Kryten

The first of the new Chinese CZ-5 heavy lift launcher was rolled out to the pad today; launch is currently scheduled for the 3rd, and is very likely to be livestreamed. The launcher is capable of about 24 metric tons to LEO and 13 tons to GTO, meaning it will be the second most powerful lifter in the world. Intended missions include launching space station modules, large planetary missions such as Mars landers, and large communications satellites. The payload on this launch specifically is called SJ-17, and is being inserted directly into GSO. We don't have many details on it at this time, but we do know it's fitted with ion propulsion systems, and that it's somehow involved in rendezvous and proximity operations.

Beagle 2 wasn't really an ESA project, though it was tacked onto an ESA mission; it was all-British. It was essentially treated as an instrument, which are typically provided by single nations for ESA missions, rather than an ESA spacecraft. The resulting lack of oversight was thought to be one of the factors behind the failure, and it's unlikely to happen again anytime soon.

Aside from the points above, the basic premise of the 'rumour' is simply wrong. The lander fired for two or three seconds, out of a nominal burn of thirty seconds, so would get about a tenth of the impulse, not a third. Somebody's trying to start an urban legend.

If they haven't even got to that level in the design process, it makes the dry mass figures for BFR very questionable; and the entire architecture falls apart if the dry mass gets too high.

Radar EO sats tend to be put into retrograde orbits as it increases the Doppler shift from ground objects, and most sun-synchronous orbits used by optical EO sats happen to be slightly retrograde.

It was a radar altimeter, and from the telemetry we have it seems to have been working properly.

Has any space-related kickstarter over a few K been successful?

Berthing won't be until the 23rd, because there's a Soyuz launch tomorrow and that has priority.

NASA only has two launch complexes, and one of those is a small sounding rocket base.

At 23:40UTC tonight, Orbital ATK are set to launch Cygnus OA-5 to the ISS, utilising Antares (with new engines) for the first time since the 2014 failure. Coverage will be provided on NASA TV; This is a particularly important launch for OrbATK. It's not just Antares' first launch since the failure, but the first launch of any OrbATK LV.

But there's no connection between this effect and mobile phones, because EM radiation and magnetic fields aren't the same thing.

It does, but that has nothing to do with the phone's transmissions. It's because there are magnets in the microphone and speakers.

Docking with TG-2 is in two days.

Here's a livestream without the buffering.

Conservation of energy is a thing. If you have the energy required to compress matter that much, then you already have a powerful weapon.

http://www.ilslaunch.com/newsroom/news-releases/ils-announces-two-missions-under-its-eutelsat-multi-launch-agreement-proton-b ILS now have a contract for a Proton medium, pretty much ensuring that it will fly.

The launch for the first MEV has now been arranged; a dual launch on Proton with a small OrbATK-built comsat.

It never happened. Neither Apollo probe-and-drogue nor the APAS variant used on shuttle had the capability for fuel transfer.

Aye, we're on the same page there. Having this expensive aircraft doing something on paper is better for perception than it waiting in a hangar for the new rocket, even if that's what it's doing de facto.

It's worth noting that the release says that Pegasus on Stratolaunch is what the Vulcan-OrbATK partnership will lead to initially. This is likely something to make Stratolaunch avoid the stench of being a Spruce Goose for Vulcan's investors while they work on a real rocket. Something like the initial Pegasus 2 concept could be a lot more financially viable now BE-3 is available, for example.

We're talking engines with the highest chamber pressure ever, on a vehicle which has to achieve one of the highest mass fractions ever. Containment would be extremely difficult.

MEV doesn't need specialised equipment, it grapples to standard apogee motor nozzles.

That doesn't really work, because your old sat is going to have much less capability. It only really makes sense for big suppliers that can use the servicing sat to add small increments to the life of a lot of sats.

There are two separate issues here. One is that Delta II replacement isn't really a big niche. Sure, Delta flew a lot, but that was because it was in the range of most commercial comsats at the time, and it was building the GPS constellation. Now not only is the average comsat much too large for such a vehicle, but so are the new block 3 GPS sats. The other issue is Falcon 9 is cheaper than Antares for the few Delta II class missions that still remain.

That's technically a NASA-led international mission. Common for big projects, but adds too much bureaucratic overhead for most small missions.