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NASA Space

NASA Astronauts Fire Deorbiting Burn. Watch Splashdown Back to Earth (cnet.com) 69

Posted by EditorDavid from the SpaceX-splashdown dept.
After travelling all night to return from the International Space Station, two NASA astronauts will splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico at 11:48 PT, reports CNET. "There will be about an hour of excitement prior to that moment as Crew Dragon deorbits and re-enters Earth's atmosphere..."

That 11-minute deorbiting burn should begin in five minutes (at 10:56 PT), and you can watch it live on SpaceX's YouTube channel before the splashdown 52 minutes later. CNET notes that "This will be the first crew recovery at sea of NASA astronauts since 1975 at the end of the Apollo moon exploration era, the space agency tweeted on Sunday." The reentry process is dramatic. "Crew Dragon will be traveling at orbital velocity prior to reentry, moving at approximately 17,500 miles per hour. The maximum temperature it will experience on reentry is approximately 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit," said NASA in a statement on July 24...

If Crew Dragon passes these final tests, then SpaceX will be able to provide regular, operational flights to the ISS starting later this year. And it would end NASA's reliance on Russian spacecraft for the first time since the shuttle era.
After splashdown the crew "will spend up to an hour floating inside the capsule before joint recovery teams from SpaceX and NASA retrieve them for a helicopter trip ashore," reports Reuters.

A post-splashdown news conference is then scheduled about 30 minutes later at 1:30 p.m. PT.
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NASA Astronauts Fire Deorbiting Burn. Watch Splashdown Back to Earth More

NASA Astronauts Fire Deorbiting Burn. Watch Splashdown Back to Earth

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  • This is pretty amazing, but even as a little kid in the 60s I thought that dropping the capsule in the ocean was a crude way to get it back. Is there any vision on how to get back to runway landings?

    I fly hang gliders, which have part of their history tied to the Rogallo Wing [wikipedia.org] which was intended to be used on return-to-earth operations. Anything like that in the works?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by olsmeister ( 1488789 )
      You're talking about wings and wheels like the shuttle? Doubtful. Why introduce all that complexity?
      • j f k said it best.
        because

        • JFK said let's do a thing because it would be a remarkable achievement.

          Saying we should go back to gliding landings is saying let's do a thing that we've already done again even though it didn't really make sense. (The runway requirements reduced availability of mission windows.)

          There's no good reason to build anything but rockets until we have space-based manufacturing, and/or a space elevator.

          • We have to rethink propulsion. This "action/reaction" stuff is for the birds, very wasteful. Gotta eliminate the middleman.

          • First off, Starship, which will land on land, will be in production in 1-2 years.
            In addition, SNC's DreamChaser, which will launch on Atlas and land like an aircraft, will also be ready in ~2 years.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by spitzak ( 4019 )

              Also the Dragon itself was initially intended to reuse it's emergency escape rockets as a way to land on land. They dropped this but I don't see any reason this idea could not be reintroduced.

              • Not worth if for earth.
                They had their legs poking through the heat shield. As such, 1 of several things would have to happen:
                1) prove to NASA that it can work 100% of the time without failure to the legs or heat shields. 2-4 years to get that approval and probably 200-500M at a SWAG.
                2) re-design the legs to be outside of the craft and then revet the vehicle. 2-4 years and 400-800M as SWAG

                How much would NASA pay? Nothing.

                How soon before BFR/Starship is ready for production? production Cargo versi

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by spitzak ( 4019 )

                  That's interesting, I was unaware of the landing legs, I figured it just landed on the ground in it's flight configuration. Initial impression was that it was a good idea, as they are carrying around the emergency eject rockets anyway and paying for the weight of them.

          • Runway requirements in no significant way determined mission windows. Dragon didnt get to land where it wanted to because of weather either. Shuttle had two primary and dozens of alternate landing locations. Sometimes shuttle delayed return due to weather, sometimes it diverted to Edwards or White Sands. They preferred to land at the Cape because it was cheaper.

