Wow I am glad they seem to be ok. Jeez. https://t.co/zXEWG5YlWz

— Ken Kirtland IV (@KenKirtland17) October 31, 2023

That's a hard hit. Oof.

NASAg03 said:

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These are programs that are part of Artemis under NASA CLPS (commercial lunar payloads services).

They are gateway services that will help develop and plan the infrastructure necessary for a human presence on the moon.

This includes finding water, testing habitat building methods, scientific studies, lunar terrain vehicles, communications methods, location / positioning technologies, power generation tech, and other things.

Intuitive Machines is doing all those things. For IM-2 and IM-3, we are working on a communication systems with orbiting comms satellites that will help relay signals. Right now, comms is very dependent on positioning of the moon and earth, and antenna orientation. This results in a lot of mission constraints and drives con-ops significantly. It also makes navigation hard since there isn't any GPS on the moon, and a very weak magnetic field.

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Interesting. Thanks.

Saw what I believe was star links deploying across the sky in San Antonio last night while out trick or treating. Long trail of the dots going across sky in the west from a NW to SE orientation.

If they were equally spaced, it was probably just the array orbiting in the horizon light.

They were pretty tightly packed still with the leading end to the left spaced out a bit more. Wasn't able to get a picture.

It looked like this but maybe more bunched on the right half.
https://gray-kplc-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com/resizer/dio-lPJum5B2EXzAEJCETvMOoIE=/980x0/smart/filters:quality(85)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/gray/7VV4MOJ4QZBBJGCIIXCM52PV2M.jpg

Above my pay grade/intellect, but very well done/good entertaining video. All of the scales involved, and theories as well are tremendously humbling.

GCRanger said:

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Saw what I believe was star links deploying across the sky in San Antonio last night while out trick or treating. Long trail of the dots going across sky in the west from a NW to SE orientation.

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You can see them tomorrow morning again if you want to get up early!

https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/

nortex97 said:

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Above my pay grade/intellect, but very well done/good entertaining video. All of the scales involved, and theories as well are tremendously humbling.

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Interesting video. Thanks. One of the big questions about the universe is why it seems more or less the same in all directions, because the physics at one end of the universe wouldn't be able to affect the physics on the other end. Inflation theory explains that the clumpiness of the quantum fields in the instant of the big bang expanded faster than the speed of light (and space is allowed to do this). i.e. a subatomic quantum fluctuation at the beginning of time, could expand into a galaxy billions of years later, or a cluster of galaxies. So that explains the more-or-less uniform characteristics of the WMAP image from when the universe is 380,000 years old


The assumption is that just as the climpiness from inflation expanded into the WMAP image, the universe from the WMAP image continued to expand to what we see "now". But the clumpiness doesn't match, which brings us to the video.

Sounds like one of the major focuses of cosmology is to figure out those discrepancies, because it would hint towards laws of physics that we don't know about, and therefore were not simulated in the massive simulation they discussed.

BREAKING: The United States Space Force has awarded @SpaceX $1.23 billion in rocket contracts for 10 launches. pic.twitter.com/oS6nE9hTYD

— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) November 1, 2023

Maybe I'm missing something. They awarded 11 launches to ULA and aren't ULA basically out of launch vehicles (or those already committed) and are praying Centaur and BE-4's aren't vaporware?

After yesterdays 'drop and roll' landing of Shenzhou - here's a camera inside Soyuz-TMA-15M during the landing - watch the notebook flopping around as the capsule rolls pic.twitter.com/YmfmPvowus

— Scott Manley (@DJSnM) November 1, 2023

Malachi Constant said:

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Wow I am glad they seem to be ok. Jeez. https://t.co/zXEWG5YlWz

— Ken Kirtland IV (@KenKirtland17) October 31, 2023

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Centaur more or less exists per my recollection. It's Vulcan (first stage) that is unproven. I believe they did the first static fire of a Vulcan with BE-4s a few months ago.

I could look this up but I'm supposed to be giving the kiddo a bath…

From what I’m hearing, a Nov. 6 SpaceX Starship launch date is off the table. But work continues and an attempt this month is still very much on the table as SpaceX and the FAA work closely together. The meeting with Elon and FAA officials last month was “cordial” and productive. pic.twitter.com/rUCuWUta3h

— Christian Davenport (@wapodavenport) November 2, 2023

Centaur has been flying for decades and is a well known and p4oven upperstage.

Now ACES is a different story, but the BE-4 is the big clog in the whole system.

Malachi Constant said:

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Wow I am glad they seem to be ok. Jeez. https://t.co/zXEWG5YlWz

— Ken Kirtland IV (@KenKirtland17) October 31, 2023

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Any chance there is some kind of airbag system deploying on impact? Looks a little like an explosion on impact.

Excited to announce that @SpaceX @Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow! Excellent work by a great team.

Starlink is also now a majority of all active satellites and will have launched a a majority of all satellites cumulatively from Earth by next year.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 2, 2023

plain_o_llama said:

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Malachi Constant said:

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Wow I am glad they seem to be ok. Jeez. https://t.co/zXEWG5YlWz

— Ken Kirtland IV (@KenKirtland17) October 31, 2023

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Any chance there is some kind of airbag system deploying on impact? Looks a little like an explosion on impact.

