NASA's Moonshot 2.0 programme starts here with one beast of a rocket. The launch window opens for two hours from (I think) 1:30pm.
Live stream:
Not going well so far!
“engineers are currently investigating a crack in the intertank – linking the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen tanks”
‘Crack’ isn’t a word you want to hear just before take off 😬
Bit of gaffa tape, it’ll be reet…. 🤣
Is anyone local? Could you nip over with a quart or two of Stans?
No doubt a daft question but watching it just now (13:17) and the picture is showing the bottom of the rocket on the take off pad...and it is steaming...what is the steam from and why? I'm aware they have a load of water in that hollow where the bottom of the rocket sits - assuming it helps cool the heat from the engines, but why and what is causing the steam? (asking as I don't know and I'm curious)
I'm no rocket scientist, but I don't think it was a good idea to build their rocket out of some rusty scrap iron
It's unpainted to save weight, I assume. This is why later Shuttle fuel tanks were brown instead of white.
Today's launch has been 'scrubbed' it seems. Got as far as T-40 but engine bleed didn't go to plan, so that's it over for today. Next opportunity for launch is 2nd Sept subject to fixing the issue they had today. Oh well.
Apparently it's the insulation.
Anyway, it's scrubbed for today 😥
Wish it had launched, but kinda glad I didn't miss it. 🙂
the picture is showing the bottom of the rocket on the take off pad…and it is steaming…what is the steam from and why?
It uses liquid hydrogen and oxygen fuel. The fuel has to be cooled to something like 250 degrees below zero and stored in an insulated pressure tank. I assume the steam is caused by condensation as air contacts the insulated fuel tank.
Bet my boss is gutted. She was booked on a trip round Cape Canaveral today with her family whilst on holiday over there and was hoping to see it go up.
They also use water as sound suppression
Nasa water
I’m guessing they’re not on a hosepipe ban.
Good job it's not on southern water at least
I hope it takes off this time..... In many directions all at the same time!
Massive waste of money spent on ancient technology purely on political grounds.
It needs killing now so that SpaceX, etc can do a proper job with more reusable hardware.
(They haven't even completed a wet dress rehearsal yet, without overriding the launch control due to various issues cropping up)
Half agree but for all the stupidity of artemis, now we've got it it'd be a shame to blow it up.
Well it might blow itself up!
Can’t we just crash it into the Kremlin and claim it was an accident?
I hope it takes off this time….. In many directions all at the same time!
It needs killing now so that SpaceX, etc can do a proper job with more reusable hardware.
Blah blah, Elon will save us all...
Space X have promised plenty and delivered some of it, as clever as the self landing rockets are, that "old tech" is at least proven in terms of having put people in orbit and on the moon long before Elon started bullshitting his way towards US government funds.
I'm sure Artemis would have been scrubbed long ago if NASA really thought Space X were actually going to be capable of supporting moon missions on their desired schedule...
long before Elon started bullshitting his way towards US government funds.
No Musk fanboy but his company seems to have a decent track record for delivery so far and he’s brought some real innovation particularly around reusability.
I’m sure Artemis would have been scrubbed long ago if NASA really thought Space X were actually going to be capable of supporting moon missions on their desired schedule…
Utter bollocks.
The only reason Artemis still exists is because of Boeing and other state supported companies and the US political system.
that "old tech” is at least proven in terms of having put people in orbit and on the moon
You do know that the tech in question are the engines and SRBs from the space shuttle don't you?
None of which made it anywhere near the moon.
Seeing as NASA has just awarded SpaceX the balance of the Crew Dragon missions up to the end of the ISS's life, it seems they do have confidence in them.
They're having another go tomorrow (Saturday)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62758482
Aware Sharkbait has already mentioned it.
Canned again 🙄
Yes, well.... 🤔
It's not a good look is it?
So they're having a problem loading the hydrogen tank it seems.... This time it was only 11% full before they scrubbed due to a big leak from one of the filling connectors.
This all goes back to the politicians stating that Artemis had to use legacy engines/tech which means using hydrogen.
In all its history the shuttle never launched without at least one scrub and most of the issues related to using hydrogen which is very leaky.
