Space Flight Updates - Russia pullingout of ISS?

ThreatMatrix

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Jeff Bo and crew get their Astronaut Wings...... Congrats....... must be a sensational ride and view!
Unfortunately the rocket didn't blow up.
Bezos is the slimy snake oil salesman of new-space.. Blue Origin is quickly overtaking Boeing as the most hated launch provider.
 

ThreatMatrix

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Off the top of my head the crimes of Jeff Bezos:
1) Blue Origin has been in existence 2 years longer than SpaceX and have yet to build an orbital class rocket. In the mean time Spacex has over 100 orbital flights with reuse under it's belt and will have a second orbital rocket before Blue launches it's first.
2) Jeff has repeatedly tried to sue SpaceX at every turn. First over retropulsive landing which it tried to patent. It tried to patent landing on barges although they never have. They tried to sue to block SpaceX from leasing pad 39-A although Blue doesn't have a rocket to use it.
3) They are challenging the HLS award even though their proposal cost 2 times more than NASA has to spend and had technical deficiencies. Awaiting ruling Aug 4th.
4) In addition to challenging the HLS award they lobbied congress to require NASA to select them as the second provider for HLS. The $10B Bezos buyout. Keep in mind that congress wasn't going to give NASA any more money they were just directing them to select Blue and get them money from elsewhere (presumably cancelling other missions).
5) They are working to put roadblocks in the way of Starlink so they can get their own internet satellite constellation launched.
6) They are behind scheduling in delivering the BE-4 rocket engine. In the mean time SpaceX has produced over 70 Raptor engines which are the most complicated engines ever built. And they have flown them during the test campaign.
7) Unfortunately ULA designed their next generation rocket around the BE-4. They are now postponing missions because Jeff has yet to deliver the engine. Some even speculate that Jeff is delaying completion of the engine because they don't need it yet and it hurts ULA they longer they delay.

TLDR : Bezos is pond scum.
 

deuce

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Off the top of my head the crimes of Jeff Bezos:
1) Blue Origin has been in existence 2 years longer than SpaceX and have yet to build an orbital class rocket. In the mean time Spacex has over 100 orbital flights with reuse under it's belt and will have a second orbital rocket before Blue launches it's first.
2) Jeff has repeatedly tried to sue SpaceX at every turn. First over retropulsive landing which it tried to patent. It tried to patent landing on barges although they never have. They tried to sue to block SpaceX from leasing pad 39-A although Blue doesn't have a rocket to use it.
3) They are challenging the HLS award even though their proposal cost 2 times more than NASA has to spend and had technical deficiencies. Awaiting ruling Aug 4th.
4) In addition to challenging the HLS award they lobbied congress to require NASA to select them as the second provider for HLS. The $10B Bezos buyout. Keep in mind that congress wasn't going to give NASA any more money they were just directing them to select Blue and get them money from elsewhere (presumably cancelling other missions).
5) They are working to put roadblocks in the way of Starlink so they can get their own internet satellite constellation launched.
6) They are behind scheduling in delivering the BE-4 rocket engine. In the mean time SpaceX has produced over 70 Raptor engines which are the most complicated engines ever built. And they have flown them during the test campaign.
7) Unfortunately ULA designed their next generation rocket around the BE-4. They are now postponing missions because Jeff has yet to deliver the engine. Some even speculate that Jeff is delaying completion of the engine because they don't need it yet and it hurts ULA they longer they delay.

TLDR : Bezos is pond scum.

But, how do you really feel?

:bananadance2:
 

deuce

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The pace of construction is unbelievable......

I still don't think the "catching the Booster" will work.
 

ThreatMatrix

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The pace of construction is unbelievable......

I still don't think the "catching the Booster" will work.
It is amazingly fast. On Sunday they mounted the 4 massive grid fins to the booster upper tank, stacked the booster to it's,full height, then mounted 29 engines. In one freakin' day!. And rolled it out today.
They say they'll have a full stack on the orbital pad by the 5th which is just nuts.

Booster catching is going to be crazy. But Elon seems to think it's possible.
 

deuce

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I think Elon is an Alien..........
 

