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01101010
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Reply #210 on: August 21, 2014, 06:32:19 AM

Aluminum.

That seems painfully inadequate given this is NASA. I get the budgets are woeful these days, but I'd hope they'd come up with something more durable than that for this type of project. I mean they would have to have data from the other rovers outlining the type of terrain.

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Reply #211 on: August 21, 2014, 07:33:22 AM

How do you know Aluminum wasn't the best option?

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Reply #212 on: August 21, 2014, 08:12:51 AM

Aluminum is light, strong, corrosion resistant, and easy to shape.  It was a very good choice.

Keep in mind the rovers weren't expected to last more than a few months.  The wheels still work, too, they just have some damage.  It's only a problem if the damage inhibits movement.

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Reply #213 on: August 21, 2014, 08:38:36 AM

Aluminum is light, strong, corrosion resistant, and easy to shape.  It was a very good choice.

Keep in mind the rovers weren't expected to last more than a few months.  The wheels still work, too, they just have some damage.  It's only a problem if the damage inhibits movement.

I only commented out of curiosity in reaction to seeing that much damage on one of the key parts in terms of mobility. I have no idea about this stuff... but it doesn't seem like it is strong enough for the mission if they look that shredded - maybe they did not expect the beating the wheels would take and took a chance on a thinner wheel construction. But hey, that is data to be used for future stuff.

http://earthsky.org/space/curiosity-rover-is-having-wheel-problems

And I thought the mission for Curiosity was 2 years?

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Reply #214 on: August 21, 2014, 09:29:03 AM

Aluminum is light, strong, corrosion resistant, and easy to shape.  It was a very good choice.

Keep in mind the rovers weren't expected to last more than a few months.  The wheels still work, too, they just have some damage.  It's only a problem if the damage inhibits movement.

Aluminum also has no fatigue limit, so failure was a matter of when and not if. 
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Reply #215 on: August 21, 2014, 11:59:39 AM

The light weight is a really important factor. They could have gone with titanium if they wanted something stronger, but titanium is like 60% or so heavier than aluminum, which would have all kinds of effects on the landing impact, energy needed to get it there, etc.

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Reply #216 on: August 21, 2014, 02:40:30 PM

Damn. I wonder how they keep the solar panels clear?

They don't, periodic windstorms apparently do that for them.

http://www.space.com/25577-mars-rover-opportunity-solar-panels-clean.html

Curiosity doesn't have solar panels, it has a radio-isotope battery like the Voyager probes.

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Reply #217 on: August 21, 2014, 02:46:25 PM

Whoops, got my rovers mixed up.

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Reply #218 on: August 21, 2014, 08:00:13 PM

Curiosity doesn't have solar panels, it has a radio-isotope battery like the Voyager probes.
Cool. Surprised there wasn't bitching from environmentalists when that went up. I vaguely recall some about Cassini, but Cassini required an awful lot of...I dunno, plutonium or uranium. Something hot.

As for aluminium: The guys at my work get very, very, very excited about any new aluminum alloy. Rockets, rotors, turbines, airframes -- lots and lots of aluminum, and some of the alloys are supposedly very impressive. (Fuck if I follow it. It's all metal fatigue and UTS and yield stress and shit). Of course the new hotness is composites -- some sort of nifty new layering process or something. It's coming up as something the fracture guys are looking into testing and creating models of.

We've got a big ole' honking database of every material NASA has ever beaten into the ground to see how it bends, breaks, cracks, and fractures -- and there's lots and lots and LOTS of aluminum. Lots of steel too.
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Reply #219 on: August 22, 2014, 06:10:42 AM

When every gram matters for launch, Aluminum alloys are very difficult to beat.

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Reply #220 on: August 22, 2014, 08:10:32 AM

As for aluminium: The guys at my work get very, very, very excited about any new aluminum alloy.


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Reply #221 on: August 22, 2014, 05:38:40 PM

Yeah, I pretty much feel that way when they get to talking about it.

