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Polls Section / Re: Who will be the second one to successfully land an orbital rocket booster?

« Last post by TheKutKu on Today at 12:59 am »

New Glenn has the clear advantage, since BO has vast experience in landing stages and there are several New Glenn in various stages of production, while I'm dubious about the announced launch rate for next year I believe the odds are overwhelmingly in its favour.

DeepBlue Aerospace does have a proven launch pad, reportedly a couple of their orbital launcher in production as well as a single flight on a subscale version of their launcher's S1, wouldn't be surprised if they are third, although more so on a technicality, since their Nebula-1 launcher is more of a demonstrator with very limited performances, for their larger launcher.

I voted BO and New Glenn.
Just a suggestion: CZ-8 and 12 should be on the list. They should be reusable well before CZ-10A flies.

CZ-8 is not planned to be recovered anymore, a CZ-12 variant is, and is officialy planned for 2025 for now.

Furthermore:
-I suggest swapping Rocket pi (their launcher project does not seem active anymore) with Landspace Zhuque 3 (aims for recovery in late 2025 according to recent interview)  or/and Galactic Energy Pallas 1 (as of latest information, they still want to recover a first stage later in 2025, with a 1st launch - that we've seen flight hardware of - planned for H1 2025), both seems to have comparable odds/timeline/advancement to Neutron IMO.

-PLD space is aiming for parachute recovery on their miura launcher, they are more comparable to Rocket lab's electron recovery. The only european orbital launcher project that aims to propulsively recover a launcher in the next two year is Maiaspace (their timeline is dubious however IMO).

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SpaceX Starship Program / Re: Catching Starship's upper stage

« Last post by OTV Booster on Today at 12:55 am »

I had the same thought about the socket strength; I show it widening lower to allow more clearance for the pin to be actively moved to the middle by the arm mechanism, not to shove the ship into place physically.

It sounds like you're advocating for booster style pins being added to Starship, then? That seems the better way to go if you ask me, but the fact is we've only seen sockets to date. (Plus there is the heating concern with pins that may or may not be hard to handle.)

That last post is my attempt to find a way that catching via sockets might reasonably work, if pins are not an option for some reason. Sockets no longer seems crazy to me, but pins still seem the better choice. Hopefully we'll see quite soon.

Just a quick note. Flip out pins aren't the only option. They could also be push out. A cylinder sliding in a cylinder might be structurally simpler than a hinged flip out.

Great minds...  I've been noodling the same idea.

Been focusing on the load path. The extended pin will load towards the nose with its interior end loading towards the tail. In an early SN build there were two boxy annular structures around the inner circumference of the ogive that took the load from the fins. If the extendable pins are set high on the cylinder just below the ogive, the lower of these structures would be a convenient place to pass the load. No telling what they've morphed into and we're about to get a new fin location so all bets are off.

Working off that early structure I've been looking at the possibility of cables from the boxy reinforcement to the rear of the pin bearing sheath. The cables would be close to the outer periphery keeping the center open for other uses and cables give great tensile strength for their weight. I think it might benefit from a compression link on the bottom side too but am not sure, and don't remember there being any convenient structure to distribute a compression load.

Alas, I have no idea what sort of reinforcing structure is in there these days so...  Maybe something can be done with the nose lift points. Are they still there?


Edit to add: the pin would have a significant diameter so there would have to be a puck of tile on it and corresponding divots taken out of the surrounding tiles. This would provide an open pathway for hot plasma. An excellent application for a cooling gas bleed.

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Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle (HLV/SLS) / Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 8

« Last post by VSECOTSPE on Today at 12:34 am »

Is it possible that SLS is more of an exception (a unique situation where Congress wanted something very specific and NASA had no choice other than play along), and is not a proper reflection of NASA overall? (This is after all the same NASA that gave SpaceX the chance when they were on the brink, and the overall cots and commercial crew programs, many other good science in the same time frame - mars rovers, Juno, etc)

Good question.  My 2 cents is that the mismanagement on Orion/SLS and Artemis more broadly is how NASA’s human space flight program will operate given the chance.  That part of NASA learned a lot of bad lessons from Apollo:  cost is no objective, the private sector are contractors not partners, science is an afterthought, lasting value and sustainability is an afterthought, there’s no need for competition or external studies because we have all the best ideas and expertise in house, the White House will always have our backs, etc.  I think even without Congress and the 2010 NASA Authorization Act, we still would have wound up with an expensive, fragile, underperforming, Shuttle-derived HLV because that is what most quickly and easily addressed the Shuttle workforce/institution problem.  And I still think Orion still would have been an oversized capsule with too many requirements and not enough thought given to development because those decisions were made by Griffin and his handpicked astronauts.  And Artemis planning would still be a long, nonsensical, unmanageable list of 60-odd unprioritized and poorly expressed “objectives” (I hesitate to use the word) because that precedent was set in ISS.

