Mars will make it closest approach to Earth in 15 years, so there will be fake news circulating around Facebook about Mars being as big as a full moon, just like that email from 15 years ago.
As I'm sometimes embargoed on exoplanet discoveries, I'm not going to count this as a win until/unless there's an actual announcement.
Quote from: jebbo on 09/17/2018 07:10 amAs I'm sometimes embargoed on exoplanet discoveries, I'm not going to count this as a win until/unless there's an actual announcement.Well, here is the 1st announcement: https://arxiv.org/abs/1809.05967 ... so I think I can now count this as a win :-)--- Tony
So long as it was successfully launched+maneuvered to it's operational orbit and the vehicle checked out okay, I think that was a very high likelihood prediction. But, of course, those two/three initial conditions weren't gimmes.
- TESS will launch and return 1st science data, with multiple exoplanets (easy win ).
6 - Proposal for putting Orion on Vulcan or New Glenn is considered - Senator from Alabama throws fit
SpaceX will reach orbit 27 times with Falcon 9, and 2 times with Falcon Heavy.
SpaceX will recover 100% of the first stage boosters that they try to.
There will be a carbon nanotube/graphene production breakthrough. The effects will not be felt right away.
The NASA TESS spacecraft will launch without incident.
The NASA Insight lander will launch after a minor delay.
An Earth-size planet will be found in the habitable zone of Epsilon Eridani, just 10.5 light years away. The discovery will not be 100% certain, though, as E. Eridani is quite an active star.
SpaceX's circumlunar tourist flight will be delayed till 2019.
SLS and Orion will be canceled, to be replaced by an orbital spaceplane.
Japan's SELENE-2 will launch without incident.
Well, others are jumping the gun so I may as well see how I did:Quote from: scienceguy on 11/27/2017 05:09 pmThe NASA TESS spacecraft will launch without incident.Almost: there was a minor incident. 0.5
Quote from: scienceguy on 11/03/2018 03:56 pmWell, others are jumping the gun so I may as well see how I did:Quote from: scienceguy on 11/27/2017 05:09 pmThe NASA TESS spacecraft will launch without incident.Almost: there was a minor incident. 0.5Really? I don't remember reading anything about a minor incident with the TESS launch. Please point me to the source of that.
Quote from: scienceguy on 11/27/2017 05:09 pmThere will be a carbon nanotube/graphene production breakthrough. The effects will not be felt right away.Nope. incorrect.
I’ll keep my contribution short, and specific. I hope to be able to publish a little more detail, in early 2018, but I wanted to initiate it, prior to the end of 2017, in the spirit of the ‘predictions’ threads! I anticipate, that during 2018, this woman will be revealed as the next ‘Space Tourist’ or perhaps more correctly, as a Commercial Astronaut.Her name is Johanna Maislinger. She is 32, and lives in Munich, but she is actually Austrian. She is an airline pilot (Boeing 777-200 Aerologic), a mechanical engineer, and is almost qualified, as a medical doctor. For hobbies, she is an aerobatic pilot, sky-diver, mountaineer, cross-country, and downhill skier. A generally very smart and adventurous lady!After being eliminated from the German ‘Die Astronautin’ project, she has spent much of 2017 involved with a major German conglomerate, as a possible ‘sponsor’ for her to make a commercial spaceflight to the ISS, in 2019 or 2020. At present, the availability of ‘commercial’ Soyuz seats to the ISS, hinges upon SpaceX and Boeing reducing NASA’s reliance on Soyuz. Let’s see what happens with this one! 😉
3. Virgin Galactic: There will be powered flights in 2018, but they will be less frequent than anticipated (once per three weeks). Manned flight to space (above 80kms, the boundary used in the USA for space) will occur in November 2018 at the earliest, more likely in 2019.
Okay here goes....- the balloon goes up in one of the big geopolitical hotspots and missiles go flying. Military satellites and their handlers “burn the midnight oil” and a few of them are destroyed or damaged. The world is saved from all out destruction in the barest nick of time but hundreds of thousands or even several millions of lives and a few cities are still lost. Space priorities change somewhat and space debris mitigation plus satellite replacements become top priority.- despite the war, SpaceX gets in 22 F9 and 2 Falcon Heavy launches, all successful. The first Heavy flies in January and its payload delivers quite the “wow” factor that has the public talking. 2 SpaceX flights will be last minute satellite launches ordered up by the Pentagon. The Dragon 2 launches on an un-crewed flight successfully late in the year as does the Starliner, but crewed flights postponed till early 2019 due to delays.- Blue Origin flies people above the Karman line on New Shepard in the fall. Virgin Galactic also flies above the Karman line with a limited load to prove its space capabilities.- Stratolaunch makes its first flight and is pressed into service late in the year launching Pegasus rockets to fly a couple of urgently needed satellites, also contracted by the Pentagon to fly outsized cargo. - Electron, ULA, Orbital ATK, Arianespace all fly (most of) their manifests successfully, though a few payloads are delayed to 2019. China comes back from 2017’s problems, so does India. Russia suffers at least one failure. Japanese program shines as a bright spot for that country with successful military launches.- ISS makes it through the year crewed and undamaged though with plenty of anxious moments due to debris concerns and world politics. The crew members serve as an inspirational example of international cooperation that is frequently commented on in the media, their impassioned plea for world peace is broadcast worldwide during the worst of the global crisis.- Insight launches successfully in May and lands safely on Mars too, the landing is cheered on by an American public (and world) in need of something to cheer for, and Osiris-Rex, BepiColombo, Chandrayaan, Chang’e, Hayabusa 2 also make positive headlines and inspire the world, and the Mars rovers and Juno keep on trucking.- One Lunar X-prize flight launches into space, but the prize award conditions aren’t met.- Planet 9 is discovered. TESS launches and starts its discoveries. At least one possible Earth-like planet is discovered nearby (less than 20 light years from us), and an exomoon is finally confirmed.- I finally make it to at least one launch. (TESS, Insight, Dragon, Starliner are possibilities). I also finish at least one space related model. The Lego Space Shuttle in same scale as the Saturn is green lighted and I get one after some difficulty.
