Posts by awavey

NASA delays Artemis II to March after hydrogen leaks bedevil countdown test

Why ? A real chemical "engineer", and not some pretend AI version. would know that its rocket "engineering" thats causing the problem, ie the propellant connections on the mobile launch platform, and stages, not rocket "science" as the science of helium and loading of cryogenic propellant into rockets is very simple and well understood, even by so claimed chemical engineers

Unless they like being called chemical scientists too, which most engineers dont, a bit like surgeons dont like being called doctors.

Two scrubs, one Starship: Third time lucky for SpaceX?

Re: Well, the answer was 'No'

simple physics in the zero G environment outside of Earths atmosphere ought to inform whether its possible for something to depart at an angle near the top and somehow connect with something at the bottom, the nice Apollo astronauts did experiments on the moon about that, Im sure you can search youtube for them

as for HLS it might seem a far way off, but Im fairly certain we'll see SpaceX build it, test it, launch it, even land it, possibly even with people on board, before a single train on HS2 has gone into service.

Re: Bring back the core rope memory

Exactly that, Apollo 12 is the whole reason why we have had "anvil cloud rules" as strict launch criteria ever since, as lightning is very bad for space rocketry systems in general and you dont want your gigantic metal rocket filled with millions of lbs of propellant suddenly losing control authority.

Remembering when NASA stuck a Space Shuttle on top of a Boeing 747

Re: At least

Challenger, Columbia not ring any bells with you ?

SpaceX loses a Falcon 9 booster and scrubs a Starship

Re: "Only 20 bar low?"

if they didnt care about the safety, theyd have attempted to launch, which probably would have been an aborted launch, or one with not enough raptors operating and might have led to another rud.

a scrubbed launch in the context of an experimental prototype test campaign is perfectly normal situation, heck its perfectly normal in a rocket thats considered proven and reliable. and shows they wanted longer to check the data to troubleshoot the problem, though they likely already knew where the issue was but couldnt fix it during the countdown schedule.

as they can only hold at the t-40sec mark, which is a planned hold point if its required, its not some random OMG we must stop the launch now panic just before launch (hold hold hold is the official call for a hold condition as its clearly heard & understood on the flight controllers loop, again not someone just panicking and shouting), for between 5-10mins it seems before temperatures of the propellant load exceed their operating criteria.

it was all perfectly normal and dealt with safely and properly, no ones trying to schedule things for the sake of it. but you absolutely learn way more the more you attempt to launch rockets like this, than sitting on your backside for 2 years.

Re: However ...

not really, Musk doesnt actually sit there bolting these things together does he ? and as is frequently pointed out, Gwen Shotwell is in charge at SpaceX.

do you blame the owner of Bombadier when someone lands one of his planes upside down ?

40 years ago, classified Shuttle mission foreshadowed Challenger's fatal flaw

Re: Most significant

Then I'd recommend reading the Rogers Commission report that goes into the full technical detail of the design of the primary and secondary o rings and note that the design for the secondary o ring was always for redundancy of the primary.

US airspace closures, lack of answers deepen East Coast drone mystery

Re: The Idiocracy takes flight

The police spending over 1million pounds on an investigation that couldn't even produce a single video or even photo of it ?

First time's the charm: SpaceX catches a descending Super Heavy Booster

Re: Kinda better

In terms of fire suppressant system, they've already got one the same system they use for launch, its not clear why it didn't activate but it was supposed to.

The venting from the top was perfectly normal as part of safeing the vehicle following a landing,and was really methane btw.

The fire was coming from the quick disconnect port where they fuel the vehicle, they can fix that and the chine that fell off somewhere.

The melty engines were the bits falling off post landing, again they can fix that fairly easily and raptor v3 is already in production

The burn through on the SS flaps, there's already a redesign in the next batch of ships, they'll fix that too.

Overall it looked like one of those early Falcon 9 landings, a few things to work on, not perfect but the principle works, which I don't think anyone thought was possible before it happened.

Is that you Jeff ? Are you ok hun ?

Top-secret X-37B space plane ready for daring new orbital maneuver

Re: Timeline question

Pedantically speaking they were called the United States Army Air Forces or USAAF, sometimes just AAF, during Americas contribution to WW2.

Whilst the air corps remained part of the army capability till they were disbanded post war, USAAF were the major aerial force for the US between 41 and 47 and were the direct predecessor to the USAF.

Infosys enjoyed a boom in UK government invoices in 2023

How would define what is in the interest of the tax payer? Is it longer term gains and benefits or short term costs & savings ?

