I guessed right. Due to fast preparation work the crew was given the go and Dragon is already opened. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Takeovers
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I guessed right. Due to fast preparation work the crew was given the go and Dragon is already opened. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Takeovers
Kinda like blaney, after a month of fasting...
Cheers for the info...
A cute video about the CRS-9 launch. Not too long and shows most of the interesting stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pG2owTyVSw
Cheers once more, Takeovers...Keep 'em coming...
Another first. An absolutely stunning photo of something that has never happened before. When the first stage of the CRS-9 flight returned to the launch site it turned over and reignited its engines to fly back much faster than on previous flights to do the maneuver with minimum fuel consumption.
That way the single firing engine of the second stage and the three engines firing on the first stage interacted with each other created this pattern.
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2016/07/981.jpg
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2016/07/982.jpghttps://teakdoor.com/images/smilies1/You_Rock_Emoticon.gif
To the left the single engine. The elongated bright spot to the right is the first stage firing 3 of its 9 engines.
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2016/07/982.jpg
^ Nothing showing yet, mate...
It is now. Not sure why not before.
BTW, some people who observed it with binoculars got a shock. They thought the rocket had blown up.
Rockets are clamped to the launch pad by clamps and are released only when the liquid fuel engines have ramped up to full thrust. Those clamps need to be massive, fast moving and very reliable. Imagine one of them does not work properly, it would cause a real mess.
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2016/07/1001.jpg
That's one such clamp. 4 of them would hold down a Falcon 9. You can see the hydraulic cylinders that retract them.
A full duration test of a Falcon 9 first stage, that has already flown and landed before. Full duration means it fires for the time it would fire during an actual rocket launch. Worth noting this is the stage that did the harshest landing and received most damage of all landed stages. It is still able to work for a full flight cycle. A big step in the direction of commercial reuse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZQY902xQcw
Another full duration test was done just one day later with the same rocket stage. They are really on the way to prove those stages are quickly reusable. Again pointing out this is the stage of all landed so far that was exposed to the harshest conditions of heat and speed during their landing. All the other landed stages are in better shape.
The goal at the moment is less to just refly one, that would be easy by now. The goal is to find customers who trust SpaceX and their rockets enough to put their expensive satellites on for launch and to convince insurance companies to insure them.
^^^ Just how large is that clamp? I keep looking at it and trying to find something in the photo to compare it to but can't find anything.
It is somewhat higher than a human. Look at the palette just left to the clamp, covered with a white panel. That should be a standard sized palette as you see them frequently.Quote:
Originally Posted by misskit
SpaceX sometimes has public relations issues at their McGregor test site. Their tests tend to be noisy. So they threw a big party for residents again.
SpaceX shows off testing facility to big McGregor crowd - WacoTrib.com: Business
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2016/07/1360.jpgQuote:
A constant stream of visitors with cameras surrounded the spacecraft on their way into the building, which housed a face-painting table, bounce houses and a petting zoo by Ewepet of Dallas.
Outside, guests dined on offerings from five food trucks in the pavilion and boarded buses for tours of the SpaceX facility.
“I was living here when the facility opened,” Harris Creek resident Rick Taylor said. “I remember when they brought this capsule in with its rocket. They had to block off Highway 317 to move it in.”
Sandra Sanders, whose husband works for SpaceX, said, “They do everything big.”
This is one of the 9 engines that drive the Falcon 9 rocket. Conveniently with people for scale. :)
It is not a new one. Maybe it has done test runs in McGregor. But more likely it has flown to space and come back in one of their successful landings.
Edit: People more knowledgeable than me say it is an older version of Merlin, so not from a landed stage, just testfired.
This is a spectaculr video of a payload fairing falling back to earth after it was discarded once it had done its job of protecting the payload during flight in the atmosphere.
It was a major surprise when it was first published. They had no means of actually getting the video. What happened was the fairing dropped into the ocean and parts of it were recovered in the surf off the Bahamas months later. There was a goPro camera mounted in that debris and it yielded this video.
Spectacular SpaceX Video offers insights into Falcon 9 Payload Fairing Reuse - Spaceflight101
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_sLTe6-7SE
US Government Green Lights Private Moon Shot
A private U.S. company has been given the green light for a commercial flight to the moon.
The first-of-its-kind announcement came Wednesday that Moon Express, Inc. will send a robotic lander to the moon. The lander has been reported to be the size of the fictional droid R2-D2 from the Star Wars movies.
“It’s certainly trailblazing,” said Bob Richards, Moon Express co-founder and CEO. “It’s a huge milestone for us.”
Until now, private space exploration companies have limited their activities to Earth’s orbit.
Moon Express hopes to launch its mission in 2017, the deadline for Google’s Lunar X Prize, which will be awarded to the first privately funded company to land a vehicle on the moon.
Moon Express joined the contest in 2012, and there are now 16 other companies in the race.
"Even though we are a proud contender [in the X Prize competition], it’s neither a cornerstone of creating the business nor do we need to win it," Bob Richards, CEO of Moon Express, told The Verge. "But we want to win it."
Other private concerns may not be far behind with other space ventures. SpaceX has said it plans to launch its “Red Dragon” spacecraft to Mars as early as 2018. Another company, Planetary Resources, is making plans to mine asteroids for minerals.
Moon Express has said it wants to do the same on the moon.
US Government Green Lights Private Moon Shot
Great stuff, you guys...Love the music in the video, TO...
Misskit, we should've had an entry from TD (Buffalo 1)...Heh...That would be fascinating working with a team on a mission to the moon...
