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NASA to launch space observatory that will map 450M galaxies

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Re: NASA to launch space observatory that will map 450M galaxies

#111

Post by dylan604 »

d--b wrote: post #55
alfiedotwtf wrote: post #46

To be honest, I was expecting Elon and DOGE to have completely gutted NASA by now, while at the same time allocating more contracts to SpaceX.

This is a SpaceX contract

SpaceX might be the one that takes it to orbit, but that's the end of their involvement. It would be one of the NASA run locations that would be controlling the craft, receiving the data, analyzing the data, etc. The JWST is not a French contract just because it caught a ride on an Ariane rocket.

To call that a SpaceX contract is a very myopic view.

Re: NASA to launch space observatory that will map 450M galaxies

#112

Post by numpad0 »

indoordin0saur wrote: post #110
numpad0 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how to make out of comments like this. Is SpaceX actually launching customer payloads under $50m or whatever? Because, unless they are, it won't be long before JAXA/MHI starts selling H3 at half the cost of H-IIA, which is already like 15t to LEO for $67m at 150 JPY/USD, which leaves F9 reusable barely competitive in price. I don't know what India or China charge for foreign customers, but is it really r…

> Is that really a meaningful statement that stands, or it that just hand wavy glance away one now? The $67m figure is the same one I'm finding for Falcon 9 (and it can carry loads 40% heavier). That made me think they were matching each other on price to stay competitive in the market and that seems correct as the internal costs I'm seeing for SpaceX Falcon 9 launches are estimated around $15mil, meaning they have a…

> SpaceX doesn't stand still.

So are they launching F9 at $67m? Or do you merely expect SpaceX to eventually price match? Not that MHI is selling a lot of slots, but still. Quoted payload figures is also within ballparks.

Re: NASA to launch space observatory that will map 450M galaxies

#114

Post by hnuser123456 »

Tepix wrote: post #98
jajko wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But there are many more galaxies in the observable universe … somewhere between 2 and 20 trillion A bit less officially, need to remove one zero [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy#:~:text=It%20is%20estim...

There are more recent estimates going from 6-20 trillion now: https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/galaxies-in-universe...

That article is going beyond the observable universe, other comments were talking about within it.

Re: NASA to launch space observatory that will map 450M galaxies

#115

Post by hnuser123456 »

nuccy wrote: post #106
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Astronomy has been in a golden age for the last 35 years, based on: 1. Digital cameras, and the computers to analyze images. 2. Space telescopes (Hubble Space Telescope, the first large space telescope, only launched in 1990). 3. The building of massive ground-based telescopes. Before 1990, the largest telescope had a mirror diameter of 6 meters. Now, multiple 30-meter telescopes are under construction. Collecting po…

To add to the list (the order is arbitrary): 5. Advances in the multi-messenger observations, where apart of photons and gravitational waves, astronomers can detects also neutrinos with specialized neutrino detectors, e.g.: IceCube [a], though there are many more of those [b]. 6. Advances in very-long-baseline interferometry [c] using a globe-sized array of radio-telescopes, like Event Horizon Telescope [d] [a] https…

And one more:

7. The LISA mission is underway to build a space-based detector for gravitational waves at the 0.1hz region, whereas LIGO is sensitive around the 500hz region. 500hz corresponds to inspiraling stellar mass black holes. 0.1hz corresponds to inspiraling supermassive black holes. Think about the most powerful subwoofer the laws of physics allow, given the maximum amount of mass density in a volume and the speed of light.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Interferometer_Space_Ant...

Re: NASA to launch space observatory that will map 450M galaxies

#116

Post by nashashmi »

queuebert wrote: post #74
nashashmi wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, at that scale, For a galaxy to move a fraction of a centimeter will take a thousand years. So not much will be missed in a gap of 6 months.

This is nonsensical. Do you mean a tiny movement in the field of view, which should be measured in angular distance? Or do you mean actual motion through the universe, in which case the galaxies are moving at hundreds of kms per second, which means they would move billions of kms in 6 mos.

Yes, field of view. I am considering 1 cm to mean 2-3 light years.

