Hacker News with Generative AI: Spaceflight

Do these Buddhist gods hint at the purpose of China's super-secret satellites? (arstechnica.com)
Until recently, China's entries in the realm of spaceflight patches often lacked the originality found in patches from the West.

Buddhism, China, Spaceflight, Satellites, Military

6 points by rbanffy 5 days ago | 0 comments

Firefly's rocket suffers one of the strangest launch failures we've ever seen (arstechnica.com)
Firefly Aerospace launched its two-stage Alpha rocket from California early Tuesday, but something went wrong about two-and-a-half minutes into the flight, rendering the rocket unable to deploy an experimental satellite into orbit for Lockheed Martin.

Spaceflight, Rocketry, Failures, Aerospace

13 points by divbzero 24 days ago | 2 comments

Starliner's flight to the ISS was much more harrowing than originally thought (arstechnica.com)
Essentially, Wilmore could not fully control Starliner any longer. But simply abandoning the docking attempt was not a palatable solution. Just as the thrusters were needed to control the vehicle during the docking process, they were also necessary to position Starliner for its deorbit burn and reentry to Earth's atmosphere. So Wilmore had to contemplate whether it was riskier to approach the space station or try to fly back to Earth. Williams was worrying about the same thing.

Spaceflight, NASA, Starliner, ISS, Risk

13 points by xvector 31 days ago | 1 comments

Laser Launch into Orbit (blogspot.com)
Reaching space is hard. Depending on the flight profile, a deltaV capacity between 9.5 and 11km/s is required to reach Low Earth Orbit. Due to the extreme variety in ways to achieve this amount of deltaV, we will use a reference design that we can compare the laser launch methods to.

Spaceflight, Technology, Physics

60 points by EA-3167 41 days ago | 35 comments

Starliner's flight to the space station was far wilder than most of us thought (arstechnica.com)
As it flew up toward the International Space Station last summer, the Starliner spacecraft lost four thrusters. A NASA astronaut, Butch Wilmore, had to take manual control of the vehicle. But as its thrusters failed, Wilmore lost the ability to move Starliner in the direction he wanted to go.

Spaceflight, NASA, Spacecraft

95 points by ranger207 52 days ago | 3 comments

Isar Aerospace launches Spectrum, fails early in first stage flight (nasaspaceflight.com)
Isar Aerospace, based near Munich, Germany, made the first-ever launch attempt of its Spectrum two-stage rocket on Sunday, March 30, at 10:30 UTC from the Orbital Launch Pad at the Andøya Space Center in Norway.

Spaceflight, Germany, Startups, Rocket Launches

96 points by tretiy3 54 days ago | 57 comments

After a spacecraft was damaged en route to launch, NASA says it won't launch (arstechnica.com)
Three weeks ago, NASA revealed that a shipping container protecting a Cygnus spacecraft sustained "damage" while traveling to the launch site in Florida.

Spaceflight, NASA, Delays

6 points by rbanffy 57 days ago | 0 comments

Starliner Astronauts Return to Earth After More Than 9 Months in Space (cnn.com)

Spaceflight, NASA, Astronauts, Space Exploration

23 points by m463 66 days ago | 5 comments

What's behind the recent string of failures and delays at SpaceX? (arstechnica.com)
It has been an uncharacteristically messy start to the year for the world's leading spaceflight company, SpaceX.

SpaceX, Spaceflight, Failures, Delays

11 points by _mitterpach 73 days ago | 0 comments

SpaceX Make the Same Mistake Twice with Starship Flight 8 (youtube.com)

SpaceX, Starship, Spaceflight

7 points by fallinditch 77 days ago | 0 comments

SpaceX launches Starship Flight 8 - Loses attitude control (spacex.com)
On its flight to the International Space Station, Dragon executes a series of burns that position the vehicle progressively closer to the station before it performs final docking maneuvers, followed by pressurization of the vestibule, hatch opening, and crew ingress.

SpaceX, Spaceflight, Spacecraft

67 points by s1artibartfast 78 days ago | 59 comments

Lox – Oxidized Astrodynamics – A safe, ergonomic astrodynamics library (github.com/lox-space)

Spaceflight, Software, Libraries, Rust

121 points by ElFitz 92 days ago | 42 comments

Boeing reports Starliner losses of more than half a billion dollars in 2024 (spacenews.com)
WASHINGTON — Boeing took more than a half-billion dollars in charges on its CST-100 Starliner program in 2024, bringing its cumulative losses on the commercial crew vehicle to just over $2 billion.

