The Space Race

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

There is a 'spacecraft cemetery' where used satellites are buried by crashing them into a remote region in the Pacific Ocean.

'Point Nemo' (Latin for 'no one'), also known as the Oceanic Pole of Inaccessibility, is more than 1,600 miles from any spot of land.

Between 1971 and mid-2016, space agencies all over the world dumped at least 260 spacecraft into the region, according to Popular Science.

The graveyard has amassed the remains of at least 260 craft - mostly Russian - since it was first used in 1971.

The spacecraft 'buried' there include:

- A SpaceX rocket

- Five European Space Agency cargo ships, including the Automated Transfer Vehicle Jules Verne

- Six Japanese HTV cargo craft

- More than 140 Russian resupply craft

- Six Russian Salyut space stations

- The Soviet-era MIR space station





http://uk.businessinsider.com/spacecraft-cemetery-point-nemo-google-maps-2017-10?r=US&IR=T

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

China plans to launch a futuristic, re-usable 'space plane' for the first time in 2020, according to Chinese media reports.

The vehicle is designed to carry heavy payloads into orbit more than 20 times over its lifetime and will be capable of daily launches.

Unlike many spacecraft, the new vehicle will have wings and launch into the air from a runway like a traditional aircraft, the reports claim.

According to a statement from China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), as reported by state news outlet China Daily, the reusable spacecraft will launch in the next three years.

Based on a number of reports, the spaceraft will take off from the runway and then switch to ramjet propulsion when higher in the atmosphere.

The vehicle will use rocket motors to exit Earth's atmosphere and move into the planet's orbit.

It will use its wings to help it land horizontally, vastly reducing the time needed to recycle its components and get it back into orbit, the CASC said.

The reusable launch vehicle can carry large payloads into orbit, return to the earth and be reused many times, said Chen Hongbo, director of the research and development centre at the CASC's China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology.

He said the craft will combine its first and second stages together, meaning it will work differently to the US-made reusable SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle.



The new vehicle's two stages will be recoverable, while a Falcon 9 can only recover its first stage.

China's reusable craft is designed to be used over 20 times, Mr Hongbo said.

The CASC statement says that, initially, the cost for each launch will be cut 80 per cent using the new craft, with savings rising to 90 per cent in future.

'The reusable launch vehicle will mainly provide service for a 300 to 500 kilometer [185 to 310-mile) high orbit,' Mr Hongbo said.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Former Apollo 12 astronaut Richard Gordon, one of a dozen men who flew around the moon but didn't land there, has died aged 88.

Richard 'Dick' F. Gordon Jr. was a test pilot chosen in NASA's third group of astronauts in 1963.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_F._Gordon_Jr.


He flew on Gemini 11 in 1966, walking in space twice. During Apollo 12 in November 1969, Gordon circled the moon in the command module Yankee Clipper while Alan Bean and Charles Conrad landed and walked on the lunar surface.

Gordon died Monday at his home in California, according to the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation.

In this September 1966 photo provided by NASA, Gordon Jr., pilot for the Gemini XI spaceflight, sits astride the spacecraft during a spacewalk, while attaching a tether from the Gemini capsule to the Agena vehicle

 

[RealNeil]

RIP Richard

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

NASA has accelerated plans to test its launch abort system for the Orion capsule.

The space agency revealed it will conduct the test in April 2019, to assess the rocket-powered tower’s ability to get astronauts to safety in the event of an emergency during ascent.

And, it’ll be the only time NASA runs a fully active test of the system ahead of a manned launch.

NASA recently reviewed the EM-1 launch schedule, and revealed this week that it is targeting December 2019 for the unmanned precursor mission, with plans to put crew on board in the early 2020s.

In the April 2019 test, a booster provided by Orbital ATK will take off from the Cape Canaveral launchpad carrying a fully functional launch abort system (LAS), and a 22,000 pound Orion test vehicle.

It will ascend to 32,000 feet at Mach 1.3 (more than 1,000 miles per hour) – and then, the LAS’ reverse-flow abort motor will fire.

The LAS contains a fairing assembly and the launch abort tower.

The first component is a shell made up of lightweight composite material that protects the capsule from the heat, wind and acoustics of the launch, ascent, and abort environments, according to NASA.

The second contains the system’s three motors, which drive the capsule away from an emergency, reorient the capsule, and pull the LAS away from the crew module.

In a normal launch, however, only the LAS jettison motor would fire, allowing the LAS to clear the Orion capsule as it continues its journey, NASA says.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

A test version of a 'mini space shuttle' has soared over the Mojave Desert in a major step forward.