Despite all their previous experience with hydrogen NASA couldn't put up a fight against the politicians who were effectively designing the rocket.
And now they're stuck with a core stage that is already 2.5 years old* that they haven't managed to fill completely a single time.
Without SpaceX the US would currently have no manned space program.
I've just read that, at current funding levels, a delay to mid-october would cost $495 million, or the total development cost of Falcon Heavy, or the total development cost of Falcon 9 plus four flights.
.... That's the cost of JUST the delay! 🤷🏻♂️
* It seems there are limits on how many times a system can go through a cryogenic load due to the stresses caused by the temperatures involved
I read that this is the 6th time they've tried and failed to fully fuel it? I mean, spaceflight is hard, but surely that's something that had to be nailed in the dress rehearsals, assuming it was practical (and I'm reasonably sure it was) rather than rolling out full stacks that don't work.
Obviously the choice of components and design isn't really on NASA, the politics of it are so openly corrupt. But this bit seems like execution only?
as excited by a lunar return and a big artemis rocket as i am....it does look silly tech compared to spaceX
I'm yet to be convinced by the SpaceX approach to interplanetary travel. Taking a huge craft like Spaceliner all the way from an Earth launchpad and landing it in its entirety on another planet. I think a more sensible scheme is to build craft in Earth orbit, put an orbital station in place around the destination planet with a dedicated lander (a la Artemis). But hey, I'm not a brain surgeon, let alone a rocket scientist.
Whoop whoop! Artemis launched successfully this morning. The Orion capsule is in free flight off to the moon. My 2 yo is enthralled by rockets currently so this programme could really inspire him over the next few years!
Dang - where was this thread yesterday when I needed it?!? 🙂
Well I'm not going to lie, I'm surprised it got off the ground! But that was bloody cool to watch. Something about those big ol motors and their huge exhaust plume triggered a core memory.
When I went to bed they still had the red team poking about inside it doing the old "if we tighten up the bolts maybe it'll stop leaking" familiar to all project car owners
Something about those big ol motors and their huge exhaust plume triggered a core memory.
Yep, took me back to watching Saturn V.
It hoiked itself of the platform at a fair old lick, great news!
Mighty impressive launch but who thought the massively overenthusiastic scripted buzz lightyear commentary was a good idea? Thankfully he was replaced shortly after launch by someone who was calm, technical and professional.
Grumpy of Herts who watched the 60s/70s apollo launches in glorious black and white.
Amazing to think that the SpaceX starship booster will produce more power from just 16 of its 33 engines!
.... And that they are producing 1 Raptor 2 engine per day compared to 4 RS-25 (SLS) engines per year (@ 100 million dollars each)!
Wow, those are some stats!
Here's another.... The Raptor 2 engine produces almost the same power as the RS-25 at about 1-2% of the cost!
And the Raptor can be re-lit whilst the RS-25 cannot which is why they're disposable.
(US politics at it's best!)
Well, that's not why they're disposable in this application though- they're being one-shotted because they had some old pre-used space shuttle engines lying around, so they decided to use them up instead (SLS wasn't the first attempt to do that) Disposable makes perfect sense when you've already got the bits, even if it's incredibly wasteful and inefficient otherwise.
But then once they'd started making a new spaceship program with those old bits, it turned out that they didn't have enough, so then they had to order a bunch more. It's exactly like that time I accidentally built a titanium cross country bike because I had a fork that I couldn't sell. So they've ended up with a perfect combination of all the drawbacks of reusable motors- ie, they're more complicated, much more expensive, less efficient- and all the drawbacks of disposable- ie the disposability. Exactly like that time it turned out I didn't want a cross country bike after all.
