Jump to content

Space Launches, Landings & Destinations v4


SpaceChampion

Recommended Posts

I really hope Blue Origins doesn't get the second contract with the bitchfit they threw the first time around. Alas I know they're not allowed to take that into account, and Bezos has a lot of people in Congress pushing for him, so...we'll see.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Axiom-1 mission to the ISS on Crew Dragon / Falcon 9 launched this morning:


Video cued to the launch.  Timestamps for other points in the lead up:
Crew walking out of the Falcon Support Building > 22:19

Cars heading to the pad > 25:37

Crew arrives at the pad > 28:13

Crew walking down the crew access arm > 38:00

Crew ingressing the capsule and strapping in > 40:14

Crew strapped in and ready > 55:26

Seats rotating to vertical position > 1:05:00

Hatch closure #1 > 1:27:28

3:26:56 launch

3:36:35 first stage landing

3:38:56 Dragon separation from second stage

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/18/2022 at 7:33 PM, Spockydog said:

*applause emoji*

 

Such a brilliant star image, seems criminal that someone thoughtlessly, needlessly, smeared captions across it, as it appears on my screen while the audio is clear in the background (again making the caption pollution totally unneeded).

Just because we can, doesn't mean we should 101.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So the Boeing/Northrup Grumman-made SLS rocket has failed to carry off it's third attempt at a "wet dress rehearsal".  Essentially a full fuelling and procedural iteration of everything just short of initiating launch.

After a propellant problem, seems to be about a one week delay at least, unless else is uncovered.

https://www.inverse.com/science/nasa-artemis-mega-moon-rocket-wet-dress-rehearsal-third-fail

The Artemis 1 mission to swing an uncrewed Orion capsule around the Moon was anticipated in NASA's ever slipping schedule to launch late next month, with crewed Orion spacecraft for the Artemis 2 and 3 missions aspirational for 2024.

Meanwhile, NASA has issued an request if anyone with existing contracts wants their Lunar cargo contract to Lunar Gateway be adapted to alternatives they have that might be both cheaper and deliver more.  This appears to be directly to give SpaceX an opportunity to switch to using Starship for cargo missions to the Lunar Gateway instead of the current contract for using the in-development Dragon XL.  No one else with cargo contracts for Gateway have anything they could propose.

There appears to be a limit on how big a ship can dock with the Gateway, and Starship is much too big for that.  But I can see Starship carrying a third stage as a payload inside it that would be released in order to ferry cargo to the Gateway from just meters away.  It would have to have little thrusters for manoeuvring between Starship and Gateway, but that should be no problem.  However, is this mass limit actually real or is it an artificially imposed limit that can it be waved to allow docking Starship directly to Gateway?  Not clear yet.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, SpaceChampion said:

SpinLaunch shoots a camera skyward in a test flight of their first stage system using kinetic energy.

 

That's brilliant. I had no idea such a thing existed. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I hadn't realized the National Team has disbanded.  I expected it, but missed the news on that.  But unfortunately looks like Blue Origin took the same design and just slapped their logo on it.

Dynetics looks like the best option for a 2nd lander.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...