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.
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Need help identifying this (likely to be) phased array antenna used to track launches
I need help identifying the (what I believe to be) flat (and possibly phased) array antenna shown next to the tracking telescope in this photo, which can be found both here and here where the ...
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1answer
78 views
What is this combination tracking telescope and helical antenna pair? was it really used, and who is/was FlightLine?
I spotted the image below here which I found here (also seen here).
Zooming in on this combination pair of telescope trackers and pair of RHCP and LHCP (right- and left-handed circular polarization) ...
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2answers
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What are these antenna-like structures seen in Oleg Artemyev twitter video?
Russian Cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev's Sept 3, 2018 tweet has a narrated video of Earth from the ISS, at the time over the Nile river.
The video is also in YouTube (below).
At the bottom of the screen, ...
4
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1answer
175 views
What are these discs on the Crawler-Transporter?
I've just watched this footage of SLS's Mobile Launcher Platform being rolled out to LC-39B for fitting tests.
On the front of the drive trucks are two rotating discs with red markings which are ...
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0answers
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How did Sergei Krikalev get (or build) the drum he is shown playing here?
In this answer @horsh shows an image of Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev playing what might be an improvised drum, together with cosmonaut Sergey Volkov on guitar, aboard Mir in 1989.
Is it possible ...
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2answers
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What kind of antimatter engine is this?
I found this diagram while looking up diamagnetic machines. Could anyone explain what engine this is?
11
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1answer
485 views
Design of 1970s era orbital fuel depot
Multiple concept art examples for a 1970s orbital fuel depot from Marshall Space Flight Center show cylindrical tanks perpendicular to a central core. But then at one end of the central core are ...
4
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1answer
111 views
What is the “baby rocket” attached to the booster on this rocket? [duplicate]
@OrganicMarble's answer shows some very cool looking historical rocket launches.
What is the smaller structure attached to the booster on the right side, that looks like a "baby rocket"?
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1answer
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Why is this rocket transparent, and why is there a nozzle in the nose, pointing up?
This tough question links to the NASA YouTube video NASA 60th: How It All Began which shows a lot of really nice, historical file footage and stills.
At about 01:56...
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1answer
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What do these GPS-related emblems represent? Does one of them show “Marvin the Martian”?
The Wikipedia page linked in @OrganicMarble's answer about the Air Force Space and Missile Museum contains the image below, of a (now retired) GPS monitoring station. To the right of the station ...
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Puzzler; “who” are the members of this family of comet-visiting spacecraft?
In the video Once upon a time... Rosetta's grand finale (also in ESA Space Videos) mentioned in this answer there is a "family portrait" showing Rosetta along with previous comet-visiting spacecraft.
...
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What ESA video contains this “family portrait” of comet-visiting spacecraft?
I don't use (or condone) FaceBook, but nonetheless I stumbled upon this page from a search: https://www.facebook.com/ISEE3Reboot/photos/a.801544933207256.1073741827.800538433307906/1384594101569000/?...
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1answer
151 views
What is the ESA Grip experiment, and why does it require Alexander Gerst to be strapped into it?
The text of this 14-June-2018 astronews.com tweet translated into English via google says:
IMAGE OF THE DAY: Today's picture of the day shows the German ESA ...
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2answers
513 views
Is the Hollywood “Enemy of the State” satellite at all based on a real satellite?
The page on the model maker Asylum FX's website shows some stills of a model used in the production of the movie Enemy of the State.
We fabricated a 15ft long satellite model for motion control ...
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1answer
146 views
What is Kennedy's USB?
In this answer, the following picture appeared (emphasis in red mine):
The VIC is the visitor centre (nowadays KSVC). But what is the USB facility? Is this by chance related to the Unified S-band ...
7
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1answer
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Function of this big pointy thing on the Titan Transtage? Do other upper stages have something similar?
Jonathan McDowell's tweet
Six more debris objects from Transtage 17 cataloged. Here is the Gabbard diagram showing apogee and perigee for each piece - green line is the GEO altitude
led me to ...
3
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1answer
119 views
Rocket name request: rocket company launching a rocket with a “punny” name
I'm trying to recall the name of a rocket. I read / watched about it this year, or late last year; unfortunately I cannot find it in my history.
