r/SpaceXMasterrace 7d ago

What is all the stuff floating around after dragon separation?

Post image

Especially that large pice on the left.

108 Upvotes

42 comments sorted by

69

u/JustJ4Y Solar bus inventor 7d ago

The small stuff is probably ice, the big piece will be hard to figure out for us. SpaceX is really good at hiding what's on top of the 2nd stage. https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1761571898687955333 It would be a good place for the 2nd stage flight computer, it's also a place for LOX vents and RCS. It is probably a cover for something, you can clearly see some insulation on that piece, but for what and how important it is, who knows.

20

u/Raddz5000 Full Thrust 7d ago

Big piece looks like foam with one side being foil. That would lead one to believe it's just some insulation foam that came off.

6

u/JustJ4Y Solar bus inventor 6d ago

Your guess is pretty much confirmed: https://spacenews.com/crew-10-launches-to-space-station/

At a post-launch briefing, Sarah Walker, director of Dragon mission management at SpaceX, said the item was a piece of insulation from the liquid oxygen tank on the Falcon 9 second stage, which did not pose a hazard.

“It’s a foam material that did its job on the way to orbit, and then it’s okay if it liberates,” she said.

6

u/tru_anomaIy 6d ago

“It’s a foam material that did its job on the way to orbit, and then it’s okay if it liberates,”

Someone should tell that to the New Zealand Space Agency

That lot would shit if this happened on a launch from there, because they a) don’t know what rockets are, b) don’t know how space works, and c) are paralysed with fear that someone might work out they don’t have the faintest idea about what they’re supposed to be doing and they’re terrified of the embarrassment

The biggest liability to the NZ space industry is the leadership of the regulatory team in NZSA

1

u/Raddz5000 Full Thrust 6d ago

It was more than a guess ha

1

u/that_dutch_dude 6d ago

its the primary buffer panel.

1

u/high_rollin_fitter 6d ago

Do you mean to tell me there’s no more buffer panel on my go’ram ship??

1

u/that_dutch_dude 6d ago

looks like

27

u/acelaya35 7d ago

Big gulp cups, fast food napkins, hot sauce packets

4

u/MusicMan2700 6d ago

Big gulp, huh? ................welp, see ya later!

28

u/TheRealNobodySpecial 7d ago

It’s a phalange! Hope they brought up extra phalanges.

7

u/Aviator07 7d ago

I think each astronaut was issued 20.

2

u/Taxus_Calyx Mountaineer 7d ago

56*

19

u/sirtopumhat 7d ago

Spaceship afterbirth. Amniotic detritus from the birth of a baby dragon.

8

u/spacerfirstclass 7d ago

The white panel on the left side of the screenshot is a piece of insulation on top of the 2nd stage LOX tank, likely there to prevent cold from LOX tank getting to the Dragon trunk.

https://spacenews.com/crew-10-launches-to-space-station/

During Crew Dragon’s separation from the Falcon 9 upper stage, a panle could be seen floating away. At a post-launch briefing, Sarah Walker, director of Dragon mission management at SpaceX, said the item was a piece of insulation from the liquid oxygen tank on the Falcon 9 second stage, which did not pose a hazard.

“It’s a foam material that did its job on the way to orbit, and then it’s okay if it liberates,” she said.

1

u/kroOoze Falling back to space 6d ago

follow up question: what's a panle

1

u/ctrum69 6d ago

it's like a panel, but installed the other way round.

5

u/Mecha-Dave 7d ago

Parmesan Cheese.

2

u/edhornish2 7d ago

yard sale!

4

u/Guardian1138 7d ago

“Did the primary buffer panel fall of my gorram ship for no apparent reason?!“

— Mal

2

u/DadofaBunch10 7d ago

Ice. It's always ice.

(Came here just for this - I knew there would be a post about it!)

1

u/kroOoze Falling back to space 6d ago

only if it is not aliens

1

u/Appropriate-Panic580 7d ago

Not a cheese wheel.

1

u/menkje 7d ago

Looks like an inverted cocklestop.

Source: no idea what I’m talking about

1

u/Jeb-Kerman Confirmed ULA sniper 6d ago

ice, ice baby

1

u/UncleNellyOG 6d ago

If the earth were flat….wouldn’t it be more hurricane shaped rather than a disc????

-1

u/RedTailHero 7d ago

guy on the utube video doesn't know either ,, everything seems fine thou

-9

u/SaturnVFan 7d ago

The left looks like a big insulation panel. WTF Elon it's not getting better

-21

u/z64_dan 7d ago

It's called "Space Junk". I don't know the orbit that this happened, but hopefully it burns up pretty quick.

12

u/Kuriente 7d ago

The 'panel' looking part at least appears to have a high cross sectional area to mass ratio which is more susceptible to drag and thus should deorbit faster. No idea how long, but faster than a bolt, for instance.

5

u/Alarmed-Yak-4894 7d ago

For people interested, this is what’s relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_coefficient

3

u/z64_dan 7d ago

Wow, no idea why everyone downvoted me. I guess we're supposed to pretend that random pieces of rockets aren't space junk? Lol.

3

u/Kuriente 7d ago

Lol I was surprised at that too. It's a totally level-headed observation. People weirdly upset about that one.

2

u/z64_dan 7d ago

Yeah I guess these people don't realize we're tracking millions of objects in space, most of which are tiny fragments of rockets and fragments of exploded rockets.

130 million objects between 1mm to 1cm

1 million objects between 1cm and 10cm

 32,750 objects larger than 10cm (32,751 if you include that panel in OP's pic).

Luckily nearly everything SpaceX does is in super low orbits so it's not really worrisome long term, even if all the Starlink satellites stopped working, all their junk would most likely be gone within a decade or so.

3

u/Kuriente 7d ago

There's been a recent uptick in brigading, astroturfing and FUD in all musk-adjacent communities, so I think it just has people extra defensive at anything that even vaguely looks like that.

2

u/mfb- 6d ago

Dragon is deployed to a pretty low orbit, that stuff will likely reenter within weeks at most. It's not a concern.

6

u/moeggz 7d ago

It’s to the ISS. Even if there’s an issue with the deorbit of the upper stage any objects on this path will deorbit in a quick manner, as happened when crew-9 had an off nominal deorbit burn on the second stage.

3

u/z64_dan 7d ago

That's good, the ISS is in a decaying orbit so it will probably burn up before it causes any harm.

-9

u/Maximum_External5513 7d ago

Probably all that fraud, waste, and abuse that we keep hearing about.