Questions tagged [identify-this-object]
Questions which ask for an object in a photograph or other media to be identified and/or have its function described.
170
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1answer
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What are SpaceX's Starship's header tanks?
In the Everyday Astronaut video A conversation with Elon Musk about Starship after about 13:00 Musk shows Dodd a cell phone video that he shot in the top(?) of the ...
3
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1answer
203 views
What are these things in Elon Musk's tweeted Starship video?
I don't understand what I'm looking at in the video of this Elon Musk tweet. The text says:
Just leaving SpaceX Starship build site in Boca
These are reminiscent of funhouse mirrors. What are ...
2
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1answer
96 views
For which “2 billion dollar spacecraft launched in 1999” did NASA “specially design” an Aronson Trolley Positioner?
This answer to What are those tilting/rotating platforms called that hold spacecraft during assembly, testing, and sometimes transport? quotes this Weld Plus website as follows:
(The) Aronson ...
2
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1answer
150 views
Why does Curiosity have two images of itself on itself, or is one a QR-code?
The first image in CNN"s New images show Mars as you've never seen it before shows a partial "selfie" by the Curiosity rover which includes what looks like two images on the rover itself.
The one on ...
0
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1answer
77 views
What are those tilting/rotating platforms called that hold spacecraft during assembly, testing, and sometimes transport? [duplicate]
The first image from the BBC's Euclid space telescope to study 'dark Universe' makes progress reminded me of the second two, which are taken from What are these air-vent-like structures on this ...
2
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1answer
95 views
What did Luna 3's illuminator illuminate and why did it need a cover?
This comment below this answer to How was it possible for the Apollo 11 to film and take pictures with such radiation? links to the svengrahn.pp.se post Luna 3 - the first view of the moon's far side.
...
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1answer
62 views
Is this a NASA building in the background?
The Washington Post video It's looking more and more likely there will be a Tropical Storm Humberto near Florida shows some footage with the caption "Titusville Fla." and I've included a screen shot ...
3
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2answers
121 views
Does this image of 91-core OTRAG “asparagus-staging” show a real launch, or is it “space-art”?
This answer to Were there any non-state organizations to organize space flight and colonizations in the second half of the 20th century? mentions OTRAG and links to Astronautix's OTRAG page.
The ...
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1answer
116 views
What do all these vectors point to in this New Horizons trajectory/operations simulation?
Sir Brian May's New Horizons music video (below) shows an animation of the spacecraft and its launch vehicle from countdown to MU69 Ultima Thule.
Part way through the video at about ...
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2answers
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Features seen on the Space Shuttle's solid booster; what does “LOADED” mean exactly?
The question Please explain the time reference shown in Shuttle launch engineering video links to the very cool video Ascent - Commemorating Shuttle. After about ...
5
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1answer
163 views
Why does this photo of the Hubble Space Telescope look so weird?
Question: Can someone identify this photograph of the Hubble Space Telescope seen as a still in the Los Angeles Times YouTube video Scientists witness huge cosmic crash, find origins of gold, figure ...
21
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1answer
1k views
Function of the separated, individual solar cells on Telstar 1 and 2? Why were they “special”?
The image below shows a part of a backup satellite for Telstar 1 and 2. In addition to the many small and highly segmented solar panels, there are what look like individual elements of the same kind ...
3
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1answer
140 views
What is a propellant burner trailer?
CNN and NPR have pointed out that the US president recently tweeted a surveillance photo of an explosion of a rocket on a launch pad.
One of the items identified in the photo is labeled as a ...
2
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1answer
83 views
Which Apollo 12 astronaut is shown examining the Surveyor 3 lander in this photograph?
I used this image in Exactly what was Surveyor 3 doing with a spring-loaded boxing glove-like device? but in the captions for the image on two NASA sites I noticed a disagreement in the identify of ...
2
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1answer
67 views
Exactly what was Surveyor 3 doing with a spring-loaded boxing glove-like device?
The thorough moon.NASA.gov/exploration page Moon Missions shows the image below.
I learned almost all of what I know about Physics and Engineering from the Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner cartoons,...
3
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2answers
173 views
Stanley Kubrick used a NASA-inspired lens to film by candlelight in Barry Lyndon, but what did NASA use it for?
At 07:35 in the CinemaTyler video How Kubrick Achieved the Beautiful Cinematography of Barry Lyndon he says:
As far back as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick and ...
2
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1answer
111 views
Saint Elmo's fire on the ISS? What are these green glowing balls of plasma on a solar panel? Dangerous?
