SpaceX Dragon huffs, puffs... and fizzles out as NASA aborts ISS boost NASA has made progress with plans to boost the rapidly decaying orbit of the Swift observatory while calling an abrupt halt to an attempt to reboost the International Space Station (ISS) using SpaceX's Dragon. Following a successful demonstration on September 3, NASA and SpaceX were trying for a 19-minute, 22-second burn using …
From the sound of the task, not a spacex job. Spacex usually just throws some pasta against the wall to see if it sticks. Problem in this case is it is a new problem since there is no attachment point for the boost. So while I'm sure spacex would give it a boost, it is also likely to rip the thing in half. Musk would just go, oh well, try something else next time. What they need is a company who actually simulates what they are going to do and see if it works, then sim some more and more and more. When they are sure it works, then try the one shot they have.
SpaceX definitely does sims and simmed this.
The boost is done by the way.
Second time the charm.
I wonder what happened to Starliner and even New Glenn.
Where's the first time success?
The thing is, space is hard, period.
And SpaceX has had repeated successes.
Yes, even Starship.
>"The Katalyst vehicle must therefore be ready to launch within months, rather than the years that such a mission would usually need."
All possible and has been done successfully before. Reference Mercury, Gemini, Apollo. Even the Space Shuttle once it was operational.
The only question is whether the time and money will be invested to get it done in months rather than years.
Most of those missions had years of planning, not months. SpaceX and Rocket Lab are the two companies in the US that could handle this. Possibly ISRO as well.
Can’t find how large their booster is or what launch provider has been selected, but $30 million isn’t enough for a dedicated SpaceX launch.
"All possible and has been done successfully before. Reference Mercury, Gemini, Apollo. Even the Space Shuttle once it was operational."
And, in all cases, with years of design and planning for that exact situation, docking ports, robot arms, whatever. In this case, less than a year to go and the object has no attachment point designed for the job.
This doesn't have to happen. The 'futuristic village' will end up growing and become an industrial junk yard. Even with no semi-permanent inhabitation, the Moon is slowing becoming a trash zone of failed landers, left behind landers, dead probes, etc. The Moon could be cleaned up at this stage, but nobody wants to invest the money (where have I heard that before). But we have Russia, China, and a variety of others sending their exploratory trash to the Moon. How much of that comes back? Now NASA wants to build a trash enabling village there? And maybe the village needs/wants to grow. More infrastructure needed, old infrastructure needs to be updated—and like Earth—the place starts to look like a shithole because—wait for it—nobody wants to invest the money to clean up the trash. Nobody will/can enforce clean ups, and everyone will pass the buck and argue "It wasn't us!" And the Moon that Mankind has marvelled at for CENTURIES ends up with a shit stain seen from Earth. Brilliant job from the epsilons on Earth. What a legacy. F*kc.
I say JUST LEAVE the Moon alone.
