One of the in-flight tests was manually orienting the craft so that the solar panels on the rear were pointing towards the sun.

i.e. " mooning the sun"

(Joke credit: Sunny … https://www.youtube.com/live/scmu9IcyK5k?t=8m34s )

In recent months it became clear that if Maezawa’s mission happened, it would not occur until at least the early 2030s—at least a decade after the original plan.

The original target was 2023, so is Berger saying he already had inside information that it wouldn’t fly before 2033?

If, yesterday, you’d told me 2027, I’d have believed you!

We might actually find out, because there was a 2nd circumlunar tourist trip planned. If that’s still going ahead, maybe it’ll just be promoted to the ‘slot’ that was previously allocated to Dear Moon?

Source?

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23:23 “Most of the IVA suits have an inseam zipper …”

Just checking that everyone (who wants to) has seen this in action. Here’s Sultan Al Neyadi putting on his IVA suit without assistance while on the ISS. (32:49 to 38:12.)

Is anyone aware of a better video of the suit than that?

Am I supposed to be a mind reader?

I don’t mean SpaceX, I mean Elon Musk

Neither your comment, nor the article you are commenting about, mentions Elon Musk once! What am I supposed to think?

And if it’s him you’re talking about, then what does your term “disgusting extravagance” apply to? All those super yachts and private islands he owns and spends so much time on? /s

Are all rocket missions a “disgusting extravagance” or just the SpaceX ones?

The dozens of launches to the ISS? The Intuitive Machines moon lander from couple of months ago? All those TV satellites servicing various parts of the world? The hundreds of communications satellites?

“WorldView Legion 1 & 2” sounds like a computer game and its sequel! For half a second I genuinely wondered whether I’d misunderstood some aspect of how Lemmy works, or something, and was seeing posts from a different [subreddit] …

It’s CRS-3.

Incidentally, it was the first mission to demonstrate the landing manoeuvre, albeit out in the ocean. The video was corrupted but the NSF forum helped SpaceX to tidy it up.

Oh yes! Do we know the reason? (I assume it’s not just this Falcon 9 getting paranoid in its old age!)

At 0:18 we see what I presume is the mission control room near the launch site.

But the camera wasn’t actually shaking that badly, was it? That was a special effect added for this video, right?

From the official NASA coverage:

https://www.youtube.com/live/PJAUetG6C2E?t=42m25s “It performed norminal … excuse me … nominal, which basically means normal”.

I actually genuinely prefer when the SpaceX commentators accidentally say “norminal”, precisely because “nominal” does NOT mean ‘normal’. It’s closer to the opposite.

If Alice was thinking of buying a car from Bob and I told her “the vehicle I bought from Bob works fine, nominally”, she would rightly take that as a warning.

If my family member was in space and I heard on the nets “safety systems nominal”, I’d be bricking it!

AFAICT it’s only the space industry that gets this wrong.

Probably shouldn’t be commenting on a 3-month-old post on a memes forum, but this seems highly inaccurate to me. Do you have a source for it?

From https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-3 :

00:02:42 Booster MECO (most engines cut off)

So we have a 2nd meaning for the acronym “MECO”!

(MECO 2, you could say 😊 )

My updated guesses, after seeing the other comments, and some further thought.

• 25% he’s talking, confusingly, about Starship
• 25% he’s mistaken in some other way
• 50% this is actually the plan

My guesses

• 15% he’s talking, confusingly, about Starship
• 25% he’s mistaken in some other way
• 60% this is actually the plan

That’s actually what worries me about this. If they are thinking of reusing 2nd Stages from the Falcon 9, does that suggest we need to start being more pessimistic about Starship timelines?

Not necessarily, of course. I think they’re committed to continuing to fly the Falcon 9 as long as customers want it? So extra F9 reusability could still be worth the investment, even if they were predicting Starship to be operational very soon.

Also, this could just be recovery for inspection, not for reuse.

I for one welcome even just the hope that it might happen!

Is the 2nd Stage too heavy for a net? It’s probably too much to hope that Ms. Tree comes out of retirement, right?

Any chance they could use second-hand dragon parachutes?