The snapshot was taken in Queensland sans Woofy/Trigger/Whatever. I've Heard that they Depparted the restaurant later on .... the seats were too bright .... ummm, what's the shade of color I'm after ? Ah yes ! That, of course, would be orange ..... :-))
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
The Tianzhou-1 was launched from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan province Thursday evening and began to approach the space lab, Tiangong-2, Saturday morning.
It made first contact with the space lab at 12:16 pm on Saturday (04:16 GMT) and docking was completed at 12:23 pm.
So if the final orbit of the NROL payload is secret, then will SpaceX toss the first stage regardless ? By that I mean a recovery of the booster stage would allow a reasonable deduction about the destination of the satellite, given the known energetics of the Falcon 9 system.
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
So if the final orbit of the NROL payload is secret, then will SpaceX toss the first stage regardless ? By that I mean a recovery of the booster stage would allow a reasonable deduction about the destination of the satellite, given the known energetics of the Falcon 9 system.
Cheers, Mike.
As soon as it is off the pad the foreign radars will be tracking it all the way up to the parking orbit. The only time they can hide is when they are on the other side of the planet away from those radars and then do a burn into a final orbit. However any smart government can catch the bird the next time it pops above the horizon. And any government can put an aegis class radar on a ship and get global coverage anyway.
So if the final orbit of the NROL payload is secret, then will SpaceX toss the first stage regardless ? By that I mean a recovery of the booster stage would allow a reasonable deduction about the destination of the satellite, given the known energetics of the Falcon 9 system.
Cheers, Mike.
As soon as it is off the pad the foreign radars will be tracking it all the way up to the parking orbit. The only time they can hide is when they are on the other side of the planet away from those radars and then do a burn into a final orbit. However any smart government can catch the bird the next time it pops above the horizon. And any government can put an aegis class radar on a ship and get global coverage anyway.
Of course ! Plus if it goes behind the planet at low orbit and is not there when it should emerge t'uther side, then reasonable deductions can be made. Also it must emit at some future time ( otherwise it has no useful purpose ) so good old sigint will locate it anyway ie. new kid on the block.
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
So if the final orbit of the NROL payload is secret, then will SpaceX toss the first stage regardless ? By that I mean a recovery of the booster stage would allow a reasonable deduction about the destination of the satellite, given the known energetics of the Falcon 9 system.
Cheers, Mike.
As soon as it is off the pad the foreign radars will be tracking it all the way up to the parking orbit. The only time they can hide is when they are on the other side of the planet away from those radars and then do a burn into a final orbit. However any smart government can catch the bird the next time it pops above the horizon. And any government can put an aegis class radar on a ship and get global coverage anyway.
Or they can have radar stations all around the globe so no part of the sky is ever completely invisible. Is it still true that the sun never sets on the British Empire? (Or Commonwealth, if you prefer these days.)
David
Miserable old git
Patiently waiting for the asteroid with my name on it.
Anyway I think we may get public coverage at least until MECO + stage separation.
Cheers, Mike.
The party line I have seen is that coverage of the "continuing" vehicle will cease at fairing separation, after which there will just be coverage on the first stage return to launch site.
Regarding path, and other secrets, the general policy seems to avoid disclosing what does not need to be disclosed, not wishing to ease the task of people seeking to learn what actually matters. But, for example, the safety exclusion zone filing implies quite a lot about initial trajectory. From that and other clues this one seems pretty clearly to be neither equatorial nor polar.
Bill592 wrote:Mike Hewson
)
The snapshot was taken in Queensland sans Woofy/Trigger/Whatever. I've Heard that they Depparted the restaurant later on .... the seats were too bright .... ummm, what's the shade of color I'm after ? Ah yes ! That, of course, would be orange ..... :-))
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
Next launch: 4/30/2017
)
Next launch: 4/30/2017 (7am~9am local time) with return to land recovery.
Gary Charpentier
)
youtube footage shows some second stage gimbals at work.
Test fire for NROL
)
Test fire for NROL completed.
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
So if the final orbit of the
)
So if the final orbit of the NROL payload is secret, then will SpaceX toss the first stage regardless ? By that I mean a recovery of the booster stage would allow a reasonable deduction about the destination of the satellite, given the known energetics of the Falcon 9 system.
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
Mike Hewson wrote:So if the
)
As soon as it is off the pad the foreign radars will be tracking it all the way up to the parking orbit. The only time they can hide is when they are on the other side of the planet away from those radars and then do a burn into a final orbit. However any smart government can catch the bird the next time it pops above the horizon. And any government can put an aegis class radar on a ship and get global coverage anyway.
Gary Charpentier wrote:Mike
)
Of course ! Plus if it goes behind the planet at low orbit and is not there when it should emerge t'uther side, then reasonable deductions can be made. Also it must emit at some future time ( otherwise it has no useful purpose ) so good old sigint will locate it anyway ie. new kid on the block.
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
Gary Charpentier wrote:Mike
)
Or they can have radar stations all around the globe so no part of the sky is ever completely invisible. Is it still true that the sun never sets on the British Empire? (Or Commonwealth, if you prefer these days.)
David
Miserable old git
Patiently waiting for the asteroid with my name on it.
Anyway I think we may get
)
Anyway I think we may get public coverage at least until MECO + stage separation.
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
Mike Hewson wrote:Anyway I
)
The party line I have seen is that coverage of the "continuing" vehicle will cease at fairing separation, after which there will just be coverage on the first stage return to launch site.
Regarding path, and other secrets, the general policy seems to avoid disclosing what does not need to be disclosed, not wishing to ease the task of people seeking to learn what actually matters. But, for example, the safety exclusion zone filing implies quite a lot about initial trajectory. From that and other clues this one seems pretty clearly to be neither equatorial nor polar.