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Post by swamprat on Jun 2, 2020 0:02:02 GMT
'The trampoline is working!' The story behind Elon Musk's one-liner at SpaceX's big launch By Mike Wall 3 hours ago
Musk has a long memory.
SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk and the SpaceX team are recognized by Vice President Mike Pence at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center following the launch of the company’s Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station on May 30. (Image: © NASA/Bill Ingalls)
It was a good comeback, though you couldn't exactly call it snappy.
"The trampoline is working!" SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said on Saturday (May 30), shortly after the company launched its first crewed mission, the Demo-2 test flight to the International Space Station (ISS).
Musk was referring to an April 2014 barb by Dimitry Rogozin, who at the time was Russia's deputy prime minister. Today, Rogozin is the chief of Russia's space agency, Roscosmos.
Rogozin was irked back then by sanctions imposed by the United States in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Some of those sanctions targeted the Russian space industry (as well as individuals, including Rogozin), and Rogozin argued that the measures would end up hurting NASA and the global space effort in general. After all, the American space agency had relied completely on Russian Soyuz rockets and spacecraft to get their astronauts to the ISS since the space shuttles retired in 2011.
"After analyzing the sanctions against our space industry, I suggest to the USA to bring their astronauts to the International Space Station using a trampoline," Rogozin said via Twitter at the time. (His post was in Russian; the English translation comes via Google Translate.)
NASA has been grooming private industry to fill the shuttle's shoes since 2010. In September 2014, the agency awarded multibillion-dollar contracts to SpaceX and Boeing to finish developing their spacecraft — capsules known as Crew Dragon and the CST-100 Starliner, respectively — and fly six operational crewed missions to and from the ISS.
Demo-2 is the last big hurdle SpaceX needs to clear before beginning those contracted flights. And everything is going well with the test mission so far; Crew Dragon docked with the ISS as planned yesterday (May 31), safely delivering NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the orbiting lab.
Rogozin took the Demo-2 success, and Musk's trampoline riposte, in stride. The Russian official congratulated NASA chief Jim Bridenstine via Twitter Sunday and wished NASA luck in getting commercial crew missions officially up and running.
"Please convey my sincere greetings to @elonmusk (I loved his joke) and @spacex team. Looking forward to further cooperation!" Rogozin added in another Tweet (in English).
Musk responded to this tweet with one of his own, in Russian. The English translation, via Google Translate: "Thanks sir, haha. We look forward to mutually beneficial and prosperous long-term cooperation."
Demo-2 is scheduled to last one to four months; NASA and SpaceX have not yet decided on the mission's duration. If everything goes well through splashdown, SpaceX's first contracted astronaut-carrying mission, called Crew-1, could launch as soon as late August, NASA officials have said.
Boeing isn't quite ready to launch astronauts yet. Starliner failed to meet up with the ISS as planned on an uncrewed test flight this past December. The capsule will refly that test mission before proceeding to crewed flight.
www.space.com/elon-musk-spacex-launch-trampoline-comment-explained.html
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Post by swamprat on Jun 3, 2020 2:38:05 GMT
SpaceX took a picture of my home!
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Post by nyx on Jun 3, 2020 2:39:27 GMT
It does not seem the earth is flat as some people believe.
(correction, left out not)
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Post by thelmadonna on Jun 3, 2020 7:09:43 GMT
SpaceX took a picture of my home!
Courtesy of Sid
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Post by swamprat on Jun 4, 2020 2:25:37 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jul 14, 2020 18:33:43 GMT
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Post by swamprat on Jul 21, 2020 0:47:11 GMT
SpaceX launches South Korea's 1st military satellite, nails rocket landing at sea By Amy Thompson 2 hours ago
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX successfully launched South Korea's first military satellite Monday (July 20) and aced a rocket landing, too, to mark its 12th launch of the year.
A sooty Falcon 9 rocket took to the skies today (July 20) at 5:30 p.m. EDT (2130 GMT), off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station here, following a 30-minute weather delay.