This tweet says:
Almost the entire population of Egypt lives within a few miles of the Nile.
But my eye is on the green glowing balls on what looks like it might be a solar panel.
Question: What ...
1
vote
1answer
218 views
Does this Soyuz vehicle burn coal or oil? What is its official name?
This tweet shows the image below and says:
Soyuz rocket on its way to the launch pad (on a train of course).
Question: Does this Soyuz vehicle (a train engine) burn coal or oil? Does it have an ...
1
vote
1answer
136 views
What cubesats are these, what flags are on them, and why? What's the background story?
This tweet includes the image below and says:
Cubesats deploying from ISS.
Question: What cubesats are these, what flags are on them, and why? What's the background story?
Cropped, magnified and ...
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2answers
1k views
What are these circular spots on these Ariane V SRB nozzles?
This Space Shuttle Almanac tweet says:
Pics 1-4 of todays @Arianespace #ArianeV VA249 launch carrying the #EDRSC & #Intelsat39 comsats from Kourou
and includes the cool (hot) image below.
...
2
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0answers
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Why do these satellite antennas look so weird? (strangely shaped with little white dots…)
The NASA Spaceflight article Arianespace press onward with dual-passenger Ariane 5 launch shows a photo of Intelsat 39 during testing. The dish reflectors are strangely shaped:
rather than being ...
6
votes
1answer
252 views
What is Tesseract's “secret sauce”? (green propellant)
TechCrunch's Tesseract makes spacecraft propulsion smaller, greener, stronger tells us to "ditch the hazmat suits" and https://www.tesseract.space/products-and-services lists the Lyra 22 (i.e. 22 ...
3
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1answer
127 views
What kind of camera was used to produce this Apollo-era footage of the Earth?
The question Reflected Earth is 1/3 the size of primary Earth in Apollo footage through spacecraft window; why? begins:
In the video Brian Eno on Apollo at 08:20 ...
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3answers
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What is this spacecraft tethered to another spacecraft in LEO (vintage)
In the really nice video Brian Eno on Apollo at 03:40 there is (possibly Apollo-era but not necessarily Apollo) footage of a spacecraft tethered to another ...
5
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1answer
410 views
Humanoid silhouette on SpaceX's Starhopper; what does it represent?
update: The silhouette now has a page in Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hughmann_for_scale.svg
The images below are from a NASA Spaceflight forum post and can be seen in @...
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0answers
107 views
What do these three historical IBM staff at NASA insignias designate?
The question Where are these historical IBM + Apollo related locations within NASA? What do these computers do? shows four images. Three of them show different IBM insignias on shirts of IBM staff.
...
4
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1answer
136 views
Where are these historical IBM + Apollo related locations within NASA? What do these computers do?
In the Fortune Magazine video IBM's Moonshot: Past and Future with the notes
BM’s John Kelly reflects on Apollo 11’s historic mission and looks forward to what future technology will accomplish.
...
4
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0answers
101 views
Why does this “Midas missile early warning satellite” have a tilting cone with such a complex black-and-white checkerboard pattern?
Clicking on images of historic satellites led me to the airvectors.net page Foundations Of Automated Space Technology which includes this image and passage:
A number of Samos satellites were also ...
3
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1answer
205 views
Help understanding this Apollo 11 docking probe image, what are we looking at, and from where?
The New York Times mix media "article" Apollo 11
As They Shot It shows original photographic images taken by the astronauts and related quotes by them.
In one section the text says:
Inspecting the ...
24
votes
1answer
3k views
In this iconic lunar orbit rendezvous photo of John Houbolt, why do arrows #5 and #6 point the “wrong” way?
The NPR.org news item Meet John Houbolt: He Figured Out How To Go To The Moon, But Few Were Listening shows the iconic photo of John Houbolt next to a black board showing a free return scenario.
I ...
7
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2answers
2k views
What was this capsule dropped from a truck?
I've been watching the PBS American Experience documentary, and they showed a brief clip of some accidents at NASA. One involved a capsule being carried on the back of a truck, on some kind of crane. ...
6
votes
2answers
262 views
What are the bumps on the Vega rocket
In the image below, we see some bumps at the conical section of what I believe is the transition from the first to the second stage.
What function do they serve?
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
3
votes
1answer
121 views
What exactly are Tindallgrams? (spaceflight related)
The word "Tindallgram" appears in three posts:
this answer to How complex was the math and physics necessary to place Apollo 11 on the moon?
