Thursday, June 1, 2017

SpaceCast Notes 6/1/2017

SpaceCast - 6/1/2017

Links

NASA to send probe to the sun
  • No notes for this topic, sorry m8

Maybe?
  • New astronauts for the year 2017?
  • Over 18,000 candidates
  • The could be assigned to work on ISS for research projects
  • Possible launching of deep space missions as with the Orion spacecraft

Extremely Large Telescope begins construction in Chile

  • When completed, it will be the world’s largest optical telescope (5x larger than the current top telescope)
  • The primary mirror measures 39 m (43 yd or 129 ft in freedom units) diameter
  • It is located 3000m high in the Atacama desert in Chile and will begin operating in 2024
  • The ELT is funded by the European Southern Observatory
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Saturday, May 20, 2017

SpaceCast Notes 5/20/17

SpaceCast - 5/20/2017
Links
Rocket Lab to launch Electron rocket this month
  • American spaceflight company Rocket Lab has announced plans to debut its Electron rocket from its launch complex on New Zealand’s Mahia peninsula
  • The 10-day launch window begins May 21 (tomorrow)
  • The first launch will carry a test payload to an elliptical orbit (300-500 km altitude at 83 deg. inclination)
  • Specs on the rocket:
    • Two stages, almost entirely made of composites & some  3D-printed parts
    • 56 ft tall (compared to falcon 9 260 ft)
    • 36000 lb thrust (compared to F9 1.7 million lb thrust)
    • Cost is $4.9 million per launch (compared to F9 $62 million)
  • If the launch is successful, it will be the first orbital launch from a private launch facility
  • The launch is the first of 3 test flights before commercial launches begin


Man-made barrier surrounding earth discovered
  • This is not some type of sky dome or wall of space debris, in fact the “barrier” is only composed of radio waves - specifically those in the very low frequency (VLF) range
  • Under the right conditions, these signals can affect high-energy radiation surrounding the earth
  • VLF signals are used to communicate with submarines, but the waves also travel outside the atmosphere
  • Researchers noticed that the outer edge of the VLF barrier corresponds to the inner edge of the Van Allen belts, a layer of ions trapped by Earth’s magnetic field
  • There is indication that the radio transmissions actually caused the radiation belts to recede, meaning VLF signals could potentially be used to eliminate excess charged particles such as those generated during solar flares


Global seed vault victim to climate change
  • Melting permafrost on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen has seeped into the Svalbard seed vault, a structure designed to preserve thousands of crop varieties by keeping them frozen underground
  • Obviously the melting permafrost (and associated global warming) are a concern to the seed vault
  • The vault contains about 1 million seed packets
  • The water did not flood the vault itself, only the entrance tunnel
  • Technicians are now waterproofing the vault to prevent further flooding
SpaceX launches Inmarsat-5
  • Inmarsat-5 was the heaviest geostationary payload ever launched on an F9 (it was originally supposed to launch on a Falcon Heavy)
  • The booster was expendable in order to provide the necessary delta-v
  • The mission was a complete success
World’s largest wind turbine comes online

  • 32 new wind turbines have been installed at the Burbo Bank wind farm off the coast of England
  • Each turbine is 195 m (640 ft) tall with 80m (262 ft) blades, and produces 8 MW of power
  • The complete installation has a capacity of 258 MW
  • A single revolution of a turbine blade can power a home for 29 hrs
  • The UK has more offshore wind capacity than any other country, at 5.3 GW
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Saturday, May 6, 2017

