Zitat Eric Berger@SciGuySpace I'm now hearing from multiple people that Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will come back to Earth on Crew Dragon. It's not official, and won't be until NASA says so. Still, it is shocking to think about. I mean, Dragon is named after Puff the Magic Dragon. This industry is wild. 8:37 PM · Aug 23, 2024
PK der NASA & Boeing. 19:16 MESZ. Es ist jetzt offiziell: Die Astronauten der Starliner-Mission werden per Crew Dragon zurückgebracht. Die Rückkehr des Starliners erfolgt unbemannt + automatisch. Die Astronauten werdne jetzt Teil der Crew-9 & werden bis Februar auf der ISS bleiben.
PS. Die Entscheidung hat die Leitung der NASA getroffen. Auf der PK sitzt niemand von Boeing; nur NASA-Personal.
Zitat Eric Berger@SciGuySpace Boeing statement: "Boeing continues to focus, first and foremost, on the safety of the crew and spacecraft. We are executing the mission as determined by NASA, and we are preparing the spacecraft for a safe and successful uncrewed return." 7:19 PM · Aug 24, 2024
"Les hommes seront toujours fous; et ceux qui croient les guérir sont les plus fous de la bande." - Voltaire
Nachtrag. Dieser Beitrag, weil hier viel aus Eric Bergers "Reentry" zitiert wird, der Fortsetzung zu "Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX" (2023), die am 24. September an den Buchhandel ausgeliefert wird.
Zitat Steve Jurvetson@FutureJurvetson NASA just decided that SpaceX needs to rescue Boeing’s astronauts.
Written before the Starliner debacle, Berger’s forthcoming book Reentry tells the backstory with plenty of foreshadowing, starting with Boeing’s attempt to be the sole crewed spacecraft provider:
“Boeing had a solution, telling NASA it needed the entire Commercial Crew budget to succeed. Because a lot of decision makers believed that only Boeing could safely fly astronauts, the company’s gambit very nearly worked.” (p.270)
After “a cascade of pro-Boeing opinions swept around the table, a building and unbreakable wave of consensus” (272), NASA’s human exploration lead Gerstenmeier took a month to decide, eventually asking for more budget to support two competing efforts. Ultimately, Boeing would receive twice as much funding as SpaceX, but SpaceX was in the game, as the new kid on the block.
“It had been a very near thing. NASA officials had already written a justification for selecting Boeing, solely for the Commercial Crew contract. It was ready to go and had to be hastily rewritten to include SpaceX. This delayed the announcement to September 16.” (274)
“Former NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman helped write the proposal and provide and astronaut’s perspective. But their small team was no match for Boeing’s proposal-writing machine. It was intimidating knowing that 200 people were working on Boeing’s proposal, when Dragon’s team could fit in a small conference room.” (275) With Reisman in photo 2 above from 2012, after pulling an all-nighter at SpaceX: https://flic.kr/p/c5sY3N
“BOEING HAS AN ASTRONAUT PROBLEM” (291)
“When the SpaceX engineers could be corralled, they were eager to hear feedback from the NASA astronauts , excited to work with them, and attentive to their suggestions. By contrast, Boeing engineers seemed indifferent to hearing from the four commercial crew astronauts.” (293)
“There was an arrogance with them that you certainly didn’t see at SpaceX.” (astronaut Hurley, p.294)
“Boeing also underperformed. Not only were its engineers overconfident, but the company’s management also was not putting skin in the game. Hurley did not see any urgency from Boeing’s teams. Rather, they appeared to be working part-time on Starliner. ‘It was all about managing dollars and cents from Boeing’s perspective,’ Hurley said.” (295)
“During the summer of 2018 as Boeing worked toward a pad abort test in White Sands, New Mexico (Boeing never flew an in-flight abort test)… a significant problem occurred due to a propellant leak. Ultimately, this would delay the company’s pad abort test by more than a year, but at the time, Boeing neglected to tell the Commercial Crew astronauts about the issue.” (295)
“That summer NASA was closing in on making crew assignments for the first flights. Hurley told the chief of the astronaut office he would not fly on Starliner.” (296)
He went on to fly the first SpaceX Dragon to bring crew to the ISS (we were there for the launch, photo 3). “‘It was the second space age,’ Hurley said. ‘And it started in 2020.’” (313) My video from Mission Control captured the excitement of capture: https://youtube.com/watch?v=bwqdEKLitC8
“SpaceX emerged triumphant over another major domestic competitor, Boeing, as well. The company that supposedly went for substance over pizzazz, ended up with neither in the Commercial Crew race.” (340)
Just prior to their first human flight, there were several “shocking discoveries, especially so close to the flight. Neither NASA nor Boeing had good answers for why they had been found as astronauts were about to strap into Starliner. Questions emerged about the company’s commitment to the program. Because it operates on a fixed-price contract [and despite being 2x higher than SpaceX’s], Boeing has reported losses of nearly $1 billion on Starliner.” (342)
After being stranded in space, Suni will fly with SpaceX, as she originally hoped (photo 1 above).
