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

At least there's a Delta IV Heavy launching later tonight with a spooky NRO satellite.

4vt4Fvah.jpg
 
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Stream for the Delta IV launch, the last time one will be launched from the West Coast

EDIT - Ah you beat me to it by seconds :D
 
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There was yet another perfect SpaceX Falcon 9 launch (carrying 52 Starlink satellites) and booster recovery about 45 mins after the Delta IV launch so a busy night for space watchers!
 
Malevolence said:
Whenever there are blokes working on Starship and the boosters the sheer scale of the things never ceases to amaze me.
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As an engineer in heavy industry with some degree of fine tolerance plant I'm always amazed by the fact they drive the engines in on flatbeds and uses telehandlers to attach them to the rocket. The rockets are built in open fronted buildings. It speaks volumes about the technological maturity of the engineering that they can do that. I always assumed clean rooms or at least formula one pit levels of cleanliness would be necessary for every task and historically that seemed to be the case for other rocket companies. SpaceX have made the technology seemingly more robust and useable which is an impressive feat in and of itself.
 
What am I missing, but smashing a craft into an asteroid to deflect it doesn't seem like the hardest technical challenge we've done?

Is it harder than I'm thinking, am I just taking these things for granted now?
 
Freakbro said:
What am I missing, but smashing a craft into an asteroid to deflect it doesn't seem like the hardest technical challenge we've done?

Is it harder than I'm thinking, am I just taking these things for granted now?
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It wasn't a 'massive challenge', however NASA has never done it before. So they had no empirical evidence of the results of doing this. Presumably they have now.
 
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physics.aps.org

Countdown to DART Impact

In a first-of-its-kind test for planetary defense, NASA’s DART spacecraft is scheduled next week to crash into an asteroid and alter the celestial body’s course.
physics.aps.org physics.aps.org
For the DART team, which includes scientists from space agencies and research institutions around the world, the test has two parts: hitting Dimorphous and then deflecting its path. To hit its target, DART will need to autonomously identify the moonlet asteroid and then self-adjust its trajectory to keep on target. “[DART] won’t be able to distinguish between Didymous and Dimorphous until the last hour of the mission,” Chalbot said. At that time, the spacecraft will be too far from Earth for any course-adjusting signals to reach it before the countdown ends. Instead, DART will have to continuously snap images of the asteroids and then use algorithms onboard its computer to interpret those images and make the course adjustments needed to ensure an intercept.
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would be interesting to know how guidance system compares with a terrain following cruise missile,
eg. redundancy capability , like votiing system on some multi processing aircraft systems

e: what time did it really hit it - it was 7million miles away , sun is 93m , light takes 3/6? minutes to get here so why couldn't they have adjusted it in last hour (battery saving ? so comms irregular)
 
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Freakbro said:
What am I missing, but smashing a craft into an asteroid to deflect it doesn't seem like the hardest technical challenge we've done?

Is it harder than I'm thinking, am I just taking these things for granted now?
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I think it was far from easy. We've just got used to NASA pulling off missions with great success rates recently. Its still a small asteroid in orbit around another asteroid moving through space where they needed to hit it bullseye to get the best chance of deflecting its orbit.

This is the team speaking after the impact.

 
Freakbro said:
What am I missing, but smashing a craft into an asteroid to deflect it doesn't seem like the hardest technical challenge we've done?

Is it harder than I'm thinking, am I just taking these things for granted now?
Click to expand...
Think I read DART was golf cart sized, aiming for an asteroid the size of a pyramid, at 14,000mph in the vastness of space. I'm sure they've done more technically challenging missions but it's still impressive.
 
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