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

[Mobius 1]

5mins to go, looks so wrong with just one booster.

As for em drive posted a link a bit up about NASA peer review. If it works it will be amazing. But its still an if.

I'll take a look at the link!


Not getting my hopes up, but this would be an incredible breakthrough if it turns out it does work.

 

[Cosimo]

A look at Rosetta’s scientific highlights before the orbiter shuts down operations and joins Philae on the surface of the comet on September 30th:

 

[Cosimo]

This week:

 

[Cosimo]

One big step forward as Virgin Galactic VSS Unity’s first flight test is completed:

More:

http://www.virgingalactic.com/update-from-mojave-vss-unitys-first-flight-test-completed/

 

[Cosimo]

Blue Origin, the space project of Amazon's Jeff Bezos, has unveiled its next rocket: the New Glenn.

Billionaire entrepreneur Jeff Bezos announced this morning (Sept. 12) a massive new reusable rocket family in development for his private spaceflight company Blue Origin. The rocket, called New Glenn, will be used to launch satellites and people into space, according to Bezos.

In a newsletter from Blue Origin, Bezos unveiled an artist's concept of two- and three-stage versions of the New Glenn rocket. Both will stand taller than SpaceX's Falcon Heavy and United Launch Alliance's Delta IV Heavy, and the three-stage approaches the stature of NASA's Saturn V that boosted humans to the moon.

The New Glenn rockets are named for the first American to orbit Earth, John Glenn, and the design draws on what Blue Origin has learned from its reusable booster, New Shepard. That rocket has successfully launched into suborbital space and landed four times from West Texas since November 2015. New Shepard's next test, announced Sept. 8, will be an in-flight abort test to eject the rocket's crew capsule. (New Shepard is named for Alan Shepard, the first American in space.) [Blue Origin's Private Spaceships in Photos]

New Glenn is a step forward in bulkiness and range, and its three-stage version will be able to fly missions beyond low-Earth orbit, Bezos said.

"New Glenn is 23 feet [7 meters] in diameter and lifts off with 3.85 million pounds of thrust from seven BE-4 engines," Bezos wrote in the statement. "Burning liquefied natural gas and liquid oxygen, these are the same BE-4 engines that will power United Launch Alliance's new Vulcan rocket.

"The two-stage New Glenn is 270 feet [82 m] tall, and its second stage is powered by a single, vacuum-optimized BE-4 engine," he added. "The three-stage New Glenn is 313 feet [95 m] tall. A single, vacuum-optimized BE-3 engine, burning liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, powers its third stage. The booster and the second stage are identical in both variants."

While New Shepard launches from Texas, New Glenn will launch from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, which hosted launches of Atlas rockets from 1962 to 2005. Blue Origin just broke ground on a 750,000-square-foot [70,000 square meters] rocket-manufacturing facility nearby for New Glenn. Bezos said that the new rocket should launch for the first time within the decade.

"Our vision is millions of people living and working in space, and New Glenn is a very important step," Bezos said. "Up next on our drawing board: New
Armstrong," Bezos teased, referencing Neil Armstrong, the first human to walk on the moon. "But that’s a story for the future."

----------------

Blue Origin's New Shepard suborbital vehicle is set for its next flight in early October to demonstrate its critical In-Flight Abort capability.

 

[Cosimo]

ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen on first flight in earth orbit, the permanent inhabitation of space on the ISS and to future exploration of our solar system:

 

[Cosimo]

This week:

 

[Glaucus]

And yet another rocket to compete with the over priced, senate jobs program that is the SLS.

 

[Cosimo]

Expedition 49-50 Soyuz Commander Sergey Ryzhikov and Flight Engineer Andrey Borisenko of Roscosmos and Flight Engineer Shane Kimbrough of NASA along with their backups, Alexander Misurkin and Nikolai Tikhonov of Roscosmos and Flight Engineer Mark Vande Hei of NASA prepare for launch on the 24th:

 

[Cosimo]

ESA scientists and engineers on exploring the universe:

 

[Cosimo]

Rosetta's journey will end on 30th September when it will touch down on Comet 67P/C-G.

The last orbits around the comet:

The animation begins in early August, when the spacecraft started flying elliptical orbits that brought it progressively closer to the comet at its closest approach.

On 24 September 2016, Rosetta will leave its current close, flyover orbits and transfer into the start of a 16 x 23 km orbit that will be used to prepare and line up for the final descent.

On the evening of 29 September (20:50 GMT) Rosetta will manoeuvre onto a collision course with the comet, beginning the descent from an altitude of 19 km. The spacecraft will fall freely, without further manoeuvres, collecting scientific data during the descent.

