Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
SpaceX Launches DSCOVR Satellite at Last, but Skips Rocket Landing
Source: NBC
The third time was the charm for SpaceX — which launched the Deep Space Climate Observatory on its Falcon 9 rocket, but decided against trying to land the rocket's first stage on an oceangoing platform in rough seas.
The sunset liftoff took place at 6:03 p.m. ET Wednesday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, under perfect weather conditions. But how about the conditions for recovering the rocket after launch? Forget about it, SpaceX said.
The California-based company said its autonomous spaceport drone ship and its accompanying fleet of other vessels were heading back to port in Jacksonville, Florida. In a statement, SpaceX explained that the weather was too dangerous to keep the equipment and crew stationed hundreds of miles out in the Atlantic:
"The drone ship was designed to operate in all but the most extreme weather. We are experiencing just such weather in the Atlantic with waves reaching up to three stories in height crashing over the decks. Also, only three of the drone ship's four engines are functioning, making station-keeping in the face of such wave action extremely difficult. The rocket will still attempt a soft landing in the water through the storm (producing valuable landing data), but survival is highly unlikely."
In a series of tweets, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said the drone ship was leaving to avoid a "mega storm," and that the chances of the rocket stage's survival were less than 1 percent. He said he was "planning a significant upgrade of the drone ship for future missions to handle literally anything," and joked that he might even install a Merlin rocket engine on the ship.
<snip>
Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/spacex-launches-dscovr-satellite-last-skips-rocket-landing-n304656
5 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
http://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/DSCOVR/epic_simulated_image.html
Simulated View of Rare Earth-Moon Images from DSCOVR
Epic Camera Particles and fields from solar storms have the potential to disrupt power grids, telecommunications, and transportation systems on Earth. From its orbit nearly one million miles from Earth, NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) will collect measurements of solar activity that will be used by NOAA to make timely forecasts of this space weather. Other DSCOVR instruments provided by NASA will keep a steady eye on the sunlit side of Earth as it rotates, providing new views of our atmosphere, clouds, vegetation, and the planet’s radiation budget.
Data from one of these NASA instruments, the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), will be used to produce a series of true color images of Earth every day. Once every few months the moon will be directly between the spacecraft and Earth and will appear in the EPIC field of view. This simulated image shows what this rare “lunar conjunction” should look like.
The Earth in this simulated image is a composite of data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) currently orbiting on two NASA satellites. The moon image was created from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) data. LRO is a NASA Planetary Science mission. The simulated image is scaled and blurred to provide a close approximation to the expected EPIC images. The image was generated by Karin Blank at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland.
The first EPIC “Earth at noon” images are expected to be available to the public six months after the launch of DSCOVR. The images will be posted to a NASA website approximately 24 hours after they are taken.
Simulated View of Rare Earth-Moon Images from DSCOVR
Epic Camera Particles and fields from solar storms have the potential to disrupt power grids, telecommunications, and transportation systems on Earth. From its orbit nearly one million miles from Earth, NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) will collect measurements of solar activity that will be used by NOAA to make timely forecasts of this space weather. Other DSCOVR instruments provided by NASA will keep a steady eye on the sunlit side of Earth as it rotates, providing new views of our atmosphere, clouds, vegetation, and the planet’s radiation budget.
Data from one of these NASA instruments, the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), will be used to produce a series of true color images of Earth every day. Once every few months the moon will be directly between the spacecraft and Earth and will appear in the EPIC field of view. This simulated image shows what this rare “lunar conjunction” should look like.
The Earth in this simulated image is a composite of data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) currently orbiting on two NASA satellites. The moon image was created from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) data. LRO is a NASA Planetary Science mission. The simulated image is scaled and blurred to provide a close approximation to the expected EPIC images. The image was generated by Karin Blank at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland.
The first EPIC “Earth at noon” images are expected to be available to the public six months after the launch of DSCOVR. The images will be posted to a NASA website approximately 24 hours after they are taken.
Via Al Gore https://twitter.com/algore/status/565660344098775041
