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Orbital Express Launches Tonight
airshowfan writes "When a geosynchronous satellite is launched into space, no human ever gets to touch it again. This means that, other than for minor software issues, there is no way to fix it if it breaks, so it has to work perfectly, almost autonomously, for 20 years non-stop. There is also no way to refuel it once it's out of thruster fuel, the reason why it can't last more than 20 years even if it gets to that mark working very well, with batteries and solar cells still going, which is often the case. If only there were a robotic spacecraft in geostationary orbit that could change broken satellite components and refuel those older satellites, then satellites would be a lot less risky and would last a lot longer. Does this robotic spacecraft mechanic sound like science fiction? It launches tonight."
where did they find the hot cyclops to pilot it?
We are all just people.
But, what happens when the "robotic spacecraft mechanic" breaks down?
Someone must have missed that Hubble is not in geosynchronous orbit.
Wouldnt all satellites need to be modular and use similar components that are compatible to take advantage of this?
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
A visionary with a bit of get up and go. His book MOONRUSH is not only a great technical work where he outlines a theoretically sound argument for commercial exploitation of the Moon and how to do it, but is also a great visionary and inspirational work. Hopefully Orbital Express will prove that he's capable of following through.
How we know is more important than what we know.
This is rocket science, not something you'd patch with Windows Update.
Which is more expensive:
A) Build the satellite correctly the first time around
B) Build the satellite cheaply & then pay to get it fixed in orbit
I know which is better for Lt. Col. Fred Kennedy's bottom line.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Oh man, they must have totally forgotten about that! Good thing you caught it in time, there's still a chance to stop the launch!
A mere technicality.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
I'm guessing one of the satellites has a tank containing excess fuel on board, just like a tanker truck will have a fuel tank and the big tank on the back.
Refueling in space isn't really that hard unless you are using cryogenic propellants. And in this case, the satellites use hydrazine, so its all good. I can't wait till somebody gets cryogenic propellant transfer working, because that will have so many more uses than what you can do with hydrazine.
Roughly a 22,000 mile technicality.
rj
Imagine the military applications - you can send it out to do interesting things like attaching remote controlled explosive packages onto satellites. Then when war breaks out you can kill them in orbit.
You could attach thruster packages to geostationary satellites and boost them into completely different orbits.
You could just cut their solar panels off like pulling wings of flies.
Given the problems with remote refuelling satellites when they are all one-off devices, this gadget seems to be more of a weapon than a tool.
There has to be a Clancy novel in here somewhere
See, three posts in and already people are making with the Star Wars jokes.
Satellites from competing companies?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Video:_ ula-atlas_v_stp_070306.asx (56k)0 _ula-atlas_v_stp_070306.asx (300k)
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Play-by-play
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/070308_atlas
...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...
Technically distance is just a technicality. For the real differences, let's talk Delta V.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Maybe if the moderators stopped rewarding posters for old, weathered jokes, others would be forced to try new jokes. It is because of this type of lame humor that we go without seeing something truly original.
You have been warned.
....that Delta V flight.....changing planes in Atlanta was a bitch, they kept changing gates faster and faster until I couldn't keep up!
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
Sometimes run-on sentences are not as bad as some people think, although there are definitely times when they would be correct in saying that run-on sentences are 'grotesque' or 'ambiguous' (these are, of course, both subjective terms, and should be treated as such), but these thoughts are not the only thoughts that can be had of run-on sentences, and you should not assume that everyone else believes that run-on sentences are grotesque and ambiguous, because other people have feelings too and you shouldn't assume that your opinion is more important than theirs, because they might think otherwise, and that is how arguments start.
duh.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Pretty shoot.
Watched it from the driveway of the house here in South Patrick Shores.
Clear as a bell, and the lox/kerosene flame of the first stage was a beautiful brilliant orange coming out of the engine, tapering away to a bluish tip. It arced into the cloudless sky and went right between the two endmost bowl stars of the little dipper as I watched through binoculars. Not much rumble. Along toward the end of the first stage burn, it started emitting these pale streamers of exhaust that flared out far away from the bright light of the engine. Very beautiful. And then at MECO, a rapidly widening black circle seemed to emanate from where the doused flame was a split second before, and then grew and expanded till it gobbled up the last little bit of the streamers. Weird effect. Never seen one do anything quite like that before. After a short pause, another puff of gas, and then the RL-10 kicked into gear as a star-like pinpoint of white light. With the northern launch azimuth, the apparent motion across the sky slowed down to a crawl as the slowly fading pinpoint seemed to drift horizonward in ever-increasingly slow motion. Finally lost it visually somewhere around T-plus nine or ten minutes, just over the roof of the house. By then it was getting out there, more or less a thousand miles away from where I leaned against my car in the driveway to help steady the binocs.
Like I said earlier, "Pretty shoot."
Is it fascism yet?
Not to mention that in the months of traversing the Van Allen belts the astronauts, the shuttle avionics, and any thing else susceptible to radiation will get fried.
There's a darn good reason the Apollo missions blew through MEO quickly. The environment isn't very nice for humans between the lower Van Allen and GEO.
I love vegetarians - some of my favorite foods are vegetarians.
It's not a "OMG they must have forgotten about that", it's a "I would like to know how they will handle that".
It seems most likely they will keep firing up expendable refuelers with most of its payload being fuel. A simple maneuverable fuel tank that could refuel a more long-lived and advanced refueler craft. Short of having a space tube or manufacturing fuel in space, they will need to shoot up a rocket to get the fuel up there anyway.
That's all rather far into the future, anyway. These seem to be just preliminary experiments.
In a fair world, refrigerators would make electricity.
Good point. Add to the list "about half the mass of the shuttle in shielding that could be used as propellant as far as you don't use too much of it". They could use nuclear-thermal propulsion, but good luck with the paperwork necessary for flying a nuclear reactor that size into space. Hell. _I_ would be worried having such a device going up on a shuttle. The failure-rate is way too high for that kind of stuff.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com