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Post by HAL on Nov 27, 2019 22:35:03 GMT
Spaceweather has a couple of videos out this week.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 1, 2019 17:46:39 GMT
Yep. I saw those Hal, what a mess ! This link was mentioned in Spaceweather.com recently... Forbes This Is How Elon Musk Can Fix The Damage His Starlink Satellites Are Causing To Astronomy
Ethan Siegel In any field of business or industry, the prevailing rule has always been that if there isn't a law against it, you are free to do it. If there are no rules protecting a resource, you are free to use or take as much of it as you want to further your own ends. Until regulatory measures are put into place, disruptors and innovators are free to regulate themselves, often to the extraordinary detriment of those who depended on those now-scarce resources. In astronomy, the greatest resource of all is a dark, clear night sky: humanity's window to the Universe. Traditionally, its enemies have been turbulent air, cloud cover, and artificial light pollution. But very recently, a new type of pollutant has begun to pose an existential threat to astronomy itself: mega-constellations of satellites. If Elon Musk's Starlink project continues as it has begun, it will likely end ground-based astronomy as we know it. Continue reading here : www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/11/20/this-is-how-elon-musk-can-fix-the-damage-his-starlink-satellites-are-causing-to-astronomy/#55f14edc4ccc
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Post by swamprat on Dec 4, 2019 22:17:43 GMT
SpaceX Delays Dragon Cargo Launch for NASA Due to High Winds By Amy Thompson | 3 hours ago | Spaceflight
Liftoff is now set for Thursday, Dec. 5.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX postponed the launch of a Dragon cargo ship filled with NASA supplies Wednesday (Dec. 4) due to high winds in the upper atmosphere, as well as at sea.
A two-stage Falcon 9 rocket was slated to ferry a Dragon cargo capsule to the International Space Station, packed to the brim with more than 5,700 lbs. (2,585 kilograms) of supplies and research experiments that will support a variety of science experiments over the course of the next two Expeditions — 61 and 62.
While the Dragon spacecraft featured in today's launch try is a seasoned veteran, having flown twice before — once in 2014 and again in 2017 — the Falcon 9 is a brand new booster. SpaceX plans to recover the rocket stage with an drone ship landing for later reuse.
According to the Air Force's 45th Space Wing Weather Squadron, there was just a 10% chance that Mother Nature would not cooperate with today's launch attempt. Mike McAleenan, an official with the Weather Squadron, explained the concerns in a prelaunch press conference yesterday, citing upper level winds as the only weather-related issue that could cause a scrub.PLAY SOUND
The winds proved to be too much for the Falcon and Dragon to fly through, as balloon measurements returned data that was higher than the previous day’s predictions. In an effort to preserve both vehicles and ensure mission success, SpaceX decided to stand down and try again on Thursday.
Thursday's weather forecast shows a 20% percent of weather violation, but this time the winds are much calmer. If all goes according to plan, the Falcon will lift off at 12:29 p.m. EST (1729 GMT). The delay will push back Dragon's weekend arrival at the space station by 24 hours. The spacecraft should now arrive Sunday, Dec. 8.
www.space.com/spacex-dragon-crs-19-launch-delay.html
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Post by swamprat on Dec 5, 2019 18:48:37 GMT
SpaceX Launches Dragon Cargo Ship to Space Station for NASA, Sticks Rocket Landing By Amy Thompson | 25 minutes ago | Spaceflight
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX successfully launched an uncrewed Dragon spacecraft for NASA today (Dec. 5) on the company's final cargo mission of the year , sending fresh supplies to the International Space Station — and also sticking a rocket landing on a drone ship off the Florida coast.
A shiny, new two-stage Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 12:29 p.m. EST (1729 GMT) from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station carrying the company's robotic Dragon cargo capsule toward the orbiting lab following a 24-hour delay due to high winds.
Clear skies above the SpaceX launch site allowed for a picturesque view of the Falcon 9 rocket as it climbed to orbit, with cheers erupting from anxious onlookers here at NASA's Kennedy Space Center press site as the rocket roared to life.
This flight marks the 19th and penultimate SpaceX delivery mission for NASA under the company's first commercial cargo resupply services contract with the space agency. Of the missions flown to date, this is the eighth overall to feature a preflown Dragon and even stars the first Dragon spacecraft to ever fly more than once — a milestone achieved in 2017.
With today's successful launch, this particular Dragon capsule is on its way to deliver its third batch of supplies to the space station. (Its first trip was for CRS-4 in Sept. 2014, followed by CRS-11 in July 2017 and now CRS-19.)