SpaceCast Notes 4/29/17

SpaceCast - 4/29/2017
Links
Cassini spacecraft on final series of orbits
  • Starting April 26, Cassini will dive through the region between Saturn and its rings (a 2400 km/1500 mi gap)
  • No spacecraft has ever done this before
  • The scientists in charge of Cassini hope to learn more about Saturn’s internal structure, take samples of its atmosphere, and take cool pics of its clouds and inner rings
  • Cassini will take the final plunge on Sept. 15
China & ESA to collaborate on moon base
  • Reps from ESA and CNSA  have discussed collaboration on a moonbase and other projects
  • The ESA rep, Pal Hvistendahl, said that international cooperation is necessary to explore space for peaceful purposes
  • The moon base could serve as a launching pad for missions to Mars, or space tourism
  • NASA, on the other hand, is still barred from working with China by US legislation (China also cannot participate in the international space station)
Tunnel boring machine has arrived at SpaceX
  • Elon Musk’s latest venture, the Boring Company, has taken delivery of its first TBM
  • In february Musk was looking to purchase a used 400ft x 26ft diameter TBM, but it is unclear if it’s the same one that just arrived at SpaceX headquarters
  • It has begun to dig a hole in the parking lot, of all places
  • Musk’s eventual goal is to create a “vast transportation network” under the city of Los Angeles for cars (and possibly hyperloop)
Falcon 9 launching classified payload
  • The payload is for the US gov’t’s National Reconnaissance Office
  • The F9 booster was lifted into place on LC-39A this morning
  • All the NRO has said about the payload is that is was “designed, built, and will be operated by” the NRO, meaning it’s most likely a spy satellite
  • The mission, termed NROL-76, is SpaceX’s first dedicated national security payload
  • The launch is scheduled for Sunday at 0600 CST
SLS launch date pushed back (unsurprisingly)

  • The maiden flight of the SLS will be delayed from Nov. 2018 until sometime in 2019
  • Major problems included a missed delivery for the Orion service module, issues with welding parts of the core stage, and a tornado at the New Orleans plant
  • The first mission, EM-1, would send Orion around the moon then back to Earth, probably without astronauts (however, NASA was directed to evaluate whether it could carry astronauts)
  • NASA will have spent $23 billion on SLS & Orion by the end of the 2018 fiscal year, but the agency cited concerns over low budgets which limits flexibility in the event of unexpected problems or delays
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Saturday, April 22, 2017

SpaceCast Notes 4/15/17

SpaceCast - 4/15/2017
Links
NASA unveils new plans for Mars
  • During an Advisory Council meeting, NASA revealed plans related to a Mars mission
  • There are two main phases to the design, a small lunar space station called the “Deep Space Gateway” or DSG, & a crewed vehicle called the “Deep Space Transport” or DST
  • Both make use of the SLS (of course, gotta keep the contractors happy)
  • Deep Space Gateway:
    • Supports a crew of 4 for 42 days w/ Orion docked
    • Will have a Canadarm and possibly a cupola module for views of the moon
    • Would be assembled by SLS over 3 flights starting in 2025, and would rely on commercial partners for resupply
    • Will have a 40kW solar-electric propulsion system that will allow it to change orbits (i.e. from an elliptical halo orbit to one allowing for moon landings)
  • Deep Space Transport:
    • Supports a crew of 4 for 1000 days, able to be reused for 3 round-trips
    • Will take “full advantage” of the SLS’s large fairing size (up to 8.4m diameter)
    • Predicted mass of 41 tons (way smaller than ITS)
    • Would be launched on a single SLS flight in 2027, do a one-year test cruise in 2029, and a crewed Mars flight in 2033 (possibly w/ a Venusian gravity assist)
  • Of course, plans for Mars mission have existed since the 60s and have always been axed with changes in administration (yay politics) so there’s little reason to believe this one will be any different, unless international or private-sector cooperation push it forward
New world record for fastest hex-core CPU overclock
  • German overclocker Roman Hartung has broken another world record by overclocking an AMD Ryzen 5 1600x processor to 5.9 GHz
  • The overclocking was done on an ASUS Crosshair VI Hero motherboard with a bus speed of 130 MHz and a multiplier of 45.5
  • The processor was liquid nitrogen cooled and is expected to be able to clock even higher when BIOS updates provide better support for extreme overclocking
  • This is only a CPU frequency score but all cores and threads were enabled
F9 fairing and second stage reuse?

