Orbital ATK Returns To Flight With Successful Antares Launch To Space Station (techcrunch.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The Orbital ATK Antares rocket -- the same rocket that exploded on its way to the International Space Station two years ago -- returned to flight today with a much-anticipated launch. Lifting off from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, the Antares rocket is now on its way to deliver the Cygnus spacecraft filled with over 5,000 pounds of cargo to crew members aboard the ISS. Today's launch was particularly special for Orbital ATK, a company contracted by NASA to deliver 66,000 pounds of cargo to the ISS through 2018. After their Antares rocket exploded during a launch in 2014, destroying thousands of pounds of experiments and cargo bound for the space station, Orbital ATK worked for two years to upgrade that rocket and prepare for its return to flight. Today, the Orbital ATK was finally able to fly Cygnus on top of their own rocket again. The RD-181-equipped Antares rocket carried Cygnus, which housed science experiments and supplies for the ISS crew, for their fifth operational cargo resupply mission for NASA. Along with crew supplies, spacewalk equipment and computer resources, Cygnus will bring over 1,000 pounds of science investigations to the five crew members on the ISS. One of those experiments is Saffire-II, the second Saffire experiment to be conducted inside Cygnus in order to study realistic flame propagation in space. Cygnus will spend over a month attached to the ISS. In late November, the spacecraft will be filled with about 3,000 pounds of trash and then released to begin its descent back to Earth. During reentry through Earth's atmosphere, the spacecraft, along with trash and Saffire-II, will be destroyed.

Comments

Satellites monitor global warming

[Traf-O-Data-Hater]

Guess how satellites that monitor global warming, weather, ocean current, polar ice and a whole lot more get up there so they can, as you ask, "solve real issues like climate change"?
Think before you post.

here's a picture

[turkeydance]

http://www.spaceweather.com/

What's a pound?

[MayeulC]

4.45 Newtons. Just kidding. On earth, it is approximately 0.45kg, according to Google. That makes 1.36 tons of trash, 453kg of experiments, for over 2.27 tons of cargo, and a contract for around 30 tons. That is, if we are speaking of earth-bound pounds, because those are meaningless in space; unless you take the more recent kilogram-aligned definition. Man, units are complicated.

Re:What's a pound?

[CustomSolvers2]

Exactly. In fact, both units measure different realities:

Mass -> pound (lb) = 0.45359237 kg.
Force -> pound-force (lbf) = 4.4482216152605 N.

You can find these and many other conversion factors here (part of a unit-parsing library which I have recently developed).

Re: What's a pound?

[CustomSolvers2]

Apologies for being a bit pedantic, but kilogram-force isn't metric (better: SI, which is the current version of the metric system) despite kilogram being the mass unit. The SI unit of force is newton.

Re: What's a pound?

[CustomSolvers2]

I am not sure what you are talking about, but there is no problem in using conversion factors to convert from pound-force (lbf) to any other force unit (newton, kilogram-force, etc.). Note that the fact of belonging to different systems (i.e., metric vs. non-metric) is precisely what makes a conversion required. You might also convert (via simple conversion factor too) between two mass units like kilogram and pound (lb or lbm).

In one of my comments above, I am posting a link to the conversion-factor part of a library I developed where the different units are classified by type. All the units belonging to the same type can be converted among them (the factors are calculated with respect to the reference unit for the given type, whose value is always 1).

Re:Great, now let's do something useful instead

[Anonymous Coward]

Help stop climate change. Turn off your computer.

Re:Great, now let's do something useful instead

[idji]

A lot of the raw data to monitor climate change is space-based data. We now know where the energy goes into weather and seas, and we can see forest and agricultural usage only from space. This will give us the tools we need to enforce climate change.
Beautiful photos and videos from the cameras on the Space Station, and human damage seen from there will have a massive impact on people's passion to see this earth fixed and cared for.
go and spend a while looking at https://www.nasa.gov/topics/ea...
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/1238...
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/go...
https://weather.com/tv/shows/t...
Space Science is going to help us understand how El Nino and El Nina work - and that is critical for the lives of millions of Americans.
Yes, porkbarreling by Senators for useless space projects needs to stop. That is why NASA is supporting SpaceX, etc and focusing themselves on deep space missions like Pluto and Juno.
Anyone living on the Moon or Mars will be living underground. Humanity will move to the stars - we will solve these problems.
Look at the Space Budget, and the War Budget and see where money is really being wasted. Fix the health bureaucracy in America if you want to see money not being wasted.

