The thread for space cadets!
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r16
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ı won't claim any actual expertise but can be given rather spartan background to follow any conversation . Pretty sure it was in the Air International and before Lockmart pressed on , with Washington DC backing , everything on that magazine could be counted on to be true . So , the tiles are supposed to be of Lockmart but can not be counted on to provide the issue number , page number and stuff . The shuttle could have been North American but they couldn't get away with burning Apollo astronauts is kinda of what ı excel in . And never surprised in being like challenged for this elsewhere elsewhere .
uhm , Lockmart . You are never allowed to have a better idea . Even if no one can be "pushed" to sig this .
hobbsyoyo
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News Round Up
The Russians launched a rocket from their new cosmodrome for only the second time and it wound up in the ocean. This continues the long string of Russian launch failures going back 15+ years. I've said it before but I'll say it again, Russian quality control and mission assurance in their aerospace industry has taken a nose dive since the fall of the USSR. Nationalization of their space industry was supposed to have fixed this but it seems like the only thing it did was accelerate the plundering of this industry by wealthy autocrats.
I'm not sure if this is the same type of Soyuz rocket that launches people to the ISS though it's at least a related variant. I wonder how long the return to flight will be for them this time.
Also, a Canadian start up launched the first 2 of 100 satellites in a proposed Earth-observation satellite constellation on this rocket.
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A British start up revealed they are working on a small satellite launch vehicle but gave away no hard facts on the proposed booster. They wouldn't even say what type of fuel it is to use.
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Luxembourg is doubling-down on their space investments. It's already one of the biggest investors in space companies and they have moved to regulate and create a legal framework for asteroid mining.
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Sweden wants to convert a sounding rocket launch site into a full orbital launch site for polar orbits.
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Sierra Nevada completed drop/glide tests on their new uncrewed spaceplane. The actual model they dropped was an earlier variant intended for crewed use but it's very similar to the one they are building to resupply the ISS.
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XCOR Aerospace has filed for bankruptcy. They had been doing good work on their Lynx suborbital tourism rocket but they tied themselves to Lockheed Martin/ULA to develop upper-stage engines and when Lockheed pulled that funding suddenly and unexpectedly, they went under.
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Finally, I can't find links right now but both Scotland and Canada are in the early stages of setting up rocket launch sites.
The Russians launched a rocket from their new cosmodrome for only the second time and it wound up in the ocean. This continues the long string of Russian launch failures going back 15+ years. I've said it before but I'll say it again, Russian quality control and mission assurance in their aerospace industry has taken a nose dive since the fall of the USSR. Nationalization of their space industry was supposed to have fixed this but it seems like the only thing it did was accelerate the plundering of this industry by wealthy autocrats.
I'm not sure if this is the same type of Soyuz rocket that launches people to the ISS though it's at least a related variant. I wonder how long the return to flight will be for them this time.
Also, a Canadian start up launched the first 2 of 100 satellites in a proposed Earth-observation satellite constellation on this rocket.
Spoiler :
---------
A British start up revealed they are working on a small satellite launch vehicle but gave away no hard facts on the proposed booster. They wouldn't even say what type of fuel it is to use.
---------
Luxembourg is doubling-down on their space investments. It's already one of the biggest investors in space companies and they have moved to regulate and create a legal framework for asteroid mining.
--------
Sweden wants to convert a sounding rocket launch site into a full orbital launch site for polar orbits.
--------
Sierra Nevada completed drop/glide tests on their new uncrewed spaceplane. The actual model they dropped was an earlier variant intended for crewed use but it's very similar to the one they are building to resupply the ISS.
Spoiler :
--------
XCOR Aerospace has filed for bankruptcy. They had been doing good work on their Lynx suborbital tourism rocket but they tied themselves to Lockheed Martin/ULA to develop upper-stage engines and when Lockheed pulled that funding suddenly and unexpectedly, they went under.
--------
Finally, I can't find links right now but both Scotland and Canada are in the early stages of setting up rocket launch sites.
Is it not much more efficient to launch from near the equator than near the poles?
I think that depends on the kind of orbit you want to achieve. For an equatorial orbit in the direction of Earth's rotation you want to start near the equator. But I would guess that for a polar orbit, starting near the equator wouldn't help that much, or might actually be less efficient than starting from further north (or south).
hobbsyoyo
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What Uppi said.
The Russians do not have great access to the equator for launches. Plus most of what they put up are military satellites (they do next to nothing for science compared to the glory days) which require polar or molniya orbits, both of which can be launched from high latitudes.
They can launch from french Guyana but only for commercial and science missions they launch on behalf of the Europeans.
Edit: Crap I thought the question was about Vostochny, not Sweden and Scotland. Anyways a good chunk (maybe half or more) of launches go to polar orbit because they are great for observing the Earth.
Edit 2: Launching from the equator to a polar orbit would usually require a plane change maneuver to avoid flying over popular areas from most equatorial launch sites. So you might as well set up a dedicated polar launch site in CA or AK or Siberia where you don't have to worry about flying over stuff and this can launch bigger payloads. Plane changes in low orbits take a ton of fuel. Even going to GEO from say FL incurs a hefty penalty
The Russians do not have great access to the equator for launches. Plus most of what they put up are military satellites (they do next to nothing for science compared to the glory days) which require polar or molniya orbits, both of which can be launched from high latitudes.
