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Hi Francisdrake, yes, the grid fins are permanently extended by design. You can see them extended also on the SpaceX CG drawings and animations: https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/starship/ the second stage was fully fuelled. The ice apparently doesn't form on the side covered by heat-shield...

Hi. So this intrigued me and I did a bit of googling. I am surprised that it is not easy to find good information on Orion's antennas, but I found something. There is no HGA, instead several phased-array antennas. See the attached screenshot taken from this youtube video:

Even better: also the SLS is present, at 39B.

In the absence of actual data from Rocketlab, your numbers seem quite plausible. (y) And the fact that you even derived an equation for the r gives your analysis extra credibility in my opinion :) Cheers

Hi Brian, the "50kg wet mass" likely refers to the small "Photon LEO", as it is based on the "kick stage", which is 40 kg dry per the Payload user guide. The "Photon interplanetary" version must be significantly heavier. Also, it is likely bipropellant. Assuming 4 x 0.5m diameter tanks (=...

"Nauka can only have one attempt to dock with the ISS. The fact is that due to an abnormal situation in the propulsion system of the module, part of the fuel mixed with gas and became unusable," https://ria.ru/20210728/nauka-1743189977.html The only back-up left is that if something goes wrong...

Actually, the ship is supposed to fly with the sail/shield in front (left-hand side in your picture) during it's interstellar journey - the sail structure acts as a debris shield, and it is also the main means of propulsion during escape from, and return to, the Solar system (propelled by an...

I think so too. Unfortunately this trend is too common. The silliest example, in my opinion, is to call an awesome deep space probe "JUICE"... ?‍♂️

I'd think that a SpaceX way to reduce the number of tanker flights would be to start sourcing LOx from lunar ice. This way they can also take advantage of all that payload capacity to bring up excavators, electrolysis plants and personnel to operate them ;)

Apparently an official from CAST mentioned the landing will be tomorrow, May 14 23:11 UTC.

The sustainable operations contract will be open to new entrants too. My ideal combination of winners would be SpaceX and ULA. I always liked ULA's dual-axis lander concept.

Right, but I think it is more important than just making a new version of the spacecraft. SpaceX also needs to develop orbital refuelling and the accompanying rear-side docking, it is important for the whole Starship architecture. And NASA can help them with that through this contract. As well...

Typically I'm not one to share my opinions on the internet, but I feel the need to express my thoughts on this historical moment with fellow space enthusiasts here in this community. I think NASA couldn't have made a better choice. I don't share the nostalgia for Dynetic's design. Yes, it would...

So I listened to the recording of the press conference, and yes, this first contract only covers a single crewed landing (2 crew) with return to Orion in NHRO, and also one unmanned demonstration landing (return not required) beforehand. NASA is buying one unmanned and one manned Starship...

Yes, I believe that is indeed random footage. There are several different rockets in the film. The rocket shown at 1:20 is definitely a 7K-L1 rocket. I don't see any escape tower on the other rocket we talked about, only an atypical fairing - looking quite like the illustration of the Salyut 1...

very interesting! Judging by the colouring pattern, it looks to be the same rocket shown being stacked at 5:35-6:00 in the video. At 5:50 they show the rear view of the payload and it looks like a Souyz service section with solar panels! So from that we can infer that it is either Salyut 1 or...

A close up view of the mess of pipes and wires between the engines from an on-board camera was seen in the Chang'e 5 webcast (by the way, that is yet another exciting mission that used this launcher). I don't know if it is of much help, but just in case here is the link: the views of the the...

You're very welcome! I am a huge fan of the Starship and also of all your add-ons, so I'm glad to be able help :) I follow the Starship update threads on Nasaspaceflight quite closely, and I believe I saw it mentioned somewhere that these are just cold-gas thrusters (also I kind of doubt people...

So I found a post with couple of photos of the bottom RCS. There is just a single thruster there: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=51332.msg2139186#msg2139186 And here, just a day later, that thruster has a larger opening around it (perhaps an access cover was removed)...

I don't see any more RCS on SN8 either, I think the set on the nose plus the ones one the bottom (also "leeward" side) of the wing-strakes are it. I don't think more would be needed anyway, for roll, yaw and pitch. For orbital rendezvous they will certainly need to add some more :)