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[Spaceflight] NASA confirms Starliner not cursed, just haunted

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  • HevachHevach Registered User regular
    edited July 17
    https://www.reuters.com/science/radar-study-puts-spotlight-saturn-moon-titans-hydrocarbon-seas-2024-07-16/

    A reminder that the immense volume of data collected by space missions, it takes years to actually go over it all.

    In this example, study has begun on the last untouched set of data from Cassini, four sets of bistatic radar from Titan. The most interesting thing to a layman seems to be that there's a distinction between "fresh water" and "sea water." Rain fed lakes and rivers are pure methane, while permanent sea basins contain a mix of methane and ethane.


    Also just for fun, the algorithm gifted me a recommendation that was actually relevant to my interests, the failed launch attempt of the uncrewed Mercury-Redstone 1. All at once all the triggers for the mission fired at once. The engine started, shut down, the escape Tower jettisoned, pyrotechnic bolts released the capsule (which went nowhere because the rocket was still sitting on the pad), and the parachute popped out.

    https://youtu.be/7O4V7JfeTSU

    Check your staging.

    Hevach on
  • Commander ZoomCommander Zoom Registered User regular
    that is kerbal hilarious.

  • SyngyneSyngyne Registered User regular
    Hevach wrote: »
    https://www.reuters.com/science/radar-study-puts-spotlight-saturn-moon-titans-hydrocarbon-seas-2024-07-16/

    A reminder that the immense volume of data collected by space missions, it takes years to actually go over it all.

    In this example, study has begun on the last untouched set of data from Cassini, four sets of bistatic radar from Titan. The most interesting thing to a layman seems to be that there's a distinction between "fresh water" and "sea water." Rain fed lakes and rivers are pure methane, while permanent sea basins contain a mix of methane and ethane.


    Also just for fun, the algorithm gifted me a recommendation that was actually relevant to my interests, the failed launch attempt of the uncrewed Mercury-Redstone 1. All at once all the triggers for the mission fired at once. The engine started, shut down, the escape Tower jettisoned, pyrotechnic bolts released the capsule (which went nowhere because the rocket was still sitting on the pad), and the parachute popped out.

    https://youtu.be/7O4V7JfeTSU

    Check your staging.

    cat stepped on the spacebar at mission control

    5gsowHm.png
  • Mr_RoseMr_Rose 83 Blue Ridge Protects the Holy Registered User regular
    The good news is: all the control signals worked.
    The bad news is: all the control signals worked.

    ...because dragons are AWESOME! That's why.
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  • Commander ZoomCommander Zoom Registered User regular
    and as the comments on that vid note, when it was all done they still had the small problem of an unexploded bomb sitting on the pad...

  • HevachHevach Registered User regular
    and as the comments on that vid note, when it was all done they still had the small problem of an unexploded bomb sitting on the pad...

    I didn't think of that. Usually when you have a proper on-pad abort the pipes are still hooked up and you can detank... But the umbilical disconnected (and looks like it broke to boot).

  • Commander ZoomCommander Zoom Registered User regular
    Apparently one of the options that was considered was shooting a hole in it with a rifle. :#

  • zagdrobzagdrob Registered User regular
    Hevach wrote: »
    and as the comments on that vid note, when it was all done they still had the small problem of an unexploded bomb sitting on the pad...

    I didn't think of that. Usually when you have a proper on-pad abort the pipes are still hooked up and you can detank... But the umbilical disconnected (and looks like it broke to boot).

    Also the range self-destruct was armed and there's no guarantee whatever messed up all your other staging didn't have an impact on that as well.

  • Kane Red RobeKane Red Robe Master of Magic ArcanusRegistered User regular
    Apparently one of the options that was considered was shooting a hole in it with a rifle. :#

    That's the first thing that I thought of too tbh.

  • HevachHevach Registered User regular
    In 2005 Congress passed a law that any NASA mission not specifically authorized by Congress can't go over budget by more than 30%. As the law is written the corporations are not to be punished and NASA must fulfill their contractual obligations but NASA must shut down the program and can't actually fly the mission.

    As a result NASA has a commercial moon lander from Astrobotics and a completed moon rover built in house. But because the budget limit is hit the rover will be broken down for parts inventory and they will send an inert mass simulator to Shackleton Crater instead to fulfil the contract with Astrobotics.