Sierra Nevada Corp.'s Dream Chaser was carried to an altitude of 10,000 feet by the civilian version of the Army's CH-47 Chinook, and then dropped to glide to the ground and land on a runway at Edwards Air Force Base in a test of its autonomous landing systems.

The uncrewed Dream Chaser made a smooth landing at Edwards Air Force Base during the free-flight test at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, NASA officials said in a statement

The Dream Chaser is preparing to deliver cargo to the International Space Station beginning in 2019.

The data that SNC gathered from this test campaign will help influence and inform the final design of the cargo Dream Chaser, which will fly at least six cargo delivery missions to and from the space station by 2024.

The testing is designed to validate the aerodynamic properties, flight software and control system performance of the Dream Chaser.

'The Dream Chaser had a beautiful flight and landing!" Sierra Nevada representatives said.

A second round of Dream Chaser flight tests at NASA's Armstrong Research Center is slated to continue through the end of the 2017 calendar year.

The test campaign will help SNC validate the aerodynamic properties, flight software and control system performance of the Dream Chaser.



It is being prepared to deliver cargo to the International Space Station under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services 2 (CRS2) contract beginning in 2019.

The data that SNC gathers from this test campaign will help influence and inform the final design of the cargo Dream Chaser, which will fly at least six cargo delivery missions to and from the space station by 2024.

SOME very interesting HISTORY

The new spaceplane stage has been set by decades of NASA work done at Langley Research Center on horizontal-landing, or HL, lifting bodies.

Sporting a design reminiscent of the upward-flexing pectoral fins on breaching manta rays, HL vehicles feature rudimentary wings.

As the craft settles through Earth's atmosphere from orbit the chubby, cigar-like fuselage generates lift from more air pressure on the bottom than on the top.

Flying Wingless First championed for flight testing by NASA engineer H. Dale Reed in the early 1960s, the HL concept went through a number of design changes and improvements, eventually resulting in a series of experimental piloted aircraft.

The Northrop HL-10 – referring to the tenth design evaluated by Langley engineers – was built to assess specific structural refinements. Langley laboratories and wind tunnels hosted a variety of early studies on scale models before any full-scale craft were constructed.

The HL-10 would be one of five 'heavyweight' lifting body designs flown at NASA's Flight Research Center (now known as Armstrong Research Center) from July 1966 to November 1975 to demonstrate a pilot's ability to maneuver and safely land a wingless vehicle.

The information the lifting-body program generated contributed to a database crucial to the genesis of the space shuttle program.

A New Kid Spurred by the Soviet Union's development of its subscale, unmanned BOR-4 – a testbed for the country's would-be Buran space shuttle – by the 1980s Langley had set to work on a HL-10 successor, known as the HL-20, or 'Personal Launch System (PSL).'

By 1990s, a 29-foot full-size, non-flying HL-20 model was built by the students and faculty of North Carolina State University and North Carolina A & T University to study crew-seating arrangements, habitability, equipment layout and how best to enter and exit.

Although never flight-tested, the PSL did ultimately deliver: its design would be the basis for development of Sierra Nevada's Corporation's (SNC) Dream Chaser.


https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/11/...m-chaser-performs-critical-glide-test-flight/

 

[Drone]

Latest videos:

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

US PresidentTrump directed NASAon Monday to send Americans to the Moon for the first time in decades, a move he said would help prepare for a future Mars trip.
'This time we will not only plant our flag and leave our footprint,' Trump said at the White House as he signed the new space policy directive.
'We will establish a foundation for an eventual mission to Mars and perhaps someday to many worlds beyond.'

Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, who heads the newly revitalized National Space Council, have previously vowed to explore the Moon again, but offered few details.
Trump was joined at the White House by several current and former astronauts, including Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, and former U.S. Sen. and Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison 'Jack' Schmitt, the second-last man on the moon.

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/...calls-for-human-expansion-across-solar-system

 

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SpaceX founder Elon Musk unveiled a first glimpse of his company's new megarocket — the Falcon Heavy — which is expected to launch on its maiden flight next month.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

The first person to fly freely and untethered in space, has died at the age of 80.

NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless II died on Thursday in California, NASA's Johnson Space Center announced Friday. No cause of death was given.
McCandless was famously photographed in 1984 flying with a hefty spacewalker’s jetpack, alone in the cosmic blackness above Earth, while becoming the very first astronaut to fly unattached to this spacecraft in a Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU).
He traveled more than 300 feet away from the space shuttle Challenger during that historic spacewalk.
McCandless said he was not nervous about the mission, and the he was 'grossly over-trained.'

