Space News thread

[Takeovers]

Dragon has docked, the hatch is opened and the crew is now inside the ISS. NASA said they will have only a short hand over time then Dragon 9 will return to Earth. That's the end of the Starliner crews odyssey.

[Topper]

That's the end of the Starliner crews odyssey.

LOL, they ain't on the ground yet...

[Takeovers]

LOL, they ain't on the ground yet...

They are on the way now. Just left the ISS. Will touch down in about 17 hours.

[Takeovers]

Live coverage of Dragon landing by NASA TV will begin at 4:45 PM EDT.


NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 Re-Entry and Splashdown | NASA+

[misskit]

They made it back.


Earth Provides Stunning Welcome Party for Returning Astronauts

Four astronauts who had left the International Space Station splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida coast Tuesday and were welcomed by some unexpected guests. Footage from the scene showed the SpaceX Dragon capsule approached by a pod of dolphins before being hoisted onto the recovery ship. On board were Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov of Russia, NASA astronaut Nick Hague, and NASA’s Sunita Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore—the pair whose time in space was supposed to last eight days, but ended up being 286. Williams and Wilmore were testing Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, but their mission was extended after the vehicle encountered thruster issues. Last Friday night, SpaceX launched a crew to the ISS to relieve the two astronauts, who continued to conduct experiments and spacewalks throughout their extended stay. Williams reflected recently on the considerable delay: “This mission has brought a little attention… but I think the good part is more people are interested in what we’re doing in space.” All four astronauts who returned to Earth Tuesday appeared to be healthy but were undergoing medical checks upon touchdown.

Earth Provides Stunning Welcome Party for Returning Astronauts

[misskit]

https://x.com/NASA_Johnson?ref_src=t...cheat-sheet%2F

[Takeovers]

The welcoming dolphins on YouTube

[Looper]

That Indian lady will be glad to get back inside a gravitational field after running out of hairbands.

I would have sent up my Corellian YT-1300 light freighter the Millenium Falcon if it had been available sooner. It just touched down today (with an evil Empire Star Destroyer in pursuit) after I won it it in a game of poker with a wookie in the Mos Eisley Cantina

It is missing the communications antenna but I can probably fabricate something in my modelling workshop

I will have to fabricate a missing foot also, but that can be bodgier than the antenna

Kudos to Musk for getting the astronauts safely back on the ground. He has truly revolutionised enterprise within the space industry

[Looper]

Glad to get a diorama model of the momentous Apollo 11 landing

This one has had the lunar rover added that was used on Apollo 15,16,17 and some experimental equipment

The base has been done in a sandy yellow colour and has fake 'shadows' painted on it. They are not working for me so I will spray the whole base a light moon grey and lose 3 of the astronauts as there were only ever 2 on the surface at a time. The figures and vehicles are not glued down so that will make a respray easy. Might lose the rover too to make it the original landing.

The item to the left of the Lunar Lander is the Command and Service Module (to a smaller scale) which orbited above with Michael Collins in it. The other small lander is matching scale to the CSM.

[Takeovers]

Totally missed the launch date.

SpaceX launched a private space mission, Fram 2, a few hours ago. A polar mission, the first one ever flying straight polar. The first mission without any crew member from the US. Fram was a ship that navigated both north polar and south polar waters. This flight goes over both the north pole and the south pole.

Launch video on SpaceX website

- SpaceX - Launches

For anyone intersted, they run a Ham radio experiment, everybody can tune in to.

Home - FRAM-2 HAM

[Simon43]

Totally missed the launch date.

SpaceX launched a private space mission, Fram 2, a few hours ago. A polar mission, the first one ever flying straight polar. The first mission without any crew member from the US. Fram was a ship that navigated both north polar and south polar waters. This flight goes over both the north pole and the south pole.

Launch video on SpaceX website

- SpaceX - Launches

For anyone intersted, they run a Ham radio experiment, everybody can tune in to.

Home - FRAM-2 HAM

I normally, tweak the old radio and antennas to receive signals from these space projects, but I'm in-between accommodations, and all my antennas and radios are in my car.... maybe next time

[malmomike77]

The Bezos has sent his bird into space in a giant rocket powered dildo



Jeff Bezos’s wife-to-be Lauren Sánchez, Katy Perry and the rest of an all-female crew blast off aboard the New Shepard rocket

[misskit]

China-led lunar base to include nuclear power plant on Moon's surface- space official

China is considering building a nuclear plant on the Moon to power the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) it is planning with Russia, a presentation by a senior official showed on Wednesday.


