All Questions

From today's BBC's Japan developing wooden satellites to cut space junk: "We are very concerned with the fact that all the satellites which re-enter the Earth's atmosphere burn and create tiny ...

For a school project I'm required to research into the engineering methodology and process for a CubeSat. As such, I'm inquiring into if anyone has an example software and systems architecture for ...

I read on https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/26/space-tourism-how-spacex-virgin-galactic-blue-origin-axiom-compete.html (mirror): Additionally, Virgin Galactic has said that passengers will spend three ...

Is there a typical target altitude and speed for SECO on a Falcon 9 CRS launch? SECO precedes orbital insertion but there are multiple orbital adjustments afterward, so I also wonder: does Dragon have ...

I have noticed that the Indian rocket PSLV has tiny strap-on boosters attached to it on the sides at the bottom. Why would these be used instead of just using a larger first stage? Why is there an ...

Has anyone stationed on the ISS for some months reported noticing the changing seasons on Earth in any way like people on the surface do, subconsciously without needing to look up numbers for anything?...

I've heard that rovers on the surface of Mars can only communicate with and send data to orbiters for only 8 minutes at a time. Wouldn't two areostationary_orbit satellites orbiting opposite to each ...

We have acronyms for main engine cutoff (MECO) and secondary engine cutoff (SECO). Do we have an acronym for secondary engine startup---SESU maybe?

Does anybody know the designations, publication names, etc. for the design standards which NASA uses for space flight hardware? I’d like to add these resources into my engineering library.

Choosing the right place on Mars for a settlement would be of course an important decision because once it's there it would take much time and money to move on to another, better location. Because the ...

Stage 1 of Falcon 9 uses its gimballed engines during launch to control roll, pitch, and yaw. Only the eight peripheral engines can be used for roll control since the center engine couldn't possibly ...

The title pretty much sums it all up. I remember somebody once remarked about the space shuttle program that “the space shuttle was originally designed to be a space truck. But the shuttle is to ...

Crewed spacecraft for travel to/from Earth, and much speculation for the SpaceX Starship, have seats with the astronauts upper body level in an eyeballs in orientation. This is because this is the ...

The VMS Eve mothership releases the VSS Unity spacecraft after ca. 48 minutes. The total duration is approximately 2 hours. As a result, the ascent time + the descent time that the Virgin Galactic's ...

In our Solar system, all of the planets orbit the Sun along a plane known as the ecliptic. If we extend the ecliptic plane into a sphere of the same radius centred around our Sun, is there any ...

I'm working on an extracurricular project and I'm trying to determine what volume of propellant tank I need to 12.14 kg of hydrazine propellant stored at 22 bar. I researched and found this pressure ...

Source see also the page On Possible Electric Phenomena in Solar Systems and Nebulae By Kristian Birkeland extracted from The Norwegian Aurora Polaris Expedition 1902-1903 (Book) Wikipedia's ...

Regarding sub-orbital spaceflights with Virgin Galactic, claims that: Allegedly some travelers were asked to take a 6 to 8G centrifuge test to qualify Is that true, ...

This is the slot region of the earth: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0273117799005141

Do the passengers in Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity spacecraft have a parachute or some other way to escape the spacecraft if needs be? In the VSS Enterprise crash that occurred on October 31, 2014, the ...

There are a lot of articles and news that companies have plans on how to get rid of space debris. But I never found a single proven and reliable method. Perhaps I was looking in the wrong place? Or ...

Crew Dragon after SECO: Orbital Vfelocity at 27,000km/h at 200km altitude (roughly 9-10min after liftoff). ISS Orbital Velocity at ca. 28,000 km/h at 400km altitude.iss_altitude,iss speed However from ...

How close could a crewed spacecraft orbit Jupiter? I read that Juno was as close as 5,000 km from Jupiter's top clouds, but I'm wondering about a spacecraft with humans inside (provided it's protected ...

From Phys.org's Earthlings and astronauts chat away, via ham radio: NASA astronaut Doug Wheelock was just a few weeks into his six-month mission at the space station when feelings of isolation began ...