Today’s Dragon is loaded with more than 5,700 lbs. (2,585 kilograms) of supplies, including more than 2,100 lbs. (952 kg) of science equipment that will support a host of experiments across Expedition 61 and 62 on topics investigating how seeds germinate in space, extreme physics and a new way of storing tools on the station.
Anheuser-Busch and its Budweiser brand of beer are sending the team's fourth experiment to the space station that will evaluate how seeds germinate in the harsh environment of space. Researchers on the project want to better understand why different plant genes are turned on and off in space compared to ones on the ground. To that end, the scientists will send up barley seeds to germinate on orbit before their growth is halted during a process known as malting.
The cargo shipment will also include a new science package for NASA's Cold Atom Lab (or CAL for short), which has been in orbit since May 2018. CAL produces clouds of ultra-cooled atoms called Bose-Einstein condensates, which are just a fraction of a degree warmer than absolute zero. The ultra-cold temperatures act like a magnifying glass on atoms in a Bose-Einstein condensate, giving researchers a chance to better study the quantum characteristics of this material.
www.space.com/spacx-dragon-crs-19-rocket-launch-landing-success.html
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Post by Deleted on Dec 12, 2019 8:54:58 GMT
Forbes
Latest Starlink Plans Unveiled By Elon Musk And SpaceX Could Create An Astronomical Emergency
Ethan Siegel In May of this year, Elon Musk's SpaceX launched the first group of its new satellite network: Starlink. Designed to provide internet services worldwide, this first launch saw a constellation of 60 satellites, all in a trail, deploy across the night sky. Astronomers, who have been warning about the threat that networks like this could pose to their field for decades, were right to be worried. Despite the best recommendations of astronomers on how to mitigate their impact, Starlink has plowed ahead unabated with their business plans, launching another network of 60 bright, large, reflective and radio-interfering satellites in November, ruining numerous professional observations. Newly announced plans will accelerate the launch timetable, adding 60 new satellites every 2 weeks starting in late December. They will put over 1,500 new satellites into orbit by 2020's end. Unless somebody stops them, this will radically transform the skies of planet Earth.
Astronomy is quite possibly the oldest science in the world. For tens of thousands of years, long before the development of metal-working, agriculture, or even the alphabet, humans have looked to the heavens for inspiration and information about our existence. From the wonder of eclipses to looking through a telescope to understanding the workings of the Universe and our place in it, astronomy has long been a civilization-scale endeavor. It should go without saying that a new network of 12,000 satellites, which is what SpaceX and Elon Musk have procured FCC approval for as far as their Starlink program is concerned, would transform ground-based astronomy, and not in a positive way. The first phase, which SpaceX hopes to complete by next year, will send up a total of 1,584 such satellites, more than doubling the current (1,463) number of active low-and-mid-Earth orbiting satellites. If you were to take stock of the entire night sky as visible from Earth, you would find that: the entire sky consists of about 40,000 square degrees of area, there are approximately 6,000 stars visible to the naked, human eye, and approximately 100,000 stars visible with a typical off-the-shelf pair of binoculars. With competitors such as Kuiper Systems and OneWeb planning on launching similar networks, and Starlink attempting to procure approval for a total of 42,000 satellites, it's possible that looking through a pair of binoculars in 2030 would reveal more satellites than stars. These satellites pose significant risks to not only astronomy, but to humanity as well. The 5G radio signals will be strong enough to swamp a natural transition of water molecules that is essential for meteorology, challenging our ability to forecast Earth's weather patterns from space. Observing programs like Pan-STARRS or LSST that rely on differential astronomy — where changes to brightness and positions are essential — will be greatly compromised, impacting our ability to find objects that are potentially hazardous to Earth.Even if we only had the 12,000 Starlink satellites to contend with and nothing else, any location on Earth would see an average of 140 such satellites in their sky at any given time. In their final orbits, they will be right at the limit of what human vision can discern, but that's catastrophic for optical and radio astronomers, as well as for professional astrophotographers. www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGBuk2BTvJE&feature=emb_logoIf these satellites were faint and few in number, it would be easy to reject any polluted exposure frames or even just the contaminated pixels. But with so many satellites of such great brightness, the problem is much worse. Photodetectors quickly get saturated, and additional parts of each image get contaminated each time a satellite passes. Software solutions, such as averaging over frames, deny humanity the benefits of differential astronomy. Earlier in 2019, SpaceX and Musk authored statements claiming that these satellites will have a minimal impact on astronomy. They stated that SpaceX will prioritize reducing the albedo (reflectivity) of these satellites. They promised to provide on-demand orientation adjustments for astronomical observatories. But these promises are arguably being broken in a way that has disturbed many astronomers. The 120 satellites that have already been launched have impacted astronomy tremendously. In September, an Earth-observing satellite from the European Space Agency had to perform an emergency maneuver to avoid a Starlink satellite, even though it was Starlink's responsibility to move. Numerous ground-based observations have already been photobombed (i.e., ruined) by passing Starlink satellites. The satellites remain as bright as ever and no orientation adjustments have ever been performed for the benefit of astronomers. In response, astronomers requested a series of self-regulatory steps that Starlink voluntarily perform. They included: Continue here www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/12/11/elon-musk-spacex-unveil-latest-starlink-plans-creating-an-astronomical-emergency/?fbclid=IwAR09HVvtMyNIuu1V3VlSiWR2wVI3f1xswQGulEQB5gbyDcj1a42BLZBC2hk#62d85ddc287e
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Post by swamprat on Dec 12, 2019 15:47:10 GMT
SpaceX to Make Starlink Satellites Dimmer to Lessen Impact on Astronomy: Report By Elizabeth Howell 12 Dec. 2019
New Starlink satellites will have a special coating.
