Minutes of January 14 Oklahoma Space Alliance meeting
Oklahoma Space Alliance met January 14, 2023, at the McMurray’s house in Norman, Oklahoma. Attending in person were Clifford and Claire McMurray. Adam Hemphill, Tim Scott, Dave Sheely, and Syd Henderson. Robin Scott attended by Zoom. 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/Update2301.pdf so I’ll cover the details that aren’t covered there.
Speculation is that the Soyuz 22 spacecraft attached to the International Space Station was hit by space debris, not by a Geminid meteor. Soyuz 22 will be sent back to Earth for evaluation. The Russians will send Soyuz 22 back to the ISS as a cargo vehicle [Since the coolant system was damaged].
Adam doesn’t think Soyuzes are reusable, though this is a special case.
The cubesat deployed from the Tiangong space station is for amateur radio.
We watched the launch of the Tiangong relief crew. We also watched video of the docking and of the new astronauts boarding Tiangong.
The Zhuque-2 spacecraft would have been the first commercial liquid fuel rocket to make orbit.
InSight detected a host of Marsquakes that came from a region about 1,000 kilometers from where it landed. InSight discovered that Mars had a much larger core that originally thought but that it still is solid. [Since the mass of Mars hasn’t changed, I think this means the core must be a bit less dense than originally thought.]
We watched a video on the landing of InSight and its achievements. [InSight was at the end of its mission due to it being covered by dust, including its solar panels.]
InSight captured the sound of a meteorite striking Mars. It was the first time the seismic waves from such an impact were detected on another planet. [I believe they have been detected on the Moon.]
We read an article on protecting rovers from dust, and before and after pictures of InSight as it got covered by dust.
Falcon 9 can transfer more energy to the moon craft it releases so they can use much less energy by going into orbits farther out and getting captured on their way back. There will be 60+ missions to the Moon in the next few years.
(Robin arrived by Zoom at this point.)
We watched video of the launch of Artemis 1. It had nine million pounds of thrust. Starship has 16 million pounds of thrust.
We watched video of the announcement of the #dearmoon crew.
SpaceX had 61 launches in 2022. 34 of these were Starlink launches.
We watched video of an asteroid impact simulator.
NEO Surveyor will be at the Earth-Sun L1 point so it will be able to see a lot more asteroids coming from the sunward direction.
Northrop Grumman’s Space Solar Power demo test from orbit will be from a spacecraft called Arachne scheduled to launch in 2025.
Inflatable heatshields allow an increase of mass of landers on Mars from 1-2 tons to 20-40 tons. They may be 14 -15 meters in diameter. We watched a video simulation of an inflatable heatshield undergoing reentry.
We watched a video of an egg being dropped from 100,000 ft.
Adam: Virgin Galactic hasn’t launched since the Branson flight.
Business; We have $908.91 in our checking account and $267 in our cash box, for a total of $1175.91.
It’s annual report time! Syd needs to get the activity report to Tim by the February 11 meeting.
Bring some food for the March meeting. Kip will be out of town the week before so we’ll have more of a party.
We have a backlog of Ad Astras.
Mark Deaver is setting up a meeting space next to the computer store. There is a charge that would deplete our treasury, but can we work something out in trade?
We watched a video of the Moon eclipsing Earth (via Artemis 1) and a video of images from the James Webb Space Telescope.
--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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