Archive

Posts Tagged ‘SpaceX Falcon Heavy’

Ephemeris: 12/16/2024 – The Europa Clipper mission

December 16, 2024 Comments off

This is Bob Moler with Ephemeris for Monday, December 16th. Today the Sun will be up for 8 hours and 48 minutes, setting at 5:03, and it will rise tomorrow at 8:14. The Moon, 1 day past full, will rise at 6:09 this evening.

Just two months ago the satellite to closely study Jupiter’s second Galileo moon Europa was launched from Cape Canaveral on a Falcon Heavy rocket. The satellite’s name is Europa Clipper. It was originally scheduled to be launched by the SLS rocket but this rocket which is used for the Artemis program was not going to be ready for the mission so they dropped back to the somewhat less powerful SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. Europa Clipper will take 5 1/2 years to travel out to Jupiter with first a gravitational boost from a flyby of Mars and then another one a flyby of Earth to gain enough speed to make it to Jupiter. There it would orbit Jupiter in such a way as to fly by Europa multiple times. Jupiter’s radiation is harsh at Europa’s distance, so the satellite has to get in and get out quickly.

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EST, UT – 5 hours). Times will be different for other locations.

Addendum

An artist's conception of the Europa Clipper spacecraft flying by Europa
An artist’s conception of the Europa Clipper spacecraft flying by Europa. Credit: NASA/JPL.
This is the proposed trajectory of Europa Clipper to Jupiter
This is the proposed trajectory of Europa Clipper to Jupiter. The launch date was four days after the launch window opened on October 10th this year. NET stands for not earlier than. Launching four days after the beginning of the launch window will alter the dates of the Earth gravity assist little over two years after launch and the subsequent Mars fly by about 2 1/2 months after that. However, these all be altered so that the spacecraft will enter orbit around Jupiter at the correct date and time of April 11th 2030. Credit NASA/JPL.

Categories: Ephemeris Program, NASA, Planetary Science Tags: , ,

Ephemeris: 11/12/2024 – SpaceX uses Cargo Dragon to change orbit of the ISS

November 12, 2024 Comments off

This is Bob Moler with Ephemeris for Tuesday, November 12th. Today the Sun will be up for 9 hours and 40 minutes, setting at 5:17, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:37. The Moon, halfway from first quarter to full, will set at 4:39 tomorrow morning.

After the last SpaceX cargo mission arrived at the International Space Station, they used the thrusters on the SpaceX capsule to raise the orbital space station a little bit as a test. SpaceX capsules dock at the forward end of the space station according to direction of travel so in order to boost the station’s orbit they had to flip the station around so that the docking port was at the rear before they could apply the needed thrust. When thrust is applied to an object in orbit the effect of the change occurs mostly at the opposite side of the orbit. In order to permanently raise or lower an object’s circular orbit one must make 2 adjustments 180° away from each other. This is the essence of the Hohmann Transfer Orbit, proposed by German scientist Walter Hohmann in 1925.

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EST, UT – 5 hours). Times will be different for other locations

Addendum

Hohmann Transfer Orbit
Hohmann Transfer Orbit (2) moving, in this case. from one circular orbit (1) to a higher one (3). Moving from point a to point b. The triangle symbol is the Greek capital letter delta, which means change. It reads as delta V, or change in velocity. Image credit: Leafnode based on image by Hubert Bartkowiak in Wikimedia Commons with a and b points added by this author.

Categories: Concepts, Ephemeris Program Tags: , , ,

11/14/2022 – Ephemeris – Psyche spacecraft to launch to its namesake asteroid next October after a 14-month delay

November 14, 2022 Comments off

/

This is Ephemeris for Monday, November 14th. Today the Sun will be up for 9 hours and 37 minutes, setting at 5:15, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:39. The Moon, 2 days before last quarter, will rise at 10:07 this evening.

The launch of the Psyche spacecraft to the asteroid of the same name this past August was canceled due to problems with the spacecraft itself, not the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. NASA thinks they have a handle on the problem and are now wanting to launch in October of next year. If they launched this year, they could have gotten a gravity assist by passing close to Mars on their way to the asteroid belt, where the asteroid Psyche resides. Next year’s launch will not have a Mars flyby and take 2 more years to reach Psyche, a total of 6 years, arriving in 2029. The long flight time is because of the attempt to orbit Psyche rather than just flying by the asteroid. To handle such a maneuver, the spacecraft will also use ion thrusters like the Dawn spacecraft did last decade, which orbited both the asteroids Vesta and Ceres.   Psyche is a special metal rich asteroid that may have been the core of a protoplanet.

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EST, UT – 5 hours). They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Psyche spacecraft at the asteroid Psyche

An artist’s rendition of the Psyche spacecraft at the asteroid Psyche. Credit: NASA.

Categories: Asteroid, Ephemeris Program, NASA, Planetary exploration Tags: ,