All Questions

Can you name guided and uncrewed spacecraft that can be used for microgravity missions and experiments? Nowadays it`s rather popular and useful to use uncrewed guided space vehicles for particular ...

Is it possible to use lightning or thunder as a source of energy, with the help of dielectric breakdown and splitting. Sorry not based on space research but would appreciate the help

What if we moved a large asteroid to a highly elliptical orbit between Earth and Mars and then occupied it like we occupy the ISS? It'd be a slow trip to Mars, but if we're in no rush, we'd get free ...

There are quite a lot of spacecraft that have been up there a while and a lot of them have star cameras for attitude determination and for attitude control. Space telescopes (both heavenly and Earth-...

The fictitious Kerbol system includes ...five planets: Moho, Eve, Kerbin, Duna and Jool; and two dwarf planets: Dres and Eeloo; orbit around it. Kerbol contains 99.97 % of the mass in the Kerbol ...

A news article reports that OSIRIS-REx was equipped with two lasers for the spacecraft to shoot off the rock and study the echo to facilitate its landing and sampling maneuver. ... Most lasers don't ...

Is there a particular reason for chosing 12.5 km for the SN8 hop? Why 5 km for example is not good enough?

I can only find the Electron capacity for LEO and SSO: 300 and 200 kg And for Venus: 15 kg (which links to here) But what is the capacity for GTO, Moon and Mars? LEO = Low Earht Orbit SSO = Sun-...

I've this problem... I want to express the earth magnetic field vector in ECEF reference frame. As now I've just found some models for computing these values related to the earth magnetic field: D: ...

Discussion lead to citing Why does Earth's atmospheric density have a big "knee" around 100 km? Is there a good analytical approximation? who's answer is "monatomic oxygen". ...

Basic question for those who breathe rockets: The earth's rotation imparts to the rocket a free delta V of roughly 450 m/s if you launch straight eastward. If you launch westward instead, for a ...

Nowadays, the private space company really succeeded and manufactures pretty good technology and space vehicle. What do you think is the most advanced private space company ( except SpaceX ) at the ...

I found a "javascript gateway" to NASA SPICE data, the "webgeocalc" web api: https://wgc2.jpl.nasa.gov:8443/webgeocalc/example/perform-calculation.html It works both online and ...

When these orbital rockets launched first to space, their companies had: SpaceX - 2008 - 525 employees Electron - 2018 - 200 employees Virgin Orbit - 2021 - 390 employees Astra - 2020 - 100 employees ...

Are submarine launches horizontal? is a general question and specifies by name two large ICBMs which are likely to need to be launched vertically. Since the large naval submarines usually come ready-...

Are the rockets launched from submarines in a horizontal or vertical position? I mean for the space launches like Volna and Shtil. This article says By reaching orbit, LauncherOne has become the first ...

NASA.gov's First Artemis Rocket Stage Moved onto NASA Barge Ahead of Green Run contains a high resolution image of the rocket. The bottom end of the rocket's cylindrical shape is closed flat and ...

Note: in this question I'm considering cost in both money and fuel terms, and looking for answers that consider both. So we know that using chemical rockets to reach the moon, or further into space, ...

I wish to know the frequency of 1 mm diameter or larger meteoroids impacting the Earth's atmosphere each day. NASA's Asteroid Fast Facts (1) says "Every day, Earth is bombarded with more that ...

In reporting about the unsuccessful green run of the SLS core stage, Ars Technica mentions About 50 seconds into what was supposed to be an 8-minute test firing, the flight control center called out, ...

The SLS core to be used for the Artemis 1 flight will use four RS-25 engines. These reusable engines were used on the Space Shuttle Orbiter previously. Is there a listing of which SSMEs are planned ...

The Altair lunar module was part of the wonderful Constellation program cancelled in 2010; just the Orion spacecraft has been retained which is to deliver a crew into lunar orbit. The new carrier ...

In the US, the draconian ITAR laws prevent an open source space program from being founded, and make it incredibly difficult to found any aerospace company in general. Are there any countries that ...

This is a showerthought after the NYtimes "tic tac" video that I've had for a while and am looking for a specific answer. Assuming a perfectly diamagnetic material exists, could an object ...

For example RS-68 engine If you make a test fire of an ablative nozzle engine then the fire will consume the coating of that nozzle. That means you have to replace the coating or the entire nozzle. ...

