13 minutes :42 seconds
Can you tell me which bit to skip to?
13 minutes :42 seconds
Can you tell me which bit to skip to?
They have eliminated the problem that caused the failure last time. A new problem popped up. I think they will need a little time until they can do the next test. I am slightly disappointed, but not too much.
It may have been a failure of that one engine that did not restart. They are still in a phase of continuing improvement of the Raptor engine. Raptor like every aspect of this rocket is revolutionary new. They will need time to fix all the problems. They can afford losing prototypes. At present they are building them faster than they can test and destroy them.
"don't attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence"
If it did, they will just do a bit of welding, maybe swap out an engine or two, and it will be as good as new!![]()
They had an engine ready to install on tuesday morning. When they got launch permit, they took the engine away. SN10 has no engines installed yet. Lots of speculation about it. SN5 and 6 had their engines installed on the pad after tests. With SN8 they changed the procedure and installed the engines in the factory area. Same with SN9. But then they moved SN10 to the launch site without engines. My best guess is they need the highbay building empty to proceed with building SN15 and the first booster BN1.
We don't know exactly, but it seems SN7.2, the test tank and SN10 are not damaged. Looking forward to the next tests of SN7.2, a test to destruction. They have reduced the tank wall from 4mm to 3mm steel and need to prove that the tank is still strong enough for man rated margins.
I get into trouble sometimes in the space forums. They use new speak and want to see human rated. But I don't use new speak. Saw a great comment by a woman recently. She said I am not a female engineer, I am an engineer. Worked once with a woman coworker. She is not only a great engineer, she is a great woman too.
Last edited by Takeovers; 03-02-2021 at 07:25 PM.
SpaceX Starlink launch L17 has been delayed by minor problems with the launch vehicle and a lot of weather related delays. It is now scheduled for tomorrow Feb 4. Looking forward to see it happen. I hope they go off smooth with both launches.
Starlink launch L18 has been scheduled for Feb 4 a while already. Now they are planned to launch on the same day, a first for SpaceX. The Airforce, now Spaceforce range has stated they are able to support parallel launches before. But only with launch vehicles that support automated flight abort capabilities. That's only SpaceX Falcon 9 so far. The new launch vehicles Vulcan by ULA and New Glenn by Blue Origin will support it too, when they fly.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1356807508975845381
Now targeting two Falcon 9 launches of Starlink satellites on Thursday, February 4, pending range acceptance and recovery weather conditions. First Falcon 9 launch at 1:19 a.m. EST from SLC-40, followed by another Falcon 9 launch ~4 hours later at 5:36 a.m. EST from LC-39A
Tianwen 1 makes orbital correction as Mars arrival draws near
By Zhao Lei | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2021-02-05 22:21
"China's Tianwen 1 Mars probe conducted its fourth orbital correction on Friday evening, as the spacecraft makes ready for its arrival in orbit around Feb 10, according to the China National Space Administration.
The robotic vehicle ignited one of its engines at 8 pm to make an orbital correction and ensure it would be flying in the right direction toward the Martian gravitational field, the administration said in a brief statement.
Tianwen 1 has flown for 197 days and more than 465 million kilometers on its journey to the planet. It is now around 184 million km from Earth and 1.1 million km from Mars. Depending on the two planets' orbits, Mars is between 55 and 400 million km from Earth.
The administration also published a black-and-white picture of Mars taken by Tianwen 1 when the probe was about 2.2 million kilometers from the red planet, the first snapshot from the Chinese craft.
Tianwen 1, the country's first independent Mars mission, was launched by a Long March 5 heavy-lift carrier rocket on July 23 from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan province, kicking off the nation's planetary exploration program.
It will conduct a "braking" operation to decelerate and make sure it will be captured by Martian gravity around Feb 10, said China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, the nation's leading space contractor.
The space administration previously said if everything goes according to schedule, the 5 metric ton probe, which consists of two major parts - the orbiter and the landing capsule - will travel more than 470 million km before entering Martian orbit, when it will be 193 million km from Earth.
The spacecraft has already made four midcourse corrections and a deep-space orbital maneuver.
The mission's ultimate goal is to soft-land a rover in May on the southern part of Mars' Utopia Planitia - a large plain within Utopia, the largest recognized impact basin in the solar system - to conduct scientific surveys."
Tianwen 1 makes orbital correction as Mars arrival draws near - Chinadaily.com.cn
Where are the other spaceships? Already there or close behind?
Are earth and Mars on the same plane around the Sun? Presumably they will all want to orbit Mars around the "equator".
If so what determines their actual orbit, the first arrival takes its pick and the others have to keep a reasonable distance away from it?
A tray full of GOLD is not worth a moment in time.
Without looking the other probes up, they all arrive within a short time of each other. I don't think the probes need to consider each other, unless they want to cooperate in orbit. Mars is still big. Its surface is about the same as the dry land surface on Earth. There is plenty of space.