And during this same time, there was a Boeing – Lockheed joint venture competing for launch, ULA: “The U.S. rocket wars were over. SpaceX had won. Since then, SpaceX has kept beating the dead horse. Over one stretch, from the end of 2022 into the first half of 2023, SpaceX launched more than fifty rockets between ULA flights. It has become difficult to remember that these two companies were once rivals, or that ULA’s employees would drive up to the SpaceX fence, jeering.” (339) 7:12 PM · Aug 24, 2024
Zitat Spaceflight Now@SpaceflightNow The NASA press conference on the Boeing Starliner Crew Flight Test is getting underway now. Nelson begins by announcing that Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will return with the Crew-9 mission on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft in 2025. Starliner will return uncrewed.
2/ Nelson says he spoke with the new CEO of Boeing and the issues with Starliner will continue to be worked once it lands. He says they will continue to work towards having a dissimilar redundancy to reach the ISS between Starliner and Crew Dragon.
3/ Nelson says the discussion came in the context of mistakes in the past where two space shuttles, Challenger and Columbia, were lost "as a result of there not being a culture in which information could come forward."
He highlights that this has changed, which led to today's decision.
4/ NASA's Jim Free says "the NASA and Boeing team have made incredible technical progress in the model development that has gone on, the thruster testing, understanding material properties within the valve and the complicated fluid physics that are happening inside."
5/ Free: "This has not been an easy decision, but it is absolutely the right one."
6/ NASA's Ken Bowersox says there will be a part two of the flight readiness review on Wednesday (or thereabouts) to ensure that Starliner is ready for an uncrewed undocking.
7/ Steve Stich, NASA's manager of the Commercial Crew Program, starts by saying it's been a challenging summer to predict the results that they would see on the thrusters if they had moved forward with a crewed return of Starliner. Highlights testing at White Sands, Marshall Space Flight Center and Goddard Space Flight Center.
8/ Stich says the determination of bringing Butch and Suni back on Dragon instead of Starliner "was very difficult for me," but he says when looking at the data and the potential for thruster failures, there was "just too much risk."
9/ Stich says they're going with a more simplified separation sequence. They will undock Starliner in early September. As that's happening, the Crew-8 Dragon needs to be reconfigured as a lifeboat for Butch and Suni (to be able to return in that Dragon in an emergency scenario).
10/ Norm Knight, NASA's director of the Flight Operations Directorate, says "Starliner has performed exceptionally well overall. So please, don't lose sight of that. This is a test flight and the thruster issues and the associated investigations will pay huge dividends in the future of human exploration in a great way."
11/ Free says the decision isn't one that hinges on trust, but rather just trusting technical expertise and experience that balance against risk. Bowersox says there were "a lot of tense discussions because the call was close. And so, people have emotional investment in either option and that gives you a healthy discourse."
12/ Stich says "the White Sands testing did give us a surprise." He says that's when they saw the swelling in the poppet on the oxidizer side. He says getting towards Starliner-1 will be determining how to avoid firing the thruster in a manner that would cause the heating that led to some of the issues they saw.
13/ Bowersox says the polling was unanimous from the NASA folks on moving forward with the Dragon option. He says there were about 15 or 20 percent of folks who would've preferred keeping the crew on Starliner, but ultimately signed off on the Dragon decision.
14/ Stich says they need to focus on not only returning Starliner uncrewed now, but also reconfiguring the Crew-8 Dragon and preparing for its return and the launch of Crew-9 next month.
15/ Nelson says he is 100 percent certain that Starliner will launch crew to the ISS again.
16/ Nelson say the shadow of the Challenger and Columbia disasters affected his thinking "very much." He said the agency is continuing to work on "trying to turn around the culture that first led to the loss of Challenger and then led to the loss of Columbia, where obvious mistakes were not being brought forth."
17/ Knight says Butch and Suni are professional astronauts who will continue to work on ISS operations while they remain on orbit. He adds that he does "care deeply about their families. I know this is a huge impact to their families and it means a lot."
18/ Nelson notes that Boeing has a fixed price contract and the Commercial Crew Program is working as it should. Boeing is shouldering the additional costs to get towards full crew rotation missions.
19/ Stich says a determination of what CFT mission objectives were met and what will still be outstanding once Starliner is back on the ground. He says it's premature to determine if another CFT is necessary. Bowersox adds "I wouldn't rule anything out... We have options for how we move forward. The one thing I do want to emphasize is we plan to work together with Boeing to find that path."