SpaceX has a fix in play to make its bright Starlink satellites less disruptive to astronomy, according to a SpaceNews report.
After the first Starlink internet satellites launched in May, astronomers noticed that the little satellites are quite reflective and bright. With SpaceX reporting it wants to put 42,000 of these satellites in the sky, astronomers were concerned about it washing out parts of the night sky.
So now the company plans to treat one of the Starlink satellites with a special coating, when the next group goes in late December, according to SpaceX president and chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell.
A train of SpaceX Starlink satellites are visible in the night sky in this still from <a href="https://sattrackcam.blogspot.com/2019/05/wowowow-spectacular-view-of-spacex.html">a video captured by satellite tracker Marco Langbroek in Leiden</a>, the Netherlands on May 24, 2019, just one day after SpaceX launched 60 of the Starlink internet communications satellites into orbit. (Image credit: copyright Marco Langbroek via SatTrackBlog)
Shotwell, in a conversation with SpaceNews and other reporters at SpaceX's headquarters in Hawthorne, California, said that the company had not anticipated problems with reflective satellites.
"No one thought of this," Shotwell said, according to SpaceNews. "We didn't think of it. The astronomy community didn’t think of it." But once reports came to SpaceX of the bright satellites, she added, the company began looking into fixes for the satellites."
We want to make sure we do the right thing to make sure little kids can look through their telescope," she said in the SpaceNews report. "Astronomy is one of the few things that gets little kids excited about space."
SpaceX currently has 120 satellites in its constellation (a second batch of 60 satellites launched in November), and plans to launch more in batches of 60 every two or three weeks in 2020. The constellation should be globally operational around the middle of next year, Shotwell said.
www.space.com/spacex-starlink-satellites-astronomy-plans.html
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Post by Deleted on Dec 13, 2019 8:36:10 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Dec 15, 2019 18:47:32 GMT
Almost 1/3 Hiroshima …
+ Wait for it … ( Watch the full video )
= P.T.S.D.
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Post by swamprat on Dec 19, 2019 17:14:04 GMT
Boeing's 1st Starliner and Atlas V Rocket Arrive at Pad for Friday Launch (Photos) By Mike Wall 20 hours ago
Starliner just took a big step toward Friday's critical test flight.
The United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying Boeing's Starliner capsule sits on the pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex 41 on Dec. 18, 2019. (Image: © ULA)
Boeing's Starliner astronaut taxi is on the launch pad.
The United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket carrying Starliner rolled out to the pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex-41 early this morning (Dec. 18), riding a mobile launch platform 1,800 feet (550 meters) from ULA's Vertical Integration Facility.
Starliner remains on track to launch toward the International Space Station (ISS) Friday morning (Dec. 20) on its debut test flight, an uncrewed mission called Orbital Flight Test (OFT).
"Atlas and MLP are hard down at the pad. Successful roll #OFT is very, very, very near," ULA president and CEO Tory Bruno tweeted this morning.
Boeing has been developing Starliner under a multibillion-dollar NASA commercial crew contract. SpaceX got a similar deal for work on its Crew Dragon capsule. The space agency wants these two private vehicles to fill the astronaut-ferrying shoes of the space shuttle fleet, which retired in July 2011. Ever since then, Russian Soyuz spacecraft have been the only means of crew transport to and from the ISS.
The Atlas V prepares to leave the Vertical Integration Facility for the launch pad on the morning of Dec. 18, 2019. (Image credit: ULA)
The eight-day OFT mission is a crucial step toward bringing Starliner fully online, proving out the capsule's capabilities during a trip to and from the ISS. If OFT is a success, a crewed demonstration mission to the orbiting lab will follow, likely sometime next year.
