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#220
by
Steven Pietrobon
on 15 Feb, 2020 19:36
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Interview with ISS Deputy Program Manager.
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#221
by
Chris Bergin
on 15 Feb, 2020 19:36
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#222
by
HVM
on 15 Feb, 2020 19:37
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Good to see that wonky tele-M-animation continues Orbital's tradition...
Also
Call Into a Live Show is the new way to interact with audience. ; P
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#223
by
Steven Pietrobon
on 15 Feb, 2020 19:39
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Saying that both SpaceX and Boeing will be launching crew this year.
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#224
by
burgi
on 15 Feb, 2020 19:42
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What a cast
This flight profile at the end was sort of strange. Is this deviation from the velocity vector normal on a cygnus launch?
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#225
by
ZachS09
on 15 Feb, 2020 19:44
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What a cast
This flight profile at the end was sort of strange. Is this deviation from the velocity vector normal on a cygnus launch?
I think the pitch down was in order to flatten out the trajectory because if it remained straight or a few degrees above 0, the apogee would be too high and the perigee wouldn't reach the 100-km mark.
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#226
by
Steven Pietrobon
on 15 Feb, 2020 19:46
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Solar array deploy one hour and 19 minutes after launch.
Upcoming events.
End of NASA coverage.
Congratulations to Northrop Grumman and NASA for the successful launch!
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#227
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 15 Feb, 2020 19:47
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#228
by
Steven Pietrobon
on 15 Feb, 2020 19:48
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This flight profile at the end was sort of strange. Is this deviation from the velocity vector normal on a cygnus launch?
Yes. This is the "S" maneuver that is used to control the final velocity of the vehicle, since it is not possible to terminate thrust at an arbitrary time with solid vehicles like with liquid vehicles.
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#229
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 15 Feb, 2020 19:50
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#230
by
ugordan
on 15 Feb, 2020 19:51
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What a cast
This flight profile at the end was sort of strange. Is this deviation from the velocity vector normal on a cygnus launch?
Yeah, it's normal. I believe it might have to do with energy management. Solids have a fixed amount of total impulse (varies only with propellant grain temperature IIRC) and 1st stage burns to depletion, but the actual velocity at 1st stage shutdown will vary slightly depending on winds, steering losses and actual mass of a given Cygnus so guidance does the 2nd stage pitching maneuver to try to hit the desired apogee and perigee at the desired cutoff velocity.
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#231
by
JJ starman
on 15 Feb, 2020 19:52
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Squirmy lift off from the Pad ?
Or was that a Tower avoidance maneuver ?
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#232
by
seawolfe
on 15 Feb, 2020 19:53
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Squirmy lift off from the Pad ?
Or was that a Tower avoidance maneuver ?
I noticed that too.
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#233
by
ugordan
on 15 Feb, 2020 19:53
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Squirmy lift off from the Pad ?
Or was that a Tower avoidance maneuver ?
Transporter-erector avoidance to minimize damage, Antares has been doing that since day 1.
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#234
by
DecoLV
on 15 Feb, 2020 20:12
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Wow, that comm was hysterical! Congratulations to NG and NASA on a good launch, but I have never heard hot mics like that on a public countdown net before. I sure hope somebody looks into that...coz it could be anything from poor discipline to a deliberate hack attempt.
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#235
by
Rondaz
on 15 Feb, 2020 20:24
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Cygnus Vehicle Reaches Orbit
Micheala Sosby Posted on February 15, 2020
The Cygnus vehicle reached orbit and it will rendezvous with the International Space Station on Tuesday, Feb. 18, at approximately 4:05 a.m. EST.
Follow the Cygnus spacecraft’s arrival to the orbiting laboratory on the space station blog and by following @space_station and @ISS_Research on Twitter as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.
https://blogs.nasa.gov/northropgrumman/2020/02/15/cygnus-vehicle-reaches-orbit/
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#236
by
bjornl
on 15 Feb, 2020 20:28
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Squirmy lift off from the Pad ?
