All Questions
2,221
questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
21
votes
0
answers
597
views
Does the post Apollo 13 roast mixtape still exist?
The debriefing party at the Hofbraugarten was merciless, beginning
with a parody of the mission. The tape prepared by the Apollo 13
backup crew and the CapComs was not for the thin-skinned. The parody
...
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18
votes
0
answers
783
views
Have there ever been any incidents where something valuable was unintentionally thrown out with the trash?
In "What do astronauts do with their trash on the ISS?", a commentator asked the title question and was encouraged to make it a new question, but apparently never did.
The linked question is ...
- 284
18
votes
0
answers
435
views
How did "the kid" (John Meisenheimer) calculate that there was a wave in the jet stream and Explorer 1 would be okay to launch?
The tough but timely question NASA at sIxty years, will there be a new moonshot mandate? links to the NASA YouTube video NASA 60th: How It All Began which shows a lot of really nice, historical file ...
- 148k
18
votes
1
answer
852
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Have astronauts ever used the helmet-to-helmet technique to talk to one another in vacuum?
Science Fiction has long written about this communication technique in vacuum: Astronauts touch their helmet against another astronaut's helmet, so that sound will transmit through that physical ...
- 2,143
14
votes
1
answer
708
views
28V vs. 124V on the ISS
Apparently the US segment of the ISS runs on 124v DC, while the Russian segment is on 28v DC. Why the difference? I understand it is often safer to have several different voltages rather than one, but ...
- 531
13
votes
0
answers
331
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Does the SpaceX spacesuit address any of the criticisms of ACES raised by Columbia Crew Survival Investigation Report?
A brief history of what Shuttle crews wore for ascent and entry, from the Columbia Crew Survival Investigation Report:
The shuttle was originally designed to be operated in a shirtsleeve (bare-hands) ...
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13
votes
1
answer
606
views
How much does the ISS "banana" or flex under the constantly changing conditions of solar heating?
This answer to Do antennae on the ISS have to constantly move to maintain data links? discusses some of the challenges precisely pointing an antenna mounted to the ISS exterior. While the ISSs orbit ...
- 148k
13
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1
answer
405
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Will Soyuz spacecraft be able to visit the Lunar Gateway?
I mean launch from Earth, dock to the gateway and come back.
- 3,117
12
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0
answers
292
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Different Earth-centered ICRF positions in GMAT and Skyfield/Spiceypy with DE421
I compared the Earth-centered positions from the Moon in the ICRF (i.e., in GCRF) using three different sources:
SpiceyPy (https://pypi.org/project/spiceypy/)
Skyfield (https://rhodesmill.org/...
- 121
12
votes
0
answers
305
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Which kinds of survival equipment does Crew Dragon have, in case of an emergency landing?
Soyuz spacecraft has various survival equipment for different cases of emergency landing.
The cases include water landing, desert landing, snow winter landing (crews have special winter suits). They ...
- 9,041
12
votes
0
answers
431
views
What would be the disadvantages in Ingenuity accompanying Perseverance at a safe distance when the flight test program has been a success?
This answer to the question "How long could the Mars helicopter Ingenuity keep up with the Perseverance rover if it wanted to?" reasons that indeed it could for years !
But according to the ...
- 7,493
11
votes
0
answers
235
views
Does Crew Dragon have a quick-release hatch?
After today's Crew Dragon launch was scrubbed, it took the pad ninjas at least ten minutes to open the hatch. One of the major criticisms of the Apollo Block 1 hatch design after the Apollo 1 fire ...
- 14.6k
11
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0
answers
466
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Were there any launch vehicles with so heavily pronounced Plume Induced Flow Separation (PIFS), other than Saturn V?
This answer describes a very interesting phenomenon of Plume Induced Flow Separation on Saturn V vehicle.
(Apollo-6 S68-29737 photo, courtesy NASA)
This is, basically, when "fire" from ...
- 6,382
10
votes
0
answers
218
views
How well would a supersonic aircraft perform in the Martian atmosphere?
I started getting curious about this question during my Flight Test Engineering class. My professor was talking about a part of the International Standard Atmosphere that is a similar pressure to that ...
- 221
10
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0
answers
346
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What's the shiny triangular feature on this Progress vehicle?
Picture from here
What's the shiny, slightly curved triangular plate with rails above it?
A larger version, cropped from here, thanks to a comment by ohsin.
- 178k
10
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0
answers
563
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Why was the Apollo 6 service module painted white?
All other SM's were silver except Apollo 6. I'm wondering what the justification for this was, if any?
- 2,275
10
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0
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362
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What spinoff technologies have come from the Soviet/Russian space program?
There is plenty of information available on NASA spinoff technologies including a Wikipedia page and Space SE question. What innovations are a byproduct of the Russian space program?
