SunlitZelkova

I thought I remembered there being one, but I did a search and couldn’t find any. Maybe it was just posted in the science news section or something.

December is over, so let's recap what China launched last month. December 4th, 2023: A Long March 2C launched the Egyptian built, Chinese supported MisrSat-2, along with two other commercial satellites into SSO from Jiuquan. MisrSat-2 is a remote sensing satellite. December 4th, 2023: The Ceres-1 commercial solid fuel LV launched two commercial satellites into SSO from Jiuquan. This marked a successful return to flight after a failed mission in September. December 5th, 2023: A Jielong-3 solid fuel LV launched a communications satellite into LEO from a barge in the South China Sea. December 8th, 2023: A Zhuque-2 commercial methane rocket launched three technology demonstrator satellites into SSO from Jiuquan. December 10th, 2023: A Long March 2D launched three reconnaissance satellites into LEO from Xichang. This was the 500th launch of the Long March series. December 14th, 2023: A Long March 2F launched China's experimental spaceplane into LEO from Jiuquan. December 15th, 2023: A Long March 5 launched a reconnaissance satellite into GEO from Wenchang. This flight featured an extended payload fairing. December 17th, 2023: A Hyperbola-1 launched the DEAR-1, a prototype of a future recoverable cargo spacecraft similar to Cargo Dragon, that perhaps might one day replace Tianzhou. December 25th, 2023: A Kuaizhou-1A launched a meteorology satellite into SSO from Jiquan. The KZ-1A is based on the DF-21 medium range ballistic missile. December 25th, 2023: A Long March 11H launched three technology demonstrator satellites into SSO from a barge in the South China Sea. December 26th, 2023: A Long March 3B with a Yuanzheng-1 upper stage launched two Beidou satellites into MEO from Xichang. December 27th, 2023: A Kuaizhou-1A launched a meteorology satellite into SSO from Jiuquan. December 30th, 2023: A Long March 2C with a Yuangzheng-1S upper stage launched three communications satellite into LEO from Jiuquan. In comparison, there were five non-Starlink American launches in December, and counting Starlink there were 11 American launches in total. Russia conducted four launches and South Korea conducted one. China conducted 67 launches in total this year. The US conducted 116 launches in total, while Russia came in third with 19 launches. Everyone else had single digit numbers.

I'm pretty sure @Hotel26 was saying this in jest.

My new profile pic is a picture I took of one of the scenes in the manga Space Brothers. Japanese astronaut Namba Mutta looks back at the Earth while sitting by himself on the Moon, as his brother, Japanese cosmonaut Namba Hibito, trains to join him on the Moon, becoming the first brothers to set foot on the Moon together. A quote from the manga is also in my signature (in blue).

Meanwhile in War Thunder: T a i l c u t l o o s e *crash*

This question of whether launch demand comes from availability of vehicles, or if availability of vehicles comes from launch demand is so interesting. I'm writing an alternate history where commercial spaceflight takes off in the 1990s, and don't know whether it would be possible for there to be more satellites built in the 90s or not. Thoughts? (from anyone?)

But Starship isn't "certified for flight". It is in the testing phase. There is no issue with explosions right now because these are development flights. What do you propose for correcting Starship? Ground tests? Cancellation?

Hyperloop for Mars is such an anti-SpaceX design choice though. Why use this incredibly complex thing when you could just build a normal railroad. And if you need to get something somewhere fast, just use a suborbital rocket.

I wouldn't put money on it because of that. Japan's HOPE spaceplane, the counterpart to Hermes, had subscale test vehicles too, and got cancelled anyways.

Then we come back to the question of what the point of a full thrust ground static fire is if the stage is going to explode anyways, why not do it in the air. In the 60s I think the Soviets could be criticized for not doing so because they needed it to work on the first try and perhaps the ability to monitor the characteristics of the flight of the rocket was limited, but with fancy 21st century computers and no deadline, it isn’t necessary. @Exoscientist, I apologize for asking if you have already said it, but why do you believe a full thrust ground static fire is necessary for Starship? We have pointed out multiple times there is no major benefit to it compared to flight testing. I ask because you seem to be repeating the same arguments over and over again without addressing our counter arguments.

I don’t think easy land grabs or even funding played a role in the fate of each rocket, at least as far as the performance record of the rocket itself goes. The thing with the N1 wasn’t really its design per se, it was more so severe quality issues, which were endemic to the Soviet industry throughout the USSR’s existence. If the Americans tried to build the N1 and the Soviets the Saturn V, the Saturn V would have exploded dozens of times and the N1 would have flown flawlessly. That’s a dramatic statement, but what I’m trying to say is that a big part of it had to do with the inherent strengths and weaknesses of each country’s manufacturing sector. Heck, the Americans even could have done the artillery style of development and still probably had better success than the Soviets did. Coming back to Starship, I’ll repeat what I said in the Artemis thread when Exoscientist was bringing up similar gripes. Starship is early in the testing phase. There is no reason to be crying about failures right now. Flight testing instead of ground testing is a valid method of development (not that Starship isn’t ground tested at all), for example the R-7 series was tested this way and it is literally the most reliable rocket in the world equally or at least on par with Falcon 9. To the naysayers, I say: give it time. It’s been said the N1 might have succeeded on its fifth flight, as it was doing better and better and getting farther and farther each time. Starship will succeed one day too.

