StarStreak2109 Posted February 24, 2017 Share Posted February 24, 2017 8 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said: Little things about spaceflight you never think of: The Dragon capsule has standard navigation lights. And what do they teach you in KSP 101??? You gotta have moar lights!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Streetwind Posted February 24, 2017 Share Posted February 24, 2017 Some tentative/guesstimated future scheduling in SpaceX's crowded manifest: (March 2017) Falcon 9, Echostar-23 (March 2017) Falcon 9, SES-10 (April 2017) Falcon 9, CRS flight 11 (May 2017) Falcon 9, Intelsat 35e (May 2017) Falcon 9, NROL-76 (Q2 2017) Falcon Heavy, Demo Flight 1 (June 2017) Falcon 9, Iridium NEXT flight 2 - #11-20 (July 2017) Falcon 9, SES-11 (July 2017) Falcon 9, BulgariaSat-1 (August 2017) Falcon 9, CRS flight 12 (August 2017) Falcon 9, Iridium NEXT flight 3 - #21-30 (September 2017) Falcon 9, KoreaSat 5A (September 2017) Falcon Heavy, STP-2 (October 2017) Falcon 9, SES-16 (October 2017) Falcon 9, Iridium NEXT flight 4 - #31-40 (Q4 2017) Falcon 9, CCtCap Demo Flight 1 (November 2017) Falcon 9, CRS flight 13 (December 2017) Falcon 9, Bangabandhu-1 (December 2017) Falcon 9, Iridium NEXT flight 5 - #41-50 (January 2018) Falcon 9, SES-14 (January 2018) Falcon 9, Inmarsat 5-F4 (February 2018) Falcon 9, Iridium NEXT flight 6 - #51-60 (March 2018) Faclon 9, TESS (April 2018) Falcon 9, Iridium NEXT flight 7 - #61-70 (Q2 2018) Falcon 9, Iridium NEXT flight 8 - #71-75 / GRACE-FO #1-2 ...and more and more and more! There's at least five other payloads originally signed up for 2017 that won't find a launch slot until 2018. For example, SpaceIL is likely going to miss its shot at the Google Lunar X-Prize unless SpaceX bumps someone else into 2018 in order to pull the Spaceflight Industries SSO-A rideshare mission forward. I doubt this will happen. Also, rumors go that CRS flight 11 and SES-10 might swap places (but not necessarily launch dates). As with all space launch manifests, all dates including the very first one are subject to change, repeatedly and without warning. The order of payloads is near guaranteed to change in some form. Even if every launch goes 100% without a hitch, there's no guarantee that SpaceX can keep this mindboggling schedule. I expect that at least two flights scheduled here for 2017 will slip to 2018. Extra interesting launches: SES-10 (used booster reflight wooo!) Falcon Heavy Demo 1 (triple booster landing wooo!) NROL-76 (vertically integrated payload wooo!) CCtCap Demo 1 (Dragon V2 wooo!) TESS (NASA's newest exoplanet hunter wooo!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wjolcz Posted February 24, 2017 Share Posted February 24, 2017 What's vertically integrated payload? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dafni Posted February 24, 2017 Share Posted February 24, 2017 2 minutes ago, Veeltch said: What's vertically integrated payload? A payload that is added to the rocket while it is standing vertical. SpaceX usually does horizontal integration, means the rocket is lying horizontal as they attach the payload (in the HIF, Horizontal Intagration Facility, IIRC) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RCgothic Posted February 24, 2017 Share Posted February 24, 2017 Why would they change? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KSK Posted February 24, 2017 Share Posted February 24, 2017 On 22/02/2017 at 9:58 AM, Tullius said: It is a bit weird to imagine that the cargo needs to be adapted to the transporter, instead of the transporter being developped for a given cargo. But in the end, Dragon was also developped for manned flight, so there were restrictions on how the cargo version could look like, if they wanted to keep them similar. Maybe in the future, cargo transport will be adapted to Dragons specialities or secondary payloads such as cubesats (which wouldn't be surprising, since there are cubesats that were set out by the ISS), which will add to the efficiency. And in the end, let's not forget that it is mostly about the cost per kg to ISS (and optionnally back). Not really. It happens all the time for moving cargo around on Earth. Container ships and palletized freight for example. In both cases you have a standard transporter system and adapt the cargo to fit it. Cheaper and easier than having bespoke transporters for myriad different cargo types. Or am I missing something? