Space News thread

[Luigi]

The name asteroid belt, and diagrams of it are slightly misleading.

The average distance between asteroids is 1 million Km.


So little chance of it doing a Curiosity on one.

[Takeovers]

Has anyone checked to see if his wife is missing?

He is a special type in that regard too. His second wife, Talulah Riley is a beauty, intelligent, educated and successful woman. She found that it is hard to live with him but also hard to live without him. They married twice but are now divorced again. They are still good friends.

BTW Elon Musk said again in the latest press conference that it was hard to make this suit. It is easy to make a suit that looks good but does not work. It is less easy to make a suit that works but does not look good. It was very hard to make a suit that works and does look good. Looking good was a design requirement set by Elon Musk. The look has to make people want to wear it.

The name asteroid belt, and diagrams of it are slightly misleading.

The average distance between asteroids is 1 million Km.


So little chance of it doing a Curiosity on one.

Yes, several probes to the outer planets flew through the belt without problems. To compare, the rings of Saturn look quite solid from the distance but even there a probe flew through them without being hit. It is still mostly empty space.



There are plenty of amazing photos around of Falcon Heavy and the Tesla car with Starman. But this one is really special. Look at the details in the flames. Exposure time 1/8000 second. Exposure to the brightness of the flame, then postprocessed to show details in the other parts of the picture that are naturally very dark compared to the flames.

[harrybarracuda]

We're doomed! We're doomed!

Asteroid set to make rare close pass by Earth on Friday

Space rocks buzz by us all the time, but we don't get many of this size invading our orbital space more than a few times a year.

The "Super Bowl asteroid" garnered a lot of attention when it passed Earth right around the same time the big game kicked off Sunday. But another space rock is set to pass by much, much closer on Friday.

Asteroid 2002 AJ129 generated a lot of hype before it passed at a safe distance of about 2.6 million miles (4.2 million kilometers) Sunday. Part of the reason it got so much attention is that astronomers saw it coming.

The more recently discovered asteroid 2018 CB, on the other hand, is smaller and will safely pass our planet at a much closer distance of about 39,000 miles (64,000 kilometers). NASA estimates the asteroid to be between 50 and 130 feet (15 and 40 meters) across.

"Although 2018 CB is quite small, it might well be larger than the asteroid that entered the atmosphere over Chelyabinsk, Russia, almost exactly five years ago, in 2013," said Paul Chodas, manager of NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies. "Asteroids of this size do not often approach this close to our planet -- maybe only once or twice a year."

You may recall that the Chelyabinsk bolide exploded when it hit the atmosphere above Russia, creating a shock wave that blew out numerous windows on the ground.


2018 CB also comes on the heels of another recently discovered asteroid, 2018 CC, which came within 114,000 miles (184,000 kilometers) of us on Tuesday.

It's important to remember that while these asteroids are coming relatively close in space terms, they pose no threat to us. But perhaps someone should check to see if they might intercept the trajectory of "Starman" behind the wheel of Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster.

https://www.cnet.com/news/asteroid-2...tag=CAD590a51e

[harrybarracuda]

NASA spacecraft snaps images from record-breaking distance

NASA's New Horizons probe is making history with its Kuiper Belt images, the farthest images from Earth ever taken by a spacecraft.




These fuzzy images may look like flashlights shining through a foggy window, but they're actually a testament to the willpower of a plucky spacecraft and the people on Earth who sent it on its mission. For now, they're also the farthest images from Earth ever captured by a spacecraft.
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft launched in 2006 and made a splash when it spent some time investigating the weirdness of dwarf planet Pluto in 2015.
The space agency then sent the probe off on a new mission to explore deeper into the Kuiper Belt, an area beyond Neptune's orbit that's filled with fascinating icy formations known as KBOs (Kuiper Belt objects).


