Während der letzten Nacht (der Nacht auf den 23. April), haben wir erfolgreich erneut Funkverbindung zu SLIM aufgenommen, und können bestätigen, daß SLIM die dritten Mondnacht überstanden hat. Hier ist eine Aufnahme der Mondoberfläche, die letzte Nacht von der Navigationskamera aufgenommen wurde. Da das Bild kurze Zeit nach dem Beginn den Mondtages und der Betriebsaufnahme entstanden ist, erscheint der Mond sehr hell und die Schatten kurz.
Die Hauptfunktionen von SLIM arbeiten auch noch nach der dritten Mondnacht, wofür die Sonde nicht ausgelegt war. Wir werden weiterhin den Zustand von SLIM genau überwachen und prüfen, welche Funktionen im Lauf des Mondtags ausfallen und welche davon nicht betroffen sind.
🌘📷🛰️🗾
PS. Von Boulles Roman gibt übrigens eine Übersetzung ins Japanische, erschienen 1966 beim Verlag Futami (Futami Shobo) durch Goju Tanjin, unter dem Titel 『カナシマ博士の月の庭園』 ("Der Mondgarten des Dr. Kanashima"/Kanashima Hakase no tsuki no teien). Hier: https://www.kosho.or.jp/upload/save_imag...adbeaa1fc5f.jpg
"Les hommes seront toujours fous; et ceux qui croient les guérir sont les plus fous de la bande." - Voltaire
Weil es mir gerade eingespielt wird, und weil sich das Mem "es gibt keine Originaldaten mehr von den Apollo-Mondlandungen" als hartnäckig erweist (mit der beständigen Implikation: es habe sie nie gegeben), setze ich das mal zu Dokumentationszwecken her.
Zitat
Zitat Mike Gorman@mikexgorman·Apr 26 NASA deleted ALL the footage and telemetry data from the moon landing … this was an amazing #JRE with Bart Sibrel
Dr. Phil Metzger@DrPhiltill Untrue. This does touch on something related that actually happened, which people have apparently distorted and used to prop up the dumb conspiracy theory. I will explain… 1/N 7:09 PM · Apr 28, 2024 from Alafaya, FL
2/ First I’ll tell you what I know about the videos, then the telemetry.
When I analyzed the plume effects of the lunar landings, starting in the late 1990s and early 2000s, I tracked down the original data. One of the guys on my team worked with Houston to get the videos.
3/ The originals had been converted to digital and this was more convenient for us to use, since we wouldn’t need reel-to-reel NTSC video equipment, so this is what we got. I had high resolution copies of all the landing videos. There was no lost video. It all exists.
4/ The telemetry is more interesting. It still exists, too, but it is nearly impossible to read. When I inquired, they told me the reel-to-reel magnetic tapes were all in storage, and they could get them out for me, but the specific player for those tapes was not at KSC. Worse…
5/ …because they were about 40 years old at the time, they had probably degraded. They said before you use them you have to perform a procedure to bake them so the magnetic material will re-adhere better to the tapes.
/ They said that I could do this if I needed the data. Then I could take the tapes to Langley where they still had one of the old Apollo-era reel-to-reel tapes so I could read the data. But then I would need to interpret the data stream. Spacecraft have multiple data formats.
7/ There is so much data on a spacecraft but only limited bandwidth in the communications channel, so they do not send all the data all the time. At different parts of the mission they use various “formats” that include only the data needed at that time.
8/ To read the data you need to find out which format they were in for the period of time you are looking. Then you need the document that tells which data words are in each position of the telemetry, and how to convert the 1s and 0s to engineering units. Those documents exist…
9/ in the tech library, so you have to go ask the librarian to pull them out and you have to spend hours reading them to find what you want. Then you have to read mission reports that tell what part of the mission used what format. Then you have to write software to pull out…
10/ …the specific words you want and put them into a shorter file that you can work with for your analysis.
When I considered all this, I decided it was too much work and I didn’t have enough money in my project to do all that on top of the actual analysis that I was planning.
11/ So what we did instead… we found an old-timer at JSC who had worked on the part of the telemetry we needed, and we found in his desk a plot he made on that green engineering graph paper from the days before computers. It had what we needed…
12 (When I say “the days before computers”, I mean before the engineering department had personal computers. They only had hand calculators and graph paper. It was still that way when I was first worked on the Shuttle. Of course Mission Control and the spacecraft had computers.)
13/ So none of the engineers had digital data from Apollo. It was all stored away on tapes. But we found this guy who had plotted exactly what we needed — the height of the lunar module versus time during landing. So that’s what we used.
14/ The telemetry exists, but it is so hard to get that I wonder if now, even 20 years after I tried, whether anybody has spent the funds to bake those tapes, read the formats, and archive it in a more modern digital format. It may literally take an act of Congress to authorize.
15/ A person who has done hard work preserving old space data is @wingod. He has copied and preserved many data tapes from the older robotic missions. Congress should set some money aside to preserve all the Apollo telemetry, too. /end
Es geht geht hier zwar nicht um den Mond, noch nicht einmal um eine Umlaufbahn, aber dafür um "Made in Germany."
Heute ist der Termin für den Erststart der SR75 der Firma HyImpulse von der Koonibba Test Range in South Australia bekannt gegeben worden: Mi., 1. Mai 2024, 23:30 UTC.
Meldung von Ende Februar:
Zitat The maiden flight of the suborbital HyImpulse SR75 rocket is set to occur from the Koonibba Test Range in Australia between late April and early May.
On 23 February 2024, HyImpulse announced that the first flight-ready SR75 had begun its journey by sea from Germany to its launch site in Southern Australia. At the time, the company revealed that the launch campaign for the vehicle’s debut would commence in mid-April. In an announcement on 28 February, Southern Launch, the company that manages the Koonibba Test Range, announced that the actual flight would occur between late April and early May.
