Space News thread

[Takeovers]

Just read, that the first computer game in space was at MIR. A Soviet Cosmonaut brought a gameboy and tetris to the station in 1993.

[david44]

Just read, that the first computer game in space was at MIR. A Soviet Cosmonaut brought a gameboy and tetris to the station in 1993.

Great stuff, ad a great thread full of informative stuff, weel done, green incoming to your launchpad

[OhOh]

Interesting developments or ....

[Takeovers]

NASA is launching the DART mission. It is an attempt to redirect an asteroid to test the ability to deflect a possible threat to Earth. The system can only cause a miniscule trajectory change. Which means that a potential thread needs to be found years before potential impact. There are a number of telescopes that scan space for potential threats. A number of asteroids are in near Earth orbits. Those can be identified and catalogued, so they could be deflected.

Another type of threat, asteroids or comets coming in from the outer solar system can not be catalogued early. We would not have a lot of time to intercept them. Still years unless we are very unlucky.

DART is intended for the first class which has a much higher likelyhood of threatening Earth.

The probe will be launched on November 24 on a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Spaceforce Base. Impact is intended to be in autumn of 2022. The impacted asteroid has a diameter of ~150m, which is typical for asteroids that can be potential threats. This asteroid is not one of them, it is not a threat.

A NASA article about the mission
Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Mission | NASA

Schematics of the probe

the probe in space, ion drive firing

The targeted asteroid. It is a pair, the target is the smaller one.

[havnfun]

Voyager 1 still keeps going on.

In Depth | Voyager 1 – NASA Solar System Exploration

[Takeovers]

SpaceX Crew Dragon 2 mission is about to depart. After undocking the ISS it will do a fly around the ISS to take photos of all ISS parts.

If you want to see it live, it is about to undock.

SpaceX - Launches

[malmomike77]

Nasa forced to reschedule moon landing mission partly due to Blue Origin lawsuit delays

Space agency now says boots on moon won’t happen until 2025 ‘at the earliest’

Nasa has rescheduled its Artemis lunar missions to at least 2025, partly due to delays caused by lawsuits filed by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin.

Nasa administrator Bill Nelson outlined the challenges ahead for the missions that will put humans back on the moon in a statement on Wednesday.

“Returning to the moon as quickly and safely as possible is an agency priority. However, with the recent lawsuit and other factors, the first human landing under Artemis is likely no earlier than 2025,” said Mr Nelson.

A federal court had ruled against Blue Origin last week, after it had slapped a lawsuit against Nasa for awarding the contract to build the Artemis Human Landing System (HLS) to SpaceX.

Mr Nelson said that the space agency was not allowed to have any contact with SpaceX on the HLS programme during the seven-month litigation period.

“We’re pleased with the US Court of Federal Claims’ thorough evaluation of Nasa’s source selection process for the human landing system, and we have already resumed conversations with SpaceX,” he added.

The Nasa administrator pointed out several factors for the delayed lunar landing in his statement.

He mentioned the “almost seven-month delay due to the HLS lawsuit”, Congress not releasing sufficient funds for HLS, the Covid-19 pandemic and first-time development challenges as reasons for the delay.

The Trump administration had earlier laid out a landing goal of 2024, but this was now not technically feasible, he noted.

“It’s clear we’re both eager to get back to work together and establish a new timeline for our initial lunar demonstration missions,” he pointed out.

Nasa is also working on two flight tests – the uncrewed Artemis I and crewed Artemis II – around the moon before executing the human landing missions.

more...

https://www.independent.co.uk/space/nasa-moon-landing-pushed-2025-b1954837.html

[OhOh]

Tianwen-1 Mars probe enters final mission of global remote sensing

By Deng Xiaoci

Published: Nov 09, 2021 08:15 PM

"China's first interplanetary probe mission has come to its final stage of global remote-sensing exploration of the Red Planet after the Tianwen-1 orbiter successfully completed its fifth brake and entered a new mission orbit automatically late Monday, according to project insiders on Tuesday.

Four 102N engines worked for 260 seconds, reaching a speed increment of 78 meters per second for the late Monday maneuver of the Tianwen-1 orbiter, Global Times learned from the orbiter development team with the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology of the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC).

The Tianwen-1 probe has so far completed all preset mission stages including being captured by Mars' gravity, the orbiter-lander separation, the landing of the Zhurong rover, and the roving and exploration of the rover. It has come to the final stage of global remote sensing, the academy said in a statement it provided to the Global Times.

The obiter development team also revealed that to achieve the global remote sensing of Mars, the new orbit would be an elliptical one with a height of about 260 kilometers near point, a height of about 10,000 kilometers at the far side with an inclination of about 87 degrees.

It is different from the previous relay orbit in which the orbiter could go around Mars three times every Martian day, enabling it to provide two times of relay communication for the rover every day when flying over the landing site.

The new remote sensing orbit is shorter in which the orbiter could fly around the Red Planet 3.47 rounds every day, and could achieve a probe of global coverage in 200 days.