Re:Why dump the trash?

[Rei]

And they fall back to Earth on their own; LEO is not a perfect vacuum, and drag still exists. The point of a controlled deorbit maneuver is that it's controlled.

Definition of a pound

[sjbe]

4.45 Newtons.

More precisely 4.4482216152605 Newtons.

On earth, it is approximately 0.45kg, according to Google.

Doesn't matter if it is on Earth or not since it is defined in relation to standard gravity.

A pound of mass is defined as exactly 0.45359237 kg by definition.

Re:Definition of a pound

[angel'o'sphere]

You mean american pounds?
The german pound is exactly 500gram, aka 0.5kg :) JFYI.

Re:Definition of a pound

[CustomSolvers2]

I do use Wikipedia quite often and it is certainly a quite good source of information, mainly to get a general picture about more or less generic issues. On the other hand, its reliability isn't that good when dealing with somehow more specialised facts (usually, even worse in some non-English versions).

When I was developing the aforementioned unit-parsing library (see my comment above, the one containing basically the same information than yours), I made relevant research and cross-validation efforts to find all the conversion factors. Although Wikipedia was definitively quite helpful on this front, I did find a relevant number of errors and/or incomplete references about units of measurement there.

Wikipedia does seem an excellent source for more or less complex concepts (e.g., force/mass or lb/lbf), but it isn't that reliable when dealing with specific facts like the conversion factors you are linking. On the other hand and although I did pay special attention to these hardcoding aspects, my library is logically no absolute reference either (too new, too unclear my exact knowledge/implication, etc.). I think that official/governmental/well-stablished/expert/university references are much more recommendable for these situations, by bearing in mind that they might also be wrong (I did find errors almost everywhere while performing the aforementioned research).

Pound (force) definition

[sjbe]

Pound-force is dependant on gravity, pound-mass is not.

Not quite. Pound-force is defined based on an arbitrary reference value for acceleration under standard gravity but is not actually dependent on gravity as the definition of a pound (force) does not change as gravity changes. The mass used in the equation is the international standard avoirdupois pound which is defined as exactly 0.45259237kg. If you go into space a pound-force is still the same value. A scale would lose its ability to measure it but that doesn't change the value of a pound. A standard pound-force can be converted directly into Newtons at all times with the same conversion factor ( 4.4482216152605 Newtons )

When people say you "weigh less on the Moon" what they are doing is saying that if we change the acceleration in the calculation to the value for the local gravitational force then we get a different number. But the definition of the standard pound (force) doesn't change regardless of the local gravitational field any more than the definition of a Newton would change.

Re:Pound (force) definition

[CustomSolvers2]

is not actually dependent on gravity

The definition of pound force depends on the factor 9.8... m/s2 which never changes, also called gravity. In the extremely-improvable case that the acceleration of gravity will be redefined to 9.9, the definition of pound-force would also have to be modified accordingly. Apparently, you misinterpreted "gravity" as "actual acceleration being considered to calculate lbf from lb"; or as lbf being different in a place outside Earth (what wasn't implied in the AC's comment).

Avoirdupois pound

[sjbe]

You mean american pounds?

Specifically I'm referring to the international pound sometimes called the Avoirdupois pound which is by far the most commonly used measurement by the name of pound.

Re:Avoirdupois pound

[angel'o'sphere]

Rofl.
This countries use that strange pound: The six nations were the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. (copied from the wiki article)
So it is first of all debatable if is the most used pound and secondly we can assume there are plenty of countries that don't use any pound at all, which of course does not contradict your 'most used pound'.

