China’s first X-ray astronomy satellite launched Thursday on a mission to survey the Milky Way galaxy for black holes and pulsars, the remnants left behind after a star burns up its nuclear fuel.
The Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope will also detect gamma-ray bursts, the most violent explosions in the universe, and try to help astronomers link the outbursts with gravitational waves, unseen ripples through the cosmos generated by cataclysmic events like supernova explosions and mergers of black holes.
The orbiting X-ray observatory, renamed Huiyan, or Insight, following Thursday’s launch, is China’s first space telescope and second space mission dedicated to astronomy after a Chinese particle physics probe was sent into orbit in 2015 to search for evidence of dark matter.
The BulgariaSat launching on June 23 was successful, including landing the previously used first stage on the barge.
This was a particularly hot re-entry, and a 3-engine landing burn. I think it was the first successful 3-engine landing burn. Available video shows the rocket exhaust kicking up water on the side of the barge bearing the name, with the stage coming to rest much farther off-center than recently, on the opposite side. It was clearly a pretty hard landing, as the crush cores in the legs are enough more compressed than usual to make the stance on the barge lower than customary. Elon tweeted that almost all the available emergency crush core compression had been used.
The Iridium NEXT launch in a few hours (without a delay) is on a launcher wearing the next generation grid fins. Single piece cast and cut titanium, instead of Aluminum with a single-flight thermal protection coating.
Elon twittered a bit, so we have a couple of extra details. The hydraulic loop driving the fins is now closed circuit (remember an early "almost" landing flight in which the open-loop hydraulic system driving the grid fins ran out just a bit too soon, then the stage hit the barge enough off vertical to make a pretty messy kaboom?). I'm not clear when the closed loop change was made--this is the first I've heard of it, but a reddit participant asserts it was done not long after the first kaboom from this cause.
The new fins are larger, and give more control authority, which is directly needed for Falcon Heavy, but will also increase the crosswind capability for single-core Falcon 9 from the previous (unstated) value.
Also Elon commented on an aspect of the landing "Rocket was suddenly slammed sideways right before landing. Heavy gust or something malfunctioned onboard. Reviewing telemetry.".
I assume that accounts for the strongly off-center final resting point. Perhaps it even accounts for some of the excess impact velocity (perhaps the thrust vector responds to extreme gimbal commands faster than the throttle up response can replace the vertical component lost).
The Titanium grid fins appear to have an appreciably more tuned design, in addition to simply being bigger, and having a different color as they lack the white thermal protection coating:
There is a live webcast running now with a bit more than 10 minutes to launch time.
The downward view on the first stage on atmospheric entry stayed clear. Probably the main crud in the optical path formerly came from the grid fin thermal protection coating burning off.
Bonus: this time we got live video of the actual moment of touchdown, but not from the the barge, but rather from the first stage. SpaceX said wind conditions at the landing point were looking at the top end of acceptable a few minutes before launch, but the downward view made it seem easy.
There was quite a bit of wobble/shimmy going through turbulence in the last few thousand feet. You could see rapid control corrections that coped with it nicely.
I was watching some Gemini launches last night that used twin engine Atlas rockets. What is very noticeable is the delay of approx five seconds after ignition before any upward movement. In fact sometimes not at all and then it shuts down and no release occurs. Gemini Six had three tries to succeed. These Falcons just snap from zero to hero in a heartbeat. The Gemini 6 & 7 combined mission was a little over 50 years ago and was the crucial demonstrator for rendezvous, maneuver & docking that proved Apollo could succeed.
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
https://spaceflightnow.com/20
)
https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/06/15/chinese-astronomy-satellite-placed-into-orbit-by-long-march-rocket/
Oooohh .... a double header
)
Oooohh .... a double header on the weekend. :-)
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
Go Searcher is on the move
)
Go Searcher is on the move out of the Bahamas ( Marsh Harbour ).
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 BulgariaSat launching on
)
The BulgariaSat launching on June 23 was successful, including landing the previously used first stage on the barge.
This was a particularly hot re-entry, and a 3-engine landing burn. I think it was the first successful 3-engine landing burn. Available video shows the rocket exhaust kicking up water on the side of the barge bearing the name, with the stage coming to rest much farther off-center than recently, on the opposite side. It was clearly a pretty hard landing, as the crush cores in the legs are enough more compressed than usual to make the stance on the barge lower than customary. Elon tweeted that almost all the available emergency crush core compression had been used.
The Iridium NEXT launch in a
)
The Iridium NEXT launch in a few hours (without a delay) is on a launcher wearing the next generation grid fins. Single piece cast and cut titanium, instead of Aluminum with a single-flight thermal protection coating.
Elon twittered a bit, so we have a couple of extra details. The hydraulic loop driving the fins is now closed circuit (remember an early "almost" landing flight in which the open-loop hydraulic system driving the grid fins ran out just a bit too soon, then the stage hit the barge enough off vertical to make a pretty messy kaboom?). I'm not clear when the closed loop change was made--this is the first I've heard of it, but a reddit participant asserts it was done not long after the first kaboom from this cause.
The new fins are larger, and give more control authority, which is directly needed for Falcon Heavy, but will also increase the crosswind capability for single-core Falcon 9 from the previous (unstated) value.
Also Elon commented on an aspect of the landing "Rocket was suddenly slammed sideways right before landing. Heavy gust or something malfunctioned onboard. Reviewing telemetry.".
I assume that accounts for the strongly off-center final resting point. Perhaps it even accounts for some of the excess impact velocity (perhaps the thrust vector responds to extreme gimbal commands faster than the throttle up response can replace the vertical component lost).
The Titanium grid fins appear
)
The Titanium grid fins appear to have an appreciably more tuned design, in addition to simply being bigger, and having a different color as they lack the white thermal protection coating:
There is a live webcast running now with a bit more than 10 minutes to launch time.
The downward view on the
)
The downward view on the first stage on atmospheric entry stayed clear. Probably the main crud in the optical path formerly came from the grid fin thermal protection coating burning off.
Bonus: this time we got live video of the actual moment of touchdown, but not from the the barge, but rather from the first stage. SpaceX said wind conditions at the landing point were looking at the top end of acceptable a few minutes before launch, but the downward view made it seem easy.
Excellent, thanx for the
)
Excellent, thanx for the link.
Here's another vid of the
)
Here's another vid of the takeoff and first stage landing - Nice !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZMBVLSUxLg
.
There was quite a bit of
)
There was quite a bit of wobble/shimmy going through turbulence in the last few thousand feet. You could see rapid control corrections that coped with it nicely.
I was watching some Gemini launches last night that used twin engine Atlas rockets. What is very noticeable is the delay of approx five seconds after ignition before any upward movement. In fact sometimes not at all and then it shuts down and no release occurs. Gemini Six had three tries to succeed. These Falcons just snap from zero to hero in a heartbeat. The Gemini 6 & 7 combined mission was a little over 50 years ago and was the crucial demonstrator for rendezvous, maneuver & docking that proved Apollo could succeed.
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