"It's been a great day," said John Innsprucker, Falcon 9 SpaceX's principal integration engineer, during live commentary. "It took a little while getting here, but well worth it, with a totally successful mission today."
The mission was originally slated to launch on July 14, but was postponed by SpaceX to allow time for additional preflight rocket checks.
It was a beautiful sunny afternoon in Florida as the rocket climbed into blue skies. After liftoff, the rumble from the Falcon 9’s first stage engines set off car alarms at the viewing site. Onlookers could hear the engine rumble even after the rocket climbed into the clouds.
For today's mission, the California-based rocket builder launched South Korea's first military communications satellite, called Anasis-II. Built by Airbus Space and Defense, the spacecraft is based on the Eurostar E3000 satellite design and "will provide secure communications over a wide coverage," Airbus said in a statement.
Previously, South Korea's military relied on both international as well as civilian satellites for its communications. Now the company will rely on Anasis-II, a satellite formerly known as KMilSatCom1. Purchased through a deal brokered by Lockheed Martin, the company tasked Airbus with the satellite's construction.
"Anasis-II will play a critical role in maintaining peace in the Korean peninsula, and I'm hopeful that the Republic of Korea will be able to advance not only its IT capabilities, but also its efforts in space R&D through this technological marvel," said Sae Kyu Nam, President of South Korea's Agency for Defense Development, in a recorded statement. The launch coincides with the agency's 50th anniversary, but South Korean officials were unable to attend due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, he added.
Today's flight starred a veteran Falcon 9, which previously lofted two NASA astronauts to orbit on May 30 for the Crew Dragon Demo-2 mission.
Still sporting NASA's retro worm logo, the booster's second flight marks another record for SpaceX: the fastest turnaround time yet between launches. Designated B1058 by SpaceX, this booster carried Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station less than 60 days ago. To date, SpaceX’s fastest turnaround time between launches was 62 days. With today’s successful launch, it’s been just 51 days between this booster's two flights — a record for SpaceX.
It also breaks a record set by NASA in 1985, when the shortest turnaround between flights for the space shuttle Atlantis was just 54 days.
When a booster comes back, SpaceX engineers spend about a month inspecting the rocket (checking avionics, welds, leaks, etc.) to ensure it's safe for flight before putting it back into the launch rotation schedule. The company eventually wants to reduce that down time from weeks to days. So we could see more records set in the near future.
Currently, the company currently has only five active Falcon 9 boosters in its inventory, and of the 12 missions flown this year, two have been on brand-new boosters. So SpaceX is relying heavily on its fleet of veteran rockets.
That means that the majority of flights have and will be on used rockets. SpaceX has two additional brand new boosters scheduled to enter service later this year — one will launch its next crewed mission for NASA, called Crew-1, and the other will launch another upgraded GPS satellite.
SpaceX's success in reusing Falcon 9 first stages has enabled the company to ramp up production of Falcon 9 second stages, which are always new, non-reusable pieces of hardware added for each mission.
Elon Musk, SpaceX's founder and CEO, has said he wants to launch, recover and re-launch a Falcon 9 booster twice within a 24-hour period. But SpaceX isn't close to that achievement just yet. The company has successfully launched and recovered one booster five times. (It launched another booster on five flights, but an engine anomaly caused that booster to miss its drone ship landing.)
SpaceX's upcoming Starlink mission will feature the company's third booster to fly five times. Tucked inside that rocket's nose cone is a stack of 57 Starlink satellites as well as two Earth-imaging microsatellites from BlackSky Global.
That mission, which has been delayed twice due to hardware issues and Florida thunderstorms, is expected to launch at the end of July from the nearby Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.
But that's just the beginning for SpaceX. Following a series of delays, SpaceX has several launches on deck.