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Streetwind Posted February 24, 2017 Share Posted February 24, 2017 (edited) 1 hour ago, RCgothic said: Why would they change? Special requirement by the NRO. All of their payloads are designed for vertical integration, because all of their existing certified launchers (Atlas, Delta) use exclusively vertical integration. If you do horizontal integration, then the mass of the payload hangs sideways off of the rocket, unsupported. That means the payload must have certain structural tolerances in order to support itself hanging like that for an extended amount of time. The NRO doesn't want to build payloads with that kind of extra structural support. Also, it might preclude using some of the extra sensitive equipment types they're using, which might not be able to be supported (fragile giant mirrors etc). LC39-A has been meant from the start to be able to support vertical integration on Falcon rockets, but right now still requires further upgrades to do so (a taller service structure, cranes). There is a slight possibility that NROL-76 can be horizontally integrated as an exception to the rule, since the timeline offered by SpaceX seems rather short for doing this kind of construction work in the interim. But strictly speaking, vertical integration was a key requirement for US national security launch certification, and the first expectation should be that all NRO payloads are going to be handled this way. Edited February 24, 2017 by Streetwind Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatastrophicFailure Posted February 24, 2017 Share Posted February 24, 2017 5 hours ago, Streetwind said: LC39-A has been meant from the start to be able to support vertical integration on Falcon rockets, but right now still requires further upgrades to do so (a taller service structure, cranes). Is that, perhaps, why they left in place that swing-away cover thingy from the Shuttle era whose proper name escapes me at the moment? Maybe they're expecting to adapt that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kryten Posted February 24, 2017 Share Posted February 24, 2017 1 minute ago, CatastrophicFailure said: Is that, perhaps, why they left in place that swing-away cover thingy from the Shuttle era whose proper name escapes me at the moment? Maybe they're expecting to adapt that. It's not tall enough. The plan is to use a hammerhead crane on top of the FSS, bringing it to something like the config during early shuttle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrandedonEarth Posted February 24, 2017 Share Posted February 24, 2017 2 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said: Is that, perhaps, why they left in place that swing-away cover thingy from the Shuttle era whose proper name escapes me at the moment? Rotating Service Structure (RSS) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DerekL1963 Posted February 24, 2017 Share Posted February 24, 2017 2 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said: Is that, perhaps, why they left in place that swing-away cover thingy from the Shuttle era whose proper name escapes me at the moment? Maybe they're expecting to adapt that. The RSS (Rotating Service Structure)... No, that's in the process of being dismantled and scrapped. (It's not actually in the way of anything, so it's being tackled as time/budget/access allows.) The FSS (Fixed Service Structure) will (at some point) be expanded to accommodate both vertical integration and crew facilities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperFastJellyfish Posted February 24, 2017 Share Posted February 24, 2017 14 hours ago, Streetwind said: Falcon Heavy Demo 1 (triple booster landing wooo!) I thought they said that they weren't going to try to land the center booster anymore. Did that change, or are you just speculating here? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Streetwind Posted February 24, 2017 Share Posted February 24, 2017 9 minutes ago, SuperFastJellyfish said: I thought they said that they weren't going to try to land the center booster anymore. Did that change, or are you just speculating here? The center booster won't return to land. However, it will attempt to land on the droneship. Example source from the beginning of this year: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperFastJellyfish Posted February 24, 2017 Share Posted February 24, 2017 That's awesome! