The Official Space Flight Thread - The Space Station and Beyond

Glaucus · 23 Apr 2014 at 20:13

Awesome, falcon 9 v1.1 touched down in the ocean with near zero velocity.

http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/s...overy-efforts-recent-ribbon-cutting-ceremony/

Seems they also located it yesterday.

Don't write the Falcon 9 First Stage off just yet.. US Coast Guard: "150 FOOT LONG ROCKET BOOSTER ADRIFT VICINITY 31-00N 076-00W"

I hope the next launch the sea isn't so rough and they can get some assets in the location and film it.

Next F9r to iss launch isn't till august, a few satellite launches in between, but if they are geo stationery. I believe the rocket isn't powerful enough to do both.

Cosimo · 24 Apr 2014 at 07:51

Men at work:

Job carried out successfully.

Cosimo · 24 Apr 2014 at 17:12

More work in progress and a shame that the video is dark:

A test version of Orion is dropped from a C-17, while flying 13,000 feet above the Arizona desert at the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground on April 23. The spacecraft is released from the airplane on a sled that moves it safely away. Then a series of programmer parachutes get it into position for the test before the three massive orange and white main parachutes deploy. This was the first parachute test to simulate a launch abort scenario.

Cosimo · 25 Apr 2014 at 07:02

Very impressive work in progress:

Cosimo · 25 Apr 2014 at 07:56

A unique bit of shuttle history:

Cosimo · 25 Apr 2014 at 15:11

Progress back at the station:

Glaucus · 25 Apr 2014 at 22:06

More news, spaces successfully "landed" the first stage, legs deployed as they should have and a successful "landing" took place.

A video off it to be posted in there website "soon" (what ever time frame that means). All though they have warned it's very low quality.

Cosimo · 26 Apr 2014 at 07:05

arknor · 27 Apr 2014 at 17:57

The Mars Underground - Pioneers for the Next World

Leading aerospace engineer and Mars Society President Dr. Robert Zubrin has a dream. He wants to get humans to the planet Mars in the next ten years.

Now, with the advent of a revolutionary plan, Mars Direct, Dr. Zubrin shows how we can use present day technology and natural resources on Mars to make human settlement possible. But can he win over the skeptics at NASA and the wider world?

The Mars Underground is a landmark documentary that follows Dr. Zubrin and his team as they try to bring this incredible dream to life. Through spellbinding animation, the film takes us on a daring first journey to the Red Planet and envisions a future Mars teeming with life and terraformed into a blue world.

A must-see experience for anyone concerned for our global future and the triumph of the human spirit.

Glaucus · 27 Apr 2014 at 19:08

Thanks watching now.

Why can't all these groups join together. The money is to split.

Either way I would put money on it being a spacex rocket making the first man landing.
Whether that's self funded, or external.

Although it'll be a while. Need SLS which is to expensive or a future spaceX rocket with the Raptor rocket motor for the direct mission.

Wonder what the weight needed for the semi direct mission is.

Cosimo · 28 Apr 2014 at 08:49

Russian Proton-M/Briz-M rocket launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome carrying the KazSat-3 and Luch-5V satellites:

Cosimo · 29 Apr 2014 at 17:28

A look at the next steps:

Cosimo · 30 Apr 2014 at 08:27

Launch of a Vega rocket with Kazakhstan's DZZ-HR imaging satellite from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana:

Cosimo · 1 May 2014 at 08:05

Looking good:

Glaucus · 1 May 2014 at 09:23

SpaceX release the landing video, far worse than you could imagine. It's totally garbled. Lets see what the web can do, but not holding my hopes up.

In an effort to see if the video can be improved further, below are links to both the original data file as well as the repaired source file. The file labeled “raw.ts” is an extraction of the raw MPEG bitstream from the rocket. Our software team attempted to repair the data, resulting in the “repair1.ts” file, and the partial video above. We welcome anyone to download the raw file to make improvements directly—if you are successful, please feel free to post your video at: http://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/24bsn2/first_stage_landing_video

Hey all, SpaceX team here. Just wanted to answer some frequently asked questions we've been getting:

Q: Why is the video so bad? A: This was recorded over a very lossy RF link.

Q: Why release the video? A: We've had some success here (and with a little outside help as well, see http://aeroquartet.com/) manually stitching the video back together, but it's time consuming work. We don't expect the video to be 100% recoverable but we're hoping folks out there with more MPEG expertise than we have can provide assistance recovering more of the video.

Q: What codec? Settings? A: MPEG 4 Part 2, P/I 15, 15fps, NTSC, fixed bitrate

Q: How did you create repair1.ts? A: This was a joint effort between us and an outside consultant. First we took a pass on the data to align every MPEG packet on a 188 byte boundary and set the packet start byte to 0x47. Then we identified blocks within keyframes that contain bit errors, and then manually flipping bits in those corrupt blocks to see if it recovers more of the image.

Q: What is a TS file? A: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=MPEG+TS

Feel free to post more questions here, we'll try and respond. We really appreciate all the help and great ideas! Thank you!!

http://www.spacex.com/news/2014/04/29/first-stage-landing-video

About the only thing you can see is that the landing legs where extended.

Glaucus · 1 May 2014 at 15:18

SpaceX wins a temporary injection which bans ULA from making purchases from Russia. Not that it makes much difference as ULA say they have a two year stock pile.

But it adds ,ore pressure for them to ditch the atlas V and open up launches to spaceX

This part is also intriguing, can a court even do that.

Lawmakers on Wednesday called for a program to develop a next-generation liquid-fuel rocket engine within five years, proposing legislation aimed at reducing U.S. dependence on Russian engines to launch military and spy satellites.

(Reuters) - A U.S. Court of Federal Claims judge issued an injunction late Wednesday prohibiting a joint venture between Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing from proceeding with plans to buy Russian-made rocket engines used to send U.S. Air Force satellites into space.

Space Exploration Technologies, the privately held company known as SpaceX, won the temporary injunction against the U.S. government and contractors Boeing and Lockheed operating as United Launch Alliance.

The U.S. Air Force and United Launch Alliance are prohibited "from making any purchases from or payment of money to NPO Energomash", Federal Claims Court Judge Susan Braden wrote in the order.

The preliminary injunction does not extend to any purchase orders placed or money paid to Russian rocket engine maker NPO Energomash prior to the date of the order.

Cosimo · 2 May 2014 at 14:50

ATV-5 is due to launch 25th July.

Cosimo · 2 May 2014 at 14:53

** The Official Space Flight Thread - The Space Station and Beyond **

The Official Space Flight Thread - The Space Station and Beyond