Minutes of October 12 Oklahoma Space Alliance Meeting
Oklahoma Space Alliance met October 12, 2024, at the Cyber Hall and Gaming Lounge at Norman Computers in Norman, Oklahoma. Attending were Clifford and Claire McMurray, Dave Sheely and Syd Henderson. OSA President Adam Hemphill couldn’t be at the meeting so OSA Vice-President Clifford McMurray presided over the meeting, He presented an update containing links to material covered in the meeting and this is online at https://osa.nss.org/Update2410.pdf so I’ll cover the details that aren’t covered there.
Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS will be visible in the evening the next few days.
The astronauts returning from the International Space Station are the seventh and eighth to spend a continuous year on the ISS. (Since they went up and came back together, they are tied.) Eleven people are currently on the ISS but three are coming back.
We watched a video on the Chinese lunar space suits. The Feitian (“flying in the sky) space suits are named after a Buddhist goddess (?).
We watched a video of the launch of the United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur test, showing the flare from a launch anomaly. Note that the flight was successful, carrying an inert payload in place of Dream Chaser, which will be launched next year. However, this flight was for achieving certification, and enough went wrong that that might be delayed.
The FCC does not really have the authority to establish deorbiting guidelines for spacecraft. They claim that space debris can affect radio transmissions meaning that they have this authority under the Federal Communications Act of 1934 [which, of course, was drafted well before spacecraft even existed. I wonder, though, whether they could do this for communications satellites, but even there, the FAA would have more say in it.--Syd]
Syd is going to look up Sanyuan Aerospace for information on their first launch, as in, can they actually do it this year as Space News speculated? [Apparently not: in a search through next June, I could find no mention of an upcoming launch.]
How many functioning orbiters are currently orbiting Mars? We came up with eight.
Syd suggested renaming the Janus probe if they are actually sending to Apophis. Since OSIRIS-APEX (formerly OSIRIS-REx) is going there, he thinks we should rename the Janus probe to something from ancient Egyptian mythology. Isis or Horus. [Actually naming it Isis might make people think it’s sponsored by terrorists, so Horus. According to Wikipedia, Janus was cancelled, so this must have been a revival. The ESA is also sending a mission to Apophis and naming it Ramses. Thank you, ESA.]
ESA’s 3D printer uses a 2200-degree Fahrenheit (1200° C) laser to melt the metal for printing.
The leak on the Russian module is currently losing between 2.4 and 2.7 pounds of air per day.
The amount of money in the checking account and cash box are unchanged.
--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.
Copyright ©2024 by Oklahoma Space Alliance.