The Space Race

[dorsetknob]

The plan is to land it on an autonomous uncrewed barge, which is being stationed east of Cape Canaveral. As the rocket descends, steerable fins affixed to its outside will help guide it and slow it down. As it nears the barge, a set of legs will unfold from the bottom of the rocket, and if all goes to plan, it'll slow down to a speed of about 4.5 miles per hour before gently landing on them, fully upright.

Watched the landing

did the landing rocket not look as tall as that barge is long ?

Call Me Stupid but is there not going to be a very serious stability problem landing such a tall rocket on such a relatively small unstable platform that is that Barge at sea

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

A better vid has been released today, notice the stability thrusters at the top, it really is remarkable what they are trying to do..........and so close. Next time i reckon they will do it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-32330383

.

I would think that as they perfect the process it could be landed on solid ground.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Apparently "leaked" footage of SpaceX recent landing attempt and a good read in the link.
The camera is placed on the barge....i reckon it's pretty cool.

A deleted tweet by Musk says that the rocket appeared to be suffering from 'stiction in the biprop throttle valve, resulting in control system phase lag.'
This means the valve controlling the flow propellent and oxidiser to the engine wasn't moving fast enough.
As a result, the actions from rocket's computers couldn't be acted upon in time to correct the tilt of the booster caused by a gust of wind.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...firm-got-perfect-landing.html#v-4179693639001

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

The battery powered rocket powerful enough to blast satellites into orbit

It is set to be a greener way to launch satellites.
Rocket Lab, a privately-held company financed by weapons maker Lockheed Martin and other high-tech investors has unveiled a battery powered rocket.
The low-cost Electron launch system for small satellites will be the first rocket powered by batteries when it blasts off later this year.

Rocket Lab's idea for making a lighter, simpler liquid rocket is its Rutherford engine. Named after New Zealand-born physicist Ernest Rutherford, it's an electric turbopump engine that burns a mixture of liquid oxygen and RP-1 rocket fuel, which is a highly refined type of kerosene. Unlike conventional engines, in the Rutherford, the gas-powered turbine to run the pump is replaced with a brushless DC motor and lithium polymer batteries, and provides enough fuel for the Rutherford to generate 4,600 lbf (20,462 N) of thrust and a specific impulse of 327 seconds.


The company says that the Rutherford is also notable as the first oxygen/hydrocarbon engine to use 3D printing for all its primary components, including the regeneratively cooled thrust chamber, injector, pumps, and main propellant valves.

The Electron itself is a two-stage rocket measuring 1 m (3.2 ft) in diameter and 20 m (65.6 ft) high, and is designed to lift a 100 kg (220 lb) payload into a 500 km (310 mi) Sun-synchronous orbit. This is due, in part, to its extremely light carbon-composite construction, which, according to Rocket Lab, gives it a dry weight that's lighter than a Mini Cooper. These composites not only allow for bespoke construction with the tanks and other components designed with strength only in the needed directions, but also for tanks compatible with liquid oxygen combined with a proprietary thermal protection system for the cryogenics.

According to Rocket Lab, there are not only nine Rutherford engines in the first stage producing 34,500 to 41,500 lbf (153,464 – 184,602 N) of thrust, but the second stage uses a variant of the Rutherford engine designed to work more efficiently in the vacuum of space. The vacuum variant differs only in nozzle shape, with the same basic engine design for both stages providing for faster production.

more here including a vid
http://www.rocketlabusa.com/index.html

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Out of control Russian spacecraft plunging back to Earth: Official reveals unmanned cargo craft has 'started descending'

• Progress M-27M will fall to Earth in a matter of days, experts have said
• The ISS-bound spacecraft suffered a glitch after launching yesterday
• It is now spinning out of control with 'nowhere to go' except down

Progress 59 launched into space vid

'Almost immediately after spacecraft separation, a series of telemetry problems were detected with the Progress 59,' Nasa spokesperson Rob Navias said during a televised broadcast from Mission Control.
Orbital parameters were due to be sent from a Russian Ground Site, allowing for a eight 'rendevous burns' to be performed over the next five hours of flight.
But, once Progress had arrived on orbit, only confirmation of its solar array deployment and some of the navigational antennas were made.
Meanwhile, Nasa's Mission Control reported that a video camera on Progress showed it to be spinning at a 'rather significant rate.'


