What do we mean in the #Space biz when we talk about "windows"?
It's the time frame in which a payload can reach its target destination, given the launch site and booster. (1/x)
Tonight's launch is sending a cargo Dragon to #ISS. If it's clear, we'll see ISS go over #KSC about 10 minutes before launch time.
The ISS orbits Earth at a 51° angle to the Equator. The Falcon 9 needs to launch Dragon to that inclination. Dragon also needs to "catch up" to ISS. The math works out tonight that the launch has to be at 8:30 PM EDT. (2/x)
@WordsmithFL
Thank you for the info, I did not realize a launch was scheduled.
@pendrag It happens so often now, we tend to forget about them. The Range projects about 100 launchs this year from the Cape. 😱
@WordsmithFL still used to the original shuttle schedule optimal payloads for both iss and satellite.
While I am impressed with SpaceX ability to reuse the Falcon launch system. I had an expectation of a greater payload system following the shuttle retirement.
@pendrag Shuttle risked lives and was hideously expensive to operate. F9 can launch crew Dragon, it can launch cargo Dragon, but not at the same time. We no longer risk lives to deliver cargo.
The tradeoff is a smaller launch window. #NASA could purchase launches on a Falcon Heavy to get a longer launch window, but is it worth the extra $30 million of taxpayer dollars to get a few extra minutes? Rhetorical question.
@WordsmithFL I have no doubt it makes financial and logistical sense. It is the kid in me that was so amazed by the flying space plane. Wanting to see the return to the moon, the rotational gravity space stations, and humans actually entering the solar system.
The knowledge and technology has grown through the use of unmanned launches and missions. Humans are still anchored to this earth.
@pendrag At least one American and one Russian have been in low Earth orbit since 2000. (Not the same ones, of course.)
ISS has taught us how to do long-duration space flight. We're using that knowledge for the "next step," Project Artemis.
(Which actually began life in 2014 as a program called NextSTEP, but I digress ...)
Crew will launch on the government SLS, but everything else is commercial ... (1/x)
@pendrag NASA has already issued contracts to the private sector to develop a lunar orbital platform called Gateway, a mini-ISS for long duration circumlunar spaceflight.
NASA has issued contracts to develop a lunar lander to go to/from Gateway, or using a SpaceX Starship from lunar orbit. (2/x)
@pendrag Companies are receiving contracts too to develop the technology for a permanent base at the lunar south pole, on the "terminator" between light and darkness, where NASA's lunar orbiting satellites have found frozen water.
It's all in the pipeline. As ISS ends around 2030, NASA transitions back to the Moon to implement these technologies. What we learn will be used to go on to Mars. (3/3)
@pendrag And because I'm filling dead air until launch time ...
It's often overlooked, because subsequent administrations wanted to take credit for it, but as I wrote upstream Artemis can be traced back to NextSTEP in 2014. Here's the original press release:
ISS was the priority for the next 10-15 years, but the Obama administration was already laying the foundation for Moon/Mars through commercial enterprise.
@WordsmithFL
I thought the initial Artemis blueprint was submitted in 2010?
@pendrag "Artemis" was a term coined by the Trump administration in 2019, rebranding what came before.
SLS was created by Congress and signed into law by Obama in 2010 as part of the agency's annual budget process. SLS had no missions; Congress wanted something to keep NASA contract workers employed during the Great Recession.
The Orion capsule goes back to about 2005 or so, part of a cancelled project called Constellation. (1/x)
@pendrag The short version is that "Artemis" gave one name to a bunch of programs within NASA with the general goal of Moon-to-Mars. (2/2)
@WordsmithFL
That was an error on my part, it was Orion! Thank you, I remember seeing the initial drawings of the new capsules on top of the modified shuttle tank system with 5 of the shuttle engines mounted below and the SRB’s. I my initial questions focused more on the reuse of the SRB. I then got a chance to learn not only about the composition of the energy used but also about designs of different nozzles for thrusts.
@pendrag Crewed vehicles and launch vehicles are two different things. In theory, a capsule could go on any booster if properly designed. (Boeing Starliner in theory could launch on a Falcon 9.)
Orion went through lots of design and purpose changes over the years.
When Constellation was cancelled, NASA proposed continuing Orion as an ISS lifeboat to appease Congress. But Congress came up with SLS.