Space News thread

[bsnub]

He really is a fucking idiot...

During a meeting with the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group, an internal NASA working crew dedicated to supporting missions to Mars included a pitch from Elon Musk’s SpaceX to deploy Starlink satellites around the red planet to create “Marslink.” Having a thick layer of satellites around Mars would certainly make transmission easier, as it would make the comms target larger than the planet itself and would likely speed up intra-Mars comms when that becomes necessary. But it probably won’t demonstrably speed up communication between Earth and Mars, at least not to the extent Elon is pitching, because Mars is really fucking far away.

The Marslink pitch includes “multiple SpaceX satellites placed in Mars orbit to provide full visibility and interoperability for ground and orbital assets,” and the ability to “exceed” NASA’s requirement for 4 mbps transfer. For reference, your average internet connection in the U.S. is humming around 250 mpbs, and you need around 100 mbps for reliable video streaming. Last week Elon Musk said in one of his 100-plus daily tweets that “This is just a very basic first step. Earth and Mars will ultimately need greater than petabit/sec connectivity.” Petabit/second speeds are currently only theoretically possible with fiberoptic cables, and we’re definitely not linking Earth to Mars with fiber internet.

Mars does not move in the same orbit around the sun, or at the same speed as Earth. At its closest, Mars is a mere 34 million miles away, about half the distance from the Earth to the Sun. When Mars is opposite Earth in its orbit, with the Sun between them, that distance increases to over 250 million miles. If you could communicate at the speed of light, as many laser-based satellite transmissions can, the speed at which you can load anything is still dependent on the speed of light. That 250 million miles takes 22 minutes and 22 seconds for light (or information) to traverse. Petabit/second speeds between Mars and Earth are impossible until we develop faster-than-light travel, which is, you know, not possible based on our current understanding of physics.

Elon Musk, again on Twitter, suggested that Starlink could create a “data bridge” to hop data from one satellite to another along a relay system. One follower even suggested a “web of satellites around the sun” to keep people in space and on other planets connected to the Earth internet. “A long chain of modified future generation Starlink satellites between 1 and 1.5 AU would do it,” claims Musk. If you don’t know, an AU (Astronomical Unit) is 93 million miles, or the average distance between the Earth and the Sun.

Here’s the problem. Satellite hopping does not reduce the speed at which you can communicate with a distant planet. Space is still space, lightspeed is still lightspeed, and the distance doesn’t get shorter because you put a few satellites between here and there. It’s possible that jumping from satellite to satellite could increase the size of the data transfer, but it will not reduce latency time between Mars and Earth in any way. In fact, hopping from satellite to satellite will actually increase processing time and make the whole thing slower.

Is Elon Musk going to be the one to crack faster-than-light travel and quantum entanglement? I’m going to go out on a limb here and say I have my doubts. SpaceX is scheduled to deploy five unmanned rockets to Mars in 2026, and Elon says people will be going to Mars by 2028. Again, I have my doubts.

https://jalopnik.com/breaking-elon-m...ght-1851694933

[DrWilly]

Space is still space, lightspeed is still lightspeed, and the distance doesn’t get shorter because you put a few satellites between here and there

[harrybarracuda]

Poor little Voyager I, it's trying so hard.

At 15.4 billion miles away from Earth in interstellar space, Voyager 1 won't last much longer.
In fact, NASA's flight engineers may have thought the 47-year-old mission had finally kicked the bucket when the uncrewed spacecraft recently went quiet. The probe had shut off its main radio transmitter for communicating with mission control.
Voyager's problem began on Oct. 16, when flight controllers sent the robotic explorer a somewhat routine command to turn on a heater. Two days later, when NASA expected to receive a response from the spacecraft, the team learned something tripped Voyager's fault protection system, which turned off its X-band transmitter. By Oct. 19, communication had altogether stopped.
The flight team was not optimistic.
However, Voyager 1 was equipped with a backup that relies on a different, albeit significantly fainter, frequency. No one knew if the second radio transmitter could still work, given the aging spacecraft's extreme distance. Days later, engineers with the Deep Space Network, a system of three enormous radio dish arrays on Earth, found the signal whispering back over the S-band transmitter. The device hadn't been used since 1981, according to NASA.

https://sea.mashable.com/space/34964...sed-since-1981

[harrybarracuda]

He really is a fucking idiot...

