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The Space Thread


Section_31
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A few things happening in the space arena!

 

SpaceX SN9 with a brief static fire of the Raptor engines. Possibility of another static fire for a longer burn later today. Some suggest maybe even a flight?

 

 

NASA also announces a new SphereX orbital telescope to search for answers to the 'Big Bang' and signs of life beyond Earth.

The Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) space telescope serves as a tool for answering cosmic questions. 

NASA will use the telescope to gather data on more than 300 million galaxies, as well as more than 100 million stars in our own Milky Way. 

In the Milky Way, the mission will search for water and organic molecules - essentials for life, as we know it.

Every six months, the space telescope will survey the entire sky to create a map in 96 different colour bands.

It also will identify targets for more detailed study by future missions, such as NASA's James Webb Space Telescope.

 

 

 

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FM radio signal found coming from Jupiter moon

 

A spacecraft orbiting Jupiter discovered an FM radio signal from Ganymede, one of the gas giant's moons. The discovery marks the first time a signal has been detected from Ganymede.

 

Patrick Wiggins, a NASA Utah ambassador, cautioned it's probably not aliens, according to KDFW.

“It’s not E.T.,” Wiggins said. “It’s more of a natural function.”

The spacecraft, called Juno, was moving across a region of Jupiter were magnetic field lines can connect with the Ganymede moon. That's when Juno picked up the radio source.

 

Juno was sent out to study how Jupiter formed and evolved over time.

“Juno's primary goal is to reveal the story of Jupiter's formation and evolution. Using long-proven technologies on a spinning spacecraft placed in an elliptical polar orbit, Juno will observe Jupiter's gravity and magnetic fields, atmospheric dynamics and composition, and evolution,” according to NASA.

It was electrons, not extra terrestrials, responsible for the radio emissions form the moon.

Through a process called cyclotron maser instability, electrons oscillate at a lower rate than they spin which causes them to amplify radio waves rapidly.

 

Though a significant discovery, the orbiting spacecraft was only able to pick up the radio emissions for just five seconds. Juno hurtled by at a blinding speed of 111,847 mph. That's fast enough to cross the entire United States coast to coast in just under two minutes.

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1 hour ago, _______________ said:

FM radio signal found coming from Jupiter moon

 

A spacecraft orbiting Jupiter discovered an FM radio signal from Ganymede, one of the gas giant's moons. The discovery marks the first time a signal has been detected from Ganymede.

 

Patrick Wiggins, a NASA Utah ambassador, cautioned it's probably not aliens, according to KDFW.

“It’s not E.T.,” Wiggins said. “It’s more of a natural function.”

The spacecraft, called Juno, was moving across a region of Jupiter were magnetic field lines can connect with the Ganymede moon. That's when Juno picked up the radio source.

 

Juno was sent out to study how Jupiter formed and evolved over time.

“Juno's primary goal is to reveal the story of Jupiter's formation and evolution. Using long-proven technologies on a spinning spacecraft placed in an elliptical polar orbit, Juno will observe Jupiter's gravity and magnetic fields, atmospheric dynamics and composition, and evolution,” according to NASA.

It was electrons, not extra terrestrials, responsible for the radio emissions form the moon.

Through a process called cyclotron maser instability, electrons oscillate at a lower rate than they spin which causes them to amplify radio waves rapidly.

 

Though a significant discovery, the orbiting spacecraft was only able to pick up the radio emissions for just five seconds. Juno hurtled by at a blinding speed of 111,847 mph. That's fast enough to cross the entire United States coast to coast in just under two minutes.

It’ll be Steve Penk, he’s been on every other station. 

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7 hours ago, _______________ said:

FM radio signal found coming from Jupiter moon

 

A spacecraft orbiting Jupiter discovered an FM radio signal from Ganymede, one of the gas giant's moons. The discovery marks the first time a signal has been detected from Ganymede.

 

Patrick Wiggins, a NASA Utah ambassador, cautioned it's probably not aliens, according to KDFW.

“It’s not E.T.,” Wiggins said. “It’s more of a natural function.”

The spacecraft, called Juno, was moving across a region of Jupiter were magnetic field lines can connect with the Ganymede moon. That's when Juno picked up the radio source.

 

Juno was sent out to study how Jupiter formed and evolved over time.

“Juno's primary goal is to reveal the story of Jupiter's formation and evolution. Using long-proven technologies on a spinning spacecraft placed in an elliptical polar orbit, Juno will observe Jupiter's gravity and magnetic fields, atmospheric dynamics and composition, and evolution,” according to NASA.

