Category: Space

Look, Up In the Sky!

Rocket launch by Uncle Jerry

I just witnessed an amazing sight! I looked to the west and and saw the unburned exhaust of a Minotaur rocket launching from Vandenberg AFB. Now, I’ve seen these before and I still get stunned when I see them, but this time was even better. I got to see the actual vehicle during it’s burn! The photo snapped by Uncle Jerry shows a bright object in the right hand side of the frame, that’s the exhaust plume. At first I thought it was a helicopter flying through a cloud but that didn’t make any sense as it was clear out. Then I realized that it must be the rocket making its ascent. How darn cool is that! Well anyway, I have thrown together a few links about the event.
This is some info on the Minotaur Space Launch System, some info on the Vandenberg Dusk Launch today, and here is some info on how you can keep up with them from Space Archive. If your in the southwest you should have a look here, its the how to on viewing Vandenberg AFB Launches.

And another taken from Kingman Az.

Rocket launch by Uncle Jerry

Rocket launch by Uncle Jerry

By Nogwater

Hayabusa – Asteroid Sample and Return Mission

Hayabusa

Now this is the kind of thing that I like to see in the news.

Here is some current information on the mission:
Hayabusa completes journey to asteroid Itokawa by ion engine propulsion

For more background…

…Scientists hope to gain an even better understanding of the physical properties and chemical make-up of the asteroid using Hayabusa’s instruments to locate potential locations for sample retrieval, scheduled to get underway in November.

When landing sites are chosen, the Hayabusa spacecraft can make up to three passes to attempt to capture a total of one gram of surface samples, or about two one-thousandths of a pound.

The approaches will heavily lean on the autonomous navigation system aboard the probe, which must operate correctly with little input from engineers 200 million miles away on Earth and cope with the extremely weak gravity field of Itokawa. A target marker will be released on the surface as the spacecraft closes in.

During each opportunity, a 16-inch funnel will first make contact with the asteroid, followed by the firing of a small metal projectile into the surface at well over 600 feet per second. Rocks and dust kicked up by the impact will be gathered by the funnel and fed into the sample collection capsule to be returned to Earth.

“It breaks the surface and ejecta climbing up through a funnel-like device are collected by a sample catcher,” Jun Kawaguchi explained.

On the first pass, it is planned for Hayabusa to deploy a tiny rover called MINERVA to move across the asteroid for up to two days by leaping from place to place in Itokawa’s near-microgravity environment. The 1.3-pound rover will take stereo images using three cameras, and six thermometers will gather temperature measurements. …


Ambitious mission hopes to return bits of asteroid

The Japanese Space Agency home page (Translated)

N55 Protest Rocket System

N55 Protest Rocket

Lets just for a moment forget the fact that if you wheel one of these up to a demonstration, convention, or rally your going to get all sorts of unwanted attention like getting thrown into a police car or shot in the head by a sniper. But then again, maybe you like that sort of thing… Kids today…
Anyway, other than that the idea is pretty cool. If you want to read a pretty good over view of how a modern high powered rocket works this is it. Because the BATF has made obtaining black powder motors next to impossible, the NO2 (nitrous oxide) and plastic motors have become very popular. Its amazing what will produce thrust if you give it a good oxidizer.

    Technical specifications:

    Maximum speed: approx. 475 m/s or 2600 km/h
    Apogee: 5200 meters at a launch angle of 85 degrees
    Net weight: 8,5 kg
    Fuel weight: 3.8 kg

    Component list:
    Steel tube Ø 102 mm
    Acrylic tube Ø 100 mm
    Rocket head: Fiberglass / epoxy
    Cupper nozzle
    Parachute
    Fuel grain: LPDE polyethylene block
    Oxidizer: N20
    Bolts, nuts
    Launching pad
    Launch Control Box:
    Polyethylene box, electric cords, electric switches

[via we-make-money-not-art ]
Manual for Rocket System

Rocket Cam On the Cheap!

rocket rocketcam
Here is an interview with Matt Campbell, why should you read it? Well he took a model rocket and adapted it’s nose cone to house a hacked CVS video camera. The videos of the launch are pretty impressive. The recovery phase of the launch wa a little rough, if there was a way to stabalize the nose cone during decent the video was be heaps better. It’s also of some not that the camera will do odd things to the image is it’s slewed too fast. Go take a look at the video to see that I mean.
The CVS Video camera is going to be showing up in so many projects that it’s bound to win some sort of DIY hackability award (hint hint MAKE, you should have one of these).
I know if I had a few (and yes, I’d want at least three of them) I’d put a zoom lens on one, and turn the other two into a stereoptic video system with variable ocular distance. That would be so flipping cool… Then there would be the ‘lets-make-you-sick’ three inches off the road camera for my car, an underwater housing for those times at the beach, and not to mention a pretty cool payload for an R/C car.