Minutes of June 8 Oklahoma Space Alliance Meeting
Oklahoma Space Alliance met June 8, 2024, at the Cyber Hall and Gaming Lounge at Norman Computers in Norman, Oklahoma. Attending were Adam Hemphill, Kevin?, Tim Scott, Dave Sheely, and Syd Henderson. Claire and Kip McMurray were at his 50th class reunion. OSA President Adam Hemphill presided over the meeting Adam presented an update containing links to material covered in the meeting and this is online at https://osa.nss.org/Update2406.pdfso I’ll cover the details that aren’t covered there.
Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne shut down prematurely on its sixth launch (which is why they’re no longer flying). Problem is that they can’t do a full vacuum test on Earth.
Levitating trains have an advantage on the Moon since they have no moving parts for moondust to get into. The levitating train project is called FLOAT, FLOAT is magnetic robots levitating over a three-layer track. Cars can be put on these. FLOAT is part of a ten-year LunA initiative by DARPA.
16 Virtus Solis solar power satellites would cover the whole world.
All our commercial crew spacecraft rely on Airborne Systems for parachutes. SpaceX just bought a second supplier for parachutes.
Isar Aerospace is a German company although they intend to launch from a new spaceport in Norway. They will manufacture 80% of Spectrum launchers themselves.
High-Energy rockets are designed to launch directly into high orbits as opposed to launching to LEO and transferring to a high orbit.
Supernova’s solar-thermal propulsion rocket will begin launches in late 2025 so they must already working on hardware.
We watched the launch and re-entry of Starship’s fourth, successful missions. This was the first time we actually had a coverage all the way from orbit to landing, thanks to Starlink.
No changes in bank account.
--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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