Ramlaen Posted April 28, 2017 Report Share Posted April 28, 2017 http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/space-images/saturn/animation-of-images-from-first-grand-finale-flyby.html You might notice that the pictures are black-and-white, small, and noisy. There are good reasons for all of those things -- actually one good reason: As Cassini passed within 2000 kilometers of Saturn's cloud tops, it was traveling at a speed relative to Saturn of 34 kilometers per second. That is very, very fast, almost too fast for the camera to take images without motion blur. To avoid blur, you have to take very short exposures, which means the images look noisy. You have to maximize the number of photons reaching your camera, which means not placing any color filters in front of the camera, so the pictures are grayscale. Even with that, there would be some blur and limitations to how fast the spacecraft can get so many images off of its detector, so they downsampled the images to half the camera's native resolution in order to get a somewhat continuous strip of photos of Saturn's atmosphere throughout the plunge. Xlucine 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LostCosmonaut Posted May 1, 2017 Report Share Posted May 1, 2017 NROL launch was a success. Edit: Somebody on SA linked a graph of the first stage's telemetry data. Belesarius 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramlaen Posted May 5, 2017 Report Share Posted May 5, 2017 LoooSeR 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xlucine Posted May 17, 2017 Report Share Posted May 17, 2017 https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/nasas-van-allen-probes-spot-man-made-barrier-shrouding-earth We control space weather now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LostCosmonaut Posted May 23, 2017 Report Share Posted May 23, 2017 Remember that star a while back that was weirdly dimming and nobody could figure it out? It's doing that thing again; Ramlaen 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramlaen Posted May 24, 2017 Report Share Posted May 24, 2017 https://www.flickr.com/photos/136797589@N04/sets/72157684110532315/ Quote Seán Doran @_TheSeaning These are based on the work of Gerald Eichstädt who uploads to MissionJuno. I repair & process his work to make mine. An example. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xlucine Posted May 24, 2017 Report Share Posted May 24, 2017 http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/ExoMars/Schiaparelli_landing_investigation_completed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LostCosmonaut Posted May 25, 2017 Report Share Posted May 25, 2017 DARPA picked the winner of the XS-1 contract (Boeing/Aerojet); http://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2017-05-24 Belesarius 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramlaen Posted May 26, 2017 Report Share Posted May 26, 2017 A Whole New Jupiter: First Science Results from NASA’s Juno Mission Juno Media Teleconference Quote As NASA's Juno spacecraft flew through the narrow gap between Jupiter's radiation belts and the planet during its first science flyby, Perijove 1, on August 27, 2016, the Stellar Reference Unit (SRU-1) star camera collected the first image of Jupiter's ring taken from the inside looking out. The bright bands in the center of the image are the main ring of Jupiter's ring system. https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing?phases[0]=PERIJOVE+6&source=public&p=1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramlaen Posted May 26, 2017 Report Share Posted May 26, 2017 LostCosmonaut and Collimatrix 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramlaen Posted May 26, 2017 Report Share Posted May 26, 2017 LoooSeR 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belesarius Posted June 7, 2017 Report Share Posted June 7, 2017 SpaceX tapped for next X-37 launch. Must be some groans of despair over at ULA. https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/06/06/u-s-air-force-taps-spacex-to-launch-next-x-37b-spaceplane-mission/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LostCosmonaut Posted July 2, 2017 Report Share Posted July 2, 2017 Reports are that the second Long March 5 launch failed; https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2017/07/long-march-5-lofts-shijian-18/ Not a whole lot of details at this point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramlaen Posted July 13, 2017 Report Share Posted July 13, 2017 Belesarius 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belesarius Posted July 20, 2017 Report Share Posted July 20, 2017 Elon reminding us that Rockets are hard, and not to expect too much from the first Falcon Heavy launch, but come down and watch 'cause if we fuck up, the explosion might be really cool to watch. https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2017/07/falcon-heavy-prepares-debut-musk-urges-caution-expectations/ Ramlaen and Xlucine 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sturgeon Posted July 20, 2017 Author Report Share Posted July 20, 2017 He is seriously one of my favorite people that I don't know personally. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belesarius Posted July 20, 2017 Report Share Posted July 20, 2017 Also mentioned in that story 3!! new landing pads. Sturgeon 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scolopax Posted August 1, 2017 Report Share Posted August 1, 2017 Sturgeon and Ramlaen 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belesarius Posted September 7, 2017 Report Share Posted September 7, 2017 Hurricane? Oh well, better launch our National Security Payload... And they stuck the landing again. https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/7/16262226/spacex-live-stream-time-falcon-9-launch-x-37b-otv-5?ICID=ref_fark Ramlaen 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramlaen Posted September 22, 2017 Report Share Posted September 22, 2017 Mike Brown and crew are up on Maunakea again looking for Planet Nine. LostCosmonaut and Sturgeon 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LostCosmonaut Posted September 22, 2017 Report Share Posted September 22, 2017 54 minutes ago, Ramlaen said: Mike Brown and crew are up on Maunakea again looking for Planet Nine. At the very least his search will probably bag some TNOs (which wouldn't entirely be a loss, since much of the evidence for Planet Nine is the non-random distribution of TNO orbital parameters). Obviously hoping for success. edit: sometimes I remember Nemesis doesn't exist, and then I get sad Ramlaen 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LostCosmonaut Posted September 22, 2017 Report Share Posted September 22, 2017 In worse news, damage to the Arecibo Observatory from Hurricane Maria; https://www.space.com/38242-arecibo-observatory-hurricane-maria-damage.html Sturgeon, Ramlaen and LoooSeR 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xlucine Posted September 29, 2017 Report Share Posted September 29, 2017 Go big or go home: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-41441877 To pay for the BFR, spaceX will totally refocus on BFR - falcon will stop production. Relying on a stockpile of legacy rockets (dragon and falcon) isn't as bad for spaceX as it is for other operators, because they can reuse the rockets, but it's still a bold move. Especially since they're expecting the totally reusable BFR to take over the small satellite market and still be cost competitive (might work if they have several satellites that want to be in similar orbits?). Rocket travel between cities is cool, but unlikely. Rockets have avoided green taxes because no-one used them for travel - using rockets for transport will make it a target for hippies. Sturgeon 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LostCosmonaut Posted October 5, 2017 Report Share Posted October 5, 2017 Happy (belated) 60th Anniversary of Sputnik everyone! LoooSeR and Collimatrix 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt.Squarehead Posted October 5, 2017 Report Share Posted October 5, 2017 Beep! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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