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dpdxguy t1_ixqff19 wrote

>engineers have six days to see how spacecraft fares in deep space

It's been away from earth for almost ten days now. Why do they think the next six will be the ones that show how it fares in deep space?

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Xengard t1_ixqo4ju wrote

Replying to dpdxguy (#666,905)

i think its because the space between the earth and moon is called "cislunar space", probably because its different in terms of orbital mechanics? idk

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kldload t1_ixqv12h wrote

Replying to dpdxguy (#666,905)

Passing the van Allen belt, cabin temperature homeostasis, electrical fault tolerance. There are myriad issues that may not surface until a long time in space

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lucius10203 t1_ixr1lub wrote

Replying to lezzet (#669,002)

Since they're aligned with the camera and not the object, I would assume artefacting. Something like stitched together photo lines or effects from fast travel in a static image.

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Sleepiboisleep t1_ixr4z6g wrote

Replying to dpdxguy (#666,905)

We know the area around earth and the moon we’ll enough to be successful in a launch outside our atmosphere. Once the rocket orbits and propels itself into space we know less about asteroid orbit and the debris of space so depending on those next six days they have to make a decision about the progress and stability of the craft before letting it continue

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Dirty-Electro t1_ixr9qh5 wrote

So exciting to keep track of the mission’s progress. The data and subsequent research obtained from this first mission will undoubtedly pave the way for decades to come.

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alexfilmwriting t1_ixrdjns wrote

Replying to Dirty-Electro (#670,699)

I'm just really happy they've finally started pointing cameras back at the craft. Last few missions were hard to visualize without it. I know it costs weight but really ups the cool factor, which I think is really important these days.

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dpdxguy t1_ixredpd wrote

Replying to Sleepiboisleep (#670,124)

You know we've been sending spacecraft far past the moon since the 70s, right? The Webb telescope is parked on the far side of the Moon, far further more distant from the Earth than Artimis I is going.

EDIT: learned that Webb is not on the far side of the Moon as I had erroneously thought. It is, however, far further from the Earth than any planned Artimis mission.

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RE5TE t1_ixrj7m6 wrote

Replying to dpdxguy (#671,229)

> The Webb telescope is parked on the far side of the Moon, far further than Artimis I is going.

It's farther away from Earth, but is not on the far side of the moon:

>Lagrange point 2 — a gravitationally stable location in space. The telescope arrived at L2, the second sun-Earth Lagrange point on Jan. 24, 2022. > >L2 is a spot in space near Earth that lies opposite the sun; this orbit will allow the telescope to stay in line with Earth as it orbits the sun.

https://www.space.com/21925-james-webb-space-telescope-jwst.html

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Entmoot6262 t1_ixroh5k wrote

Article says the craft is supposed to be reusable. I hope they aren’t using the Shuttle definition of reusable.

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wgp3 t1_ixrortx wrote

Replying to RE5TE (#671,763)

You...you do know the moon orbits the earth? So something beyond the distance of the moon from the earth will by definition be on the far side of the moon when the moon passes between the spacecraft and the earth. The sun. Mars. Jwst. All of them are past "the far side of the moon" even though technically the near side is sometimes looking at them face on.

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Kichigai t1_ixrzdr8 wrote

Replying to lucius10203 (#669,701)

Have we fully radiation hardened digital imaging sensors? It's getting a good blast of all sorts of fun particles from Mr. Sun right then, wouldn't shock me one iota if they were being picked up by, or interfering with, the imaging sensor.

If it were a CMOS sensor it would make sense that you'd see per-line artifacting like this, though I might guess that NASA might use a CCD for this application.

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Kichigai t1_ixrzyhi wrote

Replying to dpdxguy (#666,905)

Among everything else folks have said for reasons, doesn't hurt to do some endurance testing. If we're gonna put a few people inside this tin can for 2+ weeks we may as well know for sure how well the craft will hold up for that long.

Maybe we'll discover that some heat sink is inadequately dispersing heat, and it's only through long term operation that we can see this happening. Maybe whatever newfangled material we're making the windows out of start to delaminate, but only after prolonged bombardment by cosmic rays.

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Electronic-1911 t1_ixs2fro wrote

I love the colours of the nose cone. Not a boring white.

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dpdxguy t1_ixs9dwg wrote

Replying to Kichigai (#673,733)

>doesn't hurt to do some endurance testing.

Sure. But op said the next six days would be telling. The question I had was, "Why will the next six days tell us stuff that the previous and however remain following the six won't tell?" I suspect the answer is, "They won't. It's the entire mission outside of LEO and Van Allen Belt transit that will tell us how it handles 'deep space.'"