More reading and a vid of the launch
http://www.space.com/29243-russian-cargo-spacecraft-malfunction-progress59.html

 

[dorsetknob]

Out of Control and on an uncontrolled re entry

Tin Hat and Bunker Time ? wonder where Ground Zero may be

http://www.n2yo.com/satellite/?s=40619

 

[dorsetknob]

Mr President okebama

Its come to our (NSA) Attention that there is a Rouge Russian Missile/rocket heading our way

Can we Deploy /Test our
Patriot advanced capability (PAC-3) missile

We don't want this Russian rocket to Land/crash in the Good old USA

 

[Caring1]

Mr President okebama

Its come to our (NSA) Attention that there is a Rouge Russian Missile/rocket heading our way

Rouge or rogue?
bit of lippy on it?
It must be someone elses turn to have space junk land on them, one is enough for my country, we had skylab crash land quite a few years ago.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

This is good...from wiki

Re-entry[edit]
Skylab's demise was an international media event, with merchandising of T-shirts and hats with bullseyes,[22] wagering on the time and place of re-entry, and nightly news reports. The San Francisco Examiner offered a $10,000 prize for the first piece of Skylab delivered to its offices; the competing Chronicle offered $200,000 if a subscriber suffered personal or property damage.[23] NASA calculated that the odds of station re-entry debris hitting a human were 1 to 152 and the odds of any particular person being hit were 1 in 600 billion,[24]although the odds of debris hitting a city of 100,000 or more were 1 to 7 and special teams were readied to head to any country hit by debris and requesting help.[23]

We assume that Skylab is on the planet Earth, somewhere.

Charles S. Harlan, Skylab mission controller[22]
In the hours before re-entry, ground controllers adjusted Skylab's orientation to try to minimize the risk of re-entry on a populated area.[23] They aimed the station at a spot 810 miles (1,300 km) south southeast of Cape Town, South Africa, and re-entry began at approximately 16:37 UTC, July 11, 1979.[3]:371 The Air Force provided data from a secret tracking system able to monitor the reentry.[25] The station did not burn up as fast as NASA expected, however. Due to a 4% calculation error, debris landed southeast of Perth, Western Australia,[3]:371 and was found between Esperance and Rawlinna, from 31° to 34°S and 122° to 126°E, about 130–150 km radius aroundBalladonia. Residents and an airline pilot saw dozens of colorful fireworks-like flares as large pieces broke up in the atmosphere.[22] The Shire of Esperance facetiously fined NASAA$400 for littering, a fine which remained unpaid for 30 years.[26] The fine was paid in April 2009, when radio show host Scott Barley of Highway Radio raised the funds from his morning show listeners and paid the fine on behalf of NASA.[27][28]


Fragment of Skylab recovered after its re-entry through Earth's atmosphere, on display at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center
Seventeen year-old Stan Thornton found 24 pieces of Skylab at his home in Esperance. A Philadelphia businessman flew him, his parents, and girlfriend to San Francisco, where he collected the Examiner prize.[3]:371[22] In a coincidence for the organizers, the annual Miss Universepageant was scheduled to be held a few days later, on July 20, 1979 in Perth. A large piece of Skylab debris was displayed on the stage.[29]Analysis of the debris showed that the station had not disintegrated until 10 miles above the Earth, much lower than expected.[22]

After the demise of Skylab, NASA focused on the reusable Spacelab module, an orbital workshop that could be deployed with the Space Shuttle and returned to Earth. The next American major space station project was Space Station Freedom, which was merged into theInternational Space Station in 1993, and launched starting in 1998. Shuttle-Mir was another project, and led to the U.S. funding Spektr,Priroda, and the Mir Docking Module in the 1990s.

and a news report

 

[dorsetknob]

Rouge or rogue?
bit of lippy on it?
It must be someone elses turn to have space junk land on them, one is enough for my country, we had skylab crash land quite a few years ago.

there are Europeans up there sometimes EVEN Females

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Russia's state-run RIA Novosti news agency quoted an unnamed source as saying an attempt to contact the craft Wednesday ended in failure. No further attempts are expected Wednesday, the source said.