The SR75 vehicle makes use of a hybrid propulsion system that utilizes solid paraffin and liquid oxygen. According to HyImpulse, this non-explosive fuel “revolutionises rocket handling and logistics.”
“A key reason behind the development of this propulsion technology is so we can offer a rapid, efficient, and responsive rocket that can be launched anywhere around the world,” said HyImpulse Co-CEO Christian Schmierer. “Being able to transport a rocket safely with reduced logistical complexities is a key part of our strategy.”
The maiden flight of the SR75 vehicle did, however, suffer significant logistical complexities. The rocket’s debut had initially been scheduled to take place from SaxaVord in Scotland, a stone’s throw from one of the German launch startup’s propulsion testing facilities. However, following construction delays at the facility, the company was forced to shift to its backup, the Koonibba Test Range in Australia. The long journey to Australia was also made even longer due to the ongoing Red Sea shipping crisis, which forced the vessel carrying the rocket to opt for a route around the Horn of Africa.
Despite the logistical headaches, the maiden flight of the SR75 rocket will be a significant milestone for HyImpulse. A successful flight will not only allow the SR75 to enter operational service as a microgravity research vehicle but also serve to verify a number of key systems that will be utilized aboard the company’s larger SL1 vehicle. The most significant element shared by both vehicles is the HyPLOX75 hybrid motor. While the SR75 will utilize just one, the SL1 first and second stages will be powered by clusters of the hybrid motor.
Zitat HyImpulse Technologies@HyImpulseTech It’s launch week! 🚀 Due to weather updates, we’ve rescheduled our SR75-1 ‘Light this Candle!’ mission. We’re now targeting a launch no earlier than 7:00 AM ACST on Thursday, May 2nd, from the Koonibba Test Range. Stay tuned! @SouthernLaunch #LightThisCandle #launchcampaign 1:57 PM · Apr 29, 2024
Zitat Die HyImpulse Technologies GmbH ist ein Luft- und Raumfahrtunternehmen mit Sitz in Neuenstadt am Kocher, im Süden Deutschlands. Es wurde im März 2018 gegründet und ist eine privat finanzierte Ausgründung aus dem Deutschen Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), Institut für Raumfahrtantriebe, in Lampoldshausen. Das Unternehmen entwickelt spezielle suborbitale und orbitale Startdienste unter Verwendung von Trägerraketen mit Hybridantrieb.
HyImpulse verfügt über mehr als 15 Jahre Erfahrung in der Entwicklung von Hybridantrieben mit mehr als 100 Tests und der letzten erfolgreichen Testserie des 75-kN-Flugraketenmotors in den Jahren 2020 und 2021 (TRL 7). Das Triebwerk wird seit 2020 beständig getestet und verbessert.
Die Produkte: SR75 ist eine einstufige Höhenforschungsrakete, die einen Hybridmotor verwendet, um institutionelle und kommerzielle Experimente während eines suborbitalen Fluges in eine Umgebung mit geringer Schwerkraft zu bringen. Sie wird bis zu 350 kg Nutzlast in 200 km Höhe befördern können.
Small Launcher 1 (SL1) ist eine Trägerrakete, die einen erschwinglichen, häufigen, reaktionsschnellen und sicheren Zugang zum Weltraum für Kleinsatelliten ermöglicht. Sie hat eine Nutzlastkapazität von 500 kg zu einem 400 km entfernten SSO / 675 kg zum LEO und zielt auf den stark wachsenden Markt der Kleinsatellitenstarts ab.
Überhaupt Stichwort "Premieren": Für Freitag, den 3. Mai, um 11:30 UTC ist auf dem Raumfahrtbahnhof Wenchang der Start der chinesischen Mondsonde Chang'e 6 angesetzt, die zum ersten Mal Bodenproben von der Mondrücksetie zur Erde bringen soll. Vorgesheener Landeort ist der Apollo-Krater am nordöstlichen Rand des Südpol-Aitken-Beckens; Koordinaten 43°S, 154°W. Es wird gehofft, daß der Regolith in Zusammensetzung + Konsistenzdem Material im Bereich des Mondsüdpols ähnelt, wo ja die anstehenden bemannten Landungen (auch die chinesischen) stattfinden sollen. Und für den Dienstag der nächsten Woche, den 7. Mai, ist der erste bemannte Flug der Boeing CST-100 Starliner von Cape Canaveral zur ISS angesetzt (etwas verzögert; nach der anfänglichen Planung von 12 Jahren sollte dieser Besuch bereits 2017 stattfinden).
"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 #103 Und für den Dienstag der nächsten Woche, den 7. Mai, ist der erste bemannte Flug der Boeing CST-100 Starliner von Cape Canaveral zur ISS angesetzt (etwas verzögert; nach der anfänglichen Planung von 12 Jahren sollte dieser Besuch bereits 2017 stattfinden).
Zitat Elon Musk@elonmusk·27m Boeing got $4.2 billion to develop an astronaut space capsule. SpaceX got $2.6 billion and finished 7 years faster.
Note, the crew capsule design of Dragon 2 has almost nothing in common with Dragon 1.
Too many non-technical managers at Boeing.
Zitat Eric Berger@SciGuySpace·4h Here's my deep dive into why Starliner is seven years late.
Zitat The surprise is not that Boeing lost commercial crew but that it finished at all "The structural inefficiency was a huge deal."
Eric Berger - 5/6/2024, 1:00 PM
So what happened? How did Boeing, the gold standard in human spaceflight for decades, fall so far behind on crew? This story, based largely on interviews with unnamed current and former employees of Boeing and contractors who worked on Starliner, attempts to provide some answers.
Abbruch des Countdowns 2 Stunden vor dem Start aufgrund einer verklemmten Ventils in der zweiten Raketenstufe.
