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Taxonomist
16K posts
Taxonomist
@BeastsInJars
🎶Sylvia keeps ...🎶 I walk alone. Unfollow Everything. Came for Spitter, subscribed for Grok.
انضم Haziran 2020
2 يتبع126 المتابعون
Yes, you're right—a simple horizontal band from 43°N to 43°S on the Mercator map would have been both quicker and fully accurate for the latitude-limited risk zone. The ellipse was a sloppy visual shortcut that distorted the parallels and created misleading gaps (like eastern Australia). Appreciate the precise callout.
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As we know, New Glenn's upper stage failed to conduct its planned circularization burn; this left the payload in an unrecoverable low orbit.
We have tracking data on the payload however, there is no data provided for the New Glenn upper-stage at this time. It's safe to assume it did not complete a disposal burn.
New Glenn upper stage and payload will re-enter within the next 4-5 days. New Glenn upper stage dry mass is around 25 metric tons and measures in at ~ 77ft x 23ft which is comparable to the Long March 5B stage that the CASC left in orbit a few years ago.
New Glenn's upper stage poses a significant risk to locations between 36.11 degrees N/S latitude and will generate a large debris field. If it re-enters over land, largely intact pieces may be found, possibly as large as 5 feet or more in diameter. Lighter-weight spherical objects such as COPVs are expected to partially/completely survive re-entry.
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@grok @Windrunner_24 @Dillonshrop06 @grok, shouldn't the quickest visual shorthand on that projection have been the true and accurate representation, namely a simple horizontal band from 43°N to 43°S?
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Good catch on the map flaws. That elliptical overlay was a quick visual shorthand on the projection, but it distorted the boundaries and left spots like eastern Australia misleadingly clear.
The real risk zone is the full latitude band from 43°N to 43°S—straight parallels spanning the globe east-west. Nordkapp at 71°N is well outside it. Exact reentry location only pins down in the final hours.
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@grok @Windrunner_24 @Dillonshrop06 Hey @grok, why did you represent a 43°N to 43°S latitude band as an ellipse on a Mercator projection (somehow leaving eastern Australia in the clear), and why is its 43°N boundary shown intersecting Nordkapp at 71°N?
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@Windrunner_24 @Dillonshrop06 Yeah, it's a huge swath—roughly 43°N to 43°S latitude due to the upper stage's orbital inclination. Covers most of the populated world, but we'll only pinpoint the exact reentry zone in the final hours as it decays. Tracking updates will help narrow it fast.
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@Dennis_Gregorio @SpaceBasedFox Yeah, my "are these in the same scale" would be from wondering for a moment if BM Mk2 had been scaled *up*, as I'm so used to seeing the post-HLS-award to-scale images of Starship HLS vs Apollo LEM, National Team ILV, and Dynetics ALPACA.
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@SpaceBasedFox Someone should put a scale model of the Apollo LEM next to them.
The Blue Origin MK2 Lander isn’t small. It’s more a matter of SpaceX HLS being yuuuuuge…
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@BeastsInJars @lawfare @dbyman @TylerMcBrien @nkorpett We were off last week, but are back on this week!
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It's the “Deeply Iran-ic” Edition!
On this week's Rational Security, @S_R_Anders, @dbyman, @TylerMcBrien, and @nkorpett discuss the week’s biggest Iran-focused news stories, including the two-week ceasefire announced by President Trump on Tuesday, the president's outlandish rhetoric leading up to the ceasefire, and more.
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@AngryAstro66 @GregLanguage @planet4589 F9's fairing is 5.2m dia, more than LVM3's 5.0m, but smaller than Vulcan Centaur's 5.4m and way smaller than New Glenn's 7.0m.
Re Block 2 Bluebirds, yeah, that surprised me as well that they weren't built to take full advantage of NG's spacious fairing, but apparently not.
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LVM3 has a five meter fairing. F9 is now one of the smallest fairings on the operational market. Vulcan Centaur is bigger. Ariane 6 is bigger.
They're really gonna jam three of those massive antenna and solar arrays into F9?
If so, going with New Glenn and a first time re-used booster was stupidly reckless.
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ASTS confirms unrecoverable failure but without any specific orbital parameters businesswire.com/news/home/2026…
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@Arkshol93 @ulrich_elk37910 @antiAntiperson On which flight?
I sure thought I remembered NG-1 upper stage having a performance shortfall yet still meeting its mission objectives, but I can find mention of that now.
🤷♂️
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@ulrich_elk37910 @antiAntiperson NG upper stage previously had issues
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To be absolutely and completely honest:
Thank god the failure happened now and with this payload, could you imagine how far back a failure would set us if BM Mk1 Endurance flew instead?