"To be honest, only a miracle can save the ship. There is no telemetry, and the spacecraft has not been able to get out of its spinning and be stabilized, so a maneuver involving distance or manual docking is becoming extremely dangerous," the source told RIA Novosti.

The news agency added that the craft is expected to enter the Earth's atmosphere and burn up in about a week.

 

[RCoon]

Blue Origin's first space flight

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Nice one @RCoon you beat me to it.

Blue Origin is an American privately funded Aerospace manufacturer set up by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos. The company is developing technologies to enable private human access to space with the goal of dramatically lower cost and increased reliability. It is employing an incremental approach from suborbital to orbital flight, with each developmental step building on its prior work. The company motto is "Gradatim Ferociter", Latin for "Step-by-Step, Ferociously". Blue Origin is developing a variety of technologies, with a focus on rocket-powered Vertical Takeoff and Vertical Landing (VTVL) vehicles for access to suborbital and orbital space.[1]


heres another perspective

post #48 on page 2 has more stuff

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

US Air Force's Next X-37B Space Plane Mystery Mission to Test Thruster

The U.S. Air Force will test an innovative spacecraft thruster this month when it launches the latest mystery mission of its robotic X-37B space plane.

A Hall thruster will be one of the payloads riding on the X-37B space plane when it launches on May 20, Air Force officials revealed this week. The mission, called AFSPC-5, will lift off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station using an Atlas V rocket provided by launch provider United Launch Alliance. The exact mission details of the Air Force's X-37B space planes, also known as Orbital Test Vehicles, have to date been shrouded in secrecy.

The details about the Hall thruster experiment aboard the upcoming X-37B mission, which will be the fourth of its kind, were outlined by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Space and Missile Systems Center, and Rapid Capabilities Office. [USAF's Mystery X-37B Space Plane in Photos]

The Hall thruster is a modified version of thrusters used on the Space and Missile Systems Center's three Advanced Extremely High Frequency military communications satellites. It is a type of electric propulsion device that ionizing and accelerating a noble gas, typically xenon, to produce thrust. WhileHall thrusters generate relatively low thrust when compared to that of conventionally fueled rocket engines, they make up for it in fuel economy with a much greater specific impulse.

While producing comparatively low thrust relative to conventional rocket engines, Hall thrusters provide significantly greater specific impulse, or fuel economy.

This results in increased payload carrying capacity and a greater number of on-orbit maneuvers for a spacecraft using Hall thrusters rather than traditional rocket engines, according to an update from the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

The most recent X-37B mission, called Orbital Test Vehicle 3 or OTV-3, launched in December 2012 and returned to Earth on Oct. 17, 2014, racking up about 675 days in space. That mission also marked the first time an X-37B was reused on a space flight.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Spacex news

SpaceX has launched its Crew Dragon spacecraft (shown) for the first time today. This was not a proper 'operational' launch, though, but instead it was a 'pad abort test' from a launch pad in Florida - a vital test to prove the spacecraft can safely carry astronauts

The eight engines each produced 15,000 pounds of thrust to lift the spacecraft to about 5,000ft (1,500 metres) above the ground

Once at peak altitude, the spacecraft separated from the trunk section, seen here. For future flights, this will carry fuel and cargo

Here the spacecraft is seen fully separated from its trunk section. At the time its nose was pointing horizontally, so it needed to rotate to get its heat shield - the bottom of it - pointing towards the ground

It's hoped that future astronauts won't have to go through this parachute routine, as the thrusters on the spacecraft should be sufficient to land it safely on the ground

HOW THE LAUNCH UNFOLDED
0 seconds: The eight SuperDraco engines ignited simultaneously and propelled the spacecraft off the pad.

