DARTing Away
Nov. 24th, 2021 06:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerDriving back from work yesterday, the short radio newscast I listen to mentioned the DART space probe was preparing to launch. I’d heard about that impending attempt to crash into an asteroid’s moonlet and alter the smaller space rock’s orbit. In knowing the plans were about to try and transition into reality, I did also think it might be a chance to get a post together to this journal. Ideas haven’t been coming together that fast in the weeks just past, and being able to comment again about something other than “lightweight entertainment” and “computer hobbies” did seem a little appealing.
The news item also mentioned a SpaceX rocket was going to launch the probe, which got my attention for all that I remain cautious about puffing up the company. Glancing at the NASA site revealed the rocket was “just” a Falcon 9, although Delta II rockets have sent landers to Mars. I also noticed its first stage was getting scorched, if not quite as blackened as some have become.
When I went to the NASA site the next morning I saw DART had managed to launch, but there was no mention there of whether the first stage had used up all its fuel and been expended to boost an interplanetary payload. I eventually resorted to Wikipedia and saw a note about the stage landing on one of SpaceX’s winkingly named barges; it at least hadn’t done what still might outrage my sensibilities a bit and cancelled out its downrange velocity to return to shore. Poking further into Wikipedia’s coverage of the Falcon 9 (although there is that matter of “maybe you could do still do with verification from an external source”) I found some notes about first stages being turned around in a month, seeming proof at last they need less refurbishment than the space shuttles wound up requiring if not how much all of it costs.
The news item also mentioned a SpaceX rocket was going to launch the probe, which got my attention for all that I remain cautious about puffing up the company. Glancing at the NASA site revealed the rocket was “just” a Falcon 9, although Delta II rockets have sent landers to Mars. I also noticed its first stage was getting scorched, if not quite as blackened as some have become.
When I went to the NASA site the next morning I saw DART had managed to launch, but there was no mention there of whether the first stage had used up all its fuel and been expended to boost an interplanetary payload. I eventually resorted to Wikipedia and saw a note about the stage landing on one of SpaceX’s winkingly named barges; it at least hadn’t done what still might outrage my sensibilities a bit and cancelled out its downrange velocity to return to shore. Poking further into Wikipedia’s coverage of the Falcon 9 (although there is that matter of “maybe you could do still do with verification from an external source”) I found some notes about first stages being turned around in a month, seeming proof at last they need less refurbishment than the space shuttles wound up requiring if not how much all of it costs.