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Space Science Coverage / Re: OSIRIS-REx mission updates

« Last post by ChrisC on Today at 02:50 am »

Is there a time table with UTC times? I spent 15 minutes looking for one but could not find any.

In time you will gain the google-fu, young padewan.

https://www.space.com/nasa-osiris-rex-asteroid-sample-return-landing-what-time

Near the bottom is a timeline with times in MT (local), ET and GMT.  Raw text copy/paste follows; see article for better formatting:

OSIRIS-REx landing Timeline
TIME   SEQUENCE
6:42 a.m. EDT (4:42 a.m. MDT, 1042 GMT)   OSIRIS-REx releases the asteroid sample container return capsule.
7:02 a.m. EDT (5:02 a.m. MDT, 1102 GMT)   OSIRIS-REx spacecraft fires thrusters to set course away from Earth, and toward asteroid Apophis.
10:42 a.m. EDT (8:42 a.m. MDT, 1442 GMT)   OSIRIS-REx return capsule enters Earth atmosphere at an altitude of 82 miles (132 kilometers), traveling 27,650 mph (44,498 kph).
10:43 a.m. EDT (8:43 a.m. MDT, 1443 GMT)   OSIRIS-REx return capsule experiences highest temperatures, reaching 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius).
10:44 a.m. EDT (8:44 a.m. MDT, 1444 GMT)   Deployment of the return capsule's drogue parachute, at 102,300 feet (31,181 meters) in altitude.
10:45 a.m. EDT (8:45 a.m. MDT, 1445 GMT)   OSIRIS-REx spacecraft makes its closest approach to Earth, passing just 484 miles (779 kilometers) away.
10:50 a.m. EDT (8:50 a.m. MDT, 1450 GMT)   Deployment of the return capsule's main parachute, at 5,050 feet (1,539 meters) in altitude.
10:55 a.m. EDT (8:55 a.m. MDT, 1455 GMT)   Touchdown on Earth of the OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return capsule, carrying material from the surface of Bennu.

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Space Science Coverage / Re: OSIRIS-REx mission updates

« Last post by ChrisC on Today at 02:45 am »

Does anyone know where in the UTTR the capsule is targeting to return? The UTTR is huge - just trying to understand where in it the capsule is targeting the return.

Yup!  NSF's own preview article from three weeks ago has an image of the landing ellipse.

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2023/09/osiris-rex-tests/

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SpaceX Starship Program / Re: FAA (and other relevant) Permits/Licenses for BC (Thread 5)

« Last post by OTV Booster on Today at 02:45 am »

This shouldn’t take 135 days. It should take about a week of concentrated work. FWS seems to be treating the max legal time it can take as some sort of target to shoot for to expand scope of work to fill. Max legal time should be shortened to 30 days at most.

This is about studying, not about actually solving the problem of impact. There’s no upper limit into how much you can study a problem.

How would you know that it should take a week?

We all want the rocket to fly as soon as possible, and it will get there.

Not every delay is a result of government, none of us know what SpaceX has done or not done or what they are trying to get away with.

Elon has a long plentiful history of working without permits and strong arming authorities.  SpaceX will get approval and likely sooner than anyone else would.

He reasons are outlined upthread.

A number of comments explained why it's obviously not a concern, but a valid response was that while this may be so, FWS has to arrive at that conclusion itself.

Fair enough, but because of those very same reasons, that determination is trivial and FWS can do its job quickly.

If it so happens (for example) that salinity levels are already widely fluctuating, naturally, then that fact should be documented and easily used to show that the deluge system does nothing harmful in that respect.

Otherwise, the same contaminants in the deluge stream that originate in the exhaust  were already at play in the same quantities before the deluge was introduced. (Because of rainfall)

There's no scenario that I can see that requires more studies or data acquisition - it looks harmless by a very large margin.

Cooperating and setting up a sample regimen would show salinity levels as they actually are today. Not 20(?) years ago or whenever they were last measured. Unless FSW is intentionally gumming up the works, which I maybe naively think not, FWS can't help but like it.