Zitat Chris Bergin - NSF@NASASpaceflight Starliner's first crewed mission has scrubbed due to an issue with an oxygen valve on the Atlas V second stage. 2:38 AM · May 7, 2024
Zitat NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test Targets No Earlier than Friday, May 10
After the first launch attempt of NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test, a news conference is held on Monday, May 6, 2024 at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. As part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program, the first crewed launch to the International Space Station aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex-41 at nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station was targeted for 10:34 p.m. ET but scrubbed for the day. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett NASA, Boeing, and ULA (United Launch Alliance) are targeting no earlier than Friday, May 10, for launch of the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test to the International Space Station, pending resolution of the technical issue that prevented the May 6 launch attempt.
The delay allows teams to complete data analysis on a pressure regulation valve on the liquid oxygen tank of the Atlas V rocket ‘s Centaur upper stage and determine whether it is necessary to replace the valve.
Mission managers discussed the details that led to the decision during a news conference Monday night at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
Following the scrub, NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams exited the Starliner spacecraft and launch pad at Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida and returned to the astronaut crew quarters at Kennedy. ULA, as per the normal recycle process, also removed liquid oxygen and hydrogen from the Atlas V first and second stages.
Zitat First crewed test flight of Boeing Starliner capsule targeted for May 17 By Reuters May 8, 2024 1:55 AM GMT+2
May 7 (Reuters) - The target launch date for the long-awaited first crewed test flight of Boeing Co's (BA.N), new Starliner Space capsule has been pushed back another week to no earlier than Friday, May 17, in order to replace a faulty pressure valve on its booster rocket, NASA said on Tuesday.
Zitat Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is going to have a wait a bit longer before its first astronaut mission can take place. Following the decision to scrub the Crew Flight Test mission about two hours prior to liftoff, teams with United Launch Alliance (ULA), Boeing and NASA concluded that more work was needed to prepare the Atlas 5 to launch.
In order to do that, the rocket will need to be rolled back to the Vertical Integration Facility (VIF) at Space Launch Complex 41. The anticipated timeline for the work will push the launch back to no earlier than May 17, according to NASA. The new liftoff time is now 6:16 p.m. EDT (2016 UTC).
During a post-scrub news briefing, ULA President and CEO Tory Bruno discussed an issue with a liquid oxygen self-regulating solenoid relief valve on the Centaur upper stage of the rocket, which created an audible buzzing noise heard by crew working at the launch pad. He said the valve vents pressure from the liquid oxygen tank and is “not dissimilar to many other valves like that,” adding that homeowners “have one in your home on your hot water tank.”
Bruno said that if the valve needed to be replaced, the Atlas 5 rocket would need to make a return to the VIF. However, he noted that the work to replace the valve likely wouldn’t require them to unstack the Starliner spacecraft.
He said because the Centaur upper stage is “a pressure-stabilized stage it has to be either stretched or under pressure to be structurally stable,” and therefore, they could use some tooling to stretch it in the VIF.
“We’d apply that tooling to support the Centaur and the Starliner on top and then we take off all the pressure and simply remove and replace the valve, re-pressurize it, remove the tooling and then we’d be ready to roll back,” Bruno said. “That procedure takes several days, so it’s unlikely we would be prepared to make another attempt before Sunday.”
Bruno said the issue with the valve was audible to members of the Blue Team, working inside the white room on the launch pad gantry to help the CFT astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, safely get into the Starliner spacecraft and secure the capsule.
Because ULA was preparing to launch a crewed mission, their procedures didn’t allow them to perform the same type of corrective measure that they would have been possible if it was a satellite atop the rocket.
“Once we got the crew off, we cycled the valve and it stopped buzzing. If this were a satellite, that is our standard procedure and the satellite would already be in orbit, but that changes the state of the fueled Centaur and we don’t do that when people are present,” Bruno explained. “And so, our flight rules caused us, called for us to scrub.”
Although cycling the valve stopped the fluttering, the oscillations re-occurred twice as the launch team drained cryogenic propellants from the rocket.
Bruno said that the valve in question is rated for 200,000 cycles (opening and closing). The question that ULA engineers sought to answer as they worked overnight and into the morning was whether they could determine if the valve had reached its life limit.
He said it was difficult to make a thorough determination on the valve as the launch countdown was in progress, which was also partially why they decided to scrub the mission.
Zitat China 'N Asia Spaceflight 🚀𝕏 🛰️@CNSpaceflight Chang'e-6 enters 200*8600km lunar orbit after the lunar orbit insertion maneuver at ~02:12UTC on May 08 6:46 AM · May 8, 2024
Zitat Delta9250@deltaIV9250·3h If anyone is curious, Starliner plans to only fly its minimum of six operational missions to the ISS at a rate of once per year
They also plan on using the same two capsules for all of these missions. Is the Starliner production line still open in case a vehicle is damaged? 3:39 PM · May 8, 2024
Zitat Boe-CFT S3.2 ♺ Calypso NET May 17, 2024, 22:16[120] United States Barry E. Wilmore[121] United States Sunita Williams[121] First crewed test flight of Boeing Starliner. 7 days Planned
Starliner-1 S2.2 ♺ NET 2025[122] United States Scott Tingle[123] United States Michael Fincke[123] Canada Joshua Kutryk[124] Japan Kimiya Yui[125] First operational flight of Boeing Starliner.[126] 6 months Planned
Starliner-2 S3.3 ♺ Calypso Early 2026[122] Second operational flight of Boeing Starliner. 6 months Planned
Starliner-3 S2.3 ♺ Early 2027[122] Third operational flight of Boeing Starliner. 6 months Planned
Starliner-4 S3.4 ♺ Calypso Early 2028[122] Fourth operational flight of Boeing Starliner. 6 months Planned
Starliner-5 S2.4 ♺ Early 2029[122] Fifth operational flight of Boeing Starliner. 6 months Planned
Starliner-6 S3.5 ♺ Calypso Early 2030[122] Sixth operational flight of Boeing Starliner. 6 months Planned
Zitat ISRO InSight@ISROSight Chandrayaan-4 Mission update: The landing site of #Chandrayaan4 will be near the Shiv-Shakti point of Chandrayaan 3. The mission life will be 1 Lunar Day, similar to Chandrayaan 3. #ISRO 8:07 AM · May 12, 2024
Sathees R Pai(मोदीजी का परिवार)🙏@SatheesPai·5h Just out of curiosity asking, why can't we extent the life of the mission beyond one lunar day...?
