Space News thread

[Takeovers]

There going to let it crash in the Middle east

They cannot even do that. It will crash because it is in a low orbit. They cannot influence it. They may send commands but Progress is not able to execute them.

Latest speculation is failure of the Soyuz rocket upper stage and a collision between that upper stage and Progress after separation. NORAD has spotted debris from that launch. The Soyuz first stage is an old reliable workhorse. The second stage has gone through many changes/improvements and is lacking that same reliability. It is not likely that we will hear official confirmation.

[Takeovers]

For those who want links.

An article by TASS listing 13 launch failures since 2010. Those 13 failures don't include the latest Progress failure. They do have problems with quality control.

Íåóäà÷è ïðè çàïóñêàõ ðîññèéñêèõ ðàêåò-íîñèòåëåé ñ 2010 ã. Äîñüå - ÂÏÊ.name

It is in russian, use google translate.

[harrybarracuda]

Images show planet Mercury in amazing technicolor



Check out Mercury in all its psychedelic glory.

This colorful image comes courtesy of the Mercury Atmosphere and Surface Composition Spectrometer (MASCS) instrument aboard NASA's Messenger spacecraft. Designed to study both the exosphere and surface of the planet, the Visual and Infrared Spectrometer (VIRS) portion of MASCS has been collecting single tracks of spectral surface measurements since Messenger entered Mercury's orbit on March 17, 2011.

To play up the geological context of these spectral measurements, the MASCS data have been overlain on the monochrome mosaic from the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS), an instrument with wide- and narrow-angle cameras to map the rugged landforms and spectral variations on Mercury's surface.

Come Thursday, there will likely be another crater in the planet's pocked surface. That's when Messenger's four-year mission is set to end, and the craft will come out of its orbit and slam into Mercury. The 10-foot-wide spacecraft, according to The Associated Press, will be traveling 8,750 mph (14,081 kph) when it hits, fast enough to carve out a crater 52 feet (16 meters) wide.

The $450 million Messenger mission, whose name is short for MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging, launched in August 2004. After taking a circuitous route through the inner solar system, Messenger in March 2011 became the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury.

A few weeks ago, Messenger ran out of fuel. NASA was able to extend its life by conducting a series of engine burns designed to lift the probe's orbit. It managed to keep it going through Thursday when it will be left up to solar gravity to end the mission.

In Messenger's more than four years of orbital operations, it has acquired over 250,000 images and other extensive data sets. The mission has also fascinated star-gazers, including 3,600 who took part in a competition coordinated by the Carnegie Institution for Science to name five craters on the planet.

The names had to be from an artist, composer, or writer who was famous for more than 50 years and has been dead for more than three years. The winning names announced Wednesday go back several centuries, with the most famous name being the Mexican painter Diego Rivera.

Other winning names were Turlough O'Carolan (Carolan) an Irish composer during the 16th and 17th centuries; Enheduanna, an Akkadian princess and poet who lived in the Sumerian city of Ur in ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq and Kuwait); Yousuf Karsh, an Armenian-Canadian and one of the greatest portrait photographers of the 20th century and Umm Kulthum, an Egyptian singer, songwriter, and film actress active between the 1920s and 1970s.

© 2015 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

[Takeovers]

A lot goes on in space this year. The new horizons probe is nearing Pluto. Here a series of photos made by the probe during approach.



New Horizons is still far from Pluto but these photos are already better than any earthbound telescope including Hubble can do.

On closest approach to Pluto New Horizons will have a few very busy days taking photos and other measurements. Unfortunately NH cannot brake into Orbit. So they have only those few days while passing. It will take them more than a year to download all acquired data because transmission speed at that distance and with the available energy is slow.

As New Horizons goes on after Pluto flyby they are presently deciding on another target beyond Pluto in the Kuyper Belt.

Finally! New Horizons has a second target | The Planetary Society

[Takeovers]

Regarding replacement of Soyuz.

Russia is planning to develop a new launch vehicle in the payload class of Soyuz. The new launch vehicle will have a methane engine.

Ú-Ãàçåòà - Ðîñêîñìîñ ðàññ÷èòûâàåò íà "Ôåíèêñ"

Again in russian, use google translate.

[Necron99]

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' rocket company launches first craft - but did it make it to space?

Blue Origin endures mixed test flight, with confusion over whether the craft actually made it into space




Blue Origin, the spaceflight company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has endured a mixed debut test flight.
The US firm’s space vehicle, called New Shepard, successfully took off from a facility near Van Horn, Texas, exceeding Mach 3 as it hit an altitude of 307,000 feet.
However, it is unclear whether the unmanned craft actually went into space, as the height it achieved is around 21,000 feet short of the Karman Line, recognised by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale as the official boundary of space.
Blue Origin declined to comment on whether New Shepard made it into space.
In a blog, Mr Bezos made it clear he believed the craft, which it is hoped will eventually carry tourists, had travelled into space.