Antares 200: not quite the same

[Anonymous Coward]

The Antares that just flew is the same chassis but different motors, and the old explodey one is retired. These new ones are Antares 200.

Arbitary definitions

[sjbe]

The definition of pound force depends on the factor 9.8... m/s2 which never changes

It never changes because it's defined based on an arbitrarily agreed upon value for what to use for Earth's gravity on the surface. While they could I suppose redefine the pound if Earth's gravitational field changed that would have to be an affirmative action - it would not automatically change because the reference value is a chosen one, not a natural one. Bear in mind that acceleration due to gravity is not uniform on the Earth's surface because the Earth is not a perfect sphere and it does not have uniform density and is changing constantly as the Earth's mass changes. As a result scientists have agreed to use a nominal value instead of the real one since there is no single real value. Any value chosen for the definition of the standard pound (force) will be an arbitrary number not subject to changes in the gravitational pull of the Earth.

Apparently, you misinterpreted "gravity" as "actual acceleration being considered to calculate lbf from lb";

No misinterpretation at all. We are talking about a force here when defining the pound (force). Force = mass * acceleration. For purposes of defining the pound (force) we are talking about the rate of acceleration due to gravity under a standard (nominal earth's surface) gravitational field. So any reference to gravity in this context is in reference to the acceleration under a specific set of conditions that happen to correspond to the nominal gravitational force experienced on Earth surface.

Re:Arbitary definitions

[CustomSolvers2]

could I suppose redefine the pound if Earth's gravitational field changed that would have to be an affirmative action - it would not automatically change because the reference value is a chosen one, not a natural one

A change might also be provoked by an improvement in the precision of our technology (very unlikely to happen) or an agreement on a different value. These situations have happened relatively often by also affecting some inter-related units (e.g., the new AU value affected other units like parsec). If such a modification occurred, the pound-force definition would certainly be updated.

For purposes of defining the pound (force) we are talking about the rate of acceleration due to gravity under a standard (nominal earth's surface) gravitational field

A force is defined as a function of mass (any) and acceleration (any). The force unit in metric units is defined according to such generic ideas; that's why one newton equals kg*m/s2 (i.e., mass unit * acceleration unit). On the other hand, the English-system-based units are defined according to a different approach: each of them individually. The newton can always be divided into its constituent units; the pound-force cannot, because it has no constituent units. To convert pound-force to newtons (or to other force units; or to relate it to the corresponding mass unit, if you prefer), it was decided to rely on the constant acceleration of gravity. That's why pound-force depends on gravity (understood as the commonly-accepted constant) and its definition would have to be updated in case of changing such a constant.

In any case, note that the whole point of my comment was highlighting that the original statement "depends on gravity" was right; at least, as I understood it: a reference to the used-everywhere constant acceleration of gravity. Your comment interprets the word "gravity" in a way which, in my opinion, neither was that AC's intention nor is a usual interpretation. I do use gravity as synonym to 9.8... m/s2, commonly-accepted-as-acceleration-of-gravity constant and most of people get my intention right.

No snipers this time

[edxwelch]

Luckily enough, there were no snipers on the roof of the ULA building this time

Re:Why dump the trash?

[Rei]

keep that stuff up there for a while

Yeah, they could just store it in all that extra space they don't have.

or hauling an equivalent mass of titanium, aluminium, whatsit next time it's needed?

1) The trash is mostly plastic

2) You seem to envision that there's some sort of little magical manufacturing box that takes random trash as inputs and produces random useful things engineered to spacecraft tolerances as outputs. The real world doesn't work that way. In the real world, trash is a jumbled mix of materials in an extremely wide range of forms, often inseparable, while manufacturing processes require carefully controlled input streams, which differ for each desired output product. Some random food pouch may be comprised of various bulk polymers like polyethylene, polypropylene, etc, with an aluminized EVOH lining or similar. Think you can break it back down into polyethylene beads, polypropylene beads, EVOH gel and aluminum dust? Yeah, good freaking luck with that.