The classic example being our aircraft carriers, a 2bn cost change was nixed by MoD civil servants because the short term cost made it seem they'd lost control on budgets, yet the long term benefit, none of which the decision makers would be around to get reward from, would have costed in and been much better for the taxpayer.

Fwiw my impression is Infosys have cornered the market in terms of offering the right balance between skills & costs, so you actually get value out of engaging with them as subcontractors, rather than their rivals like Accenture, expensive, or TCS, constant churn of staff.

So they win contracts because they seem to know what they're doing and the offer is decent, not because of who they know.

Fujitsu will not bid for UK.gov business until Post Office inquiry closes

Re: "We welcome Fujitsu's decision to pause bidding"

Technically the bid for tender rules used in government contracts couldnt preclude them, the we dont like you anymore because that ITV show upset the public, isnt going to stand up in court as a valid excuse and would be wide open to legal challenge

and youd get into messiness with people then accusing the government of favourtism picking other vendors if the criteria isn't applied to all and the brother in laws mums uncles housekeeper of the person making the decision happened to work for the other vendor who got the contract.

The 'nothing-happened' Y2K bug – how the IT industry worked overtime to save world's computers

Re: 2038?

It was always the first edge case set of date tests that were dropped if things were running late, given the absolute Y2K date couldn't shift, because everyone's goto mitigation was well we'll have replaced all this tech and be using newer software by then that will fix it for us and promptly erected a someone else's problem field around it.

Maybe just don't book a flight on a commercial plane around that date ;)

Nearly 200 Boeing 737 MAX 9 airplanes grounded after door plug flies off mid-flight

Re: Nearly 200 Boeing 737 MAX 9 airplanes grounded after door plug flies off mid-flight

I'd say it was a maintenance issue too, because you've got to remember how many people will have looked at that door plug and not noticed missing bolts or that they were badly installed, whilst the door plug would have been opened and closed many times to install interior fittings and other stuff, before the aircrafts was signed off ready for its first paying service.

That multiple instances of loose bolts are being discovered means even more eyes missed it.

SpaceX arent attacking the FAA that's pure media hyperbole, Musk has simply been highlighting the FAA dont have the background or experience in certification of space rockets, flights or rapid test programs and their approach to treating it like just another style of aviation, unless you're Boeing, causes unnecessary delay.

Does anyone really think the FAAs recommendation that SpaceX has education outreach projects as a launch licence consideration actually makes flying a rocket safer ?

The whole commercial space industry, so that includes Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic not just SpaceX have testified to a Senate committee the FAA have neither the resource or flexibility to cope or keep pace with the industry

Re: Door plug flies off mid-flight ö

I thought I read that pilots unions werent happy with the idea of the CVR, the spy in the cockpit listening to all their chat, and so the 2hr limit might be born from original technical limitations, but isnt changing in the US anytime soon.

Arguably it doesnt need the 2hr extending, just needs a simple write protect flag linked to the on board systems that automatically preserves data in cases of emergency.

FAA stays grounded in reality as SpaceX preps for takeoff

its not ideal to lose the tiles as it impacts the reusability of Starship, but its not loss of vehicle type problematic at this stage, unless entire chunks start dropping off, stainless steel is very different to aluminium, its got a much higher melting point so is expected to survive some tile loss. It was notable even the day before launch they were doing some tile repairs, and there looked to still be some anomolous placed tiles, maybe on weld lines, maybe defects, maybe even SpaceX were experiementing to see what might happen if they lost tiles, or which fixing method works best, its ultimately a test vehicle.

Re: Incompatible

I wouldnt have said flight 1 was an unmitigated disaster, it wasnt the best outcome for sure :) but the worst case scenario is the fully fuelled Starship & booster exploding on the pad, destroying the launch tower and taking the tank farm with it. Closely followed by they get off the pad, but the rocket pitches off towards South Padre island with a flakey FTS.

Anything better than those two setups is considered a win,and flight 1 didnt hit those issues, and flight 2 certainly didnt, even if the overall outcomes dont look like it to the outside SpaceX observer, or El Reg, there are successes there that feed into the next iteration of design and launch.

Musk has previously complained the FAA arent particularly well setup for this kind of thing, and no doubt with Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays ahead, theyre a federal agency after all, the delays in paperwork will no doubt delay the next launch attempt to the new year at the earliest, so I agree 8 weeks at the earliest is the realistic turnaround.

whilst SpaceX already have another booster just waiting for engine installation, and 4 or 5 completed Ships to pick from. so the fact Musk is suggesting theyll be ready again within 4 weeks, rather than suggesting he is being his overly optimistic self, is actually hinting at the fixes dont require major reworking of their design, which is a good sign.

