Space Launches, Landings & Destinations v4

[SpaceChampion]

Ugh, Blue is so dumb.  NASA already gave SpaceX the first $300m portion of the award to start work on HLS development, on the same day the GAO issued it's determination that the process was fair.  I don't think SpaceX will be substantially delayed because they have dozens of simultaneous paths of development, and they don't pay by the hour anyway.  It's milestones.  They''ll make progress on Starship Crew, Starship Tanker, Starship Fuel Depot, and HLS variants and take payment when NASA is authorized to pay.

Some have suggested the National Team may fall apart due to Blue Origin's antics embarrassing them all.  That might be the only way to shut BO up.

Edited August 16, 2021 by SpaceChampion

[SpaceChampion]

 

 

Edited August 16, 2021 by SpaceChampion

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

3 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

 

 

I’ve been saying I hope Blue Origin is successful in their efforts for months.  Right now, Blue Origin just sucks.

[SpaceChampion]

4 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I’ve been saying I hope Blue Origin is successful in their efforts for months.  Right now, Blue Origin just sucks.

 

[Altherion]

I don't understand what Blue Origin is trying to achieve here. The money for a second option just isn't there and in fact even if they somehow disqualify SpaceX, the money for the Blue Origin option still isn't there as it is twice as much as the SpaceX contract. Are they trying to buy time for Congress to allocate more money?

[SpaceChampion]

12 hours ago, Altherion said:

I don't understand what Blue Origin is trying to achieve here. The money for a second option just isn't there and in fact even if they somehow disqualify SpaceX, the money for the Blue Origin option still isn't there as it is twice as much as the SpaceX contract. Are they trying to buy time for Congress to allocate more money?

Bezos knows what a shitty move it is, because he mocked those who do it 2 years ago:

So what's the goal?  He doesn't need the money, he just wants to slow down SpaceX.

[SpaceChampion]

So Blue Origin is suing NASA now, and a judge gave a stop work order for SpaceX to stop working on HLS Starship variant.  Not sure that really is going to slow anything down, and SpaceX has a lot to work on right now.

NASA responds:

So like 70 days...  I think Musk will just shrug his shoulders.  If this bothers him he'd probably tweet something about it, but so far haven't seen anything.

It's not like NASA will at any point take the contract away from SpaceX, so the point of a stay of work is dumb.  Also, a lot of the Starship systems for the moon needs to be ready for the Japanese billionaire's DearMoon mission to flyby the moon with a bunch of artists, so work can be done on that in the mean time and it's effectively working on HLS at the same time, unofficially.  That's aside from the normal Earth-to-LEO Starship needed for 30,000 more Starlink satellites.

Speaking of which, SpaceX put in a request with the FCC to modify the launch configuration of Starlink to use Starship as the primary configuration, with Falcon 9 as the backup.

[Starkess]

Protesting a contract loss is one thing (very common in government contracts), but this suing...smh. Blue Origin is shooting itself in the PR game right now, with its sulky infographics and inability to admit their proposal just basically sucked.

[Free Northman Reborn]

On 8/20/2021 at 10:06 AM, SpaceChampion said:

So Blue Origin is suing NASA now, and a judge gave a stop work order for SpaceX to stop working on HLS Starship variant.  Not sure that really is going to slow anything down, and SpaceX has a lot to work on right now.

NASA responds:

So like 70 days...  I think Musk will just shrug his shoulders.  If this bothers him he'd probably tweet something about it, but so far haven't seen anything.

It's not like NASA will at any point take the contract away from SpaceX, so the point of a stay of work is dumb.  Also, a lot of the Starship systems for the moon needs to be ready for the Japanese billionaire's DearMoon mission to flyby the moon with a bunch of artists, so work can be done on that in the mean time and it's effectively working on HLS at the same time, unofficially.  That's aside from the normal Earth-to-LEO Starship needed for 30,000 more Starlink satellites.

Speaking of which, SpaceX put in a request with the FCC to modify the launch configuration of Starlink to use Starship as the primary configuration, with Falcon 9 as the backup.

