Posted on 01/24/2018 5:29:08 PM PST by BenLurkin
A commercial space company seeking to shine among the satellite launch industry has secretly sent its own "star" into orbit.
Rocket Lab on Wednesday (Jan. 24) revealed to the world that "The Humanity Star" is circling Earth and is expected to become the brightest object in the night sky. Covered in 65 highly-reflective panels, the satellite is rapidly spinning, reflecting the sun's light back onto the planet, much in the same way that a disco ball casts light onto a dance floor.
From the ground, the geodesic sphere-shaped satellite will appear as a bright, glinting star quickly traversing the night sky.
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Secretly launched on board "Still Testing," the second test flight of Rocket Lab's Electron carbon-composite booster, The Humanity Star satellite lifted off on Sunday (Jan. 21) at 2:43 p.m. local time (0143 GMT; 8:43 p.m. EST Jan. 19) from the U.S.-based company's Launch Complex-1 on the MÄhia Peninsula in New Zealand.
The 55-foot-tall (17-meter) Electron rocket also lofted three commercial nanosatellites: a Dove Pioneer Earth-imaging satellite for Rocket Lab's launch customer, Planet, and two weather and ship tracking Lemur-2 satellites for Spire. The latter two satellites were subsequently sent into a circular orbit by Rocket Lab's kick stage, also revealed this week.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
That girl has a very expressive face. I enjoyed her work on Breaking Bad.
No more than the ISS or Iridium flares.
It’s good advertisement for the company and cost them very little.
Thanks for the advice. We used to live near South Mountain, but not now.
I believe we must weaponize space, if we don’t THEY will.
Still it makes me sad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=16&v=NGyeULvpQdY
I thought disco was dead.
Light/ Noise pollution, Smoke
It is dead Jim, but the space race aint.
Trump was right to let Space X send Zuma aloft, were she was promptly declared lost.
Wanna bet Zumas reporting home to Mama?
Trump was right to let Space X send Zuma aloft, were she was promptly declared lost.
Wanna bet Zumas reporting home to Mama?
Astronomers the world over will love him, the same way everybody enjoys their neighbor testing his air-horn at 3 AM.
I am with you. I havent even seen it yet and I know already Im not going to like it obscuring my view of My unpolluted night sky.
Waiting for the coke ad.
First. The orbit of the Humanity Star is above where the airframe of an ICBM would ever get. Stage 3 separation of a Minuteman III missile occurs at about 55 miles, +- depending on the target. The orbital altitude of Humanity Star is much higher than that to allow it to even maintain orbit for the nine month mission.
Second. After Stage 3 separation the Propulsion System Rocket Engine will burn for a few minutes or less to adjust velocity and trajectory before separation of the re-entry vehicle (RV). Once the RV is released it will finally end up intersecting the orbital height of the Humanity Star and the probability of collision is astronomically small. If they did collide the speed of the RV combined with the speed of Humanity Star would destroy both immediately. The kinetic energy of even a glancing blow would be so great as to destroy them and the pieces of the RV, due to the initial trajectory, would not be able to travel far enough to clear the Pacific Ocean.
If somehow they just grazed each other and remained intact the RV would still not have the energy or trajectory to do anything but hit the ocean.
Echo was more of a passive repeater experiment for radio communications, although it had the added effect of being bright and visible. I can remember my Dad pointing it out from our backyard in what was then somewhat bucolic and rural central NJ. This new one isn’t really adding any more artificial light to the skies, just reflecting what is already there. It’s not a light source itself.
Next thing I suppose you’re going to try to convince me is that guy riding the bomb in “Dr. Stranglove” was fake!
After I wrote it I did sort of figure that the orbits would be way off.
“If they did collide the speed of the RV combined with the speed of Humanity Star would destroy both immediately.”
I do find THAT to be interesting! I suppose the speeds are so much more than what I think they are, and would overide the mass of the larger object. (F=mA, with A >>>>>> m?)
That was fake?! Darn! I really thought it was real! :-)
I do find THAT to be interesting! I suppose the speeds are so much more than what I think they are, and would override the mass of the larger object.
The velocity of the RV would be somewhere around 12,000 mph. Since I could not find any orbital documentation of the Humanity Star I cannot give a decent estimate as to how fast it is traveling. Anyway, this is just a "Kinetic Kill" scenario.
When an RV is released it is still traveling away from the earth. Think of it like lobbing a baseball as the actual powered/guided flight time is about five minutes. It keeps going up until gravity finally brings it back. All the aiming is done at the beginning yet we are so good that if we target the 50 yard line of a football stadium we will hit the stadium. I was honored to launch a Minuteman III that had three RVs and one of them targeted a water tower on an island. The RV hit at the base (4500 miles away) and toppled the tower.
Can they send John Travolta with it?
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