20/ Free says a lot has been accomplished on this mission and a determination on whether this uncrewed return of Starliner will be ruled as a "mishap" will be made once Starliner is on the ground.
21/ NASA's Dana Weigel notes that a couple of years ago, given that this was a test flight, that Butch and Suni were trained on all aspects of the space station and some of the most complex operations, like spacewalks, robotics and some of the research.
22/ Nelson says "We expect delivery on the contract" from Boeing for regular six-month crew flights to and from the ISS. Weigel says there is no existing contract between NASA and Sierra Space for crewed flights to the ISS. She notes that originally, they were looking into crewed missions and have that as a long-term goal.
23/ Weigel says following the flight readiness review, she sent an email to the international partners of the ISS. She says Roscosmos previously wanted to see a few successful flights of Starliner before they use it for their cosmonauts. Adds that those discussions are down the road.
24/ Stich says there's an integrated simulation next Wednesday to practice undocking Starliner in an uncrewed configuration. He says if that goes well, they will set an undocking date, but adds that if more simulations are needed "we'll go ahead and pivot."
25/ Stich: "Clearly there were some misses back in qualification. We're going through that data in more detail post-flight and then figure out what we can do to go fix them."
26/ Bowersox says the reason Boeing isn't on the panel today is that it's a NASA decision on returning Starliner in a crewed or uncrewed configuration. Free adds that Boeing has previously characterized its opinion on the matter and the thrust of the briefing is to update the public on NASA's determination on the mission.
27/27 Nelson say "unequivocally, from a personal standpoint, politics has not played any part in this decision," when He says the lessons learned from Challenger and Columbia was the north star for NASA. That concludes today's briefing. 8:35 PM · Aug 24, 2024
Zitat The result of this uncertainty is that NASA will now turn to the other commercial crew provider, SpaceX. This is not a pleasant outcome for Boeing which, a decade ago, looked askance at SpaceX as something akin to space cowboys. I have covered the space industry closely during the last 15 years, and during most of that time Boeing was perceived by much of the industry as the blueblood of spaceflight, and SpaceX was the company that was going to kill astronauts due to its supposed recklessness.
Now the space agency is asking SpaceX to, in effect, rescue the Boeing astronauts currently on the International Space Station.
It won't be the first time that SpaceX has helped a competitor recently. In the last two years SpaceX has launched a low-Earth orbit internet competitor's satellites, OneWeb, after Russia's space program squeezed the company; it has launched Europe's sovereign Galileo satellites after delays to the Ariane 6 rocket; and it has launched NASA's other space station cargo services provider, Northrop Grumman's Cygnus spacecraft, multiple times. Now it well help a crew competitor, Boeing, out.
After Saturday's news conference I asked Jim Free, NASA's highest ranking civil servant, what he made of the once-upstart SpaceX now helping to backstop the rest of the Western spaceflight community. Without SpaceX, after all, NASA would not have a way to get crew or cargo to the International Space Station.
"They're flying a lot, and they're having success," he said. "And you know, when they have an issue, they find a way to recover like with the second stage issue, We set out to have two providers to take crew to station to have options, and they've given us the option. In the reverse, Boeing could have been out there, and we still would face the same thing if they had a systemic Dragon problem, Boeing would have to bring us back. But I can't argue with how much they've flown, that's for sure, and what they've flown."
Audiatur et altera pars. Das deckt sich weitgehend mit Bergers Ausführungen.
Zitat Ryan McEntush@rmcentush Unfortunately, NASA needs Boeing — but not for the reasons you think.
Congress controls NASA’s funding, and their priorities revolve around jobs and votes. SpaceX’s exceptional performance actually complicates this dynamic.
The delay in declaring Boeing’s Starliner unfit likely stemmed from concerns that Boeing might abandon the program altogether, which would leave all future crew missions dependent on a sole provider — an outcome that presents political challenges.
Similarly, Project Artemis exists in large part because of the Space Launch System (SLS), a program plagued by delays and cost overruns but essential for sustaining jobs. This is, unfortunately, how expensive missions secure funding. While Starship/HLS almost certainly offers a more efficient and cost-effective path to the Moon, cost isn’t the primary concern here.
In an era dominated by commercial launch providers and emerging private space stations, NASA must define an ambitious goal to justify its funding. However, political realities — and the failures of key contractors —may stifle this effort. Congress isn’t likely to simply funnel money to SpaceX. The existential risk to NASA is not failing a mission, but failing to deliver jobs.
Fortunately, SpaceX isn’t dependent on government funding due to the success of Starlink. The future of the American space program will be driven forward by private enterprise, with or without NASA. Last edited 12:22 AM · Aug 25, 2024
Starliner. Manchmal übersieht man ja glatt manche Pointen, die das Kismet ausspielt.