  • SpaceX plans to have the Falcon 9 fairing reusable by the end of the year
  • Elon Musk is “fairly confident” that the F9 upper stage can be reused as well
  • SpaceX originally planned to have the whole F9 be reusable, but technical difficulties led to abandonment of upper stage reuse plans
  • Ideas on how it might be possible:
    • Block 5 (the newest version of F9 and the Merlin engine) offers a significant thrust increase, leaving more delta-v in the second stage
    • Larger payloads will move to Falcon Heavy, leaving lighter loads (which require less delta-v) for the F9 block 5
    • It is unclear how the upper stage would reenter/land, possibly using SuperDraco thrusters on the leading end of the stage (accompanied by a heatshield)
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Sunday, April 9, 2017

SpaceCast Notes 4/8/2017

SpaceCast - 4/8/2017
Links
SES-10 landing videos & pics


NASA to deorbit Cassini probe into Saturn
  • The Cassini-Huygens probe launched in 1997, reached Saturn in 2004, and has been providing imagery and other info about Saturn & its moons
  • The probe will be put on a collision course on Sept. 15 of this year
  • The reason is to avoid contamination of the moon Enceladus
    • Enceladus was discovered (by Cassini) to have subsurface saltwater oceans which could harbor life
    • NASA couldn’t risk Cassini crashing into Enceladus, which would make it exceedingly difficult to tell if any organic material found later came from the moon or from Earth
  • The “death spiral” begins  April 22; Cassini will perform one last flyby of Titan before passing between Saturn & its rings and crashing into the planet’s atmosphere
    • The probe’s final orbits will provide the closest views of Saturn’s poles including the giant hexagon-shaped hurricane at the north pole
    • As it passes thru Saturn’s atmosphere, the probe will attempt to collect composition data and transmit it to Earth


Apple backtracks on Mac Pro
  • In Apple’s opinion they will improve the setup of the Mac Pro
  • Only focusing on the Pro quadrant of products
  • Talking about updates to those on Mac 16
  • Increase of speed to updates and
  • Improvement to graphics processing chip or single-threaded CPU performance,


“Earth sized telescope” to photograph milky ways black hole
  • Nine different telescopes around the globe will be linking together to form a massive “earth sized” telescope this week.
  • The nine telescopes will all be used to photograph the black hole at the center of our galaxy which is approximately 26,000 light years away from earth.
  • Dr. Avery Broderick, a scientist working on the project, says the resolution will be so great that you could use it to watch a hockey game on the moon and see the puck


Soyuz docking time lapse


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Saturday, February 25, 2017

SpaceCast Notes - 2/25/2017

Notez 2/25/2017
Linkz
SpaceX CRS-10 launch & landing
Landing video:
Technical Webcast:
Dragon docking to ISS:
TRAPPIST-1 system with 7 (7?!) exoplanets
  • 7 earth-sized terrestrial exoplanets discovered in the TRAPPIST-1 system
    • 3 of the planets are within the star’s habitable zone, which means they could harbor liquid water
  • The star is an ultra-cool red dwarf, only slightly larger than Jupiter
  • It is 40 light-years (12 parsecs) away from Earth in the constellation Aquarius
  • The exoplanets were discovered using NASA’s Spitzer space telescope, an infrared telescope in an Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit
  • The method is explained pretty well in the video on the site
    • It involved measuring the brightness of the star to observe planetary transits
  • The James Webb Space Telescope (launching in 2018) will allow direct imaging of the star
    • By analyzing the spectrum of light during a transit, the presence of certain gases can be determined (i.e. oxygen, which could indicate life)
Actual paper published in Nature:
AMD reks the CPU market (Ryzen release)

  • AMD recently launched the new Ryzen lineup of CPU’s
  • Three CPU’s unveiled at their launch event with benchmarks and pricing
  • 1New lineup is highly competitive with price to performance
  • Three CPU’s
    • R7 1800x - $499
    • R7 1700x - $399
    • R7 1700 - $329
    • Launching on the new AM4 platform
  • Benchmarks show R7 1800x outperforms i7-6900k out of the box by 9% in multi-threaded workloads (identically in single threaded tests)
    • R7 1800x is the top Ryzen performer at ~$500 and is highly competitive even up against an Intel i7 6900k which retails at ~$1,100
  • R7 1700 is engineered for reduced power consumption and lower price but still is a highly competitive CPU
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