Frida Space

Hi everyone, a few days ago NASA released the first photos of LADEE's moon impact, which occured in April. I was wondering if LADEE's impact generated some moon-quake or something like that. A few considerations: 1) LADEE had a mass of 383 kg and impacted the moon at 1700 m/s. If my calculations are correct, the kinetic energy released would be of about 553,435,000 J. On Earth, it would be just less than a 3 Richter magnitudine earthquake. Would it be the same on the moon, or would it be more/less powerful? 2) The impact occured on the far side of the moon for safety reasons. All of the Apollo seismographs lie on the opposite side. Do you think they could have registred a quake of some sort? Finally, something similar happened with Apollo 13's third stage, which crashed just 134 km from Apollo 12's seismograph. According to my calculations, the energy released was about 81 times the one of LADEE. Being so powerful and so close, the seismographs recorded something like a 3-hour-long moonquake, if I recall correctly. I was also wondering what calculation is needed in order to determine the duration of the quake. Thanks!

Planetary Resources will launch today the first-ever private space telescope! Arkyd 3 will fly to the International Space Station on a Cygnus resupply craft. Once in orbit, it will test some key technologies. If everything goes well, Planetary Resources will launch another test vehicle next year, and in 2016 it will finally launch the first of ten Arkyd 100s space telescopes, which will look for interesting asteroids. Once an asteroid is detected, an Arkyd 200 probe will visit it and assess the availability of its resources. Finally, a swarm of Arkyd 300s will visit the asteroid and mine metals, minerals and water. What do you think of Planetary Resources and their asteroid-mining plan? I personally can't wait for them to get started!

Beautiful pic from today's launch

Yup, it has definitely launched.

She obviously didn't tell me that the SLS is not going to make it (although it's kinda likely), but she did say that they'll have to adapt to the SLS schedule, whatever happens.

I spoke via email with the mission's principal investigator, Barbara Cohen.

"For this call, we focused on a non-optimized “Lunar Flashlight†concept on a 6U CubeSat bus." (from the official paper available here)

In 2017, NASA will launch a new mission to the moon: Lunar Flashlight, a 6U Cubesat probe pushed along by a 78 sqm solar sail. The probe will liftoff aboard the very first SLS flight, scheduled for December 2017, and reach the moon 6 months later. It will map the Moon's polar regions, searching for water ice deposits in the permanently shadowed craters. It will complete 80 orbits at an altitude of 20 km and will search for ice reflecting sunlight off of its sail. After a few months, NASA will launch another mission, Resource Prospector, a rover that will land on the moon and analyze further at least two of the sites studied by Flashlight. It will have a lifetime of approx. one week. The goal of these two missions is to verify in-situ resource utilization (ISRU), a procedure which will be very important for future human exploreres, whether it will be the Moon, Mars, Europa or anywhere else. Lunar Flashlight has already been fully funded by NASA; the spacecraft will be built next year. Now, it's just a matter of whether the SLS can make it for a December 2017 launch or not. The Resource Prospector mission is different, in that it will launch aboard it very own rocket. NASA is still negotiating with several partners to hitch a ride to the moon. What do you think of these two missions?

So, NASA is spending $500 mln in developing a mission concept to Jupiter's moon Europa involving a CubeSat and a swarm of tiny chips called ChipSats. These chips could just detach from the mothership and land wherever they wanted, allowing scientist to react to real-time events happening down on Europa's mysterious surface. Aside from that, it would have obvious financial benefits. What do you think of this concept? Certainly interesting, huh? PS: Excuse for my bad English Links: www.astrobio.net/news-exclusive/swarm-tiny-spacecraft-explore-europas-surface-rapid-response/ www.pollucenotizie.com/2014/10/7.html [italian]

Between November 2012 and December 2013, 2,258 peer-reviewed articles written by 9,136 authors were published on the topic of climate change. Of all 2,258 articles, only one rejected man-made global warming. While this isn't a scientific proof of global warming, I think it's safe to say that if 99.990% of the world's scientists agree on something, it's very probably true. I agree. I just wanted to report an interesting finding.