Ich habe ja schon mehrfach erwähnt, daß der Starliner, technische Bezeichnung CST-100, den Namen "Calypso" trägt, nach dem bekannten Schiff von Jacques-Yves Cousteau. Und die Taufe auf diesen Namen erfolgte im Mai 1949, nachdem der britische Reeder Joseph Gasan das Minensuchboot H-826 der British Navy erworben hat, um ihn als Fähre umzubauen und in den Häfen Maltas einzusetzen. Der Name "Calypso G" ist dann im Jahr drauf zu "Calypso" verkürzt worden, als der britische Millionär Thomas Guinness sie gekauft und im Juli 1950 für den symbolischen Preis von einem Franc pro Jahr an Cousteau vermietet hat (er hat sich dafür Stillschweigen über seine Rolle als Mäzen ausbedungen). Das war im Juli 1950. Und JYC hat den Namen der Nymphe von der Insel Ogygia gewählt, die den König von Ithaka auf seiner Heimreise 7 Jahren lang aufgehalten hat.
Der erste Testflug der noch namenlosen "Calypso" war bekanntlich im Dezember 2019 ein Fehlschlag, weil die Lagekontrolldüsen (die auch jetzt den Hauptknackpunkt darstellen) ausgefallen sind. Nach dem erfolgreichen zweiten unbemannten Flug am 19. März 2022 ist die jetzige Crew für den ersten bemannten Flug ausgewählt worden und der Starttermin auf den 16. Juni 2022 festgelegt worden.
Und der 16. Juni ist ... Bloomsday. Der Tag, an dem der "Ulysses" von James Joyce spielt, jedes Jahr in Dublin und andernorts mit einem feuchtfröhlichen Zug durch die Gemeinde begangen. Erschienen ist der Roman exakt 100 Jahre vorher, 1922 (allerdings am 2. Februar, paßgenau zu Joyces 40. Geburtstag). Das Kapitel "Calypso" bildet das vierte im Roman und den Auftakt der Wanderungen von Leopold Bloom seinerseits durch Dublin, ausgehend von seinem Domizil in der Eccles Street 7. Die Namenstaufe der "Calypso" (des Raumfahrzeugs, das jetzt, frei nach Arthur C. Clarke, auf einer "Space Odyssey" unterwegs ist) erfolgte am 22. Dezember 2019 durch Suny Williams.
Zitat The Boeing CST-100 Starliner spacecraft is seen resting on its airbags after it landed in White Sands, New Mexico, at 7:58 a.m. EST on Sunday, Dec. 22, 2019. ... Inspecting the capsule, astronaut Suni Williams, who will command the next mission using the spacecraft, announced the crew had named it Calypso, after the ship captained by Jacques Cousteau in his ocean exploration.
Wenn alles wie geplant verläuft, werden sich am kommenden Donnerstag für einen Zeitraum von 2 bis 3 Minuten mehr Menschen im Weltraum zugleich aufhalten als jemals in der Geschichte der Raumfahrt.
Zitat Blue Origin announced Aug. 23 that it has scheduled the next New Shepard launch, NS-26, for no earlier than Aug. 29. Liftoff of the vehicle from the company’s West Texas launch site is scheduled for 9 a.m. Eastern.
The flight will be the first for New Shepard since the NS-25 mission May 19. While that mission was a success, one of the three parachutes deployed by the crew capsule during its descent failed to fully open. The company noted at the time that the capsule is designed to land with only two parachutes.
“We identified the direct cause for the issue observed on NS-25 and implemented corrective actions that are in place for our next flight,” Blue Origin said in a statement to SpaceNews Aug. 23. “Our investigation showed the parachutes themselves were nominal and packed correctly. We focused on the dis-reefing system that transitions the parachutes from the reefed to disreefed state that did not function as designed on one of the three parachutes on NS-25.”
Blue Origin did not elaborate with the specific issue with the dis-reefing system, which controls the opening of the parachutes, or the corrective actions it took. The company stated that the capsule could safely land with just a single parachute “and has additional safety features and redundancies via our soft landing system and crew seat design.”
Zitat SpaceX@SpaceX Teams are taking a closer look at a ground-side helium leak on the Quick Disconnect umbilical. Falcon and Dragon remain healthy and the crew continues to be ready for their multi-day mission to low-Earth orbit. Next launch opportunity is no earlier than Wednesday, August 28 → http://spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=polarisdawn 2:17 AM · Aug 27, 2024
Zitat SpaceX delays Polaris Dawn astronaut launch to Aug. 28 due to helium leak The historic mission is now scheduled to lift off early Wednesday morning (Aug. 28).
"Teams are taking a closer look at a ground-side helium leak on the Quick Disconnect umbilical. Falcon and Dragon remain healthy and the crew continues to be ready for their multi-day mission to low Earth orbit. Next launch opportunity is no earlier than Wednesday, August 28," SpaceX announced in an X post on Monday evening (Aug. 26).