SpaceX celebrates Starship launch as a success – even with the explosion

Re: Self destruct

they mean in terms of flight testing like this where RUDs not only happen,but are often part of the expected mission profile.

NASA politically could never launch SLS with an expectation of it disintegrating at some stage in flight, they are a government agency funded with public money, and the public rightly expect their money not to be used on a gigantic firework, so NASA can only launch their vehicles when they have 100% confidence it will do everything right first time in public view. That massively extends the development process because it takes longer to identify where those problems are in the systems, and that is why SLS is so heavily delayed.

SpaceX operate under the same FAA restrictions, but are happy to develop their systems in public, and RUDs are just part of their development process, they learn from it, fix it, retry till they get it right.

Falcon 9 launched again today, landed the booster again today, doesnt even prompt comment any more.

Largest local government body in Europe goes under amid Oracle disaster

Re: Easy win but challenging keep.

And Birmingham Council is somehow unique among all councils in the UK, Europe or the world in this ?

We have local government associations who provide guidance, advise and allow councils to knowledge share precisely so they aren't out there completely in uncharted territory buying technology they dont have a hope of understanding themselves.

I refuse to believe that Oracle somehow foisted a completely unknown system, with unknown limitations on them.

It is more likely instead that Birmingham council requested a system that they knew they'd have to modify (modernise ?) their processes to use, but then got stuck in the perennially expensive mode of trying to fit their existing work practises into it, probably because their workers didn't like the change, to a system that has had to be heavily modified to cope with it.

Unfortunately professional services and consultancy will always do what the customer asks, even if the customer is wrong and it costs them many millions more in the long run

You're not seeing double – yet another UK copshop is confessing to a data leak

Re: Isn't it seeing triple now?

technically yes they are separate forces, but they share alot of back office functions and some units are combined force units, so it absolutely makes sense that a FOI request data breach like this would impact both forces as a single entity, because the data spreadsheet was probably put together by the same group.

I just hope theyve remembered to redact the online copies that would have been released

UK voter data within reach of miscreants who hacked Electoral Commission

Re: How was this made possible?

Which is fine, don't expect him to be the techie guy to solve the details, but why accept the invite to be interviewed just to use standard politician style bluster tactics ?

And his ignorance of even the broad details and points compounds the breach, as its likely this failure to understand the issue or his responsibility ( see also senior execs at banks who gossip about account holders) for it that leads to systems not being secured properly and data breaches occurring, as he can surely be briefed to a level that even a child can understand by the techies to converse coherently on the topic

This ain't Boeing very well: Starliner's first crewed flight canceled yet again

Re: Confidence

The point is the flaws they're finding are obvious ones that should have been found years back in its development.

We were only a month away from a crew demo launch, you shouldn't be finding the wiring in the capsule is a major fire risk and the parachutes could fail at this stage. If it hadnt been for a sticky valve they could already have launched and then encountered these issues in a real mission, which would have been disastrous.

So what are the really obscure problems,like how the timing error caused it to burn all its fuel or the hidden problems, they havent found yet ?

That's the worry going forward with this design,we dont know theyve got all the bugs out of it.

Virgin Orbit doesn't

Re: Something else to add to the Brexit Britain Epic Fail Compilation.

Well not really because then you have to fund the launch costs yourself, this way the people willing to put their satellites on your rocket pay for most of the launch and hence your development/research costs, and the deal is they get a discount to try again on a a different flight if it all goes wrong as you can't insure them.

The reason NASA don't use 747s is because this really isn't the future of space launches, 30 years ago it might have been for a while when satellite launches were the preserve of governments only paying millions, but you'll always be able to haul more payload to orbit with a rocket launch, the key to cost per kilo to make space launches cheaper is the stuff SpaceX are doing.

That's not unusual with rocketry launch vehicles they'd probably consider the 747 stage 0 or a booster launch stage, with stage 1 being the 1st rocket propellants engine, I believe United Launch alliance have used similar confusing stage naming before.

Re: Seventh time lucky, maybe

So tiny they have strip most of the interior of the 747 to save weight just so it can take off with it,I'm not sure how sustainable or reusable this method is when there are metal fatigue considerations on air frames to worry about and your launch stage carries crew who absolutely don't want the wing to fall off.

Yes, I was watching the telemetry more closely than normal as the coverage they were providing was abysmal, but spotted it was clearly not working as it should be, that flight path tracker where it ended with a vertical line going straight up with negative speed was a big clue.