NASA get a lot of crap for this but it's not their fault, their procurement and budget is absolutely drowned in politics and pork. Want the budget to do X? Fine but you have to give Y million dollars to a company in my state who gives me a load of money. The system's designed to be dysfuncitonal. Want a million dollars for x? No, but you can have 100 million dollars for y, which does the same job as x but maybe not as well, but can also do z buuuuut oh no wait we've cancelled z but we're commited to y now anyway because we've spent $95m on it and it'd be unthinkable now to bin it and use the $1m option even though yes that would still be cheaper and quicker, but it'd make us look silly
There's brilliant long-term irony in it though... Since the RS25 was a mistake for the shuttle in the first place. They were brilliant, clever motors, but it didn't need brilliant clever motors, it needed cheaper simpler disposable motors on the bottom of a middle stage, instead of a detachable unpowered tank and 3 bloody big anchors in the back of the orbiter. Oh hey, exactly like SLS now does, and Energia.
But "reusability" was the watchword so they had to haul those dead motors all the way to orbit and bring them all the way back, using up more fuel and space and reducing the reentry payload. But then they had to be basically completely rebuilt before they were "reused" anyway, at least until about block b iirc, and the shuttle never came close to the level of flights to make the usability worthwhile anyway, and nobody ever really though it would except they had to lie about that all the time to get the program to happen and you can get a bit too used to lying about stuff like that.
So now, they finally have a disposable core stage with disposable rockets which is what they should have done in the first place, except that because of the original choice they're doing disposable with stuff that was engineered for reuse.
Disposability of core stage still does make a lot of sense for really heavy lift rockets tbh- reusing boosters is easier, if you could magic a new launcher onto the pads today with the dream design it'd most likely have reusable boosters but a disposable core stage with disposable engines that uses every gram for impulse. But it'd be built for cost effectiveness, rather than having very expensive motors then throwing them away.
But all that said, I'm glad it worked because cynical as I am, that was a bloody excellent launch. FWOOOOOOOOOOSH. The spaceship I would have drawn when I was a kid, none of this boring spacex millenial crap with its little blue cones of effectiveness.
I'm sure I heard on the news this morning that there is one passenger aboard, which will be a great quiz question in years to come - but had to Google it to make sure I wasn't hallucinating
It's funny that the uk/euro stuff all mentions shawn but not snoopy, and all the nasa stuff mentions snoopy but not shawn. Maybe this will be the line that the next cold war starts over
It’s not as simple as the costs and power make it seem. Payload to LEO and TLI for SLSB1 and Starship will be similar and will most likely favour SLS from B2 onwards. The cost of the raptors is based on their reuse potential and the number of times that happens. It’s based on the F9 numbers, but that depends on how many heavy payloads are required or if the engines can be moved between vehicles. Simply, Starship needs more power (33 engines) as it’s dry weight is substantially higher than SLS whilst it’s payload is lower. The SLS was predicated upon maintaining a production line with required skills in companies and providing the right launch capacity for heavy payloads over an annual basis for a period of 10-15 years of flights.
SpaceX are working on the basis that there will be a business for a greater number of heavy payloads, especially for interplanetary missions.
Two different businesses, two different mission envelopes that just happen to have some overlaps.
I got my whole family up to watch the launch once we got past the 30min hold and we were into the final T-10 countdown. Kids were delighted - the wife, not so much.
Well, that’s not why they’re disposable in this application though- they’re being one-shotted because they had some old pre-used space shuttle engines lying around, so they decided to use them up instead
Ummm, no. They very definitely didn't have any 'spare' engines - NASA paid them $1B to 'restart production' and then you've got the cost the each engine on top of this.
Have a read of this:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/05/nasa-will-pay-a-staggering-146-million-for-each-sls-rocket-engine/
NASA get a lot of crap for this but it’s not their fault, their procurement and budget is absolutely drowned in politics and pork. Want the budget to do X? Fine but you have to give Y million dollars to a company in my state who gives me a load of money. The system’s designed to be dysfuncitonal
Absolutely 100%
The cost of the raptors is based on their reuse potential and the number of times that happens. It’s based on the F9 numbers, but that depends on how many heavy payloads are required or if the engines can be moved between vehicles.
No that's the actual cost of each engine.... $1m (see the above article). How else can they produce 1/day and afford to destroy a fair few in testing?
https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/11/spacex-is-now-building-a-raptor-engine-a-day-nasa-says/
Simply, Starship needs more power (33 engines) as it’s dry weight is substantially higher than SLS whilst it’s payload is lower
Nope, sorry!
