US Launch Vehicles and Spacecraft: Discussion & News

SpaceX successfully launches Falcon 9 rocket with secret satellite

More:
http://tass.com/science/984163

Falcon Heavy rocket launched from Cape Canaveral

More:
http://tass.com/science/988766

US launches Atlas V rocket with two military satellites

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http://tass.com/science/999862

NASA says its rover found organic substances on Mars

Those substances are not necessarily a sign of life, and might have a non-biological origin, a NASA scientist said

NEW YORK, June 8. /TASS/. NASA’s Curiosity rover has found traces of organic substances on Mars, but their source is yet to be established, NASA experts said at a news conference broadcast live on the agency’s website.

To identify organic material in the Martian soil, Curiosity drilled into sedimentary rocks that gradually formed billions of years ago from silt that accumulated at the bottom of an ancient lake in Gale Crater. Later, the rover analyzed them with its Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite, which heats the samples to release organic molecules from the powdered rock. NASA said in a statement that some of the molecules identified by Curiosity include thiophenes, benzene, toluene, and small carbon chains, such as propane or butene.

Jen Eigenbrode of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said that the organic substances detected by Curiosity were not necessarily a sign of life, and might have a non-biological origin.

"Curiosity has not determined the source of the organic molecules," Eigenbrode said. "Whether it holds a record of ancient life, was food for life, or has existed in the absence of life, organic matter in Martian materials holds chemical clues to planetary conditions and processes."

Besides, the rover also obtained new information about seasonal variations of methane in the Martian atmosphere. The biological origin of those fluctuations has not been ruled out, although there is currently no evidence to support the theory.

"This is the first time we've seen something repeatable in the methane story, so it offers us a handle in understanding it," said Chris Webster of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.

"This is all possible because of Curiosity's longevity. The long duration has allowed us to see the patterns in this seasonal 'breathing.'"

Commenting on the results, Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, said: ""With these new findings, Mars is telling us to stay the course and keep searching for evidence of life.

"I’m confident that our ongoing and planned missions will unlock even more breathtaking discoveries on the Red Planet," he added.

Curiosity was delivered to Mars in August 2012 to examine a crater named after Australian astronomer Walter Gale. The rover is 2.8-meters long and weights 900 kilograms.


More:
http://tass.com/science/1008650

US Cygnus space freighter conducts its first-ever ISS orbit adjustment

More:
http://tass.com/science/1012647

United Launch Alliance sends into orbit satellite to study Earth’s ice cap

It was the final flight of the Delta II rocket, which has been in use since 1989

NEW YORK, September 15. /TASS/. US-based United Launch Alliance (ULA) launched the ICESat-2 satellite to study the Earth’s ice cover atop its Delta II carrier rocket on Saturday.

The launch was conducted from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and was broadcast live on the company’s website. It was the final flight of the Delta II rocket, which has been in use since 1989.

ICESat-2 was designed, among other things, to monitor and measure the thickness of ice cap at the Earth’s North and South Pole. The satellite’s primary instrument will pulse its laser at Earth 10,000 times a second and precisely measure the time it takes the beams to bounce off the ground and return to ICESat-2 to deduce the elevation below within the accuracy of 4 millimeters.

ULA was founded in 2006. It is a joint enterprise of aviation giants Boeing and Lockheed Martin.


More:
http://tass.com/science/1021766

Virgin Orbit's Boeing 747 with LauncherOne launcher

The Virgin Ordit company (a subsidiary of the British corporation Virgin Group) on its social media website twitter published photos of the Boeing 747 aircraft (which the company called Cosmic Girl) with LauncherOne rocket mounted under the wing.

LauncherOne has been under development since the 2010s; it is intended for launching from a carrier aircraft at a high altitude and putting small satellites into the sun-synchronous orbit; the rocket is capable of carrying a payload weighing up to 300 kilograms.

Virgin Orbit plans to carry out Cosmic Girl test flights with the LauncherOne launch vehicle model installed. If all the necessary tests are successful, the company expects to conduct the first orbital launch of the rocket by the end of this year.













https://bmpd.livejournal.com/3392597.html

Seems like Houston has a problem... video unavailable...

SpaceX Launches Historic Crew Dragon Test Flight to Space Station for NASA







https://www.space.com/spacex-launches-crew-dragon-test-flight.html

Yeah... amazing... spacex manages to do what Russian rockets have been doing for quite some time...

US spacecraft Crew Dragon undocks from orbital outpost

More:
http://tass.com/science/1047946


SpaceX splashes Crew Dragon capsule into Atlantic - NASA

More:
http://tass.com/science/1047958

Not a Russian mission but I will post it anyway as these things have some relevance to Russian manned space industry...

SpaceX static test of manned Drgaon capsule propulsion system ends in DISASTER as an "anomaly" results in a CATASTROPHIC explosion and complete ANNIHILATION of the capsule.



Ouch  

I think its safe to say that a manned mission any time soon has just become... untenable.

Edit: They have the audacity to call this an "anomaly".... who the fuck are these Muskian PR sock puppets trying to kid?

The catastrophic explosion is something of an anomaly itself. Assuming this video is legit, they are going to have totally redesign their
model.

kvs wrote:The catastrophic explosion is something of an anomaly itself.   Assuming this video is legit, they are going to have totally redesign their
model.  

I think its legit. SpaceX has not challenged the veracity of the footage.  Western media is now beginning to refer to "explosions" rather than just "smoke being released".  The leaking of the vid has prevented SpaceX from downplaying the accident, and US authorities from acquiescing to SpaceX preferred narratives.