McCandless helped develop the jetpack and was later part of the shuttle crew that delivered the Hubble Space Telescope to orbit.
He also served as the Mission Control capsule communicator in Houston as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon in 1969.

Born in Boston on June 8, 1937, McCandless moved to California during his youth and graduated from Woodrow Wilson Senior High School in Long Beach.
McCandless graduated from the United States Naval Academy with a bachelor of science degree in 1958.
In 1965, he earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University.
He also received a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Houston at Clear Lake in 1987.
As a naval aviator, he took part in the Cuban blockade in the 1962 missile crisis.
McCandless was selected as one of just 19 individuals for astronaut training during the Gemini program in April 1966, and he was a backup pilot for the first manned Skylab mission in 1973.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

i predict a busy 2018 for this thread, theres a lot going on.


The Falcon Heavy is expected to blast off early next year. Now SpaceX has raised the rocket for the first time on the same pad as the Saturn V Apollo 11 moon rocket.

It is now expected to undergo a static fire test will be the first time that all of Heavy's 27 Merlin engines will be fired at once.



Elon Musk announced the latest addition to his company SpaceX's arsenal - the 'Big F***ing Rocket' (BFR) - and it could revolutionise transport on Earth as well as in space.
Musk said the vessel would both take off and land vertically, like a space rocket, and for Earth travel, will take off from floating launchpads moored outside major cities.
It would fly most routes - New York to Tokyo, for example - in about 30 minutes, and anywhere in under an hour, and Musk says the 'cost per seat should be about the same as full fare economy in an aircraft.'

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Falcon Heavy drone footage

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Elon Musk has announced SpaceX will launch 'the world's most powerful rocket' later this month with his own electric car on board.
The Falcon Heavy 'megarocket' will fire beyond orbit from the former Apollo 11 moon rocket launchpad at the Kennedy Space Centre near Cape Canaveral.
Musk said the launch vehicle will blast off at the 'end of the month' on an unmanned mission with a unique payload - the billionaire's cherry red 2008 Tesla Roadster, which will be fired toward Mars.
The rocket will use 27 engines and three separate re-usable cores that will return to Earth after liftoff during the test flight, which is set to be one of the firm's most technically complex challenges to date.

A photo of the unusual cargo - Musk's cherry red 2008 Tesla Roadster - was released last month.
Images released by SpaceX show an original Roadster perched on a large cone inside the Falcon Heavy on what appears to be a secure mount to keep it stationary as the rocket makes its maiden flight.
'Test flights of new rockets usually contain mass simulators in the form of concrete or steel blocks. That seemed extremely boring,' Musk said in December.

'Of course, anything boring is terrible, especially companies, so we decided to send something unusual, something that made us feel.
'The payload will be an original Tesla Roadster, playing Space Oddity, on a billion year elliptic Mars orbit.'
If all goes according to plan, the Falcon Heavy will lift off and enter Earth's orbit, before two of its booster rockets separate off and return to Earth at Cape Canaveral in controlled landings.
The rocket's central core will then separate from the main module, containing Musk's car, and begin its own controlled descent back to Earth, landing on the firm's 'Of Course I Still Love You' drone ship in the Pacific Ocean.
The main module will continue its trajectory into 'deep space', the billionaire said, with a destination set for the orbit of Mars 140 million miles (225 million kilometres) away.
Musk has said the payload 'will be in deep space for a billion years or so if it doesn't blow up on ascent.'

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Veteran U.S. astronaut John Young, who walked on the moon and even smuggled a corned beef sandwich into orbit during one of his six missions in space, has died at age 87, NASA said on Saturday.
Young, a former U.S. Navy test pilot, in 1972 became the ninth of 12 people ever to set foot on the moon.

Young became one of the most accomplished astronauts in the history of the U.S. space program. He flew into space twice during NASA's Gemini program in the mid-1960s, twice on the Apollo lunar missions and twice on space shuttles in the 1980s.
He retired in 2004 after 42 years with the U.S. space agency.
The Apollo 16 mission in April 1972, his fourth space flight, took Young to the lunar surface.
As mission commander, he and crewmate Charles Duke explored the moon's Descartes Highlands region, gathering 200 pounds (90 kg) of rock and soil samples and driving more than 16 miles (26 km) in the lunar rover to sites such as Spook Crater.

http://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/06/us/john-young-obit/index.html

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Virgin Galactic has completed another successful glide test of its VSS Unity spaceplane, putting the company on track to send tourists into space within months.

