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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
On Friday morning, SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket into space and later deployed 10 Iridium communications satellites into low-Earth orbit as planned. But unexpectedly for most watching, the company's webcast was precluded from showing the mission in its entirety.
At T+ 9:00 minutes, just two seconds before the rocket's second-stage engine cut off from firing, the video from space ended. The launch commentator, SpaceX engineer Michael Hammersley, explained earlier in the broadcast that "[d]ue to some restrictions from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, SpaceX will be intentionally ending live video coverage of the 2nd stage just prior to engine shutdown."
Asked about this on Friday morning, a NOAA spokesman was not aware of the situation. "I can only think it's an error," Chris Vaccaro told Ars. "I would double check with them (SpaceX)." NOAA has promised more information will be forthcoming. (4:45pm ET Update: NOAA released this statement).
We did double check with SpaceX. It was definitely an issue with NOAA, the rocket company said. Apparently NOAA recently asserted that cameras on the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket, which SpaceX uses for engineering purposes, qualify as a remote sensing system, which are subject to NOAA's regulation. A provisional license obtained by SpaceX for Friday's launch of the Iridium-5 mission required it to end views once the second stage reached orbit.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by fritsd on Saturday March 31 2018, @07:11PM (2 children)
Maybe it has to do with arctic sea ice cover?
NOAA has been monitoring the extent of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice cover for years now; they draw really nice sinus waves of the extent compared to the average of the past decades.
At the moment, the north of Greenland is getting its first morning light after the half year of polar night.
So, you'd expect that it would be cold enough to freeze a polar bear's balls off.
HOWEVER
There was unusual weather the past months, where here we've had -26°C when even the most fervent winter sporter feels like it's about time to start thawing in time for Midsommar, and I've read an article in the Guardian that at that same time, the weather (note I didn't say climate) in a spot in north Greenland (i.e. where not even the Inuit bother to live) was ....
+6°C !!!
Arctic warming: scientists alarmed by 'crazy' temperature rises [theguardian.com]
i.o.w. we got the polar bears' weather and they got ours. It's not bloody fair. Stupid circumpolar vortex failed.
NOAA monitoring of ice thickness on the North has 2 extrema: end of March, when it's the end of Polar Night and the ice should be at the thickest and widest extent for the year, and end of September, when the Midsummer Sun finally sets and it had a half year of thawing and the ice should be at its thinnest and most diluted.
But what (the fuck) is going to happen to our planet's albedo effect, if there are days of +6°C at the coldest part of the year, 400 km from the North Pole?
Oh right I forgot the tin-foil-hat element of this. Excuse my rambling.
<tinfoil_hat>
Maybe, the video cameras on the Falcon rocket could take a picture of the rough ice extent of the Northern Ice Sea at the moment, and this could corroborate the NOAA's own much more detailed thickness measurements and that nice sine plot they draw, which I can't find any longer on their website.
Maybe the US government would like to dismiss the NOAA's results as "fake news" and they'd like NOAA and their satellites to quickly go away and be defunded. I thought that a replacement fully functioning reserve satellite was already *destroyed* because "it was in the way in the storage silo" or some bullshit like that. But other governments can take photos of the Northern Ice Sea as well.
</tinfoil_hat>
Look here: https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/arctic-zone/detect/ice-seaice.shtml [noaa.gov] they don't show it anymore after 2016. Can anyone find me an updated graph? The one where this year's sea ice extent is shown next to the bundle of lines of previous years.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Saturday March 31 2018, @09:06PM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 01 2018, @03:39PM
If they don't want pictures of the poles to get out its because they show the hole that leads to inner earth:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/nasa-images-show-giant-hole-8019446 [mirror.co.uk]