All planets orbit the sun in a similar inclination, called the ecliptic. There are differences, but not much. The chinese probe will land in the southern part of Utopia Planitia. So roughly at 40° from the equator. They will want their orbiter in the same or larger inclination to the equator, so it passes over the lander for communication. Inclination allows flying over much of the surface. Equatorial would limit the amount of surface accessible to observation. Probably the orbital inclination will be similar to the lander.
Utopia Planitia is a lowland, giving more atmosphere for braking and parachutes to slow down before landing. Most probes go into lowlands for that reason. Utopia Planitia is one of the locations on Mars that SpaceX is also considering for their landing site. Not too far from the equator for solar power, far enough so there is underground water ice. Wikipedia says, enough water to fill Lake Superior, so really a lot, 12.100 km³ for Lake Superior, 14.300km³ at Utopia Planitia.
Utopia Planitia - Wikipedia
Last edited by Takeovers; 06-02-2021 at 06:34 PM.
BTW, if that rover lands in an aera with underground ice we may get very interesting results. Orbital radar sats have detected a lot of water but the resolution is low and especially that radar can not detect well, how deep it is. The radar data can not detect the thickness of the regolith cover, which indicates it is no more than 10m to the ice below. But we do not know if it is 1m or 10m. Getting at strong hard ice 10m below may be hard. The chinese rover has ground penetrating radar similar to what the chinese Yutu Moon rover has. They will be able to measure the regolith cover thickness with good precision, probably too if it is massive ice, hard as concrete, or if it is broken, easy to mine. Info important to have if SpaceX decides to land there.
NASA is considering a new orbiter with much higher resolution radar that can map the whole of Mars for these data. But even if they decide to send it, it will be too late for SpaceX to help deciding their landing location. They are not going to wait 10 years for the data.
The UAE is on the cusp of a spatial breakthrough with less than two days to go for the Mars Orbit Insertion (MOI), which is scheduled to take place on Tuesday (February 9) at around 7:42pm.
The mission seeks to boost the UAE industry and science sectors' capacity and will also provide the much-needed data on the Martian atmosphere.
Most of the spacecraft have been in polar orbits that only offered views of the surface at fixed times of a day.
But the UAE's Hope spacecraft will be inserted into an inclined orbit that'll provide a comprehensive view.
Hessa Rashid Al Matroushi, Deputy Project Manager, Science, said: "The UAE had categorically set the objective at the outset. The mission has to espouse novel scientific causes. It has to be a continuation of the existing research on the Martian atmosphere and also compliment the critical gaps that currently exist."
She added: "The mission was designed by scientific objectives that are unique. We want to share the data with everyone. The UAE's objective is to share the data and advance the knowledge of the human race as far as the Martian atmosphere and space science is concerned.
The data will fill in the gaps in computer models of the Martian atmosphere.
These global climate models (GCMs) rely on basic physical laws to make predictions about the weather and climate.
Scientific objectives of the mission
Al Matroushi spelt out the three scientific objectives of the mission.
"The first one is about characterising the lower atmosphere of Mars. The second one is about relating the conditions of the lower atmosphere of Mars to those in the upper atmosphere and specifically looking into the escape of hydrogen and oxygen. The third one is looking at the changes of hydrogen and oxygen on the Red Planet," she said.
The researchers will take the data from the mission and then merge them together to create a snapshot of the Martian atmosphere in a bid to analyse how they change on a daily basis and in a sub-seasonal manner.
The data will be holistically compared with other existing global circulation models of the Martian atmosphere.
"We'll take the data sets that are currently available on Mars to carry out a comprehensive comparison. Another set of analysis includes taking the data from the lower atmosphere of Mars and linking it to the upper atmosphere. This will help gain in-depth information about the relationship between the different layers of the Martian atmosphere," said Al Matroushi.
A web portal has also been developed to access the data that the mission generates.
This portal will be up and running not only during the mission's lifetime but even beyond its existence.
Data visualisation tools
Omran Ahmed Al Hammadi, the lead at Science Data Centre, said: "Once the spacecraft transits to the science orbit, then we'll start collecting Mars observation data using the instruments that are on board the Hope Probe. Once the data is collected, it will be sent to the Mission Operation Centre. Then, the raw data will be sent to the Science Data Centre."
He added: "The first data set will be released four months after entering the science orbit, which is likely to be around September-October. Later, after every three months, a new data set will be released to conduct scientific analysis and research."
The researchers are expected to develop the visualisation tools, which will be used to decode the scientific data delivered by the spacecraft's instruments.
Noora Saeed Al Mheiri, science data analyst, lower atmosphere, said the expertise has been developed to decode the data sets.
"The researchers have focused on developing their analytical skills while poring over the data sets of previous missions to Mars. This will help us better understand the upcoming new set of data that will be received from Mars," she added.
Hope Probe: UAE on cusp of scientific breakthrough (msn.com)
Quotes from Dubai in arabic. A source in english stating the UAE probe has successfully completet the orbit insertion burn and is now orbiting Mars.
https://twitter.com/ChrisG_NSF/statu...73737174728706
From a german space forum: 80% of the arab scientists involved in the project are women.ORBIT!!! CONGRATULATIONS to the United Arab Emirates, becoming only the 2nd nation after India to succeed in getting a probe to #Mars on its 1st attempt. The mission, an inspiration to many, is a critical step in sending humans to the Red Planet.