They get fresh data that goes directly to their purpose and as a side benefit they can do a rational assessment on any impact SX might actually have. Without numbers, it's just opinion. Last I heard regulatory agencies aren't supposed to operate on opinion.


That said, even if it "...looks harmless..." there are citizens who don't give a crap about spaceships but do have informed or imagined wildlife concerns and will closely watch what FWS does. They might take "looks harmless" as an opinion and kick up a ruckus if SX were to get a free pass.


The world just isn't designed to satisfy rocket junkies in withdrawal. If it gets too rough for ya'll we can set up a support group. <g>

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Historical Spaceflight / Re: Skylab Deorbiting Study June 1-15 1973

« Last post by AS_501 on Today at 02:45 am »

Not to go off topic, but I read somewhere that Marshall was in favor of a Skylab reboost, but Johnson was not, in particular Chris Kraft.  Thanks for the document....fascinating read.

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SpaceX Falcon Missions Section / Re: SpaceX F9/Dragon 2 : CRS2 SpX-29 : KSC LC-39A : 1 November 2023

« Last post by Ken the Bin on Today at 02:27 am »

I read on the Wikipedia page for Dragon v2 that SpX-29 will use spacecraft C211.2.

Do we/they have a source?  Or is this an extrapolation of the current three Cargo Dragon rotation? (C208/209/211)

It's in the image in the post right above yours. 👀

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Space Science Coverage / Re: OSIRIS-REx mission updates

« Last post by Yeknom-Ecaps on Today at 02:14 am »

Does anyone know where in the UTTR the capsule is targeting to return? The UTTR is huge - just trying to understand where in it the capsule is targeting the return.

Thanks.

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SpaceX Falcon Missions Section / Re: SpaceX F9/Dragon 2 : CRS2 SpX-29 : KSC LC-39A : 1 November 2023

« Last post by zubenelgenubi on Today at 01:56 am »

I read on the Wikipedia page for Dragon v2 that SpX-29 will use spacecraft C211.2.

Do we/they have a source?  Or is this an extrapolation of the current three Cargo Dragon rotation? (C208/209/211)

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Q&A Section / Re: Origin of conspiracy theory about Apollo moon landings being a hoax

« Last post by Vahe231991 on Today at 01:43 am »

Didn't some people at the time of the landings refuse to believe they were real, believing that crossing space was impossible and therefore a hoax? The conspiracy theories I think only came later, as post-facto rationalizations of these naive priors. An example of what Alvin Toffler called "future shock," whose book of the same title came out, curiously, in 1970.

The book We Never Went to the Moon: America's Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle published in 1976 by former US Navy officer Bill Kaysing was the first publication to argue that the Apollo moon landings never happened. In fact, Kaysing had no knowledge of rockets or technical writing despite having being hired as Rocketdyne's senior technical writer in 1956.

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Historical Spaceflight / Re: Skylab Deorbiting Study June 1-15 1973

« Last post by Graham2001 on Today at 01:37 am »

The link in the OP to the Skylab Deorbiting study is permanently broken. I've attached a copy I found on a backup drive to this posting.

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SpaceX Falcon Missions Section / Re: SpaceX Falcon Heavy - Psyche - KSC LC-39A - NET 5 Oct 2023

« Last post by mn on Today at 01:31 am »

The chart lists daily launch times but not windows. Do we know if it is an instantaneous window?

instantaneous.  Falcon can't do RAAN steering.

We know that F9 cannot do RAAN steering. (Which if I understand correctly means the F9 computer cannot independently calculate a new flight profile in real time based on a change in T0). And we also know that due to subcooling, F9 is committed to an instantaneous launch once they start fueling.

But: Are they not able set a launch time slightly later or earlier than optimal on launch day due to whatever other reason (weather?) (within the capabilities of the F9), start fueling and then calculate a new flight profile on the ground and upload that to the F9 computer?

Am I misunderstanding something? Is the F9 not physically capable (using a precalculated flight profile) of launching slightly out of the target plane? (The F9 has done many flights with a dogleg)