    • Re:How long before the next stage? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 ) on Sunday August 02, 2020 @01:29PM (#60357969)
      Maybe with something like what Virgin is doing for their vehicles but those are really not in the same class as what we are looking at with SpaceX and others. Shuttle was cool but complex and expensive. There just isn't a real driver for doing that again. I think what you will see is the eventual move to vertical landings like SpaceX is going for with their Starship vehicles. Maybe one day if someone finally figures out how to build a true space plane, but that's probably not withing our lifetimes if ever.
      • I think, SpaceX choose vertical landings because they want to land on Mars. I am not convinced that is a good trade off for landing on Earth. On Starship they even attach 3 atmospheric engines for landing only. I think that is around 5 tons only for that. Plus header tanks and landing fuel. Maybe a set of wings and wheels would be lighter and more reliable. Plus, the higher surface area, the less heat is generated at re-entry.

    • Re:How long before the next stage? (Score:5, Informative)

      by stevelinton ( 4044 ) <sal@dcs.st-and.ac.uk> on Sunday August 02, 2020 @01:33PM (#60357981) Homepage

      SpaceX's Starship is expected to land on its own rockets. Just needs a tough flat surface to land on.

      • >Just needs a tough flat surface to land on.

        Like raw lunar regolith? Not exactly going to be any nice landing pads waiting on the moon or Mars.

        • >Just needs a tough flat surface to land on.

          Like raw lunar regolith? Not exactly going to be any nice landing pads waiting on the moon or Mars.

          Not seeing a big problem, regolith is not going to be damaged by a methane-oxygen flame, and it turns out not to be too crushable [see Apollo]. A robot lander or rover or orbiter with a decent camera can identify a landing spot with no inconvenient boulders, and they seem to have nailed the precision vertical rocket landing with Falcon, so they should be able to get within a meter or so of the target. Worst risk is probably that the first lander gets a foot stuck and is lost there. It won't be manned, so n

          • Nor am I - my point was mostly that sand and dust of unknown depth are not normally high on the list of "tough" or "flat" surfaces, and the Starship will be incredibly versatile - at least once they get the "offroad landing gear" worked out.

          • âoeTheyâ(TM)ve nailed the precision landing with falconâ. Theres no gps on the moon to guide you to a precision landing.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Megane ( 129182 )
          The lunar variant of Starship will have landing thrusters mid-way up the sides, to avoid blowing regolith dust all over the place.

          • Have we gotten confirmation of that? I know there was a lot of speculation that that's what those were in the render (seems more likely than huge landing lights), but I hadn't heard any definitive answer.

            Assuming they are rockets though, they're still going to throw around a whole lot of dust, they just won't throw it all the way into orbit like the main engines would, where it would damage current and future spacecraft. It should also eliminate the potential problem of the engines excavating the ground t

    • I haven't heard anything. On the other hand, NASA is quite "risk averse" so using something other than round parachutes into the ocean would have to have a really good reason other than, "Hey, we can steer it!"

      I could see NASA approving other landing systems eventually, but their concern--at least with an "unproven" company like SpaceX--was to Keep It Simple. Let's worry about getting the capsule up, maneuvering in space, etc. Keep the landing simple. Show that you've got the first bits down and maybe w

      • dream chaser, a HL-20 derivitive, has contract for cargo, BUT, the craft is being man rated by SNC AND NASA.
        If all goes well, by end of 2021, America will have 3-5 manned-rated space crafts, along with 3+ manned rated launchers.

      • Well, Starliner is using round parachutes, but does not splash into the ocean....

    • > Is there any vision on how to get back to runway landings?
      Even better - the Crew Dragon was initially designed to do a fully rocket-powered landing akin to the Falcon 9 landing itself, only gentler. That would allow it to gently land almost anywhere.

      Unfortunately NASA wasn't interested in performing such landings, so SpaceX abandoned those plans for their capsules.

      Of course their next "capsule" is going to be the Starship, which will _only_ be capable of a powered landing, with the goal of being able

    • With the Falcon/Dragon? Never.
      With starship? It should be in the next 1-2 years and at a fraction of the costs of all other launchers.

    • Oh, the wings etc are all cool and nice, the problem with them is they weight a lot. It's all dead weight you need to bring to orbit - weight better saved on lighter rocket or used on actual usable payload. And thanks to tyranny of the rocket equation, any increase of reentry mass exponentially increases launch mass. For every kilogram of the craft you need ~20kg of fuel and infrastructure to hold and use that fuel.

