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Ancient Aliens
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Not the best source but this is cool, they’ve had to dig out the original tech manuals to figure out the process to fire the aux engines to re-orient the spacecraft.
 
surpip said:

Alien Media News

Ancient Aliens
newsinstact.com newsinstact.com


Not the best source but this is cool, they’ve had to dig out the original tech manuals to figure out the process to fire the aux engines to re-orient the spacecraft.
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Hell yeah, the Voyagers are fawking awesome and shows how well that stuff is manufactured. Here's the NASA article from back when they did it, too cool.

Voyager 1 Fires Up Thrusters After 37 Years

That Starlink launch last night was all good, 46 more sats went up and ended with a successful booster landing. This was the first launch of this polar shell of Starlinks (I believe they did one polar Starlink launch last year, but I'm not sure if that was a different shell), so it's a pretty significant milestone. The coverage was a bit poor so video feed cut out a few times which is a bummer, but this a new trajectory for them so I'm sure they'll get it figured out.

SpaceX launches first mission to third shell of Starlink constellation - NASASpaceFlight.com
 
AgitatedPancake said:
Hell yeah, the Voyagers are fawking awesome and shows how well that stuff is manufactured. Here's the NASA article from back when they did it, too cool.
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lol shit, I saw the date on the article and thought it was new, damnit.
 
surpip said:
lol shit, I saw the date on the article and thought it was new, damnit.
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Haha sites like that are frustrating because while what they say can have accurate info, it's always presented as "new" stuff with no date mentioned by design. Still awesome stuff, but shame on them for being just another dilution of the truth like every other media company in existence these days.
 
The vehicle still seems to be under control and they're venting the tanks, but Booster 7 just had an...event. They've been doing some tank testing stuff, but no ignition was expected from what i'm hearing. Be interesting to see what happened



Edit - interesting comment from Elon. We'll see what's up

 
It's all still speculation beyond Elon's tweet, but it's sure looking like at least the center bundle of engines ignited. But the amount of raw fuel that flared up afterwards, I'm wondering if an engine failed during ignition. The live stream is still speculating that the ignition itself was unplanned for today, and they were intending to do spin prime tests of the turbopumps. The few local residents left in Boca Chica village usually get overpressure notices on days when engine firings are planned, but they did not get one today beyond the standard road closure for regular non-combustion testing.

 
His tweet looks gone unless it’s just my phone, what did he say?
 
He deleted it, misspoke about them just doing engine testing, and then got brought up to speed by the team. It was an anomaly, they're looking into it now.



Edit - followed by tthis:

 
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Well, engines seem intact



But that was a pretty good blast, this enclosed trailer looks to have taken a beating (look at the 3rd of 4 pics in the post)

 
Rocket lab launch in 2 minutes. They'll have another of the same in 10 days, nice back to back launches for the little rocket that could

 
That launch from RocketLab went flawless, good stuff all around.

Then this morning ESA (European Space Agency) launched their newly improved Vega C rocket for the first time. This was a big deal, because they were buying Soyuz rockets from Russia (Not just taking rides from what I understand, but essentially owning each rocket) before cutting ties over the Ukraine situation. But all of remaining ESA's Ariane 5 rockets are spoken for (only a few left before retirement), and they were stuck waiting on this improved Vega C rocket so they were in limbo with literally no domestic launch capability.

But now, Vega C is operational (still a low launch cadence of once every couple months), and the new Ariane 6 is getting ready to debut at the end of the year or beginning of next.

 
Successful launch and booster landing, and fawkin incredible views from the ground. They launched during twilight, so the rocket flew up into direct sunlight and created the awesome "jellyfish" effect you get to see a couple times a year





 
It sounds like they had some delay in getting the nosecone to latch open, but were able to confirm it a few minutes later than planned so it's on it's way





 
AgitatedPancake said:
Successful launch and booster landing, and fawkin incredible views from the ground. They launched during twilight, so the rocket flew up into direct sunlight and created the awesome "jellyfish" effect you get to see a couple times a year
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I live in Southport NC. When there was an evening launch, we used to head over to the beach to watch the Shuttle take off from Florida. If conditions were just right, you could see the boosters drop off and watch the shuttle zoom away in the sunlight. Good times!

