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Commercial Space Flight General / Re: Innospace

« Last post by catdlr on Today at 05:57 am »

HANBIT-Nano | First Commercial Launch ‘SPACEWARD’ Mission | Powered by Teamwork – INNOSPACE

Nov 6, 2025
Fueled by teamwork, our first commercial launch mission, SPACEWARD, is reaching for space!

Our journey at the Alcântara Launch Center (CLA) in Brazil is progressing with the steadfast support of the Brazilian Air Force (FAB) and the Brazilian Space Agency (AEB). 🤝

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Historical Spaceflight / Re: The Lunar Module Engineering Stories

« Last post by catdlr on Today at 05:54 am »

Inside the Lunar Module’s Cooling System: How Apollo Stayed Alive in Space’s Heat and Cold

Nov 6, 2025
Discover how the Lunar Module kept its crew alive in the extremes of lunar heat and cold. Inside Apollo’s hidden thermal control system — twin glycol loops, sublimators, and accumulators that rejected heat into the vacuum of space.
Based on NASA’s Apollo Experience Report (1972), this episode reveals the quiet engineering masterpiece that made the Moon landings possible.

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SpaceX Starship Program / Re: SpaceX proposes "simplified mission architecture" to NASA: Technical discussion

« Last post by Brigantine on Today at 05:43 am »

1) Uncrewed HLS goes to LLO, after refueling in sorta-LEO.
2) Orion launched directly to LLO, does RPOD with HLS.
3) HLS does LLO-LS-mission-LLO-RPOD(Orion).
4) HLS then takes Orion, on the nose, to TEI, using waist thrusters.
5) Orion does direct EDL, HLS is a don't-care.

1) Uncrewed HLS with a Dragon (sans trunk) in the garage, goes to LLO, after refueling in LEO and HEEO as needed.
2) Orion launched directly to LLO, does RPOD with HLS.
3) HLS does LLO-LS-mission
4) HLS goes direct from LS to TEI and cruise
5) HLS deploys crewed Dragon re-entry capsule from the garage, both re-enter (this part needs to work right 1st time)
6) Orion is crashed into the Moon

After 'GO' for crew launch, there is only 1 RPOD
Involves some relatively dead-weight being carried all the way to LS and back, with all the associated extra tanking
One of the HLS garage doors / airlocks might be less convenient to access for surface operations, with a Dragon in the way

Dragon deployment might need to involve a mechanical arm to get it out the door safely. You'd want access to Dragon without depressurizing the airlock. Maybe the Dragon is just stowed in the airlock (that's a big door!), or the airlock has a docking port. Is the garage even big enough to fit Dragon's height/diameter? I concede this has it's own type of complexity.

"Moon Dragon will use the HLS-trunk"

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Advanced Concepts / Re: Moving "the cloud" to orbit

« Last post by Coastal Ron on Today at 05:37 am »

One obvious evolution path is to incorporate some "data center" capabilities into a large GEO comsat.

Isn't part of the problem with GEO satellites the bandwidth for moving data back and forth from Earth? Maybe not the response time, but that far out you wouldn't be able to use lasers for transmitting data, would you?

Plus, no matter where you put the data center satellites, they have to have power, so the only advantage GEO may have is that it doesn't get occluded by the Earth like LEO would if they are not in polar orbits.

If you want to test data center satellites, LEO would likely be the least expensive place to put them...

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Rocket Lab / Re: Neutron vs F9R and SS etc

« Last post by imprezive on Today at 05:32 am »

SpaceX sets a pretty easy bar in that regards

Please elaborate.

You can provide a very useful service at a good price, that people are grateful for, while still doing it in a way that makes life deliberately harder for your customers and easier for yourself, where your customers would be thrilled to switch to an alternative once it becomes available.

~Jon

First hand knowledge?

Somewhat. We're prepping for our first Transporter mission next year, but I've known and talked with a lot of people who've flown on SpaceX in the past. One can be simultaneously grateful that Transporter/Bandwagon is an option, while being quite excited by the thought that SpaceX is finally getting competent competition.

