Kryten
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KSP2 Release Notes
Posts posted by Kryten
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42 minutes ago, _Augustus_ said:
Wait, was the explosion at LC-39?
LC-40.
Amos have confirmed that their payload was on the booster, and has been destroyed. This isn't good news for them, they're a relatively small outfit with only a few sats. Their insurance will probably cover the immediate costs, but they had a takeover of the company set up with a big cash injection that was contingent on this launch being successful.
I'd wait on anything on immediate cause for a few days, reports this early are never reliable.
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Here's the livestream from KSC, if you can get it to work (think it requires windows media player).
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The booster intended for the AMOS-6 launch has exploded during static fire test.
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43 minutes ago, magnemoe said:
Who gives permission to land on the moon?
For commercial operations from the US, the FAA. FAA are the regulatory body for all commercial spaceflight in the US.
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The thrust of a prop engine will vary heavily with altitude, temperature, and propeller pitch; power-rating is a convenient constant measurement that is roughly proportional to thrust.
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http://space.skyrocket.de is very good for that kind of thing. It's sounds like you're mostly wanting info on interplanetary probes, for which they have a dedicated section.
Quote.
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16 minutes ago, Green Baron said:
Different thing, the mass (fat) isn't converted into energy (radiation). It's sweated out, breathed out, formed into muscles. The overall number of particles after the bicycle trip is the same as before, though a few parts and some skin may have been lost on the slope of the Cumbre Vieja down to the sea ... :-)
Nuclear fusion on the other hand really converts mass into energy at the rate of the cited formula e=m*c*c. The overall mass of the newly formed atoms is less than the mass of the atoms before the fusion. It's not much, but enough to set free a lot (!) of energy.
It's different only quantitatively. The products of respiration will have a lower total mass than the reactants, in the exact same way the products have lower total mass in a fusion reaction. E=MC2 isn't something that applies in some circumstances, it's a fundamental statement about the nature of mass and energy.
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Given this appears to be the closest thing we have to general GLXP thread, I'll just dump it here. GLXP have officially verified a third launch for the prize, with the prior two being Moon Express' Electron launch and Astrobiotic having part of a rideshare F9 launch.
The third launch is the launch of Synergy Moon's rover on an Interorbital Systems Neptune-8 rocket in the second half of 2017. Neptune is a modular orbital system built out of simple, pressure-fed storable-propellant stages, similar to the OTRAG concept. Neptune-8 would use eight of these modules and a small upper stage, to produce payload capabilities similar to Electron.
Now comes the rub; Interorbital have been promising Neptune flights within about six months for roughly a decade now. The only time they've flown anything was a test flight out their rocket module, which reached a few thousand feet. That was two years ago, and nothing significant has happened since. Given their past record, the chances of them actually pulling off this launch within the necessary timeframe is miniscule. My best guess for why they received verification despite all this is that GLXP wants to make the thing generally more exciting and to appear more like an actual race.
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Where's the energy supposed to come from to superheat the fuel?
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Mars Climate Orbiter was famously lost because lockheed gave a command for a burn in pound-seconds instead of newton-seconds of impulse, so that'll be the grain of truth behind it; everything else is wrong.
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The space shuttle main engines are going to be pretty close to the max we can get in both categories with current technology, with 1696kn and 452 seconds vacuum Isp respectively. The record for thrust is 2,441KN for the Japanese Le-9, but that uses a relatively low-Isp open cycle and has a much lower chamber pressure so only gets 425s. The Russian KDV-1 has the record for Isp with 462s, but is a tiny upper-stage engine with 74KN thrust. SSME isn't going to be beaten anytime soon, given current LV development trends against expensive high-performance engines and against hydrolox in general.
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With modern software-defined radio tech it's possible to build your own GPS unit without the restrictions. It's certainly not easy, but it has been done.
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If you want to be proper, the current name isn't Proxima b, it's Alpha Centauri Cb. Proxima b is already a widely accepted colloquial name, so why not keep using that?
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10 hours ago, Mitchz95 said:
Would the Webb be able to see it?