I know it's popular in sci-fi circles to envision that it's cheaper to make things in space. But in the real world, it distinctly is not. Yes, launch costs are expensive, but even more expensive is labour in space and the engineering costs to make each potential type of new production system. Unlike in sci-fi, you can't just magick these things into existence.

Still using Russian equipment?

[mi]

The RD-181-equipped Antares rocket

Mentioned only in passing, the RD-181 is Russia-designed and created rocket engine...

While lower-level Democrats are gleefully spreading rumours about Trump being a Putin's man, the Democratic Administration continues to buy this high technology from the adversary. In a typical manifestation of hair-splitting, even though Congress banned the use of RD-180 in 2015, NASA claims, use of RD-181 is acceptable...

Re:Still using Russian equipment?

[Ol Olsoc]

While lower-level Democrats are gleefully spreading rumours about Trump being a Putin's man, the Democratic Administration continues to buy this high technology from the adversary.

And I could buy Stolichnya at the height of the civil war.

Rather importantly, Russia is not exactly an adversary. Putin to the US is probably kind of like G.W. Bush was to the rest of the world 15 years ago.

The engines, which are sound technology, are irrelevant to the relationship between Mr Putin and Mr Trump. The politics of their relation is a different matter entirely.

Re:Still using Russian equipment?

[Rei]

Nice attempt at shilling, but the group opposing the ban was primarily Republicans from ULA areas, particularly Richard Shelby (R-Boeing)

Re:Still using Russian equipment?

[dunkelfalke]

The Nagorno-Karabakh War was a Soviet civil war which started in 1988, as was the South Ossetia war that started in early 1991. Learn some history, dude.

Re:Still using Russian equipment?

[EnsilZah]

Any particular reason you neglected to mention that the ban on the RD-180s relates to national security launches, while the RD-181 purchased by Orbital ATK are used for civilian and commercials launches?
What's that? Because it helps your personal political narrative? Yeah, thought so.

Re:Still using Russian equipment?

[mi]

Because it is irrelevant. First, all space launches, even those ostensibly for civilian use, are related to national security. Second, the real reason for a ban is not the fear, Russia may suddenly take over an ascending rocket and send it into Miami, but a desire to choke — or, at least, stop helping — Russia's rocket industry. Which it is already using to update/increase its collection of ICBMs — mostly pointed at us.

You don't have to be a "hawk" to realize this...

Re:Still using Russian equipment?

[Rei]

Oh, and since you're citing the Wikileaks emails..... have you ever actually read any of them? Directly, not, you know, carefully selected blurbs designed to make you mad at Clinton? Have you read what she says about Russia behind closed doors? Here, since the Goldman transcripts were the most recent news, let's look what she says there. She talks about them thusly in relation to Syria:

The Russian's view of this is very different. I mean, who conceives Syria as the same way he sees Chechnya? You know, you have to support toughness and absolute merciless reactions in order to drive the opposition down to be strangled, and you can't give an inch to them and you have to be willing to do what Assad basically has been willing to do.

That has been their position. It pretty much remains their position, and it is a position that has led to the restocking of sophisticated weapon systems all through this. The Russians' view is that if we provide enough weapons to Assad and if Assad is able to maintain control over most of the country, including the coastal
areas where our naval base is, that's fine with us. Because you will have internal fighting still with the Kurds and with the Sunnis on the spectrum of extremism. But if we can keep our base and we can keep Assad in the titular position of running the country, that reflects well on us because we will demonstrate that we are back in the Middle East. Maybe in a ruthless way, but a way that from their perspective, the Russian perspective, Arabs will understand.

So the problem for the US and the Europeans has been from the very beginning: What is it you -- who is it you are going to try to arm? And you probably read in the papers my view was we should try to find some of the groups that were there that we thought we could build relationships with and develop some covert connections that might then at least give us some insight into what is going on inside Syria.

But the other side of the argument was a very -- it was a very good one, which is we don't know what will happen. We can't see down the road. We just need to stay out of it. The problem now is that you've got Iran in heavily. You've got probably at least 50,000 fighters inside working to support, protect and sustain Assad. And like any war, at least the wars that I have followed, the hard guys who are the best fighters move to the forefront.