The name of this rocket, created by a company whose ...
4
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1answer
144 views
What is the purpose of the “shaft” and “block” in these two different engine gimbal joints?
This question refers to the device which transfers the thrust force from the engine to the vehicle while allowing the engine to swivel - the "gimbal joint".
Both the F-1 and SSME have a bolt- or ...
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4answers
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“Pillars of Baikonur” What is the purpose of the hundreds of short, white posts near the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch pad?
The caption given in the third image included in the Space.com page Expedition 56: The Space Station Mission in Photos reads as follows:
At the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch pad, remote-controlled ...
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0answers
71 views
What could be used to associate these fairing halves with their launches?
Eric Ralph's Teslarati article SpaceX’s BFR factory in LA spied with four Falcon 9 fairing halves shows several panoramic photos of the site for the future rocket factory. In it, the author says:
...
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0answers
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What was the design failure that Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory is alluding to?
I was looking through old saved urls and when an old Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory press release link didn't work, it sent me to the PageNotFound page, where I saw the image below.
It ...
5
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1answer
250 views
What's the spiral pattern on this satellite?
I was looking through old saved urls and when an old Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory press release link didn't work, it sent me to the PageNotFound page, where I saw the image below.
It ...
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2answers
2k views
What's on the bottom of the Shuttle's external fuel tank?
In the Wikipedia article about Spaceplane there's a (rare and cool) shot of the Space Shuttle from one of the SBRs immediately after it was released. The web page for the image says:
Space Shuttle ...
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1answer
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What are these two very large, round panels on opposite sides of AngoSat-1?
The Spaceflight101 article AngoSat-1 Satellite Overview Shows several images of the large communication satellite designed for GEO.
Two color photos show that the spacectraft has two large (roughly ...
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1answer
156 views
When was there a dog in ISS's Kibo module?
The interesting question What living organisms adapt to 0 gravity? includes several GIF images. One if them is shown below, that of (apparently) a dog in a NASA suit floating around in the ISS's ...
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2answers
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What is the large circular device with a dozen concentric circles on Sentinel 3B?
The Spaceflight Now article Photos: Sentinel 3B satellite prepared for launch from Plesetsk Cosmodrome has of course lots of photos. One of them shows a dish antenna covered with shiny, metallized ...
7
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1answer
275 views
What is the function of this array of what looks like mirrors on TESS?
The Mashable.com article TESS is about to become your new favorite NASA mission shows a beautiful photo of the TESS spacecraft in a state that looks like it is nearly ready to launch.
There is a ...
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2answers
152 views
What are the louver-like structures on the sides of the Mariner 4 probe?
The COSMOS Magazine article First mission to Mars: Mariner 4’s special place in history July 14, 1965, forever changed the way we see Mars. Tim Wallace looks back at one of NASA’s greatest triumphs ...
4
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1answer
148 views
Who is the unnamed astronaut in this uncredited photo used in commercial promotional material?
When I linked back to Do ISS astronauts notice, or experience symptoms of elevated CO2 levels? Do they wear monitors regularly? in this question, I was surprised to find that I hadn't named the ...
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2answers
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What is Astronaut Sunita Williams wearing on her wrist?
The most recent installment of NPR's Brave New Workers A NASA Astronaut Stays In Orbit With SpaceX And Boeing (article & podcast) covers Astronaut Sunita Williams extremely cool new job.
She's ...
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2answers
349 views
What is that thing spraying during a Falcon 9 launch? [duplicate]
What are those things spraying something at the pad during the beginning of a Falcon 9 launch?
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2answers
149 views
Identify this rocket and launch site from Gilligan's Island episode?
Since @geoffc has broken the "Gilligan's Island Barrier" with this answer I'd like to ask about the Space-themed episode 22 of Season 3 "Splashdown" which aired on February 20, 1967.
What launch ...
13
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1answer
701 views
What was the purpose of the small red tank attached to the Titan-Centaur launcher?
Watching a documentary on the Viking missions, I noticed the launcher had a small red tank/rocket attached to one of the solid boosters. It struck me as an odd feature/placement, as I thought you'd ...