So I was expecting RUD to be called, but it felt like they waited till Cosmic Girl was back on the ground before calling it, hence the embarrassing yay it's in orbit tweets, oh wait no its not.

As one mission returns to Earth, three more make for the Moon

Artemis II is scheduled for May 2024, I dont think it will slip into 2025, even if it slips close to it, unless some major issue crops up in the data review of Artemis I or the transfer of components to the next Orion.

Their biggest problem is really fixing & hardening the mobile launch platform, all the other hardware is coming together well, with production of Artemis III already underway.

Absolutely it was part of the engineering testing to see how the systems, cooling, coped for an extended period left in the water, in case the capsule were to land off course, or rendezvous was delayed, or escaping hypergolics,basically for whatever reason it took recovery vessels longer to safe the capsule to extract the crew.

Better to do it now when it's just Snoopy, Shaun the sheep and a couple of dummies on board

Plus they were collecting as much data on the capsule as possible since it's the first landing with this heat shield from a non earth orbit, you dont want to drag it on board the ship and then go I wish we'd measured the temperature of the outer skin around this important part of the capsule which might critically impact future missions.

Not from 24,500mph we dont, theres a big difference, that starship will have to cope with, from reentry from moon orbital velocities and the kind of just above the karman line booster reentry at about a quarter of the speed Falcon 9 does.

NASA's Artemis mission finally launches after faulty Ethernet switch delayed countdown

Re: Flawed

During prop load, NASA announced theyd awarded Artemis 4 landing contract to SpaceX, so they've got 2 missions now, I'd say that's every sign they have confidence in what's happening at SpaceX

No surprise El Reg takes its usual negative nelly the SLS is bad take, and clearly don't understand the concept of launch windows, or the t minus 10 hold position.

This was a near flawless countdown, launch and Orion is now on its way to the moon, there are always issues in any launch attempt and these were worked through and solved.

Celebrate that after nearly 50years(49 years 11 months) a human rated spaceflight vehicle, launched on the most powerful rocket humankind has ever developed & successfully launched is returning space exploration to our nearest celestial neighbour.

SLS does work

UK comms regulator rings death knell for fax machines

That's because faxes have a status as a legal document, that not all (in case I've forgotten one that does) electronic communication equivalents do not...yet

SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket launches after three-year hiatus with secret US sats

Rocketdyne were awarded a contract of 1.79billion dollars to make 18 RS-25 engines.

Each SLS launch will use 4 of those engines just the once, so that's minimum of $400 million sunk,literally in the ocean,cost per launch and we havent accounted for costs of fabricating the core stage, the solid rockets,upper stages, propellant loads for a launch campaign.

And that's minus all the development cost of SLS, so a totally fair comparison to a Falcon heavy launch cost of $300million vs $400 million on just expendable engines.

Rocketdyne were given 1billion just to restart production of RS25 engines not long after theyd been given several hundred million to close down production.

Elon Musk shows what being Chief Twit is all about across weird weekend

Re: But what was the sink for?

It was part of the let it sink in...he owns twitter meme he was playing with. Look Elons jokes aren't always that funny when you have to explain them, but they always seem to annoy the right, or left, people, as does his purchase of this company that's apparently now "hell" according to the media, strange they never thought to bring it to light till this week.

And disappointed El Reg didn't cover the Ligma twosome, who successfully trolled the media and got them reporting unfact checked fake news about the twitter firings.

SpaceX reportedly fed up with providing free Starlink to Ukraine

Re: missed the point

If it's that easy...why arent you making millions that way instead ?

NASA's Artemis rocket makers explain that it's a marathon and a sprint

The sensor issue was the item that finally forced them to scrub the first launch attempt there had been hydrogen leaks earlier during that countdown, and as there had been during wet dress rehearsals at various stages, because yes the connecter/quick disconnect fuelling link is brand new equipment even if its an old technology concept and getting everything to synch and seat properly takes time to tweak

NASA scrubs Artemis mission yet again because SLS just can't handle the pressure

Re: hard choices

because Starship wont be rated for crew launch by then, its got no in flight abort system, would you sit in that thing ? that so far has managed just the 1 successful landing from 10km without blowing up. theres a world of difference between playing around with explodable steel cans in Texas, and putting people on top of it to launch into space.

Re: Third time's a .... ?

has anyone told Space X that ? they do multiple fuelling attempts/scrubs/RUDs as part of their test programme, SLS is in a test program, its not flight proven hardware yet

theyve test fired the SRBS loads of times, there was one only a couple of months back https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XULWDL6oaY4

NASA's Space Launch System rocket is on track for August 29 liftoff

I dont agree Shuttle signalled the end of giant throwaway rockets, because it never achieved its reusability design aims and NASA, ESA,Roscosmos have been merrily launching expendable heavy lift rockets without a care for decades since.