According to a new NASA press release, the temperature of the oceans' abysses hasn't changed at all between 2005 and 2013, and the surface temperature is still climbing, but not fast enough to account for the stalled air temperatures. However, scientists say global warming is still very serious stuff. That said, I do believe (as all of you, I hope) in global warming. (I'm not English myself, but please note the difference between stop and slow down. The latter one means that the temperatures are still rising, but not as fast as before). What do you think of this discovery? UPDATE: For those of you saying that climate change is so obvious it shouldn't even be discussed, I totally agree; however, I just wanted to report an interesting finding.

have you considered http://sentintospace.com ? They sell full launch kits with instruments and stuff. That said, I'm no expert, I just found it interesting.

I get it, thanks again.

Thank you, I understood everything but one thing: why did you put 2 Mm as the value of r? I get that 6 Mm is the radius of Earth, but 2 Mm isn't the radius of the comet. Can you explain me just that bit? Then I'll let you go :D (thanks again!!!)

thank you very much! My knowledge in physics is still very limited (I'm 16 years old) but I really want to improve it. Thanks again!

That's true. What a silly mistake. Thanks for the help!

Hi everyone. I asked myself if an astronaut could escape the Sphere Of Influence of a comet just by jumping from its surface. I took comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko as an example. The mass of the comet is approx. 3.14 x 10E12 kg. Its radius is 2000 m long (considering it a spherical object to make things easier). The acceleration g on the comet is then equal to: g = G x (m / rE2) x = 6.67428 x 10E-11 x 3.14 x 10E12 kg / 4000000 m = 5.24 x 10E-5 From this value we can calculate the escape velocity Ev of the comet. Ev = √ (2Gm / r) = 0,4578 m/s An average man on Earth jumps 0.2 m high. That means that: √ 0.2 x 2 x 9.81 = 1.98 m/s An average man jumps at an initial velocity of 1.98 m/s. That's almost 4 times the escape velocity, which means that one could easily escape the comet's SOI just by jumping. However, I tried to proof-check using other formulas, and something didn't quite work. First, I calculated the SOI's radius: Rsoi = a x ( m / M ) E2/5 where M is the mass of the Sun (1.99 x 10E30 kg) and a is the semi-major axis (518 120 000 000 m) That makes a 37 408 m radius. This makes me think that, jumping from the surface, you would get an apoapsis far higher than 37 km, which would mean that you would be on an escape trajectory from the comet. However, this is were the calculations say something different. I simulated the astronaut's jump. We know his speed V at apoapsis will be 0 m/s, while his initial speed V0 will be 1.98 m/s. We also know that g on the comet is equal to 5.25 x 10E-5. Using this information, I easily calculated the height H reached. H = V0 squared / 2 x g = 1.98E2 / 2g = 37 377 m That is just inside the SOI radius, while I was expecting it to be far far beyond. Can someone please explain me where I made a mistake? Thanks!!

Hahaha, I'm sorry I let you down.

They are. "Hayabusa 2 will deploy one of five target markers that it will use to guide itself into landing and collecting a sample". The probe will collect two samples in total from the asteroid. They made it explosive because it won't have much kinetic energy.

I read that it's going to drop a sort of target so it can descent more safely towards the surface and collect samples. The probe will carry five targets, although it will just take two samples. And yes, the impactor is going to explode in proximity of the asteroid and form a crater. The second sample is going to come from this crater

Two days ago, JAXA finally revealed the Hayabusa 2 probe. Hayabusa 1 was the first probe to return asteroid samples to Earth. Hayabusa 2 will be doing something similar, but it will also carry an European lander, three rover-like vehicles and an impactor.... that sound more like a fleet than a single mission! I think it's a really impressive attempt from Japan and I love the photos. (Look at those ion engines! and those RCS thrusters!) The 4 ion engines produce 10 millinewtons of thrust. KSP's ion engine is approx. 200 000 times more powerful!! What do you guys think of this mission? Sources: www.pollucenotizie.com/2014/09/hayabusa.html (ITALIAN) www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2014/08311314-hayabusa-2-complete.html (ENGLISH)

I'd save Cassini... It has proven to be more reliable (Curiosity in just a month switched on and off unexpectedly four times), it is less-know (shutting Curiosity down would be everywhere on the news) and, I believe, scientifically more precious. Curiosity is a great mission, it has returned amazing data and it is a marvel of human ingenuity and capabilities, but it has been giving "mixed" signals: it did prove that Mars once was habitable, but it didn't find any methane. The mystery will be solved only once MAVEN gets there in September 2014. Also, Cassini's mission is much more flexible: just think that it recently had it 86th flyby of Titan, and thats only one moon out of the 60+ bodies orbiting Saturn! Curiosity, on the opposite side, is for obvious reasons much slower and less flexible. I would say NASA should shut off Curiosity, if it really had to choose between the two missions, but they are both of incredible relevance for the future of space exploration and both are re-writing textbooks.

