Space Space Baby
 

http://i.imgur.com/rGsTCpY.jpg

SpaceX have managed to launch - land - refurbish - launch again - land again .... which is a major milestone since if they can do that, the cost comes down.

They are also supposed to be testing the Romba and fairings recovery on this mission - no word as yet as to if those worked.

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Video of the landing, which cut out on the day.

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Stargazing Live viewers find four-planet solar system via crowd-sourcing project - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

and at the same time on the other channel, viewers were watching other viewers, watching TV ...

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And thanks to my Filmon.TV account I got to watch Stargazing Live in the UK and here in Oz! Loved both series - especially the aboriginal stories of how they see the milky way.

Actually, possibly the best thing: I learned better what resonance was and its implications. Saw my son swinging on swing no. 1 of their 4-swing swing set - noticed the others of the same length swinging in unison - RESONANCE - I'm not sure the 5yo understood it, but at least I got to teach him a new word :)

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And as for Space Gandalf - I HAVE to get me on one of his stargazing tours!

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Someone uploaded the UK episodes to Youtube :

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Cassini dives between Saturn and it's rings at about 7pm local time tonight (9am UTC).


If it survives (not certain) it should reestablish radio contact tomorrow with new data - and then proceed to repeat this 21 more times between now and September, when if it still survives it will get flown into Saturn itself.

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The engineering & science behind all this is astonishing. I bet it'll survive just fine. This is based on no evidence or knowledge whatsoever!

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Got through OK, data starting to come back

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C-aECpHU0AA9nLg.jpg

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:ohmy:

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SpaceX rocket goes woosh again in about 25 mins, only this is a spy sat so there will probably be less detail for this launch. First stage should return to the launch site.

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Scrubbed till tomorrow.

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Another day, another attempt :

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Worth watching this clip for a different perspective of what a stage 1 landing looks like.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BTjVdLVB1bO/

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Another successful SpaceX launch, this one without a landing, coz it's a heavy satellite.


They seem to have their ~2 week cadence now, with the next launches on 1st, 15th, and 29th June. And when the other launchpads come online they should be able to push that even faster. You can see how their 4000 satellite, broadband everywhere, money earner could be made real.

If they, or someone else, can get such a system working, you are talking up to 1Gbps with ~30ms latency, to some user in the bush, compared to up to 25Mbps and 700ms latency for the NBN's Sky Mutter. In essence, it won't matter where you are, you should be able to get a better than NBN service level.

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Well, SpaceX finally got Intelsat 35e up this morning, on the third attempt. That makes three launches in under 2 weeks. They now take about a month off, during which time it's thought that pad work will go on, then another 3 in about 2 weeks; probably. Currently there are planned for another 15 launches this year, with 10 already done. That would make 25, or more than two a month.

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Don't think I'll ever tire of watching this company send spaceships up. Or better still, landing them. Amazing achievements.

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Looking forward to Falcon Heavy going up later this year. Not sure if they will attempt to land all three boosters on the first demo attempt, but I wouldn't be at all surprised. Three boosters returning to launch site to attempt to land - that'll be something.


They are even talking about attempting to land the second stage as well with that flight. Oh, and they are still working on fairing recovery using guided parachutes. Put all that together and basically nothing is one shot.

After than ITS is currently scheduled for 2024, and it's huge

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JGm95QC6H...40/QI9W5xl.png

Imagine seeing a Saturn 5, but landing back on the pad.

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Oh, and in tenuously connected news, South Australia have just signed up Tesla to deliver the 100MW battery the promised was "100 days, or it's free".

South Australia to announce Tesla as backer of world's largest battery

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And SpaceX will probably make the three boosters do a little dance, some sign writing and flash their arse on the way down too.

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Well, at least two of those boosters will detach at the same time, and will land in roughly the same place, therefore they will do something of a sychronised dance as they head back for the final suicide burn.

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Images from Juno's low pass over the GRS have begun to come in.

