The Space Stuff thread

Thanks @MisterEd,

It looks like ETA is 13:30 GMT. I am ALL ready . . .







UPDATE:

Other than about a 20 minute initial Hold, everything went according to plan and the FOUR astronauts returned safely to Earth.

OK, there are a couple of events coming up.

+05:00 Hours for GMT

Mission Lucy:

> Pre-Mission Lucy Launch

Mission Lucy Information:

> Lucy: The First Mission to the Trojan Asteroids

Mission Lucy Launch:

Due to Launch on Saturday the 16-Oct-2021 at 05:34 a.m. EDT.

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Mission Soyuz MS-18:

Soyuz MS-18 Event happening on Saturday the 16-Oct-2021 which includes . . .

• Coverage of the farewells for the Crew (Novitskiy, Shipenko, Peresild; farewells scheduled at 16:35 p.m. EDT).
• Coverage of the undocking from the ISS (undocking scheduled at 21:14 p.m. EDT).
• Coverage of the deorbit burn (deorbit burn scheduled at 23:41 p.m. EDT).
• Coverage of the landing in Kazakhstan (landing scheduled at 00:36 a.m. EDT) on Sunday the 17-Oct-2021.

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Mission Lucy:

Mission Soyuz MS-18:

Anak said:

Another good launch, thx for the info and video player set up Paul!

You are VERY welcome @Anak.

Mission Lucy:

Well, I must admit that I found this mornings coverage of Lucy truly fascinating, informative, and thought provoking.

I especially enjoyed the informational and scientific videos that accompanied the broadcast, along with the interviews from the mission experts talking about the road to today's launch and the difficulties they encountered along the way.

This is truly an important 12 year mission for the future of space travel and scientific investigation to gain a more in depth knowledge of our Solar System and Universe.

I highly recommend that anybody who is interested in space, space travel, and space investigation, to try and watch the whole broadcast.

Double Asteroid Redirection Test [ DART ] Mission -
Launch of NASA Impactor to Asteroids Didymos and Dimorphos:

This is due to launch on Tuesday the 23-Nov-2021.

The mission is designed to deliberately impact [ crash into ] an Asteroid to evaluate the Kinetic Impact Technique by striking an Asteroid with a spacecraft at high Relative Velocity and observing the resulting change in orbit.

It is part of a future Planetary Defence System to gain as much data as possible to allow us to be able to perform an impact in the future, should there be an occasion when an Asteroid for example is on direct path with Earth.

This will be a definite Mission to watch => Double Asteroid Redirection Test [ DART ] Mission

+05:00 Hours for GMT

Mission Soyuz MS-18 - Saturday the 16-Oct-2021:

• Coverage of the farewells for the Crew (Novitskiy, Shipenko, Peresild; farewells scheduled at 16:35 p.m. EDT).
• Coverage of the undocking from the ISS (undocking scheduled at 21:14 p.m. EDT).
• Coverage of the deorbit burn (deorbit burn scheduled at 23:41 p.m. EDT).
• Coverage of the landing in Kazakhstan (landing scheduled at 00:36 a.m. EDT) on Sunday the 17-Oct-2021.

UPDATE:-

Mission Soyuz MS-18 - Saturday the 16-Oct-2021 and Sunday the 17-Oct-2021:

The undocking [ separation ] and the TWO pre-programmed departure burns to move Soyuz MS-18 a safe distance away from the ISS went smoothly.

The Soyuz MS-18 vehicle has THREE sections . . .

• The Orbital Module [ Upper Section ]
• The Descent Module [ Middle Section ]
• The Instrumentation and Propulsion Module [ Bottom Section ]

The deorbit burn [ a retro grade firing of the Soyuz engines ], which was a braking manoeuvre to slow the Soyuz MS-18 down by 128 metres per second allowing it to drop out of orbit for its decent [ re-entry back ] back to Earth, and the pyrotechnic separation of the THREE modules [ sections ] went smoothly and the Descent Module re-entered the Earths atmosphere.

The drogue parachute opened successfully to slow the Soyuz MS-18 down, followed by successful deployment [ opening ] of the main parachute. The firing of the braking soft landing engines just a couple of feet off the ground to soften the impact went smoothly and the capsule landed upright.

ALL crew members were in good spirits and health and glad to be back.

Soyuz MS-18 crew information and statistics . . .