Commercial Manned Space flights

[Thomas]

I went out last night to look for it, and I was thrilled to see the little white dot appear in the west and sail under the moon. A darkening blue sky, no stars - only the two lads in their pod shooting along. I'm excited enough when it's the ISS or a lowly satellite, so this was a treat.

[Blumf]

The farts of the Dragon capsule are now intermingled with the farts of the ISS.

[Alberon]

The manned Dragon demo mission is due to end tomorrow. Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley should undock from the ISS at 12.34am and should touch down in the water at 7.42pm (both UK times). So hopefully there will be no problems with it. All going well the first general service launch of a crewed Dragon should take place in September with a second in Spring 2021.

Meanwhile SpaceX's SN5 Starship prototype is getting close to actually leaving the launch pad for a 150m hop. The steel can successfully completed a static fire and may carry out the hop next week.



The SN6 and SN8 are already being/have been built (the SN7 was just a simple test tank). If not the SN5 one of those might make the 20km high test flight in a window running from the middle of August to end of February.

Meanwhile Boeing seems to still be stuck in the woods.

Members of NASA's independent panel of aerospace safety advisors raised concerns last week about quality control problems that "seemingly have plagued" Boeing's Starliner crew capsule program,

Donald McErlean, a seasoned aerospace industry consultant and member of NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, said July 23 that Boeing is making progress toward resolving the technical problems. Boeing plans to fly a second, previously-unplanned Starliner Orbital Flight Test to the space station late this year, followed by a Crew Flight Test in the first half of 2021 with a three-person team of astronauts on-board.

"However, despite this progress, which is definite and in fact measurable, the panel continues to be concerned about quality control problems that seemingly have plagued the Boeing commercial crew program," said McErlean, a former chief engineer for the U.S. Navy's aviation programs.

[RenegadeScrew]

It is a bit like Formula One.  Rich shit for rich cunts and only vaguely interesting when there is a big crash.

[Alberon]

The Dragon capsule has completed the deorbit burn and is about to enter the usual communication blackout zone as it comes through the atmosphere.

[BlodwynPig]

I somehow think these rich men's pet projects shouldn't be the focus of humanity at the moment.

[Alberon]

Well, they're not. If this is what the majority of the planet's resources were being spent on I'd agree, but it isn't.

It is possible to deal with this AND, for instance, climate change. As a species we've just chosen not to.

Meanwhile the Dragon capsule has just got through the communication blackout and re-established contact.

[Wonderful Butternut]

Now, now, I'm sure we'll find all the solutions to global shortages in space...

...which rich cunts will monopolise, sell off slivers of it at artificially inflated prices and keep the rest for themselves.

Nevermind, carry on.

[Zetetic]

As a species we've just chosen not to.

The things choosing to fund this (and not other things) are not of my species.

[Alberon]

Splashdown!

Everything seems to have gone well.

[Blumf]

Go on. Push the button that fires the SuperDraco launch escape thrusters. It'll be a laugh!

[Alberon]

SpaceX's other project, the Starship had a successful 150m hop test yesterday. Here's the SN5 in flight



and here's the video of it.

https://youtu.be/s1HA9LlFNM0

[Dex Sawash]

Thunderbirds have slightly improved FX

[idunnosomename]

Thunderbirds have slightly improved FX

not sure about that. gerry anderson would have stuck fins on an aerosol can and painted it red

[Alberon]

They're still getting there. It's thought the SN8 will have a proper nose cone and fins, but probably won't be red. Probably.

[Blumf]

China not exactly being careful with it's first stage returns:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1302933386990891008

That big orange plume is N₂O₄ rocket fuel which has broken down into NO₂, a very nasty poison.

This was from an inland launch site, and apparently happens fairly often.

[Shit Good Nose]

I'm not sure a Kelly kettle is the best form of commercial space flight.

[Alberon]

The second flight of SpaceX's Starship could be in just a few hours.

The SN8 has been fitted with a nosecone, flaps and three Raptor engines. The plan is for it to ascend to about 12.5km and then return at a 70 degree angle (which is how re-entry is planned) before firing the engines and landing.

Musk reckons it has a 1 in 3 chance of achieving that. Total destruction won't be much of a setback though as SN 9 is already assembled in the hangar.

The launch window is open from now until 11pm UK time though any possible flight will happen towards the end of that time.

[sirhenry]

It's looking more like Fireball XL5 than anything else. Except pointing in the wrong direction, obviously.

[Alberon]

The launch window closes in three-quarters of an hour, but SpaceX is saying on its livestream that it could launch at 10.30pm GMT. So if you're interested now is the time to go over to the SpaceX website or the YouTube livestreams.

[bgmnts]

Musk-Bezos doesn't sound as cool as Weyland-Yutani does it?

[idunnosomename]

this'll be shit i reckon

[Sherringford Hovis]

The SN8 has been fitted with a nosecone, flaps and three Raptor engines.

Marlborough, Ramsbury, Mildenhall, Aldbourne, Axford, Burbage, Baydon, Great Bedwyn.

SN9 is already assembled in the hangar.

Pewsey, Upavon, Enford.

There's a reason Wiltshire people are known as 'Moonrakers'.

[Blumf]

It's looking more like Fireball XL5 than anything else. Except pointing in the wrong direction, obviously.

Musk	Zoonie

[Captain Z]

Launching in about 30 mins according to this stream:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8bZkTjEnXw

Edit: They did have a T-minus countdown up but that seems to have stopped now. Possibly within the next hour or so.

[Blumf]

Ouch! It's that last metre that gets you.

Looked pretty good otherwise, nice glide.

[Alberon]

I was watching on the official SpaceX feed and they seemed quite upbeat with two captions along the lines of "Great Test!" and "Roll on SN9" after. Looks like the nosecone mostly survived.

For a first attempt it seemed to go very well. The three engines got it up to a good height, it glided back to the launch pad and landed on target. Unfortunately it landed too hard and executed a rapid unscheduled disassembly, but I think they're going to be pretty happy with that.

[hamfist]

lithobraking

[Alberon]

Couple of tweets from Musk.

Successful ascent, switchover to header tanks & precise flap control to landing point!

Fuel header tank pressure was low during landing burn, causing touchdown velocity to be high & RUD, but we got all the data we needed! Congrats SpaceX team hell yeah!!

So they seem to know already what caused the crash. There did seem to be a lot of venting during the initial burn, I've no idea if that was intended or not.

[idunnosomename]

it exploded