In fairness, perhaps he read this:

Laser Message Sent 460 Million Kilometers – Further Than Mars – To NASA's Psyche | IFLScience

[Takeovers]

He really is a fucking idiot...

He really isn't. Some idiot may have misinterpreted (intentionally?) something Elon said.

Elon has suggested to put relay sats in a sun centered orbit between Mars and Earth. That serves 2 purposes.

It allows uninterrupted communication while the sun is between Earth and Mars, which presently interrupts communication.

It halves the hop lengths between relays, which allows 4 times the data throughput.

[Takeovers]

Elon says people will be going to Mars by 2028. Again, I have my doubts.

I doubt that, too. However he may have reasons to say it. The announcement came shortly after China announced their highly ambitious Moon and Mars plans. Elon Musk is just saying, if the US want to beat China in space they need to stop blocking advances by SpaceX.

The blocking of SpaceX by the Biden administration is probably a major reason why Elon supported Trump.

[DrWilly]

The blocking of SpaceX by the Biden administration is probably a major reason why Elon supported Trump.

blocking on behalf of Boeing?

[Takeovers]

blocking on behalf of Boeing?

Just to oppose Elon Musk. The Biden administration despises him because he does not want the unions to have influence in his companies, particularly Tesla. President Biden has declared GM as the great leader on electric vehicles. At a time when they barely produced any, none remotely competetive with Tesla. At the same time not saying a single word about the real leader, Tesla.

[bsnub]

He really isn't.

Umm... Are you even on Twitter/X? He literally proves it every day with his posts. You really are a blinkered fanboy at this point.

The Biden administration despises him because he does not want the unions to have influence in his companies, particularly Tesla.

Well, Tesla is going down the shitter, and it is 100% because of that moron Musk. They have no resale value, and you can buy them here in Seattle for pennies on the dollar, but still no one wants to be caught dead driving one.

[Takeovers]

Well, Tesla is going down the shitter,

Ah, that's why the share value did rise from $220 to $328 over the last few days.

[Edmond]

You really are a blinkered fanboy at this point.

Takeovers is highly educated and knowledgeable about (and spends a lot of his free time being involved with) such things. The only thing you're doing is showing yourself to be a disrespectful, uneducated, loud American. It's a great thread, you'd be better off just posting the 'space news' without your silly incorrect comments added. :-)

[Takeovers]

China is building their own space plane. A cargo ship that can supply a space station and bring payload back to Earth. Not similar to the NASA Spaceshuttle but similar to US Airforce X-37 and Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser. All 3 can land on regular airplane runways.



China Unveils Haolong Cargo Space Shuttle | Aviation Week Network

SINGAPORE—AVIC subsidiary Chengdu Aircraft Design Institute has revealed its Haolong reusable cargo space shuttle.


The China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) shortlisted the spacecraft as one of two proposed affordable cargo spacecraft designs.


Revealed at the Zhuhai Airshow, the Haolong features a large wingspan with high lift-to-drag ratio, a blunt nose and upswept delta wings. Fang Yuanpeng, Haolong's chief designer, told state media Global Times that the spacecraft takes reference from the U.S. Dream Chaser project, but instead of an expendable Shooting Star module, Haolong’s cargo bay is fully integrated into the fuselage.


Haolong measures around 10 m (33 ft.) in length and 8 m in width—clocking in at roughly half the weight of the Tianzhou cargo module, or around 7,000 kg (15,500 lb.).