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/960a7...sm=12&fit=max&https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/m...jpg?1499884821

Hopefully might provide more information on just what's going on, and why the GRS has decreased in size by a third over recent decades.

http://wwwcdn.skyandtelescope.com/wp..._size_plot.jpg

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[Right click] [save as wallpaper]

Or something like that anyway.

Wow.

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Nobody said landing vertically was easy


And tomorrow, in about 1 day from now, Cassini ends its mission at Saturn by flying into Saturn's atmosphere.

https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/...sion-timeline/

At about 9:54pm tomorrow evening AEST the last of the data stream will be received and signal lost.

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GarryP - you might enjoy this: https://www.coursera.org/learn/solar-system

Free course. I completed it recently - very challenging (for me anyway - keen interest but no science education). Excellent professor, extremely interesting. 10 weeks of spacetastic geekiness.

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Hmm, looks like it's a paid course, and my previous physics units on cosmology and astrophysics probably went further.

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Ooo. I might have a go at this then.

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Definitely free. You only have to pay if you want a certificate at the end. Take a look at the syllabus, I'd be interested to see what you think. If you have any tips of any other online courses that might follow on/compliment what I've just done that'd be great.

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DO. Nothing to lose. There are quizzes & tests at the end of each week to test your knowledge. You don't have to do them, you can just watch the lectures. The prof who does it is superb, communicates all the info really clearly. You only need to do the quizzes & final test if you want a crack at getting the certificate at the end.

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It's not bad, covers quite a lot, including newer stuff. Misses out on diamond rain though it looks (people tend to get interested in that).

I've always thought that if you are do solar system, one of the ways of making it practical is to get used to processing real probe data, finding the answers in the same way it's really done, learning the techniques. There's so much data that you can potential find new stuff even. I remember processing Europa data, etc.

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Final image

https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/system/r...NALIMAGE_2.png

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Elon Musk presentation on where he's at on Mars and the big rocket, live stream from Adelaide in 1 hour from now. Looks like he'll be going to Moonbase Alpha before Mars.


https://i.imgur.com/6B9ZsDp.jpg

Something useful to do on this AFL Grand Final friday holiday, even though the match isn't till tomorrow :blink::huh::confused:

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He's ambitious, you have to say that...

• He's planning to start building the BFR next year, and stop development on everything else.
• He's planning to go to the moon and build a base.
• He's planning to send two cargo missions to Mars in 2022.
• He's planning to send four missions, two cargo and two manned, in 2024 - that's 2 years earlier than previously planned for boots on Mars.
• He's planning/looking at using the same system for suborbital hops - anywhere on the planet in 30-40 mins.

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Oh, and the bit he forgot to mention on that suborbital hop?

He's targeting a fare similar to a full fare economy ticket in an aircraft.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BZnVfWxgdLe/

So maybe hopping back home to Blighty in under an hour might be a possibility for thee and me ......

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Interesting Shotwell, the SpaceX second in command, has been talking overnight. She says that the BFR is being designed for point-to-point travel, and it's first flights are likely to be suborbital hops.

So that 'replace the long distance airliner' seems to be a significant focus and looking quite likely from the early 2020s onwards.

BTW two SpaceX launches this weekend, 9th Oct @ 12:37 UTC and 11th Oct @ 20:30 UTC

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Chill

Airliner travel is massively routine

Rocket flight is still anything but

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SpaceX are killing it right now. I know there are other players on the pitch, but SpaceX is the one we're all talking about. I can't get my mum on a 'plane to fly to Oz, maybe she'll get on a rocket instead... #fatchance

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SpaceX launch in 7mins ...

Edit : Successful landing of the first stage in the night, bang on target.

Second stage into LEO.

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Elon has said that he was going to do something silly for the payload of the first Falcon Heavy launch (given the high chance of failure). He now tweeted what that is :


eg something like

https://ecelebrityfacts.com//images/...1485919935.jpg

will be going to Mars, early next year.

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For those interested, and not worried by maths, this probably refers to the approach to be used.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1410.8856