ThreatMatrix

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RUDing those boosters while trying to catch them is going to be an expensive process with 29 raptors under there.
The first couple of flights will end up in the ocean. Including 6 engines on Starship.
SpaceX will throw away 37 engines not once but maybe twice and on purpose. RUDs will be icing on the cake.
 

deuce

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The engines are already obsolete........ seems like a waste to me but they would be scrapped anyway.

I wonder how they will sink the shells, which will float unless punctured somehow.
 

ThreatMatrix

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The engines are already obsolete........ seems like a waste to me but they would be scrapped anyway.
I wonder how they will sink the shells, which will float unless punctured somehow.

Not sure what the plan is. I don't think they've said. And in any case plans seem to change daily. It's possible that they will float after touchdown. Falcon 9, which is a skinnier rocket for it's height, floated and they toed it back. I'm sure the engines can't be reused but it would be valuable for analysis.
The booster will land in relatively shallow water so maybe they resurrect it if it sinks. Starship will go down in the middle of a Navy test range in what I assume is deep water so they'd prolly just leave it at the bottom of the ocean.
Yes, these engines are already obsolete. The new 2.0 engines are much more streamlined. Seeing the old engines mounted on the booster with all their bits hanging outside the skirt makes me wonder if they will wait until they have enough version 2 engines.
 

ThreatMatrix

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Now that ****ing tool Bezos is suing NASA over the award of the HLS contract. First they protest the award with the GAO who shut them down and denied all of their claims. They tried to get a bill through congress that would force NASA to give them billions and that failed. Now the POS is suing NASA.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/16/jef...-nasa-to-federal-court-over-hls-contract.html

Bezos litigated his way to the top of the online commerce mountain. He bought out competition. Or pretended to be interested in buying out competition in order to get a look at propitiatory information. Or just out right sued. And he's trying to do the same with Blue Origin or as it's now called "Below Orbit".

It's hard to tell at this time if it's just vindictive or if Blue really needs the money to survive. They've been in operation for 20 years and still don't really have a profit center. They have one rocket (NS) which is a glorified carnival ride that realistically isn't generating any profit to make a difference. They have a contract to deliver engines to ULA but are behind schedule in delivering. And of course New Glenn is years late and still years from flying.
 

ThreatMatrix

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Interesting launches in the second half of this year:

Inspiration4: Sep 15th. SpaceX F9. The real, first space tourism launch. Four civilians will ride in SpaceX's Crew Dragon for a 3-day in-orbit visit to the ISS.
Starship Orbital Test Flight: September? RUD on the stand? RUD at separation? RUD during EDL? Place yer bets.
Lucy: October 16th. ULA Atlas V. Lucy will do fly bys of five of Jupiter's trojan asteroids.
USSF-44: Oct 21st. SpaceX FH. Classified mission. But it's a Falcon Heavy so it should be good viewing.
DART: Nov 23rd. SpaceX F9. "Kinetic impactor". A test to see if ramming an asteroid at high speed will change it's trajectory.
STP-3: November. ULA Atlas V 551. Launches with 5 SRB's, so another good viewing experience. Amongst other things it contains a laser communication test satellite. Communicating via laser (tight beam) is not only more secure it is also 100x faster. More accurately it has 100x the bandwidth. So Martian porn will download faster.
Artemis 1: December. Boeing SLS. Orion takes a trip around the moon. It will be interesting to see if they actually make it by December.
JWST: December. Arianespace. The famed James Webb Space Telescope. Like Hubble only better. It will be parked on the other side of the moon (L2) in earth's shadow providing a noise free view of the universe. JWST has been on the drawing boards since 1996 and was first suppose to launch in 2007.

SpaceX will also have about 25 additional launches for Starlink, customer satellites, and two ISS missions.
 

deuce

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Astra scrubs 1st attempt then launches a sideways slide "Kodiak Slip" take-off! Booster never looked proper although the recovery from Kodiak Slip was impressive. Just after max-q, booster lost stability and was Terminated. Astra cut the feed and played a pre-recorded failure message........ impressive prep having that message ready to play.....

Entertaining Launch!
 

deuce

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deuce

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deuce

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Something falling off booster just after Meco...

astra4.png
 

ThreatMatrix

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That was a crazy launch. I've seen model rockets do that but never a real one.
The rocket shouldn't release from the hold downs until it has developed full thrust.
But it looks like one of the engines wasn't nominal as it was very slow off of the pad.

The prerecorded failure message was a special added touch.
 

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