Re: NASA to launch space observatory that will map 450M galaxies

#117

Post by indoordin0saur »

numpad0 wrote: post #112
indoordin0saur wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is that really a meaningful statement that stands, or it that just hand wavy glance away one now? The $67m figure is the same one I'm finding for Falcon 9 (and it can carry loads 40% heavier). That made me think they were matching each other on price to stay competitive in the market and that seems correct as the internal costs I'm seeing for SpaceX Falcon 9 launches are estimated around $15mil, meaning they have a…

> SpaceX doesn't stand still. So are they launching F9 at $67m? Or do you merely expect SpaceX to eventually price match? Not that MHI is selling a lot of slots, but still. Quoted payload figures is also within ballparks.

They are actually doing launches as low as $62 million (as of 2024). They also have enormous margin to lower this cost because even the upper-bound estimate by industry analysts on the Falcon 9 launch cost for SpaceX is only $28 million.

Source: https://spaceinsider.tech/2024/07/31/ula-vs-spacex/#elemento...

Re: NASA to launch space observatory that will map 450M galaxies

#118

Post by panick21_ »

numpad0 wrote: post #91
indoordin0saur wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything launches on a Falcon these days. No one else can catch up in terms of safety cost or speed.

I'm not sure how to make out of comments like this. Is SpaceX actually launching customer payloads under $50m or whatever? Because, unless they are, it won't be long before JAXA/MHI starts selling H3 at half the cost of H-IIA, which is already like 15t to LEO for $67m at 150 JPY/USD, which leaves F9 reusable barely competitive in price. I don't know what India or China charge for foreign customers, but is it really r…

I'm sorry no, you should spend some time actually understanding the industry.

JAXA builds a tiny amount of rockets, almost exclusively for their own use. They have never been a significant player and its very unlikely that will change anytime soon.

Its pure fantasy to suggest otherwise. And even if they could reliably hit these prices at commercial launch scale, Falcon 9 could easily lower their prices if real competitors actually existed.

If H3 was such a dynamic thread as you suggest, why did Amazon not buy 100s of launches from them. They bought launches from every SpaceX competitor, but not Japan.

> I don't know what India or China charge for foreign customers, but is it really reasonable to expect worse deal than Mitsubishi from them? ...

China isn't really relevant. Western stuff is just not going to fly from China.

India used to do more commercial stuff, but SpaceX Rideshare is far, far, far more popular.

The reality is, India large rockets, like Japan, is mostly build for their own program, they don't really have that much access capability.

Re: NASA to launch space observatory that will map 450M galaxies

#119

Post by indoordin0saur »

jajko wrote: post #96
indoordin0saur wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything launches on a Falcon these days. No one else can catch up in terms of safety cost or speed.

Costs are largely meaningless when talking about global situation and other nations and their strategic interests. Europe will move fully to ESA for anything actually important, China and India have their own stuff too. Private satellites, sure why not if companies are OK with risking of getting their payload removed at last minute because somebody again bruised musk's ego. Business can't be done in an environment wi…

> Costs are largely meaningless

Costs are never meaningless when you're talking about technical projects that cost billions of dollars.

> trust with spacex is gone for good.

Sorry to pop your bubble, but they launched 134 rockets with payloads last year and they all made it to their orbits successfully except for one of their own starlink payloads. This is more than 90% of all launches that occurred last year.

Re: NASA to launch space observatory that will map 450M galaxies

#120

Post by thinkcontext »

indoordin0saur wrote: post #119
jajko wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Costs are largely meaningless when talking about global situation and other nations and their strategic interests. Europe will move fully to ESA for anything actually important, China and India have their own stuff too. Private satellites, sure why not if companies are OK with risking of getting their payload removed at last minute because somebody again bruised musk's ego. Business can't be done in an environment wi…

> Costs are largely meaningless Costs are never meaningless when you're talking about technical projects that cost billions of dollars. > trust with spacex is gone for good. Sorry to pop your bubble, but they launched 134 rockets with payloads last year and they all made it to their orbits successfully except for one of their own starlink payloads. This is more than 90% of all launches that occurred last year.

> 90%

You mean 50%, there were 253 successful orbital launches last year

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_in_spaceflight

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