No, you need something much bigger; Some of the big ground-based interferometry projects might be able to do it. There probably will be nearby exoplanets JWST can resolve, the small separation in this case just makes it particularly difficult.
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Could be either totally locked or in 3:2 resonance (like Mercury). If it's tidally locked modeling suggests you'll only get liquid water in the area ner the centre of the light side, so dark side conditions aren't really relevant for questions of habitability. For the 3:2 resonance, liquid water is possible within a narrow tropical belt. Assuming enough water is present that is, formation modeling gives vague enough results that it could be bone-dry.
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On 8/23/2016 at 3:07 PM, CptRichardson said:
Uh, we're going to hear that, with percentage-chance calculations of how certain they are and maybe a few of the characteristics. They need peer review before they can completely confirm it, but now that they've seen something they can swing Hubble around and glare at Proxima until the little dwarf coughs up its secrets like Jeb beating the crap out of a booster-pinata.
Not a chance, Hubble's angular resolution is far too low to see the planet as separate from Proxima.
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That seemed to be the case when that article was written, about a year ago, but the project has changed considerably since then. There's a Russian gov presentation on Fenix as it is currently here; given the rule about foreign language material, I've translated the presentation (very roughly) into English;
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Roscosmos has reportedly cancelled development of the Angara A5V crew-rated heavy launcher in favour of a roughly 80-ton to LEO class SHLV. The SHLV would use the first stage from the new medium-lift Fenix rocket as boosters, significantly reducing the cost of development. Fenix in turn is now set to use 4.1m diameter tanks inherited from Proton and RD-171 engines inherited from Zenit, again resulting in relatively low development costs. This means Roscosmos no longer has to build multiple pads to support BEO missions, and no longer has to work with hydrogen propulsion, something Russian engineers have limited experience with. The SHLV will likely bear a strong resemblance to the c. 2012 Sodruzhestvo concept, except with proton core-diameter boosters and general all-Russian construction.
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On August 22 1958, the third launch of the NOTS EV-1 Pilot took place. Pilot was the first air-launched and the first all-solid orbital vehicle, developed within a few months on a limited budget. Most Pilots suffered structural or engine failures during early flight, but Pilot-3 continued over the horizon, and an initial report of launch success was sent to the White House. This report was retracted after no radio contact was made, but it's possible the vehicle achieved orbit with a failed transmitter.
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At most this is equaling the record, not setting one. N1 had 30 engines on first stage, plus two roll control motors; 8 on stage 2; and four on stage 3, making 44. I can't find any definitive statement on whether or not the flight with the non-dummy LOK also had functioning 4th and 5th stages, but if it did that makes 46 engines.
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That only works if you assume the docking ports will last forever.
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6 hours ago, peadar1987 said:
Well... To play devil's advocate here, the problem wouldn't be with former Soviet scientists building more ICBMs for Russia, it would be that they would become unemployed due to the scaled-back post-Soviet space programme, and be forced to go and find alternative employment elsewhere. Like North Korea or Iran. It still doesn't really hold water though. There are cheaper ways of keeping rocket scientists occupied and employed than building the most expensive object ever to have existed!
There was a known case where several engineers from the Makayev design bureau were stopped from getting on a boat to Pyongyang; clearly Makayev-influenced designs have shown up there since so it appears some made it by an alternate route. That's going to be where the first half of that came from. Problem is, Makayev had no involvement with orbital LVs or spacecraft, only missiles. Same goes for almost all the soviet design bureaus; only Krunichev had significant overlap between missile and orbital technology.
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5 minutes ago, wumpus said:
Was that when they learned that ground initiated escape systems were sub-optimal? That sounded like a hairy flight.
There was a live nuclear warhead involved, so 'hairy' is a bit of an understatement.
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A number of groups in the US have been working on GPS-based automated flight termination for orbital launchers to reduce launch crew requirements, Orbital have already flown test versions.
Blue Origin Thread (merged)
in Science & Spaceflight
Posted
Depends on schedule, this way is faster.
Reports of debris being found in KSC parking lot A, nearly two miles from LC-40. Sounds like they'll have cleanup for the entire centre for a good while.