The launch, atop a Falcon 9 rocket, is now targeted for 3:38 a.m. EDT (0738 GMT) on Wednesday, though there are two backup opportunities on that day as well — 5:23 a.m. EDT (0923 GMT) and 7:09 a.m. EDT (1109 GMT). You can watch the action via a SpaceX webcast, which will begin at around midnight EDT (0400 GMT).
Zitat Boeing employees are “humiliated” after NASA announced that two astronauts who have been stranded on the International Space Station by the company’s troubled Starliner space capsule will have to be rescued by Elon Musk’s upstart rival SpaceX, one worker told The Post. ... “We have had so many embarrassments lately, we’re under a microscope. This just made it, like, 100 times worse,” said one worker, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
“We hate SpaceX,” he added. “We talk s–t about them all the time, and now they’re bailing us out.”
Zitat Likewise, Boeing engineers believe they understand what caused a handful of aft-facing maneuvering jets to overheat and fire at lower-than-expected thrust during rendezvous with the space station, causing the Starliner’s flight computer to shut them down during approach.
Ground tests of a new Starliner thruster, fired hundreds of times under conditions that mimicked what those aboard the spacecraft experienced, replicated the overheating signature, which was likely caused by multiple firings during tests of the capsule’s manual control system during extended exposure to direct sunlight.
The higher-than-expected heating likely caused small seals in thruster valve “poppets” to deform and expand, the analysis indicates, which reduced the flow of propellant. The thrusters aboard the Starliner were test fired in space under more normal conditions and all operated properly, indicating the seals had returned to a less intrusive shape.
But there was no way to guarantee the seals would not deform again during thruster firings after undocking or during the de-orbit “burn” when larger rocket motors would generate high temperatures in pods housing the smaller thrusters, which are needed to maintain the spacecraft’s stability for a precisely targeted landing.
“We’re all committed to the mission, which is to bring Butch and Suni back,” said Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial crew program manager. “But as we got more and more data over the summer and understood the uncertainty of that data, it became very clear to us that the best course of action was to return Starliner uncrewed.
“If we had a way to accurately predict what the thrusters would do all the way through the deorbit burn and through the separation sequence, I think we would have taken a different course of action. But when we looked at the data and looked at the potential for thruster failures with a crew on board … it was just too much risk”.
Zitat von Ulrich Elkmann im Beitrag #434Startverschiebung um mindestens 24 Stunden.
Zitat SpaceX@SpaceX Falcon 9 and Dragon are vertical on pad 39A ahead of flight. Weather is 85% favorable for liftoff and teams are keeping an eye on recovery weather 7:36 PM · Aug 27, 2024
Zur ursprünglichen Frage des Blogbeitrags "wer ist Elon Musk?" heute dies:
Zitat Elon Musk@elonmusk After thinking it through, SpaceX Starlink will provide emergency services access for mobile phones for people in distress for free.
This applies worldwide, subject to approval by country governments.
Can’t have a situation where someone dies because they forgot or were unable to pay for it. 10:16 PM · Aug 27, 2024
Zitat ALEX@ajtourville·8h NEWS: In last Friday's letter to the FCC, SpaceX said its @Starlink 'Direct To Cell' technology will be able to send emergency alerts to all wireless users in cellular dead zones, even if they haven’t signed up for the satellite-based service, including non-T-Mobile customers.
Zur Erinnerung: "Direct to cell" bedeutet: ohne die Quadratische spzielle Empfangsantenne. Es wird in Zukunft für kostenfreie Notrufe auf der Welt kein einziges Funkloch mehr geben.
PS. Und weil es mir gleich als nächster Beitag angezeigt wird - die EU derweil so:
Zitat Ronald Slabke 🇪🇺🏗📚👨🏼💻@Ronald_Sl Die EU verringert per Richtlinie ab 1. September die seit Jahrzehnten zulässige Größe von #Handgepäck auf EU Flügen um 3cm von 55x40x23 auf 55x40x20. Wieviel Millionen kleine #Koffer müssen deshalb auf den Müll & neu gekauft werden? Das kann doch nur ein schlechter Scherz sein! 10:29 PM · Aug 27, 2024
Zitat Update 10:18 p.m. EDT: SpaceX is foregoing launch opportunities on both Wednesday and Thursday “due to unfavorable weather forecasted in Dragon’s splashdown areas off the coast of Florida.”
This is the second delay for the five-day, free-flying mission. The Polaris Dawn mission, led by billionaire-entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, will go further than humans have ventured since the conclusion of the Apollo missions more than 50 years ago. They will also conduct the first commercial spacewalk in history.