In the final stage, the seven scientific payloads on the Tianwen-1 orbiter will obtain scientific data related to morphology and geological structure, surface material composition and soil type distribution, the atmospheric ionosphere and the space environment of Mars.

And the orbiter will work in the new orbit for another 14 months while continuing to provide relay communication service to the Zhurong rover.

As of Monday, the orbiter has worked in orbit for 473 days. The Zhurong rover has worked on the Martian surface for 174 Martian days, with a total distance of 1,253 meters.

The two are in good condition and all systems are working normally, the China National Space Administration said. "

Tianwen-1 Mars probe enters final mission of global remote sensing - Global Times

[Takeovers]

“Returning to the moon as quickly and safely as possible is an agency priority. However, with the recent lawsuit and other factors, the first human landing under Artemis is likely no earlier than 2025,” said Mr Nelson.

I am far from being a fan of Blue Origin. But they are certainly not to blame for the slip of Artemis. Their protest and court actions were ludicrous and not justified. However NASA and Boeing are just not able to get SLS with Orion flying. The system was planned to fly this year and is now NET February 22, likely to slip more. But worse, the second flight is slipping from 2023 to now NET May 2024. Two years from first to second flight. This is in no way related to Blue Origin suing aginst another part of Artemis, the SpaceX HLS Moon lander system. Which the protests barely affect, because SpaceX is moving forward regardless.

NASA Administrator Nelson will visit the Boca Chica build and launch site early next year.

Funny to see how the supporters of SLS/Orion are in shock and denial about the latest reveals.



I have been laughing all day.

No I am not.

[Takeovers]

Just found this

In case you did not realize it. It's the SLS rocket.

[malmomike77]

Whilst we are in a jovial mood...

https://www.spinlaunch.com/#p3

[Edmond]

Falcon 9 and Dragon are looking good for tonight’s launch of Crew-3 astronauts at 9:03 p.m. EST. Webcast will go live ~4 hours before liftoff

[Takeovers]

Crew is lifting up the rocket.

Short video of launch. Booster was already reused and landed successfully again. Barely visible, video usually cuts out on landing due to interference by the rocket exhaust.

[harrybarracuda]

This is a nice picture of the launch.

[Takeovers]

Another example why I have lost any respect for the NASA human space flight efforts.

A few months back NASA proudly presented xEMU, their new space suit they have been working on for many years.

Next they announced the suit would not be ready for the 2024 Moon landing. It would take until 2025 to have it ready. At the time Elon Musk said on twitter, SpaceX could provide a suit by 2024.

Shortly after that NASA announced the development of the suit is cancelled and they are going for a commercial provider of the suit. But until now they have not made a request for proposal, a RFP, just asked potential providers for input. But they want a suit for tests at the ISS in 2024.

NASA is no longer capable of getting anything done in manned spaceflight.

They are still good at unmanned science missions, though at exceedingly high cost.


P.S. I hope I will not have to take that back. I like many others are thinking of potential failure of the James Webb space telescope, to be launched by ESAs Ariane 5 in december this year. James Webb has taken too many years to complete and an absurd amount of money. Over $10 billion, after it was initially scheduled to cost ~$1 billion and be ready many, many years ago.

[harrybarracuda]

It looks a bit top heavy tbh.

[OhOh]

A few months back NASA proudly presented xEMU, their new space suit they have been working on for many years.

It looks a bit top heavy tbh.

How do both, NASA and SpaceX, compare with the, original Moon landings utilised, suit?

Was the original suit modified during the previous Moon landings period?

Weight, duration, safety, usability, time to put it on/take off ....?

Are we comparing apples to oranges, original v new and NASA v SpaceX?

James Webb has taken too many years to complete and an absurd amount of money.

Project modifications/creep or poor estimates of development/budget availability?

[Takeovers]

Project modifications/creep or poor estimates of development/budget availability?

A bit of everything. One very welcome feature creep. James Webb is a deep infrared telescope and the sensor needs to be kept very cold. Initially the plan was to cool it with a stock of liquid helium. Once that runs out the telescope is almost worthless. They have replaced it with an active cooling system that can run until it dies of old age.

But the most important thing, NASA gave the contract to a small but promising company. Soon after the contract that company got bought by Lockheed Martin. Then the disaster unfolded.

[Takeovers]

It looks a bit top heavy tbh.

It is like a backpack. Hikers carry them around all the time.

BTW Off Topic. On a trip to Thailand I saw a young woman with the biggest backpack I ever saw, and with a baby on top. Probably lightweight, mostly diapers.

They need the life support that operates for many hours. So either a backpack or a suitcase they carry by hand and can put down to work. In space, at the ISS it does not matter much. On the Moon gravity is very low, so it does not matter too much as well. With the Apollo Moon suit it was very hard to get back up when they fell. It was said it's much easier with the new suit.

I wonder how the solution will be for Mars. And what solution private suppliers can offer.