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No airbag but there is a system in place to slow the capsule at the last second and cushion the landing.

Yep.
The Soyuz and the the Shenzou spacecraft use a "Soft"-landing motor to cushion the impact.
It fires about 1 meter above the ground and it is the main source of the dust cloud.

But what that is impressive here, is the rolling of the capsule.

— Riccardo Rossi - IU4APB - @AstronautiCAST co-host (@RikyUnreal) October 31, 2023

Ehh

Oh man. The whole Apollo generation is going on to see what's on the other side. Fair skies and following seas Admiral!

Here

With heavy hearts, we bid farewell to @USNavy rear admiral and @NASA astronaut Ken Mattingly. His brave contributions providing critical decisions to rescue the Apollo 13 crew, and serving as a key player in the Apollo and early Shuttle programs will long be remembered. #RIP 🫡 pic.twitter.com/RRMfQjuxGz

— NASA History Office (@NASAhistory) November 2, 2023

The Kraken said:

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Lost another Apollo astronaut. Ken Mattingly passed away on Oct 31, NASA has announced. Command Module Pilot for Apollo 16, later commanded 2 shuttle missions (STS 4 and 51C). Famously dropped from the Apollo 13 mission 3 days prior to launch for being in contact with German measles.

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-administrator-remembers-apollo-astronaut-thomas-k-mattingly-ii/

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will25u said:

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Excited to announce that @SpaceX @Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow! Excellent work by a great team.

Starlink is also now a majority of all active satellites and will have launched a a majority of all satellites cumulatively from Earth by next year.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 2, 2023

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My mom gets her Starlink tomorrow … the house is out in the country .. my brothers can't wait to have real internet out there at the ranch … why chase cows and tend the fields when you can surf Texags !

fullback44 said:

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will25u said:

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Excited to announce that @SpaceX @Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow! Excellent work by a great team.

Starlink is also now a majority of all active satellites and will have launched a a majority of all satellites cumulatively from Earth by next year.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 2, 2023

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My mom gets her Starlink tomorrow … the house is out in the country .. my brothers can't wait to have real internet out there at the ranch … why chase cows and tend the fields when you can surf Texags !

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Starlink is changing the world.

Rounding up the path to a potential second flight of Starship in mid-November (pending FWS):https://t.co/9Z0zIMesUX

— Chris Bergin - NSF (@NASASpaceflight) November 2, 2023

Presumably waiting on some guy on PTO at FWS to get back and check his email.

One watch item over the coming days. The explosives bunker for the FTS (Flight Termination System). The FTS will be armed on Starship very close to the launch date...to the point we'll know the launch date by then!https://t.co/e3xbqPnwZ5 pic.twitter.com/wvFEuaoeJT

— Chris Bergin - NSF (@NASASpaceflight) November 3, 2023

From the horses mouth!

The second flight test of a fully integrated Starship could launch as soon as mid-November, pending regulatory approval → https://t.co/pxgvgUeIFF pic.twitter.com/P40vOCaFaZ

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 3, 2023

fullback44 said:

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will25u said:

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Excited to announce that @SpaceX @Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow! Excellent work by a great team.

Starlink is also now a majority of all active satellites and will have launched a a majority of all satellites cumulatively from Earth by next year.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 2, 2023

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My mom gets her Starlink tomorrow … the house is out in the country .. my brothers can't wait to have real internet out there at the ranch … why chase cows and tend the fields when you can surf Texags !

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Starlink has been as big of a game changer in oil field operations as the original arrival of the Internet. Reliable high speed high bandwidth data in the middle of nowhere is nothing short of revolutionary!

nortex97 said:

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Rounding up the path to a potential second flight of Starship in mid-November (pending FWS):https://t.co/9Z0zIMesUX

— Chris Bergin - NSF (@NASASpaceflight) November 2, 2023

Presumably waiting on some guy on PTO at FWS to get back and check his email.

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So it's scheduled for mid-november... until it's not

It's on, it looks like!

Closures for November 13th through the 15th have just been posted. This is likely for the 2nd Starship Integrated Flight Test!

Time to get excited! pic.twitter.com/hM0fq66hPo

— Zack Golden (@CSI_Starbase) November 6, 2023

This time, space!!

SpaceX is reportedly aiming to conduct crew launches at SLC-40 as soon as AX-3 currently scheduled for January 2024.

Earlier today, SpaceX installed the crew access arm for SLC-40 - a huge milestone before human launches can begin.https://t.co/tXVjsEB2Pp pic.twitter.com/e42jScbjpL

— Toby Li (@tobyliiiiiiiiii) November 6, 2023

will25u said:

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It's on, it looks like!

Closures for November 13th through the 15th have just been posted. This is likely for the 2nd Starship Integrated Flight Test!

Time to get excited! pic.twitter.com/hM0fq66hPo

— Zack Golden (@CSI_Starbase) November 6, 2023

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