Spaceflight, Boeing, Business, Finance

49 points by isaacfrond 105 days ago | 40 comments

Blue Origin reaches orbit on first flight of its titanic New Glenn rocket (arstechnica.com)
Early on Thursday morning, a Saturn V-sized rocket ignited its seven main engines, a prelude to lifting off from Earth.

Spaceflight, Rockets, Blue Origin, New Glenn, Space Exploration

377 points by johnneville 127 days ago | 265 comments

Blue Origin New Glenn Mission NG-1 (video) (blueorigin.com)
New Glenn will launch for the first time from LC-36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The NG-1 mission will carry our Blue Ring Pathfinder and mark the vehicle's first National Security Space Launch certification flight.

Spaceflight, Aerospace, National Security, Blue Origin, New Glenn

67 points by mkl 128 days ago | 99 comments

Why did Saturn V have fins? (stackexchange.com)

Spaceflight, Engineering

4 points by azeemba 128 days ago | 0 comments

Blue Origin New Glenn Mission NG-1 – Live (blueorigin.com)

Spaceflight, Blue Origin, Live Streaming

149 points by trollied 131 days ago | 95 comments

The DSKY Moonwatch from Apollo Instruments (apollo-instruments.com)

Spaceflight, Hardware, History

10 points by janandonly 154 days ago | 0 comments

Aftershock II (uscrpl.com)
Following the successful launch and recovery of Aftershock II, the second of the USC Rocket Propulsion Laboratory’s Aftershock-series solid-motor vehicles, data from the on-board avionics unit was collected and used to reconstruct its flight path.

Spaceflight, Engineering, Research, Robotics

52 points by defrost 181 days ago | 3 comments

Starship's Sixth Flight Test (spacex.com)
On its flight to the International Space Station, Dragon executes a series of burns that position the vehicle progressively closer to the station before it performs final docking maneuvers, followed by pressurization of the vestibule, hatch opening, and crew ingress.

SpaceX, Spaceflight

337 points by hnburnsy 198 days ago | 419 comments

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin plans to launch a new crew capsule on Monday (theverge.com)
Blue Origin is preparing to launch its NS-27 mission with the RSS Kármán Line, its new crew capsule, on Monday at 9AM ET.

Space Exploration, Spaceflight, Blue Origin, Bezos

4 points by thunderbong 230 days ago | 0 comments

The Globus INK: a mechanical navigation computer for Soviet spaceflight (2023) (righto.com)
The Soviet space program used completely different controls and instruments from American spacecraft.

Spaceflight, History, Soviet Union, Technology

193 points by dangle1 230 days ago | 25 comments

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket grounded for 3rd time in 3 months following crash-landing (livescience.com)

Spaceflight, SpaceX, Accidents, Technology

3 points by bookofjoe 231 days ago | 0 comments

SpaceX launches Crew-9 with two people to bring back Boeing crew (nasaspaceflight.com)
SpaceX and NASA have launched Crew-9 for its six-month mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, originally set to launch with four people, launched with only two. The empty seats will be used by Boeing Crew Flight Test astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams is to return home in February 2025. The launch took place at the instant window of 1:17 PM EDT (17:17 UTC) on Sept.

SpaceX, NASA, Spaceflight

14 points by ivewonyoung 237 days ago | 0 comments

Transparency in Cislunar and Interplanetary Spaceflight Activities (planet4589.org)

Spaceflight, Transparency, Cislunar, Interplanetary

9 points by ironyman 238 days ago | 0 comments

Starliner astronaut: We found things that we just could not get comfortable with (cnn.com)

Spaceflight, NASA, Safety, Starliner

40 points by ivewonyoung 252 days ago | 4 comments

The future of Boeing's crewed spaceflight program muddy after Starliner's return (arstechnica.com)
Nearly a decade ago to the day, I stood in the international terminal of Houston's main airport checking my phone.

Spaceflight, Boeing, Aerospace, NASA, Competition

38 points by rbanffy 253 days ago | 47 comments

SpaceX update regarding Starship FAA flight approval (spacex.com)
Jared Isaacman, founder and CEO of Shift4 who commanded the Inspiration4 mission, announced today the Polaris Program, a first-of-its-kind effort to rapidly advance human spaceflight capabilities, while continuing to raise funds and awareness for important causes here on Earth.

SpaceX, Starship, FAA, Spaceflight

76 points by redox99 255 days ago | 293 comments

China's Spaceplane Lands in Gobi Desert, Ending Secretive 268-Day Mission (gizmodo.com)