Couple of easy ones, but I’m trying to be better than my 2017 predictions.Orbital Vehicles:- Falcon Heavy will fly, but not in January.
- No Falcon 9 will be reused more than 3 times.
- BFR will drop the cradle landing, and the ship design will change again.
- Agile Aero won’t make any major progress.
- At least one group will have a LOX and carbon/epoxy ignition event.
- Rocket Lab will fly at least 3 times.
- Blue Origin will get to full power and duration on BE-4, and unveil some New Glenn hardware.
- ULA will downselect to BE-4 / RL10 for Vulcan and ACES.
- No private companies will successfully land on the Moon.
Suborbital Vehicles:- While some of the XCOR IP may trickle into the world, it won’t have a Firefly / EXOS type of restart.
- Masten will continue to fly, but won’t do any major envelope expansion.
- Masten will get to thermal steady state on their 25k methane engine, but won’t integrate pumps.
- SS2 will get to 80 km “space”, but not 100 km space.
- SS2 will do at least one powered flight from Spaceport America.
- Vector will get above 100 km, but not to orbit.
- Blue Origin will do 7 New Shepard flights, but only one with people.
Vulcan CDR will be "making progress", but will not complete in 2018.
Engine downselect will not occur officially. The reality is that Vulcan is not going to happen.
Instead, New Glenn launch site will be completed and hardware will materialize.
New shapard will make one unmanned flight.
Both commercial crew companies (Boeing and SpaceX) will complete uncrewed tests, neither will fly with crew.
SpaceX will have a launch failure of a brand new core.
Other countries beside US will not make appreciable progress the field of space.
edit: except, debatably, New Zealand. Rocket lab will launch three times.
Quote from: saliva_sweet on 12/16/2017 07:59 pmSpaceX will have a launch failure of a brand new core.Wrong.
I only did so-so last year (about half of my predictions were mostly or all the way right, but a third were completely or mostly wrong), so let me take another shot at it this year:1- SpaceX: I predict they'll have a successful Falcon Heavy first flight, and will have at least 20 flights, including at least an uncrewed Dragon 2 flight to ISS. I predict they won't have any outright flight failures again this year, showing that they've arrived when it comes to maintaining a high flight rate with good reliability. They'll continue to recover most first stages, and will continue to refly reused first stages. I'll even go so far as to say they'll succeed in recovering intact at least one PLF half. Their flight around the Moon will get delayed by at least a year. I'll predict that they won't have a crewed Dragon V2 flight before the end of the year but they'll be close.
2- Blue Origin: I predict they'll finally get BE-4 to a full-throttle test this year, though development will continue to take longer than expected. I expect them to also carry out at least a half dozen more New Shepard flights, but won't get to a crewed flight during 2018, but will be almost there.
3- ULA: I predict they'll have a successful year with no failures or major anomalies. They'll finally downselect to BE-4 for Vulcan propulsion, though potentially not till late in the year. Steady progress, but relative to SpaceX they'll be seen as falling further and further behind.
4- Boeing: Their XS-1 project will not go off the rails this year, though I'm skeptical it'll make it to flight. CST-100 will have an uncrewed flight before the end of the year, but will not have a crewed flight in 2018.
5- VG/VO: VG will finally get to powered flight testing of SS2, but once again won't get into commercial operations in 2018. They'll get to captive carry testing early in the year, with a first launch attempt late in the year. With the historical data on launcher first flights, I'll guess they don't make it all the way to orbit, but can gather enough data that their second flight will (but likely in 2019).
6- RocketLabs: RL will successfully get Electron into orbit by mid-year, on one of its next three launches. After that, they'll begin regular launches, though at a low rate--say 3 successful orbital launches this year.
7- Other Smallsat Launchers: Vector will not make an orbital launch attempt (with a vehicle with enough performance to actually have a shot of reaching orbit) this year. However either they or someone else will make at least one launch that crosses the Karman line this year (if I had to bet, I'd say Ventions beats them to this feat). At least one US venture will raise at least $10M to go after a partially reusable smallsat launch vehicle (with at least first-stage full-stage recovery).
8- Masten: Still ticking, but with no major new launch vehicle initiatives
9- Bridenstine will get re-nominated for NASA Admin, and will get confirmed in the Senate by a squeaker (with Mike Pence having to cast a tie-breaking vote). They may wait until a Dem or two is out sick to hold the vote.
10- Moon: In the NASA budget request, there will not be a dramatic (>$1B) increase to NASA's budget to pay for the new Moon focus. There'll be some reshifting of priorities, and slightly more emphasis on public-private partnerships, but nothing so drastic as the previous two direction changes (CxP and FY2011). Nobody will win the GLXP before it expires.
11- Mars: Mars Insight launch and landing will go off without a hitch.
10- Megaconstellations: At least two of the three of OneWeb, SpaceX, and Telesat will launch pathfinder satellites in 2018. OneWeb will finish closing the financing necessary to launch their first constellation. At least one other megaconstellation will get FCC approval before the end of the year.
11- Exoplanets: like last year I'll predict that at least one new earth-like exoplanet will be found within the habitable zone of a star within 25LY of earth. Also, the TESS spacecraft will successfully launch.
12- Mergers: At least one other major aerospace M&A event will occur this year. I wish it would be someone buying ULA off its parents, but I'm not holding my breath.
13- SLS/Orion: Neither will be canceled again, but there will be at least another 6 months of slippage.