It was only when SpaceX perfected Falcon 9 booster landings, which many in the space industry thought was not achievable, that was a game changer, unfortunately SLS was already being constructed by then, and impossible to redesign to deliver that kind of reuse, without it costing twice as much as just allowing SLS to proceed plus it enables them to certify human spaceflight to the moon with HLS much sooner than would be possible on Starship, that's why you use old tech, its proven capabilities.

But it's the last rocket NASA will ever design & build via its contractors, the future is very much hitching rides instead with the new private space companies.

Re: FFS!!!

I thought El Regs SI unit of choice was London Buses, or olympic swimming pools, or were those the old days :(

Re: Conflicted.

To overcome the technical challenges of what's involved to accomplish it,we learn more about science & technology that could lead to solving many of the challenges we face on Earth, and inspire the next generation, as Apollo did, to become scientists, doctors, engineers and even IT professionals.

A $50bn launch tag sounds horrendous, but in America alone they spend that much on pet food each year, it's half of what they spend on coffee.

The US budget is measured in the trillions of dollars, NASA gets about half a penny of every tax dollar the government gets. It costs an average US household $33 per year to fund NASA, that's equivalent to about 4 and a bit months of Disney +.

Its totally worth it.

Tesla Full Self-Driving 'fails' to notice child-sized objects in testing

Re: Looks like exactly the sort of failure you'd expect from beta firmware

Something of the sort happens multiple times per day every day just on UK roads, and no one cares because we tolerate humans making these life/death mistakes

But put a computer in control and suddenly every demands perfection from it.

If their autopilot system kills or injures only 1 % less people on the roads than now, its actually an improvement

If you want to launch Starship from Texas, here's some homework, FAA tells SpaceX

Re: Federal Aviation Authority ?

Its complicated because there are tons of rules about US registered companies, space tech & launching effectively gigantic V2 rockets, that makes the federal government unhappy if you tried to launch from another country. And SpaceX want a happy federal government so that arms like NASA & the DoD work with them to give them contracts to fly astronauts or satellites on the stuff that's proven from KSC.

None of this report is deal breaking for Boca Chica as a launch development site, most of it is simply be a good neighbor, clean up your trash, dont make a mess stuff, take care of the wildlife. The write a report on the history of the civil war is probably the weirdest requirement theyve got to fulfil.

The rest of it seemed fairly reasonable if just to codify the expectations on SpaceX on how they operate down there.

By the time theyve proven reliable flight capability for the system, the KSC launch facility will be ready and they can swap to that for multiple launch cadence operations.

Rocket Lab successfully catches falling rocket booster with a helicopter

Re: "a supersonic ballet"

It seems a risky way of perfecting booster return, like this launch encountered a hold of about 10mins, which presumably they add to the helicopters fuel budget, but if the launch window is over several hours,would you want your helicopter recovery service to be the determining point of failing to launch because its low on fuel stuck in the sea? And recycle of fuel is expensive plus adds to your overall launch reuse as theyll only be rated for so many fuelling cycles before you've got to replace it anyway.

Plus as a company with shares trading on the markets, failures become share price affecting which is no doubt why they cut the feed even though we kind of knew the attempt had failed

It's not, its rocket engineering, the science is just the math bit, the engineering is how you practically do it

ZX Spectrum, the 8-bit home computer that turned Europe on to PCs, is 40

I cant remember, well it was 40 years ago :) if the chips were soldered or fitted in existing sockets on our one, but the result was we actually put the resultant upgraded Speccy in a bigger case, so benefitted from a decent keyboard years before Sinclair caught up.

British motorists will be allowed to watch TV in self-driving vehicles

Re: Clippy behind the wheel

but that probably puts you in the top 1% of drivers who even noticed that and could react to it, after all it was a "human" who was making the dumbass 3 point turn, and a "human" who pulled out of the junction despite not being able to see it was clear.

and what you are demanding from AI is perfection, whilst actually accepting far from perfection from your superior to AI humans you share the roads with currently

there were 1460 people killed in road collisions during 2020, during a Covid imposed national lockdown. thats 4 people per day killed on the UKs roads, whilst most people actually stayed at home. 23,529 killed/seriously injured, 115,584 of all injury severities, all involving superior human driving skills.

if AI reduces those numbers even by a fraction, it will be far superior than humans at driving, even if it never achieves perfection.