This week in SF history
— October 12, 1977, ALT-15, first flight of Shuttle without tail cone (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approach_and_Landing_Tests)
Spaceflight news
— MASCOT successfully lands on Ryugu’s surface (http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2018/mascot-landing-on-ryugu-successful.html)
— Wonderful images of
— Its shadow (planetary.s3.amazonaws.com)
— a 3-frame movie of its descent (planetary.org)
— a nice image of both the rover/hopper and its shadow (planetary.s3.amazonaws.com)
— a surface image showing it reflecting sunlight (planetary.s3.amazonaws.com)
— Orbit and operations website (haya2now.jp)
Short & Sweet
— Changes are being planned for SLS’ upper stage (spacenews.com)
— Commercial Crew test flights slip to next year (spaceflightnow.com
Questions, comments, corrections
— /u/nerobro clarifies pressure-fed vs autogenously pressurized tanks (reddit.com/r/orbitalpodcast)
Data Relay: Combustion Instability
— Thanks to Arin Cross for presenting this topic! (linkedin.com)
— Historical Perspective of Combustion Instability in Motors: Case Studies* (PDF reader: docslide.net)
— NASA Experience with Pogo in Human Spaceflight Vehicles (PDF: nasa.gov)
— Apollo 13 had issues with Pogo (youtu.be)
— Overview of Combustion Instabilities in Liquid-Propellant Rocket Engines (PDF: core.ac.uk)
— Comprehensive Review of Liquid-Propellant Combustion Instabilities in F-l Engines (PDF: gatech.edu)
— How NASA brought the monstrous F-1 “moon rocket” engine back to life (arstechnica.com)
— F-1 injector diagrams, and an example of different impinging injector setups (heroicrelics.org)
— Combustion Instabilities in Solid Propellant Rocket Motors (PDF: dtic.mil)
— Lessons Learned In Solid Rocket Combustion Instability (PDF: dtic.mil)
— Newspace examples
— SpaceShipOne “was a cranky, shuddering, shaking, vibrating motor” (dailymail.co.uk)
— SpaceShipTwo possibly suffered combustion instabilities due to the selection of HTPB (telegraph.co.uk)(aviationweek.com)
— Treatment of BE-4 suggests it’s had instability issues in the past (spaceflightnow.com)
— Rocketlab may be concerned about fuel sloshing (cosmosmagazine.com)
— Active damping systems may be viable in the future (PDF: princeton.edu)