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Rocket Scientist Posted February 24, 2017 Share Posted February 24, 2017 Honestly, this seems like a bad idea to me. The first launch will just be a shakedown whether its crewed or not, and it will be more dangerous than later missions because (correct me if I'm wrong) it will be the first time all of the SLS components have flown together. Maybe they'll do a unmanned abort test first, but then it wouldn't really be the first flight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WuphonsReach Posted February 24, 2017 Share Posted February 24, 2017 On 2/22/2017 at 4:37 AM, kerbiloid said: Grow crystals? As already known, a crewed station is not the best place for this due to vibration. And I doubt that ISS already is ready to grow several tonnes per year. A separated uncrewed module would make more sense (as this was planned for Mir-2/ISS). But I've never heard about Dragonlab or Dragonplant for this purpose. Or maybe that's what the X-37 series could be used for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aethon Posted February 25, 2017 Author Share Posted February 25, 2017 Module installed to test propusion. https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/orion-spacecraft-progress-continues-with-installation-of-module-to-test-propulsion Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted February 25, 2017 Share Posted February 25, 2017 Reading the recent stories about how they are considering a manned EM-1, it made me realize that EM-2 is hardly better than EM-1 as a first crewed launch. EM-2 has a different block SLS, a different upper stage, and the EM-1 Orion is not actually an all-up version, it has no life support, no waste management, even the computers, etc have no crew controls. So it is not really a usefuul test of anything. You'd think if safety was the primary driver, they'd fly an otherwise flight article crew vehicle as the EM-1 unmanned test. Make sure the life support can run for 3 weeks, etc. Seems like the only thing actually held constant might be the booster and the LES between the 2 flights. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted February 25, 2017 Share Posted February 25, 2017 So EM-2 is supposed to reply the EM-1 Orion vehicle (cool), so it's a good test in that respect, but you'd think they'd want to sort out the crew systems in flight in some fashion instead of the current plan. Man-rating seems as much art as science, lol. You'd think it would require a clone of crew flight article being fully tested. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wjolcz Posted February 26, 2017 Share Posted February 26, 2017 On 25/02/2017 at 0:30 AM, WuphonsReach said: Or maybe that's what the X-37 series could be used for. It probably is. What's the point of growing crystals anyway? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SargeRho Posted February 26, 2017 Share Posted February 26, 2017 15 minutes ago, Veeltch said: It probably is. What's the point of growing crystals anyway? Semiconductors. To produce microchips, you first produce a large monocrystaline ingot of Silicon, then slice it into wafers, and then etch the conductor paths into those, and then cut them up again into individual processors. The size of those wafers is limited by gravity, they'll break if they get too large. But if you could grow them in zero-g, you could make much larger wafers, and produce much larger batches of processors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
munlander1 Posted February 26, 2017 Share Posted February 26, 2017 If you made the wafers in zero-g, would they break if they returned back to earth? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SargeRho Posted February 26, 2017 Share Posted February 26, 2017 5 minutes ago, munlander1 said: If you made the wafers in zero-g, would they break if they returned back to earth? They wouldn't survive the reentry, and would probably break under 1g anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
munlander1 Posted February 26, 2017 Share Posted February 26, 2017 (edited) 1 minute ago, SargeRho said: They wouldn't survive the reentry, and would probably break under 1g anyway. So they would have to be made for vessels that had no burns planned like the iss? (I do know that its orbit has to be boosted but I don't think it's 1g) Edited February 26, 2017 by munlander1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SargeRho Posted February 26, 2017 Share Posted February 26, 2017 (edited) 22 minutes ago, munlander1 said: So they would have to be made for vessels that had no burns planned like the iss? (I do know that its orbit has to be boosted but I don't think it's 1g) No, the wafers are just one step in the production of microprocessors. They're cut into much smaller pieces, the actual processors, after the etching, etc., But you can fit many more processors onto a wafer that's twice as big as one could be on Earth, drastically reducing the price, or making it drastically more profitable per ingot. Here you can see the edges between each processor on the wafer: Edited February 26, 2017 by SargeRho Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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