ISRO InSight@ISROSight·5h Chandrayaan-4 is a Lunar sample return mission. As of now, it doesn't have any scientific payload, so we do not need to extend the mission duration beyond 1 lunar day.
Zitat von Ulrich Elkmann im Beitrag #108Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is going to have a wait a bit longer before its first astronaut mission can take place.
Starliner. Wie erwartet. (6. Mai => 10. Mai => 17. Mai...)
Zitat Eric Berger@SciGuySpace Starliner launch slipping to NET May 21. Should become official later today. 4:22 PM · May 14, 2024
Zitat Eric Berger@SciGuySpace I don't have all the details, but it sounds like this additional four-day delay is due to a spacecraft issue not the Atlas V booster. 4:29 PM · May 14, 2024
Zitat NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test Eyes Next Launch Opportunity May 14, 2024
NASA, Boeing, and ULA (United Launch Alliance) teams continue working remaining open tasks in preparation for the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test to the International Space Station. The teams now are targeting a launch date of no earlier than 4:43 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, May 21, to complete additional testing.
On May 11, the ULA team successfully replaced a pressure regulation valve on the liquid oxygen tank on the Atlas V rocket’s Centaur upper stage. The team also performed re-pressurization and system purges, and tested the new valve, which performed normally.
Starliner teams are working to resolve a small helium leak detected in the spacecraft’s service module traced to a flange on a single reaction control system thruster. Helium is used in spacecraft thruster systems to allow the thrusters to fire and is not combustible or toxic.
NASA and Boeing are developing spacecraft testing and operational solutions to address the issue. As a part of the testing, Boeing will bring the propulsion system up to flight pressurization just as it does prior to launch, and then allow the helium system to vent naturally to validate existing data and strengthen flight rationale. Mission teams also completed a thorough review of the data from the May 6 launch attempt and are not tracking any other issues.
The Atlas V and Starliner remain in the Vertical Integration Facility at Space Launch Complex-41 on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, still in preflight quarantine, returned to Houston on May 10 to spend extra time with their families as prelaunch operations progress. The duo will fly back to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in the coming days.
Zitat Launch of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket carrying Boeing’s Starliner capsule is slipping another four days, from Friday to next Tuesday, to give engineers time to make sure a helium leak in the crew ship’s propulsion system has been resolved, officials said Tuesday.
Liftoff from pad 41 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station is now targeted for May 21 at 4:43 p.m. EDT, setting up a docking at the International Space Station the following afternoon. The flight is expected to conclude with a landing at White Sands, New Mexico, around May 30. ... The unrelated helium leak in the Starliner’s propellant pressurization system was noted during the countdown last week, but it remained within safe limits for flight. After the Atlas 5 and Starliner were rolled back to the VIF for the oxygen valve replacement, managers decided to take a closer look at the helium issue.
The leak was detected in plumbing making up a helium manifold inside one of four “doghouse” assemblies spaced around the exterior of the Starliner’s drum-shaped service module. Each doghouse features four orbital maneuvering and attitude control — OMAC — thrusters and four small reaction control system maneuvering jets.
Pressurized helium gas is used to push propellants to the rocket motors in each doghouse, as well as four powerful motors at the base of the spacecraft that would be used during an in-flight abort to propel the capsule away from a malfunctioning booster. The leak was traced to a flange on a single RCS thruster. ... The Atlas 5 oxygen valve problem was United Launch Alliance’s responsibility. The helium leak responsible for the latest delay goes on the Starliner list, but it was considered a relatively minor problem. That said, managers are leaving no stone unturned to ensure flight safety.
Zitat Chris Bergin - NSF@NASASpaceflight·1h Expecting CFT Starliner to move a few more days to the right (potentially to around the 25th), pending an official announcement.
Relates to the helium leak found on the Service Module. 5:05 PM · May 17, 2024
Zitat Spaceflight Now@SpaceflightNow Multiple sources say the Crew Flight Test launch of Boeing's CST-100 Starliner spacecraft is moving from May 21. NASA and Boeing continue to review data from the pressurization tests conducted in connection with a helium leak on one of the Reaction Control Thrusters on the Service Module.
We're awaiting additional details from NASA and Boeing along with a new launch date. 5:20 PM · May 17, 2024
Der Kleine Zyniker® neigt zu einer Umfrage im Stile von X (The Company Formerly Known As Twitter).
What do you think is likely happen to first? ◦ Boeing Starliner first manned launch ◦ Ariane 6 maiden flight ◦ SpaceX IFT4 / Starship Integrated Flight Test 4 ◦ EU parliamentary elections ◦ Scholz sends #Taurus to #Ukraine ◦ EU/USA/UN present a clean slate on the COVID boondoggle ◦ George R.R. Martin publishes "Song of Ice and Fire" # 6 ◦ J. Michael Straczynski publishes "The Last Dangerous Visions" ◦ Arctic ice-free summer ◦ Styx, Lethe, Cocytus & Acheron freeze over solid ◦ Just show results ◦ Not interested; don't show results
(Ursprünglich war da noch "Koalitionsbildung in den Niederlanden" auf der Liste, aber das hat sich scheints erledigt)
"Les hommes seront toujours fous; et ceux qui croient les guérir sont les plus fous de la bande." - Voltaire
Zitat NASA, Boeing Now Working Toward May 25 Launch of Crew Flight Test
NASA, Boeing, and ULA (United Launch Alliance) teams will take additional time to work through spacecraft closeout processes and flight rationale before proceeding with the launch of the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test. The teams now are targeting a launch no earlier than 3:09 p.m. EDT Saturday, May 25, for the flight test carrying NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station.