0.5 seconds: After half a second, the Crew Dragon pitched towards the ocean and continue to fire its engines. It reached 100mph (160km/h) in just one second.

5 seconds: The engines cut off and the Dragon coasted for 15 seconds to its highest point, 5,000ft (1,500 metres) above the launch pad.

21 seconds: The ‘trunk’ (cargo section at the bottom) of the spacecraft was jettisoned, and the vehicle began a slow rotation to point its heat shield - its base - towards the ground again.

25 seconds: Small ‘drogue’ parachutes were deployed to stabilise the vehicle.

35 seconds: Three main parachutes deployed to slow the spacecraft for splashdown.

99 seconds: Dragon splashed down into the Atlantic Ocean about one mile (1.6km) offshore.

aaaaaaand a vid........which is excellent, not long.
http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2015/05/06/spacex-dragon-escape-test.cnnmoney/


posts #30 and #49 have more Spacex pics and info if you like this sort of stuff.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Russian space officials warn stricken spacecraft might not burn up entirely in the atmosphere

Russian space agency Roscosmos believes some fragments of its out of control spaceship may hit Earth on Friday.
It claims most of the Progress spaceship will burn up in the atmosphere, as is the case with all space cargo carriers once they have delivered their shipments to the ISS.
But there is a chance some small parts will crash on to land - although no one knows where or when these fragments will hit.

Russian flight controllers have since been unable to regain command of the wayward ship, which is carrying three tons of supplies to the ISS.
'The space ship will completely burn up in the layers of the atmosphere and only a few small parts of elements of its construction could reach the surface of our planet,' the space agency said.
While some have claimed that citizens are at risk of being struck by pieces of the ship, CBS News space consultant, William harwood, said the chances were 'very close to zero.'
Russian ballistics experts are now working with Nasa and Esa to track the craft's path. But the event isn't as rare as believed, according to Nasa.
'Several hundred objects with more than 200 metric tons are tracked in space as they reenter each year,' a spokesperson for Nasa told DailyMail.com.
'About every week, a rocket body or spacecraft re-enters. Typically, objects with a mass of at least four metric tons re-enter uncontrolled at least once per year.'

Progress is not designed to be able to return to Earth, so if it does re-enter Earth's atmosphere it's likely most of it would burn up during the intense heat of re-entry as it lacks a heat shield.


Track it here and see if it might hit your house
http://www.n2yo.com/satellite/?s=40619


or you might choose not to......one of its predicted paths is right over my house
http://www.n2yo.com/progress-cargo-reentry.php

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Satellite Update. Progress M-27M

Based on its trajectory, The North American Aerospace Defence Command had plotted re-entry for 8.59am, 15 miles north of Margate in Kent and 20 miles south-east of Clacton in Essex.
However, it actually burned up in the Earth's atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean at 02.04am.
'The Progress M-27M spacecraft ceased to exist at 05:04 Moscow time (0204 GMT) on 8 May 2015. It entered the atmosphere... over the central part of the Pacific Ocean,' Roscosmos said in a statement.
The European Space Agency last night disagreed with Norad's calculations and said the spaceship was more likely to hit the atmosphere either late last night or in the early hours of this morning.


Almost all similarly-sized spacecraft disintegrate in the atmosphere or land in the oceans, which cover most of the Earth's surface.
A special commission is looking into the incident, the deputy head of Roscosmos has said.
Sources in the space industry told Russian news agencies that the accident was caused by a problem with the Soyuz rocket carrying the cargo ship into orbit, rather than the supply vessel itself.
Russia has recently suffered a series of glitches exposing shortcomings in its space programme.
A Progress supply ship crashed in Siberia shortly after launch in 2011. Moscow has also lost several lucrative commercial satellites.





I have taken my tin hat off....phew!!

