembling and early evolution of primitive membranes.,” say Rivilla and co. The question now is: what happened next?

First evidence of cell membrane molecules in space | Astronomy.com

[OhOh]

^^
Thanks for the update.

[havnfun]

Space Force are recruiting.

[harrybarracuda]

Nice way to see where current Mars missions are.

Mars Now | Explore – NASA’s Mars Exploration Program

[Simon43]

End-user report of Elon Musk's Starlink LEO internet service:

Why pigeons mean peril for satellite broadband - BBC News

This report is especially of interest to me - I signed up about 6 months ago, to be (probably) the first end-user of their internet service in Laos. Having an 'off-grid', high-speed internet connection will allow me to move outside Luang Prabang to a more rural location, where it's electrically quiet - important for my radio amateur hobby .

I'll still be able to teach online. Starlink is due to offer service over Laos in 2022.

As for the pigeons, I don't seem to have this problem - the feral cats kill them all...

[Takeovers]

Starlink is due to offer service over Laos in 2022.

The sats are up, at least the first shell with ~1500 sats. Starlink needs regulatory approval from each country they want to serve. Their big bottleneck right now is production and cost of end user terminals. They have produced and delivered only 100,000 of them at high loss. Sales price now $500 but cost above $1000. To satisfy expected demand they will need to produce millions every year. They are building a new factory in Austin, Texas which hopefully solves both problems.

They had planned to build them in Hawthorne, California, near LA. But they decided to move to Texas after too much harassment by the Union representatives.

[Takeovers]

Next month SpaceX will launch the first group of private space tourists in Dragon, the Inspiration 4 mission, a few days in orbit, no docking to the ISS. The crew has done a formation flight over Boca Chica in training jets. Training for the launch or maybe just a fun ride.

[Edmond]

Next month SpaceX will launch the first group of private space tourists in Dragon, the Inspiration 4 mission, a few days in orbit

That's very cool, a few days!

Do you know what altitude they will orbit at? How many will be there in total?

[Edmond]

The SpaceX Rocket Ship Will Have the Best Bathroom in Space | Travel + Leisure

Jeffing posh.

[Edmond]

Inspiration4 - Wikipedia

Amazing stuff. Due to launch on Sept. 15th, orbit at up to 590km, for 3 days. (almost 50% further out than the ISS)

Netflix are planning a doco about it.

Kinda deserves its own thread, if you feel like it TO.

[Takeovers]

Inspiration4 - Wikipedia

Amazing stuff. Due to launch on Sept. 15th, orbit at up to 590km, for 3 days. (almost 50% further out than the ISS)

Netflix are planning a doco about it.

Kinda deserves its own thread, if you feel like it TO.

You can do it if you like.

[OhOh]

Next month SpaceX will launch the first group of private space tourists in Dragon

Any near end of term women booked a cot?