jccooper

76 ms·

781.
by jccooper 12y ago
Station without power would start to tumble. Makes docking much harder. This actually happened with Salyut 7: the station died on orbit, no electrical or anything. The pilot of the rescue Soyuz matched its spin to dock manually. Effected em
782.
by jccooper 12y ago
The seat liners can be installed in Soyuz on-orbit. When the Shuttle was delivering someone who would return on a Soyuz, they'd bring the liner up as cargo on the Shuttle and swap it in. I imagine they routinely do the same for crew wh
783.
by jccooper 12y ago
Continuous habitation of a space station is a bit historically unusual. Skylab had three visiting manned missions, none of which overlapped. Early Russian stations operated similarly. Mir was operated more like ISS, but left unoccupied seve
784.
by jccooper 12y ago
Dragon is "berthed" to the ISS, unlike Soyuz which is "docked". Berthing is what they do to ISS modules. It's basically bolted on--which requires a fair bit of work from the crew on the station side, both mechanical
785.
by jccooper 12y ago
Once in a while, there will be three Soyuz docked, and 9 people on the station. Not for long, though. Last time it happened was Nov 2013, and apparently previously in 2009: http://www.space.com/23542-space-crew-olympic-torch
786.
Wild Data-Free Speculation on the SpaceX Landing Attempt(selenianboondocks.com)
3 points by jccooper 12y ago|0 comments
787.
by jccooper 12y ago
We know where the target ship docks. I'm sure there will be photos of its state soon. I for one can't wait.
788.
by jccooper 12y ago
I'd think it was a good result if the stage came down within a few hundred yards of its target. But touching? Break out the champagne. They be able to dial it in for sure.
789.
by jccooper 12y ago
Almost certainly they have really good GPS and inertial sensors on both. That should be enough. Any line of sight like laser or visual can't be trusted due to weather.
790.
by jccooper 12y ago
Two days? You practically have to move to a different host. And if I did that, I wouldn't bother moving back. If they have any customers left after this it'll be a miracle. Then again, I don't know why you'd think Verizo
791.
by jccooper 12y ago
They are attached to each other and the ship via some mechanism that interacts with their corner castings. (Each corner has a box with slots in it.) Turnbuckles, twist locks, rails, etc are used to secure the containers. See http:/&#x
792.
by jccooper 12y ago
You are probably correct: the piston on the actuator is moving differently than it's supposed to and/or rough at maintaining position. Probably a hydraulic valve is set wrong or broken to cause that. Could also be a leak, I suppos
793.
by jccooper 12y ago
For fun, here's the part probably in question: http://jasc-controls.com/jasc-industry-listing/space/space-a... A servo-controlled hydraulic linear actuator with redundant coils in the servomotor. Probably run
794.
by jccooper 12y ago
Here's a fun report of making something (very!) like this from scratch: http://transistor-man.com/flying_nimbus.html I don't think they're related, but they're so similar it's hard not to believe th
795.
by jccooper 12y ago
The Wrights did novel and indispensable practical research on airfoils and what can actually generate lift. The "theoretical" understanding of fluid dynamics and lift before them was quite wrong... because no one had tested it. So
796.
by jccooper 12y ago
That's a question for practically every existing launcher family, and none of them have yet to express a decent plan to handle SpaceX. Angara, perhaps, can survive as the "Russian launcher", for national payloads that they do
797.
by jccooper 12y ago
A proposed Angara variant would be able to orbit 100 tons. It would require a larger core stage using RD-180, and so be a substantial new development. The existing cores would function as strap-on boosters. It's not likely.
798.
by jccooper 12y ago
Hydrazine is so handy as a rocket fuel. It's room temp, stable, hypergolic, plenty of energy, it can even be a monopropellant. But it's also corrosive, extremely toxic (even in the low-ppm range) and also carcinogenic. It's e
799.
by jccooper 12y ago
Because they already had a partly-completed heavy launch pad (originally meant for a Zenit-2) there--the only one within Russia proper. It was originally an ICBM base, but it's suitable for polar and Molniya launches. Definitely subopt
800.
by jccooper 12y ago
Launch costs for small Mars missions are on the order of a third of the project budget. Fuel is cheap... on the ground. But paying to send it to Mars is not. Less fuel means more payload, which means more science or less cost (because you d
801.
by jccooper 12y ago
Lunar speed reentry is quite feasible, and has been practiced. Apollo did it fine, and Orion did it a few weeks ago. State of the art ablative shields, like the PICA-X used on Stardust and Dragon, are quite capable of handling entry at Mars
802.
SpaceX CSR-5 rescheduled for Jan. 6(blogs.nasa.gov)
1 points by jccooper 12y ago|0 comments
803.
by jccooper 12y ago
I like it. That'd be a great visual for some pulp-retro-scifi story.
804.
by jccooper 12y ago
I think for previous flights they've had couple of ships outfitted for stage recovery, in case they were able to pluck them out of the ocean. Presumably one of those can go pick it up off the barge. Or maybe just tie it down and tow th
805.
by jccooper 12y ago
Airships are fairly robust. It took the British a couple years in WWI before they managed to get enough firepower on a Zeppelin to kill it. Which is to say: they handily survive light machine gun fire. Which would give me a little bit of co
806.
by jccooper 12y ago
Yeah, that's a pretty sticky part. Venus has appx earth gravity and atmosphere at that point, so you'd need an Earth-class launcher to get off; something at least like an Atlas or Titan II. The launcher itself we could get there r
807.
by jccooper 12y ago
WRT wind tipping the stage: while in flight, it has several control mechanisms to counteract wind, and may have some inherent stability as well. After landing, it's extremely bottom heavy. Got a bunch of engines and legs down there, an
808.
by jccooper 12y ago
It was said at some point to be 3%. Anywhere in 2-5% is plausible. Doesn't take much; a nearly-empty stage weighs next to nothing in comparison to a fully-loaded stack. In fact, even with only one engine at minimum throttle, the the F9
809.
by jccooper 12y ago
It re-uses existing systems (gimballing engines, computers) to effect the recovery. They do add some stuff (legs, RCS, and now fins) but those have nothing like the mass and aero penalties from wings. It also minimizes development cost, sin
810.
by jccooper 12y ago
They have said it takes about 3% of the stage's propellant load. They further say recovery systems (mostly legs and fins) and propellant reduces orbital payload by about 30%, but that their advertised capacity is already 30% under maxi

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