  • hlprmnkyhlprmnky Registered User regular
    I look forward to the day that doubtless lies in the near future when some incurious lump of clay in an ugly but expensive suit stands on the floor of the House of Representatives and claims with a straight face that NASA should be defunded because they do idiotic things like send a “box of rocks” all the way to the Moon when they had a lunar rover built and ready to go.
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  • HevachHevach Registered User regular
    edited July 23
    https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/07/the-falcon-9-rocket-may-return-to-flight-as-soon-as-tuesday-night/

    The Falcon 9 issue has been identified. Not much public information (because all space rockets are classified as defense technology there's not nearly as much public reporting on incidents as there is with commercial airplanes) but the rocket could return to flights as soon as tomorrow. The mission that was to launch that day* is TBA but there is still a firm launch date set on the 24th so people seem to be optimistic on a quick turnaround.

    This is a big advantage of Falcon 9's track record (this is the first failure of Block 5 in 298 launches over 6 years and only the third for the Falcon 9/Heavy family as a whole in 364 launches over 14 years). Provided they can determine the problem it's much easier to tell the FAA "this was an anomaly unique to this launch which can be prevented in the future," than with, say, Delta IV which had one failure in 45 launches over 22 years.

    *-as interesting pair of satellites built by Northrop Grumman. They're going into highly elliptical polar orbits so they linger over the Arctic and then zip back around the Antarctic for another slow pass.

    Hevach on
  • edited July 23
    This content has been removed.

  • CalicaCalica Registered User regular
    Hevach wrote: »
    In 2005 Congress passed a law that any NASA mission not specifically authorized by Congress can't go over budget by more than 30%. As the law is written the corporations are not to be punished and NASA must fulfill their contractual obligations but NASA must shut down the program and can't actually fly the mission.

    As a result NASA has a commercial moon lander from Astrobotics and a completed moon rover built in house. But because the budget limit is hit the rover will be broken down for parts inventory and they will send an inert mass simulator to Shackleton Crater instead to fulfil the contract with Astrobotics.

    I cannot awesome that, even ironically. That is maddening.

  • HevachHevach Registered User regular
    edited July 23
    Scott Manley suggested flying the rover in safe mode as a "mass simulator" and then selling the communication hardware to a university to recoup part of the budget shortfall. NASA isn't spending more money to operate it and is fulfilling the Astrobotics contract so it should technically meet the letter of the law.

    Hevach on
  • PolaritiePolaritie Sleepy Registered User regular
    Hevach wrote: »
    Scott Manley suggested flying the rover in safe mode as a "mass simulator" and then selling the communication hardware to a university to recoup part of the budget shortfall. NASA isn't spending more money to operate it and is fulfilling the Astrobotics contract so it should technically meet the letter of the law.

    So they'd basically be looking for a university that wants to pay for a fully functional moon rover?

    ...honestly, some European agencies or such might be in the market for it too.

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  • HevachHevach Registered User regular
    JAXA or ISRO maybe as well since theirs didn't work out, but international sale runs into complications since space stuff is all legally classified as weapons in America.

    But a university has a knock on effect. NASA has serious training bottlenecks because there's no such thing as prior experience in the field. Selling low end probes to universities (especially moon rovers which will stay where they are forever and are close enough to provide immediate feedback) creates a "NASA little league" to farm workers with real experience from.

  • AthenorAthenor Battle Hardened Optimist The Skies of HiigaraRegistered User regular
    Hevach wrote: »
    JAXA or ISRO maybe as well since theirs didn't work out, but international sale runs into complications since space stuff is all legally classified as weapons in America.

    But a university has a knock on effect. NASA has serious training bottlenecks because there's no such thing as prior experience in the field. Selling low end probes to universities (especially moon rovers which will stay where they are forever and are close enough to provide immediate feedback) creates a "NASA little league" to farm workers with real experience from.

    I can't go into details because I don't have them and this is a half-remembered bit from a public slide deck, but I do recall some of my university's higher-ups looking into setting up cubesat related stuff in relation to our upcoming founding of a College of Engineering. I would absolutely love to be part of a NASA little league.

