Space News thread

[harrybarracuda]

Next crew for the ISS are going up in under two minutes

[harrybarracuda]

Well it didn't blow up on take off so that's nice.

[Takeovers]

Soyuz is now docked at the ISS. But in both the US forum NSF and the german forum I look into members were somewhat worried. Soyuz came in quite a lot off center, more than was ever observed before. Roskosmos terminated the life reporting before docking which did not increase confidence.

[harrybarracuda]

I did remind people in the comments that that's how The Andromeda Strain started.

NASA probe arrives at asteroid that may CRASH into earth in 157 years

NASA's spacecraft OSIRIS-REx has arrived at tiny distant asteroid 101955 Bennu safe and sound.

The mission will collect samples from the distant asteroid and return them to Earth.

But Bennu has a sting in its tail, because it's classified as a medium risk of crashing into Earth some time between 2175 and 2199. The odds, apparently, are 1-in-2,700 that the asteroid will collide with Earth in around 157 years.

Bennu as a diameter of around 492 metres which means that if it did crash into our planet the damage wouldn't be too terrible. A land impact would generate moderate earthquakes and a sea impact would result in a tsunami.


However Bennu wouldn't end life on Earth, although if it hit a populated area the damage would be catastrophic. Asteroids of this size would crash into Earth roughly ever 130,000 years, scientists say.

NASA's mission, however, isn't really about the asteroid smashing into our planet, it's about understanding how our solar system works.

The hope is that NASA's probe will be able to collect dust from the surface that could date back to the birth of our solar system, ideally with pristine carbon.


Bennu was selected because it's large enough and spins slowly, which means it holds on to the fine particles that make up its surface. Smaller asteroids spin too quickly and throw off their surface dust.


Now OSIRIS-REx has arrived at Bennu it will spend around a year mapping it, looking for a safe place to extract a small sample of the asteroid's surface.

Once it has collected both data and the samples the craft will return to Earth where scientists will be able to study the collected material in far more detail than they would be able to on a spacecraft.

That won't happen until 2023 though, so we're in for a bit of a wait to see material from the early days of our solar system.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/science/nas...crash-13684307

[bobo746]

A Colossal and Colorful Lagoon. To celebrate its 28th anniversary in space the Hubble Space Telescope made this spectacular image of glowing clouds of interstellar gas in the Lagoon Nebula
The whole nebula, about 4,000 light-years away, is an incredible 55 light-years across and 20 light-years tall. This image shows only a small part of this turbulent star-formation region, about four light-years across

[Takeovers]

SpaceX just launched a cargo Dragon to the ISS, it is the CRS 16 mission. Launch and Dragon deploymeht went well. The first stage was supposed to fly back to the launch site at the Cape Canaveral. But something was wrong. It started spinning and they were not able to control the spin. They diverted the stage to land in the water. The first loss of a first stage for a long time. Lastthey lost the central core at the experimental Falcon Heavy launch early this year. They will go through telemetry data to determine the cause of this failure.

Important is that the primary mission, getting a Dragon to the ISS goes as planned.

Edit: First tweet of Elon Musk

Grid fin hydraulic pump stalled, so Falcon landed just out to sea. Appears to be undamaged & is transmitting data. Recovery ship dispatched.

Of course undamaged does not mean it could be used again after the water landing. Surprising if it did not break up.

[Takeovers]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...&v=-gYDHmcCztc

[Takeovers]

Looking wild.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...&v=-gYDHmcCztc

[Takeovers]

Onboard video of the landing released by SpaceX. It is on Twitter so you need to click the twitter link.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1070399755526656000

[bobo746]

China’s bold mission to land a probe on the dark side of the Moon

China is about to be the first nation to land on the dark side of the Moon. But Beijing is being unusually secretive about the event — not even confirming its suspected launch date this weekend.
China’s National Space Administration is believed to be targeting the robotic lander at the Von Karaman crater, near the Moon’s south pole. It’s judged to be the oldest impact crater in the entire Solar System, making it an ideal collecting ground for water ice and a rare hydrogen isotope carried on the Solar wind.
Both have the potential to power future interplanetary missions.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/s...21aeae7caac49b

[Takeovers]

China’s bold mission to land a probe on the dark side of the Moon

This is interesting. Though it is partly speculation and the source seems somewhat sensationalist. They don't know positively about the targeted landing site. A polar crater is an exciting target and very valuable for science but very demanding in many ways. I would be quite surprised if they chose one for this mission. I would guess a later mission after they are successful with some location less demanding. For one they would probably not be in permanent contact with the relay sat they placed in a L2 Halo orbit. Temperatures are also even more extreme than other lunar locations.

