Philae has signed off. The instruments on Rosetta that communicate with Philae will be switched off tomorrow:
The plan is to "land" Rosetta itself on the comet in a couple of months too which will mark the end of this magnificent endeavour. God knows how they plan on doing that but if they can (and maybe get some photos from the surface) it'll be a cracking way to end this fascinating experiment.
If successful then the two craft will probably remain there forever, which is quite a thought
Re: Space Stuff and the Such.
Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2016 7:31 pm
by wobblysauce
To land, know the same projection get 'close' and slow spiral.
US GOVERNMENT APPROVES PLAN FOR MOON EXPRESS TO BECOME FIRST PRIVATE COMPANY TO VENTURE BEYOND EARTH’S ORBIT
Re: Space Stuff and the Such.
Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2016 9:13 am
by Duke
Re: Space Stuff and the Such.
Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2016 2:37 am
by durbster
Philae found!
Re: Space Stuff and the Such.
Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2016 3:44 am
by Big Kev
Re: Space Stuff and the Such.
Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2016 8:17 am
by smithcorp
Awkward spot
Re: Space Stuff and the Such.
Posted: Wed Sep 07, 2016 1:42 am
by wobblysauce
Ah guys.. a little help..
Re: Space Stuff and the Such.
Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2016 10:06 am
by Duke
GULP!!!
Re: Space Stuff and the Such.
Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2016 4:49 pm
by Duke
Was the launch pad explosion of a SpaceX rocket earlier this month caused by an external attack?
That’s the bizarre theory floating around the web, given some credence by CEO Elon Musk, after analysis of video of the failed launch.
Stills of the video appear to show a metallic object hurtling towards and past the rocket just split seconds before the explosion. Asked on Twitter to comment on the stills suggesting that the object had somehow attacked the rocket, Musk said “we have not ruled that out.” In a series of earlier tweets last Friday, Musk appeared to hint that external factors may have been at play in the destruction of the rocket and the AMOS satellite on board. “Important to note that this happened during a routine filling operation. Engines were not on and there was no apparent heat source,” he said, followed by “particularly trying to understand the quieter bang sound a few seconds before the fireball goes off. May come from rocket or something else.” Although to the layperson’s eye, the flying object could be explained away by something as simple as a bird, online observers suggest that it was flying at over 1000 km per hour based on it appearing to fly behind a tower. Also, its appearance at the exact time of the explosion was suspicious. Other parts of the video also show birds flying past at considerably slower speeds.
SpaceX Sabotage.JPG
Re: Space Stuff and the Such.
Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 6:06 am
by wobblysauce
China Confirms Its Space Station Is Falling Back to Earth
China's space agency confirms the Tiangong space station will burn up sometime late next year.
No video yet and nothing on the website yet, but it will be a live stream on the 28th.
SpaceX Founder, CEO, and Lead Designer Elon Musk will discuss the long-term technical challenges that need to be solved to support the creation of a permanent, self-sustaining human presence on Mars. The technical presentation will focus on potential architectures for sustaining humans on the Red Planet that industry, government and the scientific community can collaborate on in the years ahead.
The one thing I don't quite understand about the whole Mission to Mars stuff is, why are we not at least testing all of this gear much closer to home on the Moon first. It seems a bit mad to have your first go at a location millions of miles away where you have no 'immediate' help. Considering we landed on the moon over 40 years ago, I fully expected us to have a working moon base by now so that future exploration further afield is much more tried and tested.
Re: Space Stuff and the Such.
Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2016 12:57 pm
by Duke
I liked this overview.
It tells me Elon is really just looking at SpaceX providing the infrastructure to enable interplanetary travel.
Leaving others to work out the bigger issues around humans undertaking long distance space travel & planet colonisation.
Re: Space Stuff and the Such.
Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2016 2:01 pm
by DarrenM
I think the idea behind Mars is that water, nitrogen, carbon dioxide etc is more readily available on Mars. So for producing fuel (methane in the presentation), agriculture, breathable air etc a bulk of the required material is already there. For a lunar colony they'd have to transport everything in making it impossible to become self sustaining.
A lunar base would be a good test program for habitation, but you could more easily and safely do those tests on earth.
Re: Space Stuff and the Such.
Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2016 4:25 pm
by norbs
Re: Space Stuff and the Such.
Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2016 9:45 pm
by durbster
Well that's the Rosetta mission done. The Rosetta satellite has been gently put down on the comet, where it'll remain forever along with the Philae lander.
It's the end of the mission for the robots themselves but they've collected masses of data so it'll be some time before the science part is done.
Amazing mission. I've loved it, and it ended in true style by doing something audacious in landing the satellite that was never built to do that.
Thanks for sharing ysu.
The stuff they are doing with rocketry now especially around controlled descents is amazing. It's the stuff we have seen in books & movies since we were kids starting to be realised.
Makes you wonder why it has taken this long to do it? I'm sure there are a few old astronauts with mixed emotions particularly around this crew survival cell technology.