Zitat Jared Isaacman@rookisaacman Our launch criteria are heavily constrained by forecasted splashdown weather conditions. With no ISS rendezvous and limited life support consumables, we must be absolutely sure of reentry weather before launching. As of now, conditions are not favorable tonight or tomorrow, so we’ll assess day by day. As Elon mentioned, Polaris Dawn is a challenging mission with critical objectives, so we’ll wait for the best opportunity to ensure success. Sometimes, the hardest journeys require the most patience, and we’re ready to wait for the right moment. We know many have traveled to see the launch, and we’re grateful for your support. Alongside @SpaceX, we’ll do our best to keep you updated. 4:19 AM · Aug 28, 2024
Zitat Spaceflight Now@SpaceflightNow SpaceX and the Polaris Program are delaying a launch attempt of the Polaris Dawn mission during launch windows available on both Wednesday and Thursday. SpaceX said it is "due to unfavorable weather forecasted in the Dragon's splashdown areas off the coast of Florida."
No new launch date was named, but the National Hurricane Center is tracking some activity in the tropics that is moving towards the Gulf of Mexico. It notes that "an area of low pressure could form over the next few days. This system has a low chance (20% 🟡) of TC formation over the next 7 days." 4:16 AM · Aug 28, 2024
Zitat Spaceflight Now@SpaceflightNow After sending 21 Starlink satellites on their way to orbit, Falcon 9 booster 1062, making its 23rd flight, tipped over and exploded as it landed on the drone ship 'A Shortfall of Gravitas'. It was the first Falcon 9 landing failure since Feb. 2021. Watch a replay of our live coverage: https://youtube.com/live/gCEEYJahj 10:10 AM · Aug 28, 2024
Es war die erste 23. Landung; eine der Stützstreben ist beim Aufsetzen gebrochen.
Zitat Spaceflight Now@SpaceflightNow SpaceX confirms that it is standing down from a launch attempt at Vandenberg Space Force Base following the landing failure of booster B1062 this morning. They said this is in order "to give the team time to review booster landing data from the previous launch."
It added that "A new target launch date will be shared once available." 11:20 AM · Aug 28, 2024
PPS. Anscheinend lag es nicht am Bruch eines der Landebeine.
Zitat For the first time in more than three years, SpaceX lost one of its reusable Falcon 9 boosters during a landing attempt amid the Starlink 8-6 mission on Wednesday morning. As it was touching down on the droneship, ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas,’ a green flash could be seen around the Merlin engines before the engine section was engulfed in flames and the booster toppled over and exploded.
Zitat Spektakulärer Meteor über Österreich entpuppt sich als Starlink-Satellit In Vorarlberg und Tirol, aber auch in der Schweiz und in Teilen Deutschlands sorgte Dienstagabend ein riesiger Feuerschein für Aufregung
28. August 2024
Ein riesiger Feuerschein, der Dienstagabend gegen 21.30 Uhr über den Nachthimmel zog, sorgte im Westen Österreichs, aber auch in der Schweiz und Süddeutschland für Staunen. Auf den zahlreichen Videos, die in weiterer Folge auf sozialen Medien zu finden waren, ist für etwa 30 Sekunden ein großer Lichtschweif zu sehen, der langsam von Westen nach Osten zieht und offenbar aus mehreren Einzelteilen besteht.
Herrschte zunächst noch Unklarheit, ob es sich bei dem Leuchten über einen echten Meteor oder Weltraumschrott handelt, wurde schnell die Theorie in den Raum geworfen, es könnte sich bei dem Feuerball um einen Starlink-Satelliten gehandelt haben, der in die Atmosphäre eingetreten ist. Die langsame Geschwindigkeit und die sichtbaren Einzelteile würden diese Erklärung wahrscheinlich machen. Unterstützt wurde die These durch eine Karte, die der US-Astronom Jonathan McDowell postete, der einen Starlink-Satelliteneintritt über Frankreich und der Schweiz zeigte.
Es handelte sich um Starlink-2382, gestartet am 11. März 2021 im Rahmen der Tranche L20 und der zweite der isg. 60 Satelliten, die davon jetzt ausgefallen sind.
"Les hommes seront toujours fous; et ceux qui croient les guérir sont les plus fous de la bande." - Voltaire
Zitat von Ulrich Elkmann im Beitrag #439...eine der Stützstreben ist beim Aufsetzen gebrochen. ... PPS. Anscheinend lag es nicht am Bruch eines der Landebeine.
Sorgfältige Nachanalyse ergibt, daß der erste Eindruck nicht getäuscht hat.
Zitat Scott Manley@DJSnM·12m Here we go, I fixed the framing so you can see what's going on more easily
The far right support is what failed to keep things stable
Near strut may even be wobbling too, but that could just be the video encoding, it's really hard to tell with this low quality source material.