The Atlas V and Starliner make the 1,800-foot (550 meters) journey from ULA's Vertical Integration Facility at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station to the pad at Space Launch Complex-41. (Image credit: ULA)
SpaceX conducted its version of the OFT, an uncrewed ISS mission called Demo-1, this past March. The California-based company is gearing up for an in-flight test of Crew Dragon's emergency-escape system in January, which will clear the way for a crewed demonstration flight to the ISS for the SpaceX capsule.
Starliner and the Atlas V are scheduled to lift off Friday at 6:36 a.m. EST (1136 GMT). There's just a 20% chance of a weather-related delay, Air Force officials have said.
www.space.com/boeing-starliner-orbital-flight-test-rocket-rollout.html
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Post by Deleted on Dec 20, 2019 14:37:52 GMT
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Post by swamprat on Dec 20, 2019 15:25:48 GMT
Boeing's Starliner Won't Reach Space Station, NASA Chief Says By Chelsea Gohd | 2 hours ago
Updated: CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Boeing's Starliner astronaut taxi suffered an anomaly today (Dec. 20) during its flight to the International Space Station during the Orbital Flight Test (OFT) mission.
About 90 minutes after blastoff, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said on Twitter that the capsule will not be able to reach the space station because it burned too much fuel during the anomaly.
The Atlas V rocket from United Launch Alliance successfully launched from Space Launch Complex 41 here at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 6:36 a.m. EST (1136 GMT) as planned. But, as of about an hour after launch, the mission team had announced an anomaly with the uncrewed capsule's orbit.
"Starliner in stable orbit. The burn needed for a rendezvous with the ISS did not happen. Working the issue," Bridenstine tweeted, following the announcement of the anomaly.
About 15 minutes after launch, Starliner was scheduled to complete a 40-second orbital insertion burn that would have evened out its orbit to a circle, allowing it to meet up with the space station. But this stage in the flight was off-nominal, or different from what they expected.
"We have since experienced an off-nominal insertion and the spacecraft is in a stable position," Boeing spokesperson Steve Siceloff said during a launch broadcast. "It's fully powered; mission control here in Houston is assessing all the options."
"After launching successfully at 6:36 a.m. Eastern Time Friday on the United Launch Alliance Atlas v rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the Boeing Starliner space vehicle experienced an off-nominal insertion," Boeing spokesperson Kelly Kaplan told reporters here at the press site.
"The spacecraft is currently in safe, stable configuration," Kaplan added. "Flight controllers have completed a successful initial burn and are assessing next steps. Boeing and NASA are working together to review options for the test and mission opportunities available while the Starliner remains in orbit. A joint news conference will be held at 9 a.m. Eastern on NASA TV."
The OFT was designed as a critical milestone to test Starliner for future crewed missions. Following this procedure, Boeing plans to launch a Crewed Flight Test with three astronauts onboard Starliner.
NASA hired both Boeing and SpaceX to develop reusable vehicles capable of bringing humans safely to and from the space station. Ever since the 2011 retirement of the space shuttle, the agency has been relying on Russian Soyuz spacecraft for access to the orbiting laboratory.
Prior to today's launch, both Boeing and SpaceX were targeting crewed test flights in 2020.
www.space.com/boeing-starliner-oft-fails-to-reach-correct-orbit.html
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Post by HAL on Dec 21, 2019 21:19:14 GMT
Another Boeing vehicle that people may not be too keen to travel on.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2019 1:23:11 GMT
Another Boeing vehicle that people may not be too keen to travel on. Bummer. I wish them the best. Speaking of Boeing, that incident I posted above about the 6-8 million lbs. of Ap rocket fuel/gas lines/containers blowing up...When (1 of ) the mushroom(s) was going up a 737 was arriving at McCarran Intl.. It was almost descending right into it. The 737 immediately throttled up and banked right. The mushroom was about 1.5-2x the jets altitude at that point. The pilots saved that aircraft. It was close.....Saw it happen in detail..... Cliff
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Post by Deleted on Dec 24, 2019 17:46:06 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jan 2, 2020 2:24:58 GMT
ULA Atlas V 411 Rocket to Launch Solar Orbiter Spacecraft From Cape Canaveral Feb. 5
By Space Coast Daily // December 31, 2019 BREVARD COUNTY • CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA – A United Launch Alliance Atlas V 411 configuration rocket will launch the Solar Orbiter spacecraft on Wednesday, February 5 from Space Launch Complex-41, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. The mission of this launch is to study the sun for the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA. The spacecraft will make looping orbits around the sun and use 10 instruments to observe solar physics in unprecedented detail. Continue here : spacecoastdaily.com/2019/12/ula-atlas-v-411-rocket-to-launch-solar-orbiter-spacecraft-from-cape-canaveral-feb-5/
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