The spacecraft will be launched from a carrier rocket, but will return to Earth like a conventional aircraft, landing on a typical runway. Fang said the high lift-to-drag ratio gives Haolong significant maneuverability in space, facilitating a wider return window. He added that the affordable operational price tag gives CMSA the flexibility to dispatch cargo, such as fresh food, and exchange scientific research materials.


Fang said AVIC has completed the program design stage and will proceed to the engineering development stage before topping off with a cargo mission to space.

The Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser. It has a long time development behind it, with very limited funding by NASA. Hopefully it will fly next year, bringing cargo to the ISS and bringing payloads back.




The Airforce X-37 has different tasks. It operates autonomously for extended periods in space. Little, or nothing, is known about what it actually does in space. It has been flying for a while in several missions.

[harrybarracuda]

I doubt that, too. However he may have reasons to say it. The announcement came shortly after China announced their highly ambitious Moon and Mars plans. Elon Musk is just saying, if the US want to beat China in space they need to stop blocking advances by SpaceX.

The blocking of SpaceX by the Biden administration is probably a major reason why Elon supported Trump.

The power he's been given to gut NASA and send all the business his way is probably a major reason why he supported Trump.

That and trumpanzees being the majority of remaining revenue for Twatter.

[Topper]

My bet...Musk is going to try to privatize NASA, with it going to SpaceX.

[Takeovers]

My bet...Musk is going to try to privatize NASA, with it going to SpaceX.

No way. Elon always admired NASA, except the Planetary Protection gang who would block Mars missions from happening, if they are not reigned in.

Hopefully he can kill the monstrosity that is SLS and Orion. Which sucks NASA budget dry, killing science projects.

Yes, those launches would go to SpaceX, who perform them for 10-20% of what SLS costs. Where 20% gives SpaceX huge profits. That would enable actually doing things on the Moon and Mars.

[Takeovers]

Another blunder by Roskosmos. They launched the Progress cargo transporter 90 to the ISS and docked it to the ISS Poisk module. When opening the hatch they detected a strong smell and droplets in the air. They closed the hatch and sealed off the Poisk module. All available air cleaning devices on both the russian and american section are active. Yet unknown what material was released.

My guess, they will undock the Progress spacecraft and deorbit it. But what about the Poisk module?


Progress MS-29 re-supplies ISS


I heard it first 11 hours ago. But at that time it was not confirmed by other sources. I was not sure then, this is real.

[Takeovers]

Update. They are working on opening the Progress hatch again.

WTF?

???

[harrybarracuda]

This one?

International Space Station fires thrusters to dodge hunk of space debris | Space

[Takeovers]

This one?

No, this is another Progress. It was shortly before the new one arrived. Progress are presently the main source of propulsion for the ISS. There is the Zwezda module, part of the ISS, which can do maneuvers too. But it is old and it needs refueling using Progress vehicles. So it is used only as a backkup. Mostly propulsion is with Progress vehicles. The new faulty one could probably be used for some propulsion at least, if its cargo is lost.

[Takeovers]

The Progress Spacecraft is being unloaded. It was determined it was some outgassing by a payload.

Of course something like this should never happen. Something is deeply flawed with the Russian space agency. IMO high time to close the hatches between US and Russian part of the ISS.

[Takeovers]

A most exciting interplanetary mission is go!

NASA officially greenlights $3.35 billion mission to Saturn’s moon Titan '-' Ars Technica



NASA will build and launch Dragonfly, a helicopter that will fly on Saturn's moon Titan. Titan has a very dense atmosphere, denser than Earth, and a low gravity. Flying a helicopter there will be quite easy. As much as anything can be easy that far away and on an extremely cold moon. Cold enough that it has lakes of liquid methane. Dragonfly will be dropped into the Titan atmosphere, will be aerobraked from interplanetary speed, then land on its own using the helicopter rotors, no parachutes.

NASA has formally approved the robotic Dragonfly mission for full development, committing to a revolutionary project to explore Saturn's largest moon with a quadcopter drone.