What you said was basically Korolev’s justification for not doing static fires with the N1’s first stage. Extensive ground testing is part of why the Saturn V was so successful compared to N1. However, I personally don’t think this rules out the use of the “artillery method” of development (basically firing off a bunch of “rounds” (rockets) over and over again) for SpaceX. For one thing, SpaceX is not in a race with anyone, and the US government has also claimed it is not racing anyone (well, China) back to the Moon. Or at least Bridenstine said that. But anyways, there is no imperative to meet a certain date like Apollo or N1 had to, and also importantly, SLS’ own long lead times give Starship plenty of time to mature before Artemis III comes around. And finally, SpaceX as a whole is pretty onboard with Starship. There isn’t a confidence and funding crisis like Korolev and Mishin faced when the Soviet government began asking questions about the successive failures. Of course, that applies to Starship as an SHLV, not HLS. I’m not sure if NASA is concerned with the failures or not (probably no).

Commercial launchpad at Wenchang SLC has been completed. https://x.com/raz_liu/status/1740544727932678301?s=46&t=Jd73T2beq0JLNtwTy1uR5A

I don't think this has ever been used as an excuse. The potential range of the booster impact is massive and thousands of people live in it. There is no way they could evacuate everyone every time. I would guess the justification is similar to that of Roscosmos dropping Soyuz boosters on Kazakh and Russian farmland- "it's not very well populated". Compared to dropping it on Beijing, in theory this should have less of a chance of impacting property. The odds just weren't in their favor this time.

Do you know if there happened to be any military radar stations nearby? Maybe a SAM unit close by was testing the fire control radar on that day?

I’m not sure, but the Geriatric Coffee Neutralizing Robot should maintain 78% levels of wumbo.

What about the Good Capybara Neutron Repository?

I caught COVID-19 for the first time And it’s my last Christmas before moving to Japan… My dad did too, but his symptoms are less severe than mine. Which is interesting, because he smoked for about 30 some years before quitting in 2020 when it became too difficult to buy cigarettes because of quarantine (and hasn’t restarted yet thankfully). When I fall into sleep it becomes such a haze. I sincerely thought I was living on a Mars base and had to discuss why balloons were being shipped from the crew back to Earth. I’m trying to look at this positively though. Maybe if I hadn’t been sick, me and my family would have died while driving to Hood River, the town we were planning to visit this weekend. Or maybe me and my sister would have been killed in a car accident on the way to my mom’s house, which is where we do the celebrations.

iPhones do that from time to time, especially after performing a certain task. For example, back when I played Minecraft on my phone it would often rapidly drain down to 30% even if it was only in the 80s when I was playing.

Unexpected commentary from Lego on the evils of holiday consumerism lol.

@Exoscientist If you are really desperate to make a single stack launch with SLS, have you considered dropping Orion and having a CSM more akin to Gemini? I feel like cutting out two crew would make the mass limitations more manageable. It’s just an idea that popped into my mind. But, as @tater says, if you do that it wouldn’t be Artemis (that is, what NASA is trying to achieve with Artemis). Artemis is about going to the Moon to stay, and that requires a reusable lander- no matter the cost. Speaking of reusability and high numbers of tanker flights, it should be noted during the planning for the original Space Transportation System proposal, the Reusable Nuclear Shuttle, which would take astronauts back to the Moon in the 1980s, would have required six Space Shuttle flights for refueling each time. I don’t know if it is a good or bad thing to have a similar characteristic to the ill-fated Integrated Program Plan (which encompassed STS, a lunar base, and had a Mars mission on the end too). I personally don’t think it is time to panic yet by the way. If Starship/Super Heavy gets to five* integrated flights with no successful orbit, I might start getting concerned, but it is still early in the testing phase. And even if Starship doesn’t work great, SLS is certainly not the answer for a replacement for the reasons tater and co have said. Exoscientist, how do you propose to lower the cost of SLS to make multiple lunar missions a year feasible? *I chose this number because this is the number of flights it probably would have taken to get a successful N1 launch. N1 might have succeeded on the fifth but got cancelled after the fourth failed launch.

It was actually Dezik and Tsygan on a suborbital flight in 1951. Laika was the first orbital dog.

Not a picture but a video. Finally an on topic reason to talk about cats in a spaceflight themed forum. https://x.com/nasa/status/1736900843813605759?s=46&t=Jd73T2beq0JLNtwTy1uR5A First laser transmitted ultra HD video from space (that is, sent through the space based laser comms test bed) is of a cat.

https://x.com/nasa/status/1736900843813605759?s=46&t=Jd73T2beq0JLNtwTy1uR5A First laser transmitted ultra HD video from space (that is, sent through the space based laser comms test bed) is of a cat.

ESA announces program to build European commercial resupply service. https://x.com/esaspaceflight/status/1736766316118224948?s=46&t=Jd73T2beq0JLNtwTy1uR5A https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Human_and_Robotic_Exploration/Competition_developing_Europe_s_space_cargo_return_service Cargo launch and return. First flight intended for 2028 to ISS. ESA wants the program to be able to “barter” for flights to commercial space stations instead of having to pay money. The capability is said to possibly present an opportunity to eventually build a crewed spacecraft, or return cargo from Gateway. It says “this is part of ESA’s renewed journey to LEO and beyond to Moon and Mars”. Timeline seems a little optimistic, to say the least. Although I guess Dragon 1 flew in what, 3 years from beginning of development? What companies can realistically partake in this? And to what extent is this going to be “commercial”? The meat of my questions are: how is this going to become profitable or sustainable and not end up like the ATV (cancelled after five flights), when these manufacturers participating don’t have alternative sources of income like SpaceX did?* *I’m assuming Airbus’ airliner, defense, and space divisions are separate and can’t have cash swapped between them all willy nilly.