The order just stops NASA from working with and paying SpaceX until 1 Nov. It doesn’t stop SpaceX from doing whatever they want at their own risk. Meaning they aren’t slowing down for one minute.

Come 1 Nov and the next milestone payment will probably flow their way.

Heck, they might even reach orbit during the “stop work” order!

Edited August 23, 2021 by Free Northman Reborn

[mcbigski]

Got to say this, Bezos looks like a petulant child right now.  Granted that I don't think government issued contracts are likely to be fair instead of corrupted, but at some point, the rubber meets the road, and lawsuits aside, a self respecting quarter trillionaire should be able to finance his own 100 year old tech.  (If the future is more than terrestrial)

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

So… they’re starting to package up the James Webb Space telescope for its scheduled November launch date.  I have been waiting for this one for a long time.  

I really hope there are no further delays and the launch is picture perfect.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/SpaceTalk101/?ref=share

Edited August 31, 2021 by Ser Scot A Ellison

[SpaceChampion]

Start-up rocket company Astra Space attempts to launch from Alaska, and it fails in a weird way, by sort of succeeding to get off the pad....  Ultimately it appears to start tumbling and the termination signal was sent to destroy it.
 

 

Edited August 28, 2021 by SpaceChampion

[SpaceChampion]

Cargo flight to ISS.  90th successful booster landing, and 1st landing on the new droneship, A Shortfall of Gravitas.

Edited August 29, 2021 by SpaceChampion

[Fragile Bird]

I was just flipping through my Facebook feed and there is a story saying Russian astronauts have found “more cracks” in the International Space Station.

[ithanos]

On 8/27/2021 at 1:14 AM, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

So… they’re starting to package up the James Webb Space telescope for its scheduled November launch date.  I have been waiting for this one for a long time.  

I really hope there are no further delays and the launch is picture perfect.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/SpaceTalk101/?ref=share

For us laypeople praying for the successful deployment and installation of the James Webb Space Telescope, here's a great interview with one of the project scientists, Dr Klaus Pontippidan. JPG's one of my favourite science communicators and his own channel and this Event Horizon channel are worth subscribing to.

 

Can be enjoyed as an audio only podcast, but the video is quite complementary.
My takeaways from it;
- we got about six months after actual launch before we get to do any science with Webb.
- Once out there, everything has to work, no maintenance visits like Hubble got.
- Cannot, cannot get too excited until Webb is in JWST L2 orbit and fully operational - cross fingers and toes everyone!

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

9 hours ago, ithanos said:

For us laypeople praying for the successful deployment and installation of the James Webb Space Telescope, here's a great interview with one of the project scientists, Dr Klaus Pontippidan. JPG's one of my favourite science communicators and his own channel and this Event Horizon channel are worth subscribing to.

 

Can be enjoyed as an audio only podcast, but the video is quite complementary.
My takeaways from it;
- we got about six months after actual launch before we get to do any science with Webb.
- Once out there, everything has to work, no maintenance visits like Hubble got.
- Cannot, cannot get too excited until Webb is in JWST L2 orbit and fully operational - cross fingers and toes everyone!

If we get a base up and running on Luna… can maintenance be an option?

[maarsen]

3 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

If we get a base up and running on Luna… can maintenance be an option?

The Lagrange points are a long way from both the moon and Earth. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

5 minutes ago, maarsen said:

The Lagrange points are a long way from both the moon and Earth. 

The pod cast also makes the point that even if we can get in range the Webb simply isn’t designed to be serviced the way the Hubble is.

[SpaceChampion]

Interesting article about the Inspiration4 mission that will be launched by SpaceX in a few weeks.  The Dragon capsule will be sent to a higher orbit than any human has gone in 15 years.  They're aiming for an orbit with a 590km apogee.

The article is mainly about the medical experiments/physiological measurements their Medical Officer will be doing.

[ithanos]

11 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

If we get a base up and running on Luna… can maintenance be an option?

My understanding is that the limiting factor, for any human astronaut engagement with the JWST at L2, is temperature. Current spacesuits aren't rated for 50 Kelvin. So once that was factored in, the JWST was designed accordingly - again, fingers crossed.