Doesn't help that one of the new company's I've had to interact with is Sierra Nevada -- I keep wondering why beer maker's want our software. (Hint: Not the same company). I bet the beer company would also get excited about new aluminum's.
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Reply #222 on: August 22, 2014, 08:39:21 PM

As for aluminium: The guys at my work get very, very, very excited about any new aluminum alloy.

This was the first thing I thought of when I realized that the "Gorilla Glass", synthetic sapphire screens they put on high end smart phones are actual-for-real "Transparent Aluminum" (crystallized aluminum oxide).

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Reply #223 on: August 22, 2014, 11:40:09 PM

Man, that's like saying glass is "transparent sand".
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Reply #224 on: August 23, 2014, 09:33:19 AM

almost. More like saying glass is transparent silicon.   why so serious?

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Reply #225 on: October 24, 2014, 08:43:05 PM

Littlefinger explains Rosetta


It's a bit weird.  headache

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Reply #226 on: October 28, 2014, 05:08:27 PM

"Private Orbital Sciences Rocket Explodes During Launch, NASA Cargo Lost" (unmanned; video included):

http://www.space.com/27576-private-orbital-sciences-rocket-explosion.html

Quote
Today's launch was intended to kick off Orbital Sciences' third contracted resupply mission to the station. The Virginia-based company signed a $1.9 billion deal with NASA to complete eight such flights; the first two were successful.

Damn.

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Reply #227 on: October 28, 2014, 05:13:35 PM

Yesh, they were already well behind Spacex in the commercial race.  This could seriously fuck them, and the future of the Virginia launch pad (which has had a lot of people lobbying for it).  At least nobody was hurt.

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Reply #228 on: October 29, 2014, 10:01:22 AM

I know launching shit into space is hard, but we've been doing this for more than fifty years, and still shit explodes spectacularly on the launchpad.  We're never going to make it to Zagnar 7 at this rate.

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Reply #229 on: October 29, 2014, 10:34:05 AM

Controlled explosions go awry when every little variable isn't exact. Whoda thunk.

So long as our propulsion out of the gravity well is a controlled explosion, this shit is going to happen. When you add a for-profit motive it's going to happen more frequently due to not taking things to the nth degree of safety. 

Morat has previously mentioned some of the NASA comments along the line of 'uh, we'd never be allowed to do that' stuff SpaceX did and they're better funded than OS, IIRC.

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Reply #230 on: October 29, 2014, 12:06:52 PM

Orbital Science has a really sort of sketchy rocket plan as well (Elon Musk criticized it, but people wrote that off as him just being a dick to a rival).  To save money, they bought a bunch of old soviet rocket engines from Russia that they built in the 60's, had them modified, and placed into their own rocket design.  Its really seems kind of haphazard, and they've had a lot of them fail in testing.

Then there is funding.  SpaceX, which designs and builds its rockets from the ground up, has been redeveloping and advancing its own tech year after year, and has a recoverable payload capsule that can return cargo to earth, took 1.6 Billion for 12 launches.  OS, which has a rocket that is totally destroyed after every launch, including the payload capsule upon leaving the ISS, got 1.9 Billion for 8 missions.  Or in short, the company that is buying surplus Soviet era equipment to save money and hasn't developed any recoverable technology, is charging about $237 Million per launch.  While SpaceX, which is the opposite of all that, is charging almost half rate at $133 Million per launch.  Lots of issues with OS, but I can understand NASA's thinking since they were the next closest competitor after SpaceX and wanted a backup company.  

I do hope they're able to recover (And learn) from this for the sake of space flight.  If anything they can hopefully develop their own homegrown rocket designs eventually, and more options are better.

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Reply #231 on: October 29, 2014, 01:11:09 PM

POS rocket?
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Reply #232 on: October 29, 2014, 04:20:15 PM

Suprise! Rocket science (engineering) is tricky business.

Coincidentally this article was posted 3 days ago by the Mission Operations Director at the time, Wayne Hale, about a near disaster on launch with the space shuttle mission STS-93 on July 23 1999 which flew the Chandra X-ray observatory into orbit. Long but fascinating read.

http://waynehale.wordpress.com/2014/10/26/sts-93-we-dont-need-any-more-of-those/
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Reply #233 on: October 31, 2014, 01:22:04 PM

Virgin's SpaceShipTwo crashed, at least one of the pilots is dead.