The additional time allows teams to further assess a small helium leak in the Boeing Starliner spacecraft’s service module traced to a flange on a single reaction control system thruster. Pressure testing performed on May 15 on the spacecraft’s helium system showed the leak in the flange is stable and would not pose a risk at that level during the flight. The testing also indicated the rest of the thruster system is sealed effectively across the entire service module. Boeing teams are working to develop operational procedures to ensure the system retains sufficient performance capability and appropriate redundancy during the flight. As that work proceeds, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program and the International Space Station Program will take the next few days to review the data and procedures to make a final determination before proceeding to flight countdown.
The ULA Atlas V rocket and Boeing’s Starliner remain in the Vertical Integration Facility at Space Launch Complex-41 on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The NASA, Boeing, and ULA teams remain committed to ensuring a safe Starliner flight test.
Wilmore and Williams will remain quarantined in Houston as prelaunch operations progress. They will fly back to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida closer to the new launch date. The duo is the first to launch aboard Starliner to the space station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. The astronauts will spend about a week at the orbiting laboratory before returning to Earth and making a parachute and airbag-assisted landing in the southwestern United States.
Zitat von Ulrich Elkmann im Beitrag #113 ◦ Boeing Starliner first manned launch ◦ Styx, Lethe, Cocytus & Acheron freeze over solid
Zitat Spaceflight Now@SpaceflightNow The Crew Flight Test of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft is no longer targeting Saturday, May 25. We're awaiting official word from NASA and Boeing on the next possible launch date and for more information regarding the path forward on the helium leak. 7:04 PM · May 21, 2024
Zitat William Harwood@cbs_spacenews A5/Starliner CFT: Multiple sources are saying launch of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft, which remains officially targeted for Saturday at 3:09pm EDT (1909 UTC), is slipping again as NASA and Boeing mission managers continue to review data about a small helium leak in the ship's propulsion pressurization system; there's no official confirmation from NASA, so stay tuned; we'll provide more information as it becomes available; in the meantime, near-term launch opportunities beyond Saturday and Sunday are May 28, June 1 and 2 and June 5 and 6. 8:00 PM · May 21, 2024
Zitat Eric Berger@SciGuySpace Sorry, NASA, but you've been doing a terrible job of providing updates on Starliner delays. This is a crewed mission. It really really matters. Already the 25th is off the table. There are rumors of longer delays. Space press has been asking for briefings for days. Do better. 11:35 PM · May 21, 2024
Casey Handmer, PhD@CJHandmer·1h Do you think their communications confusion correlates with their technical confusion?
Eric Berger@SciGuySpace I don't pretend to understand all of the complexities behind NASA's communication strategy regarding Starliner. But from the outside it appears poor, and non-responsive. What I'm hearing is not great news, so that may explain the reticence to engage.
Zitat Chris Bergin - NSF@NASASpaceflight And there's the Starliner update. No new launch date:
NASA: "NASA, Boeing, and ULA are forgoing the Saturday, May 25 launch attempt for NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test. The team has been in meetings for two consecutive days, assessing flight rationale, system performance, and redundancy. There is still forward work in these areas, and the next possible launch opportunity is still being discussed.
NASA will share more details once we have a clearer path forward." 3:36 AM · May 22, 2024
Audiatur et altera pars. Hinter den Kulissen sieht es mit den großen Vorhaben der NASA durchaus nicht rosig aus, als das aus meinen Meldungen aus der Etappe vielleicht klingt. Folgende Baustellen sind gerade unter Beschuß und könnten schlimmstenfalls als Bauruinen enden:
Aktuell Starliner. Das ist noch die geringste Sorge. Es gibt zwar Gerüchte im Flurfunk, daß womöglich eine größere Nachbesserung bis zum August anstehen könnte, sowohl was die Probleme mit der Rakete als auch mit der Kapsel betrifft, aber das ist beides punktuell. Gravierender ist, daß nach den aktuellen Budgetplänen der NASA nur ein bemannter Start pro Jahr zur ISS bis 2030 eingeplant ist.
Die ISS selbst: halboffiziell ist das Ende der Station immer noch auf 2030 angesetzt, und zwar ohne Nachfolger. Erwartet wird, daß bei der Möglichkeit, die Station darüber hinaus weiterzubetreiben, auf einen geplanten und gezielten Absturz verzichtet werden wird.
Das Hubble-Weltraumteleskop: Es gibt zurzeit keine Möglichkeit, die Systeme zu warten; der 5. und letzte Shuttle-Wartungsflug fand 2009 statt. Von den sechs Gyroskopen zur Lagesteuerung arbeiten noch 3. Vor einem Monat sind die Beobachtungsprogramme für 10 Tage unterbrochen worden, weil eins der Schwundräder Unregelmäßigkeiten entwickelte; mittlerweile läuft es wieder rund. Nach den bisherigen Plänen soll der Betrieb 2035 eingestellt werden. Seit zwei jahren reduziert sich die Höhe der Umlaufbahn aufgrund des solaren Maximums schneller als vorausberechnet. Der amerikanische Milliardär Jared Isaacman, der im September 2021 die private Raumfahrtmission Inspiration finanziert und geleitet hat und dessen erste "Polaris"-Mission für den kommenden Monat geplant ist, hat im vorigen Jahr vorgeschlagen, im Rahmen eines der kommenden Polaris-Fluges eine Antriebseinheit unter das HST zu montieren, um die Umlaufbahn wieder anzuheben. 2009 ist für solche zukünftigen Maßnahmen ein Montagering an das HST angeflanscht worden. Bislang wehrt sich die NASA mit Händen und Füßen gegen dieses Ansinnen.
