Minutes of March 9 Oklahoma Space Alliance
Oklahoma Space Alliance met March 9, 2024, at the Cyber Hall and Gaming Lounge at Norman Computers in Norman, Oklahoma. Attending were Adam Hemphill, Clifford McMurray, John Northcutt, Dave Sheely, Tim Scott, and Syd Henderson. OSA President Adam Hemphill presided over the meeting He presented an Update put together by him and Clifford McMurray discussing links to material covered in the meeting and this is online at https://osa.nss.org/Update2403.pdf so I’ll cover the details that aren’t covered there.
The end of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter may have been due to navigation. [They were testing maneuvers for future Mars helicopters.]
We got a picture of the broken strut on the Odysseus moon lander. Landing used optical sensors not lidar.
Kip: If we had launched fifty Apollo missions to land on the Moon, we would have doubled the Moon’s atmosphere/
We watched a video of SLIM on the Moon,
First Chinese crewed landing on the Moon will be in 2030 on the near side. We viewed an article on China’s Moon landing plans.
While discussing India’s future crewed space missions we noted that apparently India has not had an astronaut on either American or Russian missions. [This is incorrect. Rakesh Sharma was on Soyuz T-11 in 1984. Kalpana Chawla, who flew on two shuttle missions, including the fatal Columbia mission was born in India but was an American citizen.]
Adam: OSAM has a pretty big projected cost: 2 billion for a mission that will probably be done commercially,
We watched a video of Japan’s H3 launch.
Apparently the problem with the Varsa landing license is that the FAA had never issued one to a commercial agency before. We watched the Varda reentry (from cameras in the interior of the craft.)
Eight percent of the mass of Dimorphos was redistributed after the DART impact.
Business: Syd needs to send a report to NSS after each meeting.
We have $841.73 in the checking account and $267 in cash for a total of $1008.73.
April 13 meeting is the day after Yuri’s night. We will meet an hour early and bring snack food.
--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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