Minutes of October 22, 2022, Oklahoma Space Alliance Meeting
Oklahoma Space Alliance met October 22, 2022, at the McMurray’s house in Norman, Oklahoma. Attending were Clifford and Claire McMurray. Adam Hemphill, Tim Scott, Dave Sheely, and Syd Henderson. OSA President Clifford (Kip) McMurray presided over the meeting He did an Update discussing links to material covered in the meeting and this is online at https://osa.nss.org/Update2210.pdf so I’ll cover the details that aren’t covered there.
The October meeting would normally have been held on October 8, but it was postponed because several of our members tested positive for COVID-19. Fortunately, none were seriously ill.
The reason that DART overperformed was because Dimorphos is essentially a rubble pile. This moon of the asteroid Didymos is a hundred meters across and has a mass of a billion tons. We watched videos of the impact taken from ground-based telescopes and the Hubble and Webb Space Telescope, not to mention video that DART sent before impact showing an egg-shaped asteroid covered with small boulders and, from the results, also boulders and pebbles inside. To my eye, Didymos looks more solid. The brightness of the Didymos/Dimorphos system brightened three times from the impact, which produced jets of material that surprised the mission team.
There was an anomaly on a New Shepard launch which resulted in its destruction although the capsule was recovered intact. The FAA is checking whether debris fell outside the safe zone. We watched a video. There have been two failures out of 22 flights. Adam: The G-forces on the capsule may well have harmed any passengers if humans had been aboard.
Firefly will launch at least once more this year and six times next year. We watched a Firefly launch.
The Indian Mars probe Mangalayaan died after two long eclipses so may have run of solar power. It was supposed to last six months and lasted eight years, so it had a very good run.
Looks like Astrobotics will retain all of Masten’s employees after buying the company’s assets. Masten expanded too rapidly and exhausted funding. Will NASA transfer its Masten contracts to Astrobotics? [One of these is Masten Mission One, which will carry a lander to the Moon as well as an Astrobotic lunar rover. It’s unclear what will happen to this mission.]
Without a boost, there is a 50% chance the Hubble Space Telescope would re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere by 2037. Some method of robotically refueling it are being investigated.
InSight heard a meteorite impact Mars.
There is a James Webb Space Telescope postage stamp! See https://store.usps.com/store/product/buy-stamps/james-webb-space-telescope-stamps-S_482704.
NASA is “blowing up” inflatable space habitats to test their reactions to pressure.
Our video for the month was “Apollo 11: What We Saw” hosted by Bill Whittle.
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Minutes by OSA Secretary Syd Henderson
Contact person for Oklahoma Space Alliance is Claire McMurray.
PO Box 1003
Norman, OK 73070
Webmaster is Syd Henderson.
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