David King

Engr student, SF writer, & space nerd. My favorite person is @veejericaodd ❤ The universe is probably littered with the one planet graves of cultures... - R.M.

[David King @Spaceception]

@Truthful_ast Is this the tanker, or the vehicle that will loiter? I can't wait to see these vehicles leave the factory and being testing.

[NASA @NASA]

LIVE: @NASAAdmin and agency leaders are sharing the latest updates on next year's Artemis III mission and our plans to return astronauts to the surface of the Moon by 2028. https://t.co/G1ya48yeun

[David King @Spaceception]

@Mach5Waffleiron It does give us a conservative lower limit though. If the Starlinks are the same mass as the dumblinks (we know they're 1.7t based on Flight 12) instead of 2t, and the 26 sats on Flight 14 *was* a half load (not "maybe about a half load"), that comes out to ~88t for 52 sats.

[David King @Spaceception]

@SpaceMan1324 @AndrewHard96304 The payloads planned today will probably be the last intended for expendable launch vehicles. HWO may launch on New Glenn 9x4, for example, but it's not going up until the 2040s anyway.

[David King @Spaceception]

@orbital_haze Same with electrical engineers, probably moreso. And I'm a mechanical student. But we can do some nutty things today if you look for it.

[David King @Spaceception]

@SpaceMan1324 @AndrewHard96304 Payload Space estimated ~$100m a while back. If R3s are cheaper than 2s, it probably went down.

Imho, expendable launch, even partial, needs to die. Go for distributed lift and/or use orbital refueling. And if you need something bigger than the vehicle, construct it in space.

[David King @Spaceception]

@Wall_Guy01 @Echo5550 @Truthful_ast @heartagramed I don't know why I thought it would embed

[David King @Spaceception]

@Wall_Guy01 @Echo5550 @Truthful_ast @heartagramed https://t.co/wNh0g7JGmF

[David King @Spaceception]

@ApoStructura @FlightAtlas Starship is going to star showing up more often/consistently soon.

[David King @Spaceception]

@L3landingsystem @OliverNerd7 I think in some ways, boring is great, because then nothing went wrong (ignore the booster), but the ship side was pretty smooth, which allowed for orbit on 14.

[David King @Spaceception]

@ADM_Welsly @Truthful_ast If you could bring along your own hydrogen for CH4, it's a little better, but it's still a mark against it, since you can't source water for life support or propellant.

Venus is interesting further in the future if we can thin out its atmosphere and get to the surface safely.

[David King @Spaceception]

@ADM_Welsly @Truthful_ast And do what? The upper atmosphere is a trap, no natural resources, similar gravity and air pressure works against you, since you need to bring along a MLV/HLV to get back into space (esp. since ISRU is limited to CO/O prop), and the upper atm experiences hurricane force winds.

[David King @Spaceception]

@SpaceBasedFox Goated series

[David King @Spaceception]

@Spaceiscool42 @Mach5Waffleiron It's supposed to hold 60, but yes, assuming Starship has the payload capacity, Starlink is more volume limited than mass limited.

60 sats at 2t a piece (if the mass figures from older sources still hold) would work out to 120t to LEO. Or 102t assuming 1.7t in line with dumblinks

[David King @Spaceception]

@moonwarnow @Wall_Guy01 @Mach5Waffleiron @CobshipStarSon Based on a previous Starship episode, they mentioned the overall payload mass on Flight 12 was 37.5t, which works out to 1.7t per satellite. But I think the operational Starlinks are supposed to be 2t according to various news sources (though I can't find a direct reference).

[David King @Spaceception]

@astro_jaz We need telescopes like HWO yesterday! I want to see planets with life so badly. It's almost worse that there's so many little discoveries that aren't life, but could point there, like exoplanets in the habitable zone, organic molecules on objects/in space, and subsurface oceans.

[David King @Spaceception]

@Alaygroundss Hopefully they're just saying shit then, because if any of that is true, that's.... rough.

But, also, if they're an actual employee leaking videos this blasé, they might just not care about their job, and want to stir the pot or something before they leave.

[JAXA(Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) @JAXA_en]

[Press Release]

Launch time of the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) spacecraft aboard H3 Launch Vehicle Flight No.10
https://t.co/HY7F5SZmpo

[NASA Mars @NASAMars]

The MMX spacecraft carries two pieces of NASA hardware: The MEGANE instrument will be key to revealing the origin of Mars’s moons by measuring their elemental composition.

The P-Sampler demonstration will advance capabilities for surface material acquisition in low gravity. ½