      The parachutes and the heatshield are light. The shuttle had its engineering advantages and p

  • As an old SCTV fan (Score:3)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Sunday August 02, 2020 @01:40PM (#60357997)

    I find myself giggling each time they refer to the astronauts as "Bob and Doug".

  • I have to admit (Score:3)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Sunday August 02, 2020 @01:52PM (#60358025)

    Watching that splashdown made me smile.

  • And the experience wouldn't be complete... (Score:5, Informative)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Sunday August 02, 2020 @02:10PM (#60358075)

    Without a few morons in private boats trying to get as close to Dragon as possible.

    • Without a few morons in private boats trying to get as close to Dragon as possible.

      Probably hoping to star as the next Florida Man meme.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 )
      Yea in the future I think they need to get NASA to ask the Navy and/or Coast Guard to help cordon off the expected landing zone. That was a bit ridiculous and if they don't do something now the next one will be even worse. Just the number of brain dead Youtubers probably sitting home right now thinking "Fuck, why didn't I think of that!" is fightning.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      And of them was carrying a Trump flag. :/

  • Can we get a new company to replace Boeing in the building airplanes department? Then we can flush 'em

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ELCouz ( 1338259 )
      +1 Purge of that bean counting company.

    • Can we get a new company to replace Boeing in the building airplanes department?

      I am hopeful that they will declare bankruptcy and want government help. If so, I would like for some economist to STEP UP and instead of breaking them apart, or bring thing down in size, we should triplicate the entire company, though a great deal smaller. The problem is that we have lost competition due to reagan/GOP. Those bastards pretty much removed all regulations by FTC to keep competition going. Now, we look far more like CHina, and old USSR, than we do the America of the 70s and before.

  • Live stream here ... (Score:5, Informative)

    by kbahey ( 102895 ) on Sunday August 02, 2020 @02:46PM (#60358195) Homepage

    Live stream of the crew leaving the dragon capsule is here [youtube.com].

    And here is a summary of the process [youtube.com] until the splashdown event.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Nahor ( 41537 )

      ...and now, this official SpaceX stream is blocked in the US by a copyright claim from a Polish TV network:

      This video contains content from TelewizjaPolska-itvp, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds

      Another "Bravo!" to those automatic DMCA takedowns.

  • Because of Musk manly free-market essence we're supposed to lose our minds cheering over the splashdown of a manned spacecraft, something that was first done 60 years ago.

    Great job, private industry. It's only been over half a century and you're almost caught up.

    • No. It has nothing to do with free market. It has to do with the fact that :
      1) America has regained its manned launching.
      2) In the next 3 years, America will have 3-5 manned vessels and 3-4 manned-rated launchers.
      3) within 2-3 years, America will be going to the moon again.

  • How long is night in Low Earth Orbit ?

  • They spend about 30 minutes purging and/or waiting for hypergolic fuel fumes to dissipate with the capsule onboard the recovery ship. Except that the deck surrounding the capsule was crowded with technicians wearing shirtsleeves and, at most, Covid-19 masks. I would have expected techs wearing hazmat suits to be the only ones present until levels tested safe.

    • Did you notice that the fast boats did not run right up to the capsule? Instead, they took their time circling inwards. The whole time, they were monitoring for hypergolic fumes.

    • There's safe and safe. They measures the N2O4 level at a few parts per million BEFORE the purge. Then a couple of guys in respirators did the purge and got it down to 0.5 ppm. Then they opened the hatch.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        Then a couple of guys in respirators

        With a couple more guys wearing only cloth face masks just hanging around watching.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Agripa ( 139780 )

      They spend about 30 minutes purging and/or waiting for hypergolic fuel fumes to dissipate with the capsule onboard the recovery ship. Except that the deck surrounding the capsule was crowded with technicians wearing shirtsleeves and, at most, Covid-19 masks. I would have expected techs wearing hazmat suits to be the only ones present until levels tested safe.

      I was hoping the techs would put on ape costumes before opening the capsule.

  • And say "Hey, weren't we supposed to be on that?".

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