Thanks for the updates, I'd never keep up with any of this without this thread:smokin:
 
Hell yeah man! That's one of the awesome things about these perfectly timed twilight launches, they can be seen from insane distances with spectacular effect. That's way cool you were able to do the same with the Shuttle, I'm extremely jealous haha.

Of course there's more incredible shots trickling in from Florida:






but also awesome stuff from far away. Massachusetts:



New York:

 
If the weather plays nice, SpaceX will be launching another batch of Starlinks in the next few mins. This is now the 3rd booster going for it's 13th flight, numbers are getting up there!

 
Fuzzydog said:
Grabbed both Hail Mary and Artemis on Amazon. Thanks for the recommendation. I liked The Martian so will prob enjoy those.
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Finally had some down time camping last weekend and read Artemis. Thoroughly enjoyed it. I particularly like the technical aspects that he addressed in the storyline.
So then I started Hail Mary and am about 1/3 of the way through ( he just met Rocky) and really looking forward to where this goes. I normally am not a big fan of the 'flashback' style of storytelling but it really works in this book.
Great recommended reading in a space themed discussion!
 
Glad ya like them man! Andy Weir is a solid author, and like you I really respect the technical detail he puts in to all of his books Hail Mary was a trip for sure.

Alright some updates for the thread:

SpaceX is launching another batch of polar Starlinks from Vandy on the west coast again this morning, launch time is 10:39am PT



On the ISS, a spacewalk just started with one Russian and one American. They should be out there for 6-7 hours



In other news, Dmitry Rogozin has been removed as the head of Roscosmos by Putin and replaced with someone I don't know. Rogozin loved his sabre rattling, we'll see how his replacement plays the game.

Also, NASA has set an official but tentative launch date for SLS of August 29th. There's about a week of flexibility in that date before having to wave off and go for the next window around a month later.



Another really cool announcement that came about in the last couple days, Relativity signed another contract for a customer to ride on their fully reusable Terran R rocket. The company is called Impulse Space, and they plan on landing a small lander on Mars in 2024. Impulse specialize in thruster design and manufacturing for in-space use. They key note here, Impulse is lead by Tom Mueller who was one of SpaceX's first employees, and was the designer of the Merlin engines that power the Falcon 9 as well as the hypergolic Draco and SuperDraco thrusters on the Dragon capsules. He means business, so this is a pretty real. They admit the timeline is bold, but I have my hopes up that they make it

 
The Starlink launch just scrubbed. Not too often that happens for SpaceX these days (was pretty common in the early days, just like other new launch providers), but good on them for not getting "launch fever" and hitting the go button when things aren't perfect.
 
Fuzzydog said:
Any mention of why they scrubbed?
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I honestly missed it if they said anything, but I'm sure we'll hear a little more detail

grapehead said:
Saw a headline this morning that mattel is gonna make some spacex toys. I think that's pretty rad.
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I saw that too, I agree it's awesome. Gotta do whatever can be done to inspire the next generation!


Something else cool happening today - NASA is doing a full scale test fire of the 5 segment SRBs (Solid Rocket Boosters) that are strapped to the side of SLS. It's anchored to the ground and will do a full burn, should get pretty rowdy. These are the biggest SRBs in existence (that I'm aware of at least)

Watch live: SLS moon rocket booster ready for test-firing in Utah – Spaceflight Now





 
They've been in a hold and haven't started the above live stream yet, but it should be firing in the next 10-15 minutes

Here's a second live stream that's active now, but I'm sure the NASA one will have better views

 
Yeah, that was badass.

Cool note, this is basically an extended Shuttle booster. Those were 4 segments long, this one for SLS is 5 segments long, but the same hardware (in fact some segments are actually reused parts from the shuttle days like the RS-25 engines)

 
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