It was electrons, not extra terrestrials, responsible for the radio emissions form the moon.

Through a process called cyclotron maser instability, electrons oscillate at a lower rate than they spin which causes them to amplify radio waves rapidly.

 

Though a significant discovery, the orbiting spacecraft was only able to pick up the radio emissions for just five seconds. Juno hurtled by at a blinding speed of 111,847 mph. That's fast enough to cross the entire United States coast to coast in just under two minutes.

Cool, never knew natural FM radio waves existed.

4 hours ago, Section_31 said:

https://www.axios.com/age-of-the-universe-estimate-1060242a-f0f5-4733-a5d8-ff4b093276c5.html

 

The universe has been dated at 13.7 billion years old. Rumours are that Wayne Rooney is only just starting to find it attractive.

Still blows my mind that despite the speed of light being finite and the age of the Universe calculated to be nearly 14 billion years, the observable Universe is estimated to be some 90 billion light years across and probably a lot wider if you account for the unobservable bit!

 

A thing called inflation was dreamt up by astronomers or theoretical physycists to explain this disparity and we dont know if it existed or not. What's puzzling is if inflation did occur, what caused it, what caused it to slow down considerable and what's causing the current expansion to speed up again albeit at a far slower rate?

 

In itself, the current expansion will likely result in the big rip which will effectively mean all matter becomes separated at the atomic or sub atomic level and disolves into 'nothing.'

 

Fucking weird, it does me head in but I love it.

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Hmmm, a successful failure then! Still all part of the testing process.

 

A critical engine test for Nasa's new "megarocket" - the Space Launch System (SLS) - has ended early.

Shortly before 22:30 GMT (17:30 EST), the four engines ignited with a flash, burning for more than a minute before the test was aborted.

The core stage of the SLS was being tested at Stennis Space Center, near Bay St Louis, Mississippi.

The engines were supposed to fire for eight minutes to simulate the rocket's climb to orbit.

The SLS is part of Nasa's Artemis programme, which aims to put Americans back on the lunar surface in the 2020s.

When it makes its maiden flight later this year, the SLS will become the most powerful rocket ever to have flown to space.

Reacting to the early shut down, Nasa engineer Alex Cagnola said: "Obviously, we had a very successful initiation of the engines, the beginning of our thrust profile when we were firing for the first minute or so, we were getting some really good data coming through.

"We have certain boundaries that we need to keep the operations under... the test team was seeing some data that they might not like, so obviously our engines were shut down ahead of the eight-minute scheduled time-frame."

It was the first time all four RS-25 engines had been ignited together, in a test known as a "hotfire".

Engineimage copyrightNASA
image captionThe engines fired for more than two minutes before being shut off

The core stage of the rocket was anchored to a massive steel structure called the B-2 test stand on the grounds of the Stennis facility.

This was the eighth and final test in the Green Run, a programme of evaluation carried out by engineers from Nasa and Boeing - the rocket's prime contractor.

They wanted to iron out any problems before the core stage is used for the first SLS launch, in which it will send Nasa's next-generation Orion spacecraft on a loop around the Moon.

This uncrewed mission, called Artemis-1, will evaluate how the hardware performs before Nasa stages a repeat of this lunar loop with astronauts in 2023.

This will be followed - possibly in 2024 - by the first landing on the Moon by humans since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

Prior to Saturday's engine test, Ryan McKibben, Green Run test conductor at Nasa Stennis, had told BBC News: "It's a full-duration burn - that's what we're targeting.

"Doing a whole stage test versus a single engine test is definitely exciting," he said, adding: "It's a unique opportunity to test drive the core stage for the first time."

SLS graphic

Alex Cagnola said teams would be scouring the data from this test: "We'll obviously take the time to dig through everything and then obviously have a path forward from there."

He said the core stage was just getting to the point where it uses hydraulic systems to pivot - or gimbal - the engines when the shutdown occurred. Gimballing the RS-25s will allow the rocket to be steered during flight.

The SLS consists of the 65m (212 ft) -long core stage with two smaller solid rocket boosters (SRBs) attached to the sides. Engineers at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida have begun stacking the individual SRB segments ahead of the Artemis-1 mission later in 2021.

"This powerful rocket is going to put us in a position to be ready to support the agency and the country in deep space missions to the Moon and beyond," John Honeycutt, SLS programme manager at Nasa's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, said during a media briefing on Tuesday.

Officials have been planning to ship the core stage to KSC in February.

Its engines are of the same type that powered the spaceplane-like shuttle orbiter - America's crewed space vehicle for 30 years from 1981-2011.

