In a decade it won't be interesting, but it's still new enough that I don't consider bringing back boosters or launching new capsules to the space station boring. I don't get to be there in person though, so I enjoy what I can get.
I do cheat and skip to the good bits if its a replay.
After a couple delays they finally launched. Booster returned, 60 sats successfully deployed. Actual deployment footage too, which was neat in a 'we just puked them all out at once and they slowly drifted apart' sort of way.
A couple thousand more satellites and we can tell all the land bound ISPs to get fucked.
That'll be awesome, and the best part is there are zero negative consequences to filling the stratosphere with man made objects.
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It all worked out for Wall-E, I am not concerned.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/techn...space-station/
It was a dizzying day for NASA. First, the agency announced a plan to allow private citizens to fly to the International Space Station and stay for the tidy sum of $35,000 per night. This news flash, representing a major change in policy for NASA, was soon overshadowed by a tweet from President Trump that called into question his own administration’s much-publicized goal of returning astronauts to the moon by 2024.
Footage of the SpaceX "starhopper" - prototype for the top section of their Mars spaceship.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1166822634874490880
Hey Sath-the "SpaceX satellites are fucking with astronomy" discourse, help me out here.
Because they are ultimately geostationary satellites, they only fuck with astronomy on their way to the permanent orbit, but once they achieve orbit they are fine (unless specifically in the field of view of the telescope in question, right?
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This hadn't come across my radar (badumtish) but after looking into it, it seems like DECam got pissed and NRAO / GBO aren't too pleased either. And yeah, once they're launched there is a time before they get into orbit and that seems to be one of the main issues here.
Some of these observatories do nightly sky scans for outbursting sources (transient behavior which can be on incredibly short timescale. < days), some are doing a raster scan for a legacy program like the hubble deep field or the SDSS surveys. Sometimes there is rapid response to follow-up on LIGO-Virgo triggers. Here is an example from a BBH candidate from earlier today https://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/other/GW191129u.gcn3 showing all the analysis from follow-up with EM facilities to confirm that there was no EM signature in the area (shouldn't be for BBH).
Stuff like the raster scans can be re-observed, but it can fuck with continuity sometimes. Transient phenomena are unlikely to be re-observed and while incredibly rare that this would happen, if these satellites fucked it up it would be a big uproar.
The satellites in general should be non-interfering from a physical standpoint with other LEO facilities. However there is always the risk of spurious radio signals / reflections that may contaminate data if they are in the field of view. This could probably be removed in post-processing once the exact noise signal is known for radio but it is much harder in optical and IR.
Overall I don't think it is a huge problem yet, but if the satellite trails interfered with the first follow-ups of a BHNS merger you can expect big dick anger from a community that Elon does actually need the support of. It seems like SpaceX is trying to work with astronomers by painting the bases black and shit though which would help for optical.
Isn't there merit in a distributed camera/mirror array that can be used for astronomy? Basically I'm asking can't they just put mirrors and cameras on the back of the them and create a total surface camera with a power significantly greater than the hubble or any ground based observatory?
Slick video, very cool
They did a launch escape test for the Dragon capsule, simulating a rocket failure (the rocket does actually explode) and jettisoning the capsule to parachute back to earth safely. I think it's the last hurdle they had to clear to take human passengers to the ISS.
https://youtu.be/mhrkdHshb3E
Yep, that was the last major test before they could run crewed missions. Kudos to them, went off without a hitch. Nice footage too!
https://apnews.com/8e888b8034540d8c3115cb09978e8928
Projecting April for the first manned flight.
SpaceX will launch it's first rocket carrying NASA astronauts on May 27th.
Gonna be hard to maintain social distancing on a rocket amirite