  • HevachHevach Registered User regular
    Falcon 9 is cleared to return to flight. A few days later than SpaceX wanted but fast by the speed of bureaucracy.

    https://www.space.com/spacex-crew-9-iss-astronaut-space-junk-dragon

    Crew splashdowns are being moved to the West Coast to mitigate debris risks. That house in a Florida was not hit by Dragon related debris but there have been several near misses in the US and Canada.



    And lastly the curse remains.

    https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-considering-rescuing-astronauts-spacex

    Starliner needs more thruster testing, and the traffic jam remains an issue with crew 9 next month. For the first time NASA has acknowledged that they're considering sending Starliner home in disgrace and bringing the astronauts home on Dragon.

    No decision has been made but options are evening explored to send expedition 72 with two people and either bump two people from 71 to a double or upgrade Starliner's crew to a full stay.

  • HevachHevach Registered User regular
    https://spacenews.com/nasa-proceeding-with-august-launch-of-crew-9/

    Starliner-1 has been delayed from February 2025 to August 2025. Dragon Crew-10 will take its place in February, and Starliner-1 will be double booked with Crew 11 for August because at this point NASA is out of fucks.

  • daveNYCdaveNYC Why universe hate Waspinator? Registered User regular
    Ars has an article on SpaceX winning the ISS deorbiting contract.
    Essentially, Northrop told NASA it would not bid for a firm, fixed-priced contract. And conversely, SpaceX said it would not bid under a cost-plus contracting mechanism, which would require the company to add a new layer of bureaucracy to process such contracts. (SpaceX was also not particularly interested in a one-off mission for Dragon when the company is so focused on Starship development). Sticking to the original contracting mechanism would likely have meant that NASA had just a sole bidder, Northrop, for the deorbit mission.

    The result of the change is that Northrop made a bid under a hybrid cost-plus approach and SpaceX under a firm-fixed price contract.

    ...

    SpaceX's bid price was $680 million. The source selection statement did not reveal a price for Northrop's bid other than saying it was "significantly higher." Based on NASA's budget request, Northrop's bid was likely approximately twice as high.

    And that's not even getting into the scoring that had SpaceX solidly ahead of Northrop. The big old rocket companies are making 1970's Detroit look nimble and adaptive in comparison.

    Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
  • TraceTrace GNU Terry Pratchett; GNU Gus; GNU Carrie Fisher; GNU Adam We Registered User regular
    You know I don't know if any of the stranded astronauts are married but that must have been a hell of a "well, hon, it looks like I'm going to be a bit late..." conversation.

  • HevachHevach Registered User regular
    daveNYC wrote: »
    Ars has an article on SpaceX winning the ISS deorbiting contract.
    Essentially, Northrop told NASA it would not bid for a firm, fixed-priced contract. And conversely, SpaceX said it would not bid under a cost-plus contracting mechanism, which would require the company to add a new layer of bureaucracy to process such contracts. (SpaceX was also not particularly interested in a one-off mission for Dragon when the company is so focused on Starship development). Sticking to the original contracting mechanism would likely have meant that NASA had just a sole bidder, Northrop, for the deorbit mission.

    The result of the change is that Northrop made a bid under a hybrid cost-plus approach and SpaceX under a firm-fixed price contract.

    ...

    SpaceX's bid price was $680 million. The source selection statement did not reveal a price for Northrop's bid other than saying it was "significantly higher." Based on NASA's budget request, Northrop's bid was likely approximately twice as high.

    And that's not even getting into the scoring that had SpaceX solidly ahead of Northrop. The big old rocket companies are making 1970's Detroit look nimble and adaptive in comparison.

    NG hasn't actually accomplished much since it's merger with Orbital Science/ATK. The Antares replacement is nowhere to be seen and Cygnus is actually built in Europe by Thales, which built most of the International Segment modules and is providing the pressure vessels for the Axiom segment.

  • AngelHedgieAngelHedgie Registered User regular
    Japan puts in the work to build Half Section:
    There are more than 2,000 mostly intact dead rockets circling the Earth, but until this year, no one ever launched a satellite to go see what one looked like after many years of tumbling around the planet.

    In February, a Japanese company named Astroscale sent a small satellite into low-Earth orbit on top of a Rocket Lab launcher. A couple of months later, Astroscale's ADRAS-J (Active Debris Removal by Astroscale-Japan) spacecraft completed its pursuit of a Japanese rocket stuck in orbit for more than 15 years.

