Tag: engineering

SpaceX Launches Starlink Mission

Florida Today reports that with SpaceX’s newly “installed crew access arm for use by future astronauts stationed alongside on a support tower, a Falcon 9 rocket blazed into the post-midnight darkness Wednesday carrying another payload of 23 Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit.” The launch “lit up the Space Coast sky at 12:05 a.m. EDT from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.” Of note, SpaceX’s Starlink 6-27 mission “marked the 61st orbital launch from the Space Force installation and nearby Kennedy Space Center this year, extending the ongoing annual record.”
Full Story (Florida Today)

 

Video

SpaceX Falcon 9 Launches Starlink 6-27
(NASASpaceflight; YouTube)

Airbus Creeps Towards Full-Year Delivery Goal with 18% Year-Over-Year Increase for October

Reuters reports that Airbus “needs to deliver 161 aircraft in the last two months of the year to reach its full-year delivery target, fractionally below the performance seen in the closing stages of last year.” Airbus’ monthly bulletin “confirmed it had delivered 71 aircraft in October, up 18% from the same month last year and bringing the total for the first 10 months to 559 jets.” In the final “two months of 2022, Airbus delivered 166 jets.” Agency Partners analyst Sash Tusa “wrote in a note that the company was not expected to change its full-year delivery target of 720 aircraft despite pressure on supplies of Pratt & Whitney engines.” Airbus last year “lowered and eventually abandoned its delivery goal due to supply constraints and started 2023 on a weak note, before deliveries accelerated over the summer.”
Full Story (Reuters)

Curiosity Logs 4,000th Day on Mars

Phys (UK) reports that four thousand Martian days “after setting its wheels in Gale Crater on Aug. 5, 2012, NASA’s Curiosity rover remains busy conducting exciting science.” The rover recently “drilled its 39th sample, then dropped the pulverized rock into its belly for detailed analysis.” To study “whether ancient Mars had the conditions to support microbial life, the rover has been gradually ascending the base of 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) Mount Sharp, whose layers formed in different periods of Martian history and offer a record of how the planet’s climate changed over time.”
Full Story (Phys)

Rocket Scientist Moonlights as Professional Quarterback

Forbes reports that Joshua Dobbs started a game at quarterback for a new team the same week he arrived. For his new team, he had to learn cadences including numbers, colors, and other codes all quarterbacks call out to communicate with his offensive teammates in order to effectively combat the defensive tactics and succeed in moving the ball down the field. His team, the Minnesota Vikings, “use five cadences to run hundreds of offensive plays, which takes days, weeks and even months for quarterbacks to learn cold.” A quarterback usually has months to learn this information specific to his team, but Dobbs was just traded to the Vikings on Tuesday, and the starter ahead of him was injured with a torn Achilles, forcing him into his first game for the team on Sunday. If one of his teammates or coaches yelled out to him, “Hey Josh, don’t worry, it’s not rocket science!” then that would have been appropriate, “because Dobbs studied aerospace engineering at the University of Tennessee and competed on the Engineers team at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Design/Build/Fly competition while playing football.” Dobbs entered the game in the first quarter following his predecessor’s injury “and went 20-for-30 with 158 yards and two touchdowns, while scrambling for 66 yards on seven carries.” The Vikings won 31-28.
Full Story (Forbes)

 

Video

Josh Dobbs receives congratulations from coaches and teammates following his comeback win, days after being traded to the Minnesota Vikings
(Bleacher Report; YouTube)

SpaceX Marks Space Coast Record with 60th Launch this Year

The Orlando (FL) Sentinel reported another Space Coast night launch “Friday marked the 60th liftoff from the Space Coast for the year, this time with a booster flying for a record 18th time.” A Falcon 9 carrying “another 23 of Elon Musk’s company’s Starlink satellites took off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 8:37 p.m.”
Full Story (Orlando Sentinel)

 

Video

SpaceX Starlink 119 launch and Falcon 9 first stage landing, 4 November 2023
(SciNews; YouTube)