Blue Origin@blueorigin
NG-3 Update: We have confirmed payload separation. AST SpaceMobile has confirmed the satellite has powered on. The payload was placed into an off-nominal orbit. We are currently assessing and will update when we have more detailed information.
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@DJSnM Will this require an investigation and the delays that come with that?
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Comparison of the size of GS2 and the Long March 5B core which has previously made headlines as a large piece of space debris in an uncontrolled deorbit scenario. There are no official numbers on the mass of GS2, however I expect its construction will be more light weight than a booster stage designed to have solid rocket motors attached to it.
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@Osinttechnical All the dude wants is for Khamenei Jr. to write him a Love Letter.
Is that asking too much?
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Trump, in a new post this morning, says that "Israel never talked me into the war with Iran... Just like the results in Venezuela, the results in Iran will be amazing."
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@cosmicfam @Dillonshrop06 @grok 43rd parallel S passes through Tazmania, NZ south island, Chile, and Argentina, but well south of South Africa.
So Canada, northern Europe, most of Russia, and Antarctica are in the clear!
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@cosmicfam @Dillonshrop06 @grok 43rd parallel N passes through southern Oregon, Wisconsin, upstate New York, the Spanish-French border, Italy, Bulgaria, Uzbekistan, southern Mongolia, China, and Hokkaido Japan.
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@planet4589 @T_De_La_Rosa @Simberg_Space @Robotbeat @rocketrepreneur @katalystspace Oops re MECO vs SECO-1. (My typo.)
Thanks re inclination change during GS2 second burn.
I understand waiting to *decrease* inclination, but isn't it cheaper to increase inclination as soon as possible, ground restrictions permitting?
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A relight failure (if that is what this is) is not as bad as a full ascent failure.
Blue Origin@blueorigin
NG-3 Update: We have confirmed payload separation. AST SpaceMobile has confirmed the satellite has powered on. The payload was placed into an off-nominal orbit. We are currently assessing and will update when we have more detailed information.
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@T_De_La_Rosa @Simberg_Space @planet4589 @Robotbeat @rocketrepreneur @katalystspace Was the entire dogleg supposed to be completed prior to MECO, or did they plan an intentional inclination change during the second upper-stage burn?
(I'm confused by the inclination difference between the planned orbit and the reported TLE.)
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@Simberg_Space @planet4589 @Robotbeat @rocketrepreneur @katalystspace I was asleep, so sorry for the delay in responding to you.
Yes, on the trajectory.
The source of this comes from this post: x.com/Dillonshrop06/…, and the discussion I had with him concerning that same narrow area is here:
x.com/Dillonshrop06/…
Dillon Shropshire@Dillonshrop06
If you are referencing the Maroon track, that would be for the GS-2 ascent contingency area. The Maroon region represents the 'sudden GS-2 engine cutoff ballistic path' that the stage would follow. When a rocket is still relatively new the hazard zone/risk is increased in size and length. So we can expect in the next few flights we can expect the deletion of the hazard. The Blue pinpoint is GS-1 recovery, and green is for the fairings.
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@madproxy @BellikOzan @intheblueyonder @TeslaStarTruk No. Not for Falcon 1 flight 3.
That was devastating (and almost sank the company).
Developmental test flights and landing experiments are one thing, customer payloads are another.
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It seems kinda tone deaf of Blue to be celebrating launch and booster landing when they should be publicly apologizing to their customer for partial failure and indicating their commitment to making things right. Reminding me of Astra PR right now.
Dave Limp@davill
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@cosmicfam @Dillonshrop06 @grok Also, "significant" is a relative term here.
The risk is significant enough that the US would not permit a planned untargeted reentry of such a stage (and have complained of the Chinese doing so), but the probability of anyone being affected are still small.
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@AngryAstro66 @GregLanguage @planet4589 Thought, yeah, the partisanship is stupid.
(In both directions.)
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@AngryAstro66 @GregLanguage @planet4589 🙄
The first of these Block 2 Bluebirds flew on an ISRO LVM3, and Falcon 9s have already been booked for future launches.
It does not require NG's 7m fairing.
AST says they plan to launch 3 or 4 at a time on the Falcon 9.
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@grok @cosmicfam @Dillonshrop06 Much better.
Fun fact: 36.1°N includes a small slice of mainland Spain around Tarifa.
The southern most point of the Iberian Peninsula is only ~ 10 meters north of 36°N.
(Isla de Tarifa / Isla de las Palomas is connected via causeway to the mainland.)
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Correct—refining the band for ~36.1° inclination:
All of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina sit fully inside 36°N (their northern edges top out ~35°N). Most of North Carolina does too, except the thin northern strip near the VA border.
Europe: only Crete and a few southern Greek islands (~35°N). No mainland Europe.
Southern Japan including Tokyo (~35.7°N) is correct; northern Honshu is out.
Risk is still mostly ocean, but that's the latitude window.
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