The only time I’ve seen NASA human space flight try something different is when foreign agents (by that I mean leadership from outside NASA) came in and tried to take over the agency’s new development programs. 

That sorta happened under Goldin, a small spacecraft manager from the black programs at TRW, who brought a different approach and ethos to NASA.  He attempted reform in all parts of NASA but was most successful in the science side of NASA, where today’s mix of small, medium, and large spacecraft and competed missions is a far cry from the NASA center-exclusive, once-a-decade, dead-end flagship approach before his time.  Goldin was less successful and went more native with the human space flight side of NASA, where his reforms either went too far (X-33) or not far enough (X-34, SFOC contract consolidation for Shuttle, tentative low-cost human lunar studies).  He basically outsourced ISS decisionmaking to the JSC director, which was a multi-billion dollar and tragically programmatic mistake, and nothing else really survives from that era of NASA human space flight.

The other time NASA tried reform in human space flight was under O’Keefe, who was really brought in to fix NASA’s cost controls after the enormous ISS overruns caused by that JSC Director.  But Columbia happened, and O’Keefe also had to oversee the institutional issues of return to flight that still haunted NASA from Challenger, set Shuttle on a going out of business trajectory, and start development of a successor program in human space flight.  It was decided that the Moon would be the target for that program and that this program would be done very differently from NASA’s past human space flight programs.  The program was given an Apollo-sized budget wedge spread over slightly more years to work with, told not to duplicate what industry could do, integrate science from the get go, and to find the best ideas wherever they might lay.  O’Keefe brought in Steidle, a naval aircraft development program and procurement guru, to run the new developments.  Steidle brought in his own team of Navy ex-military and civvies to manage it, while picking and choosing from the best NASA had to offer in areas he could not fill like science, technology, and certain deputies.  He went after a small capsule (CEV), tried to leverage the existing EELVs instead of reinventing the launch wheel, planned to invest heavily in new programmatic approaches (what became COTS and NASA prizes), and got important studies and technology efforts started on what little money was available before appropriations could be passed.  Unfortunately, O’Keefe burned out or was forced out, Griffin was brought in, and Griffin essentially fired Steidle and his team and took almost all of NASA human space flight back to the bad old days.  More missions were added to the Shuttle manifest at the expense of most investments in technology and new programmatic approaches, the capsule grew in size and complexity (Orion), an unneeded and duplicative and technically questionable medium lift launcher derived from Shuttle components was pursued at great cost (Ares I), and anything to do with the actual goal of returning to the Moon (lander, heavy lift) slipped over the horizon and was reduced to small studies.

So while Congress and the 2010 NASA Authorization Act deserve much blame for essentially continuing down the path set by Griffin minus Ares I, I’m also unconvinced that NASA human space flight would have turned out much different without Congress or that legislation.  There’s a phenomenon in political science called “bureaucratic drift”, and in the case of NASA, the drift is towards Shuttle systems (SLS) and space stations (Gateway) purchased without competition (sole source procurements) because that’s what the organization knows and is comfortable with.  These programs are built in a NASA engineering echo chamber with little understanding of requirements beforehand and no serious up-front input from researchers, industry, or other customers/partners on the assumption that the White House will bail them out budgetarily because that’s what happened on Apollo and ISS.  In many ways, Congress just reinforces the status quo at NASA, and that’s basically what the 2010 NASA Authorization Act did.  Its principle authors were actually NASA detailess and ex-NASA staffers working on the Hill, not any independent committee or office staff, forget outside thinkers or reformers.