Latest Boeing EcoDemonstrator Studies SAF Use on Contrails

Aviation International News reports that while studies have determined an 85% reduction of carbon emissions from sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), the contrails produced by SAF have not been studied to determine how they differ from those generated by kerosene. To that end, The Boeing Company has partnered with United Airlines and NASA “to study the phenomenon with its latest EcoDemonstrator aircraft.” In early October, Boeing “began flying a CFM LEAP-1B-powered 737 MAX 10 destined for United Airlines on 100 percent sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and conventional fuel in separate tanks, alternating the fuels during testing.” Studying multiple fuels “with the same engine allows researchers to differentiate the emissions reductions resulting from advanced engine technology from those resulting from advanced jet fuel chemistry.” Although the sample “of results from last month’s testing remains too small to draw any conclusions, researchers from Boeing, NASA, GE Aerospace, and German aerospace research center DLR expressed optimism over the observations from the first three weeks of trials.” DLR Research Team Lead Christine Voigt explained some of the science behind the effect of SAF on contrail production and said, “These sustainable aviation fuels have a lower aromatic content and these are precursors to the soot particle emissions and the soot particles are the precursors for the ice crystals and contrails. Science tells us that warming from contrails might be as large as the warming from CO2 emissions.”
Full Story (Aviation International News)

Virgin Galactic Launches 5th Commercial Flight

Spaceflight Now reported that the first of two Falcon 9 missions SpaceX “is planning for Sunday carried into orbit the largest batch of second-generation Starlink satellites to be launched from the West Coast.” The Falcon 9 “lifted off from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 2 a.m. PDT (5 a.m. EDT / 0900 UTC) with 22 satellites aboard.” The California launch “will be followed on Sunday by another Starlink delivery mission carrying 23 satellites, which will launch from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 7:45 p.m. EDT (2345 UTC).” The Starlink 7-6 mission “was the first time a Falcon 9 has carried 22 of the so-called V2 Mini satellites from the West Coast.” Previously, missions from there “had been limited to 15 or 21 Starlinks, depending on the orbit.” On the East Coast, a Falcon 9 “launched 23 V2 Minis a week ago on Oct. 21, one more than the previous maximum load for a mission from the Cape.”
Full Story (Spaceflight Now)

 

Video

Virgin Galactic-05
(NASASpaceflight; YouTube)

Joby CEO Announces 84% Completion of Stage 3 FAA Certification Work for EVTOL Aircraft

Aviation Today reports that Joby Aviation CEO JoeBen Bevirt says the company’s eVTOL aircraft is 84% on its way to completing FAA Stage 3 certification requirements. The company “checked off several milestones in the past three months that bring it ever closer to launching commercial passenger flights in 2025.” Joby is “ramping up production at its pilot manufacturing facility in Merina, Calif., with one aircraft in final assembly and two more in production.” It also has “chosen Dayton, Ohio, as the site for the first scaled manufacturing facility, after receiving promises for $325 million in state and local incentives and benefits, Bevirt said.”
Full Story (Aviation Today)

NASA’s Lucy Spacecraft Passes First of 10 Asteroids on Trip to Jupiter

AP reports that on Wednesday, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft “encountered the first of 10 asteroids on its long journey to Jupiter.” The spacecraft “swooped past the pint-sized Dinkinesh, about 300 million miles (480 million kilometers) away in the main asteroid belt beyond Mars.” It was “a quick hello,” according to NASA, “with the spacecraft zooming by at 10,000 mph (16,000 kph).” Lucy came “within 270 miles (435 kilometers) of Dinkinesh, testing its instruments in a dry run for the bigger and more alluring asteroids ahead.” Dinkinesh is “just a half-mile (1 kilometer) across, quite possibly the smallest of the space rocks on Lucy’s tour.” Lucy’s main targets “are the so-called Trojans, swarms of unexplored asteroids out near Jupiter that are considered to be time capsules from the dawn of the solar system.” The spacecraft “will swing past eight Trojans believed to be up to 10 to 100 times bigger than Dinkinesh.” It’s due to “zip past the final two asteroids in 2033.”
Full Story (Associated Press)