Chinese Engine Test Accidentally launches and explodes.

A rocket stage test firing by Chinese commercial company Space Pioneer ended in catastrophic failure and a dramatic explosion Sunday. Space Pioneer conducted a first stage engine test of the rocket Tianlong-3 Amateur Footage captured by Gongyi citizens and posted on Chinese social media shows the nine-engine test stage igntiting and then, exceptionally, taking off. Hold-down clamps and other structures are typically used to securely keep stages in place. Thankfully, no one got hurt during this shocking accident. Space Pioneer issued its own statement later, stating there was a structural failure at the connection between the rocket body and the test bench. The rocket’s onboard computer automatically shut down the engines and the rocket fell 1.5 kilometers southwest. This launch site was the same site that had a big catasthrophe on the 22nd of June (2024) where debris of a Chinese Satellite Mission fell over a populated area. This has been an MIS Blog Post.

Space · 2024-07-01

NOAA's newest Satellite Launch

Introduction The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has recently launched a new Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) on SpaceX’s ‘Falcon Heavy’ Rocket. It was launched at 5:26 PM EDT frm Kennedy Space Center, Florida, United States. The newest Satellite called GOES U/19 is the fourth and final satellite in the GOES-R Series. Where GOES-19 will work in tandem with GOES-18, which serves as “GOES West.” Together, these satellites will watch over more than half the globe – from New Zealand to the west coast of Africa and from near the Arctic Circle to the Antarctic Circle. The current GOES East (GOES-16) will become an on-orbit backup. Details Liftoff happened at 5:26 PM EDT without problems. Both of the side boosters were decoupled at about T+00:02:30, Booster 1 and 2 Landed at about T+00:08:09 and T+00:08:14 respectively. The Satellite was successfully dropped off in Geostationary Orbit at T+04:30:11, it has a planned lifespan of about 15 years. This has been an MIS Blog Post.

Space · 2024-06-27

What are Black Holes?

The Basics A Black Hole is a Celestial Object that has a very strong gravitational pull that not even light can escape. This happens because Black Holes have an astronimically large mass. The lowest-mass known black hole belongs to a binary system named XTE J1650-500. The black hole has about 3.8 times the mass of our sun. How do they form? Black holes are formed when a massive star reaches the end of its life and implodes, collapsing in on itself. Now you might be thinking our sun could become a black hole, but that is wrong. It’s way to small for that, The sun would have to be about 20 times as massive to become a black hole at the end of it’s life. Different Parts of a Black Hole This illustration of a black holes show us all the different parts. The Singularity is the core of a black hole, this is where all the matter has collapsed into, making a tiny, infinitely dense point. The Event Horizon is the part of the black hole that is actually black, if anything is at this point it will not be able to escape. Relativistic jets are the jets of particles and radiation being produced when a black hole feeds on stars, gas or dust, this results in the jets of particles and radiation blasting out from the black holes poles at near light speed. They can extend for thousands of light-years into space. The Accretion disc is a disc of superheated gas and dust which whirls around a black hole at very fast speeds, producing electromagnetic radiation that reveal the black holes location. The Innermost stable orbit is the inner edge of an accretion disc, it is the last point where an object can orbit safely without falling past the point of no return This has been an MIS Blog Post.

Space · 2024-06-21

How to destroy Black Holes

There is currently no known physical process on how to destroy a Black Hole, but there is the theory that hawking radiation could destroy a black hole after a long period of time. This theory was proposed by physicist Stephen Hawking, the theory suggests that black holes emit radiation due to quantum effects near the event horizon. After an incredibly long time this radiation could cause the Black Hole to lose mass and eventually “dissapear” completely. This process would take ages (far longer than the universe’s current age). This has been an MIS Blog Post.

Space · 2024-06-21

What is Delta-V (Δv)?

What is it? Delta-V (Δv) represents the maximum change in velocity a rocket can achieve. It is a measure of the rocket’s capability to perform maneuvers such as launching, orbiting, or landing. Importance Delta-V (Δv) is crutial for any mission, since you need a certain amount of it to perform the mission, therefor it is calculated beforehand How to Calculate Delta-V (Δv) The equation used to calcute Delta-V is: Δv = vₑ * ln (m₀/mₜ) in which vₑ is the exhaust Velocity, m₀ is the initial mass (e.g a fully fuled rocket) and mₜ being the final mass (e.g a half empty rocket) This has been an MIS Blog Post.