2
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1answer
124 views
Identify this 1960's launch site and mission?
These are screen shots from a video of the Assignment Earth episode of Star Trek (TOS). It was filmed in January 1968. I would assume that the image shown on the screen is NASA file footage, and that ...
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0answers
99 views
What space suit is this? [duplicate]
I recently saw this picture, and it puzzles me as to what they are wearing. At first thought, I imagined that they would be space suits. But, they went in a Soyuz craft, and the suits for a Soyuz don'...
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1answer
251 views
What is this object outside the ISS that looks like a loudspeaker?
Things in space are not always what they seem. The question Why does there appear to be a 180-degree stereo microphone array outside the ISS? makes that clear.
What is this object shown to the right ...
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2answers
478 views
What is this spinning object seen on a spacecraft above the ISS?
In the YouTube Trailer for the PBS program A Year in Space at 00:56 a small spinning object can be seen, attached to a spacecraft well above the ISS. I think the ...
3
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1answer
105 views
Which Apollo Command Module is pictured here?
I recently requested help identifying what turned out to be a Sikorsky JRS-1 on Aviation.SE. One of the comments in my post led to this follow up. In the same picture there is what I'm pretty certain ...
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1answer
230 views
What is the blue box that the Exp. 53 Astronuats/Cosmonauts carried with them?
Looking at a video from Roscosmos on instagram, Exp. 52 Cosmonaut Sergey Ryazansky carried a blue box with him during his walk to the Soyuz rocket.
Upon looking at more videos of Astronauts boarding ...
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2answers
481 views
What are these thirteen purple grape-like things inside this tank?
I am not sure this is a view of the inside of a liquid propellant tank, and even if was, not sure if it belongs to a Falcon 9 per se. But there are places for fourteen round objects at the far end, ...
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2answers
204 views
What is this tiny articulated dish antenna-like thing on Zvezda?
I spotted this tiny, articulated dish antenna-like thing on the Zvezda module of the ISS while looking around for images for here. It looks like it's associated with and/or pointing in the same ...
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2answers
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What is the function of this (apparently) fixed dish on the ISS?
I saw this image in Popular Science, one of the example photos from the book by astronaut/photographer/astrophotographer(?) Donald Pettit. It's beautiful and impressive not only from a color/...
3
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1answer
254 views
What are these 'Lego' plates inside the Atlas 5 fairing? [duplicate]
My local engineering newspaper has an article on the X-37B craft, with an image displaying the craft within half of the shell that encapsulates it. The shell has a number of plates arranged on its ...
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1answer
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What is this instrument on the ISS?
In this image (NASA original source) from the International Space Station. what is the "lightning rod"-like instrument at the end of the mast in the upper right of the photo?
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1answer
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What are these tiny triangular fins on the Soyuz launcher?
What are the small triangular fins on the lowest part of the boosters of the Soyuz 2.1 rocket? What function do they have?
I circled one of them in the upper image here. They are not visible in the ...
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1answer
5k views
Why does there appear to be a 180-degree stereo microphone array outside the ISS?
I was watching a feed on the latest footage of Hurricane Matthew as seen from the ISS just now, relayed from NASA TV. Suddenly, I spotted something poking out of the ISS hull in the footage that ...
18
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1answer
2k views
What are the small gas jets at the rims of the Space Shuttle Main Engines?
As can be seen in close-up footage of SSME ignition, such as the video below,
there are small jets of an unknown gas/vapor emanating from specific points around the ...
13
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1answer
2k views
What are these air-vent-like structures on this satellite?
I struck out with my previous question so I'll try again.
What are these large circular 4-vane structures on the sides of NOAA-19 - the satellite that "fell down"?
They remind me of adjustable air ...
7
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1answer
455 views
What are the features on X-37 fairing/transport jig
Is the structure on the bottom side of the X-37 in this photo a launch fairing or a transport jig? In either case, what are the arrays of transparent-looking round things on it?
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2answers
5k views
What is the purpose of the rotating dish antenna on the ISS
I just saw some footage of the ISS in which a dish antenna could be seen, constantly rotating.
The dish looked more-or-less parabolic, meaning that it is presumably sending/receiving along a fairly ...
