The Space Flight Thread - Going out-of-bounds irl

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The Orion spacecraft will be flying by the moon in two hours. It will pass very close to the moon's surface; only about 80 miles away. Stream is already up:
www.youtube.com

Artemis I Close Flyby of the Moon

Watch live as NASA's Orion spacecraft performs a close approach of the lunar surface on its way to a distant retrograde orbit, a highly stable orbit thousand...
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
 
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Watching it now - surprised to see it's only going at 860mph. Guess you can take as long as you want when there's nothing alive on board.
 
The Orion spacecraft landed today: Orion Comes Home to Earth (archive)

At 12:40 p.m. EST, Dec. 11, 2022, the Orion spacecraft for the Artemis I mission splashed down in the Pacific Ocean after a 25.5-day mission to the Moon. Flight controllers in mission control at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston spent about two hours performing tests in open water to gather additional data about the spacecraft. Orion was then recovered by NASA’s Landing and Recovery team, U.S. Navy and Department of Defense partners aboard the USS Portland. Recovery personnel also spent time collecting detailed imagery of the spacecraft before beginning to pull the capsule into the USS Portland’s well deck. The ship will soon begin its trip back to U.S. Naval Base San Diego, where engineers will remove Orion from the ship in preparation for transport back to Kennedy Space Center in Florida for post-flight analysis. Orion is expected to arrive to shore Dec. 13.


Follow Orion’s travels on Earth by visiting the Artemis I blog.
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In other Moon mission news, SpaceX has announced the crew for the dearMoon mission, which includes DJ Steve Aoki. I assume he will be doing important scientific research on the behavior of turntables at 1/6 gravity.
 
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Stephanie Bustcakes said:
The Orion spacecraft will be flying by the moon in two hours. It will pass very close to the moon's surface; only about 80 miles away. Stream is already up:
www.youtube.com

Artemis I Close Flyby of the Moon

Watch live as NASA's Orion spacecraft performs a close approach of the lunar surface on its way to a distant retrograde orbit, a highly stable orbit thousand...
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
Click to expand...
It took a few weeks to actually get off the ground, but I was able to *feel* it tell gravity "get fucked".

I've seen enough normal rockets to not worry about missing any, but seeing that absolute beast of a rocket take off was surreal. Like, "wow, this is actually happening".
 
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Few days ago there was a Falcon Heavy launch at sunset and it was gorgeous.
In particular, booster separation, flip, and boostback burns.

Also for SpaceX, Starship launch coming soon.
1674103128954.png

I really like comparing SpaceX and Blue Origin due to the totally opposite paths they are taking.
SpaceX is out in the heat of south Texas, welding sheet metal together in tents to build a massive rocket. They had prototypes flying (and landing!) before they even started building their vertical stacking bays.
Meanwhile, Blue Origin seems to be spending a shit ton of money and time building out their manufacturing facilities, all in secret (as in no details on anything), before even having a rocket to test.

SpaceX is getting results, Blue Origin is blowing through money doing fuck all.
Feels like the difference between someone like Elon, that while he seems to be a slave driver, can inspire people and get results. Versus a corporate dick head like Bezos that probably has Blue Origin so bogged down in corporate bullshit they will be as bad as NASA is at getting anything done.
 
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This year, Roscosmos is supposed to start launching stuff from the iconic Gagarin's Start launchpad at Baikonur again after a several years hiatus
 
Phony Chicken said:
Few days ago there was a Falcon Heavy launch at sunset and it was gorgeous.
In particular, booster separation, flip, and boostback burns.
Click to expand...
It's still fascinating to watch the boosters land at the same time.
As for Blue Origin, it feels like Bezos is more interested in sending rich people in low orbit for a few minutes instead of contributing to something useful for humanity. That said, it was wholesome to see Shatner in space.
 
I'm watching NASA Spaceflight's live coverage of the Crew-6 mission. I have a love/hate relationship with that channel. The hosts can be incredibly annoying, and as time goes on they've become more overbearing with their attempts to squeeze money out of their viewers. Still, they provide the most comprehensive spaceflight coverage around, especially regarding SpaceX and Starship development.

 
Smashing Young Man said:
I'm watching NASA Spaceflight's live coverage of the Crew-6 mission. I have a love/hate relationship with that channel. The hosts can be incredibly annoying, and as time goes on they've become more overbearing with their attempts to squeeze money out of their viewers. Still, they provide the most comprehensive spaceflight coverage around, especially regarding SpaceX and Starship development.

Click to expand...
Agreed. Their level of excitement almost seems fake it's so ridiculous. Also, one of them (Sawyer I think) looks like a pedo.
 
Starship is planning on launching in a few hours. It may or may not actually launch depending on weather, technical problems, and so on. We will see.

 
Don't really see a point in launching a spaceship for 100 people until we can solve making a moon/space base.
 
wtfNeedSignUp said:
Don't really see a point in launching a spaceship for 100 people until we can solve making a moon/space base.
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What's the point in making a moon/space base if you don't have a way to get it or the occupants for it to the moon?
A crew version of Starship hasn't even been built yet.
 
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I see NASA have their priorities straight:
NASA priorities.png
The Artemis mission is not going to end well, is it?
 
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Starship launch 3 more likely to be in March or sometime late February? They kept pushing it'd be this month but they started talking March amidst several stacking tests, guessing it's not to be.
 
NASA crew doing a flight test on the Starliner from Boeing:

edit: launch cancelled due to a problem with a valve
 
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First Boeing Starliner launch with a crew in an hour from now:
 
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