We’ve seen this bureaucratic (or organizational to be less pejorative) drift at NASA as recently as Trump I.  When given direction to return to the Moon, NASA human space flight dicked around for a couple years with studies on a medium lander that couldn’t fly astronauts.  And that was basically it.  Even Bridenstine, ostensibly an outsider, had gone native.  It took the White House kicking Bridenstine and NASA in the rear by accelerating the lunar landing goal to 2024 to get any action out of the agency.  Unfortunately, when Bridenstine tried to substantively speed things up by studying a different launcher than SLS for Orion flight testing, a key Senator/appropriator (now gone) barked and Bridenstine was left high and dry by the Trump I White House.  (So we’re still only know figuring out the magnitude of Orion’s heat shield issues.)

It’s worth pointing out that commercial cargo almost died in infancy when Griffin cut the budget in half for what became COTS.  Same goes for commercial crew when the Obama Administration basically had to trade away every other reform to save an underfunded budget and a compromised procurement system for that program.  The primes and legacy contractors don’t want to compete for those types of programs anymore.  And Griffin is still out there hocking his latest SLS/EELV hybrid solution and folks like Autry are prioritizing speed over good programmatics.  Where Artemis is today is largely a random walk though a set of prior accidents, and with the wrong leadership or inadequate support, it will not only tread water but actually march backwards.

A big tell on where Artemis is headed under Trump II will be whoever is nominated for Administrator and/or who they put in charge of Artemis.  An outsider and/or reformist in one or both of the positions in the mold of Goldin, O’Keefe, or Steidle will signal one intent.  The appointment of an existing insider like Free, most retired astronauts, most former congress-critters or an antediluvian character like Griffin will signal another direction.  Timing is also crucial.  Hitting the ground running in the coming weeks while there’s a honeymoon period with Congress enables change.  Waiting a year to get someone in position and when Congress is worried about mid-terms reduces the opportunity for change.

And the White House is going to have to back their appointments and agenda over several years.  The Bush II, Obama, and Trump I administrations all basically took a shot at reforming NASA human space flight, but got distracted after the initial push and/or gave up when it was too hard.  That’s how we wound up with Griffin during Bush II, the 2010 NASA Authorization Act during Obama, and two years of drift and more Orion on SLS under Trump I.

Musk, of course, is a wild card, but like all wild cards, his influence can’t be relied on.  His ego may have a falling out with Trump’s ego and/or he may not get into the weeds beyond DOGE leadership given his conflicts-of interest if he moves past an advisory role.  Someone(s) will have to work daily over the next 3-4 years to to get Artemis properly planned out and off Orion/SLS, or the organization and its enablers in Congress will drift back to NASA human space flight’s usual habits.

I’m hardly the only observer of the program to have noticed the organizational drift at NASA.  This individual (who posts in different sections here) wrote a prescient article on the “Apollo Paradigm” nearly 20 years ago:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0265964695000177

And this historian further analyzed the “Von Braun Paradigm” in the wake of Columbia:

https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/handle/10088/29806/vBparadigm.pdf

FWIW...

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Space Policy Discussion / Re: What Will A Second Trump Term Mean for Space Policy?

« Last post by yg1968 on Today at 12:27 am »

Just pay companies for services, no need for so-called "public private partnerships".

BUT, no companies other than SpaceX would bid right now for anything related to getting to/from Mars, because there is too much risk due to too little knowledge about how to accomplish the goal. SpaceX doesn't know all the answers either, but at least they have financial backing for the effort.

It's a partnership when NASA pays for part of the development. For example, HLS Options A & B and Appendix P are public-private partnerships. There will be an upcoming HLS Services phase that will only include funding for missions without any additional funding for development. CLPS is an example of a program that has no money for development, it's all services.

For Mars, it's possible that NASA will decide to only have a services phase. But even under a services phase, you should have several demo missions. I think/hope that Blue Origin (in addition to SpaceX) would also be interested in the human exploration of Mars.

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SpaceX Starship Program / Re: NSF Starbase Update videos

« Last post by catdlr on Today at 12:19 am »

Starship Advances Toward Flight 7 (Plus Giga Bay Updates, Pad B Developments) 🚀 | Starbase Update - December 2, 2024

December 2, 2024
This week at Starbase has been packed with exciting updates! From Booster 16's stacking progress and the introduction of new lifting mechanisms to the intriguing dismantling of Ship 26, SpaceX's activity shows no signs of slowing. We also take a closer look at the advancements in Starship manufacturing infrastructure, the Giga Bay, and the continued construction at Orbital Pad B, including the setup of the LR 11000 crane. Don’t miss the fascinating details of SpaceX’s evolving designs, innovative approaches, and rapid progress!