~Jon

Neutron doesn’t compete with Rideshare though and if they did they also have to run a similarly strict program. Any who wants more flexibility in smallsats can always fly with Electron, you just pay a lot more for that. Neutron won’t have that market position.

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Advanced Concepts / Re: Moving "the cloud" to orbit

« Last post by Danderman on Today at 05:30 am »

One obvious evolution path is to incorporate some "data center" capabilities into a large GEO comsat.

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Rocket Lab / Re: Neutron vs F9R and SS etc

« Last post by imprezive on Today at 05:30 am »

I think an interesting question is does F9 have to be cheaper than Neutron to compete with it. F9 is the most reliable rocket ever made and Neutron hasn’t even gotten to a first launch yet and Electron had multiple failures early in its manifest. Launch is rarely a huge chunk of a satellite program cost for larger programs. Are you really going to be the program manager who risked your $500M satellite to save $10M-$15M on launch cost?

OTOH, back in SpaceX's early days, long before F9 was the reliability powerhouse it is today, many customers still put some of their launches onto F9 specifically because they wanted to guarantee a diversity of affordable launch options. If Neutron comes in with almost F9 class capability at $20M less than what SpaceX is charging today, my guess is they'll get takers for the missions, even before they've fully proven themselves out. And while you're right that Electron's launch record isn't perfect, it's a lot better than SpaceX did on their first small launch vehicle. To me the biggest question is how well Rocket Lab executes -- if they get Neutron flying soon, are able to keep reliability as good or better than Electron, treat customers well (SpaceX sets a pretty easy bar in that regards), and figure out reusability fast enough to ramp up flight rate at a non-glacial pace, I think they'll quickly peel away enough of the non-Starlink launch demand from SpaceX to make a business out of this. 

~Jon

That was a different market. Satellites would often time be delayed a year or more by launch delays. The cost of those delays can be enormous so if you have take a slight reliability risk to save schedule and cost you do it. Now you can just buy a rocket and go on schedule.

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SpaceX General Section / Re: SpaceX's new business: data centers in space

« Last post by Vultur on Today at 05:15 am »

  Example:  How much were we told F9 would cost by now?  Yea.......... 

While I agree with most of this ... how much *does* F9 cost now? Do we know? We know the *price* but internal *cost* (for Starlink) is probably much lower.

OTOH, expendable second stage sets a hard lower limit on F9 costs.

But I don't see any way Starship could launch for $1M. I don't think even Elon Musk has suggested a cost that low? Single digit millions, sure, but not $1M..

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SpaceX Starship Program / Re: SpaceX to NASA quote : simplified mission architecture : Technical discussion

« Last post by Vultur on Today at 04:59 am »

I think the long term goal is still to use Raptors for landing, even though NASA is requiring separate landing engines at the moment for Artemis. The research on Raptor plume/regolith interaction recently mentioned makes me think they still want this, they just won't have it in time.

I just remember what a big hole the Raptors dug in the original launch pad, back when it had no water cascade. I'm wondering what the effect would be on a lunar landing pad. With waist thrusters, at least the only wear and tear on the pad will be from the legs scratching it!

Admittedly, we're just talking one or two raptors at minimal thrust and even then not for very long. But how bad is that going to be over time? Does anyone even know?

I don't think anyone knows, but apparently SpaceX is researching it.

The pad rock tornado was enormously greater thrust than a Starship HLS landing in 1/6g, though.

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SpaceX Starship Program / Re: Elon Musk quote: SpaceX will lean in big on the Moon

« Last post by Vultur on Today at 04:57 am »

It's how you used it. It didn't occur to me that someone would know the reference and so thoroughly miss the message. 

It's satire. Self deprecating.  Stopping the sermon to have a chuckle. Lighten up...

Great joke. I'm in stitches. However the giant gaping logical hole in the argument remains.

Remember Elon's Law: "The requirements are always at least a little bit wrong."  If the assumption about limitless AI demand is wrong, it would be nice to know that now rather than later...

IMO, it is almost certainly wrong.

Almost definitionally, there can't be limitless demand for anything. There's only so many people in the world with so much time to interact with computerized equipment...

The last ~200 years have seen both rapid population growth and rapid industrialization, thus massive demand growth for basically everything. That's unlikely to continue very much longer .