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Decronym t1_ixsapue wrote

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

|Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |L2|Lagrange Point 2 (Sixty Symbols video explanation)| | |Paywalled section of the NasaSpaceFlight forum| |LEO|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)| | |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)|

|Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |cislunar|Between the Earth and Moon; within the Moon's orbit|

^(3 acronyms in this thread; )^(the most compressed thread commented on today)^( has 19 acronyms.)
^([Thread #8350 for this sub, first seen 25th Nov 2022, 23:03]) ^[FAQ] ^([Full list]) ^[Contact] ^([Source code])

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dpdxguy t1_ixsasxo wrote

Replying to RE5TE (#671,763)

Thanks. For some reason I had thought Webb is at the Earth Moon L2 point, instead of the Sun Earth L2 point. Not sure how I got that wrong, but I appreciate knowing the truth.

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5yleop1m t1_ixsbl5a wrote

Replying to lezzet (#669,002)

From what I understand, the pictures with the lines are taken with the OpNav cameras which keep the space craft oriented by studying the surface of the moon.

Some info here - https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20210000793/downloads/Orion%20Optical%20Navigation.pptx.pdf

And more details here - https://mashable.com/article/nasa-artemis-1-moon-images-pictures-orion

The cameras have to be able to see tiny feature differences, so their contrast is higher than usual. The lines could be part of the sensor or some other part of the image processing pipeline. Sometimes markers like that are used to help differentiate between different flat aspects of an image, since the lines are a known constant.

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Iz-kan-reddit t1_ixseju9 wrote

Replying to wgp3 (#672,458)

>So something beyond the distance of the moon from the earth will by definition be on the far side of the moon when the moon passes between the spacecraft and the earth.

That only means it's occasionally correct but usually incorrect.

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auviewer t1_ixsgjxe wrote

How long will it be in this orbit before it returns to Earth?

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The_camperdave t1_ixsqh3t wrote

Replying to Your_Gonna_Hate_This (#675,095)

> Why do they look like they're the same quality as what we could get in the 70s?

Because NASA is using the technology of the 1970s. An Apollo style capsule splashing down into an ocean followed by a naval search and rescue op? I mean, really! What has NASA got against landing on land? I mean, they even forced the Crew Dragon to splash down instead of doing a civilized landing.

−4

OpinionBearSF t1_ixsvnln wrote

Replying to The_camperdave (#676,890)

> What has NASA got against landing on land? I mean, they even forced the Crew Dragon to splash down instead of doing a civilized landing.

Water covers around 2/3 of the earth's surface to land covering around 1/3. That immediately gives a vessel looking for a water landing an advantage in having more suitable landing spots.

Water is also a softer and less complex landing than a land landing, which is important when squishy fragile humans are onboard, especially if the return is hampered by crew health or vehicle health issues.

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The_camperdave t1_ixt08za wrote

Replying to OpinionBearSF (#677,478)

> ...a vessel looking for a water landing...

Why is the vessel looking for a water landing? Why can't it land on the ground? The Russians have been doing it for over 50 years, with hundreds upon hundreds of successful missions.

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Seeker-Life t1_ixtlpl4 wrote

I wonder how long it will be before there is a televised sport that is played in space

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OpinionBearSF t1_ixtzd2q wrote

Replying to The_camperdave (#678,032)

> Why is the vessel looking for a water landing? Why can't it land on the ground? The Russians have been doing it for over 50 years, with hundreds upon hundreds of successful missions.

Water is softer and easier/safer for squishy humans to land on (especially if sick or injured) than land, and there is much more water than land.

Russia opted not to do water landings because they did not and do not have an extensive Navy to provide recovery services.

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MadotsukiInTheNexus t1_ixumzcm wrote

Replying to Mival93 (#677,068)

There's something about photos (and especially video) where you can see part of the spacecraft that feels almost surreal to me.

I think it has something to do with the sense of scale and perspective. Images that just show a celestial body are photos of an object. Add something so clearly made by human beings, though, and whatever I'd being shown becomes a place instead (especially with a video like this, where you can see motion in roughly the way a human would from the same vantage). You get a sense for how large things are, and for their distance from the camera. It all feels so much larger and more dynamic, reminding us of where we are in the Universe.

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The_camperdave t1_ixvn454 wrote

Replying to OpinionBearSF (#682,200)

> Water is softer and easier/safer for squishy humans to land on (especially if sick or injured) than land, and there is much more water than land.

I understand a splashdown as an emergency contingency, but Orion was being designed to land on the ground. I've seen pictures.

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OpinionBearSF t1_ixvql5y wrote

Replying to The_camperdave (#690,684)

> I understand a splashdown as an emergency contingency, but Orion was being designed to land on the ground. I've seen pictures.

Previous spacecraft (such as Apollo) could also land on land as an emergency contingency, but there were serious risks to both the spacecraft and its occupants if that were done.

Overall, a water landing is gentler to people and machinery.

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