Let's start by sending a drone to Pattaya, or any place of your choice...(Pick up some sausages, maybe)...
Then we'll do the moonshot...I think there's an emoticon for that, I fear...
2001: A Space Odyssey written all over it...
Look Up! The Perseid Meteor Shower Is Back, and It'll Be Amazing This Year
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2016/08/365.jpg
This week the Perseid meteor shower will peak, and even if you're ordinarily lousy at spotting these sorts of things, there's a good chance you'll be able to catch at least a few shooting stars. Why? Because the night sky might produce 150 to 200 meteors per hour! This is the best meteor shower of the year, and the best showing of the Perseids in two decades. So what is going on up there?
COMET SWIFT-TUTTLE'S LOSS IS YOUR GAIN
As they travel, comets leave behind trillions of dust- and sand-sized particles. When the Earth crosses into the debris trail of a comet, those particles slam into the atmosphere at tens of thousands of miles per hour, producing the "shooting star" effect as they burn up.
Comet Swift-Tuttle is the source of the Perseid shower, so named for the constellation from which it seems to originate. The comet orbits the Sun every 133 years, and what you see when you're looking at this meteor shower are particles left behind centuries ago. Ordinarily, the Earth passes through the periphery of the field of debris. This time, thanks to orbital dynamics, we'll be passing much closer to the heart of things. Jupiter's gravity has tightened the trail of particles into a particularly dense debris field. That makes this an "outburst" year, doubling the number of possible meteors per hour. If ever you've wanted to try your hand at astrophotography, this is your big chance.
HOW TO CATCH THE SHOW
You don't need much to catch a meteor shower. (A blanket, primarily. Maybe a chair.) The real issue is what you must avoid in order to see the show. And that is light pollution. It is the enemy of the night sky. It is produced by ambient lighting and such things as poorly oriented lampposts, which sometimes point out and up in addition to down, where the light is actually needed.
For the best show possible, you're probably going to want to get out of town if you live in a highly populated area. The simple act of driving to the countryside can triple the number of visible meteors. If the evening sky is clear and your surroundings are dark, all you need to do is look up and wait. (That's where the blanket comes in handy.) It takes about 45 minutes for your eyes to adjust to the darkness. The best night to see the Perseids will be after midnight and before dawn on the morning of August 12, when the Earth passes through the densest part of the debris field.
If it's rainy where you are, don't fret. You can already see some of the Perseids at night now, and you'll still be able to catch meteors after the shower's peak, through August 26. If the weather is really working against you, NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, home to the Meteoroid Environments Office, will be livestreaming the event at 10:00 p.m. EDT on August 11 and 12.
Look Up! The Perseid Meteor Shower Is Back, and It'll Be Amazing This Year | Mental Floss
I'm waiting for the government to announce that the meteor shower is peaking on August 12th in honor of Mother's Day.
Just found this on reddit about the moon hoax thing.
:rofl:Quote:
> No, obviously they had Stanley Kubrick fake the landing. But as he was a complete stickler about accuracy, he insisted on filming on location
A new video with amazing pictures.
At 10 seconds into the video there is a scene taken with a new type of high speed camera. It has a dynamic range that they show details in the engine flames where up to now it was just overexposed white. This camera has been used for the first time only days ago on a test of a solid booster for the NASA SLS rocket.
At 26 engines you see the effect of the 9 engine arrangement with one in the center. The exhaust of the outer engines act on the central engine exhaust and you see it appear a long distance behind the rocket. The effect is not only an amazing optical one it also increases engine efficiency.
At 30 seconds you see the rocket leaving the dense lower atmosphere and the near vacuum conditions allow the exhaust of the outer 8 engines to expand forming the petals you see.
At 37 seconds you see the engine exhaust of the second stage interacting with the engine exhaust of the first stage doing its boostback burn to land on the launch site. This interaction has never happened before. Many observers thought at the moment the rocket has blown up.
At 50 seconds you see Saurons eye. It's the effect of the reentry burn of the returning first stage when it reenters the atmosphere and needs to brake so it does not burn up.
At 58 seconds you see how the engine flames get blown back at the rocket as it gets near landing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKqY8sy3nkM
For the occasion of 4 years Curiosity on Mars they made this 360° panorama. You can open it and move around using your mouse.
https://roundme.com/tour/68236/view/167427/
Thanks for that TO! That's an incredible panoramic pictures.
It was supposed to be last night, but whose gunna stay up on a Thursday?!Quote:
Originally Posted by CSFFan
Flooded canyons found on Saturn's moon Titan: NASA - Global Times
"US space agency NASA said Wednesday its Cassini spacecraft has found deep, steep-sided canyons on Saturn's largest moon Titan that are flooded with liquid hydrocarbons.
"The finding represents the first direct evidence of the presence of liquid-filled channels on Titan, as well as the first observation of canyons hundreds of meters deep," NASA said in a statement.
The discovery, published in the US the journal Geophysical Research Letters, was based on data collected from a close flyby Cassini made over Titan in May 2013, during which the spacecraft's radar instrument focused on channels that branch out from the moon's second largest hydrocarbon sea Ligeia Mare.
Previously, the branching channels appear dark in radar images, much like Titan's methane-rich seas, but it wasn't clear if the dark material was liquid or merely saturated sediment, which at Titan's frigid temperatures would be made of ice, not rock.
So during the 2013 pass, the Cassini spacecraft pinged the surface of Titan with microwaves, and the returned signals indicated the surface of the channels is extremely smooth, meaning they are currently liquid filled."
Thank goodness it wasn't Europa.