The trajectory shown here was created from real data provided over the last month, but may not necessarily follow the exact comet distance because of natural deviations from the comet’s gravity and outgassing.

On 24 September 2016, Rosetta will leave a close flyover orbit and transfer into the start of a 16 x 23 km orbit that will be used to prepare and line up for the final descent. In the evening of 29 September (20:50 GMT) Rosetta will manoeuvre onto a collision course with the comet, beginning the descent from an altitude of 19 km. The spacecraft will fall freely, without further manoeuvres, collecting scientific data during the descent.

The trajectory shown in this animation is created from real data provided in the last month, but may not necessarily follow the exact distance/time details because of natural deviations in the trajectory associated with the comet’s gravity and outgassing.

More:

http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/09/16/beginning-of-the-end/

 

[Glaucus]

here's another collectable for you cosmo.
https://www.kickstarter.com/project...ecord-40th-anniversary-edition?ref=nav_search

and people don't forget Wednesday at 7:30pm livestream of spaceX mars plans.

 

[Cosimo]

This week:

 

[Cosimo]

here's another collectable for you cosmo.
https://www.kickstarter.com/project...ecord-40th-anniversary-edition?ref=nav_search

and people don't forget Wednesday at 7:30pm livestream of spaceX mars plans.

Been trying to lay my hands on one of these for many moons without any luck! Thanks for this.

 

[Cosimo]

SpaceX update on the Falcon 9 rocket failure three weeks ago which they believe to have been caused by a helium system breach:

Below are updates regarding the anomaly that occurred in preparation for the AMOS-6 mission:

September 23, 1:00pm EDT

Three weeks ago, SpaceX experienced an anomaly at our Launch Complex 40 (LC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. This resulted in the loss of one of our Falcon 9 rockets and its payload.

The Accident Investigation Team (AIT), composed of SpaceX, the FAA, NASA, the U.S. Air Force, and industry experts, are currently scouring through approximately 3,000 channels of engineering data along with video, audio and imagery. The timeline of the event is extremely short – from first signs of an anomaly to loss of data is about 93 milliseconds or less than 1/10th of a second. The majority of debris from the incident has been recovered, photographed, labeled and catalogued, and is now in a hangar for inspection and use during the investigation.

At this stage of the investigation, preliminary review of the data and debris suggests that a large breach in the cryogenic helium system of the second stage liquid oxygen tank took place. [Updated 09/24: At this time, the cause of the potential breach remains unknown.] All plausible causes are being tracked in an extensive fault tree and carefully investigated. Through the fault tree and data review process, we have exonerated any connection with last year’s CRS-7 mishap.

The teams have continued inspections of LC-40 and the surrounding facilities. While substantial areas of the pad systems were affected, the Falcon Support Building adjacent to the pad was unaffected, and per standard procedure was unoccupied at the time of the anomaly. The new liquid oxygen farm – e.g. the tanks and plumbing that hold our super-chilled liquid oxygen – was unaffected and remains in good working order. The RP-1 (kerosene) fuel farm was also largely unaffected. The pad’s control systems are also in relatively good condition.

SpaceX’s other facilities, from the Payload Processing Facility at the Cape, to the pad and hangar at LC-39A, are located several miles from LC-40 and were unaffected as well. Work continues at Pad 39A in preparation for bringing it online in November. The teams have been in contact with our Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center partners and neighbors and have found no evidence of debris leaving the immediate area of LC-40.

At SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, CA, our manufacturing and production is continuing in a methodical manner, with teams continuing to build engines, tanks, and other systems as they are exonerated from the investigation. We will work to resume our manifest as quickly as responsible once the cause of the anomaly has been identified by the Accident Investigation Team. Pending the results of the investigation, we anticipate returning to flight as early as the November timeframe.

Other efforts, including the Commercial Crew Program with NASA, are continuing to progress. Getting back to flight safely and reliably is our top priority, and the data gathered from the present investigation will result in an even safer and more reliable vehicle for our customers and partners.

 

[Glaucus]

spaceX has test fired the raptor engine for the first time.

SpaceX propulsion just achieved first firing of the Raptor interplanetary transport engine

Chamber pressure is almost 3X Merlin, so engine is about the same size for a given area ratio"
"Production Raptor goal is specific impulse of 382 seconds and thrust of 3 MN (~310 metric tons) at 300 bar"

tomorrow is going to be good.

 

[Khrest]

This whole week will be good. NASA big announcement regarding Europa tonight, SpaceX and Elon's master plan tomorrow and then Rosetta lands on 67p at the end of the week.

 

[Glaucus]

thanks, totally forgot about the nasa announcement.

 

[Cosimo]

Animation visualising Rosetta's descent to Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko on 30 September 2016.

 

[Cosimo]

Rosetta's science findings: