I wonder how Chang'e and Kaguya came thru it.

Doug

I presume the tank was fairly central in the spacecraft bus. They had mentioned reprogramming the head - I presume to identify the bus, and aim for the middle of it.

Doug

But fuel soaked shrapnel from their own failed LV's crashing into nearby villages is fine.

Which bits of the British Media? I've got some letter writing to do it seems

What I simply can't believe I'm reading is Chinese criticism of this. That defies belief.

Doug

Quite a lot, but below an altitude of any active vehicle and it'll be gone within a few weeks. China's ASAT test debris, however, continues to endanger LEO vehicles (including ISS, Hubble etc) , and will do so for many years to come.

There's a Press conf. at 1200UT today I think ( http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=49024 )
Doug

Unless there's a significant change of plans for these two customers, NASA is not the only Delta II customer between now and it's closure.

GeoEye 1 (or Orbview 5) for GeoEye ( http://www.geoeye.com/products/imagery/geoeye1/default.htm )
COSMO 3 for ASI ( http://www.telespazio.it/cosmo.html )

Totally ignoring COTS, you consider the Taurus II a Delta II replacement, but not the Falcon 9. Indeed, you are quick to dismiss the Falcon 9 entirely both here and elsewhere. Why? What is it that you know that MDA, Avanti and Bigelow do not?

Doug

Apart from the Falcon 9, which NASA has also picked.

Again - had you started this thread ' Potential LV's that NASA could use to replace the Delta II ' - then fine. That's not what you said. you said ' Potential Delta II replacement'. NASA is not the only customer the Delta II has had in the last 19 years, nor is it the only customer in the next 12 launches, nor is the Delta II the only vehicle to have been filling that requirement in its lifetime. There are many alternatives for those customers to turn to, some that have been flying for years, some that are yet to fly.

If COTS 1 wasn't about ISS resupply, then someone better tell SpaceX and NASA who have described it thus:

SpaceX
".. demonstrating delivery of cargo to the ISS and safe return of cargo to Earth"

NASA
"to develop and demonstrate the vehicles, systems, and operations needed to support a human facility such as ISS."

I wasn't going to say this publicly but two threads in one day have dissolved to this sort of back and forth. I'm not sure if you're doing it intentionally, but it seems that you are going out of your way to be pedantic, argumentative and infuriating.

Doug

Chang'e 1, Chandrayaan - 1, Kaguya, LRO. That's four ( or, if you want to get picky, six given the Kaguya sub-sats)

LCROSS, that makes 5. Grail - that's 6 and 7 (or, again, 8 and 9 if you count the Kag-sub's). Taking Chang'e 1, Chandrayaan 1, Kaguya, LRO, LCROSS and 2x Grail - there's your 7.

No one said that Alan was talking about 7 NASA spacecraft going to the Moon.

What does a 'potential Delta II replacement' have to do with COTS?

Yes - the Taurus II is part of the next COTS contract - but that's got nothing to do with it being a potential Delta II replacement.

Customers looking for Delta II like capacity could look to a lot of places, many suggested here, some not, for a replacement. Just because the as yet unflown Taurus II has a COTS contract, that doesn't render it any worse or better means of getting a Delta II sized payload into orbit. If you had opened the thread with 'US governmental customers looking for a replacement for Delta II that isn't a Falcon 9' - maybe you would be on to something.

Doug

One thing that I think Jim Bell was pushing for with a book of his was an e-book version for a not-crazy fee. Obviously, publishers are publishers, and the little exposure I've had - they are a law unto themselves doing everything that seems illogical to both author and reader.

Or go halves on an Ariane V

Doug

I really really really want to see MSL fly, but it pains me to say, Alan's in a situation where a painful decision may have to be taken.

Oh dear. That's really very very bad news indeed.

iirc, Boise is where MER chute drop tests were done isn't it.

Doug

Yup - really doesn't look like an impact to me - maybe it did impact, but you can't tell from that footage (cool though it is)

To be honest, compared to the trouble MER had, MSL's got it easy.

Doug

An ammount or lack of information doesn't make a rovers survival any less or more likely. Sorry - I don't see what you're getting at. We all know it's going to be a risky winter, we've all been told it's going to be a risky winter. We've never have much power information, so it's not like a dearth of it is particularly possible anyway.

Doug

The angle wasn't a 'we're running out, tilt more' - it was to get the most power possible at any one time. However, we all know concern is justified. We know we'll enter this winter with a very dirty rover, for a long, cold winter that will be far more taxing on the rover than the last. The only upside is that we have an excellent tilt, and the experience of the dust storm. In what do you lack confidence? The team?

Doug

Yeah...I meant every word of that...all of it.

Easy solution - read the first 20 pages of


Planetary Landers and Entry Probes

For more R.L. et.al goodness on such matters.

That's what I've been doing over the weekend. I'll need to read it twice for it to go in, but at least I know what b-plane means now.

Doug

You've got two sources - http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/traverse_maps.html and http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=681

Do that, and you don't reach Mars at all. The journey time ( and arrival speed ) are dictated by the trajectory which is dictated by the orbital mechanics.

Doug

the S12 image is pushbroom.

PSF = Point Spread Function. i.e. the contribution of surrounding pixels to the pixel in question. With accurate info on that, you can subtract it all back out again..ish...roughly.

Doug

The SR2 dictates it's from the super resolution camera, bolted on to HRSC, and thus suffers the same issue I mentioned previously.

Doug

HRSC itself is great, but the super resolution bolt-on camera from which those two frames came from has never achieved good focus.

Doug

Probably to see how navigable that terrain beyond the visible outcrop is. The answer would appear to be 'not very'.

Doug