New Horizons snapped an image of a star cluster called the "Wishing Well" on Dec. 5, setting a new record for the farthest image ever made by a spacecraft. At 3.79 billion miles (6.12 billion kilometers) away, New Horizons beat out Voyager 1's "Pale Blue Dot" image taken in 1990 from a distance of 3.75 billion miles (6.06 billion kilometers) from Earth.
New Horizons quickly broke its own record with a set of images showing two KBOs, 2012 HZ84 and 2012 HE85. Those are the bright fuzzy spots seen in the false-color pictures above. NASA notes, "They're also the closest-ever images of Kuiper Belt objects."
NASA shared the three images on Thursday.
The spacecraft is currently heading toward KBO 2014 MU69, with a scheduled arrival date of Jan. 1, 2019. From here on out, every image New Horizons sends back will break its previous record.

https://www.cnet.com/news/nasa-space...tag=CAD590a51e

[misskit]

First student-teacher satellite to be launched in August

BANGKOK, 16th February 2018 (NNT) - King Mongkut's University of Technology North Bangkok (KMUTNB) is set to launch into orbit Thailand's first satellite made by students and teachers.

Suwat Kulthanapreeda, who directed the project, said during a press conference today that the satellite is scheduled to be sent into space in mid-August.

Weighing less than a kilogram and only 1,000 cubic centimeters large, the satellite will be transported to the US state of California, where it will be launched by a SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket.

Suwat announced that another satellite with similar features has also been created to allow teachers and students to conduct further studies.

National News Bureau Of Thailand | First student-teacher satellite to be launched in August

[BaitongBoy]

At 3.79 billion miles (6.12 billion kilometers) away, New Horizons beat out Voyager 1's "Pale Blue Dot" image taken in 1990 from a distance of 3.75 billion miles (6.06 billion kilometers) from Earth.

Mind-boggling distances...

[Takeovers]

Boats with a net are for fishing. Now look at this boat with a net up in the air.



Photo was taken a few hours ago by the girlfriend of a SpaceX fan. Photo on reddit by u/rfleason

https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comm...eles_with_net/

It is supposed to catch a kind of flying fish. Payload fairings are needed to protect the payload of rockets while they are flying through the atmosphere and are discarded as soon as the rocket is high enough above the atmosphere.





Fairings are expensive high tech. SpaceX fairings cost ~$2.5 million each half. It is worth some effort to catch them before they drop into the sea and get destroyed. SpaceX have experimented for about a year now. They have installed cold gas thrusters so the halves enter the atmosphere in a stable attitude and steerable parachutes to control descent. They seem to think they are close to success and will send this ship out probably on the next flight from Vandenberg to catch one fairing half. So far only one half of the fairing is equipped with recovery hardware but when successful they will equip both halves and probably send out 2 ships to catch them. Some people think they will be able to catch both halves with one ship but I don't think so.

[Takeovers]

I posted this before but I think in the context it is worth posting again. Well worth watching. It has dreamlike properties.



This was a fairing reentering before they started trying to recover them. For some reason they installed a camera inside that filmed this footage. Parts of the fairing washed up on some shore and was found. The camera was returned to SpaceX.

[Luigi]

Very Kubrick.

[harrybarracuda]

This one's very Monty Python.

[Takeovers]

Watch the one at 0:38 seconds in the video. SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell showed that one in a recent presentation. It was the first attempt on landing on the droneship. She said when seeing this she jumped with joy that they had actually managed to hit the ship on first try, a huge success. I think you need this kind of attitude to be succcessful with what they are trying to do.

The one at 1:21 dancing on the drone ship actually did fly again as a side booster of the Falcon Heavy. First flight it launched a Thaicom satellite.

[bobo746]

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base

[Takeovers]

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base

This one launched a satellite for the spanish military. But much more interesting is the secondary payload. SpaceX launched two satellites of their own. Two test satellites for their planned Internet constellation. The plan is to revolutionize Internet access in rural areas that are not yet well served. If plans go well they will launch a constellation of satellites in 2020. There is competition. One Web and Boeing are planning their own constellation. But the SpaceX plans are much more far reaching in numbers and capabilities. Their plan is to launch 4400 satellites as the first step and later add another ~7600 satellites for a total constellation size of ~12000 satellites.

There is hope for all of you out in the sticks in Thailand or the Philippines to get very fast high capacity internet. Also can serve ships at sea and airplanes in flight with internet at reasonable prices. If I remember correctly deployment of the first 4400 satellites is estimated at only $10 to 15 billion.

The 2 satellites integrated on the payload adapter getting ready to launch.

[Simon43]

Having looked at the specification for the PocketQube 'microsats' (about the size of a Rubic's cube), I reckon that I can build one on my kitchen table.



When I worked as a satellite design/integration guy, I was working on satellites that cost millions of $, such as Skynet, ERS-1, ERS-2, Envisat.

