ptfrd

joined 2 years ago
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NG-23 Cygnus Back on Track, Arrives at ISS Tomorrow in c/spaceflight@sh.itjust.works
[–] ptfrd@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 days ago

Berthing video (not to be confused with a birthing video!)

P.S. What's the development on the ground that we see from 9:57 to 10:27?

Hans Koenigsmann and ESA's Michi Benthaus (a paraplegic) discuss planned New Shephard flight (DE, with subtitles in EN & ES) in c/spaceflight@sh.itjust.works
[–] ptfrd@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 days ago

Yes, I was just wondering whether he is a billionaire. How many SpaceX billionaires there might be. Etc. I'm guessing we're talking a net worth of more like 9 digits than 10, though.

Hans Koenigsmann and ESA's Michi Benthaus (a paraplegic) discuss planned New Shephard flight (DE, with subtitles in EN & ES) in c/spaceflight@sh.itjust.works
[–] ptfrd@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 days ago

Around 13:20 they talk about some kind of secret, which I don't understand. Maybe just the flight date? (Which is still secret according to this comment)

Around 13:30 "Hans it's not actually official yet that you're on this flight ...". "Das ist [true, it's a bit like] Forcing Function Funf". I don't know what "Forcing Function Funf" might be! (Also 25:32 "You haven't officially announced that you're flying yet")

Around 19:19 Benthaus mentions a convo with Alexander Gerst

Hans Koenigsmann and ESA's Michi Benthaus (a paraplegic) discuss planned New Shephard flight (DE, with subtitles in EN & ES) in c/spaceflight@sh.itjust.works
Hans Koenigsmann and ESA's Michi Benthaus (a paraplegic) discuss planned New Shephard flight (DE, with subtitles in EN & ES) in c/spaceflight@sh.itjust.works
[–] ptfrd@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 days ago (2 children)

I wonder how long they've been waiting, whether they jumped the queue, how long the queue actually is, etc.. And are they paying? If not, wouldn't the paying customers get a bit annoyed?

(Haven’t actually watched the interview yet.)

8
Hans Koenigsmann and ESA's Michi Benthaus (a paraplegic) discuss planned New Shephard flight (DE, with subtitles in EN & ES) (www.youtube.com)
 

Welcome to SENKRECHTSTARTER! Today, I'm talking to Michi Benthaus (ESA, Mars Atmosphere/GNC) and Hans Königsmann (former SpaceX, “father of Falcon 9 & Dragon”) about their planned Blue Origin flight with New Shepard. Michi would be the first paraplegic person to cross the Kármán line (~100 km)

I'm not sure which mission they're allocated to. (Haven't actually watched the interview yet.) Obviously not NS-35 as that was a couple of hours ago (and unmanned). This list on Wikipedia doesn't currently have entries for NS-36 or any subsequent missions.

[Stephen Clark] Northrop Grumman’s new spacecraft is a real chonker in c/spaceflight@sh.itjust.works
[–] ptfrd@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 days ago

Such a chonker that it'll have to be temporarily moved out of the way during a Soyuz approach in a couple of months?

Maybe ... I'm actually not sure if this is something that they'd have to do even with a smaller vehicle. Anyway, here are the basic details:

Cygnus will be briefly unberthed from the space station using the outpost’s robotic arm during the approach and docking of a crewed Russian Soyuz craft on Nov. 27.

“Cygnus is berthed to node one nadir and that’s close to the corridor for Soyuz rendezvous,” Dina Contella, the deputy manager of NASA’s ISS Program, explained during a prelaunch briefing. “So, when Soyuz is coming into dock at the SUV MRM (Mini-Research Module) one port, we’d like for safety’s sake to unberth Cygnus and hold it away from the Russian segment.”

Alternatively, mission managers might decide to fill the module with as much trash as possible and release it before the arrival of Soyuz MS-28, she said.

Now, the above quote is immediately preceded in the article by "Because of its increased size ...". But I didn't notice that point being made explicitly during said pre-launch briefing. The two relevant sections are 9:40 - 10:25 and 33:51 - 35:18. At 34:47 she simply says, "Just to be on the safe side, we're trying to keep the neighbouring port free."

Blue Origin NS-33 Launch Thread (take 2) in c/spaceflight@sh.itjust.works
[–] ptfrd@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 month ago

The video is now unavailable. Maybe I'm right, and that's why they took it down?

Blue Origin NS-33 Launch Thread (take 2) in c/spaceflight@sh.itjust.works
[–] ptfrd@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The capsule landed pretty close to the booster!: https://youtu.be/JH4_bghcTjg?t=41m15s (41:15)

I'm guessing this is not supposed to happen?

Either way, I wonder how close the capsule would have to be before it would have led to a significant delay in the passengers being allowed to exit. Ground crew having to maintain their distance until booster 'safing' was complete, etc.

Blue Origin launches all-woman New Shepard suborbital flight in c/spaceflight@sh.itjust.works
[–] ptfrd@sh.itjust.works 3 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Is Katy Perry now the most famous person to have ever been to outer space? Better known than Neil Armstrong is/was?

RFA and SaxaVord target UK's first vertical orbital launch - NASASpaceFlight.com in c/spaceflight@sh.itjust.works
[–] ptfrd@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

target UK's first vertical orbital launch

And I think, more to the point, its first successful orbital launch.

And very plausibly (I think), depending on what else happens this year, they could be targeting Western Europe's first successful orbital launch.

Rocket Report: Next Starship flight to reuse booster; FAA clears New Glenn in c/spaceflight@sh.itjust.works
[–] ptfrd@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 months ago

Atlas can carry 27 Kuiper satellites

Bit of a coincidence that 27 is also the number of Starlink satellites that Falcon 9 currently seems to be launching (out of Vandenberg) each time.

Where SkyHopper Fits into ArianeGroup’s Reusability Efforts in c/spaceflight@sh.itjust.works
[–] ptfrd@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Saw the headline, then it took me a couple of seconds to decide that this probably wasn't some kind of SpaceX collaboration.

The SpaceX hoppers were actually:

  • grasshopper for testing Falcon 9 landings
  • starhopper - what people call the first vehicle to fly with Raptor engine(s)
8
NASA knew that Boe-CFT Starliner couldn't return autonomously without significant delay (youtu.be)
 

A Youtuber called Ellie in Space claims that a NASA source sent her the following message. It was in response to a question about when NASA knew that the Boe-CFT mission's Starliner vehicle would not be able to undock and return to Earth autonomously without being reconfigured.

So if you want to know when??? Well always, but it wasn't a reasonable consideration to retain the unmanned Starliner capsule software to work in the manned version of the capsule as a contingency. Would you call that a mistake?? Maybe, but let's think about the need to really ever plan to send folks up to space and leave them there with no way to fly home... they would always chose to risk the ride vs having no way home.

No one really considered this very unique and dynamic situation would happen.

Background

I believe this issue was first brought to light by Eric Berger.

Regardless, sources described the process to update the software on Starliner as "non-trivial" and "significant," and that it could take up to four weeks. This is what is driving the delay to launch Crew 9 later next month.

A couple of days later, NASA held a press teleconference in which they emphasized that what was needed was merely a "data load", not a software change. But they indicated timelines that do seem consistent with the "up to four weeks" claim by Berger's source.

My questions

Aren't there several realistic scenarios where you'd want to undock a crew vehicle, without its crew (or at least without them being in a fit state to operate the vehicle), in less than 4 weeeks?

Can Crew Dragon do it? Soyuz?

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