The Official Space Flight Thread - The Space Station and Beyond

Cosimo · 19 Jun 2015 at 09:13

The next Sentinel earth monitoring satellite being prepared for launch aboard a Vega VV05 rocket:

Launch will be from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana on 23rd June at 02:52 BST.

Cosimo · 20 Jun 2015 at 08:50

Glaucus · 20 Jun 2015 at 15:34

Mp4 said:
Any space missions that are worth waiting for? Landings etc

Do you upcoming stuff that is worth following?

If so new horizon will flyby Pluto on July 14, when we will finally see what Pluto looks like un pixilated, that probably the biggest thing.

Rosetta/philea is still worth following as Philea just woke up again. Closest approach to sun in august.

Dawn has already entered Ceres orbit but we still don't know what the light spots in the creator are. so worth following hopefully they'll figure it out.

Akatsuki has a chance to enter Venus orbit in November.

LISA Pathfinder is scheduled to launch in 2015, can't find any more about launch schedule. It's a gravitational wave detector.

And off course SpaceX will continue to try to land a first stage on a barge, next attempt 28th June.

easyrider · 20 Jun 2015 at 15:43

Some great pics in this thread

Cosimo · 23 Jun 2015 at 07:27

Toaday's launch of Sentinel-2A aboard a Vega rocket:

Cosimo · 23 Jun 2015 at 17:35

The Rosetta mission which was due to end this year has now been funded for another nine months until the end of September 2016. At which time they will most likely land Rosetta on the comet:

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Rosetta_mission_extended

Cosimo · 24 Jun 2015 at 13:29

A Soyuz 2-1B rocket launches from Russia’s Plesetsk Cosmodrome with the Persona-3 spy satellite:

Cosimo · 27 Jun 2015 at 08:15

Cosimo · 28 Jun 2015 at 07:05

SpaceX CRS-7 resupply mission launch is live here at 15:21 BST:

Glaucus · 28 Jun 2015 at 08:47

Can't wait, more for the landing attempt.

They've fixed three issues(installed grid fins as first attempted span, second attempt fins ran out of hydraulic fluid, so they've increase that by 50%, last attempt a sticky fuel valve which they've made improvements to), but I think they may find more issues before finally pulling it off.

Glaucus · 28 Jun 2015 at 15:21

And we have lift off

Glaucus · 28 Jun 2015 at 15:25

No, launch vehicle failure.

mid_gen · 28 Jun 2015 at 15:28

Yeah I was watching.....broke up a couple of minutes after launch.

bartledvd · 28 Jun 2015 at 15:30

Was looking good for first couple mins

Glaucus · 28 Jun 2015 at 15:33

I didn't hear max q? (anyone else), and they are not sure if it broke up or if that was range abort yet.

Edit - seems to have happened just before meco.

mid_gen · 28 Jun 2015 at 15:47

They said they passed max q, it was within 10-20 seconds of it though.

Glaucus · 28 Jun 2015 at 16:02

Video, skip to 23:00 which is just a few seconds before it goes wrong.

Jokester · 28 Jun 2015 at 16:43

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33305389

Was a more interesting break up than usual if there can be such a thing.

Seems to be a bit of bad streak recently with launch failures.

Edit: Looks like the O2 tank or something ruptured, well before it actually broke up.

Glaucus · 28 Jun 2015 at 16:51

What an odd cause, how does that even happen.

Elon Musk ‏@elonmusk · 1m1 minute ago
There was an overpressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank. Data suggests counterintuitive cause.

Glaucus · 28 Jun 2015 at 18:07

dang had some pretty important hardware on their, had the new commercial crew docking ring and space suit amongst others.
Also got to feel sorry for the Meteor Composition Determination guys, that's the second loss, the first one was on the antares failure.

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

The Official Space Flight Thread - The Space Station and Beyond