SLS payload - 89T
Starship payload - 150T
https://interestingengineering.com/science/nasa-sls-rocket-behind-spacex
Two different businesses, two different mission envelopes that just happen to have some overlaps.
As soon as Starship proves it's capable (if it does!) SLS will* be binned.
(* 'Should' but probably won't)
So what's the next event for the Orion capsule that is currently sailing through space towards the moon? I presume, barring an explosion in the service module while stirring the oxygen tanks, that it just sails all the way there and meets the moon. Then what? I guess it's going to do a deceleration burn and go into moon orbit? Or does it just do the half lap and start it's journey straight back? How long before it gets there? Think I read 24 days but that seems a strangely long time, Apollo was nowhere near as long, so maybe I've confused whole mission duration with earth to moon transit time?
I hope they put lots of cameras on the capsule and we can get some cool footage!
Nope, sorry!
SLS payload – 89T
Starship payload – 150Thttps://interestingengineering.com/science/nasa-sls-rocket-behind-spacex
What you're saying clearly shows you don't know what you're talking about.
SLSB1 is 95t to LEO and 27t to TLI - that goes up to 130t/47t for SLSB2
Starship is 150t to minimum sustainable refuelable orbit - it's not LEO, it's MUCH lower. SpaceXs own website shows shows 100t to LEO with full re-use. Given Starships mass, the available power from Starship from its 3 vacuum raptors and thus the available deltaV from the engines to get from LEO to TLI means it's current usable payload to TLI is around 25>33t, which is less than for SLSB1 at the low end and MUCH less than B2. There is a plan to put 6 Raptors into Starship which will increase the dV, but this isn't confirmed. All of SpaceXs numbers are estimates at this point.
The raptors are more efficient, but mass is mass. The dry mass of SLS is 85t whereas SLS is 120t minimum.
All of these figures are from NASA's and Space X's websites.
I'm not a proponent of SLS, or a worshiper of Musk/SpaceX, but to deride the capabilities of SLS and NASA in putting it together for a specific mission target and within budgets and political constraints is no mean feat.
I found this, which answers my questions
Have just watched the Artemis launch (twice!) with the sound turned up.
Oh my.
Less than 90 mins until the moon! Capsule approaches to 80 miles above the surface and then enters a retrograde orbit. Exciting.
Have this on in the background today.
Interesting to see the speed increase as it gets closer to the Moon with the gravitational pull.
Was at around 450mph when I watched earlier and now closer to 950mph.
Is that info on the live tracker? Tried that yesterday on my old Chromebook and it didn't seem to work.
Watching live on the NASA Youtube channel.
Aha! Think that's what it just found via space.com
Are you missing a zero from your speeds? Isn't it 4500 ish M/h?
sharkbait
Free MemberWell, that’s not why they’re disposable in this application though- they’re being one-shotted because they had some old pre-used space shuttle engines lying around, so they decided to use them up instead
Ummm, no. They very definitely didn’t have any ‘spare’ engines – NASA paid them $1B to ‘restart production’ and then you’ve got the cost the each engine on top of this.
No, that's exactly what that had. The RS25D engines used in this launch were old-stock shuttle engines that have all been flown before. I think the confusion is that as I mentioned they're also making new ones. The prices you mention are for those.
This is why it's so daft- they committed to using the RS25 since it already existed, but then once committed they had to make more, and they always knew that'd be necessary (unless, of course, teh program failed or was cancelled or totally rebuilt partway through, which to be fair was always possible- I do wonder if people were assuming that was going to happen and so went with an option that'd be good for that but not good if it succeeded?).
But, it did offer maximum politics and pork.
This was a bit quick - didn't it take Apollo like a week?
4 days 6 hours 45 minutes for Apollo 11 according to Google. Think they spent a little longer in earth orbit as they had to reorder themselves, service module, capsule,lem (I think). But the lem was tucked under the sm and capsule, ontop of the Saturn v, during launch.