China is aiming to become a major space power and land astronauts on the Moon by 2030, and its Chang’e-8 mission aims to lay the groundwork for the construction of a permanent manned lunar base.

In a presentation in Shanghai, the 2028 mission's Chief Engineer Pei Zhaoyu showed that the lunar base’s energy supply could also depend on large-scale solar arrays, and pipelines and cables for heating and electricity built on the Moon's surface.


Russia’s space agency Roscosmos announced last year plans to build a nuclear reactor on the Moon’s surface with the China National Space Administration by 2035 in order to power the ILRS.


The inclusion of the nuclear power unit in a Chinese space official’s presentation to officials from the 17 countries and international organisations that make up the ILRS suggests Beijing supports the idea although it has never formally announced it.


China's timeline to build an outpost on the Moon's south pole coincides with NASA's more ambitious and advanced Artemis programme, which aims to put U.S. astronauts back on the lunar surface in December 2025.

Wu Weiren, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and chief designer of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Project, said last year that a “basic model” of the ILRS, with the Moon's south pole as its core, would be built by 2035.


The Chang’e lunar probe launches are part of the construction phase for the “basic model” outlined by Wu.


In the future, China will create the “555 Project”, inviting 50 countries, 500 international scientific research institutions, and 5,000 overseas researchers to join the ILRS.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/techn...al/ar-AA1DrKgp

[Takeovers]

Don Pettit, US astronaut returned from 7 months work at the ISS in a Soyuz capsule.

On the day he landed back on earth he celebrated his 70. birthday.


https://www.space.com/space-exploration/international-space-station/don-pettit-nasas-oldest-active-astronaut-at-70-arrives-in-houston-after-7-month-space-mission-photo

[misskit]

US Buzzes China's Military Satellites in Unfolding Space Rivalry

An American military satellite was reportedly "buzzing" its Chinese counterparts as China rapidly advances in a new space race to challenge U.S. leadership in this domain.


Newsweek has contacted the U.S. Space Force and the Chinese Defense Ministry for comment.


Why It Matters


The U.S. Space Force was established in 2019 during the first administration of President Donald Trump, who said American superiority in space was "absolutely vital." One of the missions of the new service branch is to protect and defend U.S. interests in space, including satellites.


China, which has several ambitious space programs, including a space station and a manned mission to the moon, was spotted using its satellites to conduct "dogfighting" maneuvers, the U.S. Space Force reported in March, practicing orbit operations from one satellite to another.

What To Know


COMSPOC, which is a commercial provider of space situational awareness software in Pennsylvania, said USA 324, a U.S. Space Force Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSSAP) satellite, was "checking out" two Chinese satellites recently.

The American satellite was tracked making two close passes to China's TJS-16 and TJS-17 satellites on April 26 and 29, with a distance of 10.5 miles and 7.4 miles, respectively. It was not immediately clear why the U.S. Space Force's satellite maneuvered around the targets.


USA 324, which was launched in January 2022, and other GSSAP satellites can track and observe objects in geosynchronous orbit more than 22,000 miles above the equator, NASA said.

The U.S. Space Force said the GSSAP satellites support its space surveillance operations by conducting "Rendezvous and Proximity Operations," in which the satellites maneuver near a space object, enabling characterization for anomaly resolution and enhanced surveillance.

Meanwhile, the TJS-16 and TJS-17, which were launched into space on March 29 and April 10, respectively, are part of the Chinese satellite program Tongxin Jishu Shiyan, meaning "communication technology experiment," according to SpaceNews.


While China said both satellites were designed for satellite communication technology verification, SpaceNews said they were viewed by Western analysts as conducting classified missions, which included satellite inspection activities, to support the country's armed forces.

What People Are Saying


Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, wrote on X, formerly Twitter: "To be clear, I do not object to [U.S. Space Force] making such maneuvers. I object to the U.S. complaining when other countries do the same things we are doing."


The U.S. Space Force said on its website: "GSSAP satellites collect space situational awareness data allowing for more accurate tracking and characterization of man-made orbiting objects. From a near-geosynchronous orbit, it has a clear, unobstructed and distinct vantage point for viewing Resident Space Objects (RSOs)."


What Happens Next


It remains to be seen whether the American and Chinese military satellites will have further maneuvers around each other for close inspection and observation.

US Buzzes China's Military Satellites in Unfolding Space Rivalry - Newsweek

[Takeovers]

A beautiful 4k video of the Fram2 Dragon mission. Gorgeous view on Earth from orbit.

[misskit]

Heads up!


A Half-Ton Spacecraft Lost by the Soviets in 1972 Is Coming Home

A robotic Soviet spacecraft has been adrift in space for 53 years. It will return to Earth later this week.


