This excellent piece by @b-lal.bsky.social is a, mainly political, autopsy of the Artemis restructuring...
"authorization without appropriation is aspiration"
It's a serious matter but you can almost turn it into an episode or 2 of "House of Cards" ...
bhavyalal.substack.com/p/class-3-co...
Could do, but then a WDR or at least a tanking test would make sense to check for leaks before getting to launch prep... as said, it will be interesting to see what they brief on Thursday...
This is interesting, given the fact that one of the suspects of the LH2 leak on the TSMU plate was loads induced by the transfer(s) to the pad, so now they have gone back and forth between VAB & Pad with the same LH2 seal in place...
so did they learn something or just going to try...
#ArtemisII
If you dont like Verstappen, fine, ignore what he says, but don't let that blind you on the topic at hand, I gave you 2 British drivers, one the current word champion, who have, on several occasions mind you, been very vocal and negative about this.
Go see what Lando and Bearman said before you point fingers.
Interesting, NASA has planned a media session "after the conclusion of an Artemis II Flight Readiness Review."
Source: www.nasa.gov/news-release...
yes, fans hate it, drivers hate it and Ferrari would have lost anyway (Mercs were 15 seconds up the road) but that is not the point, the point is, IMHO, this is not racing, its is how to manage a battery, for that, there is Formula E.
Fireball, with the Dwingeloo radio telescope on the foreground
The #fireball of 8 March was captured on camera by DAARO! on the roof of ASTRON.
F1 is now a Battery Management Formula, drivers seems to hate it, fans hate it, and now, what does F1 do ? they are hiding opinions... on a rather silly post about the amount of overtakes.
and now it has a community note, and rightly so.
Good luck with the disaster control...
#F1
Meanwhile the keen-eyed observers at Seesat-l have recovered the position of X-37B OTV-8, since it maneuvered last October...
#X37B #OTV8
It's interesting that the timeline is mentioned in the solicitation request, also curious that the possible contract amount is redacted...
#ArtemisII
Note: screenshot from yelistener on youtube, that "strangely" had this video taken down, showing the issue of cars running out of energy.... convenient....
Right, I held off on judgement until seeing the quali today, sorry to say but F1 2026 is rather bad, cars running out of energy, FOM cutting away the speed graph trying to hide this, and don't take it from me -> Lando: "probably the worst cars ever" and Max: "not enjoyable at all"
Lets see...
#F1
Well, if you were wondering if Mercedes were sandbagging, there is your answer...
#F1
Well that does it for EUS, meanwhile the call for a "Vulcan Centaur V Upper Stage for Space Launch System" has been posted, it calls for 3 flight units (1 spare) interesting to see that they at least looked at Blue Origin’s New Glenn Upper Stage (NGUS)
sam.gov/workspace/co...
#ArtemisII
First and second stage of RFA's ONE launcher have arrived at Saxavord, first orbital launch planned for summer this year.
Source: www.rfa.space/rfa-ships-st...
The fact that it is seemingly "just sitting there", on its 4th mission I'd half expected some more maneuvering, possible release of sub satellites etc. etc. but it is early days of this mission so lets see...
;-)
if it would be actively maneuvering it would be a bigger change, this seems to be "just" orbital mechanics at work and maybe some very minor station keeping if even, example is at the start of the mission where there was clear maneuvering
good point, and tiny 49,9855 to 49,9862
Between F1, possible reentry fun and now being sleepy, had a look at the Chinese version of the X-37B... interesting...
As getting descent pictures these days is like getting water from a stone, I've tried to cobble together an overview of the ICPS aft umbilical connections, including the famous helium connection, so at least we can point to something...
Helium QD and seal pictures are still MIA...
#ArtemisII
Was looking for FTS battery pics, and then you find this...
(55% SHARC (Subsonic High Alpha Research Concept)
Some interesting Artemis news, it was already implied that the EUS upper stage would be changed to something else, however it seems ML-2 (Mobile Launcher 2) will also not be used...
Source: www.nasa.gov/directorates...
NASA just posted an update, seal in the quick disconnect was dislodged and was preventing helium flow, now resolved, investigation ongoing as to why the seal was dislodged
Pic of said seal and QD would be nice :)
Source: www.nasa.gov/blogs/missio...
#ArtemisII
Still fine-tuning, I already fixed the low contrast.
Oops, IFT-12 now NET 9 of April
🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿
Meanwhile, during my lunch break, I pulled my little X-37B website into the 21st century and ditched using M$ Excel to create a website, still uses a table but now just using simple HTML and JS, still a crappy website, I know, but does it's job for me :)
Meanwhile, some progress on the Soyuz access platform is being made in Baikonur to get good old pad 31 back up and running
Source: Roscosmos Telegram
#Soyuz #Baikonur
For those curious about the work seen here during Shuttle, this is showing seal removal from the ground umbilical carrier plate (GUCP) after a hydrogen gas leak on the external fuel tank during STS-133
Source: images.nasa.gov/details/KSC-...