 

[dorsetknob]

Sh*T Missed no 10 and 1600

Spoiler: Primary + secondary TARGETS

10 Downing St and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Explosion of US Military Satellite May Endanger Spacecraft

epic gif.


The February explosion of an American military satellite may cause some problems for orbiting spacecraft after all, a new study reports.

The U.S. Air Force's 20-year-old Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Flight 13 (DMSP-F13) craft blew apart on Feb. 3 after experiencing a power-system faillure. Analyses by the European Space Agency and other organizations found that the cloud of space junk generated by the explosion shouldn't pose much of a threat to their missions, but the new research suggests that not all spacecraft are in the clear.

Study leader Francesca Letizia, a graduate student at the University of Southampton in England, and her team spotted 100 new chunks of debris produced by DMSP-F13's violent end. This number suggests that the explosion also created more than 50,000 pieces smaller than 1 millimeter in diameter, the scientists said.


"Even though many of these objects will be no bigger than the ball in a ballpoint pen, they can disable a spacecraft in a collision because of their enormous speed," co-author Hugh Lewis, also of the University of Southampton.


The team mapped out the spread of DMSP-F13's cloud using new modeling techniques that treated the pieces of debris as a fluid.

"Treating the fragment band as a fluid allows us to analyze the motion of a large number of fragments very quickly, and much faster than [using] conventional methods," said co-author Camilla Colombo, who's based at Southampton as well.

The researchers then used these maps to assess the collision risk to spacecraft circling Earth. They found that smaller pieces of DMSP-F13 debris could indeed hit some satellites, particularly American and Russian satellites that reside in sun-synchronous or polar orbits.

Such orbits are very useful for remote sensing missions that want to maintain the same Sun angle on targets on the Earth's surface


"Our work has shown that the introduction of a new cloud of small-sized debris into orbit will have increased the risks for other spacecraft in the vicinity, even if the risk from the larger fragments has been discounted," Lewis said.

The new study was published in the Journal of Guidance, Control and Dynamics.

T.S. Kelso, a senior research astrodynamicist at the Center for Space Standards & Innovation, a research arm of orbit-modeling software provider AGI, tweeted April 23 that the explosion has thus far created 149 pieces of debris.

http://www.space.com/9818-expanding...on.html#ooid=NuY3N4cDqgyJAShNLbTZk2va-oWy7lfw

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Women in Space.........heros to a man

Spoiler

The first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, blazed a trail for the many female spaceflyers who would follow. Tereshkova, a Soviet cosmonaut, was selected from more than 400 applicants to launch on the Vostok 6 mission June 16, 1963

In June 1983, NASA astronaut Sally Ride became the first U.S. woman in space when she launched on the STS-7 mission of the space shuttle Challenger

The first woman to complete a spacewalk, or extravehicular activity (EVA), was Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya, who spacewalked during her second flight to orbit in July 1984.

Astronaut Kathy Sullivan of NASA became the first American woman to make a spacewalk when she floated outside the space shuttle in October 1984.

British chemist Helen Sharman became the first British person to fly in space when she visited the Mir space station aboard the Soyuz TM-12 in 1991.

NASA astronaut Mae Jemison flew on space shuttle Endeavour in September 1992, becoming the first black woman to travel to space.

Roberta Bondar became Canada's first female astronaut when she flew on the STS-42 space shuttle mission in 1992.

The first Japanese woman in space was Chiaki Mukai, representing the National Space Development Agency of Japan, who flew on the STS-65 flight of the spaceshuttle Columbia in July 1994

Doctor Claudie Haignere was the first (and only) French woman to travel to space when she flew to the Russian space station Mir in 1996

NASA astronaut Eileen Collins was the first woman to command a space shuttle mission, a role that required an astronaut to have at least 1,000 hours of experience piloting jet aircraft. Collins commanded the STS-93 space shuttle mission in July 1999, and went on to command a second time in July 2005

The first female member of an International Space Station crew was NASA astronaut Susan Helms, who served as a flight engineer during the Expedition 2 mission from March to August 2001. It was just the second mission of the fledgling space laboratory.