My question is simple, could we "nuke" a planet with life to create an atmosphere over time? I was seeing a documentary about Jupiter's moon, Europa, and how it could have hydro thermal ...

If I understand it, the alarm during the first Lunar descent was due to the computer being overloaded by too much RADAR data. That sounds like something that they would have thought to simulate, but ...

Imagine a rocket that uses a mixture of liquid nitrogen and oxygen as the oxidiser. It is designed like an oxidiser-rich staged-combustion engine, however there is so much nitrogen in the mixture that ...

I've figured out how to do a Hohmann transfer to a larger orbit but can't seem to figure out how to do one back to a smaller orbit (e.g. GEO to random smaller orbit). Any advice would be amazing, ...

When a Starship has landed on Mars, there is not going to be any kind of prepared platform initially. (That may be a task for early crews to resolve). Is there the possibility that Starship, sitting ...

We have just measured the shape of the crater that the returner landed on, which is part of the scientific data collection. Then the returner will [put on a] 'new warm coat' to prevent the remaining ...

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) ...

NASA is a publicly funded US governmental agency, yet it does not seem to release all the technology it develops into public domain for people being able to study it and learn from it. For instance, ...

The region beyond Neptune is full of dozens, if not hundreds, of dwarf planets and possible dwarf planets. Why can't the interstellar probes visit some of them anyway, along their path? The only TNOs ...

Space Shuttle Columbia entered a period of peak heating at 46 mi (74 km) altitude. Before the contact got broken, the temperature on Columbia's wing leading-edges had sunk already (and the heat shield ...

According to this link Mars is hiding behind the Moon ... It’s a twice-a-year occultation; like the eclipse When such situations happen, can we communicate with the Mars rovers, and in the future - ...

I'm aware of the fact that all planets are almost in the same plane as the Sun and the Earth(ecliptic) plane except Mercury and Pluto(which are more tilted). Are all satellites of all the planets also ...

The ISS is leaking through a hole in the Zvezda module that still hasn't been found. However, as with all pressurized chambers, shouldn't all air instantly run out through the hole into the vacuum of ...

I read at some point about a Shuttle mission that ended up lasting longer than initially intended, and the crew had to eat more awful-tasting food for the last few days, because they had eaten through ...

Imagine a spacecraft entered an orbit around the Earth whose perigee is low enough into the atmosphere so that it reenters and lands after a revolution, without having to perform a reentry burn. While ...

Take the Vega rocket launcher for example. Its first three stages are solid rocket engines and burn at a relatively short time. If I were to change its first stage into a liquid rocket engine, can ...

In the news today: NASA to skip repair of Orion electronics unit NASA will fly Orion deep-space crew capsule ‘as is,’ despite failed component; The agency claims there is enough redundancy in the ...

In the SpaceX video Starship | Earth to Earth they show the flight time from Hong Kong to Singapore to be 22 minutes. What's taking so long? It's only 4 hours by airplane (and US $275!)

This answer to ** notes that it's hard to get current data on the orbits of Helios-1 and Helios-2 and I couldn't find any in JPL's Horizons. They are shiny and in nice elliptical orbits between ...

Peroxide is apparently a very good propellant, but I can't seem to find any instance of it being used. Has it ever been used and if not, why hasn't it? What's its downsides?

Imagine a people who live within the debris ring of a planet. They make their homes on rocks that are only dozens of miles in diameter, so escape velocity is not a concern. They also do not need to ...

I've also posted the numbers below as a temporary answer here but I don't know if they are right so I'll also ask this as a question. How many orbital launches did China make every year? I got some ...

At the end of The Hill's article Chinese official unveils future moon mission plans including possible lunar base it says: The most recent Chang'e 5 probe was assisted by the European Space Agency, ...

The Falcon 9 first stage is making two or three burns for descending: boostback burn (optional, depends on return to launch site vs ocean landing) entry burn landing burn But how many burns is the ...

Only five states and territories had launches that got into orbit: Florida, California, Virginia, Alaska and Marshall Islands But when is the first time a rocket launched from each of those that ...

Starship's mass of propellant is 1.2 million kg, and Superheavy's is 3.4 million kg. How much of that is the liquid oxygen?