    ADRAS-J photographed the upper stage of an H-IIA rocket from a range of several hundred meters and then backed away. This was the first publicly released image of space debris captured from another spacecraft using rendezvous and proximity operations.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdwyxPqy6OI

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  • SealSeal Registered User regular
    New HBO doc "Wild Wild Space" is pretty good, it mainly follows Rocket Lab as well as Astra's efforts to succeed from the mid 2000's to now, as well as their respective CEO's rivalry; and the entry of silicon valley types into the space economy in general. I think Astra's CEO Chris Kemp might be the craziest guy currently running a space company, not a big fan of his vibe.

  • daveNYCdaveNYC Why universe hate Waspinator? Registered User regular
    You’re saying he’s beating Musk on the crazy? That’s pretty impressive.

    Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
  • HevachHevach Registered User regular
    He's not going to match Musk on toxicity but there's not a lot of sane CEOs in this business.

    I mean, the rocket labs CEO ate a hat on a Livestream and still probably doesn't make top five.

    https://youtu.be/Rafa_WBFIyE

  • daveNYCdaveNYC Why universe hate Waspinator? Registered User regular
    It is a business where at the start you’re basically lighting a whole lot of money on fire (for actual business reasons) with no guarantee of seeing a return. That would take a certain mindset.

    Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
  • CalicaCalica Registered User regular
    How is it physically possible to eat, let alone digest, a baseball cap??

  • HevachHevach Registered User regular
    edited August 4
    It was made of cotton, which isn't exactly food but your body can kind of handle it. He ran it through a blender and just ate fingerfulls of fibers with water.

    He also didn't eat the whole thing, just enough of one panel to make good on his flippant bet.

    Hevach on
  • zepherinzepherin Russian warship, go fuck yourself Registered User regular
    daveNYC wrote: »
    Ars has an article on SpaceX winning the ISS deorbiting contract.
    Essentially, Northrop told NASA it would not bid for a firm, fixed-priced contract. And conversely, SpaceX said it would not bid under a cost-plus contracting mechanism, which would require the company to add a new layer of bureaucracy to process such contracts. (SpaceX was also not particularly interested in a one-off mission for Dragon when the company is so focused on Starship development). Sticking to the original contracting mechanism would likely have meant that NASA had just a sole bidder, Northrop, for the deorbit mission.

    The result of the change is that Northrop made a bid under a hybrid cost-plus approach and SpaceX under a firm-fixed price contract.

    ...

    SpaceX's bid price was $680 million. The source selection statement did not reveal a price for Northrop's bid other than saying it was "significantly higher." Based on NASA's budget request, Northrop's bid was likely approximately twice as high.

    And that's not even getting into the scoring that had SpaceX solidly ahead of Northrop. The big old rocket companies are making 1970's Detroit look nimble and adaptive in comparison.
    Cost plus contracts are a pain in the ass and we don’t want to do them is a valid thing. Even though they can be lucrative, they are a big pain in the ass.

  • AngelHedgieAngelHedgie Registered User regular
    And now the Starliner crew may be stuck in the ISS till the new year.

    For some odd reason, the Gilligan's Island theme started playing in my head...

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  • AthenorAthenor Battle Hardened Optimist The Skies of HiigaraRegistered User regular
    I wonder how much that throws off calculations for, like, provisions and such. Like do they have enough food/water/air up there to support that long? How quickly can they get cargo up there?

  • AngelHedgieAngelHedgie Registered User regular
    Athenor wrote: »
    I wonder how much that throws off calculations for, like, provisions and such. Like do they have enough food/water/air up there to support that long? How quickly can they get cargo up there?

    Pretty quick - there are several automated cargo drones that are ISS rated.

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  • PhyphorPhyphor Building Planet Busters Tasting FruitRegistered User regular
    edited August 8
    Oh no, not more space. Whatever shall we do?
    Athenor wrote: »
    I wonder how much that throws off calculations for, like, provisions and such. Like do they have enough food/water/air up there to support that long? How quickly can they get cargo up there?