Following the next Starlink mission, SpaceX plans to launch the first polar-orbiting mission to lift off from Florida in 60 years. That mission will lift an Argentinian satellite called SAOCOMM 1B (its launch has been delayed since March due to the COVID-19 outbreak), followed by another batch of Starlink satellites.
After that, SpaceX will be preparing to launch its next crew of astronauts to the International Space Station.
Eight minutes after today's successful liftoff, the Falcon 9's first-stage booster returned to Earth, sticking its landing on SpaceX's drone ship Just Read the Instructions, which was positioned in the Atlantic Ocean approximately 400 miles (645 kilometers) east of Cape Canaveral.
The company also deployed two vessels to retrieve the Falcon 9's payload fairing. The clamshell-like nose cone hardware protects a rocket's payload as it travels through the atmosphere.
Historically, this hardware was discarded in the ocean, but SpaceX has worked to recycle payload fairings along with the rocket’s first stage.
To that end, SpaceX has outfitted two ships — GO Ms. Tree and GO Ms. Chief — with giant nets so they can either snag the fairing as they fall back to Earth or to scoop them out of the ocean. (The fairings come back to Earth in two pieces.) To date, SpaceX has rescued several fairings on various flights and according to Musk, this could add up to a potential savings of $6 million per flight.
The effort paid off today: The ships caught both falling fairing halves, Musk announced via Twitter about an hour after liftoff.
SpaceX successfully deployed the Anasis-II satellite approximately 32 minutes after launch, following a burn of the Falcon 9's upper stage.
www.space.com/spacex-launches-south-korean-military-satellite-anasis-2-lands-rocket.html
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Post by swamprat on Jul 23, 2020 15:51:53 GMT
China successfully launches Tianwen-1 Mars probe 23 Jul 2020
Mars bound: China's Tianwen-1 mission, which launched today, will study Mars’ magnetosphere and atmosphere as well as surface and subsurface geological structures. (Courtesy: CASTC)
China has launched its first independent mission to Mars with the unmanned craft expected to look for clues of water-ice, past life and study the evolution of our neighbouring planet. At 12:41 p.m. Beijing time today, Tianwen-1 (“heavenly questions”) took off atop a Long March 5 rocket from Wenchang Satellite Launch Center in southern China. The craft contains an orbiter as well as a lander and rover and is expected to reach Mars in February.
China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) — the country’s main space contractor – said that the launch went smoothly and about 45 minutes later the probe entered the planned Earth-Mars transfer orbit. “[Tianwen-1 is] a milestone mission for China’s aerospace to go deeper into space,” noted mission deputy commander Yansheng Wu in a statement.
Onboard Tianwen-1 are 13 scientific instruments — seven on the orbiter and six on the rover – that will aim to obtain comprehensive, first-hand data about the planet including its magnetosphere and atmosphere as well as surface and subsurface geological structures. Some instruments on Tianwen-1 are similar to those used in previous NASA missions, such as a surface component detector that fires a laser to vaporize rock surfaces and measure chemical elements as well as ground-penetrating radar to detect global water-ice distribution from orbit.
Confidence boost
Landing on Mars will be China’s next challenge. Despite its recent successes with a Moon landing, China has never landed through a thin atmosphere like on Mars. To do so, Tianwen-1 will use a parachute and a “retro-engine” to slow down its descent. At about 100 m above the surface, Tianwen-1 will briefly pause firing its retro engines to take snapshots of the landing area to calculate the best landing spot. To manage this aspect of the landing, the craft will use an autonomous obstacle avoidance technology, which was originally developed for China’s lunar missions. It is hoped that the lander and rover will touch down in a region called Utopia Planitia, which is largely flat impact basin but scientifically interesting with potential water-ice underneath.
China’s first attempt to reach Mars was in 2011 when an orbiter piggybacked on a Russian mission to the Martian moon Phobos. However, the launch failed and China began to come up with a new mission. The successful launch of Tianwen-1 greatly boosts confidence in the Long March 5 rocket – China’s biggest heavy-lifting launcher – after it experienced a major failure in 2017 due to a first-stage engine problem. This success has now paved the way for a sample-return mission to the Moon by the end of the year as well as the launch of the core module of the Chinese space station early next year.