The reality here is that flight-certified hardware has suffered a massive failure in a controlled ground test, which would have resulted in a total loss of crew and mission.  NASA can't ignore this, and the entire safety case will need to be reviewed. I'd judge that their original safety case probably didn't include any failure scenarios of this severity, so NASA will demand to know why that was.  Even if they did consider this failure mode, their safeguards were clearly insufficient, so again a full investigations and safety case review is required.

Schedule will slip at least a year to the right. I wouldn't be surprised it it proves to be longer. No crewed Dragon flights until well into 2020 or 2021.

No crew rescue system?

Hole wrote:No crew rescue system?

Wouldn't have had time to kick in and even if it did what would be left to escape? Crew compartment just blew up.

This is what happens when you prioritize looks over everything else.

Everything had to be in one single cool looking 100% reusable package, both crew compartment and engine segment (which should be single use precisely because of this)

And it's hardly only such thing, have you seen those spacesuits they got? Only thing that tops their looks is infinite number of things that can go wrong with them.

But Musk secured "his" billions. If SpaceX and Tesla go bancrupt, he will still live a very, very, very good life.

How serious is this anyway? Are we looking at a 1 year delay? 2?

If we remember all the "mishaps" with the shuttle NASA doesn´t care much about the life of their "astronauts".

Hole wrote:No crew rescue system?

The booster packages integrated into the capsule ARE the crew escape system...

Dunno for the life of me how NASA accepted this BS arrangement. Hypergolic engines integrated into the capsule structure being used as emergency escape??? Why couldn't they simply adopt a tried-and-true system like on Apollo or Soyuz? Probably due to SpaceX pride and arrogance?

NASA also accepted the absurdity of transferring passengers to the crewed cabin prior to the stack fuelling. What a frigging lunatic idea. Commonsense dictates that humans should stay clear of the stack when propellents are being loaded, but no... SpaceX fucking know-it-alls defy decades of hard-learned experience and fudge some BS numerical probability studies to justify their preferred approach and avoid costly improvements to their launch operations. The fact that they lost one F9 already due to catatrophic fuelling accident doesn't seem to have figured into their thinking...

How the fuck did NASA allow themselves to be hoodwinked (or co-erced) into signing off on this great steaming pile of horse shit? Does everything in neoliberal Uh'Murica need to play second figure to selfish Corporate interests?

PapaDragon wrote:This is what happens when you prioritize looks over everything else.

Everything had to be in one single cool looking 100% reusable package, both crew compartment and engine segment (which should be single use precisely because of this)

Hilariously, the manned Dragon is NOT reuseable. SpaceX recently back-tracked on that requirement cuz it was simply too difficult. There is a huge difference between recovering a manned re-entry vehicle and being able to re-fly it, and its seems that Musk and his ladz have finally conceded to reality.

Big_Gazza wrote:

Hole wrote:No crew rescue system?

The booster packages integrated into the capsule ARE the crew escape system...

Dunno for the life of me how NASA accepted this BS arrangement. Hypergolic engines integrated into the capsule structure being used as emergency escape???   Why couldn't they simply adopt a tried-and-true system like on Apollo or Soyuz?  Probably due to SpaceX pride and arrogance?

NASA also accepted the absurdity of transferring passengers to the crewed cabin prior to the stack fuelling.  What a frigging lunatic idea.  Commonsense dictates that humans should stay clear of the stack when propellents are being loaded, but no... SpaceX fucking know-it-alls defy decades of hard-learned experience and fudge some BS numerical probability studies to justify their preferred approach and avoid costly improvements to their launch operations.  The fact that they lost one F9 already due to catatrophic fuelling accident doesn't seem to have figured into their thinking...

How the fuck did NASA allow themselves to be hoodwinked (or co-erced) into signing off on this great steaming pile of horse shit?  Does everything in neoliberal Uh'Murica need to play second figure to selfish Corporate interests?

This what happens when western "deciders" drink their own koolaid. America is genetically number one. So failure and inferior technology never happens.
Reminds me of the farcical Vanguard.

I am surprised by the response to the "anamoly"... I believe after a shuttle loss the comment was to secure all data and make sure everything recorded can be used to determine what happened... this one I suspect each will be burning any evidence of what they did personally so it wont come back to them...

I guess they are lucky they don't have the inept lot of losers that Russia has working there... it is all about quality control and good management isn't it?

Big_Gazza wrote:

Hole wrote:No crew rescue system?

The booster packages integrated into the capsule ARE the crew escape system...

Dunno for the life of me how NASA accepted this BS arrangement.

.........

How the fuck did NASA allow themselves to be hoodwinked (or co-erced) into signing off on this great steaming pile of horse shit? ............

I usually don't pay attention to SpaceX noise but I had to read up on this.


Okay so now we have:

1) 4 engines/bombs lining the crew compartment for maximum kill effect

2) Those same 4 engines/bombs that double as escape system

3) Fueling that is performed while crew is onboard


All with the purpose of looking cool while being reusable and now reusability feature has been abandoned.  



So instead going with tried and true approach pioneered by Soyuz/Apollo guys back in the era of black&white television SpaceX decided to design airborne execution chamber because it looks cool?

This should have never existed in the first place and even if it did it should have been redesigned from scratch the moment reusability feature was dropped.

And why do they even need those capsule engines now? This is supposed to land on water anyway. Parachute is enough.

Answer is because they still want to go after non-parachute landing later because it looks cool (even though NASA astronauts already told them to get stuffed when they suggested it, same answer Energia got from cosmonauts)  

Everything is subjected to appearance, logic and safety be damned.



Only reason NASA is tolerating this bullsh*t is probably because:

1) They have Boeing developing new ship based on good old Soyuz/Apollo approach

2) They already asked Roskosmos for SLS version of Soyuz as a backup