dr_orpheus

8 ms·

1.
by dr_orpheus 11mo ago
Yep, definitely already on people's minds: "China’s use of its SJ-21 to remove a GEO satellite that had been shedding debris to a very high graveyard orbit in January 2022 has been repeatedly used as evidence that they can threate
2.
by dr_orpheus 11mo ago
The FAA does have licenses over launch and they are trying to impose rules for upper stages of launch vehicles [0]. The FAA said they would complete these regulations in 2025 [1], but I haven't seen something saying they have gone in t
3.
by dr_orpheus 1y ago
There was a proposed theory on this the spread of absorption created more stability in the power generation of plants over different conditions. This was supposed to be a more important factor than being able to absorb the peak and highest
4.
by dr_orpheus 2y ago
I spent the last few years building up an immunity to lunar dust powder
5.
by dr_orpheus 2y ago
I totally agree with the space is hard, it fails sometimes. I been in the space industry on both the super rigorous high cost, high mission assurance side of things and the low cost commercial launch 10 and hopefully most of them work side
6.
by dr_orpheus 2y ago
Never go in against a Sicilian when death (of a spacecraft) is on the line
7.
by dr_orpheus 2y ago
Yeah, was cool to see Blue Ghost be successful. And do the point about tall and thin, the Blue Ghost lander is much more squat than the Intuitive Machines landers https://fireflyspace.com/blue-ghost/
8.
by dr_orpheus 2y ago
Yep, most of the previous Mars rover prior to Curiosity did it this way. They had a number of balloons surrounding the rover and landed and bounced along the surface. Then the balloons were deflated in a particular order so the rover ended
9.
by dr_orpheus 2y ago
But don't forget about a local government in Australia fining NASA $400 for littering after debris from Skylab re-entry landed there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylab#Re-entry_and_debris
10.
by dr_orpheus 2y ago
I don't know how common it is, but this is the first time I had seen an announcement of a large solar installation with bifacial modules. I assume that the bifacial modules are more expensive, but I don't know what goes in to the
11.
by dr_orpheus 2y ago
If you want to look at someone that is further along on a concept like this you can look at SpinLaunch. Exactly what it sounds like with a gigantic centrifuge to spin and throw things really fast. But they are still throwing a small two-sta
12.
by dr_orpheus 2y ago
> I think NASA doesn't do a good job sometimes tolerating risk and then everything is treated as needing safety-levels of risk mitigation without considering that a 1/100th cost reduction will not generate as much in parts fail
13.
by dr_orpheus 2y ago
For context on JumpCrisscross's comment in this thread: the 4 hours is between two separate launches on two separate rockets. This is absolutely not refurbishing and launching the same rocket 4 hours apart. Seems like the actual record
14.
by dr_orpheus 2y ago
Yep, they do! I had some of this discussion on a thread talking about the Mars helicopter here that Goddard does a lot of radiation testing on commercial chips. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39175423#39182421 Lots of
15.
by dr_orpheus 2y ago
Yeah, you got a lot of it and the ripple effect of things that go out from it. In addition to the extra mass of the camera and solar arrays, there is extra mass for the harnessing to connect the camera to the computer and engineering design
16.
by dr_orpheus 2y ago
Yep, for reference Europa Clipper is 6,065 kg [0]. It is an absolutely massive interplanetary probe. It is getting close in size to some of the largest GEO communication satellites. And to get it out to Jupiter they definitely need some of
17.
by dr_orpheus 2y ago
Not a silly question. I don't think the images are actually cropped. JunoCam is described as a "push broom" imager [0]. The camera takes pictures as the spacecraft turns. So it's more like you are looking at a stitched t
18.
by dr_orpheus 2y ago
> Wood should not be damaged by temperatures high enough to kill living cells Yep, in NASA's planetary protection guidelines they have bakeout timelines specified for microbial reduction at temperatures between 112C and 155C. There
19.
by dr_orpheus 2y ago
Yep, and you can find lots of commercial companies that are doing this https://exoanalytic.com/space-domain-awareness/
20.
by dr_orpheus 2y ago
Amazing, and so is the associated article: "In a recent piece on red-giant star Mira, we rather foolishly suggested that the "comet-tailed" body was travelling across the heavens at roughly 150,000 times the speed of the aver
21.
by dr_orpheus 2y ago
I believe what you are probably looking at (I'm having trouble loading it) is probably debris in the Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_transfer_orbit Edit: I beli
22.
by dr_orpheus 2y ago
Yeah, I have had this feeling as well. I don't think it is a direct cause of the coffee consumption and is more of an association that the tiredness is still building rapidly at the time you decide you need an afternoon pick-me-up. The
23.
by dr_orpheus 2y ago
I've got a dumb Insignia TV that I think is getting ready to celebrate it's sweet 16! It's old, its heavy (I had to buy the TV mount that is typically for much larger TV's) but it survives and because its big they actual
24.
by dr_orpheus 2y ago
If you squint at it, this is sort of the premise of a ground source heat pump.
25.
by dr_orpheus 2y ago
Yeah, no pretty looking shock diamonds in that exhaust. Which makes me thing the exhaust velocity is pretty low, which I'm not too surprised by since the throat of that engine looks pretty large. And the specific impulse (efficiency) o
26.
by dr_orpheus 2y ago
They are both about 3d printing rocket engines, but it's a bit of comparing apples and oranges. - The linked article is about improving the speed of manufacturing with 3D printing. The linked article claimed that there was no need for
27.
by dr_orpheus 2y ago
You can see some of that path on their website 2022: Announced $20m in VC funding, April 2024: SpaceWERX contract for $1.7M, June 2024: Starting to work agreements with NASA So they are currently on step 2
28.
by dr_orpheus 2y ago
Yeah, that makes sense and they are likely communicating. The dimension is often used approximately to know what class of launch vehicle it is fitting in. For the standard existing rockets we will say things like "this spacecraft fits
29.
by dr_orpheus 2y ago
A lot of the time the path looks like this: 1. Initial VC funding for your cool idea to carry you to something (analysis, initial demo) you can feasibly sell to get to a more formal demonstration 2. Science and Technology government org fun
30.
by dr_orpheus 2y ago
Probably pretty good since the NRO is buying data from Umbra: https://spacenews.com/nro-signs-agreements-with-six-commerci...

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