Tianwen-1 is one of three missions heading to Mars this month. On Monday, the United Arab Emirates successfully launched its Mars-bound Hope orbiter from Japan while on 30 July NASA is expected to launch its Mars 2020 mission, which includes the Perseverance rover and a Mars helicopter called Ingenuity.
physicsworld.com/a/china-successfully-launches-tianwen-1-mars-probe/
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Post by Deleted on Aug 1, 2020 13:27:29 GMT
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Post by swamprat on Aug 18, 2020 16:34:52 GMT
The crowded skies..... SpaceX launches 58 Starlink satellites and 3 SkySats, sticks rocket landing By Amy Thompson an hour ago
It's a record sixth flight for this Falcon 9 rocket.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX successfully launched a new Starlink rideshare mission into orbit today (Aug. 18), lofting a bevy of Starlink internet satellites along with three small Earth-observation satellites before sticking a rocket landing at sea.
The two-stage Falcon 9 rocket carrying 58 SpaceX Starlink satellites, and a trio of small SkySat satellites for the California-based imaging company, Planet, lifted off at 10:31 a.m. EDT (1431 GMT) from Space Launch Complex 40 here at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
The launch is the second Starlink mission this month and SpaceX's 14th mission so far in 2020. The company, taking advantage of its fleet of reusable, flight-proven boosters, also set another record with the launch— flying the same booster for the sixth time. Today’s mission also marks the 40th reflight of a Falcon 9.
The booster featured in today's flight, designated B1049 by SpaceX, previously launched three separate Starlink flights, as well as the Telstar 18 VANTAGE and Iridium-8 missions. And now, after pulling off yet another landing this morning, it became the first six-time flier. Approximately eight minutes after an on-time liftoff, the booster settled softly onto the deck of SpaceX's "Of Course I Still Love You" drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
The road to 100
Today's flight inches SpaceX towards another major milestone beyond the reusability aspect as it marks the company's 99th launch. It's important to note that this accolade pertains to the Falcon family of rockets, including all versions of the Falcon.
SpaceX's first rocket, the Falcon 1, had a total of five missions, two of which were successful and paved the way for SpaceX's many achievements. Since its debut in 2010, the company's workhorse Falcon 9 has now flown a total of 90 times — with only two mishaps. (The CRS-7 resupply mission for NASA was lost during launch, and the AMOS-6 payload was lost on the pad during a routine preflight test.)
The company's heavy-lifter, known as Falcon Heavy, has flown three times so far, all of which have been a success.
SpaceX was founded in 2002 with one overarching goal: to make life multiplanetary. Company founder and CEO Elon Musk has said that SpaceX's philosophy has always been that a fully (and rapidly) reusable rocket is the key to dramatically reducing the cost of spaceflight.
To that end, Musk and SpaceX strive for reusability. Historically, rockets have been a one-and-done piece of hardware. Following a launch, the various parts of a rocket would be discarded and never used again. SpaceX's Falcon 9 has since proved that the same first stage booster can launch and land multiple times.
In fact, the latest iteration of the Falcon 9 is capable of flying 10 times with little refurbishment in between, and as many as 100 times before being retired, Musk has said. To date, SpaceX has flown one rocket six times and two others five times.
Rocket reuse
The first stage of the Falcon 9 featured in today's mission is now a record six-time flier, having previously launched three separate Starlink flights, as well as the Telstar 18 VANTAGE and Iridium-8 missions.
Earlier this year, it became the second Falcon 9 booster to launch five times and the first to land successfully five times. The first booster to launch five times, designated B1048 by SpaceX, experienced an inflight anomaly in March. There was some residual cleaner trapped inside an engine part, which resulted in the booster missing its intended landing on the drone ship. (The booster did deliver the payload to orbit with no issues, however.)
