-
#120
by
Steven Pietrobon
on 21 Mar, 2024 20:13
-
Confirmation that nose cone is starting to deploy.
-
#121
by
Steven Pietrobon
on 21 Mar, 2024 20:18
-
Nose cone is fully deployed.
-
#122
by
Steven Pietrobon
on 21 Mar, 2024 20:19
-
Interview with ISS Transportation Integration Office Deputy Manager.
-
#123
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 21 Mar, 2024 20:19
-
-
#124
by
catdlr
on 21 Mar, 2024 20:19
-
https://twitter.com/TylerG1998/status/1770921311360942483https://twitter.com/TylerG1998/status/1770921569541304431Updated orbital launch count as of Mar. 21:
Earth 🌎 — 54/55
USA 🇺🇸 — 32/32
China 🇨🇳 — 13/13* (1 partial failure)
Russia 🇷🇺 — 3/3
Japan 🇯🇵 — 2/3
Iran 🇮🇷 — 2/2
India 🇮🇳 — 2/2
1/3
Orbital launches by organization:
🇺🇸 — 27 SpaceX, 4 Rocket Lab, 1 ULA
🇨🇳 — 9 CASC (1 partial failure), 2 CASIC, 1 OrienSpace, 1 CAS Space
🇷🇺 — 3 RKK Energiya
🇯🇵 — 2 MHI, 1 Space One ❌
🇮🇳 — 2 ISRO
🇮🇷 — 1 IRGC, 1 ISA
2/3
Launches by spaceport:
🇺🇸 — 13 Cape Canaveral, 10 Vandenberg, 5 KSC, 1 Wallops
🇨🇳 — 4 Xichang, 4 Jiuquan, 3 Wenchang, 2 offshore
🇳🇿 — 3 Māhia
🇷🇺 — 1 Plesetsk, 1 Baikonur, 1 Vostochny
🇯🇵 — 2 Tanegashima, 1 Space Port Kii
🇮🇳 — 2 Satish Dhawan
🇮🇷 — 1 Shahrud MTS, 1 Semnan
3/3
-
#125
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 21 Mar, 2024 20:19
-
https://twitter.com/johnkrausphotos/status/1770923059207180607Up and down again: Falcon 9 launches CRS-30 at 4:55pm ET today and its first stage returns to land at Cape Canaveral. This mission marked the first flight of a Dragon 2 vehicle from SLC-40 following upgrades to enable cargo and future crew launches from a second Florida pad.
-
#126
by
zubenelgenubi
on 21 Mar, 2024 20:20
-
We're seeing MCC Houston and Hawthorne, not the Dragon (or the second stage). What's up with ground station coverage? IIRC, SpaceX doesn't use TDRSS.
👀
No images of separated Dragon...
-
#127
by
Steven Pietrobon
on 21 Mar, 2024 20:23
-
-
#128
by
catdlr
on 21 Mar, 2024 20:24
-
Thanks to Steven P and FutureSpaceTourist for the coverage for today's flight.
-
#129
by
Yellowstone10
on 21 Mar, 2024 20:26
-
We're seeing MCC Houston and Hawthorne, not the Dragon (or the second stage). What's up with ground station coverage? IIRC, SpaceX doesn't use TDRSS.
👀
No images of separated Dragon...
We did get one brief image, but from Dragon of the second stage rather than the usual second stage view of Dragon.
-
#130
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 21 Mar, 2024 20:38
-
-
#131
by
zubenelgenubi
on 21 Mar, 2024 20:44
-
Does the Soyuz mission being scrubbed this morning affect this one at all?
Seems like there is no impact on the next launch to the ISS:
4:35 p.m. —Launch coverage of NASA’s SpaceX CRS-30 mission to the International Space Station. Launch scheduled for 4:55 p.m. Stream on NASA+
https://www.nasa.gov/nasatv
Spx-30 launch and docking now precedes
Soyuz MS-25 launch.
-
#132
by
catdlr
on 21 Mar, 2024 20:45
-
-
#133
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 21 Mar, 2024 20:50
-
https://twitter.com/_mgde_/status/1770927724648915268Tough to beat a launch in a clear blue sky in late afternoon light.
For the first time in 4 years, Dragon takes to the sky aboard Falcon 9 from the grounds of SLC-40 with its brand new crew access tower for the CRS-30 ISS cargo resupply mission.