If you look carefully the strut is split in two, with both pieces falling down independently. Normally I'd just expect a strut to bend and buckle rather than be so obviously separated. 4:24 PM · Aug 28, 2024
Zitat Lukas C. H.@GewoonLukas_ Unfortunately B1062's career comes to an end after an impressive 23 launches. It successfully launched: 2 GPS satellites 2 Crew Dragons 2 GEO communication satellites 40 OneWeb satellites 576 Starlink satellites equating to ~313.000 kg of total mass, which is the current record. 11:38 AM · Aug 28, 2024
Auf den Start der Polaris Dawn-Mission werden wir wohl noch einige Wochen warten müssen.
Zitat Christian Davenport@wapodavenport This statement from the FAA says it's requiring an investigation stemming from the Falcon 9 booster hard landing last night. "A return to flight" would come after a completed investigation, so it looks like Polaris Dawn may have to wait a while longer if I'm reading this all correctly.
SpaceX has also conducted these investigations very quickly, and gotten FAA approval to return to flight. So it's possible the delay is not too long. The last one, after the second stage engine anomaly in June, took like two weeks. 7:32 PM · Aug 28, 2024 https://x.com/wapodavenport/status/1828848081875669094
Zitat The FAA is aware an anomaly occurred during the SpaceX Starlink Group 8-9 mission that launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on August 28. The incident involved the failure of the Falcon 9 booster rocket while landing on a droneship at sea. No public injuries or public property damage have been reported. The FAA is requiring an investigation.
Background
An investigation is designed to further enhance public safety, determine the root cause of the event, and identify corrective actions to avoid it from happening again.
The FAA will be involved in every step of the investigation process and must approve SpaceX's final report, including any corrective actions.
A return to flight of the Falcon 9 booster rocket is based on the FAA determining that any system, process, or procedure related to the anomaly does not affect public safety. In addition SpaceX may need to request and receive approval from the FAA to modify its license that incorporates any corrective actions and meet all other licensing requirements.
PS.
Zitat Eric Berger@SciGuySpace For those hand-wringing about the Falcon 9 being "grounded," I don't expect the FAA investigation to impact the SpaceX launch manifest too much. This is probably not a "weeks" thing. More like days. Maybe hours. 7:57 PM · Aug 28, 2024
PPS.
Zitat Adrian Beil@BCCarCounters I see a lot of people wondering why this has not happen in the past. In 2021 Falcon 9 was still operating on the old mishap criteria. The new ones state „Permanent loss of vehicle“ as mishap reason while the old ones did not do it that specific. 7:02 PM · Aug 28, 2024
Zitat Scott Manley@DJSnM·2h Losing the Inspiration 4 booster just before Polaris Dawn seems like bad omens. I’m not superstitious…. It’s bad luck to be superstitious. 5:30 PM · Aug 28, 2024
Zitat Derek Newsome@DerekdotSpace If this does delay Polaris Dawn a week (give or take) there’s a decent chance it will need to stand down to allow for Europa Clipper preparations to begin at 39A. Polaris Dawn would likely then follow Crew 9s launch from SLC-40. 7:45 PM · Aug 28, 2024
Zitat Adrian Beil@BCCarCounters Rocket hits the ground with about 8 kmh of overspeed compared to usual launches. I think that damaged the legs. The engines then hit the ground, starting an RP-1 fire, while the one leg collapses after heavy damaged from hard landing. 4:27 PM · Aug 28, 2024
Da Bergins Flurfunk sich in der letzten Zeit stets als zutreffend erwiesen hat...
Zitat Chris Bergin - NSF@NASASpaceflight·4h Hearing the issue is a relatively easy resolution (not engine/landing leg hardware-related). 5:12 AM · Aug 29, 2024
Zitat Christian Davenport@wapodavenport In a statement re the FAA's grounding of SpaceX's Falcon 9, NASA says "the agency will be included in the investigation to understand the issue and path forward. NASA will provide updates on agency missions including potential schedule impacts, if any, as more information becomes available." 2:31 AM · Aug 29, 2024
Dafür hat vor einer Viertelstunde in West Texas der 26. bemannte Start der New Shepard stattgefunden. Stippvisite über der Von-Kármán-Grenze. Gipfelhöhe 104,3 km. Erster Flug im laufenden Jahr; auch 2023 hat es nur jeweils einen Start gegeben. Die Kapsel war die "First Step," mit der auch William Shatner am 13. 10. 2021 kurzfristig ins All gebeamt worden ist.
"Les hommes seront toujours fous; et ceux qui croient les guérir sont les plus fous de la bande." - Voltaire
Zitat (Reuters) - NASA will proceed with undocking of the uncrewed Boeing's Starliner capsule no earlier than 6:04 p.m. ET (10:04 PM GMT) on Sept. 6, the space agency said on Thursday after concluding a Delta-Flight test readiness review.