As a result, SpaceX subsequently changed its refurbishment techniques and has now launched and recovered three different boosters five times, one of which starred in today's mission.
A view of Planet's SkySats 19, 20 and 21 launching on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket alongside 58 Starlink satellites. Liftoff is set for Aug. 18, 2020 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. (Image credit: Planet/SpaceX)
The Falcon 9's first stage successfully landed on SpaceX's drone ship "Of Course I Still Love You" approximately eight minutes after liftoff, marking the company's 58th recovery since the first in 2015.
In order to land, the booster must conduct a series of orbital ballet moves, after separating from its upper stage, to reposition itself for landing. Then it relies on one of its nine engines to conduct a series of three brief burns to slow itself enough to gently touch down on the deck of a floating platform.
That floating platform is one of two massive drone ships, SpaceX deploys out in the Atlantic Ocean, to catch its returning boosters. To date, the company has made 58 catches out of 68 attempts. Once the boosters are returned to Florida's Port Canaveral, they are transported back to SpaceX's facilities, where each one is carefully inspected and repurposed to fly again.
That's thanks to a series of upgrades — improved engines, a more durable interstage (which connects the first and second stages), titanium grid fins and a more robust thermal protection system — the Falcon 9 received in 2018, allowing it to hold up better against the stresses of launch.
Rapid reuse, coupled with the fact the company now has two drone ships to recover its first-stage boosters, means that the company can launch more frequently. SpaceX launched a total of four times between the end of May and the end of June, and it plans to conduct a number of launches through the end of 2020.
Sunshades
SpaceX's Starlink satellites have been a thorn in the side of astronomers since the first launch in 2019. The flat-paneled satellites caught the astronomy community off guard, appearing as a bright train of dots marching across the night sky. Ever since, SpaceX has been trying to mitigate the brightness, thus minimizing their impact on night sky observations.
To that end, the company started outfitting its fleet of internet-beaming satellites with a special visor. The sunshade, as SpaceX is calling it, is a deployable visor designed to prevent sunlight from reflecting off the shiniest parts of the satellites, such as the antennas. The company is hoping to decrease the fleet's overall brightness and enable them to appear as dark as possible in the night sky.
A previous Starlink launch in June of this year featured one satellite outfitted with the experimental visor; today's mission is the second in which all satellites sport it.
Fairing Recovery
SpaceX has proven that it can reuse the most expensive portion of the rocket: the first stage. This piece of hardware accounts for 60% of the Falcon 9's total price tag. But the company hasn't stopped there. In an effort to further reduce launch costs, SpaceX has started recovering and reusing its payload fairings.
The clamshell-like hardware (also known as the rocket's nose cone) returns to Earth in two pieces, each outfitted with parachutes and software that guides it back to Earth, where the company's two boats — GO Ms. Tree and GO Ms. Chief — are waiting with outstretched nets.
However, simply waiting in the ocean with an outstretched net is not always the key to snagging a falling fairing. Whether they're able to make a catch depends on many factors, including the weather. If the two boats are unable to catch the fairings, they can scoop them up out of the water and carry them back to port. From there, the pieces will be prepped for reuse.
The Falcon 9 on this flight carried a reused payload fairing half, that previously flew on the company’s fourth Starlink mission in January. SpaceX has been marking the fairings with different symbols to indicate if they were caught mid air or scooped up from the ocean, as captured by a local launch photographer.
SpaceX is expected to make an attempt to snag the falling fairings, which will occur approximately 40 minutes after liftoff.
www.space.com/spacex-starlink-11-planet-skysats-launch-august-2020.html
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Post by Deleted on May 18, 2021 19:59:25 GMT
Edit to add :
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Post by Moon pigeon on May 23, 2021 16:11:32 GMT
primitive technology...
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Post by Deleted on Jun 6, 2021 13:50:37 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jun 25, 2021 13:54:47 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jul 11, 2021 19:21:15 GMT
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