Hey guys, today I wanted to show you my newest super heavy lifter: the NEW GIACOBBO, capable of bringing a relatively large manned lander safely on the surface of Eeloo, the small snowball at the edge of the Kerbol system. I hope you guys enjoy this design. It has less than 160 parts. It is a very reliable and stable launcher, thanks to the hundreds of struts, winglets and sepatrons I always put on my rockets. If you have a manned capsule, you don't even need RCS, if you're note planning on doing some docking action. As always, feel free to point out things that i could have designed/built/... better, although for this particular design I think there's not a lot that could be done to make it even better. I don't like writing very detailed ascent profiles: after all, it's here for YOU to fly it, and everyone in the community has its own style of flying and crashing things. But here are some useful tips: - don't start immediately with your gravity turn. The rocket is relatively fast and sensible to your commands, but it still takes some time to move it around. Start turning when you are already at a high altitude. - the rocket is very heavy and so it is also very, very slow. You'll get to 100m/s after 1m30s from liftoff, and not before two minutes after you'll get to 200m/s. After that, things should speed up. - throttle to 98-99%. Don't go 100%, cause after a couple of minutes the main mainsail engine (the only engine with gimbal-control) will slightly overheat. This rocket features two stages. The first stage is a Mainsail engine, with 4 liquid booster (each with 4 LV-T309) to which are attached other 8 solid rocket boosters. I've gone for an asparagus staging: I know it is not very popular at the moment, but I still figured out it would be the most fuel-efficient solution. The second stage features a nuclear engine. This will get you all the way to Eeloo, although the transfer burn might take up to half an hour. For the lander design, you can copy mine. Don't add too much extra mass though, or else you might need a refueling mission to get all the way to Eeloo. Sorry again for my English, I'm from Italy Have a nice day everybody! Craft download: http://www./download/izfrxijei8ctn3g/New_Giacobbo.craft

Hey guys! Today I wanted to show you what I have been working on for the past weeks. It's a small rocket family which features four interplanetary rockets (actually more than that, but I haven't finished all of them). Goals:– Create a fast, reliable and simple way to get to Duna and beyond. These rockets are especially made for beginners, but I hope also experienced players will enjoy them. They are simple to use. To make them even simpler, I haven't included asparagus staging. What I like about these rockets is that they are designed to be used for colony-like projects. Downsides:– Because they are simple and relatively small, they can't bring huge payloads. They are designed for small- or medium-size robotic landers, or for a one-man capsule. However, the Super-heavy rocket has proven that it can carry a medium-size lander all the way to Eeoloo. The second lightweight rocket, if refueled, can bring a small satellite on an escape trajectory out of the kerbol system. With a relatively good knowledge of orbital mechanics (such as lunar gravity assists to accelerate or Ike gravity assists to slow down), you can save fuel and bring larger, heavier landers. Hope you have fun with them. I personally enjoy very much crashing... ehm, landing on Duna and exploring Ike. I hope you'll have fun. Bring snacks, it's a long journey all the way to Duna. Feel absolutely free to point out things that I could have designed better. I'm not an experienced rocket builder but I enjoy very much testing my knowledge and my creativity. I like constructive comments, please don't be rude And yes, the rockets are named after Adam Steltzner, the Jpl engineer that came up with the landing sequence of the Mars Science Laboratory, Curiosity. He has inspired me and I think thousands of people around the world, and I wanted to do a small (very, very, very small) tribute to him by naming my first rocket family after him. Sorry for my bad english, I'm italian See you later!

Well, that obviously means that it won't ever carry manned capsules (not that I had any doubt)... if the first two stages are entirely based on solid fuel, that means there is no "abort" button, just a "self-destruct" button...