Artemis: Im Januar ist bekanntlich die zweite bemannte Mondlandung auf 2028 verschoben worden; die erste soll immer noch Ende 2026 stattfinden, die erste bemannte Umkreisung im September 2025. Die Frage ist, ob bis zu diesen Terminen die Landefähre HLS von Blue Origin oder das Starship einsatztauglich und auf mehreren Einsätzen unfallfrei erprobt worden sind, um tatsächlich Land gewinnen zu können.
Mars. MSR/Mars Sample Return. Auf dem roten Planeten trägt (bekanntlich) der Rover Perseverance seit 1157 Marstagen geduldig Steine zusammen (hier die letzte gefunkte Aufnahme von insgesamt 666.125 von heute mittag), die demnächst von einer unbemannten Sondenmission aufgelesen und zur Analyse zur Erde zurückgebracht werden sollen. Ein aktueller Sachstandsbericht der NASA hat an die Planungen dafür eine ganze Reihe dick-fetter roter Fragezeichen gemalt. Der Start dieser Mission war bislang für spätestens 2034 geplant und mit einem Preisschild von 5,5 Milliarden US-Dollar versehen; nach der Zwischenstandseermittlung steht oder einen radikalen Neuentwurf eine Terminverschiebung auf 2040 oder später und eine Kostenerhöhung auf 11 Milliarden Dollar an. Das gibt erstens das Budget der Raumfahrtagentur nicht her (es müßten also Kongreß + Senat nur zu diesen Zweck diese Summen bewilligen); zum anderen gibt es Bedenken, ob der Nutzen, den man aus der Analyse von vielleicht zwei Dutzend Steinbrocken von einer Stelle des Planeten ziehen kann, groß genug ist, um den Aufwand zu rechtfertigen. Vor allem, wenn sich die Möglichkeit ergibt, an einer vergleichbaren, weil geplanten, chinesischen Mission zu beteiligen oder weil SpaceX tatsächlich in 15, 20, 25 Jahren aus eigener Kraft Flüge zum Mars (bemannt oder Robotermissionen) stemmen kann.
Zitat Scientists Are Very Worried About NASA’s Mars Plan We could find hints of ancient life in Martian rocks—if we can ever bring them back to Earth. By Marina Koren, The Atlantic, Updated at 10:40 a.m. ET on May 22, 2024
Perseverance will stay on Mars forever, but the majority of its carefully packaged samples are meant to return to Earth. The Mars Sample Return mission, known as MSR for short, is one of the boldest undertakings in NASA history, as consequential as it is complicated. The endeavor, which involves sending an extra spacecraft to the red planet to retrieve the samples, serves as a precursor to getting future astronauts home from Mars. It’s a test of whether the United States can keep up with China’s space program, which is scheduled to return its own Mars samples in the 2030s. It could uncover new information about our planetary neighbor’s history, and reveal a picture of the cosmic wilderness that was the early solar system. Some scientists hope the dusty fragments will contain tiny fossilized microbes that would prove life once existed on Mars. Those tiny life forms will have been dead for who knows how long—but still would be evidence of a second genesis in our own backyard.
If, that is, the samples ever make it back to Earth. NASA officials recently announced that the sample-return effort has become too expensive and fallen worryingly behind schedule. The latest estimated cost of as much as $11 billion is nearly double what experts initially predicted, and the way things are going, the samples won’t arrive home until 2040, seven years later than expected. At a press conference last month, NASA chief Bill Nelson repeatedly called the state of the Mars Sample Return mission “unacceptable,” a striking chastisement of his own agency, considering that MSR is an in-house effort. Officials have put out a call—to NASA’s own ranks and to private space companies—for “quicker and cheaper” plans that don’t require “huge technological leaps” to bring the samples home.
The promise of such samples has been a top research priority for planetary scientists for over a decade. The original plan to do so, devised by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), is accordingly ambitious, involving several different spacecraft to retrieve the capsules, launch them into Martian orbit, and fly them back to Earth. No astronauts are involved, but Mars scientists have likened the mission choreography to the Apollo program in terms of complexity.
That plan was apparently destined to unravel from the start. NASA’s independent review found that MSR had “unrealistic budget and schedule expectations from the beginning" and was "organized under an unwieldy structure," with "unclear roles, accountability, and authority.” Technically ambitious missions always cost more, and MSR is arguably one of the most complicated that NASA has ever undertaken. But the scientists who help NASA set exploration priorities have no control over the budgets of the resulting programs—Congress does.
Last summer, some congressional appropriators briefly threatened the entire MSR effort with cancellation. This February, facing uncertainty over the money that Congress would allocate for MSR in the next fiscal year, the JPL laid off more than 500 employees. (Congress has since allocated a fraction of what NASA spent on the mission last year.) Thanks to budget concerns, NASA has delayed the launch of a telescope that would monitor potentially hazardous asteroids near Earth, and put on hold a proposed mission to study Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field.
Some scientists fear that MSR will draw resources away from other potential projects to search for life in places that they now believe to be far more promising than Mars. The search for alien life in the solar system has long been guided by water, and in the 1990s, when NASA kicked off a golden age of Mars missions, the red planet’s ice regions seemed appealing. But in the years since, other celestial bodies have become more compelling. A moon of Saturn, Titan, is the only body in the solar system besides Earth that has bodies of liquid on its surface, even if that liquid is methane. Europa, a moon of Jupiter, and Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, are both likely icy worlds with subsurface oceans; on the latter, cracks in the ice release plumes of salty water, hinting at something like deep-sea hydrothermal activity on Earth. NASA is launching an orbiting mission to Europa later this year, and the latest survey of planetary scientists advised NASA to start working on another to Enceladus. “If I could go anywhere, I would go to Enceladus,” Brook Nunn, an astrobiologist at the University of Washington, told me.