“Any astronauts on board would have had a very nice journey into space and a smooth return,” the billionare wrote.
However, it wasn’t an entirely trouble-free flight. While the “in-space separation of the crew capsule from the propulsion module was perfect”, wrote Mr Bezos, Blue Origin failed to recover the liquid hydrogen- and liquid oxygen-fuelled propulsion module due to a loss of hydraulic pressure on descent.
Mr Bezos said the company is working on an improved hydraulic system and will be “ready to fly again soon”.

“If New Shepard had been a traditional expendable vehicle, this would have been a flawless first test flight,” he added.
The craft will fly dozens of times unmanned before the test flights include pilots.
Blue Origin is among a handful of companies - including Virgin Galactic, a US offshoot of Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, and XCOR Aerospace - developing privately-owned spaceships to fly experiments, satellites and people into space.

http://youtube/0EIkzHYYm1w

[Takeovers]

They have narrowly missed the internationally used boundary of 100km for space. The US military gives Astronaut wings to their pilots who have reached 50 miles ~80km. Blue Origin has comfortably passed that line. Both competitors for suborbital spaceflights, Virgin Galactic and XCOR are aiming at 50 miles for their first craft and 100km only for later improved vehicles.

Blue Origin are clearly aiming for the 100km limit evn if they have narrowly missed it this time.

More importantly they are using a very advanced LH/LOX engine they can use with some modification as the upper stage engine of their planned orbital vehicle. Going orbital will be a huge step though that will take time and a lot of money.

[Necron99]

^

It's a very unaesthetic design though......

[palexxxx]

^ Looks like a big dick.

[Takeovers]

^ Looks like a big dick.

You are not the first noticing this.

Though in space forums they use more veiled language.

[Necron99]

I can't imagine Capt. Kirk taking it to boldly go where no man has gone before...

[Topper]

I can't imagine Capt. Kirk taking it to boldly go where no man has gone before...

Uranus?

[Takeovers]

^ Looks like a big dick.

You are not the first noticing this.

Though in space forums they use more veiled language.

They did come up with this photo though.



Ever heard of that movie Flesh Gordon? No typo.

[Neo]

Ever heard of that movie Flesh Gordon?

Very funny when he has to fuck the chickens.!

[Takeovers]

A big day for manned US spaceflight is coming. SpaceX will do the pad abort test for their Crew Dragon 2 on May 6.

Abort capability is important for crew safety. In case something goes wrong with the rocket the crew vehicle needs the ability to speed away from it and get the crew to safety.

During a pre test press conference the NASA speaker said, when designing the SpaceShuttle they intended to make it safe enough to not need abort capability but failed. It cost 2 crews their life. That is how important abort is.



This is how the LAS of Apollo worked and the LAS of the new NASA Orion capsule works similar. A heavy solid fuel escape tower on top of the capsule pulling it away. The tower is then ejected at some point during ascent.

SpaceX has chosen another approach that will be tested. They have built 8 compact rocket engines built into the sidewalls of their Dragon capsule.



This is a fan art presentation on how it works. The trunk below the capsule, with the fins, will be ejected near the highes point of the trajectory. then parachutes deploy and the capsule descends into the sea off the Cape Cananveral shoreline. The upcoming test will launch the capsule directly from the launch pad on the ground. An inflight test is scheduled for later this year.

The SpaceX approach has a few advantages over the launch escape tower. It has less weight. It uses liquid fuel. When the spacecraft reaches orbit that same fuel can be used for orbital maneuvering to reach the ISS and then get back to earth. But the potentially largest advantage are the engines. They will be able to do a powered landing on return to earth. Once certified by NASA they will be able to land the Dragon capsule on a helipad sized landing area.

The test will be broadcast live on NASA TV.

I watched the pre test press conference. Funny the NASA spokesman was so proud of Dragon like it was his own baby.

[Necron99]

Amazing to think that 40's and 50's era sci fi ideas of tail down landings are coming to pass......

[Takeovers]

Amazing to think that 40's and 50's era sci fi ideas of tail down landings are coming to pass......

Another one, even though this was a close miss. It did not come down vertical and the legs failed. But still amazing and so close to success.



Seeing it firs I thought this is another fan art CGI but it is a real photo from the barge where it is supposed to land.

[Necron99]

Parkes telescope scientists discover strange 'space signals' actually came from kitchen microwave


Scientists at the radio telescope facility detected radio signals described as "fast radio bursts" which they thought could be intergalactic signals.

PhD student Emily Petroff was one of those investigating.

"We were getting some strange signals that appeared to be coming from very nearby," she said.

Ms Petroff said the source had now been identified as coming from the facility's kitchen.

"We were actually able to trace them back to the microwave at the Parkes radio telescope site."

She said the fast radio bursts were sent when someone opened the microwave door before the heating process was finished.

"It turns out that you can generate these particular local signals by opening the door of the microwave to stop the microwave, and that produces these weird bursts that we're seeing at Parkes," she said.

"It was kind of a surprise to all of us."

Parkes telescope scientists discover strange 'space signals' actually came from kitchen microwave - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)



The little "Ding" at the end should have been a givaway.......

[Takeovers]

SpaceX Pad abort test today.

Short test fire yesterday. This picture looks irreal.



Mama Dragon has come to guide bayby on first flight. Nothing can go wrong now.



