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Japan Launches the World's Smallest Satellite-Carrying Rocket (nasaspaceflight.com)
Japan has launched the world's smallest satellite-carrying rocket. Long-time Slashdot reader hey! writes:
Last week Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) successfully placed a three-kilogram cubesat into an 180 x 1,500 kilometer orbit at 31 degrees inclination to the equator. The payload was launched on a modified sounding rocket, called the SS-520-5. The assembled rocket weighed a mere 2600 kilograms [2.87 tons] on the launchpad, making the SS-520-5 the smallest vehicle ever to put an object into orbit.
Note that the difference in the SS-520's modest orbital capacity of four kilograms and its ability to launch 140 kilograms to 1000 kilometers on a suborbital flight. That shows how much more difficult it is to put an object into orbit than it is to merely send it into space.
Note that the difference in the SS-520's modest orbital capacity of four kilograms and its ability to launch 140 kilograms to 1000 kilometers on a suborbital flight. That shows how much more difficult it is to put an object into orbit than it is to merely send it into space.
... miniaturization.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Yeah, buy 140 kg is a suborbital lob, and that's not nearly as insanely small. The Davy Crockett has a mass of around 40 kg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device). That involved pretty heavy miniaturization, but a warhead with slightly higher yield and slightly less miniaturization and a size of around 140 kg isn't implausible. Detonating a nuke the size of Davy Crockett on New York still does some pretty serious damage http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&kt=0.04&lat=40.72422&lng=-73.9961&airburst=0&hob_ft=0&zm=16 and if one increases the size even a little bit, the damage starts looking pretty extreme. And the US was able to build the DC in the 1950s, so some components even North Korea would be able to automatically get smaller (such as the electronics). And DC was a variable yield weapon, so if one takes out the extra stuff for that, one also gets a little bit more. That said, it does look like as of right now, the smallest nukes that North Korea has are still much too big to fit on this sort of rocket.
You don't need to put a warhead in to orbit.
I imagine you could land a payload anywhere on earth if you send it up 1000km, like this rocket can do with 140kg payload.
Kind of moot given that the Hwasong 15 can deliver 1000 kg to most of the continental US.
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The Japanese satellite contained a 27-room luxury capsule hotel -- with a spectacular view of Japan, every 92 minutes.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Scott Manley is a great youtube commentator on space stuff. Last year he made a video on the smallest orbital rockets.
Since then, Electron and now SS-520 have orbited satellites, so it is a little out of date. He starts with the Electron and talks about the previous SS-520 launch is covered at 4m40s. Numerous other rockets get a mention.
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Why not to design the satellite as some sort of long cilindre and to use a militar converted jet to carry it "near" the atmosphere limit and just to send it the remaining distance as a missile? You can take a lot of decisions, even to return home if the conditions are not optimal, and the sending device is 100% reusable without almost no effort.
I imagine you could land a payload anywhere on earth if you send it up 1000km, like this rocket can do with 140kg payload.
No, not even close as rockets have no air to glide in or wings to glide with. When NK sent their Hwasong-15 missile about 4500km straight up the experts said it could hit a target about 13000km away on a ballistic trajectory. So for a 140kg payload I'd estimate a 3000km range. And this is a considerably more powerful rocket than what NK got, it couldn't put anything in orbit and their test launch probably had essentially no payload. North Korea could almost certainly nuke Japan if they wanted, that's only 1000km away and presumably reachable with a 100+ kg payload. The US? Probably not so much, the rocket could get there but it'd have to be a very light payload. Maybe a kilo of mutated ebola or whatever, if they have that.
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Kim Jong Un would like to buy some
Well, he can't buy some. They use the Über gig model.
If he wants to ride in a rocket, he will have to use the app, just like everyone else.
He doesn't have any problems with the rocket taxi unions. He shot the union leaders out of circus canons spiked with C-4, or killed them in other cruel, unusual or bizarre methods.
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You are right, there must be a different motivator in the sub-orbital range.
I hear they have a lot of little rockets over there, so I would expect them to hold the record...
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
You must not be aware the Japanese were systematically starving about a quarter of a million people to death every month in lands conquered by Japan. If the U.S. nukes made the war shorter by a year, that's 2.4 million innocents who would otherwise have died due to Japanese occupation.
Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.
Considering that a 300 kt warhead weighs about the same number of kilograms today, I'd say that 140 kg is more than enough.
Ezekiel 23:20
140 kilos of tnt anywhere in the world in a 2.8 ton rocket. ..he sure as fuck would like some of those. would be more useful than nukes, harder to detect launch/re-entry and so forth.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
While I can understand some approximation error, the math should still stand unharmed!
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Stop spreading your stupid PBS bullshit propaganda.
NK wants to defend itself from those who threaten it with nukes - an American terrorist regime, with military bases in their occupied Japan.
Suborbital just means 2000 km/h or so. Orbital means 27,000 km/h - that is more than 10 times as fast. When Bezoz launches suborbital he goes vertical, a missile is launched mostly upwards, and when an orbital rocket/spaceshuttle goes up it tips almost horizontal within a minute of launch - most of the velocity is going eastward (or southward from polar orbits), not upwards. Watch the speed and height numbers in any SpaceX launch.
"The assembled rocket weighed a mere 2600 kilograms [2.87 tons]" You meant 2600kg = 2.6 ton, clearly?
you bet me to it.
Really, JAXA has done something cool here, and the only context people can think of it in is nukes?
Nukes are the elephant in the room when it comes to orbital class and ballistic missiles. The reason people freaked out about Sputnik wasn't because people were saying "wow, look at the new options for communications!" No, it was because a missile that can launch a comsat can also carry a warhead and put it anywhere on the globe under an hour. It's dual use technology so we HAVE to consider the military applications whether we want to or not. If Japan can build one of these then (theoretically) so can North Korea or ISIS or some other group that currently lacks a warhead delivery system. And that is a BIG problem because the more nation states or terrorist groups that have these the more likely it is that some lunatic will actually put a warhead on one and use it. It's bad enough when it was just a few large nation states in a Mexican standoff.
Japan already has lots of other bigger missiles (actual military missiles with warheads) that can reach NK.
South Korea has artillery that can reach most or all of NK (and missiles).
NK is in range of the entire SK and Japan airforces.
And we haven't even got around to the USA yet.
This launch does NOTHING to the balance of power with NK.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Although to be honest, the Vanguard rocket was heavier, and the satellite smaller.
Small Penises can still be fun for girls.
But not as fun as Afro Chimps
She looks quite pleased to be working that black pole even if he's not working her with a vibe like your other example.
FYI, under its hair, a chimp's skin is white. And it has a skinny dick but big balls - just like most Caucasian men.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body