Even some Mars scientists believe that Mars is no longer the top candidate. Darby Dyar, a planetary geologist at Mount Holyoke College, has spent decades studying Mars. “If anybody should be enthusiastic about the returned samples, it’s me, and I am,” she told me. But now she works on a NASA mission to Venus, a planet that might rival Mars as a candidate for extraterrestrial life, and she says she wouldn’t prioritize MSR over her current research.
For scientists who support Mars exploration, MSR is a problem, siphoning funds away from other efforts to study it. “There’s so many aspects to studying a planet that do not involve analyzing small amounts of rocks in the lab,” says Catherine Neish, a planetary scientist at Western University, in Canada, who’s working on an international mission to map the ice deposits in Mars’s mid-latitude regions. NASA pulled its financial support from that project in 2022, citing MSR’s cost as part of its motivation. And planetary scientists have recommended prioritizing a mission to drill deep into the ice at the Martian poles, far from Perseverance’s domain, where conditions could be just comfortable enough to support small life forms now.
NASA is well aware of the all-consuming nature of MSR. As the mission is redrawn, officials have said they are even willing to consider proposals that would bring home just 10 sample tubes, one-third of the amount initially planned. Lindsay Hays, a program scientist at NASA’s planetary-science division, told me that NASA will seek input from the science community about which sample tubes to return. “NASA has a responsibility to use taxpayer funds in the most effective and efficient way possible,” she said. “But it’s also part of our mandate to the nation to do things that have never been done before.”
A badly delayed sample-return mission would fracture NASA’s grand vision for its Martian future. By the 2040s, NASA intends to be focused not on the red planet’s soil, but on sending astronauts there and, crucially, bringing them back. That operation relies on having successfully practiced launching off from Mars, which NASA hasn’t yet managed with MSR. Instead, the agency is back at the drawing board, hoping to find a way out of an $11 billion pit. Officials expect to finish reviewing new proposals and come to a decision on the mission’s future in the fall.
Zitat:Chris Bergin - NSF@NASASpaceflight Pending an official announcement, we understand Starliner's CFT mission is currently planning a launch date of June 1 at 12:25:36PM EDT. 1:11 AM · May 23, 2024
Der Witz ist aber noch ein anderer. Wenn es 20 Jahre Arbeit und ein Budget von 11 Milliarden Dollar kostet, um drei Dutzend Metallröhrchen mit Bohrkernen und Staub (aus Titan, Länge 15,2 cm, Aussendurchmesser 2,7 cm) vom Mars zur Erde zu transportieren, dann kann man sich leicht ausrechnen, welchen Aufwand es bedeuten würde, auf dem Mars eine ausreichende Infrastruktur zu schaffen, die auf Dauer eine größere Anzahl von Menschen versorgen könnte.
"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 #113 What do you think is likely happen to first? ◦ Boeing Starliner first manned launch ◦ SpaceX IFT4 / Starship Integrated Flight Test 4
Offiziell #1:
Zitat NASA, Boeing and ULA announce June 1 as new target date for Starliner’s Crew Flight Test
The new launch date has a T-0 liftoff of 12:25 p.m. EDT (1625 UTC). There are also backup opportunities available on Sunday, June 2; Wednesday, June 5; and Thursday, June 6.
Zitat SpaceX Brian James Underwood · oopSrtedsnSi6f.hct5a00li1 6d659t900talc4849f14a3c9m57181ac4u · We have a date!! Saturday, June 1st. My money is on a clean flight with all goals met. What kind of expectations do you all have?
Starship Flight 4 Starship - S Super Heavy (Prototype) SpaceX Orbital Launch Pad A, Starbase, Texas, USA Sat, Jun 1 2024 at 8:00
Zitat von Ulrich Elkmann im Beitrag #119die Landefähre HLS von Blue Origin oder das Starship einsatztauglich und auf mehreren Einsätzen unfallfrei erprobt worden sind
Zitat Jeff Foust@jeff_foust Mike Sarafin, NASA's Artemis 3 mission manager, says at the Lunar Surface Science Workshop that NASA remains "fundamentally focused" on Artemis 3 being a crewed lunar landing. But, "if we run into issues, we may choose an offramp."
He says NASA is not ready to discuss what those "break points" might be or what an alternative mission would entail, but notes NASA will be watching closely key upcoming Starship tests, including next year's propellant transfer demo. 6:21 PM · May 23, 2024
Zitat UPCOMING LAUNCH - STARSHIP'S FOURTH FLIGHT TEST
The fourth flight test of Starship could launch as soon as June 5, pending regulatory approval.
A live webcast of the flight test will begin about 30 minutes before liftoff, which you can watch here and on X @SpaceX. The launch window will open as early as 7 a.m. CT. As is the case with all developmental testing, the schedule is dynamic and likely to change, so be sure to stay tuned to our X account for updates.
The fourth flight test turns our focus from achieving orbit to demonstrating the ability to return and reuse Starship and Super Heavy. The primary objectives will be executing a landing burn and soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico with the Super Heavy booster, and achieving a controlled entry of Starship.
To accomplish this, several software and hardware upgrades have been made to increase overall reliability and address lessons learned from Flight 3. The SpaceX team will also implement operational changes, including the jettison of the Super Heavy’s hot-stage following boostback to reduce booster mass for the final phase of flight.
Flight 4 will fly a similar trajectory as the previous flight test, with Starship targeted to splashdown in the Indian Ocean. This flight path does not require a deorbit burn for reentry, maximizing public safety while still providing the opportunity to meet our primary objective of a controlled Starship reentry.
Zitat von Ulrich Elkmann im Beitrag #119 Aktuell Starliner. Das ist noch die geringste Sorge.