They can launch from french Guyana but only for commercial and science missions they launch on behalf of the Europeans.
Edit: Crap I thought the question was about Vostochny, not Sweden and Scotland. Anyways a good chunk (maybe half or more) of launches go to polar orbit because they are great for observing the Earth.
Edit 2: Launching from the equator to a polar orbit would usually require a plane change maneuver to avoid flying over popular areas from most equatorial launch sites. So you might as well set up a dedicated polar launch site in CA or AK or Siberia where you don't have to worry about flying over stuff and this can launch bigger payloads. Plane changes in low orbits take a ton of fuel. Even going to GEO from say FL incurs a hefty penalty
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The Russians were involved when you launched your post.
hobbsyoyo
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hahaha
It is frustrating because I put a good 10 minutes into getting all the links into the post and now there is no trace of them.
hobbsyoyo
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So the US/New Zealand company Rocket Labs is gearing up for their second launch.
Their first launch failed after stage separation when the ground link got corrupted and the rocket commanded itself to shut down. Everything looked great until that point and I assume the second launch will be a success. It's worth pointing out while they still classify this as a test launch (the rocket is called 'It's Still A Test') they are confident enough in it to include paying customer payloads.
I really hope this company does well because dedicated CubeSat launches are very rare and usually very expensive. Ridesharing has lots of limitations and problems for CubeSats.
Their first launch failed after stage separation when the ground link got corrupted and the rocket commanded itself to shut down. Everything looked great until that point and I assume the second launch will be a success. It's worth pointing out while they still classify this as a test launch (the rocket is called 'It's Still A Test') they are confident enough in it to include paying customer payloads.
I really hope this company does well because dedicated CubeSat launches are very rare and usually very expensive. Ridesharing has lots of limitations and problems for CubeSats.
Broken_Erika
Play with me.
Why not?
Because I doubt that Teslas are assembled in such a way to survive the forces during launch without being torn apart. Having a bunch of lose debris on a spacecraft is usually not a good thing.
hobbsyoyo
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A sine sweep will tell you what frequencies it resonates at. There are shaker tables large enough to do this. When you know the fundamental frequencies and the major secondaries (if any to speak of), you can damp them without a ton of trouble. This is especially so since the rocket has the lifting capacity to throw at damping.
Accelerations will be much higher than what a highway Tesla sees but likely within margins given they are designed to take major impacts and are among the best at it. And again, you would just reinforce the thrust axis if you really needed to given the spare lift capacity.
Not that this would be a cakewalk but the lunar lander was a far more fragile payload than a Tesla. Most satellites are, come to think of it. There will be adaptations but nothing that organization couldn't handle.
And they have to get good at throwing awkward payloads anyways so it's worth the effort they will expend on adapting it. The BFS will have a major manned compliment and it's hard to provide a decent living space, optimum structural integrity and mass distribution at the same time.
Edit: And every payload gets a semi- to highly- customized attachment fitting already as well (for all rockets, not just falcons).
Edit 2: Tesla already knows the fundamental frequencies so that part is already done. You can't build a nice car without that information.
Accelerations will be much higher than what a highway Tesla sees but likely within margins given they are designed to take major impacts and are among the best at it. And again, you would just reinforce the thrust axis if you really needed to given the spare lift capacity.
Not that this would be a cakewalk but the lunar lander was a far more fragile payload than a Tesla. Most satellites are, come to think of it. There will be adaptations but nothing that organization couldn't handle.
And they have to get good at throwing awkward payloads anyways so it's worth the effort they will expend on adapting it. The BFS will have a major manned compliment and it's hard to provide a decent living space, optimum structural integrity and mass distribution at the same time.
Edit: And every payload gets a semi- to highly- customized attachment fitting already as well (for all rockets, not just falcons).
Edit 2: Tesla already knows the fundamental frequencies so that part is already done. You can't build a nice car without that information.
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A road legal automobile has to be immensely stronger than what it would be experiencing during normal use. For over the course of it's life it has to experience that many 1000s of times. Not just that, but the car has to be physically tough enough so that the passengers survive collisions. Whether it is the car hitting something in front of it, or something to the rear of a car hitting it, the car has to be structurally strong enough and sound enough to keep at least the passenger compartment of the car intact through a collision which imparts a force far in excess of what even the most powerful rocket acceleration can accomplish.
My friends who build satellites tell me that the first time you put something on the shaker, it comes back in single pieces. There is some serious effort required to prevent that. I don't doubt that it is possible, but it seems to require an awful amount of engineering for nothing but silliness.
A rocket launch is very different from a crash, though. The force is not the problem, but the high frequency, high amplitude vibrations that are dangerous to anything that has been screwed together.
The average age of a car on the American roads is about 15 years. A 200,000 mile lifespan is not uncommon, and 300,000 miles isn't unheard of at all. A rocket launch is going to shake hard for minutes something that was constructed to shake hard for decades. I'm sure you understand what's going on in a rocket launch better than I do. But I don't know that you appreciate just how rugged a modern automobile is.
It's not the length that's the concern it's the frequency. Cars are build to withstand vibrations they'll encounter on the road, they are not tested for the spectrum they may encounter in a launch situation. Can you build a car to withstand a launch, sure but it has to be constructed with that in mind, not taken off the assembly line and put on a launcher.
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