I’ve seen spaceX rockets before, but they’re always been off the coast and traveling at an “angle” This morning I saw what kinda seemed to be that, but more of a lower case t shape. But it was to the west (central east coast) and was going straight up. There’s been a lot of talk around here lately about the drone sightings, but this definitely wasn’t anything like that. Just curious what it could have been if anyone knows

https://www.space.com/space-exploration/mars-rovers/after-crashing-on-mars-nasas-ingenuity-helicopter-could-live-on-as-a-weather-station-for-20-years

1. In 1865, Jules Verne publishes his sci-fi novel From the Earth to the Moon featuring a manned spaceflight to Earth's satellite.
2. Hermann Oberth reads this novel at the age of 11 (circa 1905) and this starts his lifelong obsession with Rocketry.
3. In 1923 he publishes his book Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen (The rocket into interplanetary space).
4. He continues expanding on this book, and in 1927, joins the Verein für Raumschiffahrt (Spaceflight Society) which was formed by people whose interest in space travel was sparked by his book. A prominent member of this society is no other than Wernher von Braun.
5. In 1942, Wernher von Braun builds the V2, the prototype on which all modern launch vehicles are based on.
6. In 1944, a V2 becomes the first human-made object to reach space.

And this all took less than a 100 years!

Hi space nerds!

I'm learning how to use GMAT, and I'm trying to create a constellation of satellites. To get my hands on the software, I'm trying basic maneuvers on the sats. However, I'm facing a weird issue. When I make a maneuver with one satellite, the orbits of the others are also modified.

Configuration:
I have 3 identical satellites with the same orbital parameters, so by plotting the ground track, they are displayed at the exact same position and follow the same path. The orbits are made so the ground plot is J1 repetitive (I've set the solver to 1st order).
They indeed repeat as expected.

Then, I try to change the eccentricity of only one satellite (Default SC and red plot in the pics).
But now the other 2 satellites, which should still be on the same repetitive ground track orbit, are not anymore.

Do you have any idea why such a thing is happening? Maybe I've missed something in the maneuver parameters.

Thanks for your help :)

Here are a few screenshots

ground plot of the 3 sats before any maneuver for 4 days (they repeat well)

Ground track plot after the maneuver. The yellow and green track have also been modified but the same way

3D view of the 2 orbits (on this view, the 2 other sats are still on the initial orbit (as expected))

Maneuver to change the eccentricity of the red satellite (defaultSC) to 0.5

https://preview.redd.it/nr2ha5fwpu5e1.png?width=406&format=png&auto=webp&s=5cb2e04f8f2ffb23e285d088c784c98089a4b161

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/12/how-did-the-ceo-of-an-online-payments-firm-become-the-nominee-to-lead-nasa/

Hey everyone, I hope posts like this are ok. I didn't see any specific rules against it (this isn't really self promotion... I'm really just trying to see if there is interest in a thing and have an open discussion on what it might look like, or if anything like this exists)

So I had this idea for something like an app that simulates communication across the solar system. Essentially it would be a discord/teams/slack style UI, but with a 2d map of the solar system as it is right now, and you can send messages to other people's avatars that might be anywhere in the solar system, including a realistic light speed time delay. Those messages would have visual indicators on the map showing where they are in space and how much longer they have to reach the target.

I think it would be a super interesting project but I don't see a ton of particular reason to actually USE the app besides the initial "oh, this is neat I guess" reason. I see it as more of a STEAM tool then anything functional. Maybe something that educators can use to teach kids about space travel and communicating across vast distances.

One other kind of addon idea I had too is to possibly integrate an LLM chat bot (Ooo I know, AI bad) for each of the various rovers/probes/satellites throughout the solar system. Maybe have it fetch current scientific pictures/data. This would allow kids to "chat" with the curiosity rover for example.

Any feedback? Ideas? Features?

Thanks all!

I exclude interplanetary space because I believe that will be dominated by SpaceX. I believe that the organisation that will dominate cislunar space is a lot less clear given Blue Origin's goals of moving industry into (what I assume is LEO/cislunar) space, their space tourism plans, their being selected as Artemis lander for Artemis 5 onwards, and their space station/Orbital Reef plans.

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Using advanced surface thermal cells to convert reentry heat into stored energy on board seems like a practical endeavor. A lot of heat, a lot of energy but with a need of ideal mass for the system. Could the energy absorbed from reentry have a practical use after reentry on such a system?

Has there been any movement towards its goal at all?

It's possible because of the momentum of energy in space. Even tho the energy is miniscule. Over time it amounts https://youtube.com/shorts/Zvk56VlcbWE?si=LsE96_K9VfScAD-t

From what I've gathered China's Lanyue lander requires a crasher stage similar to the Soviet LK to successfully land on the moon with enough propellant to return to lunar orbit. But this seems both completely unsustainable even for Apollo style missions, and flat out dangerous if you plan to be landing near a Lunar base multiple times for crew rotations. I strongly assume that they'll have to develop an entire new lander if they ever plan to have a base on the Moon, which brings the question of why they developed Lanyue in this way to begin with.

In addition to the astronauts, do they intend to leave behind cargo?