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9
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0
answers
263
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Has there ever been a deliberate "Find A Satellite" challenge? Actually, could there be?
Companies often offer rewards for finding security issues in their products or their own IT systems, and hackathons have a long history.
I'm just wondering if there has ever been a deliberate ...
- 148k
9
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0
answers
805
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Is there anything that could speak 900 MHz ZigBee that could hear Ingenuity helicopter besides the Perseverance rover?
Interest is piqued by What could be strong arguments against Ingenuity following Perseverance at a safe distance when the flight test program has been a success?
Question: Can anything at Mars, or ...
- 148k
9
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0
answers
223
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Why is the water pumped out of the holding tank a minute before Falcon 9 liftoff?
SpaceX Falcon 9 - starlink mission on October 5. Video :
Why is the water discharged at T- 01m:30s from the holding tank far away from the launch pad?
This was also ...
- 2,644
9
votes
0
answers
281
views
Detailed information about the Soyuz descent module connection box?
Anyone have some detailed information about how all this connectors, located in the soyuz descent module?
Are they used only when they setup the Soyuz or they are ...
- 191
9
votes
0
answers
168
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What rocket uses the largest percentage of Fuel/Oxidizer before liftoff?
inspired by this question: How much propellant is used up until liftoff?
which asks how much propellant (fuel/oxidizer) a typical rocket uses before liftoff. What has been or is the most non-typical ...
- 317
9
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0
answers
84
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What science data has been released from Chang'e 4?
Chang'e 4 was the first soft landing on the far side of the moon. What science data has been released from it? That is, in two parts: what science was done and of that, what data has been released to ...
- 191
9
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0
answers
198
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Was the Doppler shift of InSight's "tone" measured and plotted somewhere?
I watched a YouTube live broadcast from the InSight mission control area and saw lots of images of happy people cheering and jumping up and down, which is great! If it wasn't 4 AM where I was I might ...
- 148k
9
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0
answers
954
views
Roughly how many self-viewing cameras are present in a Falcon 9 LEO mission?
Watch any of last year's SpaceX LEO satellite deployment missions's broadcasts in YouTube, and you can see views from at least several different cameras. At least two on the 2nd stage nozzle, at least ...
- 148k
9
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0
answers
453
views
How do domes in lunar impact melts develop, and might they be hollow?
On the floors of young craters of the Moon, smoothly rounded domes are visible in some spots. Lalande crater has 4 of them, each around 200 m across.
Here are less regular ones on the floor of ...
- 21.3k
8
votes
0
answers
142
views
Was there a close call for Voyager 2's extended mission due to lost uplink during the Jupiter encounter?
In Uplink-Downlink (2001), Douglas Mudgway says: "[The Jupiter radiation environment] . . . resulted in loss of the uplink connection with the [Voyager 2] spacecraft on the day after encounter. ...
- 381
8
votes
1
answer
312
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Has a rocket engine with LOX as the oxidizer ever fired beyond the GEO belt?
Intuitive Machines' Nova-C lunar lander is scheduled to launch later this year. Notably, the lander uses liquid methane as fuel and liquid oxygen as the oxidizer, and it will rely on this combination ...
- 1,060
8
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0
answers
124
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Dimorphos natural orbit variability vs DART impact
As we know, DART spacecraft have impacted Dimorphos, a satellite of Didymos. The impact will change the orbital period.
Depending on the properties of Dimorphos (mass, porosity, cohesion), the period ...
- 9,041
8
votes
0
answers
420
views
What are the negatives associated with Thrust-augmented Nozzles aka Afterburning Rocket Engines?
An interesting comment here introduced me to the concept of Thrust-augmented Nozzles aka Afterburning Rocket Engines. The pubs I've read on it so far introduce the concept as a way to provide good ...
- 178k
8
votes
0
answers
121
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How do people know how big the rocks are in the photos of Titan's surface?
How do people know how big the rocks are in the photos of Titan's surface?
8
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0
answers
99
views
How does the JWST sunshade cover release work?
In animations of the James Webb Space Telescope unfolding, you see material rolling itself up to uncover the folded-up sunshade. How is that rolling-up process driven? The animations don't show any ...
- 10.3k
8
votes
0
answers
180
views
With an external airlock attached, could Commercial Crew Program spacecraft service Hubble?
Note just to clarify: is not about the requirements of the Commercial Crew Program, it is about the as-built capabilities of Crew Dragon and Starliner (hereafter referred to as CCPS, CCP (not that one)...
- 10.6k
8
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0
answers
176
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Is there any official Chinese website where we can follow the actions of the Zhurong rover?
Zhurong, China's first Mars rover, soft landed on Utopia Planitia on May 14, 2021.
