Space In General

[EngieDiesel]

SpaceX Starlink sats are actually designed to de-orbit themselves at the end of their life. I don't know if that is the same for anyone else.

Even if they are, it looks like they're going to be going up a lot faster than they're coming back down. So much so that there's a global initiative among astronomers to do something about it, because the satellites that are up there now are already making it difficult to get good quality photographs of distant stellar objects. Never mind when there are tens of thousands of them, from who knows how many different organizations that may or may not just abandon them if/when the project funding runs out.

 

[CodeRedR51]

 

[wfooshee]

I had an alert on my phone to remind me to go out and look, as it was visible from where I am. I was watching TV and didn't hear the alert, and when I looked up at the clock is was 9:33 Central. DAMN!!! Checked the live feed on the phone as I rushed outside, just in case I didn't miss it, and they were already in the water...

A friend of mine posted pictures of the trail from here, so I'm really bummed that I missed it. Perfectly clear, cloudless skies, we couldn't have had better conditions!

 

[CodeRedR51]

 

[CodeRedR51]

Starship 20 undergoing testing today.



Live streams:




Edit:

 

[CodeRedR51]

And 53 more Starlink satellites went to space this morning.

 

[EngieDiesel]

Russia blew up an old satellite with a missile today and is Putin the ISS in danger as a result, which has understandably made a number of folks very upset. There's also about 1,500 new hunks of large space junk to worry about and a lot more shrapnel sized bits, as if we didn't have enough of a mess up there already.

see what i did there

 

[CodeRedR51]

 

[CodeRedR51]

Ohhh, shiny.

 

[EngieDiesel]

The James Webb Space Telescope has had its launch delayed another four days after one of the clamps securing it to the launch vehicle pinged off and shook the entire building it's currently situated in. No injuries or damage to anything has been found, but some replacement underpants were probably needed.

Meanwhile, our old pal Hubble is still limping along in safe mode after a possible hardware failure, which isn't all that surprising since it's 30+ years old and was supposed to be replaced by the JWST over a decade ago.

 

[CodeRedR51]

which isn't all that surprising since it's 30+ years old and was supposed to be replaced by the JWST over a decade ago.

I think it would be amazing if SpaceX went up there with a Starship when it's capable of doing so and snatch Hubble out of orbit, bring it back to display in a museum somewhere...

And speaking of SpaceX, there's a launch tonight for the DART mission (Double Asteroid Redirect Test) from Vandenberg AFB in California at 10:21pm PST. I'll edit this post when the stream is available.

 

[EngieDiesel]

I think it would be amazing if SpaceX went up there with a Starship when it's capable of doing so and snatch Hubble out of orbit, bring it back to display in a museum somewhere...

Unfortunately the logistics of such a thing, even if it were possible, are prohibitively expensive and would carry a very high risk of damaging it irreparably... which would obviously defeat the whole purpose of trying to bring it back down in the first place. I feel the best option to preserve Hubble would be to park it in a nice stable orbit, out of the way of any future satellite launches or trigger-happy Russian missile silos, and just let it retire peacefully. Maybe make it a point of interest for all those future space tourists to ooh and aah at.

But then again NASA is managing to get it back online one system at a time. So who knows, maybe we can get another 30 years out of it. Having two working space telescopes would be pretty fantastic too, after all!

 

[CodeRedR51]

No commentary on the SpaceX stream on this one I believe so their stream may be visuals only, but there's also the official NASA stream and NASA Space Flight (not associated with NASA)

Edit: SpaceX stream does have commentary

 

[Dotini]

Click photo for larger image

Comet Leonard Meets Whale And Hockeystick

 

[EngieDiesel]

An ISS spacewalk to fix a glitchy antenna has been postponed due to a warning of debris approaching the station. Not a major deal as this is something they have backups of the backups for, but still it's a reminder that we should be thinking about methods to start cleaning up the orbital mess sooner rather than later (and y'know, maybe not shoot missles at it).

 

[CodeRedR51]

 

[Dotini]

 

[CodeRedR51]

Oh look, click bait youtube videos.

