VirtualCLD

I'm going to miss the launch, so I'll just have to find out how it went a couple hours later. As much as I would like to watch it in real time, I hope it goes perfectly and on time and doesn't scrub.

According to the 45th Space Wing's main page, the window opens at 18:27 EDT (22:27 UTC) on March 30th.

There's plenty of hype here at work. Launch party tonight starting an hour before the window opens!

It might be more than pure coincidence. It's possible the jagged terrain and pronounced cliff overhangs helped to "catch" Philae and prevent it from "bouncing" further.

I believe it's due to the fact that F=ma is a(n) (over)simplification of the "true" mathematical form of Newton's Second law: F=dp/dt or the rate of change in momentum is equal to the force applied. Change in momentum can be due to change in velocity and/or change in mass, especially for rockets.

You are correct. Current speculation is that is "walked" over to the edge during its trip back to port due to the lean angle from the crush core leg. If that is indeed the case, that sounds like a scary scenario, which might explain why it took a little longer to get back to port. So far it seems like they did not secure the rocket until they got near shore, possibly due to the risk of it tipping or "walking" off the edge, but that is all speculation. This has been discussed on the SpaceX sub-Reddit section (where of course everything must be true)!

Just noticed the update on Steam. Great work! That's a lot of changes in a short amount of time!

CONGRATS SpaceX and Congrats Theo! So... Now what? Does 8t just sail back to port like that, or does some poor soul have to board it and secure the rocket to the deck, all the while hoping a rogue wave doesn't knock it over? Edit: Wanted to acknowledge the awesomeness that was a barge landing.

I distinctly remember the talking heads mention three second stage burns a couple times during the full webcast. However, I only counted two burns. It's possible they were mistaken, I was mistaken, or they were counting the first stage as the first burn. It's also possible they did do a third burn of the second stage to deorbit it, after the webcast. The reason I think that is because I believe the Orbcomm OG-2 mission back in December used the second stage re-light test (in preparation for this SES-9) to deorbit the second stage. However, if I recall correctly, the deorbit burn occurred after the webcast.

You probably still are, if you live in the US. Not sure how glider pilot licenses work elsewhere though. If you are really interested, then I agree with looking into kit planes, but it depends on where in the world you live. In the US, a true ultralight doesn't require any formal license, but it is STRONGLY RECOMMENDED to get some proper training before hand.

Generally they are prevented by a NDA during a period of time (blackout period). Some of the YouTube personalities will make their videos during this time and post them once Squad lifts the blackout. That typically occurs a few days before release, although there have been times when critical bugs were discovered at the last minute and the release occurred a week or more after the blackout was lifted.

Anyone know how far away the support ship sits during the landing attempt? I assume no one can be near the barge, but ti doubt they sit back a day's full steam away.

Yes, I am experiencing the same thing and not on just one computer. As excited as I was about his announcement (Full disclosure: I own KSP on Steam), I'm starting to agree with the sentiment that it might be best to just extend Experimentals or better yet, create a larger "Beta" or "Pre-Release Group." I see the value in having more "eyes on the problem," or in this case, hands on the keyboard, looking for bugs. It's impossible to catch every bug, but having a larger number of people dedicated to bug hunting does help out a lot. Even though I own KSP on Steam, I sympathize with those who bought in directly to support the developers and I wonder if replacing the public beta or pre-release with a larger group would be better. The question is: can the KSP store handle 200 people downloading new builds multiple times a day? How about 500? 1000? 2000? If not, then maybe it should just stay with the Experimentals group. BTW: My comments are just thoughts and suggestions. I fully realize that Squad will do what they think is best and I will still support them and enjoy KSP either way. I'm not trying to make demands or anything

Like a lot of people here, I'm thrilled to hear about this. I understand that you haven't started yet, but I'm hoping there will be instructions on how to opt-in. I assume it will be via Beta tab when you go to Game Properties in Steam. As much as I want to just play 1.1, I really want to try and help out with testing and debugging. It would be nice to see some brief write-ups or HOW-TO guides on what to look for and how to report it so that is actually helpful (as opposed to a bug report that just says "Kerbals look weird"). I'm hoping those who have been involved in Experimentals could give the community some pointers (not memory pointers!) on what to do.

I've heard the same rumor so my guess would be a missed/hard landing as the most likely failure mode.

Someone on this forum pointed me to BBC's The Space Race which is on YouTube. BBC Space Race (2005): Episode one: Race For Rockets It's a dramatized documentary, but it might work for your application (I. E. Listening while playing KSP)

Twitter reports hard landing and broken landing leg. EDIT: Apparently I'm a tad slow posting updates with my phone. Oh well, I hope they can learn from this and improve their landing procedure (landing burn, landing legs, etc...)