If someone has wondered about the term "Dark Side". It is a common term for the side of the moon we never see from earth. On the side of the moon that is facing the earth there is sunlight during the day and the earth gives some light during night. On the "Dark Side" there is no earth light during the night.

[Takeovers]

Some news on the water landing of a Falcon 9 core yesterday. The core remained in one piece and is now floating off the coast of Florida. They have salvage ships out there. Last evening they could not get it into port because of a cruise ship leaving. Now they have to wait until the morning to tug it to port.

A video on the landing and explanation of the failure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_co...&v=pHPCs9pahe8

The hydraulics of the steering grid fins failed. Hans Königsmann of SpaceX explained that they still declare landing experimental and the hydraulics are not redundant like most of the mission critical hardware. They will probably make it redundant now. It was also said the avionics worked as planned and kept the stage away from land so it would not cause any risk to humans or property.

In the post launch press conference one reporter remarked that he marveled at the performance of the avionics that kept the stage mostly under control despite the major failure. I am looking forward how the mainstream media will display the failure.

[OhOh]

Here's what you need to know about the Chang'e-4 mission to the far side of the Moon

"China will launch the Chang'e-4 spacecraft on Friday, December 7, to make the first ever attempt at a landing on the far side of the Moon.
Here are the details on the launch, landing site, science objectives and more to provide what you need to know about the pioneering mission.

When will it launch

The lander and rover are due to launch atop a Long March 3B rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in southwest China on Friday between 18:15-18:34 universal time/GMT (13:15-13:34 Eastern Time), which is 02:15-02:34 Beijing time Saturday.
Unfortunately it looks unlikely that China will be providing live coverage of the launch, in which case the first official news after liftoff may only come once the spacecraft have successfully entered lunar transfer orbit.

Relay satellite for communications

A lunar far side landing is unprecedented because, as noted above, that hemisphere cannot be viewed directly from the Earth, meaning innovative solutions are needed to facilitate communications for sending commands to the spacecraft and aiding landing, and receiving telemetry and the all-important science data.
The mission is ready to proceed following the May launch of the Queqiao relay satellite, which in June established its intended halo orbit at the second Earth-Moon Lagrange point, some 65,000-80,000 kilometres beyond the Moon.
From here will be able to simultaneously contact tracking stations on Earth and the spacecraft on the far side of the Moon and relay communications with its huge parabolic antenna.






The 186-km-diameter Von Kármán crater is currently understood to contain the selected landing site, according to a papers published by Huang Jun et al in the American Geophysical Union’s Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, with other publications also analysing sections of this crater as potential sites.





Chang'e-4 spacecraft

The lander and rover are very similar to the Chang'e-3 spacecraft which landed on Mare Imbrium five years ago, with the lander at around 3,800 kilograms and the rover at 140 kg. The rover will descend from atop the lander a few hours after setting down.

The lander will carry a Landing Camera (LCAM), Terrain Camera (TCAM), a Low Frequency Spectrometer (LFS) with three 5-metre-long booms, and the Lunar Lander Neutrons and Dosimetry (LND), with the latter developed in Germany





A render of the Chinese Chang'e-4 lunar lander designed to set down on the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the far side of the Moon. CNSA





A photo of Yutu (Jade Rabbit) taken by the Chang'e-3 lander in December 2013 on the surface of the Moon. Chinese Academy of Sciences
The article here on the dark side moon landing attempt:

https://gbtimes.com/heres-what-you-n...de-of-the-moon

[Takeovers]

The Chinese lunar mission has just launched. Going for the polar crater has been confirmed at CCTV/CGTN. This is an exciting mission, something new.