Dragon on the pad, awaiting launch.



Launch




The video

[Sumocakewalk]

"We were actually able to trace them back to the microwave at the Parkes radio telescope site."

She said the fast radio bursts were sent when someone opened the microwave door before the heating process was finished.

"It turns out that you can generate these particular local signals by opening the door of the microwave to stop the microwave, and that produces these weird bursts that we're seeing at Parkes," she said.

The little "Ding" at the end should have been a givaway.......

I think you typically only get the ding when the timer finishes. In this case it seems the door was opened before the timer had finished. At least that's the way my cheapo LG microwave works.

[reddog]

Passed through Parkes a while back and went on a tour of the radio telescope facility.
well worth it if you are in the area.

[Sumocakewalk]

Bangkok Post / AFP
May 8, 2015

MOSCOW - An unmanned supply ship burned up on re-entry over the Pacific Ocean Friday, a week after the spacecraft suffered a communications failure, the Russian space agency said.

"The Progress M-27M spacecraft ceased to exist at 05:04 Moscow time (0204 GMT) on 8 May 2015. It entered the atmosphere... over the central part of the Pacific Ocean," Roscosmos said in a statement.

Almost all similarly-sized spacecraft disintegrate in the atmosphere or land in the oceans, which cover most of the Earth's surface.

The spacecraft, a Soviet design generally known for its reliability, blasted off for the International Space Station on April 28 carrying oxygen, water, spare parts and other supplies for the orbiting space laboratory, which has a crew of six international astronauts.

A few hours after the launch, mission control lost contact with it.

A special commission is looking into the incident, the deputy head of Roscosmos has said.

Sources in the space industry told Russian news agencies that the accident was caused by a problem with the Soyuz rocket carrying the cargo ship into orbit, rather than the supply vessel itself.

Russia has recently suffered a series of glitches exposing shortcomings in its space programme.

A Progress supply ship crashed in Siberia shortly after launch in 2011. Moscow has also lost several lucrative commercial satellites.

Unmanned space station supply ship burns up on re-entry | Bangkok Post: news

[Takeovers]

The problem was most likely in the upper stage. That engine is an old and very reliable design. However they have upgraded the electronics controlling that engine and at this moment it seems that new controller did not work as it should.

That is what is happening all over. The old components do well, but recent upgrades are unreliable. However they are no longer able to produce some of the older components, they have to upgrade.

[Takeovers]

Sometimes I like to talk about developments that are somewhat off the chart.

There is a new one that has the scientific community buzzing as well as the fan community.

It is the EM-drive. A propellantless drive that would open the whole solar system for manned flight, if it works. The problem is that it seems to violate laws of nature, the law of conservation of momentum, no less. We all know that this law is basic to the very existence of our universe.

It is based on fluctuations of the quantum vacuum. A drive that seems to be working has first been demonstrated by a chinese team. Now a new design has been built by Eagle Works, a study group of NASA, no less that worked as well, and then because it was argued it is a false positive because it was tested in atmosphere, they tested it in vacuum and got the same results.
Thrust is miniscule though so measurement error is still possible. They are working on a new enhanced, more powerful version. If that works, another lab will test the design for peer review.

Unlike other seemingly revolutionary developments this team is very open, giving very detailed descriptions of what they are doing, inviting criticism and possible faults that cause false positive results.

The tests have already conclusively refuted the scientific concept that led to building the device. But while the theory is wrong, it still seems to work.

While I remain sceptic, I cannot but hope the drive will be proven over the next few months. If that happens, the theoretical physicists will have decades of work ahead of them to explain how it works.

A short but comprehensive description of what has been done so far.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/...hem_about_the/

An article on the EM-drive on Nasaspaceflight.com
Evaluating NASA?s Futuristic EM Drive | NASASpaceFlight.com

In this article Chris Bergin seems to have gone somewhat over the top which is not his usual mode of operation.

That's the drive.



The power generating device of the NASA drive is a magnetron. You can buy one off the shelf in the price range of 50$. That would be 1kW and give thrust enough to prove the concept. However to build an efficent drive that would really be good for driving space ships you would need a 100kW generator which will be somewhat more expensive.

The chinese experiment used something even more basic. They used a microwave generator as found in a kitchen microwave oven. The NASA Eagleworks team however believes a magnetron for microwave production will be more efficient.

[Takeovers]

After the accident of Progress M-27M the russian space agency delays the next manned flight which is using a similar launch vehicle. The launch is now scheduled for late July. The present ISS crew will stay about a month longer in orbit.
They are trying to advance the flight of the next Progress transporter to early July so that would test the launch vehicle unmanned before they send up the next crew.

Worst case if that fails they may have to reduce the ISS crew. They always have a Soyus spacecraft at the ISS that can bring down the crew.

This shows how bad the situation is because the USA don't have their own crew capacity after the end of the SpaceShuttle. If development of a replacement capability proceeds as planned there will be two new US vehicles ready to fly in 2017. That date has slipped a lot because the US Congress did not fund the development as requested by NASA and the presidential budget.
In fiscal year 2016 for the first time the development program will get funding at the requested level.

http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/05/12...ation-flights/