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Reply #234 on: October 31, 2014, 01:27:10 PM

"Ambition" -- beautiful short shot in Iceland starring Aidan Gillen (GoT) and Aisling Franciosi by the European Space Agency.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H08tGjXNHO4
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Reply #235 on: October 31, 2014, 02:52:19 PM

"Ambition" -- beautiful short shot in Iceland starring Aidan Gillen (GoT) and Aisling Franciosi by the European Space Agency.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H08tGjXNHO4
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Reply #236 on: October 31, 2014, 02:57:34 PM

Virgin's SpaceShipTwo crashed, at least one of the pilots is dead.

That sucks.  Reading that they switched the fuel mixture between the last flight and this one.  Likely culprit.
« Last Edit: October 31, 2014, 03:00:08 PM by Abagadro »

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Reply #237 on: October 31, 2014, 03:00:44 PM

Virgin Galactic spaceship crashes on test flight

Quote
Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic has crashed during a test flight in California.

Two pilots were onboard the suborbital spacecraft named SpaceShipTwo as it underwent its first powered test flight since January.

Reports say one person has died and another is seriously injured.

Quite some mishaps lately: Cygnus exploding on Tuesday and in August we had an ESA Soyuz rocket malfunctioning and delivering it's Galileo satellites in the wrong orbits.

e: mishap isn't the proper word on one dead and one wounded. Wasn't meant that way.
« Last Edit: October 31, 2014, 03:08:13 PM by calapine »

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Reply #238 on: October 31, 2014, 03:04:42 PM

"Private Orbital Sciences Rocket Explodes During Launch, NASA Cargo Lost" (unmanned; video included):

http://www.space.com/27576-private-orbital-sciences-rocket-explosion.html

Quote
Today's launch was intended to kick off Orbital Sciences' third contracted resupply mission to the station. The Virginia-based company signed a $1.9 billion deal with NASA to complete eight such flights; the first two were successful.

Damn.
Eyewitness account:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/10/141030-first-person-rocket-explosion-antares/
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Reply #239 on: October 31, 2014, 03:52:33 PM

On a happier note, the Chinese Chang'e 5-T1 snapped this before it headed back to Earth:

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Reply #240 on: November 05, 2014, 08:46:35 PM

Rosette and Philae - the 'awwwww soooo cute!' version  Heart

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Reply #241 on: November 06, 2014, 08:46:56 AM

I didn't even know this was a thing. Fuck our news media, that's goddamn awesome and will be a huge achievement if they pull it off.

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Reply #242 on: November 06, 2014, 10:23:26 AM

I didn't even know this was a thing. Fuck our news media, that's goddamn awesome and will be a huge achievement if they pull it off.

Same, sort of. I planned to regularly follow the Rosetta blog after the waking-up phase, then promptly forgot about it...

Two things stand out for me so far: First, the the mission duration. To launch something and go "Now we fly for 10 years and then land!" is...well, impressive.

And Churyumov-Gerasimenko itself. To see dunes on a comet is eerie. Ignore the space background and it could possibly be an areal image from earth...

« Last Edit: November 06, 2014, 10:28:25 AM by calapine »

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01101010
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Reply #243 on: November 06, 2014, 10:37:28 AM

Just trying to remember where I was living 10 years ago and where I have lived since... sheesh


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Reply #244 on: November 06, 2014, 02:38:12 PM

Those rocks are the size of houses and SUVs. So that set of dunes would make a substantial beach. More amazing to me, on a body that small (only a few kilometers across or around, even on the longest axis and the broadest diameter) gravity is more a concept than an experience. The correction burns that Rosetta has made are at angles practically to the perpendicular. Its orbital path looks more like a spirograph than a scribble.

Plus, though it's reflective enough to look good in pictures, the surface is black as copier toner. Not at all the comet the mission was expecting, ten years ago.

I cannot wait to see the body evolve as Rosetta follows it around the sun and it gains first an atmosphere and then a tail. This is going to be amazing.

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