Agency officials announced the outcome of Dragonfly's confirmation review last week. This review is a checkpoint in the lifetime of most NASA projects and marks the moment when the agency formally commits to the final design, construction, and launch of a space mission. The outcome of each mission's confirmation review typically establishes a budgetary and schedule commitment.


“Dragonfly is a spectacular science mission with broad community interest, and we are excited to take the next steps on this mission," said Nicky Fox, associate administrator of NASA's science mission directorate. "Exploring Titan will push the boundaries of what we can do with rotorcraft outside of Earth.”


In the case of Dragonfly, NASA confirmed the mission with a total lifecycle cost of $3.35 billion and a launch date of July 2028. That is roughly twice the mission's original proposed cost and a delay of more than two years from when the mission was originally selected in 2019, according to NASA.


Busting the cost cap
Rising costs are not necessarily a surprise on a mission as innovative as Dragonfly. After reaching Titan, the eight-bladed rotorcraft lander will soar from place to place on Saturn's hazy moon, exploring environments rich in organic molecules, the building blocks of life.


Dragonfly will be the first mobile robot explorer to land on any other planetary body besides the Moon and Mars, and only the second flying drone to explore another planet. NASA's Ingenuity helicopter on Mars was the first. Dragonfly will be more than 200 times as massive as Ingenuity and will operate six times farther from Earth.


Despite its distant position in the cold outer Solar System, Titan appears to be reminiscent of the ancient Earth. A shroud of orange haze envelops Saturn's largest moon, and Titan's surface is covered with sand dunes and methane lakes.


Titan's frigid temperatures—hovering near minus 290° Fahrenheit (minus 179° Celsius)—mean water ice behaves like bedrock. NASA's Cassini spacecraft, which flew past Titan numerous times before its mission ended in 2017, discovered weather systems on the hazy moon. Observations from Cassini found evidence for hydrocarbon rains and winds that appear to generate waves in Titan's methane lakes.


Clearly, Titan is an exotic world. Most of what scientists know about Titan comes from measurements collected by Cassini and the European Space Agency's Huygens probe, which Cassini released to land on Titan in 2005. Huygens returned the first pictures from Titan's surface, but it only transmitted data for 72 minutes.


Dragonfly will explore Titan for around three years, flying tens of kilometers about once per month to measure the prebiotic chemistry of Titan's surface, study its soupy atmosphere, and search for biosignatures that could be indications of life. The mission will visit more than 30 locations within Titan's equatorial region, according to a presentation by Elizabeth Turtle, Dragonfly's principal investigator at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.


"The Dragonfly mission is an incredible opportunity to explore an ocean world in a way that we have never done before,” Turtle said in a statement. “The team is dedicated and enthusiastic about accomplishing this unprecedented investigation of the complex carbon chemistry that exists on the surface of Titan and the innovative technology bringing this first-of-its-kind space mission to life."


However, this high level of ambition comes at a high cost. NASA selected Dragonfly to proceed into initial development in 2019. Turtle's science team proposed Dragonfly to NASA through the agency's New Frontiers program, which has developed a series of medium-class Solar System exploration missions. The New Frontiers program has an impressive pedigree, beginning with the New Horizons mission that flew by Pluto in 2015, the Juno mission to Jupiter, and the OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission.


Dragonfly's lifecycle cost of $3.35 billion will make it significantly more expensive than any of those missions.


When NASA chose Dragonfly in 2019, the mission had a cost cap of $850 million ($1 billion when adjusted for inflation) to get it to the launch pad. The budget limit didn't include the launch or costs to operate the Dragonfly spacecraft after launch. The costs originally under the budget cap have increased the $1 billion post-inflation figure to $2.1 billion, according to NASA.


Since 2019, NASA had to replan the Dragonfly mission multiple times due to funding constraints that limited how much the agency could spend on the project each fiscal year. Managers navigated the challenges imposed by the pandemic and supply chain issues. There was also an "in-depth design iteration," the agency said in a statement.