The test, which comes more than three years since the firm's fatal crash, saw the craft manoeuvre safely to the ground from an altitude of 50,000 feet (15,000m).

Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson has claimed VSS Unity, the second version of the company's SpaceShipTwo, will take people on suborbital test flights by April.

Yesterday's glide test, VSS Unity's seventh, saw the craft sent up from California's Mojave Air and Space Port attached to a twin-fuselage White Knight carrier airplane.

Once the pair reached 50,000ft (15,000m), Unity was released for an unpowered descent back to the spaceport.

The test saw Unity reach its top glide speed, hitting Mach 0.9 (670 mph/1080kph) after it was pushed into a sharp descent upon release from its mothership.

VIRGIN GALACTIC SPACE FLIGHTS
Unlike other commercial spaceflight companies, such as Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic initiates its flights without using a traditional rocket launch.

Instead, the firm launches VSS Unity and other craft from a carrier plane, dubbed VMS Eve.

On commercial flights, pair will travel up to 50 miles (80 km) above the Earth's surface, an altitude defined as the edge of outer space by Nasa.

'Within seconds, the rocket motor will be engaged' and Unity will fly approximately three and a half times the speed of sound into suborbital space, according to Virgin.

'After the rocket motor has fired for around a minute, the pilots will safely shut it down.

 

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[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

New Zealand joins the Space Race

New Zealand has joined the list of spacefaring nations, courtesy of a US-Kiwi startup called Rocket Lab.

Founded in New Zealand by CEO/CTO Peter Beck, the company has spent 12 years developing a launch capability for on cubesat-sized payloads up to 150 kg for not many millions of dollars. In May last year, the outfit successfully launched its Electron rocket, but a glitch prevented it from reaching orbit. But on Sunday, January 21st, an Electron named “Still Testing” launched from the company's own launch site on the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand's North Island delivered three satellites to orbit. One is an Earth-imaging cubesat owned by Planet Labs, and the other two will collect ship tracking and weather data for Spire Global.

Rocket Lab is competing with more than a dozen privately funded space companies, including Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, to develop launch vehicles capable of carrying small payloads of up to about 500kg into space. The Electron rocket is disposable. It is made of lightweight carbon composite material and has 3D-printed engines to reduce costs and assembly times. It is 17m long, roughly a quarter of the size of rivals such as SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, which can carry satellites the size of a van into orbit. Each Rocket Lab launch costs about $5m, compared to $62m for SpaceX, the company founded by billionaire Elon Musk.

skip to 14.15

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Lab

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

SpaceX's Falcon Heavy roared to life for the first time on Wednesday. All 27 of the Falcon Heavy's Merlin engines fired up for the first time simultaneously

Musk said the launch vehicle will blast off at the 'end of the month' on an unmanned mission with a unique payload - the billionaire's cherry red 2008 Tesla Roadster, which will be fired toward Mars.

The rocket will use 27 engines and three separate re-usable cores that will return to Earth after liftoff during the test flight, which is set to be one of the firm's most technically complex challenges to date.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

SpaceX will launch the worlds biggest rocket on Feb 6th.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

You had one job........



A record-setting Russian spacewalk ended with a critical antenna facing the wrong way outside the International Space Station.

Cosmonauts Aleksandr Misurkin, 40, and Anton Shkaplerov, 45, had to venture outside to swap out an old comms module with a new communications rod.

But when they installed the antenna, designed to improve comms with Russia's Mission Control in Moscow, it was left facing 180 degrees from its intended position.

The trouble arose toward the end of a spacewalk lasting more than eight hours - the longest ever by Russians and the fifth longest overall.

Nasa's Mission Control has reported the antenna is still working, but Russian space officials are now assessing whether the device needs re-positioning

Issues arose after Misurkin and Shkaplerov successfully replaced an electronics box to upgrade the antenna on Friday.

The new antenna - a long boom with a 4-foot (1.2-metre) dish at the end - had been folded up before the repair work.

The pair watched in dismay as the antenna got hung up on the Russian side of the complex and could not be extended properly.

The cosmonauts pushed, as flight controllers tried repeatedly, via remote commanding, to rotate the antenna into the right position.

Finally, someone shouted in Russian, 'It's moving. It's in place.'

The cosmonauts pushed, as flight controllers tried repeatedly, via remote commanding, to rotate the antenna into the right position.

Finally, someone shouted in Russian, 'It's moving. It's in place.'

Nasa Mission Control said from Houston that the antenna wound up in a position 180 degrees farther than anticipated.


The spacewalk dragged on so long - lasting 8 hours and 13 minutes - that Misurkin and Shkaplerov ended up surpassing the previous Russian record of 8 hours and 7 minutes, set in 2013.