What is a “Lear Processor” and how did it work?
this ...
2
votes
1answer
437 views
What is this red spacesuit made out of, and why is it red?
The BBC News website often uses this file photo on spaceflight-related pages such as this one.
Is it possible to identify the following?
the astronaut
the spacecraft
the spacesuit
the external red ...
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0answers
205 views
What are these white cylindrical objects pointed in different directions in this photo of the Saturn V instrument unit?
The BBC News article Apollo in 50 Numbers; The Technology shows an image of the Saturn V's computer along with the caption:
The Saturn V's computer was probably the largest computer ever blasted ...
5
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0answers
146 views
What's this purple donut in the video of the Falcon 9 fairing's atmospheric reentry?
This SpaceX tweet (found in CNET's SpaceX camera captures incredible view of rocket part returning to Earth) shows a video taken by a camera in one half of the fairing on the recent STP-2 mission and ...
6
votes
1answer
195 views
How do you plot a porkchop plot like this one?
I was looking around for gravity gradients then got sidetracked by looking at pork-chop plots because they're extremely cool. I'm still struggling to fully understand them, but I did find an ...
9
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2answers
801 views
Apollo Mission Operations Control Room 2 display, what do these numbers indicate?
There are some really beautiful photos in Ars Technica's NASA’s restored Apollo Mission Control is a slice of ’60s life, frozen in amber
See also NYTimes' NASA Reopens Apollo Mission Control Room ...
3
votes
1answer
132 views
What's this part of Curiosity?
What's this part here used for? The thing that looks like if you poured dirt into it, that it'd sift through it. Not the antenna, the white thing in center that looks as if it could spin.
2
votes
2answers
125 views
Are there payload lights turning on and off in orbit on SpaceX STP-2?
In the video of the SpaceX STP-2 Mission during satellite deployment after around T+01:21:35 there are some areas that abruptly blink brightly. It's too fast and ...
5
votes
1answer
8k views
Is this the golf ball that Alan Shepard hit on the Moon?
The BBC News article The Five Greatest Space Hacks of All Time shows a photo of Alan Shepard on the Moon swinging an improvised golf club.
Is the spot in the upper right corner of the photo a golf ...
4
votes
1answer
167 views
What's this mini-cupola-looking object in this photo from the ISS?
(I went through this exercise for my own benefit, so I figured I'd post it)
Recently stay-extended astronaut Christina Hammock Koch posted this image to Facebook today and the object indicated by the ...
16
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2answers
4k views
Does anyone recognize these rockets, and their location?
I clicked an advertisement in the sidebar of an Economist article and it took me to this infomercial from Mitsubishi Heavy Industry Group's Spectra website How new technology is democratizing access ...
0
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1answer
94 views
What is this long black tube snaking up to the capsule payload of the Antares rocket?
Scott Manley's video The Antares Rocket - NASA's Less Famous Ride To The Space Station includes some file footage of Antares rocket launches.
There is a long black tube or cable snaking its way up to ...
5
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0answers
194 views
What are these four “debris” objects along with the Starlink satellites?
Celestrak has an updated system of categories for retrieving lists of current TLEs, and there's already one for Starlink, yay!
Currently https://www.celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/starlink.txt contains ...
14
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2answers
2k views
What are they doing to this rocket following its test fire?
Watching video of today's test of Northrop Grumman's OmegA first stage SRB after the test is over and the flames have died down a bit, it looks like they are sticking something into the back end of ...
1
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1answer
46 views
How does the JEM/Kibo connect to the “Porch Module”?
In this answer I saw Figure 35 of the encyclopaedic ISS Interface Mechanisms and their Heritage also shown croped below, and in this answer I see the second image (though an SE/imgur bug shows it with ...
2
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1answer
200 views
What spacecraft part is Mike Pence touching in this photo?
In this photograph, Vice President Mike Pence is touching an item labelled "Critical Space Flight Hardware". What is it? Has the photo been doctored?
2
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1answer
1k views
What are these giant NASA boxes?
In this answer I saw Figure 35 of the encyclopaedic ISS Interface Mechanisms and their Heritage and from the link I saw Figure 37, and I've included both below (click for larger size).
What are these ...
0
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0answers
117 views
What is the function of this Merlin engine's tube, and why is it getting red hot?
In the video of the recent SpaceX Starlink launch, one view of the Falcon-9 2nd stage engine shows a cane-shaped tube that glows red hot at the "handle" end and seems to get hotter over time.
...
