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Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: June 10th, 2023
  • threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.worksOPMtoSpaceflight@sh.itjust.works•How did the CEO of an online payments firm become the nominee to lead NASA?English
    91·
    21 hours ago

    Interesting speculation on SLS and potential changes to the Artemis architecture:

    Multiple sources have told Ars that the SLS rocket—which has long had staunch backing from Congress—is now on the chopping block. No final decisions have been made, but a tentative deal is in place with lawmakers to end the rocket in exchange for moving US Space Command to Huntsville, Alabama.

    So how would NASA astronauts get to the Moon without the SLS rocket? Nothing is final, and the trade space is open. One possible scenario being discussed for future Artemis missions is to launch the Orion spacecraft on a New Glenn rocket into low-Earth orbit. There, it could dock with a Centaur upper stage that would launch on a Vulcan rocket. This Centaur stage would then boost Orion toward lunar orbit.

  • threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.worksMtoSpaceflight@sh.itjust.works•NASA pushes back astronaut flights to the moon againEnglish
    4·
    22 hours ago

    Disappointing, but not a big surprise. At least they’ve finally shared some info on the heatshield issue:

    Although the launch and lunar laps went well, the capsule returned with an excessively charred and eroded bottom heat shield, damaged from the heat of reentry. It took until recently for engineers to pinpoint the cause and come up with a plan.

    NASA will use the Orion capsule with its original heat shield for the next flight with four astronauts, according to Nelson, but make changes to the reentry path at flight’s end. To rip off and replace the heat shield would have meant at least a full year’s delay and stalled the moon landing even further, officials said.

    During the flight test, NASA had the capsule dip in and out of the atmosphere during reentry, and gases built up in the heat shield’s outer layer, officials said. That resulted in cracking and uneven shedding of the outer material.

    When they say “NASA will use the Orion capsule with its original heat shield for the next flight”, are they referring to the original design, or the actual original Artemis I heatshield which has been charred and eroded?

  • threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.worksOPMtoSpaceflightMemes@sh.itjust.works•Technically correct, but what a headlineEnglish
    3·
    22 hours ago

    I suppose “lie on the floor” was a bit of an exaggeration. It likely would have involved the transfer of the seats, or at least the seat liners, from Starliner.

    NASA didn’t release much info on the contingency plans, but there was brief mention of it in an ARS Technica article a while back: https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/yes-nasa-really-could-bring-starliners-astronauts-back-on-crew-dragon/

    NASA issued a $266,678 task award to SpaceX on July 14 for a “special study for emergency response.” NASA said this study was not directly related to Starliner’s problems, but two sources told Ars it really was. Although the study entailed work on flying more than four crew members home on Crew Dragon—a scenario related to Frank Rubio and the Soyuz MS-22 leaks—it also allowed SpaceX to study flying Dragon home with six passengers, a regular crew complement in addition to Wilmore and Williams.

    In my opinion, the biggest risk unmitigatable risk would have been the lack of ports in Dragon for Butch and Suni to plug their Starliner IVA suits into.

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