New spoonerism deployed: GRIN FIDS

A view of sep from the trunk during the livestream at T+9:24

More views from the trunk at T+ :

• 10:28
• 11:18 (which then switches to an internal camera?)
• 12:04

165 launches with the Falcon 9 rocket (no Falcon Heavy missions) last year, up from 134 Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches in 2024 and 96 Falcon flights in 2023. The company plans “maybe 140, 145-ish” Falcon launches in 2026, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell told Time earlier this year. “This year we’ll still launch a lot, but not as much,” she said. “And then we’ll tail off our launches as Starship is coming online.”

Called it!

Was it a good idea for Orion to have a jettison system? A liquid-only one?

What about, instead, a small airlock, containing a basket with a pusher mechanism? And bags that can fit into the basket snugly?

Some bags designed for men to directly urinate into? Or perhaps just have a tank that empties into them? Some bags to act as the outer bag for smaller bags of fecal matter? Some bags for general trash?

P.S. And presumably in this case all the jettisoned material remains on an almost identical free return trajectory and will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere at a similar time/place to Orion, and burn up?

Sorry Eric, nobody’s perfect.

this marked a point of no return for more than a week

Counterpoint

Will the descent module touch down softly and act as a comms relay?

Will they try 3 slightly different designs of helicopter to see which works best?

28:22

In hindsight we had all the schedule margin in the world against the Soviets. We went to the moon. We left in 1972 and no human’s been back since [then].

Yeah but that’s because the Soviets cancelled their effort after losing the race, right?

(But maybe it’s a very good sign that this was the biggest potential nitpick I can think of after listening?)

https://sh.itjust.works/post/56788160

Will Robinson-Smith interview of Jared Isaacman, upload date 2026-03-14, https://youtu.be/q_Y0qUQUbrk :

We haven’t even determined if we’re going to use ICPS on Artemis 3. We may not have to.

Eric Berger shilling SpaceX

Did you read the article?

I feel compelled to comment here (a Lemmy forum centred around itjust.works?) about another comment (on a Zenforo forum centred around arstechnica.com?) about another comment (on a Disqus forum centred around thespacereview.com?) about the ICPS.

for Arty 3, SLS doesn’t need to launch with an ICPS at all: it’s perfectly capable of getting an Orion to LEO using only the core and SRBs. … This requires that somebody (likely Teledyne-Brown) manufacture an adapter … If they can get this done in a bit more than a year, Arty 3 could be ready to go in 4Q2027. That then leaves the ICPS that was meant for Arty 3 available for Arty 4, which should be the Moon landing.

I wonder whether this is a good idea, and how likely it is that NASA would have already considered it.

Voice calls are allowed, so maybe it’s time to revive the 56k modem!

But seriously, as a non-expert I genuinely wouldn’t be surprised if you told me the audio stream was the easiest option, if the approved apps are all somewhat tamper-resistant. (Probably a very different process though, converting 20th Century analogue telephone line signals, versus converting just-decompressed digital audio.)

I mean, there’s not exactly zero resemblance between him and the bridegroom.

Time to start spreading the rumour that he was raised by wolves who named him after the director of this film and a portmanteau of the film’s title :)

Out of those 13 missions, I believe only 1 person has flown twice, and he’s not from NASA. He’s Mr Fedyaev.

This mission is the first where all four crew members are using the new SpaceX suit design. (Some details were given by the SpaceX guy at a NASA Crew 12 press conference earlier this year.) So presumably Fedyaev is the only person to have won both types of suit in space. Perhaps he’s giving SpaceX some comparative feedback.

Petition for SpaceX’s next rocket to be called: New Gwynne

Official NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 Arrival & Welcome Remarks

• 4:00:30 looks like Fedyaev and Adenot jointly opening the hatch. Don’t remember seeing footage like this before.
• 4:25:45 - 4:26:00 Any Russian-speakers fancy translating Fedyaev’s joke? I fear that I’m missing out :)

This is also the 13th launch of serving NASA astronauts on Dragon. (It’s the 12th operational mission, but there was also Bob & Doug on Demo-2.)

I was especially glad to see the scene at 21:59 and was saying “and that’s just the top 2/5 of the overall rocket”. No matter how often you remind yourself of the size of the thing, it’s never enough!

P.S. I checked, and it’s actually a little over 2/5. More like 42% (my favourite 2-digit number!).

Don’t know if I’m jaded but I’d guess about 5-10% chance of Starliner 2 happening before SpaceX Crew-13.

Relevant Steve Stich comment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I12pFrHAuQI 38:23 - 39:50 (And also 30:46 - 33:25)