Edit:

 

[EngieDiesel]

Well let's be honest, if people are still willing to throw money at Tesla despite it drowning in a sea of red ink, SpaceX isn't going to have any problems finding more investors to keep things moving in a timely manner for the forseeable future.

 

[unit-one]

Quoting from a Russian fan group.

"Now let's take a deep breath and exhale, and look at the real state of affairs.

First, SpaceX is not facing bankruptcy. They are backed by orders for many years to come, and their annual turnover is over $ 2 billion. Even if SpaceX finds itself on the edge of an abyss, it will not be allowed to perish. SpaceX is the only American company capable of delivering astronauts to the ISS. Military satellite launches on the Falcon 9 also cannot be transferred to any other rocket. In the end, large investors assess SpaceX quite positively, and are ready to invest huge sums in them, which means they are confident in the future of the company.

Second, a "catastrophe" is not a catastrophe. Raptor engines are being tested at proving grounds, and a 3-digit Raptor Center was recently spotted in the images. Musk also wrote a lot about the engine reaching new heights.

Thirdly, it is difficult to imagine that such a letter would appeal to everyone who can come to Hawthorne and help with the solution of this problem. None of the SpaceX employees sit idle, and taking them away from their workplace is just stupid.

Fourth, yes, the company is committed to making Starlink profitable as soon as possible. But even the overly optimistic Musk said that they hope for 500 thousand active Starlink users by the middle of 2022, and there is no question of any "millions of kits". SpaceX simply doesn't have so many microchips, it's a crisis after all. It is also worth remembering that more recently Musk himself hoped for 12 flights in 2022, and the FAA allows 5 at all. Where did the figure come from every two weeks? Nobody knows.

And one last thing: a personal note from the editor. In the past couple of months, Musk has started to behave rather strangely. What he tweets sometimes looks like complete madness. Sometimes it is very inappropriate and even silly. Probably, Musk had a nervous strain, because of which he exaggerated the real state of affairs so much."

Google translate translates very well =)

Yeah, I personally also don't think that there will be a problem. SpaceX is doing pretty fine.

 

[CodeRedR51]

And one last thing: a personal note from the editor. In the past couple of months, Musk has started to behave rather strangely. What he tweets sometimes looks like complete madness. Sometimes it is very inappropriate and even silly. Probably, Musk had a nervous strain, because of which he exaggerated the real state of affairs so much."

As someone that actually follows him, his tweets have been nothing out of the ordinary for him. Memes and funny stuff, actually one of the reasons I like following him along with juicy SpaceX info. Refreshing to have someone so high profile on this planet that actually has a sense of humor. If anything is "off", I hear he separated from his girlfriend/fiance/whatever she was, so that may have something to do with it. (they may be on good terms though since he liked one of her tweets today) Personally I haven't noticed anything weird.

My post above was just to share the news/rumors. I too think that they will be fine. Unfortunately they are being held up by the government yet again, so things have been a little slow lately which adds to the frustration he/they may have currently.

 

[EngieDiesel]

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the solar system...

MEGACOMET.

Measuring 100km across, comet BB is about 1,000 times larger than the average icy space rock we observe, and made headlines for being the largest object of its type that science is aware of.

 

[Dotini]

​

From today's edition of Spaceweather.com:

AURORA SURPRISE: Forecasters were not expecting this. On Nov. 30th, a co-rotating interaction region (CIR) hit Earth's magnetic field, sparking a G1-class geomagnetic storm. "It produced the strongest auroras of the season," says Markus Varik, who sends this picture from Tromsø, Norway:

​

 

[Famine]

space rock

I love mainstream media coverage of space stuff.

 

[EngieDiesel]

I love mainstream media coverage of space stuff.

To be fair, the Register intentionally presents itself like a tabloid as a vaguely satirical play on the "IT news is only for super smart people" trope that was prevalent back in the day.

 

[CodeRedR51]

Starship 20 possible static fire test in progress.

Edit: update - likely an abort due to a port hole cover leaking.

 

[CodeRedR51]

 

[CodeRedR51]

For some reason their stock dropped after this. Go figure.

 

[Dotini]

Nervous days for SpaceX.

 

[CodeRedR51]

Nervous days for SpaceX.

No. Stop.