Now with Pocketqube sats, the build cost is literally just a few thousand dollars.

I'm serious about building one! I've been in touch with some colleagues in the UK and Netherlands who are have already built such satellites, and they are very keen for me to move forward with this idea, since Myanmar's involvement in satcoms development/research is precisely zero to date.

Luckily, I can use the experience and measurement data from previous Pocketqube designers to fill in the skill areas where I'm a little rusty.

The small size of the satellite (5cm x 5cm x 5cm) imposes some strict limitations concerning available power, thermal aspects etc).

Having looked at previous PocketQube and the components that they used, I'm tempted to dub my project 'JunkSat', because I believe it is possible to build a viable satellite using junk components.

Anyway, I have a lot of work to do for this project. The launch guys want me to have a satellite ready by Q2 2019, but this might be a little premature, considering I haven't yet bought the kitchen table......

I'll keep this thread informed.

Here's a link to an Ozzie who has the same idea:

An Australian makes his homemade satellite : Makery

[BaitongBoy]

What kind of kitchen table, Simon?...

[Simon43]

What kind of kitchen table, Simon?...

That's about the only part of this project where I have no expertise (my current lodgings has no kitchen). I move to a rented house next month, with a big kitchen that was obviously designed for DIY satellite construction and testing.

I need some expert advice about choosing a kitchen table...

[harrybarracuda]

I see there's a launch in about one minute.

[David48atTD]

1/4

Astronomers detect signal from the dawn of the universe, using simple antenna in WA outback


An artist's impression of the first stars, which formed from pristine gas in the early universe

A tiny signal, dating back to the birth of the first stars in our universe, has been detected by
astronomers for the first time.

Key points

• Astronomers detected a miniscule radio signal that indirectly indicates the presence of the earliest stars
• The discovery was made using a small antenna in a pristine, radio quiet area in Western Australia
• While the frequency of the signal was predicted, scientists were surprised by the strength of the signal
• The discovery has thrown up new mysteries for physicists around the properties of dark matter

They have picked up a radio signature produced just 180 million years after the Big Bang using a simple antenna
in the West Australian outback.
The ground breaking discovery, reported today in the journal Nature, sheds light on a period of time known as
the "cosmic dawn", when radiation from the first stars started to alter the primordial gas soup surrounding them.

It could also completely revolutionise our understanding about dark matter, the invisible structure that makes up
the bulk of our universe today.

"The signal confirms our expectations for when stars show up in the universe," said the study's lead author

Judd Bowman of Arizona State University.

"But it's also telling us that there's something mysterious happening at this time beyond our previous
expectations", he said.

It is thought the first stars were massive, blue stars that lived fast and died young.

More below

[David48atTD]

2/4

Hunting for signals in the remote outback


EDGES ground-based radio spectrometer Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory

Professor Bowman and colleagues have been hunting for a signal from the early universe for more than
a decade through the EDGES project — short for Experiment to Detect the Global Epoch of Reionisation Signature.

"It's challenging because the total amount of radio waves we receive on Earth from outer space is

dominated by all the noise our ... galaxy makes."

The signal they've been looking for is a miniscule fraction — between 0.1 and 0.01 per cent — of the
radio noise from the sky.

"It's like trying to hear a whisper from the other side of a roaring football stadium," Professor Bowman said.

The signal is also within the lower range of FM radio, so finding a place on Earth that is free of human
radio interference was essential.

After years of complex calibrations to the detector, Professor Bowman and colleagues finally found what
they were looking for.

They detected a signal with a frequency of 78 megahertz, which was in the range predicted for a star
formation by 180 million years.

But, to their surprise, the signal was twice as strong as it should be.

This indicated the hydrogen gas in the early universe was around -270 degrees C — much colder than expected.

[David48atTD]

3/4

Teasing out the mysteries of dark matter


A timeline of the universe

Separate research based on the signal, also published in Nature, supports the dark matter hypothesis.

Rennan Barkana of Tel Aviv University came to the conclusion that the extra cooling seen in the signal
could only have been caused by the interaction of normal matter with something even colder.

"Back then [at the cosmic dawn] there were no stars or they were only starting to form so the gas
[in the early universe] was very, very cold," Professor Barkana explained.