🤵 Hosted by Ryan Caton.
🖊️ Written by Adrian Beil (@BCCarCounters).
🎥 Video from BocaChicaGal, Jack Beyer, Max Evans, John Galloway, D Wise, Starbase Live, Space Coast Live, SpaceX, Pexels.
✂️ Edited by Ryan Caton (@DPodDolphinPro).
💼 Produced by Kevin Michael Reed (@kmreed).

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Space Policy Discussion / Re: What Will A Second Trump Term Mean for Space Policy?

« Last post by yg1968 on Today at 12:13 am »

...
In terms of preference, I believe that the following should be favored for the human exploration of the Moon and Mars:

1- Commercial partnerships with non-NASA customers.
2- If not possible, public private partnerships without NASA customers.
3- Cost-plus programs would seem to be more adequate for R&D programs such as nuclear propulsion.

#1 & #2 are the same.

From a contracting perspective you either have a Firm Fixed Price (FFP) contract, where the contractor takes on the risk (and reward), or you have some form of Cost Plus contract, where the contractor takes on little risk.

And until there is a PROVEN market for something, with real customers saying they will pay for products and/or services (i.e. a "market"), then calling anything "commercial" is just a misnomer. It's just PR for the masses, and just another way of putting lipstick on a pig... 

But we probably way out over our skis here, because so far Trump has only talked about new missions (i.e. Mars by 2028), not revamping NASA to help American aerospace.

Sorry, for no. 2, I meant a public-private partnership with only NASA as a customer. But even with only NASA as a customer, I still think that a fixed price/service contract is much better for NASA than cost-plus. With cost-plus, there is too much incentives for the provider to drag things as is the case for SLS and Orion. The non-NASA market is a bonus, it doesn't absolutely have to be there but it's better in the long term if it's there. NASA now uses the term "public-private partnership" instead of "commercial" to avoid giving the impression that creating a market is absolutely necessary. It isn't necessary but a market helps in reducing prices even more. 

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SpaceX Falcon Missions Section / Re: SpaceX F9/Crew Dragon : Vast-1 : NET 2026

« Last post by John_Marshall on Today at 12:12 am »

Feustel will probably be the commander of this first mission.

Oh, cool. I didn't realize he was working with them.

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SpaceX Starship Program / Re: Larger Starships

« Last post by Craigles on 12/02/2024 11:58 pm »

...clip...
There's a cube law fighting a square law, and as a general rule the cube law wins.

The cube law is the volume, which means mass which means GTOW

The square law is the surface area that can be populated by Raptor 3 engines, whose thrust needs to be 1.5x that of the GTOW.
...clip...

Cube law vs square law requires more thrust density. Removing TVC from the center Raptor 3 engines and packing many engines together in equilateral triangles would increase thrust density. But we need TVC Raptors! So maybe placing single-axis TVC Raptors at the perimeter would give them either a greater moment arm or more open space to flare outward during the subsonic landing burn.

Perhaps this was discussed before.

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Space Science Coverage / Re: ESA - Swarm updates

« Last post by AndrewM on 12/02/2024 11:53 pm »

Approximately 41 000 years ago, Earth’s magnetic field briefly reversed during what is known as the Laschamp event. During this time, Earth’s magnetic field weakened significantly—dropping to a minimum of 5% of its current strength—which allowed more cosmic rays to reach Earth’s atmosphere.

Scientists at the Technical University of Denmark and the German Research Centre for Geosciences used data from ESA’s Swarm mission, along with other sources, to create a sounded visualisation of the Laschamp event. They mapped the movement of Earth’s magnetic field lines during the event and created a stereo sound version which is what you can hear in the video.
The soundscape was made using recordings of natural noises like wood creaking and rocks falling, blending them into familiar and strange, almost alien-like, sounds. The process of transforming the sounds with data is similar to composing music from a score.

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SpaceX Falcon Missions Section / Re: SpaceX F9 : Transporter-12 Rideshare : VSFB SLC-4E : NET January 2025

« Last post by StraumliBlight on 12/02/2024 11:08 pm »

NET June now from new FCC filing

FCC filings for Veery-0F haven't been updated since June, when it was moved from Bandwagon-2 to Transporter-12.

Are you referring to Veery-0G?