Nasa is re-using flown hardware: the RS-25 engines used in this test helped launch 21 shuttle missions. Two were used on the last shuttle flight - STS-135 in 2011.

The four RS-25s can generate 1.6 million lbs (7 Meganewtons) of thrust - the force that propels a rocket through the air.

When the solid rocket boosters are added to the core stage, the combined system will produce 8.8 million pounds (39.1 Meganewtons) of thrust. This will make it 15% more powerful than the giant Saturn V rocket that sent astronauts to the Moon in the 1960s and 70s.

Prior to Saturday's test, John Shannon, vice president and SLS program manager at Boeing praised teams at Stennis for keeping the Green Run on track despite the pandemic and this year's particularly active hurricane season.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-54583588

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6 hours ago, dockers_strike said:

Hmmm, a successful failure then! Still all part of the testing process.

 

A critical engine test for Nasa's new "megarocket" - the Space Launch System (SLS) - has ended early.

Shortly before 22:30 GMT (17:30 EST), the four engines ignited with a flash, burning for more than a minute before the test was aborted.

The core stage of the SLS was being tested at Stennis Space Center, near Bay St Louis, Mississippi.

The engines were supposed to fire for eight minutes to simulate the rocket's climb to orbit.

The SLS is part of Nasa's Artemis programme, which aims to put Americans back on the lunar surface in the 2020s.

When it makes its maiden flight later this year, the SLS will become the most powerful rocket ever to have flown to space.

Reacting to the early shut down, Nasa engineer Alex Cagnola said: "Obviously, we had a very successful initiation of the engines, the beginning of our thrust profile when we were firing for the first minute or so, we were getting some really good data coming through.

"We have certain boundaries that we need to keep the operations under... the test team was seeing some data that they might not like, so obviously our engines were shut down ahead of the eight-minute scheduled time-frame."

It was the first time all four RS-25 engines had been ignited together, in a test known as a "hotfire".

Engineimage copyrightNASA
image captionThe engines fired for more than two minutes before being shut off

The core stage of the rocket was anchored to a massive steel structure called the B-2 test stand on the grounds of the Stennis facility.

This was the eighth and final test in the Green Run, a programme of evaluation carried out by engineers from Nasa and Boeing - the rocket's prime contractor.

They wanted to iron out any problems before the core stage is used for the first SLS launch, in which it will send Nasa's next-generation Orion spacecraft on a loop around the Moon.

This uncrewed mission, called Artemis-1, will evaluate how the hardware performs before Nasa stages a repeat of this lunar loop with astronauts in 2023.

This will be followed - possibly in 2024 - by the first landing on the Moon by humans since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

Prior to Saturday's engine test, Ryan McKibben, Green Run test conductor at Nasa Stennis, had told BBC News: "It's a full-duration burn - that's what we're targeting.

"Doing a whole stage test versus a single engine test is definitely exciting," he said, adding: "It's a unique opportunity to test drive the core stage for the first time."

SLS graphic

Alex Cagnola said teams would be scouring the data from this test: "We'll obviously take the time to dig through everything and then obviously have a path forward from there."

He said the core stage was just getting to the point where it uses hydraulic systems to pivot - or gimbal - the engines when the shutdown occurred. Gimballing the RS-25s will allow the rocket to be steered during flight.

The SLS consists of the 65m (212 ft) -long core stage with two smaller solid rocket boosters (SRBs) attached to the sides. Engineers at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida have begun stacking the individual SRB segments ahead of the Artemis-1 mission later in 2021.

"This powerful rocket is going to put us in a position to be ready to support the agency and the country in deep space missions to the Moon and beyond," John Honeycutt, SLS programme manager at Nasa's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, said during a media briefing on Tuesday.

Officials have been planning to ship the core stage to KSC in February.

Its engines are of the same type that powered the spaceplane-like shuttle orbiter - America's crewed space vehicle for 30 years from 1981-2011.

Nasa is re-using flown hardware: the RS-25 engines used in this test helped launch 21 shuttle missions. Two were used on the last shuttle flight - STS-135 in 2011.

The four RS-25s can generate 1.6 million lbs (7 Meganewtons) of thrust - the force that propels a rocket through the air.

When the solid rocket boosters are added to the core stage, the combined system will produce 8.8 million pounds (39.1 Meganewtons) of thrust. This will make it 15% more powerful than the giant Saturn V rocket that sent astronauts to the Moon in the 1960s and 70s.