So the free Syrian Army and a lot of the local rebel militias that were made up of pharmacists and business people and attorneys and teachers -- they're no match for these imported toughened Iraqi, Jordanian, Libyan, Indonesian, Egyptian, Chechen, Uzbek, Pakistani fighters that are now in there and have learned through more than a decade of very firsthand experience what it takes in terms of ruthlessness and military capacity.

So we now have what everybody warned we would have, and I am very concerned about the spillover effects. And there is still an argument that goes on inside the administration and inside our friends at NATO and the Europeans. How do intervene -- my view was you intervene as covertly as is possible for Americans to intervene. We used to be much better at this than we are now. Now, you know, everybody can't help themselves. They have to go out and tell their friendly reporters and somebody else: Look what we're doing and I want credit for it, and all the rest of it.

So we're not as good as we used to be, but we still -- we can still deliver, and we should have in my view been trying to do that so we would have better insight. But the idea that we would have like a no fly zone -- Syria, of course, did have when it started the fourth biggest Army in the world. It had very sophisticated air defense systems. They're getting more sophisticated thanks to Russian imports.

Does it sound like she's a fan of Putin behind closed doors? I could keep going (for example, she responds to a questioner whose premise is "A lot of our problems is because we have a com

Re:Still using Russian equipment?

[mi]

if you're not going to listen to Trump's own words which you can watch with a minute long visit to YouTube

You make claims, you supply proof. As far as I know, Trump never expressed the sentiments you attribute to him (without any evidence).

And when President Clinton starts giving Ukraine Javelins, I expect you to write an apology.

Deal. Will you apologize, when she starts talking about "the need to move one beyond past hostilities" or "work out a reasonable compromise" — such as, when Putin is replaced by someone new in Kremlin, still without any intention to return Crimea?

Re:Still using Russian equipment?

[Ol Olsoc]

And I could buy Stolichnya at the height of the civil war.

Fact Check. We investigate the claim made by a Slashdot poster "Ol Olsoc", that he could buy Stolichnaya at the height of the civil war.

Apologies, I meant "Cold War". The one between the US and the old USSR. That's about as much weirdness of your post I care to reply to, other than I have no idea why you think I was against buying the Russian engines. They are good engines.

Re:Quality of Fact Checking

[dunkelfalke]

Sucks to be you - Kiev is really ugly.

Re: Quality of Fact Checking

[dunkelfalke]

He sure is, but that was nevertheless a non-sequitur.

Re: Quality of Fact Checking

[dunkelfalke]

And this nationalism is the reason why Ukraine is a failed state.

I have been in Kiev. It is fugly and dirty. And most people were arseholes calling me churka because they never heard a German accent before. Also the worst drivers I have ever experienced, worse than Arabs. Prague is beautiful, Tallinn is mostly beautiful, Lwow is bearable, even though the people suck. But Kiev is ugly.

Re:Quality of Fact Checking

[Ol Olsoc]

The simple truth is, of course, the OP meant "Cold War" not "civil war" (in any country). Woosh-woosh-woosh.....

Who knew?

Re:Great, now let's do something useful instead

[Coren22]

I know Spanish isn't your native language, and I am not trying to be a jerk, but to honestly teach here.

It is La Niña, not El Niña. El is male, La is female, Niña is female, Niño is male.

Re:Why dump the trash?

[Coren22]

I'm wondering how it could take out both Hillary and Trump, and their running mates in one shot, after all, that is the only thing that would improve anything.

Re:Why dump the trash?

[Coren22]

I think AC was suggesting that the capsule is useful, not necessarily the trash they deorbited with it, but I understand what you are saying too; without the capsule, it is rather difficult to deorbit the trash.

Most of the trash is likely the food containers and biological waste, I don't know what else they have up there that they need to get rid of, but it isn't like we have massive farms attached to the ISS to utilize the fertilizer people output.

Maybe that would be a good addition to the station, a farming module.