[harrybarracuda]

The Chinese lunar mission has just launched. Going for the polar crater has been confirmed at CCTV/CGTN. This is an exciting mission, something new.

When's it supposed to land?

[harrybarracuda]

A couple of new pictures from InSight:

[David48atTD]

China’s bold mission to land a probe on the dark side of the Moon

[OhOh]

SpaceX have the best launch/flight commentary. NASA and CGTN needtouptheir games.

[Takeovers]

When's it supposed to land?

Could not find the precise date with a short search. But they go into orbit first, do some photos that get evaluated on the ground to determine the exact landing spot. There are no very high definition maps of that area so they get their own before landing. It will be about a week. Going directly could be done in about 3 days.

Edit: A little longer. Scheduled landing date is January 4.

[harrybarracuda]

Martian wind....

[Topper]

^^ that sounds like one of the most imminently practical science experiments ever....

[OhOh]

A simple windmill would be much nicer to watch spinning around and attracting any insects.

[bobo746]

Voyager 2 has gone interstellar

NASA’s Voyager 2 probe has left the protective bubble around the Sun and is flying through interstellar space, becoming the second human-made object to travel so far, the US space agency said on Monday.
The announcement came six years after its twin spacecraft, Voyager 1, broke the outer boundary of the heliopause, where the hot solar wind meets the cold, dense space between stars, known as the interstellar medium.

Voyager 2 is now more than 18 billion kilometres from Earth, having passed the boundary on November 5.
“This time is even better for us,” said Nicky Fox, director of the heliophysics division at NASA, noting that one instrument, called the Plasma Science Experiment (PLS), is still functioning on Voyager 2.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/s...1215ae8a8c1b6e

[Luigi]

^ As I'm sure most know, the Voyager program was based on a planetary alignment that happens every 175 years. That window was for 1976-1980. The next window is 2151-2154, in case anyone feels like staying up.


Can really only imagine what sorts of scientific technology will be sent all over over the solar system then.

[Takeovers]

https://spacenews.com/change-4-space...-side-landing/

HELSINKI — China’s Chang’e-4 lander and rover spacecraft successfully entered lunar orbit Wednesday following a four-and-half-day flight to the moon.The spacecraft entered an elliptical lunar polar orbit with a perilune of 100 kilometers at 3:45 a.m. Eastern (08:45 UTC) Dec. 12 following a lunar orbit insertion burn.
The spacecraft’s single main variable thruster fired at 129 kilometers distant from the moon following the issuing of a command from the Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Center (BACC) at 03:39 Eastern.
The China Lunar Exploration Project (CLEP) announced the success of the crucial braking maneuver within minutes and confirmed that the spacecraft was functioning well and will begin preparations for communications tests with a relay satellite and refining its orbit.
Chang’e-4 was launched by a Long March 3B carrier rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, southwest China, at 1:23 p.m. Eastern Dec. 7 for a 110-hour journey to the moon.
Three trajectory correction maneuvers had been planned for the lunar transfer orbit phase, but just one, carried out Dec. 9, was required, with the first and final maneuvers deemed unnecessary and thus canceled.
Consisting of a lander and a rover, the spacecraft will attempt the first ever soft landing on the far side of the moon — which due to tidal locking never faces the Earth — in early 2019.
The lander and rover are equipped with cameras and science payloads to analyze the lunar surface geology and subsurface, solar wind interactions and carry out low-frequency radio observations in the unique radio-quiet environment on the far side of the moon.
Communications with the spacecraft will be facilitated by the ‘Queqiao’ relay satellite launched in May and subsequently inserted into a halo orbit around the second Earth-moon Lagrange point, some 65,000-85,000 kilometers beyond the moon.
Far side landing and science
The landing will target candidate landing sites in the South Pole-Aitken Basin (SPA), with the selected site understood, but not officially announced, to be the 186-kilometer-diameter Von Kármán crater.