📸 - @NASASpaceflight
📺 - youtube.com/live/k3GKF4rjM…
-
#134
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 21 Mar, 2024 21:41
-
-
#135
by
old_geez
on 21 Mar, 2024 22:14
-
Saw the launch and landing live from the employee car park at the KSC Visitor Center. A 66 year old Aussie’s boyhood dream come true…
-
#136
by
jcm
on 21 Mar, 2024 22:46
-
NASA Set to Launch Four CubeSats to Space Station
NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative is sending a group of four small satellites, called CubeSats, to the International Space Station as ELaNa 51 (Educational Launch of Nanosatellites). These small payloads have been developed by NASA and universities and will be deployed from low Earth orbit.
Once circling Earth, the satellites will help demonstrate and mature technologies meant to improve solar power generation, detect gamma ray bursts, determine crop water usage, and measure root-zone soil and snowpack moisture levels.
The suite of satellites will hitch a ride aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft set to deliver additional science, crew supplies, and hardware for the company’s 30th commercial resupply services mission for NASA. Liftoff is targeted for 4:55 p.m. EDT Thursday, March 21, from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
First Cornhusker State CubeSat
The first CubeSat from Nebraska is the Big Red Sat-1, which aims to investigate and improve the power production ability of solar cells. It is built by a team of middle and high school students mentored by University of Nebraska-Lincoln undergraduate engineering students.
The satellite measuring 1U, or one unit, (about four inches cubed), will test out Perovskite cells, a new type of solar cell designed to enhance power production with and without direct exposure to sunlight. The team will compare the power production to that of typical cells, called gallium arsenide solar cells, also flying on the CubeSat.
Detecting Gamma Ray Bursts
BurstCube is a NASA-developed 6U CubeSat designed to search the sky for brief flashes of high-energy light such as gamma-ray bursts, solar flares, and other hard X-ray transients.
Long and short gamma ray bursts are stellar remnants that can be the result of some of the universe’s most powerful explosions like the collapse or collision of massive stars, or when a neutron star collides with a black hole. BurstCube will use a new kind of compact, low-power silicon photomultiplier array to detect the elusive bursts of light.
With the ability to detect these brief flashes from space, BurstCube can help alert other observatories to witness changes in the universe as they happen. Astronomers can also benefit from the information because these bursts are important sources for gravitational wave discoveries.
Rooting Out Earth Water Sources from Space
The SigNals of Opportunity P-band Investigation, or SNoOPI, is a technology demonstration CubeSat designed to improve the detection of moisture levels on a global scale of underground root-zone and within snowpacks.
Root zone soil moisture and snow water equivalent play critical roles in the hydrologic cycle, impacting agricultural food production, water management, and weather phenomena. When scientists understand the amount of water in the soil, crop growth can be accurately forecasted, and irrigation can become more efficient.
The 6U CubeSat is collaboratively developed by NASA, Purdue University in Indiana, Mississippi State University, and the United States Department of Agriculture.
The fourth in the suite of small satellites, the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s HyTI (Hyperspectral Thermal Imager) is also a 6U CubeSat designed to study water sources.
Developed in partnership with NASA to map irrigated and rainfed cropland, HyTI is a pathfinder demonstration that packs the Hyperspectral Imager Instrument, temporal resolution thermal infrared imager focal plane technology, and high-performance onboard computing to help better understand crop water use and water productivity of major world crops.
With these tools, HyTI can help develop a more detailed understanding of the movement, distribution, and availability of water and its variability over time and space, an important contribution to global food and water security issues.
These payloads were selected through NASA’s CSLI, which provides U.S. educational institutions, nonprofits with an education/outreach component, informal educational institutions (museums and science centers), and NASA centers with access to space at a low cost.
Once the CubeSat selections are made, NASA’s Launch Services Program works to pair them with a launch that is best suited to carry them as auxiliary payloads.
I take this to imply that the remaining payloads previously associated with Elana 51 (e.g. DORA, BLAST)
are *not* aboard.
Less clear is the status of Canadian cubesats (Killick 1 etc) that might or might not be aboard
Edit: but
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/media-advisory-three-canadian-student-173400328.html (just 3 days ago) confirms QmSAT, Killick-1, VIOLET still aboard
-
#137
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 21 Mar, 2024 22:53
-
-
#138
by
catdlr
on 22 Mar, 2024 00:10
-
-
#139
by
catdlr
on 22 Mar, 2024 00:12
-