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Jun 19 • 15 tweets • 6 min read
No fairing separation views… #Globalstar
SECO-1 at 533 km altitude, 26280 km/h.
Whatever could have been riding on top seems to be targeting a circular ~535 km high, ~52 deg. inclination orbit per the telemetry read-outs right now. I don't think such an object - if it exists - will deploy after the 2nd burn now that the orbit post-SECO-1 ends up circular.
I think a search for something in a 530 x 530 km, ~52 deg. orbit might be in order. I'm not 100% convinced there's sth else either but nothing else could have explained the lack of 2nd stage camera views.

@Marco_Langbroek @planet4589 @cgbassa
Well bam! 2nd stage views mysteriously recovered for the 2nd burn. 😉🙃😏
Hmmmmmmm......a cylindrical adaptor, the Globalstar satellite on one side, and....what's that "net" in front? That doesn't look like any satellite adaptor I have seen before.

Does anyone knows how the X-37 is linked to Atlas V/Falcon 9, just in case?

Or is that something else?
For comparison: 6 Globalstar-2 stacked on 2 layers on top of the Fregat upper stage at Baikonur, January 2013 (photo by I think @Arianespace, via @nicolas_pillet)
Well the plot thickens.
And I remembered that SpaceX (along @L3HarrisTech) won part of the Tracking Layer Tranche 0 LEO missile warning satellite contracts from the US DoD Space Development Agency, using the Starlink satellite bus...

These are supposed to launch into polar orbits along w/ LEO comms "Transport Layer Tranche 0" sats by @LMSpace & @YorkSpaceSystem - ironically also on Falcon 9 - later this year, but what if we are seeing some test satellites sent into orbit first?

spacenews.com/spacex-l3harri…
Meanwhile ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Is this a shadow Starlink satellite reference /s

2nd stage 3rd burn at 1122 km altitude, lower than 1410 km for operational Globalstar 2nd gen. sats, but higher than the 920 km orbit used by them during orbit phasing when launched by Soyuz-2/Fregat.
In other news, it looks like the 2nd stage's de-orbit burn and/or fuel dump was seen over New Zealand around 07:30 UTC:

stuff.co.nz/national/30061…
So as pointed out by someone else the same Transporter-2 Starlink adaptor (not used on Transporter-1 as those sat below the rideshare decks) WAS USED on Transporter-3 & everyone missed it! Later 4 unknown US military sats linked to this launch appeared...

Thanks to NSF forum member gongora for the tip: forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topi…

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More from @Cosmic_Penguin

Cosmic Penguin Profile picture
Jun 20
SHOTS HAVE BEEN FIRED. I REPEAT, SHOTS HAVE BEEN FIRED.

In a seminar to Nanjing University, Sun Zezhou, program chief of Chinese Mars mission Tianwen-1, has reported on the Chinese Mars Sample Return mission.

TL;DR: Landing on Earth in July 2031, 2 years BEFORE NASA-ESA plans! ImageImageImageImage
For those who don’t know, the Chinese plan is for a simpler 2 S/C profile, an Earth return orbiter S/C and a lander/MAV S/C, w/ digging right over the landing site & no rover involvement. It reminds me of @NASAJPL studies of MSR missions back in the 1990s, but w/ a dedicated ERO. Image
The current plans considers 2 possible mission schedules:

A. ERO launch Nov. 2028 -> MAV launch Dec. 2028 -> ERO arrival Aug. 2029 -> MAV landing Sep. 2029 -> ERO aerobraking complete Mar. 2030 -> MAV launch & sample transfer Mar. 2030 -> TEI Oct. 2030 -> Earth Landing Jul. 2031
Read 9 tweets
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Nov 18, 2021
“Our new Starship is now established, and has an appearance that promises revolution; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except Starlink and Chinese launches.” - (Not) Benjamin Franklin

‘Y know what? It’s the later’s time *again* - and there are 3 in next week!
The most painful part is, of course, no-one but smirking insiders know of anything certain about *any* of them, starting with a SSO launch from Taiyuan on November 20 ~01:50 UTC! The multiple drop zones *seems *to align w/ previous reports of a GF-11-03 launching on LM-4B. Maybe. Image
Meanwhile deep in the NW China deserts, 😂 is launching 😅 to SSO (again) from Jiuquan on November 22 ~23:50 UTC that requires dropping something deep in S Indian Ocean as well! I’m fainting already with no known candidates of what seems to be a LM-2C/D + upper stage (?) launch… Image
Read 84 tweets
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May 16, 2021
After some reading (including a trip down my memory lane of a Grade 7 me reading Spirit/Opportunity mission updates, which kick-started me in following real-time news of space missions) - this is indeed a much longer silence than we usually see.

For S/C that did operate on Mars surface, 1st imagery was released:

@MarsCuriosity/@NASAPersevere/@NASAInSight - ~real time
@MarsPhoenix - ~2 hours
Spirit/Opportunity - ~3-4 hours
Mars Pathfinder - ~8 hours (partly due to landing at night)
Vikings - within several hours
Another good comparison is Huygens on Titan w/ its 1st photos (& whatever data it collected on the way down) acquired within a few hours.
Lunar missions are not a good comparison as we have constant view of the site assuming global Earth ground station coverage.
Read 7 tweets
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May 15, 2021
LOL I didn't expect our interesting neighbors across the Pearl River to be the first bringing the coordinates of the Chinese Mars Rover...

For the record landing time (I assume Earth receive time?) was 23:18 UTC May 14: m.weibo.cn/7340734455/463…

Zhurong becomes the 1st Mars rover to land sitting on the deck of a "conventional" lander, first foreseen for the cancelled Mars Surveyor '01 lander. ImageImage
Deployment animation of Zhurong, which should happen within the next 3 sols per reports.

Source: Chinese Academy of Sciences mp.weixin.qq.com/s/CHHEsu9WuSYD…
Read 16 tweets
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May 14, 2021
Morning from UTC+8.
Not a single piece of update (or rumor) from this side of Earth for #Tianwen1, so this suggestion that lander separation might have occurred (not directly observed) is as much as we get an update so far.
Landing should be in 1.5 hours.

Update on #Tianwen1 from the Chinese side as of 22:54 UTC: Image
Actually due to uncertainties with the single source (the one who posted that 23:11 UTC time indicated in the same tweet that the minutes might be “07” instead) it might be deep into EDL now. I have also seen 23:17 mentioned.

This also assumes the time is Earth Receiving Time.
Read 9 tweets
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May 14, 2021
And so probably the quietest planetary surface operations outside of Earth's gravity influence ever since the end of Cold War begins.

MCC Beijing probably looks like this - something we 99.9% won't see:

Also some notes on what to expect - while Chang'e 3 had a good coverage of its landing on TV, Chang'e 4's safe touchdown wasn't even confirmed until *1.5 hours* after fact. So if nothing was heard for minutes after the leaked time, it could mean *anything*.
And given the coverage on TW-1 is even more quiet than Chang'e 5's so far, I'm not even sure they will talk about Mars rovers in generic terms in early morning local news there.

It might be already excellent if we got one of two Mars photos off the ground in Sol 0.
Read 4 tweets

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