I remember a discussion on the NASASpaceflight forum years back. It was about what can be achieved for spacesuits with modern materials. After all the present design and even the spacesuits presently used on the ISS are many decades old. Then someone from the NASA team developing new spacesuits commented. He was very angry, declaring that they already have the best possible spacesuits. That attitude probably is the reason why NASA now outsources. With people who are convinced they already have the best possible solutions, you can not achieve progress.

[Takeovers]

A lucky photographer got this shot of a meteor crossing the path of the Dragon Crew 3 launch.

Capital Weather Gang

@capitalweather

This is just a phenomenal photo of a fireball (large meteor) streaking across the sky at the same time SpaceX #Crew3 rocket was flying over last night. @forecaster25
(Peter Forister) who photographed it, talked to us about his experience:

More in the Washington Post article.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weath...x-launch-nasa/

Looks to me like the meteor had some copper in it, because of the green color. But under the conditions of the photo colors can easily be off.

[Takeovers]

A screenshot from todays Falcon 9 launch with over 50 Starlink sats. They now launch only sats with laser links that will allow them to serve users far from ground stations. Like on ships and planes in the middle of the ocean or in polar regions or very remote regions like Alaska. It will be a while until the orbital shells will be filled and actual service will be possible. I like this screen shot because of the fog that obscures the pad itself. Views like this are common from Vandenberg on the west coast but not in Florida.

Flight and landing of the booster were successful.

[harrybarracuda]

The Russians are such utter wankers.

Russia blows up a satellite, creating a dangerous debris cloud in space

The field of debris may be passing by the International Space Station

Russia blows up a satellite, creating a dangerous debris cloud in space - The Verge

[Latindancer]

Words fail me.

It was bad enough when the Chinese did that, but this is unforgivable.

What moron ordered this ? He should be sentenced to pick up plastic from the beach for 5 years.

[Edmond]

Excellent Hi Res photos released from Inspiration 4's 3 day tourist trip.

On-orbit photos | Flickr

[malmomike77]

The Russians are such utter wankers.

It was bad enough when the Chinese did that, but this is unforgivable.

Yep clearly no one told the ruskies the chink made a royal mess of it. You have to wonder wtf they are thinking - blow up one object...erm what's going to happen

Russian anti-satellite test adds to worsening problem of space debris

Russia has carried out a missile test, destroying one of its own satellites. The action has caused international outrage because the debris could threaten the International Space Station (ISS) and satellites in low-Earth orbit.

Russia's test of an anti-satellite (A-Sat) missile system is not the first of its kind.

Back in 2007, China tested its own missile system against one of its own weather satellites in orbit. The explosion created more than 3,000 pieces of debris the size of a golf ball or larger - and more than 100,000 much smaller pieces.

Of the orbiting fragments considered a threat to the ISS, about a third are from this Chinese test. And at the speeds these objects travel in orbit, even small pieces can threaten spacecraft with destruction.

The A-Sat tests fit into the wider issue of space debris, which is being made worse by our continued activities in space.

There is now a wild jungle of junk overhead - everything from old rocket stages that continue to loop around the Earth decades after they were launched, to the flecks of paint that have lifted off once shiny space vehicles and floated off into the distance.

It's estimated there is close to 10,000 tonnes of hardware in orbit - much of it still active and useful, but far too much of it defunct and aimless.

Almost 30,000 pieces of debris are being tracked on a daily basis. These are just the big, easy-to-see items, however.

Go below the scale of 1cm (0.39in), and objects move around more or less untracked. There may be 300 million of these.

All of this stuff is travelling at several kilometres per second - sufficient velocity for them to become damaging projectiles if any were to strike an operational space mission.

The threat was starkly demonstrated in 2009 when an active communications satellite operated by the US company Iridium and a defunct Soviet-era military communications satellite were obliterated when they collided in orbit.

Now consider the threat to a space vehicle with humans aboard.

On Monday, Russia carried out the A-Sat test from Plesetsk Cosmodrome, about 800km (500 miles) north of Moscow. The missile destroyed an old Soviet spy satellite, called Kosmos 1408, that was once part of Russia's Tselina radio signals surveillance programme.

US State Department spokesman Ned Price said the destruction of Kosmos 1408 had generated about 1,500 pieces of larger orbiting objects, for which tracking information is available to civilian sources. But it also created hundreds of thousands of smaller fragments.

Some of these tinier objects likely can be tracked, although we won't know because the US military wouldn't want to give away information about its sensor capabilities. But other fragments probably are too small to detect from the ground.

The debris field from the A-Sat test is found at an altitude of between 440km and 520km above Earth, threatening the ISS, China's Tiangong space station and other spacecraft.

When the ISS passed close to the debris cloud on Monday, crew members were told to shelter in the Soyuz and Crew Dragon spacecraft attached to the orbiting outpost. This is so that the crew could detach and come back to Earth if the space station was damaged by fragments of the satellite.

While vehicles such as the space shuttle were hit by smaller pieces of debris, it's likely that a collision with any large objects

The action by Russia has been condemned by other countries, including the US and the UK.



more https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-59307862