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Boac wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 20, 2021 11:46 am

I believe it falls over?

Boac wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 20, 2021 12:34 pm

Where to start?

I'm not sure................, but any non-aerodynamic lunar landing solution needs to get to the moon. So either make totally new design which can be carried inside a Starship to lunar orbit - or................... have someone else do the transit flight and park your SS in orbit?

I must admit it seems strange way of going about it. Like you I would ask for a lower C of G. Awful lot of shuffling about!

NASA, SpaceX declare Crew-2 astronaut mission 'go' for Thursday launch

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA has given SpaceX the official go-ahead for the launch of its next crew mission to the International Space Station.

That mission, called Crew-2, will blast off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 6:11 a.m. EST (1011 GMT) on Thursday morning (April 22) from NASA's historic Pad 39A and Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It will be the second flight of this particular Crew Dragon. The capsule, named "Endeavour," first carried NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to and from the space station last year for the Demo-2 test flight.

It will also be the second flight for the first stage booster, which previously ferried the Crew-1 astronauts to the space station on Nov. 18, 2020. Strapped inside the Dragon will be four veteran crewmembers: NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Thomas Pesquet and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide.

SpaceX's Crew Dragon marks the third different space vehicle for both Hoshide and Kimbrough, as the duo followed in the footsteps of Crew-1 astronaut Soichi Noguchi of JAXA. (Noguchi became the first astronaut to fly in three different spacecraft — the space shuttle, the Soyuz, and now the Crew Dragon — when he launched in November 2020.)

Last week, NASA and SpaceX met for a flight readiness review to go over the spacecraft and launch vehicle to ensure both were certified and ready to fly later this week. The teams went through their checklists and only left one minor issue to work through prior to liftoff.

One of those issues was concerning how much liquid oxygen is loaded onto the launch vehicle. Falcon 9 relies on two components to fuel its trips to space: rocket-grade liquid kerosene and liquid oxygen.

According to Bill Gerstenmaier, current vice president of build and flight reliability at SpaceX (and former head of human spaceflight at NASA), said in a news conference last Thursday (April 15) that the teams detected a small discrepancy in the amount of liquid oxygen loaded into the launcher compared to the amount SpaceX had expected.

The second test flight for Boeing's Starliner crew capsule, known as the Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) mission, won't lift off until late this summer. After months of delays, NASA and Boeing have pushed the launch from April to no earlier than August, citing severe weather and technical problems with the spacecraft's avionics.

Boeing would be ready to launch the uncrewed Starliner spacecraft to the International Space Station in May if an earlier opportunity should arise, the company said in a statement. However, a May launch would depend on the schedule of other space station servicing missions, the availability of the United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket and the Eastern Range spaceport, the company added.

"The Starliner team has completed all work on the OFT-2 vehicle except for activity to be conducted closer to launch, such as loading cargo and fuelling the spacecraft," Boeing said in the statement. "The team also has submitted all verification and validation paperwork to NASA and is completing all Independent Review Team recommended actions including those that were not mandatory ahead of OFT-2."

Following a botched first test flight in December 2019, during which Starliner failed to reach the International Space Station, a review team at NASA identified 80 issues for Boeing to fix, mostly in Starliner's software. This failure delayed the first Crew Flight Test (CFT), which is now scheduled to launch in September at the earliest. Flying on the CFT mission will be NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore, Nicole Mann and Mike Fincke.

The company's engineers are currently conducting software simulations, including end-to-end confidence and integration testing that will serve as a mission dress rehearsal before future Starliner flights. Boeing said it expects to conclude all software testing in April.

The Starliner team is already preparing for CFT and recently ran an exercise with astronauts suiting up and climbing aboard the OFT-2 spacecraft for a fully integrated and powered checkout of life support and communications systems.

NASA's Commercial Crew Program awarded Boeing a $4.2 billion contract in 2014 to launch between two and six crewed missions to the International Space Station on its new Starliner spacecraft. At the same time, SpaceX received a similar contract, valued at $2.6 billion, to launch NASA astronauts on its Crew Dragon spacecraft.

ian16th wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 20, 2021 6:43 pm

The real way to do it!

Mars.jpg

Hollywood Version.