I thought they said on the webcast that it was from the landing lights on the barge turning on.

My wife and I were cheering out loud in our tiny family room when they landed. I think we startled the dogs. On serious note, does anyone know the status of the second stage re-light and de-orbit burn? I believe that one of the secondary (or is it tertiary) goals was to test the re-light capability of the upgraded second stage for the upcoming SES launch (as well as all other Geo-transfer launches).

It can depend on what "angle" (orbital plane and phase) it is approaching from. If the sun is behind it, then we might not be able to image it very well (if at all).

It's been a couple of weeks, but I thought to bring this back to the front page since this should be re-entering in ~3 days. According to Wikipedia, a team of researchers from "International Astronomical Center (IAC) and the United Arab Emirates Space Agency will utilize a Gulfstream 450 jet to study the re-entry from above the clouds and haze." A news article "The mysterious man-made object, which experts believe is the remnants of one of the Apollo missions, will hurtle into the Indian Ocean about 65km off the southern tip of Sri Lanka at 6.15am local time." I'm not sure I believe that article, but maybe we'll have a greater degree of confidence later on.

Hmm... According to this article (partial paywall), not only is it delayed to "no later than January 30th, 2016," but NASA has informed Boeing that they were eliminated from the competition. If that is true, then this would leave Orbital, SNC and SpaceX as the only remaining contenders. Someone please correct em if I'm wrong.

As few points I would like add/comment on: It is very true that Intel had a difficult time getting down to 14nm production chips, i.e. Chips available as a product and not just a demo. As you probably know, Intel uses a tick-tock development cycle where tick is when they shrink an existing architecture design down to a smaller process node and tock is where they design a new architecture in the existing process node. It was speculated that Intel may switch to a tick - tock - tock development cycle due to the time it takes to shrink process nodes. You'll notice that Intel quickly jumped from Broadwell (tick) to Skyline (tock) because designing in the existing 14nm process node was much easier than jumping from 22nm down to 14nm. Finally,my random-guy-from-the-internet prediction is that while "Moore's law" is coming to an end in Si CMOS technology, I trust ITRS is right and that we will get down to 5nm process nodes. Beyond that, I just don't know.

Fortunately this right up my alley of expertise, but I will start by saying that I am on the chip design side, not the fabrication side. We do have a couple of research foundries at my place of work (using older process nodes) and I am knowledgeable in the fabrication process flow. Unfortunately I'm away on travel right now so I can only respond with my phone, but if I was in front of my computer, I would be able to give a more detailed response. I will start off by saying that what makes a foundry (particularly commercial foundries) so large and expensive is not the clean room environment, but of the equipment within the clean room. We're talking giant furnaces, chemical vapor deposition machines, photo lithography stepper machines, photoresist spinners, plasma dry etch machines, acid wet etch baths, etc... The other thing to remember is that all of this equipment is expensive so fabs make money by producing large volumes. So a foundry must be running 24/7 to make money (three shifts) and they do things in a massively parallel and pipelines flow. That means they have a large quantity of these very heavy machines. What's limiting semiconductor technologies today are things like light wavelengths used in photo lithography (as Eltham mentioned), getting your crystalline structure defect density low enough, quantum tunnelling through the MOSFET channels and the fact that your device sizes can be measured in tens of atoms. The reason moving to 450mm size wafers is hard is due to the fact that the machinery is expensive and it is difficult to grow a "defect free" silicon boule that is big enough. On average, the boule need to be 50% wider than your wafer size. Other issues are the fact that the wafer must meet a certain flatness and roughness spec. I don't really see how a zero-g, neat vacuum environment would help with those issues. If anything, it could make things worse, since you tend to use gravity to help you grow silicon and make wafers. Admittedly I've now gone from device fabrication to material growth, so I have gone a little off track. In terms of fabrication, you would need to contain your wet acid baths, you would need to hold your wafers with nanometer alignment accuracy without the aid of gravity (so no traditional flat wafer chucks) and you would need a method of vapor deposition that doesn't require gravity. Not to mention all of the heavy, expensive machinery. Also, we actually can make 450mm wafers that are structurally sound and they can meet the specs, but making the device fabrication machinery accurate enough and affordable enough is what's preventing industry from jumping to 450mm wafer runs. I will add that it might be interesting to see what effect zero-g has on material growth (aka the silicon crystalline structure) as well as epitaxial growth at the research level. I am not a materials engineer so I don't know.

As others have pointed out, it could only fly in ground effect. Get MD effect would only allow you fly a meter or two off the ground (depending on vehicle and rotor size). In that case, FAA jurisdiction (in the US at least) is not definitive. That being said, the I'm sure the FAA would like to have jurisdiction over it. Remember that hovercraft are not regulated as aircraft.