During this time, NASA directed managers in charge of Dragonfly to delay its launch from 2026 to 2027, which required the mission to change from a medium-lift to a heavy-lift launcher. As a result of this, NASA upped the funding for Dragonfly to pay for a bigger rocket. Dragonfly's updated launch window in July 2028 will still require a high-energy launch, likely on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy or a United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket. NASA will likely select a launch provider for Dragonfly later this year.


Collectively, these pressures caused Dragonfly's lifecycle cost to grow to $3.35 billion, more in line with a flagship-class interplanetary mission than a cost-capped project. The two most recent New Frontiers missions came in between $1 billion and $1.5 billion, while Europa Clipper, NASA's next flagship planetary science probe, will cost around $5 billion.


NASA's commitment to Dragonfly also comes as the agency faces budget cuts. These reductions have hit the agency's planetary science division particularly hard. NASA is revamping plans for its big planetary flagship mission, Mars Sample Return, to try to rein in growing costs. The agency has postponed a call for scientists to propose concepts for the next New Frontiers mission that will follow Dragonfly.


Despite the higher costs, Dragonfly escaped cancellation. A major reason for this appears to be that NASA's budgetary limitations, and not any mismanagement from within the Dragonfly project, were responsible for a large share of the cost growth.


Assuming a launch in July 2028, Dragonfly will arrive at Titan in December 2034. Cocooned inside a heat shield and aeroshell, Dragonfly will enter Titan's atmosphere and deploy a parachute to slowly descend to the surface over the course of nearly two hours. Then, the quadcopter will settle onto the ground with its fixed landing skids.


At the surface, Titan's atmosphere is four times thicker than Earth's. This makes the process of getting to the ground a lot longer than a lander entering the atmosphere of Earth or Mars, but the higher air density should provide excellent flying conditions.

[Takeovers]

The launch contract for Dragaonfly has been awarded to SpaceX, using a Falcon Heavy rocket. The power source of Dragonfly is an RTG., a nuclear battery. Falcon Heavy will be nuclear rated for this flight. This is going to be the first nuclear payload flying on a SpaceX rocket. RTG produce very little electric power, that will operate the electronics and charge batteries for flight. It also produces a lot of heat, which is very welcome to keep Dragonfly operational on icy Titan.

Graphite impact shells containing plutonium-238 glowing red hot. Credit: NASA



NASA awards SpaceX a contract for one of the few things it hasn’t done yet '-' Ars Technica

When you compare SpaceX to the world's other space enterprises, it's probably easier to list the things SpaceX hasn't done instead of reciting all of the company's achievements.


One of these is the launch of nuclear materials. SpaceX has launched a handful of planetary science missions for NASA, but these spacecraft have all used solar arrays to generate electricity. In this century, NASA's probes relying on nuclear power have all flown on rockets built by United Launch Alliance (ULA), a 50-50 joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin.


This is about to change with a $256.6 million contract NASA awarded to SpaceX on Monday. The contract covers launch services and related costs for SpaceX to launch Dragonfly, a rotorcraft designed to explore the alien environment of Saturn's largest moon, Titan.


Dragonfly's power source is a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG), which generates electricity from the heat put out by the radioactive decay of plutonium-238. These plutonium-fueled generators have flown on many previous space missions, including NASA's Perseverance and Curiosity rovers on Mars, the New Horizons spacecraft that beamed back the first up-close views of Pluto, and the long-lived Voyager probes exploring interstellar space.


All of these missions were launched on rockets that have either retired or are nearing retirement: the Atlas V, the Titan, and the space shuttle, to name a few.


So, it is time for NASA to certify a new generation of rockets to launch nuclear-powered payloads. The Space Force is already working on this for ULA's Vulcan rocket, the replacement for the Atlas V, which is due to launch an innovative nuclear propulsion demonstration as soon as 2027.

paceX's Falcon Heavy has launched 11 times, all successfully, and is based on the Falcon 9 rocket rated to ferry people into orbit. NASA already certified Falcon Heavy to launch its most expensive robotic missions, such as the Europa Clipper mission, which launched last month.


