The Space Thread - Launches, Events, Live Streams, Governments, Corporations, drama in Spaaaaaaaaaaaace

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mindlessobserver said:
Starship 10 launches tomorrow. We taking bets on if it will blow up again or not?
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I'm placing my bet on complete success. Which means it takes off, deploys Starlink simulators (no stuck door this time), survives reentry burn mostly intact and "lands" in the Indian Ocean, and the booster "lands" in the Gulf of America. Keep in mind this is still Block 2 hardware that will be obsolete soon. Flight 11 will apparently also use Block 2, and then it's on to Block 3, perhaps whether they've fixed the issues or not.

SpaceX Starship Flight 10: What to expect (ghost)
A section of thermal protection tiles has been removed to expose vulnerable areas, while new metallic tile designs, including one with active cooling, will be trialed.

Catch fittings have been installed to evaluate their thermal and structural performance, and adjustments to the tile line will address hot spots observed on Flight 6. The reentry profile is expected to push the structural limits of Starship’s rear flaps at maximum entry pressure.
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Going well so far, now it's a waiting game for how reentry will go. Everything of course will be moot because it's still an old version flying.
 
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THEY FACKING DID IT!!! I think this is the first Starship launch that achieved all its goals
 
Can we talk about 31/ATLAS?
I keep reading that it’s got some odd physical properties, wrong metals, coming in on the plane of the ecliptic, etc.
I am curious about it and would like to hear smart people’s thoughts
 
Otterly said:
Can we talk about 31/ATLAS?
I keep reading that it’s got some odd physical properties, wrong metals, coming in on the plane of the ecliptic, etc.
I am curious about it and would like to hear smart people’s thoughts
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Here's the latest Loeb missives about it:
Detection of an Anti-Solar Tail for 3I/ATLAS (archive)
The Challenge of Measuring the Mass of 3I/ATLAS (archive)

3I/ATLAS on Wikipedia has a bash Loeb section: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3I/ATLAS#Alien_spacecraft_speculation

The size, or apparent size of it, is catching people off guard. Maybe there's something about particularly large interstellar comets/asteroids that is throwing off the estimates. Like if a large comet-like object had been traveling through cold interstellar space for hundreds of thousands of years, it will be sensitive during a close stellar approach and start outgassing more, or supposedly producing light, making it appear bigger.

Coming in on the ecliptic plane could be a consequence of how nearby stars or everything in the galaxy is distributed. There is a galactic plane, after all. The "close" approach to several planets is interesting, but once you're near one of the inner solar system planets, you're near all of them. The closest approach to Earth is ~1.8 AU which isn't that close at all.

Mars2025-Oct-030.1936 ± 0.0004 AU (28.962 ± 0.060 million km; 17.996 ± 0.037 million mi)
Sun2025-Oct-291.3564 ± 0.0007 AU (202.91 ± 0.10 million km; 126.085 ± 0.065 million mi)
Venus2025-Nov-030.6494 ± 0.0007 AU (97.15 ± 0.10 million km; 60.366 ± 0.065 million mi)
Earth2025-Dec-191.797 ± 0.001 AU (268.83 ± 0.15 million km; 167.042 ± 0.093 million mi)
Jupiter2026-Mar-160.359 ± 0.002 AU (53.71 ± 0.30 million km; 33.37 ± 0.19 million mi)

I hope something worthwhile comes from the spacecraft at Mars.
 
I reading up about moons, and I always thought it was weird Saturn had so many more moons compared to Jupiter. But, the more I looked into it seems people don't even know how many moons Saturn and Jupiter really have.
 
Otterly said:
Can we talk about 31/ATLAS?
I keep reading that it’s got some odd physical properties, wrong metals, coming in on the plane of the ecliptic, etc.
I am curious about it and would like to hear smart people’s thoughts
Click to expand...
Anton is usually a good source.

It is odd. It has low metallicity aka low heavier elements.

The current Heckin' Science! explanation is that it was a particularly large comet that formed way earlier in another solar system, and got flung out early.

Thus it has a lot of comet tail material zo spend, which is mostly gases that heat up and escape when a star warms it up.

Since this could be its first time this close in, it is leaking a lot of gas. It also a yuge chungus of a comet.

Its composition is lighter because it formed many billion years before the Solar system. That meant its material is less heavy element dense, as heavy elements are made as stary go nova, neutron stars collide, etc etc.

So the newer something is, the more heavy elements, thus metallicity it has.

This is a really, really old and large snowball that is in almost mint new condition.

Edit: I normally don't look up exact stats, but Otterly is one of the smart users here so it is estimated to be 7.6 billion years old, or maybe as old as the galaxy.

It is really old. Most stars are red dwarves that live way longer than the Sun. It is my pet autism, but it likely came from one such system based on just how many there is of them.
 
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how many more flights til SpaceX tests out orbital refueling?
 
Cedric_Eff said:
how many more flights til SpaceX tests out orbital refueling?
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Wikipedia says 2026 based on nothing in particular, but it's probably accurate.

Flight 11 will be final Block 2 launch, no orbit. Flight 12 will debut Block 3, and Musk wants one launch of it before the end of 2025. My guess is there would be at least two suborbital Block 3 flights to test the basics and the heat shield. Propellant transfer takes up two flights and Wikipedia says the "chaser" will launch 3-4 weeks after the "target".
 
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