Or was that a Tower avoidance maneuver ?
Transporter-erector avoidance to minimize damage, Antares has been doing that since day 1.
Commonly called the Baumgartner Maneuver, for its designer.
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#237
by
russianhalo117
on 15 Feb, 2020 20:33
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This flight profile at the end was sort of strange. Is this deviation from the velocity vector normal on a cygnus launch?
Yes. This is the "S" maneuver that is used to control the final velocity of the vehicle, since it is not possible to terminate thrust at an arbitrary time with solid vehicles like with liquid vehicles.
If only they had thrust termination ports like ICBM's.
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#238
by
SMS
on 15 Feb, 2020 21:08
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#239
by
SMS
on 15 Feb, 2020 21:17
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so it seems that no cubesats will be carried at all (?)
https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/02/15/antares-rocket-lifts-off-from-virginia-on-space-station-cargo-mission/Small satellites hitching ride to space on Cygnus
Three small satellites are hitching a ride to the International Space Station aboard the Cygnus supply ship.
Two of the miniature spacecraft are sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. Another was developed at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California.
The Red-Eye 2 microsatellite is the second in a series of Red-Eye satellites developed by DARPA. The Red-Eye satellites aim “to develop and demonstrate technologies that increase the utility of low-cost microsatellites,” according to NASA.
The first Red-Eye satellite launched to the station aboard a SpaceX Dragon cargo ship last year, then was released from the NanoRacks Kaber deployer in June 2019.
“Red-Eye will demonstrate lightweight, low-power, gimballed inter-satellite communications links appropriate for the class of satellites approximately 100 kg (220 pounds) in size,” NASA wrote in a summary of the experiment. “Red-Eye will also demonstrate new attitude control components, onboard processors, and software-defined radios.”
Two CubeSat-class satellites are also aboard the Cygnus supply ship for release from the space station’s smaller satellite deployer.
The Deformable Mirror, or DeMi, spacecraft is about the size of a small suitcase. Developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the deformable mirror instrument will demonstrate technologies that could be used on future space telescopes making high-contrast observations of exoplanets around bright stars. Such precision observations, which will use coronagraphs to blot out the light of the star, require the use of deformable mirrors inside the telescope that can be adjusted using internal actuators, according to MIT.
The deformable mirrors “can correct image plane aberrations and speckles caused by imperfections, thermal distortions, and diffraction in the telescope and optics that would otherwise corrupt the wavefront and allow leaking starlight to contaminate coronagraphic images,” MIT scientists wrote in a summary of the demonstration.
DARPA is funding the DeMi experiment, and Aurora Flight Sciences is managing the mission.
NASA’s TechEdSat 10 nanosatellite is the next in a line of experimental CubeSats developed at the Ames Research Center in California. According to NASA, the TechEdSat 10 spacecraft will function as a high temperature, accurate deorbit reentry nanosatellite.
The Cygnus spacecraft will remain attached to the space station until around May 11, when it will depart to begin the second phase of its mission.
A NASA flame combustion experiment housed inside the Cygnus pressurized module will examine how flames propagate in microgravity. It’s the fourth in a series of NASA Saffire experiments developed at the Glenn Research Center in Ohio that have flown on Cygnus missions.
Previous combustion investigations in space have been limited in size and scope because of concerns about the dangers to astronauts. But the Cygnus will be far away from the space station when the Sapphire experiment begins, allowing scientists to ignite larger samples to see how flames behave in space.
For the first time, the Sapphire experiment on the NG-13 mission will ignite four burn samples, two of which will be ignited with the the air pressure inside the Cygnus spacecraft equivalent to sea level on Earth. Then the Cygnus module will be partially depressurized — and its oxygen content increased — to see how the oxygen-rich, lower-pressure environment affects the combustion of the other two samples.
The experiment will also test fire detection technology for use on future spacecraft, and automated fire clean-up systems.
The Cygnus spacecraft will re-enter the atmosphere and burn up over the South Pacific after completing the Sapphire experiment.