Kosmos-482 launched in March 1972. If all had gone well, it would have landed on the sweltering surface of Venus and become the ninth of the uncrewed Soviet Venera missions to the planet. Instead, a rocket malfunction left it stranded in Earth orbit. Kosmos-482 has been slowly spiraling back toward our world ever since.


“It’s this artifact that was meant to go to Venus 50 years ago and was lost and forgotten for half a century,” said Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who maintains a public catalog of objects in space. “And now it’s going to get its moment in atmospheric entry — albeit on the wrong planet.”


Cloaked in a protective heat shield, the spacecraft, weighing roughly 1,050 pounds, was designed to survive its plunge through the toxic Venusian atmosphere. That means there’s a good chance it will survive its dive through this one, and could make it to the surface at least partly intact.
Still, the risk of any injuries on the ground is low.


“I’m not worried — I’m not telling all my friends to go to the basement for this,” said Darren McKnight, senior technical fellow at LeoLabs, a company that tracks objects in orbit and monitors Kosmos-482 six times a day. “Usually about once a week we have a large object re-enter Earth’s atmosphere where some remnants of it will survive to the ground.”


When will Kosmos-482 come back to Earth?


Estimates change daily, but the predicted days of re-entry are currently Friday or Saturday. The New York Times will provide updated estimates as they are revised.


One calculation of the window by the Aerospace Corporation, a federally supported nonprofit that tracks space debris, suggests 12:42 a.m. Eastern time on May 10, plus or minus 19 hours.


Marco Langbroek, a scientist and satellite tracker at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands who has tracked Kosmos-482 for years, puts the estimate closer to 4:37 a.m. Eastern on May 10, plus or minus a day.

Where will it land?


No one knows. “And we won’t know until after the fact,” Dr. McDowell said.

That’s because Kosmos-482 is hurtling through space at more than 17,000 miles an hour, and it will be going that fast until atmospheric friction pumps the brakes. So getting the timing wrong by even a half-hour means the spacecraft re-enters more than half a world away, in a different spot.


What’s known is that Kosmos-482’s orbit places it between 52 degrees north latitude and 52 degrees south latitude, which covers Africa, Australia, most of the Americas and much of south- and mid-latitude Europe and Asia.

“There are three things that can happen when something re-enters: a splash, a thud or an ouch,” Dr. McKnight said.

“A splash is really good,” he said, and may be most likely because so much of Earth is covered in oceans. He said the hope was to avoid the “thud” or the “ouch.”


Will the spacecraft survive impact?


Assuming Kosmos-482 survives re-entry — and it should, as long as its heat shield is intact — the spacecraft will be going around 150 miles an hour, when it smashes into whatever it smashes into, Dr. Langbroek calculated. “I don’t think there’s going to be a lot left afterward,” Dr. McDowell said.

“Imagine putting your car into a wall at 150 miles an hour and seeing how much of it is left.”

The heat of re-entry should make Kosmos-482 visible as a bright streak through the sky if its return occurs over a populated area at night.

If pieces of the spacecraft survive and are recovered, they legally belong to Russia.

“Under the law, if you find something, you have an obligation to return it,” said Michelle Hanlon, executive director of the Center for Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi. “Russia is considered to be the registered owner and therefore continues to have jurisdiction and control over the object.”

How do we know the identity of this object?


Some 25 years ago, Dr. McDowell was going through NORAD’s catalog of roughly 25,000 orbital objects and trying to pin an identity on each. “Most of them, the answer is, ‘Well, this is a piece of exploded rocket from something fairly boring,’” he recalls.

But one of them, object 6073, was a bit odd. Launched in 1972 from Kazakhstan, it ended up in a highly elliptical orbit, traveling between 124 and 6,000 miles from Earth.

As he studied its orbit and size, Dr. McDowell surmised that it must be the wayward Kosmos-482 lander — not just a piece of debris from the failed launch. The conclusion was supported by multiple observations from the ground, as well as a recently declassified Soviet document.

archive.is

[DrWilly]

So, if Russia still own it does that mean they are liable if it smashes into a densely populated area?

[Takeovers]

So, if Russia still own it does that mean they are liable if it smashes into a densely populated area?

I know that the USA is responsible for damage abroad. Though not for domestic damage. Recently a piece of garbage from the ISS has damaged a house in Florida. The owner got no compensation as it was domestic which is not covered by regulations.

I am not sure if the same applies to Russia. I am also not sure if Russia is the legal successor to the USSR in that sense.

[Salsa dancer]

Too many satellites up there


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