The Official Space Flight Thread - The Space Station and Beyond

Cosimo · 18 Nov 2011 at 12:26

China's Shenzhou-8 spacecraft successfully docked with the mini space lab module Tiangong-1 for the second time on Monday (14th)

and returned safely to earth yesterday:

Cosimo · 19 Nov 2011 at 09:57

The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission flight readiness review meeting yesterday gave the “go” to continue working towards launch at 15:25 GMT (10:25 EST) next Friday, November 25th.

So let our countdown begin:

Cosimo · 20 Nov 2011 at 11:42

MSL has been delayed one day so that a safety system battery in the booster can be replaced. The launch is rescheduled for Saturday, November 26th at 15:02 GMT (10:02 EST).

bowey · 20 Nov 2011 at 12:40

simulatorman said:
MSL has been delayed one day so that a safety system battery in the booster can be replaced. The launch is rescheduled for Saturday, November 26th at 15:02 GMT (10:02 EST).

this is exciting stuff, just watched the videos. A 1 billion usd project ouch

LoGaN_TnT · 20 Nov 2011 at 13:04

This is very very exciting lol :cool:

PermaBanned · 21 Nov 2011 at 20:36

Cosimo · 22 Nov 2011 at 10:08

Expedition 29 Commander Mike Fossum, Flight Engineers Satoshi Furukawa and Sergei Volkov have successfully landed their Soyuz TMA-02M spacecraft on the steppe of Kazakhstan at 02:26 GMT this morning, completing a five and a half month stay in space.

Cosimo · 22 Nov 2011 at 10:20

.... and some video highlights:

Cosimo · 22 Nov 2011 at 11:23

The astronomical window for Phobos-Grunt to land is now closed although it could still fly to Mars if recovered. The next window of opportunity to attempt the mission will be in 2014.

The time period when the lost Phobos-Ground interplanetary space station could be sent to Mars ends on Monday, November 21. There will be no sense in the attempts to establish connection with the spacecraft afterwards, a source at the Russian space industry told RIA Novosti. Even if the connection with Phobos-Ground is established after November 21, the station will not be able to fly to Mars, the source told the news agency.

"The solar batteries of the spacecraft have unfolded. Phobos-Ground is oriented at the Sun, and the ballistic window of the craft to fly to Mars is restricted with the date of November 21st," the source said.

Vladimir Popovkin, the head of Russia's Federal Space Agency Roskosmos, previously said that Phobos-Ground had not been lost. According to the official, the station will remain on orbit before the beginning of January. It would be possible to rehabilitate the spacecraft before the beginning of January, Popovkin said.

http://english.pravda.ru/russia/economics/21-11-2011/119687-phobos_ground-0/

More:

http://en.ria.ru/analysis/20111122/168929741.html

Cosimo · 22 Nov 2011 at 13:56

Got to be the picture of the month and the way to come home:

Expedition 29 Crew Lands

Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Cosimo · 22 Nov 2011 at 13:59

It's time to really get excited about MSL and look forward to launch on Saturday, November 26th at 15:02 GMT (10:02 EST).

SteveOBHave · 22 Nov 2011 at 14:14

That thing is a beast!!! Going to be unbelievably sweet if it makes it there.

PermaBanned · 22 Nov 2011 at 17:50

simulatorman said:
The astronomical window for Phobos-Grunt to land is now closed although it could still fly to Mars if recovered. The next window of opportunity to attempt the mission will be in 2014.

Is recovery an option? From what i gathered it isn't in a stable orbit, and would re-enter within a few months?

Cosimo · 22 Nov 2011 at 18:05

PermaBanned said:
Is recovery an option? From what i gathered it isn't in a stable orbit, and would re-enter within a few months?

It is a fall-back possibility. The launch window for Mars is supposed to span November and December so in the very unlikely scenario of it being connected again it would be a possibility to go to Mars but obviously not to Phobos as that window is now shut. In reality all must be considered lost and it will fall back to earth anytime between late December 2011 and February 2012.

Cosimo · 23 Nov 2011 at 10:56

The European Space Agency has said that a ground station in Australia heard signals from Phobos-Grunt so all may not yet be lost:

The European Space Operations Centre (Esoc) in Darmstadt reports that the contact was made at 2025 GMT on Tuesday. A spokesman said some modifications had been to the 15m dish facility in Perth to improve its chances of getting a signal.

He confirmed that telemetry from Phobos-Grunt was received, and that this data was passed straight to the Russians

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15850516

http://en.rian.ru/science/20111123/168964040.html

Cosimo · 23 Nov 2011 at 14:16

Grab a drink, put on the headphones and relax for a few minutes:

Cosimo · 24 Nov 2011 at 08:10

The “GO” has been given for MSL launch on Saturday, November 26th at 15:02 GMT (10:02 EST). The forecast is 70% favourable for launch.

ic1male · 25 Nov 2011 at 18:47

This might be the silliest of questions but now that video communication is easy peasy from one side of the Earth to the other, what would it take to be able to get live video from the MSL on Mars? Do they need some sort of comms satellite in Mars orbit to do it?

PermaBanned · 25 Nov 2011 at 18:55

Define live

It takes light anywhere between 3 and 20 minutes to reach Earth from Mars depending on how close they are. You could probably do it with good enough compression and low enough resolution through the satellites we already have there (Mars Express/MRO) which have quite impressive data rates, but then we might loose out on some actually important data. This could be relevant:

http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/m9ste/how_long_would_it_take_to_uploaddownload_1_gig_of/

ic1male · 25 Nov 2011 at 18:56

PermaBanned said:
Define live

LOL, perhaps I should have said 'streaming video'.

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

The Official Space Flight Thread - The Space Station and Beyond