Iranian-American entrepreneur Anousheh Ansari became the first female space tourist when she funded her own way to the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz space capsule in 2006 through the firm Space Adventures

NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson was the first woman to command the International Space Station when she took the helm of the outpost in April 2008. She commanded the station's Expedition 16 mission while serving a six-month tour of duty in orbit.

South Korean astronaut Yi So-yeon became her country's first space traveler when she rode to the International Space Station on Russia's Soyuz TMA-12 in April 2008.

The woman who has made the longest single spaceflight is NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, who lived and worked in orbit for 195 days while serving on theInternational Space Station's Expedition 15 mission in 2007.

The woman who has spent the most total time in space is Peggy Whitson, who has logged 376 days, 17 hours and 22 minutes in orbit over the span of two tripsto the International Space Station

China's first female astronaut Liu Wang waves to supporters while clad in a spacesuit just before boarding the Shenzhou 9 space capsule for a successful June 19, 2012 launch from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.

Four women serving together on the International Space Station on April 14, 2010, represented the highest number of women in space simultaneously. Clockwise from lower right are NASA astronauts Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger, Stephanie Wilson, both STS-131 mission specialists; and Tracy Caldwell Dyson, Expedition 23 flight engineer; along with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Naoko Yamazaki, STS-131 mission specialist.

 

[Peter1986C]

Samantha Christoforetti's stay in the ISS has been lengthened so she may have a record of her own in that regard. She is Italy's first woman in space, btw.

http://www.americaspace.com/?p=81647

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

@Chevalr1c
i will have to look up for her then.

And then look her up.

and Italy’s first woman in space, Samantha Cristoforetti,

 

[Peter1986C]

Her Twitter account is great.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

X-37B Space Plane's Rocket Ride Explained (through the medium of vid)

The U.S. Air Force's AFSPC-5 mission is scheduled to launch aboard a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket on May 20th, 2015. It will blast off from Space Launch Complex-41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

Vid is less than 2 mins unfortunately
http://www.space.com/29436-x-37b-sp...eo.html#ooid=4xdHM1dTqUhdzkqlwchErwlorEBb_dT9

The NASA payload, called the Materials Exposure and Technology Innovation in Space (METIS) investigation, aims to test how the space environment affects certain materials.
"By exposing materials to space and returning the samples to Earth, we gain valuable data about how the materials hold up in the environment in which they will have to operate," said METIS principal investigator Miria Finckenor, a materials engineer at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. [See photos of the X-37B's fourth mission]

Another quick vid...look at the landing speed when it last landed in October 2014 after spending 674 days in orbit
http://www.space.com/27478-secretiv...eo.html#ooid=Y0Y21kcTpMgq85Ix9u-26ogeEXZnEjHO

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Blast into space at 100mph in 1.2 seconds: SpaceX releases dizzying new footage of its Dragon launch abort test
The vid at the bottom of this post was only recently released.

The test was called a 'pad abort test', and took place from Space Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

It involved the manned vehicle launching to safety from a simulated emergency on the launch pad. The flight lasted just 99 seconds, eight seconds shorter than planned, but still successfully demonstrating how the crew would be carried to safety.

For example, if the rocket carrying the spacecraft was in danger some reason, Dragon would have to separate from the rocket and launch its crew away. For a spacecraft to be deemed safe for humans to travel in, it must be able to pass this test.

Previous manned rockets used a 'rocket tower' - essentially a long spike - on the top to carry a spacecraft to safety in an emergency.

But SpaceX's revolutionary design uses eight 'Draco thrusters' on its side, which will one day also be used to land the spacecraft softly on the ground so it can launch again.

The engines can each produce 15,000 pounds of thrust, and are expected to lift the spacecraft to about 5,000ft (1,500 metres) above the ground.

I like this vid a lot, make sure to watch it on full screen

Apollo Pad Abort Test 2 in 1965, for comparison, how it was done 50 years ago