    SpaceX can do basically unlimited tempo resupply runs. If only for the PR of dunking on Boeing, "look at what we can do at a moment's notice"

    Phyphor on
  • evilmrhenryevilmrhenry Registered User regular
    edited August 8
    I suspect the real issue is that the long-term health effects of microgravity aren't great, and this is an unplanned extra 6 months in orbit.

    evilmrhenry on
  • HevachHevach Registered User regular
    NASA has enforced exercise on every mission since Skylab. STS-1 was only two days and didn't even have the whole setup and still had to do an exercise period as a matter of procedure. So unexpected long stays aren't a problem in that sense, they were already acting they same they would if they'd be staying for a full year.

    I imagine they're a whole shit show for the lives of the astronauts but at the same time with as few flights as NASA runs these days there were even odds that this mission would be the only time either of these two would go to space at all.

  • HevachHevach Registered User regular
    edited August 9
    Phyphor wrote: »
    Oh no, not more space. Whatever shall we do?
    Athenor wrote: »
    I wonder how much that throws off calculations for, like, provisions and such. Like do they have enough food/water/air up there to support that long? How quickly can they get cargo up there?

    SpaceX can do basically unlimited tempo resupply runs. If only for the PR of dunking on Boeing, "look at what we can do at a moment's notice"

    I skipped this one since it takes some answering: the limiting factor with cargo right now is ports. Cargo Dragon uses the IDA/NDS ports that Crew Dragon and Starliner use, and both acre currently blocked. Normally crew 8 would leave after crew 9 arrives but right now that's not an option because there's nowhere to park.

    That leaves Cygnus (which as an expendable vehicle with a long supply chain doesn't have Dragon's short notice availability) for cargo. It's currently the only thing using the two CBA ports.

    Dreamchaser can use either port but the only trunk module currently built is set up for IDA.

    So a consensus needs to be reached. Not just for the Starliner crew but for the American from Soyuz MS-25 that is also having issues and may see its crew bumped as well - MS-26 would launch with one person and both Cosmonauts would be bumped while NASA makes arrangements for the astronaut. Currently all three vehicles are cleared for ACRV return in an emergency but only Crew-8 Dragon is clear for normal return.

    Either Crew-8 leaves or Starliner does. If Crew-8 leaves it can either leave with its original crew, with some combination of the three crews, or with extra people belted into the cargo pallet (NASA has confirmed that if necessary all seven can return on Crew-8 this way - Dragon can technically still handle 7 people even though though the extra seat mounts were replaced with a cargo system.

    If Starliner does it has to take two people, probably its crew, to maintain ACRV rules. There's resistance to this both for safety concerns and engineering challenges.

    If Crew-8 leaves with less than 7 people then Crew-9 needs to make the call on the other three - trust some or all to their assigned vehicles or short Crew-9 by 1, 2, or 3 to accommodate some or all.

    While this is going on, Cargo Dragon and Dreamchaser are blocked by the traffic jam (not that Dreamchaser has a rocket available right now but Dragon does).

    Now there's a solution sitting on a fuckin shelf in Japan since 2012. Japan's long delayed HTX cargo vessel is intended to bring two adapters to the station, docking with them at the CBA ports and then leaving the adapter behind to convert them to IDA, after which Cygnus will convert to the now universal adapter (fun fact: even China uses this docking port - Russia are the only holdouts). Only HTX is delayed even more than Starliner at this point.

    At no point did somebody think to have Cygnus or Dragon-1 (which used CBA, not IDA) do this instead. Even the current Dragon could do this, just load the adapters in the trunk and install them by Canadarm.

    Hevach on
  • PolaritiePolaritie Sleepy Registered User regular
    edited August 9
    How complicated would it be for them to set up Starliner to just be jettisoned and just crash into the Pacific? Completely write it off. Obviously, they'd like to recover it and all, but if you can't safely fly it down and you can't figure it out while it's docked, it feels like you need to cut your losses and decide how to dispose of it.

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  • HevachHevach Registered User regular
    Super easy, they've already addressed two options - Crew 8 can take them back belted into the cargo pallet behind the seats or they can short fill crew 9 and bump the to the full expedition.

    At this point the only reason Starliner is there is that the thing the engineers care about will be jettisoned on the way back. Whether it goes back empty or full at this point is secondary to the engineering data that will be lost when it does.

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