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
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)
You Tube channel subscriber counts:
You might be tempted to see this as representative of the dumbing down of society, but to be fair, many of the former might have just been tempted by some subscriber giveaways. Perhaps space channel subscribers are a bit more committed? E.g. the SN10 live stream has 15M views.
A NASA spokesperson clarified in a statement on Thursday how this change factors into the agency’s ability to fly its astronauts to the space station.
“NASA’s Commercial Crew Program does not specify a specific launch pad for crew rotation missions and maintains a launch capability at Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida,” the spokesperson said. “If needed, SpaceX could still support NASA crewed launch operations from pad 39A in the future.”
Gerstenmaier elaborated on this during the 2026-02-09 Crew-12 Prelaunch News Conference.
20:37 “We’re going to do some maintenance on the crew arm. I think the general plan is we’ll keep the crew arm on the ground after we do those repairs, but we’ll be ready to put the crew arm back up again if we need to go back and launch crew from pad 39A.”
23:40 “In the timeframe it takes us to get Falcon and Dragon ready we can be ready to get the pad operational.”
Perhaps he chose to do that because they realized some people had been assuming SpaceX were removing their redundancy of crew launch pad options? It seems that NSF probably did assume that: TWIS 2026-02-07 (3:33 - 4:17).
just heard the writer discuss some of it on a podcast
This was it. Not actually a podcast. He thinks the LoC probability is 10%. https://youtu.be/10zW384XuoE?t=25m39s
the reattachment of the Cygnus XL spacecraft
Was just wondering whether this was visible on either of the official live streams. There does seem to be something moving, for a period that seems to be somewhere around 15:36 - 15:41 UTC, on this one. (But you can only rewatch the last 12 hours of the stream, so you’ve only got about 4 hours left.)
Maybe I should become more familiar with the ISS In Real Time website or any other resources that might have details of what goes on up there.
New variant:
Sources:
Real news article: https://www.independent.co.uk/space/spacex-starship-rocket-launch-b2772913.html
SpaceX latest update excerpts:
This research includes comprehensive testing at our Rocket Development Facility in McGregor, Texas, supplemented by real-world data gathered during SpaceX’s experimental flight campaigns with Starship, including recent ground test failures of the vehicle. …
By sharing these solutions … we are trying to help move the entire rocket safety community forward, presenting solutions based on data and scientific analysis rather than simply identifying problems or challenges. With this new data and proposed methodology for evaluating blast danger areas for LOX/Methane rockets, SpaceX is confident that Starship operations will not disrupt other launch operators …
Being Good Neighbors
Prior to Anil and Anna, there had already been an astronaut candidate recruited from SpaceX. However, “in August 2018, Kulin became the first NASA astronaut candidate in fifty years to resign prior to completing the initial training program.”
I wonder if her 1st day back at NASA was exactly 1 year after launching to, or returning from, space. (10th and 15th of September 2024, respectively)
Possible firsts?:
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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.
I wonder whether this is a good idea, and how likely it is that NASA would have already considered it.