Spot the Space Station

[day_trippr]

Perseverance landing coming up.

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

 

[day_trippr]

It's happening right now!

 

[day_trippr]

SO COOL! Perseverance landed - apparently safely - and is already sending low-res imagery home.
Imagine that the last course correction was like two months ago and they hit the entry window dead nuts. Amazing!
Awesome job by all involved

 

[NGD]

It's happening right now!

Damn glad I caught this when I did. Just watched it with my 11yo. Amazing job and perfect execution. Can’t wait to see some of the hi-res imagery later today.

 

[day_trippr]

How cool is this shot?

 

[day_trippr]

NASA put a synchronized video together of the EDL phase of the Perseverance rover.
Pretty cool, though I really wanted to see the heat shield slam into Mars



Cheers!

 

[passedpawn]

Latest pano from Mars, courtesy of Perseverance, spanned across my monitors. schweet. See it here:

 

[NGD]

That is bad ass! Also looks one hell of alot like parts of Arizona or Southern Utah. I never thought I wanted a triple display. I was wrong.

@passedpawn @day_trippr Not sure if either of you would be interested but a recent episode of the “How I heard it” podcast had an interview with Dr. Michelle Thaller, Director of communications at NASA Goddard flight center. Its pretty light hearted and not overly technical.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-way-i-heard-it-with-mike-rowe/id1087110764?i=1000510318700

 

[passedpawn]

That is bad ass! Also looks one hell of alot like parts of Arizona or Southern Utah. I never thought I wanted a triple display. I was wrong.

@passedpawn @day_trippr Not sure if either of you would be interested but a recent episode of the “How I heard it” podcast had an interview with Dr. Michelle Thaller, Director of communications at NASA Goddard flight center. Its a pretty light hearted and not overly technical.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-way-i-heard-it-with-mike-rowe/id1087110764?i=1000510318700

I bought that book for my neighbor. he's from Baltimore, same as Mike Rowe.

Anyway, I love the podcasts, and also Mike Rowe. I'll give it a listen.

 

[day_trippr]

Needs about 4x more pixels, but still cool beans!

 

[passedpawn]

Needs about 4x more pixels, but still cool beans!

View attachment 720164

Haha. Those are 4K hdr monitors.

 

[day_trippr]

Hahaha! I had downloaded the wrong image it was only a few megabytes.
This time I pulled the massive 600MB tiff file over and slammed that down. Spectacular!
Who knew Windows could handle a file that big for a background

Cheers!

 

[passedpawn]

Hahaha! I had downloaded the wrong image it was only a few megabytes.
This time I pulled the massive 600MB tiff file over and slammed that down. Spectacular!
Who knew Windows could handle a file that big for a background

Cheers!

Yessir! The higher def one looks far better. Seems to be improved color depth, too, as the compressed one has noticeable problems with the color gradients in the sky.

Here's the link to the better images:

https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/25640/mastcam-zs-first-360-degree-panorama/

 

[Birrofilo]

In 1993 I had a PC with a 12 MHz 10286. Those were days... I had a DOS program which showed very clearly the Mir space spation in the starred sky. You could put the program's clock 2 minutes in advance, and get out in the balcony and see the Mir passing through the sky. If memory serves, it was intermittent and if you knew where to look at and the sky was clear, you would see it.

 

[day_trippr]

And now, for something completely different, Starship sticks the landing! but then self-destructs anyway
They'll get there...





Sure looked like they used three Raptors for the "flip" but only a single for touchdown. Also, note the "bounce" on touchdown. Perhaps that busted a methane line that led to the "rapid unscheduled disassembly"

 

[Pkrd]

Perhaps that busted a methane line that led to the "rapid unscheduled disassembly"

Elon just wanted to get a second launch in to give the FAA the finger.

 

[day_trippr]

On-topic: This evening's ISS fly-overs in the Greater Boston Area. A longie at 7:52 with a decent peak elevation...

Fri Mar 19, 7:52 PM	6 min	64°	10° above SW	14° above ENE
Fri Mar 19, 9:29 PM	2 min	21°	10° above WNW	21° above NW

Cheers!

 

[day_trippr]

That was cool - the night sky is so clear the ISS looked as bright as any passing airliner on its way across the pond...

Cheers!

 

[day_trippr]

This is so cool! The science of calibrating the entire design of the Ingenuity "chopper" based on the Martian atmosphere, and then creating the software autonomy that allowed it to fly totally on its own, makes my inner and outer nerd so pleased they pulled it all off

I will say that first flight kinda "over-stuck" the landing by just a tad. I expect they'll work on that



Cheers!

 

[ThirstyPawsHB]

With the, almost, complete lack of air pressure, I was surprised any lift could be generated. NASA obviously tested this on Earth first so had no doubt it would work. Looking forward to what lays ahead for the little one.

 

[Snark_Wolf_Brewing]

I'm still waiting for this to happen. ☝

 

[passedpawn]

View attachment 726441

I'm still waiting for this to happen. ☝

marvin haha.

 

[passedpawn]

With the, almost, complete lack of air pressure, I was surprised any lift could be generated. NASA obviously tested this on Earth first so had no doubt it would work. Looking forward to what lays ahead for the little one.

Right. There's lift from the props action on the atmosphere, vs the downward force from gravity.

Mars gravity is only 38% of earth's. But the atmosphere is less than 1% of earth's. SO, that makes it very difficult to get lift and to get off the ground. Large blades at a severe angle makes it possible I guess. And high speed.

Without an atmosphere, getting heat away from motors etc is quite problematic. A long time ago I used heat tubes filled with ammonia to do this. Interesting technology there.

 

[day_trippr]

It has been an impressive couple of weeks for man vs space it's getting harder to keep up
Next exciting episode will likely involve SpaceX's SN15 SN15 which did a test burn today.

Meanwhile, this is a for-real pic of Crew Dragon's ascent to its ISS rendezvous, taken from Bryson City in the Smokys.

 

[DuncB]

That's nice, saw ISS go over whilst the Crew Dragon was about 20 km from ISS. Couldn't see the Dragon then but ISS bright.
Starlink less easy to spot these days.
Awaiting SN15 with much anticipation, no Fog this time I hope.

 

[Snark_Wolf_Brewing]

That's nice, saw ISS go over whilst the Crew Dragon was about 20 km from ISS. Couldn't see the Dragon then but ISS bright.
Starlink less easy to spot these days.
Awaiting SN15 with much anticipation, no Fog this time I hope.

Last I'd heard, SpaceX was working on moving the Starlink satellites into a higher orbit. That'll probably make the crew working the phones at the National UFO Reporting Center happy, since they're getting 100s of calls per day from people who are mistaking Starlink for UFOs passing overhead.

 

[DuncB]

Yes the recent launches are the only visible ones. Last night we could have got a good view of Starlink 17 but clouds came in as the sunset.
Grrr.

 

[day_trippr]

Last I'd heard, SpaceX was working on moving the Starlink satellites into a higher orbit.[...]

Maybe not?

https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/27/...-lower-orbits-against-amazon-rival-objections
Cheers! ("They're all over the place!" )

 

[Snark_Wolf_Brewing]

Maybe not?

https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/27/...-lower-orbits-against-amazon-rival-objections
Cheers! ("They're all over the place!" )

Interesting.

 

[NGD]

Did anyone ever identify this object that few by after separation?
https://m.dailymercury.com.au/news/space-x-crafts-near-miss-with-ufo/4246565/