It was only supposed to last six-and-a-half hours.

'Are you kidding us?' one of them asked when they heard about the record.



Nasa still holds the world record, with a spacewalk just shy of nine hours back in 2001.

2001: EVA #195 (8 hours 56 min). The Longest Spacewalk in history.
Spacecraft: STS-102 EVA 1
Spacewalkers: James Voss (United States), Susan Helms (United States)
Start: Sunday, 11 March 2001 05:12:00
End: Sunday, 11 March 2001 14:08:00
Remarks:
Voss and Helms prepared Pressurized Mating Adapter-3 for repositioning from Unity’s Earth-facing berth to the port-side berth to make room for Leonardo, the Italian Space Agency-built Multi-Purpose Logistics Module. They also removed a Lab Cradle Assembly from Discovery’s payload bay and installed it on the side of Destiny, and installed a cable tray to Destiny for later use by the station’s robot arm (Canadarm2). After re-entering the shuttle’s airlock, Voss and Helms remained ready to assist if any troubles installing the docking port were encountered by the crew inside the shuttle. This was the longest spacewalk in history of spacewalking.

https://ourplnt.com/longest-spacewalks/

 

[Hood]

Great thread! Very informative. I've noticed that since the Feb. 6th launch of Falcon Heavy, a whole lot of "conspiracy theorists", "flat-Earthers", and other fools, are loudly proclaiming that it's all a hoax. Several Youtube videos about how the launch of the Tesla Roadster was completely faked with CGI techniques, etc. Are these people for real, or just sad losers trying to generate more clicks? Hard to believe that people can be this obtuse. I know they've always been with us on the "lunatic fringe", but as the space race gets more publicity , the more vocal and numerous the idiots become. It would be laughable if it wasn't so sad and common, and it makes me wonder about the human race.

 

[dorsetknob]

Several Youtube videos about how the launch of the Tesla Roadster was completely faked with CGI techniques, etc. Are these people for real, or just sad losers

Traffic Wardens the world over are licking their pencils and wishing they can slap a ticket/violation on this Abandoned Tesla as its probably not got a parking permit

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Great thread! Very informative. I've noticed that since the Feb. 6th launch of Falcon Heavy, a whole lot of "conspiracy theorists", "flat-Earthers", and other fools, are loudly proclaiming that it's all a hoax. Several Youtube videos about how the launch of the Tesla Roadster was completely faked with CGI techniques, etc. Are these people for real, or just sad losers trying to generate more clicks? Hard to believe that people can be this obtuse. I know they've always been with us on the "lunatic fringe", but as the space race gets more publicity , the more vocal and numerous the idiots become. It would be laughable if it wasn't so sad and common, and it makes me wonder about the human race.

I volunteered to be the test pilot but backed out when i discovered theres no ashtray in a Tesla. Hundreds of millions of years and not a single puff on a fag.............no chance.

Great thread! Very informative.

Since i started this thread 3 years and 2 days ago it has had one view every 40 minutes.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

NASA s $1 billion (£720 million) Mobile Launcher rocket tower is 'leaning', according to the space agency.

During recent upgrades to the 350-foot (106-metre) structure, Nasa added a number of connecting arms, but it appears the extensions have put the tower on a slight tilt.

Nasa has acknowledged 'some deflection and imperfections' in the column but says the launcher is 'structurally sound' and does not need any design modifications.

The Mobile Launcher cost $234 million (£167 million) to build and is currently undergoing renovations worth $678 million (£485 million) to prepare it for the maiden launch of Nasa's Space Launch System mega-rocket in 2019.

The lean likely means the already well over-budget tower won't be used for more than one or two launches due to safety concerns, experts claim.

NasaSpaceFlight

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

High-speed footage from ESA’s latest tests to create ultra-durable spacecraft shielding reveals the moment a bullet travelling 4 miles per second bursts into a ‘cloud of fragments and vapour’ after piercing one of the candidate materials.

The space agency is working to develop shielding made from thin layers of metal that can protect its craft from cosmic debris.

Spacecraft shielding often relies on a technique known as the Whipple Shield. This uses multiple layers separated by 10-30 centimeters. While aluminium shields are currently used to protect spacecraft, the ESA researchers are investigating whether fibre metal laminates could prove an efficient material.

Whipple shield used on Stardust probe.


This uses multiple layers separated by 10-30 centimeters. While aluminium shields are currently used to protect spacecraft, the ESA researchers are investigating whether fibre metal laminates could prove an efficient material.