But there is an additional certification required to launch nuclear materials, including a review of the rocket's explosive self-destruct range safety system to ensure it would not damage the payload and cause a release of radioactive plutonium. The RTG itself is designed to survive an impact with the ocean intact.


Notably, the Dragonfly launch was one of the first times United Launch Alliance has been eligible to bid its new Vulcan rocket for a NASA launch contract. NASA officials gave the green light for the Vulcan rocket to compete head-to-head with SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy after ULA's new launcher had a successful debut launch earlier this year. With this competition, SpaceX came out on top.


A half-life of 88 years
NASA's policy for new space missions is to use solar power whenever possible. For example, Europa Clipper was originally supposed to use a nuclear power generator, but engineers devised a way for the spacecraft to use expansive solar panels to capture enough sunlight to produce electricity, even at Jupiter's vast distance from the Sun.


But there are some missions where this isn't feasible. One of these is Dragonfly, which will soar through the soupy nitrogen-methane atmosphere of Titan. Saturn's largest moon is shrouded in cloud cover, and Titan is nearly 10 times farther from the Sun than Earth, so its surface is comparatively dim.

Dragonfly will launch with about 10.6 pounds (4.8 kilograms) of plutonium-238 to fuel its power generator. Plutonium-238 has a half-life of 88 years. With no moving parts, RTGs have proven quite reliable, powering spacecraft for many decades. NASA's twin Voyager probes are approaching 50 years since launch.


The Dragonfly rotorcraft will launch cocooned inside a transit module and entry capsule, then descend under parachute through Titan's atmosphere, which is four times denser than Earth's. Finally, Dragonfly will detach from its descent module and activate its eight rotors to reach a safe landing.


Once on Titan, Dragonfly is designed to hop from place to place on numerous flights, exploring environments rich in organic molecules, the building blocks of life. This is one of NASA's most exciting, and daring, robotic missions of all time.


After launching from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida in July 2028, it will take Dragonfly about six years to reach Titan. When NASA selected the Dragonfly mission to begin development in 2019, the agency hoped to launch the mission in 2026. NASA later directed Dragonfly managers to target a launch in 2027, and then 2028, requiring the mission to change from a medium-lift to a heavy-lift rocket.


Dragonfly has also faced rising costs NASA blames on the COVID-19 pandemic and supply chain issues and an in-depth redesign since the mission's selection in 2019. Collectively, these issues caused Dragonfly's total budget to grow to $3.35 billion, more than double its initial projected cost.

[BLD]

There's something a bit fucked up to me about billionaires wanting to enter the space race. Sounds like they aren't taxed enough

[Takeovers]

There's something a bit fucked up to me about billionaires wanting to enter the space race. Sounds like they aren't taxed enough

Elon has paid a million $ in taxes for every day he has been a US citizen. But that's just small change. According to NASA admin Bill Nelson and some high ranking military people he has saved the tax payer maybe $50 billion by reducing launch cost and forcing other companies like ULA to reduce their prices, too.

He also pours billions of revenue into new research, which will get launch prices down more in the future. Unlike companies like Boeing, who do not a single thing unless they are paid for by the government.

Without him, NASA will lose the space race with China in a big way.

[Edmond]

Elon has paid a million $ in taxes for every day he has been a US citizen. But that's just small change.

Oh don't turn me against him.

I remember reading that after 25 years of Microsoft Bill Gate's wealth equaled $5 million for every single day of it.

According to NASA admin Bill Nelson and some high ranking military people he has saved the tax payer maybe $50 billion by reducing launch cost and forcing other companies like ULA to reduce their prices, too.

He also pours billions of revenue into new research, which will get launch prices down more in the future. Unlike companies like Boeing, who do not a single thing unless they are paid for by the government.

Without him, NASA will lose the space race with China in a big way.

No doubt. Americans need to forget about politics sometimes, and view the bigger picture (the world and humanity's future)