I Imagine that everyone on this thread has already seen this, but if not there is a wonderful video on YouTube discussing the computer used for the 1969 (Apollo 11) landing. It is difficult to image how basic it was and how hardcore the astronauts were in staying cool and landing with it. The video says 1hr 21 but if you are short of time then
16:28 start of discussion on landing
19:50 start of the landing. Typing 37 into the computer to tell it to load a program and then 63 for the loading program
48:00 the actual landing and what goes wrong and how cool they are
60:00 the end of the main talk
But really, just sit back and watch the whole thing. It's a different world
It's not on Netflix currently (was) nor included in prime but there to rent, 'hidden figures' is a great film about the maths, and the development of the maths, and beginning to use mainframe computers, and the unrecognised at the time black ladies behind some important parts, in NASA and Apollo.
I think I watched the second half of hidden figures then my wife came in and I made her watch it from the start.
Aha! dirkpitt was right....and so was I. just watched a bit more from today on you tube and the orion capsule WAS dong about 450Mph, increasing to about 900Mph on approach, and WAS ALSO doing about 4500 MPH an hour later when I had a look during the OPF, Outbound Powered Flyby.
Re The Apollo Guidance Computer. I'm sure some of you will have seen this series of youtube videos, where a bunch of people restore one, and get it plugged into a moon lander simulator:
Apollo Guidance Computer Part 1: Restoring the computer that put man on the Moon - YouTube
Also, this book is a good read, written by one of the people who wrote the code for part of the landing sequence. We'd call him a software engineer now, but I don't think that term existed then!
Sunburst and Luminary: An Apollo Memoir: Amazon.co.uk: Don Eyles: 9780986385933: Books
Interestingly, some later software written by Don Eyles is still being used in the ISS!
Interesting thread all 🙂
I've added that Don Eyles book to my Christmas list.
On that note, I loved the BBC podcast 13 minutes to the moon: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w13xttx2 - great interviews, analysis etc. They did another one about Apollo 13 which is also worth a listen.
Just seen this https://www.independent.co.uk/space/japan-steam-propel-moon-spacecraft-b2234128.html
It's Something from Japanese space agency that hitched a lift on Artemis. For me the steam propellant isn't nearly as interesting as the purpose and journey of the craft. It's on route to earth/moon Lagrange point 2, taking 1.5 years to get there (using little fuel). Lagrange points are where gravity and centrifugal forces balance and an object just...'sits'. So studying EML2 as a possible location for a spaceport with easy, low fuel access to earth orbit, lunar orbit, and on to the rest of the solar system seems intriguing to me! Maybe not a great route for astronauts, but as a cargo route I guess it has a lot going for it.
And after one lap in the retrograde orbit, it's on its way home!
That last short burn kicked Orion out of its retrograde orbit and the craft did another lunar flyby at 130km altitude yesterday, when it did it's last major engine burn to kick on and start the Earth transit. All seemed to go well again and it's set for capsule separation, re-entry and a splash down in the Pacific in a few days. The biggest remaining question seems to be re-entry. This will be far faster than any previous manned (capable) craft and a real test for the heat shield. It needs to withstand 3000C! If it fits well then as Artemis 2 will be crewed and 3 will land on the lunar surface!
The biggest remaining question seems to be re-entry. This will be far faster than any previous manned (capable) craft and a real test for the heat shield.
I've read that Orion will be coming in to re-entry much faster than other craft in the past. Is this just to test the heat shield or is there another reason?
I guess that if the heat shield has a significant margin of error built in then it may well be able to withstand re-entry trajectories that are steeper than planned ie something has gone a bit wrong.
I’ve read that Orion will be coming in to re-entry much faster than other craft in the past. Is this just to test the heat shield or is there another reason?
It's not much faster than the Apollo missions. Spacecraft coming back from the moon have a much higher reentry speed than those returning from low Earth orbit (gravity and all that).
Artemis is currently 18000 miles from Earth, travelling at 10000 mph and accelerating.
It's home! Splash down happened as planned off the Baja peninsula of California. Whoop whoop!
The Crazy Journey of Artemis 1:
Great explanation of the path Orion took, and why. Seeing the sketch relative to earth, particularly with no moon on the sketch, makes for confusion then. 'oh that's really cool' moments.