Prior to Saturday's test, John Shannon, vice president and SLS program manager at Boeing praised teams at Stennis for keeping the Green Run on track despite the pandemic and this year's particularly active hurricane season.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-54583588

Man, I hope that proposed schedule for another moon landing holds. I was too young to remember the first landing, but do vaguely recall the one in 1972 with the Rover. Hard to believe with all the scientific advances and the establishment of the US as the world's sole superpower that it'll be over 50 years when the next happens.

 

Maybe I'm being a bit wide-eyed, but I can't help feeling it'll be good for humanity to see something like that again, expand people's horizons and help lift their spirits away from the mundanity of life. Or maybe I'm a little light-headed through lack of sleep because our dog's a whining cunt.

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2 hours ago, Mudface said:

Man, I hope that proposed schedule for another moon landing holds. I was too young to remember the first landing, but do vaguely recall the one in 1972 with the Rover. Hard to believe with all the scientific advances and the establishment of the US as the world's sole superpower that it'll be over 50 years when the next happens.

 

Maybe I'm being a bit wide-eyed, but I can't help feeling it'll be good for humanity to see something like that again, expand people's horizons and help lift their spirits away from the mundanity of life. Or maybe I'm a little light-headed through lack of sleep because our dog's a whining cunt.

I was 6 at the time of the first landing and I remember being excited seeing the rocket blast off, but the landing was the day my Grandad died so that took over.

I don't remember Apollo 12, but I do remember Apollo 13, that really stuck for obvious reasons.

 

It's amazing to think what was achieved during the Apollo program with the computing power they had then, and the courage and skill those men had.

With the technology and know-how they have now, it's going to be some spectacle.

 

I don't think you'll be on your own being wide eyed, I'll be glued to it.

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4 hours ago, Mudface said:

Man, I hope that proposed schedule for another moon landing holds. I was too young to remember the first landing, but do vaguely recall the one in 1972 with the Rover. Hard to believe with all the scientific advances and the establishment of the US as the world's sole superpower that it'll be over 50 years when the next happens.

 

Maybe I'm being a bit wide-eyed, but I can't help feeling it'll be good for humanity to see something like that again, expand people's horizons and help lift their spirits away from the mundanity of life. Or maybe I'm a little light-headed through lack of sleep because our dog's a whining cunt.

Back at the time of the Moon landings, I was hopeful Id see man walk on Mars by 2000. Now, I think I'll be in my urn on the mantlepiece before they do.

 

I just wish the US, Russia and other nations could form a joint mission to Mars. The Moon was as much a political ideology race than for mankind.

 

These landing deniers piss me off enormously especially saying we didnt have the technology. They seem to think computers are the only way to do complex calculations or, because the computers were the size of a house, they didnt work.

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4 hours ago, Mudface said:

Man, I hope that proposed schedule for another moon landing holds. I was too young to remember the first landing, but do vaguely recall the one in 1972 with the Rover. Hard to believe with all the scientific advances and the establishment of the US as the world's sole superpower that it'll be over 50 years when the next happens.

 

Maybe I'm being a bit wide-eyed, but I can't help feeling it'll be good for humanity to see something like that again, expand people's horizons and help lift their spirits away from the mundanity of life. Or maybe I'm a little light-headed through lack of sleep because our dog's a whining cunt.

Don’t fret. It’s all fake. We live on a flat earth under a dome....

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1 hour ago, Gnasher said:

Oh god, not fucking Loeb again with his Oumuamua is a sign of alien technology shit. Loeb is about the only one banging this drum to anyone who'll listen. Virtually every other astronomer etc have debunked his claims. David Kipper also did a video where he just presents facts and leaves it to the viewer to decide.

 

The concensus is Loeb's talking out of his arse.

 

 

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On 13/01/2021 at 13:51, dockers_strike said:

Cool, never knew natural FM radio waves existed.

Still blows my mind that despite the speed of light being finite and the age of the Universe calculated to be nearly 14 billion years, the observable Universe is estimated to be some 90 billion light years across and probably a lot wider if you account for the unobservable bit!

 

A thing called inflation was dreamt up by astronomers or theoretical physycists to explain this disparity and we dont know if it existed or not. What's puzzling is if inflation did occur, what caused it, what caused it to slow down considerable and what's causing the current expansion to speed up again albeit at a far slower rate?

 

In itself, the current expansion will likely result in the big rip which will effectively mean all matter becomes separated at the atomic or sub atomic level and disolves into 'nothing.'

 

Fucking weird, it does me head in but I love it.

It's mind boggling, something that will never be worked out, what would it be like if anyone found the answer to it all, it might make things a bit shit. 

It's best to think everything just is and to look at the images and wonder about it all. 

Imagine there was another colour somewhere out there. 

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