Space · 2024-06-19

How to receive images directly off of Satellites

General Understanding Getting Images off of Satellites is pretty easy, all you need is a simple antenna, a Software Defined Radio (SDR) and a computer or even android mobile device. The Satellites that are most used for this hobby are the American NOAA Satellites and the Russian Meteor M2 Satellites. Both of them are in a low sun-synchronous and almost polar orbit, meaning the countries they fly over will vary. They constantly transmit “images” of the surface of the earth, however they are not captured like typical images. They are being captured by a sort of “scanner” capturing one line of pixels at a time and instantly transmitting them. Differences There are a few differences between NOAA and Meteor M2. The most obvious one is that NOAA uses analogue tones to transmit the images while Meteor M2 uses digital signals. They transmit different “types” of images, most commonly theres APT, LRPT and HRPT. APT (Automatic Picture Transmission) is an analog signal with 2 analog channels, the image resolution is also quite low. [Used by NOAA] LRPT (Low Rate Picture Transmission) is a digital signal with 3 digital channels, it is also a higher resolution than APT. [Used by Meteor M2] HRPT (High Rate Picture Transmission) has a greater bandwidth than APT and LRPT, meaning you can get more channels and a higher resolution. [Used by both] Meteor M2 Satellites also break more often or undergo maintinance. Receiving Hardware Receiving these images is quite simple, the most basic setup you could have consists of a V-Diapole antenna, something like an RTL-SDR dongle as an SDR and an old laptop. You can get a kit with the RTL-SDR BLOG V4 and RTL-SDR V-Diapole for as low as 50€ on a website like amazon. Where is the Satellite? To know where the satellite currently is and when it next passes over your location you can use websites like N2YO or an app like Look4Sat If you are using a V-Diapole Antenna for receiving, it might be smart to orient it to where the satellite is, which is easy when looking something like Look4Sat but might be harder when using N2YO. Software for Receiving You need something like SDR++ to actually use the SDR. If you have a pass coming up soon, position yourself in a relatively free area where you can maintain line of sight with the satellite. Plug your SDR into your laptop and start up your software, if you are using SDR++ then the process is quite simple. Simply select your SDR using the Source menu from the side Put the gain up to max Now the process varies between NOAA and Meteor NOAA For NOAA, you should scroll down to recording settings and select audio As soon as you see a signal like this you should press record, when it dissapears you should wait a bit and then stop recording, after this go to the decoding step. METEOR M2 For Meteor M2, you should select Baseband and scroll back up to select “IQ Correction” As soon as you see a signal like this you should press record, when it dissapears you should wait a bit and then stop recording, after this go to the decoding step. Decoding For decoding, the best option would be SatDump In SatDump, select the Satellite you just recorded and import your file, then simply press on decode and watch the images flow in. Example Images NOAA METEOR This has been an MIS Blog Post.

Space · 2024-06-18

What is Thrust to Weight Ratio (TWR) in Rockets?

Thrust to Weight Ratio (TWR) is a dimensionless ratio of thrust to weight of a rocket, jet engine, propeller engine, or a vehicle propelled by such an engine that is an indicator of the performance of the engine or vehicle. In rockets, it indicates how fast you can go with the weight and thrust of your rocket. A higher TWR means that you can go faster, while a lower TWR means you go slower. On Earth During liftoff you need a TWR of atleast 1.00 to overcome the atmosphere and gravitational forces. In Space While in space, TWR doesn’t really matter due to there not being an atmosphere and gravitational forces being much lower or in some cases even nonexistant. A low TWR in space just means that you will go slow, which in many use cases does not matter at all. Even if you cannot execute a burn due to your vessel being way to slow, you can still, in most cases like changing apoapsis or periapsis, break up the burn into many different burns. How to Calculate TWR Thrust to Weight Ratio TWR is calculated by dividing the Thrust by the Weight (TWR=T/W) Weight Weight is calcuated by multiplying Mass and Acceleration due to Gravity (W=m⋅g) For Earth, The Acceleration due to Gravity would be 9.81 m/s² Thrust Thrust is usually indicated by the Rocket Engines Manufacturer, it is usually measured in Newtons (N) It can be calculated, but calculating it requires some more advanced math that I’m not gonna go into detail with. Here is an article from NASA on how to calculate thrust. Example Here is a generic example of a TWR calculation: TWR= 735,750N/800,000N ≈ 1.09 (Note: To have a TWR > 1.00, thrust must be greater than the weight, so double-check the numbers to ensure accuracy) This has been an MIS Blog Post.

Space · 2024-06-18

How do Geostationary Orbits work?

What is an orbit? An orbit is a regular, repeating path that one object in space takes around another one. It is achieved by going (In earths case) over the atmosphere and achieving a speed that “outruns” the gravitational pull, making you do circles around the earth. Sometimes orbits are completely circular, othertimes they’re elliptical. What is a Geostationary Orbit? A Geostationary orbit is when the object that is orbiting the planet always stays at the same spot from the planets perspective. How is a Geostationary Orbit Achieved? A Geostationary Orbit is Achieved by being exactly 35,786 km over the equator. At this altitude, a satellite’s orbital period matches Earth’s rotation period of approximately 23 hours and 56 minutes. Usecases The most common usecase of a Geostationary Orbit is either a Meteorological satellite or a communications satellite. Even amateurs can receive signals from Meteorological Satellites in geostationary orbit, like for example the GOES series of satellites. This has been an MIS Blog Post.

Space · 2024-06-18

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