The chinese probe is expected to arrive at Mars tomorrow.
There's an interactive page here:
UAE's Hope probe to Mars an orbit away from glory | Mars - Hope Probe | Khaleej Times
They have a special stamp for your passport if you arrive in the UAE:
What was interactive about it?
China's Tianwen-1 enters orbit around Mars - SpaceNews
China’s first interplanetary mission, Tianwen-1, successfully entered Mars orbit Feb. 10 following a 202-day journey through deep space.
Tianwen-1 initiated a near 15-minute burn of its 3000N main engine at 6:52 a.m. Eastern allowing the five-ton spacecraft to slow down and be gravitationally captured by Mars.
The Mars orbit insertion maneuver was designed to place the Tianwen-1 into an elliptical orbit of 400 by 180,000 kilometers inclined by 10 degrees, with an orbital period of 10 days.
With Mars more than 192 million kilometers away from Earth and a light time delay of 10 minutes and 40 seconds, the braking burn was by necessity pre-programmed. Intervention would not be possible in the event of an issue.
Tianwen-1 will gradually lower its orbit to allow for observations of Mars. It will also begin preparations for the entry, descent and landing attempt of a 240-kilogram solar powered rover, an event expected to take place around May or June, according to the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp.
The orbiter is expected to approach as close as 265 kilometers to the surface, allowing a high-resolution camera to return images with a resolution of better than 0.50 meters per pixel.
This capability will be used to map a targeted rover landing site in Utopia Planitia. Landing coordinates of 110.318 degrees east longitude and 24.748 degrees north latitude had previously appeared in an official Chinese space publication before being removed.
Tianwen-1 joins the United Arab Emirates’ Hope mission, which arrived Tuesday, in orbit around the Red Planet. NASA’s Perseverance rover will arrive and make a soft landing attempt Feb. 18.
Soviet, Japanese and U.S. spacecraft have previously failed at the orbital insertion stage of the mission. The Soviet Mars 4 mission was unable to fire its engines and thus continued past Mars, while NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter in 1999 approached too close, resulting in a mission-ending interaction with the Martian atmosphere.
Water-ice study among science objectives
Tianwen-1 is designed to collect an array of diverse data, both from orbit and on the Martian surface.
Long Xiao, a planetary scientist at the China University of Geosciences, told SpaceNews that Tianwen-1 equipped with a total 13 scientific payloads in to study Martian morphology and topography, study surface regolith and search for water ice with radars, study the composition of surface materials and the characteristics of the ionosphere, climate, environment and magnetic field.
“The most unique aim is to search and map the distribution of water ice on the surface and subsurface,” says Long. Two sounding radars will operate independently, with one onboard the orbiter. It will conduct a global survey but focus more on polar high latitude regions. The other is on the rover. “As radar data processing and interpretation is very complex, so the ground and satellite radar data together could provide more reliable results than a single one,” says Long.
Zhang Xiaoping, an associate professor at Macau University of Science and Technology, likewise highlighted the potential of the radar payloads.
“We want to use the radar system to measure the subsurface structure of the Martian surface, especially for the buried water ice. This would allow us to study not only the underlying geologic structures of Mars, but also the potential source of water ice that supplies long-term human stay,” Zhang told SpaceNews.
“It is also important to measure the thickness and layers of ice and carbon dioxide in the polar region, to understand the seasonal atmosphere evolutions of Mars. By combining orbital and ground penetrating radar results, we will have a better understanding of the soil structure and evolution in the landing site.”
Deep space journey
Tianwen-1 launched from Wenchang, south China, July 23, 2020 on a Long March 5 heavy-lift rocket. The new launcher had crucially returned to flight in December 2019, having been grounded for more than 900 days following a 2017 failure.
The spacecraft carried out four trajectory correction maneuvers to refine its orbit and a larger deep space maneuver to alter its orbital inclination.
The European Space Agency provided China with support for the Launch and Early Orbit phase (LEOP) and later during Earth-Mars transfer with very precise tracking via Delta-DOR (delta Differential One way Range) measurements campaigns. This was carried out with ESA deep space 35-meter-diameter antennas located in Cebreros, Spain and New Norcia, Western Australia.
The Tianwen-1 orbiter has a design lifetime of one Martian year, or 687 Earth days. The rover, due to be named through a public vote and subsequent committee decision, has a design lifetime of around 90 Earth days.
The mission draws on technologies and capabilities developed through the Chang’e lunar program orbiters, lander and rovers, as well as head shielding and parachute expertise from Shenzhou human spaceflight endeavors
China is also developing a Mars sample return mission for around 2028-30.
A video of Tianwen-1 during orbit insertion, with Mars in the background. Not very good picture as the camera is designed to just show deployment of the solar panels.
Fancy coming in behind the Arabs, how embarrassing.
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The planet is not red?
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