SpaceChampion Posted February 2, 2021 Author Share Posted February 2, 2021 SpaceX plans to launch a Dragon with the first completely civilian crew later this year some time in this 4th quarter. It's called the Inspiration4 mission, and it's going to raise money for St. Jude's Children Research Hospital. Quote Jared Isaacman, founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments, is donating the three seats alongside him aboard Dragon to individuals from the general public who will be announced in the weeks ahead. Learn more on how to potentially join this historic journey to space by visiting Inspiration4.com. The Inspiration4 crew will receive commercial astronaut training by SpaceX on the Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft, orbital mechanics, operating in microgravity, zero gravity, and other forms of stress testing. They will go through emergency preparedness training, spacesuit and spacecraft ingress and egress exercises, as well as partial and full mission simulations. This multi-day journey, orbiting Earth every 90 minutes along a customized flight path, will be carefully monitored at every step by SpaceX mission control. Upon conclusion of the mission, Dragon will reenter Earth’s atmosphere for a soft water landing off the coast of Florida. It appears one of the seats will be awarded by raffle here: https://www.prizeo.com/campaigns/l/inspiration4/inspiration4  Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceChampion Posted February 2, 2021 Author Share Posted February 2, 2021 Minutes away from attempted launch of SN9 prototype Starship for a 10km hop, hopefully not explody landing. Â Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corvinus85 Posted February 2, 2021 Share Posted February 2, 2021 2 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said: Minutes away from attempted launch of SN9 prototype Starship for a 10km hop, hopefully not explody landing. Â Hopefully it doesn't land on the SN10. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceChampion Posted February 2, 2021 Author Share Posted February 2, 2021 3 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said: Hopefully it doesn't land on the SN10. I think the actual landing pad is some distance away it shouldn't be a problem, but launching so close to each other looks so worrisome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corvinus85 Posted February 2, 2021 Share Posted February 2, 2021 25 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said: I think the actual landing pad is some distance away it shouldn't be a problem, but launching so close to each other looks so worrisome. Well shit, that was worse than last time, at the end. And it was worryingly close to SN10. Looks like they lost something right after the flip. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceChampion Posted February 2, 2021 Author Share Posted February 2, 2021 Similar end, but it appears the problem is different this time. One engine failed to light, and but may have kept trying to light itself and eventually burned through a wall and spewed fire in places it shouldn't. Perhaps all the maneuvering Starship does in different orientations is really challenging on the plumbing and valve system of the Raptor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceChampion Posted February 2, 2021 Author Share Posted February 2, 2021 Â Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceChampion Posted February 3, 2021 Author Share Posted February 3, 2021 This woman invented a new fusion drive that could speed up journeys around the solar system. Alas, it is only about 1% of the thrust of an Epstein drive as seen in The Expanse. But it is still about 10x faster than other plasma thrusters. Call it the Ebrahimi drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceChampion Posted February 8, 2021 Author Share Posted February 8, 2021 Superbowl ad for Inspiration4. Â Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rotting sea cow Posted February 8, 2021 Share Posted February 8, 2021 On 2/3/2021 at 7:04 PM, SpaceChampion said: This woman invented a new fusion drive that could speed up journeys around the solar system. Alas, it is only about 1% of the thrust of an Epstein drive as seen in The Expanse. But it is still about 10x faster than other plasma thrusters. Call it the Ebrahimi drive. Mmmmmm. Not wanting to really undermine the idea, it might be actually very good and I'm just ignorant. It seems to me however it would require a lot of energy, a nuclear reactor perhaps, in orbit. At that point it might make more sense to pass the gasses directly through the core of the reactor instead, something already suggested in the 60s. Again, given the high exhaust velocity of this "magnetic torus" engine, it might be more efficient (higher ISP) than "conventional" nuclear ones. The latter might provide more thrust however.  Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceChampion Posted February 13, 2021 Author Share Posted February 13, 2021 Europa Clipper was shoehorned in as a justification for the SLS launcher (mandated by Congress), and now it's been announced that it'll be launched by a commerical provider instead -- likely SpaceX's Falcon Heavy or Starship, since that ought to be ready in time for the anticipated October 2024 launch. If Falcon Heavy, the trajectory would require an Earth-Mars-Earth gravity assist to get to Jupiter in 6 years. If Starship, with refuelling in orbit, it's probably be able to do direct approach to Jupiter, getting there in half that time. Blue Origin's New Glenn is a possible launcher but will it be launching then? Suppose to launch this year on its first flight.  ULA's Vulcan could do it with an additional Venus flyby apparently, but NASA specifically asked for proposals with E-M-E assist, which Vulcan can't do, to my understanding. Apparently the decision was not just due to desire for cost savings, but some actual hardware incompatibilities were found. Political changes of course likely lost SLS some supporters, particularly Shelby since he is retiring in 2022. Death-watch for SLS by 2023 I'm guessing. Maybe launch once and be cancelled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceChampion Posted February 16, 2021 Author Share Posted February 16, 2021 Another Starlink launch:  The sixth use of that booster, but it failed to land on the drone ship. No explosion, just plunged into the ocean and probably broke up there.  Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceChampion Posted February 16, 2021 Author Share Posted February 16, 2021 Other news, Musk announced a $100 million X-Prize for carbon capture demonstrations -- he's interested in producing methane for Starship launches from CO2 captured right out of the atmosphere near the launch site, so I think it's relevant to this thread. Â Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceChampion Posted February 18, 2021 Author Share Posted February 18, 2021 TOMORROW! The Perserverance rover attempts to touch down on Mars in a similar "sky-crane" maneuver as Curiosity did in 2012. This time the hope is we will have video of the landing. It'll be livestreamed on youtube here at 2:15pm EST (11:15am PST) -- 7:15pm GMT. Because of the 11 minutes by lightspeed distance between Earth and Mars, the "7 minutes of terror" will be in the past 4 minutes by the time we hear Percy is starting it's decent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceChampion Posted February 18, 2021 Author Share Posted February 18, 2021 This other NASA stream seems to be covering it from mission control: Â Â Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceChampion Posted February 18, 2021 Author Share Posted February 18, 2021 I see the actual landing time is expected an hour from now at 3:55 p.m. EST (2055 GMT) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Anti-Targ Posted February 18, 2021 Share Posted February 18, 2021 Ahh good to know. I was wondering when the actual landing process would start. I have a work meeting in 5 minutes that will go for about 1 hr. Fortunately it's a remote meeting with the whole section so I can dip out early, but I'll be able to sit through the bulk of the meeting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceChampion Posted February 18, 2021 Author Share Posted February 18, 2021 28 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said: Ahh good to know. I was wondering when the actual landing process would start. I have a work meeting in 5 minutes that will go for about 1 hr. Fortunately it's a remote meeting with the whole section so I can dip out early, but I'll be able to sit through the bulk of the meeting. Sorry, timeline is: 3:38: Mars atmosphere entry 3:45: Touchdown of the rover on Mars surface 3:56: Earliest signal of the rover reaches Earth So that means 3:48pm to 3:56pm EST is when to watch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Chatywin et al. Posted February 18, 2021 Share Posted February 18, 2021 6 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said: Sorry, timeline is: 3:38: Mars atmosphere entry 3:45: Touchdown of the rover on Mars surface 3:56: Earliest signal of the rover reaches Earth So that means 3:48pm to 3:56pm EST is when to watch. Vamos! Being at home has an upside. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Anti-Targ Posted February 18, 2021 Share Posted February 18, 2021 8 minutes to atmosphere entry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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