Zitat Eric Berger@SciGuySpace As expected, Starliner is set to fly home without crew on September 6. New NASA update: 12:08 AM · Aug 30, 2024
Zitat NASA and Boeing concluded a detailed Delta-Flight Test Readiness Review on Thursday, polling "go" to proceed with undocking of theuncrewed Starliner spacecraft no earlier than 6:04 p.m. EDT on Friday, Sept. 6, from the International Space Station, pending weather and operational readiness.
After undocking, Starliner will take about six hours to reach the landing zone at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico. The spacecraft will touch down about 12:03 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 7, descending under parachutes and with inflated airbags to cushion the impact. Recovery at the landing zone will safe and prepare the spacecraft for a return to Boeing's Starliner factory at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Zitat Editor’s note: This release was updated on Aug. 30, 2024, to correct Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov’s role as mission specialist.
NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will launch no earlier than Tuesday, Sept. 24, on the agency’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station. NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson, previously announced as crewmates, are eligible for reassignment on a future mission.
Hague and Gorbunov will fly to the space station as commander and mission specialist, respectively, as part of a two-crew member flight aboard a SpaceX Dragon.
The updated crew complement follows NASA’s decision to return the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test uncrewed and launch Crew-9 with two unoccupied seats. NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who launched aboard the Starliner spacecraft in June, will fly home with Hague and Gorbunov in February 2025.
The decision to fly Hague was made by NASA chief astronaut Joe Acaba at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Acaba had to balance flying a NASA crew member with previous spaceflight experience to command the flight, while ensuring NASA maintains an integrated crew with a Roscosmos cosmonaut who can operate their critical systems for continued, safe station operations.
“While we’ve changed crew before for a variety of reasons, downsizing crew for this flight was another tough decision to adjust to given that the crew has trained as a crew of four,” said Acaba. “I have the utmost confidence in all our crew, who have been excellent throughout training for the mission. Zena and Stephanie will continue to assist their crewmates ahead of launch, and they exemplify what it means to be a professional astronaut.”
Zitat Ellie in Space 🚀💫@esherifftv BREAKING FROM THE FAA: SpaceX F9 ungrounded! The SpaceX Falcon 9 vehicle may return to flight operations while the overall investigation of the anomaly during the Starlink Group 8-6 mission remains open, provided all other license requirements are met. SpaceX made the return to flight request on Aug. 29 and the FAA gave approval on Aug. 30. 12:35 AM · Aug 31, 2024 from Texas, USA
Zitat Spaceflight Now@SpaceflightNow In a new statement from the FAA, the agency granted SpaceX the ability to resume launching its Falcon 9 rocket. Full statement:
"The SpaceX Falcon 9 vehicle may return to flight operations while the overall investigation of the anomaly during the Starlink Group 8-6 mission remains open, provided all other license requirements are met. SpaceX made the return to flight request on Aug. 29 and the FAA gave approval on Aug. 30." 12:27 AM · Aug 31, 2024
Zitat SpaceX launches 21 Starlink satellites on Falcon 9 return to flight mission
Update 4:04 a.m. EDT: SpaceX launched the mission and landed its first stage booster on its droneship, ‘Just Read the Instructions.’
After shuffling the launch schedule a bit, SpaceX kicked off back-to-back launches from both coasts in the span of a little more than an hour. The company first launched the Starlink 8-10 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, before it launched another flight of Starlink satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base.
The launch will add another 21 Starlink satellites to SpaceX’s growing megaconstellation in low Earth orbit. Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) happened at 3:43 a.m. EDT (0743 UTC), the end of the Saturday launch window.
The Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission, tail number B1069 in the SpaceX fleet, launched for an 18th time. It previously launched SpaceX’s 24th Cargo Resupply Services (CRS-24) mission to the International Space Station, Eutelsat’s HOTBIRD-F1 satellite and 13 previous Starlink missions.
About 8.5 minutes after liftoff, B1069 landed on the SpaceX droneship, ‘Just Read the Instructions.’ This was the 90th landing for JRTI and SpaceX’s 342nd droneship landing to date.
Shifting around in launch times early Saturday morning moved this launch into the position of being SpaceX’s return to flight mission. This follows a short period during when the Falcon fleet was grounded by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) due to a failed booster landing attempt on Wednesday morning.
Zitat Following its second return to flight mission in as many months with a Falcon 9 rocket, SpaceX proceeded to set a new turnaround record. These two launches of 21 Starlink satellites come just days after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) temporarily grounded the Falcon fleet amid an investigation into a failed booster landing attempt on Wednesday.
Liftoff of the Starlink 9-5 mission from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) happened at 1:48 a.m. PDT (4:48 a.m. EDT, 0848 UTC). This was the second of two back-to-back overnight launches.
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