We are now seeing certain advantages of the reusable use of different rocket stages. Decrease in price (perhaps not so much yet), increase in launch reliability, etc. Are there any other benefits of ...

The Orion spacecraft which is to be used for the Artemis missions will be rated for 6 astronauts. Why so many? Given the "political" assignment is to put "a woman and another man to the ...

I was looking at Delta-V budgets and noticed that it costs 4.1 km/s to get from LEO to L4/5, but just 3.2 km/s for LEO to geocentric C3 = 0 (escape velocity). I find that counter-intuitive. Why does ...

Why are we still not going farther than to Low Earth Orbit? Orbital velocity is about 4.8 mi/s (7.7 km/s) and escape velocity is about 7 mi/s (11.2 km/s), about 45% faster. Why is it so hard to reach ...

They can stay on the moon only around for 3 days because of the fuel but they need around 6 months to reach Mars. Now they are working on the Propellant depot project to be able to reach the moon and ...

Curious how fast stage 1 flips over. 180 degrees is a lot of turning. At a rate of 5 deg/s, it would take 36 seconds to flip. This seems very long for the maneuver. A more modest duration of 10 s ...

Writing this comment got me thinking, which invariably leads to confusion in my case. @DavidHammen's answer to show that for Juno's near 90° polar orbit the major precession is apsidal; periapsis is ...

After MECO, stage 1 of Falcon 9 does up to three engine burns: a boostback burn followed by a reentry burn followed by a final landing burn. I'm interested here in the reentry burn. How high and how ...

While reading the NASA overview of Apollo 11, says: Apollo 11 launched from Cape Kennedy on July 16, 1969, carrying Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins and Lunar Module ...

I have 2 questions about the cost of liquid rocket fuel to launch (anything) to LEO orbit. Let's assume we use fuels used in commercial spaceflight today (probably LOX+LH2 or LOX+RP-1 etc.). What is ...

Upon trying to extract MSL position above surface by decoding a SPICE kernel, I am gettin this error: At epoch 3.9750216818313E+08 TDB (2012 AUG 06 05:16:08.183 TDB), there is insufficient ...

Black and white patterns on rockets were originally intended as roll patterns. They helped as a visual back-up for acceleration sensors measuring the roll, as discussed in this previous question What ...

I looked at very simple max q formula: q=1/2 ρv^2 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_q). As air density is lower with altitude, the max q should be lower as well, and also should occur at higher ...

What are the eligibility requirements to be part of future Spacecrew mission NASA programs? Age, Nationality, Medical Fitness, Educational qualifications, Work experience etc

With computer flight controls where they are today, what would stop us from building a relatively large space station on earth, but then using 10 or 20 or even 100 falcon heavy or Starship or SLS ...

I am trying to calculate the pressure inside a combustion chamber of a rocket candy. My "engine" is made out of PVC with an internal diameter of 1/2 in. Are there ways for me to calculate ...

The UK Space Agency, on 2021 Jan 12, announced a research contract with Rolls-Royce for nuclear propulsion of spacecraft, based on R-R's experience with nuclear power for submarines. The press ...

Do they control for angle of attack on the return flight of stage 1 of Falcon 9? Once it reenters thick atmosphere, aerodynamic stresses would be a concern as during launch, maybe more so because you ...

Are the rays of light emitted from stars that are perceived by an eye here on earth parallel? Do they travel in a straight line from the star to the eye, never crossing, and equidistant? Do they ...

I have read in many references that Delta V is fixed or constant for example ( Delta V to LEO = 10km/s). They did not mention the payload mass or the Propellant mass, and also they did not mention ...

If the current Blue Origin New Shepard were modified as little as possible to work as the first stage of a two-stage rocket, what would be its maximal LEO payload? To put it in other words: out of all ...

In the 1950s, many US rockets were capable of reaching the lower limit of LEO altitude. Despite this, no one thought of making the launch vehicle / its payload orbit around earth, even for one ...

I'd like to calculate the approximate time left to my stage-1 velocity target. A simple way to do this would be to divide my Delta V by my acceleration. Trouble is... my acceleration changes ...

What is the pressure levels inside rocket liquid oxygen tanks, at launch time? The question is for the minimum and maximum (known) levels of pressure inside such tanks. I am asking for any rocket ...

SpaceX on Jan 13, 2021 did three static fires in one day. Elon Musk tweeted: All three static fires completed & no RUDs! And that was in response to this tweet of his own: Today at SpaceX is ...