"The only candidate that we know of that can be even colder than this cold, early gas is dark matter."

We know that dark matter exists by its pull on galaxies, but we don't know anything about its properties
or what it's made of.

[David48atTD]

4/4

Cosmic dawn signal key to studying the later universe


Cosmic microwave background radiation is the fingerprint of the Big Bang

Astrophysicist Cathryn Trott of the the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research at Curtin University
said the research provided evidence we didn't expect.

"This signal itself is telling us something very fundamental about our universe and the physical properties within
that first 200 million years," she said.

Dr Trott leads separate, but related, research that uses the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) to explore the next period
of the history of the universe, 500 million to 1 billion years after the Big Bang.

During this period, known as the Epoch of Reionisation, it's thought increasing radiation from growing numbers of stars
and galaxies changed the hydrogen gas into a plasma, enabling astronomers to directly detect ultraviolet light.


From the 4 posts above, all from this article here with more content not reproduced.

[harrybarracuda]

A piece of grotesquely amusing nonsense for all Space News devotees.

You can have your name on a memory card that will actually be launched into the sun. Yes, your name will be bombarded with solar radiation and fuck knows what until the probe reaches its fiery demise in 2025.

Details here:

https://gizmodo.com/nasa-wants-to-fl...sun-1823611431


And when you register you get your own certificate.

HA HA! I'm doomed! I'm doomed!


Sign up and post your certificate here for a bit of a laugh!

[harrybarracuda]

How fucking irresponsible is this?

And what were the fucking jinglies thinking? (Well obviously money).

The US Federal Communications Commission says Swarm Technologies—a communications startup run by Silicon Valley expats—launched four tiny internet satellites into space back in January. That’s a problem because the FCC never greenlighted the project, saying the experimental satellites are dangerous. If confirmed, it would mark the first known time in history that unauthorized satellites have been placed in space.

The launch happened on what was otherwise a historic day. On January 12, 2018, the state-owned Indian Space Agency (ISRO) launched its 100th satellite, along with 30 others. But as Mark Harris reports at IEEE Spectrum, four of these 31 satellites probably shouldn’t have been packed to the cargo hold of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).

https://gizmodo.com/california-start...-sa-1823657316

[misskit]

GISTDA monitors falling Chinese space station with less than 0.1% possibility of impact on Thailand

BANGKOK, 10 March 2018 (NNT) – The Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA) has set up a team to monitor China's Tiangong-1 space station falling into the earth's gravity, with possibilities of less than 0.1 percent for its debris to drop on the ground in Thailand.

GISTDA's Executive Director Anond Snidvongs said the GISTDA is coordinating with aerospace agencies across the globe to monitor the movement of China's Tiangong-1 space station, which is expected to enter the earth's atmosphere and fall onto the ground somewhere on 10 April 2018.

Tiangong-1 is now orbiting at an altitude of 246 kilometers above the earth's surface. The fall into the atmosphere will create friction which burns and breaks the structure into small pieces, leaving a few solid debris penetrating the earth's surface.

The GISTDA chief said chances for the debris to fall n the ground in Thailand would be less than 0.1 percent. A team composed of experts in hazardous object collection has been formed to prepare for such unlikely events.

Touching on concerns over Hydrazine fuel used aboard the Chinese space station, the GISTDA director said the chemical is commonly found in industrial sector, and only excessive exposure to the chemical may lead to cancer. The general public who may have found aerospace debris are advised not to touch it, and to immediately report to the authorities for timely inspection.


National News Bureau Of Thailand | GISTDA monitors falling Chinese space station with less than 0.1% possibility of impact on Thailand

[Simon43]

How fucking irresponsible is this?

Reading more about this, it seems to be more of a protectionism issue.

The FCC claims that because the satellites are physically very small, that they are difficult to track. That's bollox, because even smaller satellites (PocketQubes) are regularly given the OK for launch, and they are just 5 x 5 x 5 cm. As stated in another post, I am designing and building a PocketQube satellite on my kitchen table here in Myanmar.

Secondly, the FCC claim that the satellites might crash into other satellites. Hmm, there are thousands of other bits of space debris floating around, and no-one seems to be concerned too much. Furthermore, these 4 small satellites were launched into a LEO - low earth orbit, and without on-board propulsion etc, they will re-enter the earth's atmosphere and burn up within a few months of launch.