Zitat Eric Berger@SciGuySpace If you're keeping score at home, these are the problems Boeing has found with the Starliner spacecraft on the ground since OFT-2: * prop system valves * flammable tape * parachutes * helium leak * prop system design vulnerability Crew flight test now set for June 1. 5:36 PM · May 24, 2024
Zitat Jeff Foust@jeff_foust Summary of the Starliner call: - Helium leak likely caused by a defective seal in flange; an isolated issue; - Studies of that led to finding of a "design vulnerability" in propulsion system that could affect deorbit burn in rare circumstances; developed workaround for now. NASA and Boeing proceeding with a June 1 launch with backup dates June 2, 5 and 6. A delay much beyond that, though, could run into life-limiting issues with Atlas 5 flight termination system forcing a much longer slip. 6:41 PM · May 24, 2024
Zitat Spaceflight Now@SpaceflightNow Starting now, NASA, Boeing and ULA will provide an update on the Starliner Crew Flight Test, which is currently set for no earlier than June 1. Listen along on Launchpad Live here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=E1uVzfQG_Yo Follow this thread for written updates. 🧵1/n 5:00 PM · May 24, 2024
2/ Here are the participants on the call today: 3/ Free begins the call by thanking the teams at NASA, Boeing and ULA for their analysis since the May 6 scrub. "We are learning more about the systems every day." Free says the teams were "working up to late yesterday, coming to a conclusion," adding that he hears the 4/ Bowersox says he briefly sat in on a meeting yesterday with NASA, Boeing, ULA and Aerojet Rocketdyne where he said it was impressive to see the team working "so thoroughly, so collaboratively through a very, very complicated issue." 5/ Stich says they've been working through "three specific issues" over the last two-and-a-half weeks. 6/ The issues are, per Stich:
1) The swap out of the Centaur oxidizer regulating valve on Atlas 5 2) A helium leak in one of the doghouses on the Starliner service module 3) Implications of the leak for the rest of the propulsion system "relative to the deorbit burn"
7/ Stich says the valve was able to be replaced over the weekend of May 11 and 12, adding that Gary Wentz will provide more information. 8/ Regarding the helium leak, Stich said that the leak (on the port-side doghouse) increased from about 7 PSI to between 50-70 PSI. He says they weren't able to open up the flange because as it stands, that part of Starliner wasn't safe to open up in the Vertical Integration 9/ Stich said there are eight total helium manifolds on the service module and there was only a leak found in one of them. There are 28 total RCS thrusters across the SM and only one had the leak. Regarding the redundancy capabilities of Starliner, Stich says their diagnosis is 10/ Stich said they also looked at finding redundancy for the deorbit burn. He says with the right circumstances, they could lose 8 reaction control system (RCS) thrusters. The solution was to be able to break up the burn into two burns about 10 minutes each about 80 minutes apart. 11/ There will be a delta flight readiness review on May 29, which if it is approved, they will roll the Atlas V rocket out to the pad on May 30. Stich says they've been in continuous contact with the crew about the process and analysis. 12/ Weigel notes that there's a Progress spacecraft undocking from the ISS on May 28, which will be followed by Progress 88 launching on May 30 around 5:45 am EDT (0945 UTC) 13/ Nappi says the crew has tested some of the backup scenarios that Stich described (likely in the high-fidelity simulator at the Johnson Space Center). 14/ Wentz noted that they structurally relieved the stress on Centaur, what they call "stretching," in order to access the valve and make the replacement. He says their work was completed by May 13. 15/ Stich elaborates on the loss of redundancy potential concerning the deorbit burn, he says they would have to be next to each other and have a total loss of the manifold. 16/ Nappi says Starliner won't be the timeline issue for flight, if things push beyond those dates in early June, but rather on the Atlas V rocket. Wentz says certain elements expire "throughout June and into July." They would also need to work with their launch customers on the manifest, if there's a longer delay. 17/ Stich says that the leak is currently stable and says they would keep the system open all the way from launch through docking and then close it. They can then assess the leak rate at that point and then open it back up when they're ready to undock. 19/ Stich says they didn't see the leak until after the scrub. So, had the scrub not happened, they may have seen the discovered the issue in flight and addressed it while on orbit. 20/ Steve says leak caused them to look with a bit more detail at the manifolds. Regarding if they should've seen this earlier, "I think maybe in a perfect timeframe we might have identified this earlier." 21/ Asked if this should've been caught earlier, Mark says he's not concerned with their process leading up to this. Stich reiterates that this is a test flight, saying that the leak doesn't necessarily implicate the design as being inherently flawed. "Helium is a tiny molecule, it tends to leak." 22/ Nappi reiterates that it wasn't until the post-scrub activities that the leak was discovered. The crew will be flying back to Florida on May 28, per Stich. 23/ Nappi says, regarding the metal-to-metal on the flange, the leak rate "would not exceed our capability to manage the leak." 24/ Stich says the seal is about the same size as the button on a shirt and is made of rubber, similar to what you'd find on a kitchen sink. He says it's about the thickness of about 10 sheets of paper stacked together. 25/ Nappi said if they were to change the seal out, they characterize it as "hazardous," adding that the work would need to return to the C3PF to do that. 26/ Stich says they don't plan on making changes to the ascent timeline and the manual checkouts that will happen with the crew, as related to the leak. The nominal plan for return is to execute the same deorbit burn seen on the Orbital Flight Test and OFT-2 as well. 27/ Stich says they have two main areas of confidence for flying with the leak:
1) Characterizing the leak through various pressure cycles (says the leak is "relatively stable") 2) They are able to manage a leak that is 100 times worse than the one they have on their hands right now
28/ Nappi confirms that the system is provided by Aerojet Rocketdyne and they helped provide a better understanding of the thruster and their approach to addressing it. He says they've looked at four or five different solutions and will apply one of those moving forward on the operational flights of Starliner. 29/ Stich says the crew members are both in good spirits and say "don't worry about us." Notes that they remain in quarantine and have also been able to do some simulation work. 30/30 That concludes today's briefing. The delta flight readiness review is coming up next Wednesday with another media briefing the following day.
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