Coordinates of the landing site are: 25.1⁰ N 109.7⁰ E
The planned operational lifetime is only 90 sols.
(Why should ...
- 7,493
8
votes
0
answers
143
views
How often have signs of life been dismissed as abiotic?
Today, there are rumors about an upcoming announcement of the discovery of (non-conclusive) evidence for life on Venus, apparently they detected some phosphorus compound that is not produced by any ...
- 1,106
8
votes
0
answers
219
views
Roughly, how much of our Moon's apparent libration amplitude seen from the Geocenter is due to different effects?
My understanding is that when tidal locking of a body first happens it transitions from a state where the average rotation period is faster than the orbital period to a state where they are the same ...
- 148k
8
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0
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477
views
What did NASA Vehicle Assembly Building's "weather" look like? Did it really have clouds? Did it rain?
Comments below this answer to Would there be snow, rain, fog or clouds in a deep, sealed, subsurface cavern on the Moon if water were present? point out that the NASA Vehicle Assembly Building ...
- 148k
8
votes
0
answers
97
views
Escape system of SLS vs Ares I
One of the criticism directed at the Ares I rocket was the danger during a launch termination of the solid-propellant 1st stage. As far as I understood it, a terminated Titan IV solid-propellant ...
- 621
8
votes
0
answers
836
views
What are the general properties and specs for JWST's onboard data and image processing capabilities?
Answers and comments on What is the data storage capabilities onboard the James Webb Telescope? which reference the James Webb Space Telescope User Documentation item JWST Solid State Recorder mention ...
- 148k
8
votes
0
answers
153
views
How long could the ISS function if removed from Earth orbit?
Suppose the ISS were instantaneously moved to the opposite side of the Sun from Earth - how long would it continue to function? Are there any systems aboard that depend on passing behind the planet ...
- 461
8
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0
answers
238
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Did CNSA astronaut Zhai Zhigang see the ISS during an EVA?
This answer to Has an astronaut ever seen another object in LEO pass by that wasn't mission-related? says:
The encounter happened at longer distances ($\sim47\;km$) and the Shenzhou-7 is smaller than ...
- 148k
8
votes
0
answers
199
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Onboard recording of trans-Mars injection
Is there any video recording of the Falcon Heavy trans-Mars injection burn from onboard cameras?
The live feed of the Tesla Roadster and Starman orbiting Earth cycled through multiple cameras ...
- 401
8
votes
0
answers
749
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ISS - Tiangong 2 minimum safe distance
Using the SGP4 propagator, I calculated the minimum distance between ISS and Tiangong-2 for this year.
I obtained 12.32 km for 2017-09-27 17:29:36.376 UTC (which ...
- 1,760
8
votes
0
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2k
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For the mathematical relationship between J2 (km^5/s^2) and dimensionless J2 - which one is derived from the other?
The term $J_2$ seen in discussions of nodal precession of orbits (e.g. sun-synchronous) appears to come in two flavors. For example, in the Wikipedia article Geopotential model it has a value of $1....
- 148k
8
votes
0
answers
633
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How is retropropulsion by the Falcon 9 first stage being used to design retropropulsion entry on Mars?
Much has been made of how the reentry burns of Falcon 9 first stages occur at an altitude where the atmosphere is similar in density to the atmosphere of Mars, and so they demonstrate that supersonic ...
- 21.3k
8
votes
0
answers
150
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Smart suits in development
This is an offshoot of this question.
There's a new generation of space suits coming up (Z-series, anything that the Zvezda NPP has up its sleeves), and I wonder at the level of sophistication of ...
- 11.4k
8
votes
0
answers
636
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Dragon Pad Abort hot fire, how much cleanup work was needed?
The day before the Pad Abort test attempt (May 5, 2015) SpaceX test fired the SuperDraco engines in a hot fire. Similar to how they test the Falcon 9 a day or three before launch, the engines spin up ...
- 79.3k
8
votes
1
answer
264
views
What is inside the overhead compartments in crew dragon
During the DEMO-2 live stream there was a black section visible above the heads of the astronauts. In an image tweeted out by Elon these were labeled as “9” and “10” with symbols of water droplets.
...
- 3,566
7
votes
0
answers
145
views
Horizontal transportation of space rockets
Inspired by this picture from Does this Soyuz vehicle burn coal or oil? What is its official name?
and related to
What are the advantages and disadvantages of assembling a launch vehicle ...
- 13k
7
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0
answers
153
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Is StarShip/Booster stack inherently unstable after Booster burns most of its fuel?
Few will ever forget the flight of Starship 24/Booster 7.
Perhaps the first moon rocket to perform aerobatics and hold itself together before finally self destructing. But would it be aerodynamicly ...
- 1,076