Month: May 2017

California single-payer $400 billion healthcare plan approved by state committee with no funding

3:01 pm

Running out of other people’s money: A California legislative committee yesterday approved a single-payer state healthcare plan that is estimated to cost $400 billion, twice the state’s entire annual budget, without indicating how they intend to pay for it.

Details, details! Who cares about how one pays for an entitlement program? The point is to pass it, and let your great-granchildren figure it out. In this case, however, the problem is so large that it’s impossible to do without the funding in place first, because of the need to pay providers for goods and services. California hardly has an extra $200 billion laying around, and even if it did, it would need to shore up its collapsing pension system first. The state is also on the hook for a $100 billion high-speed rail system whose funding is still unclear. Democrats don’t have much idea about how to pay for their current priorities, let alone their seizure of the health-care sector. [emphasis in original]

The leftists in California want to secede from the U.S. Maybe we should let them, since that state is about to go bankrupt and I am sure most Americans in the remain 49 states don’t wish to stuck with the bill.

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Looking at Jupiter’s southern hemisphere

9:43 am

Jupiter's southern hemisphere

Cool image time! The image on the right, reduced to post here, shows Jupiter’s south pole and much of its southern hemisphere. It was taken during Juno’s last orbital fly-by of the gas giant’s cloud tops last week, and has been enhanced by Fevig-58, an ordinary citizen who downloaded the raw image and then uploaded his enhanced version to the Juno website.

It is definitely worthwhile taking a close look at the full resolution image. At the top its shows the horizontally banded Jupiter at equatorial- and mid-latitudes that has been that planet’s familiar face for centuries. In the middle is the transitional region from those horizontal bands to the chaotic polar regions. And at the bottom is the pole, where there the storms appear to follow no pattern and form a mish-mash.

One thing about Jupiter’s pole. It appears very different than Saturn’s. While I am certain they will find a vortex of some kind there, so far there is no indication of a coherent jet stream, as seen by Saturn’s hexagon. This once again demonstrates the one unbroken rule of planetary science that has been found with every planetary mission to every planetary body, whether they be pebbles, asteroids, dwarf planets, gas giants, or moons: Every single one of them is different and unique. They might fall into a single category, say gas giants, but each has its own unique features that make it different from every other member of that category.

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Egypt considers creating space agency

9:12 am

The Egyptian government is considering creating an Egyptian Space Agency.

The Egyptian government believes that the establishment of a space agency is necessary to invigorate and administer space programmes in Egypt, that in turn – it is hoped – will revitalize Egypt’s economy and entrepreneurship. While this approach is not without merit, it has been the cause of significant political controversy in Egypt as many of its citizens have voiced harsh criticism of the country’s space plans as the economy continues to deteriorate.

The proposed space agency will also administer Egyptian ambitions to build and even launch its own satellites.

Essentially, the government needs certain space capabilities (military and communications satellites), and a space agency would serve as its corporate arm for obtaining and managing those capabilities. It would also serve as a place where lots of foreign aid cash could be deposited into the government to be distributed to various friends. Along the way it might also help the economy and help shift Egypt in a more western and commercial direction.

How successful this becomes will depend on whether the Egyptian government lets the crony component dominate the process.

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The Muffs – Don’t Pick on Me

6:01 pm

An evening pause: What makes this music video appealing is the cartoon, which recreates the style of Hollywood’s early 1930s black & white cartoons.

Hat tip Jim Mallamace.

As always, I welcome suggestions for Evening Pauses. If you think you have something and have not emailed me any suggestions previously, mention in a comment that you want to suggest something. Do not post the link to the video. I will contact you myself.

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Threats and violence against dissent at university

5:39 pm

Fascists: A white professor as well as numerous students who came to his defense have been physically threatened by mobs at Evergreen State University, demanding their removal from the college.

The protest apparently got so out of hand that Professor Weinstein reported on Twitter that the police had warned him that he would not be “safe on campus” because they could not protect him. “To be clear: the police told me I am not safe on campus. They cannot protect me. Students in jeopardy. No contact from admin,” Weinstein wrote.

In another tweet, he alleged that students defending him have been “singled out” and threatened, posting a screenshot of an individual who claimed to have the “names and faces of students in Bret’s class” so that other can “see these faces for your own safety.”

Meanwhile, The Olympian reports that hundreds of students participated in the protest, which was also partly inspired by “anti-black comments on social media.” According to a blog post on Liberty Hangout, student Kai-Avé Douvia became “public enemy number one” on campus after he responded to a post from a peer advocating for the creation of a class specifically for “black/brown people” to study multiculturalism.

In his response, Douvia had experimentally reworded the post to replace “black/brown” with “white” in an effort to demonstrate the post’s racist nature, sparking a backlash on social media that eventually escalated to public shaming and threats from classmates. “Rather than respectfully responding and having civil discourse, I was then threatened and/or insulted by many so called ‘inclusive activists,’ leading to me to contact the police for protection,” Douvia writes in his blog on the matter. “This highlights a massive issue–the left is now mobilizing against itself to push its overused rhetoric on every free thinker, and if you disagree well, welcome to being every ‘-ist’ in the book.”

Everyone realizes that these thugs are not going to be punished for their fascist behavior. Consider the university’s mealy-mouthed response:

“It’s been an intense and useful conversation with a group of students,” spokesperson Zach Powers told The Olympian. “The college is working with the group to address their issues. This type of conversation is being replicated across the country right now. We remain committed to providing a great education to all students.”

These mobs could kill someone and the university administration might finally gasp in horror. It still wouldn’t do anything, however.

What no one is realizing is that these thugs are going to graduate from this university and move into the political arena, armed and willing to use their jackbooted fascist tactics wherever they can. The future does not look good.

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First science results from Juno

11:48 am

The Juno science team today released their first research results since the spacecraft entered orbit around Jupiter in July 2016.

“Although many of the observations have terrestrial analogs, it appears that different processes are at work creating the auroras,” said SwRI’s Dr. Phil Valek, JADE instrument lead. “With JADE we’ve observed plasmas upwelling from the upper atmosphere to help populate Jupiter’s magnetosphere. However, the energetic particles associated with Jovian auroras are very different from those that power the most intense auroral emissions at Earth.”

Also surprising, Jupiter’s signature bands disappear near its poles. JunoCam images show a chaotic scene of swirling storms up to the size of Mars towering above a bluish backdrop. Since the first observations of these belts and zones many decades ago, scientists have wondered how far beneath the gas giant’s swirling façade these features persist. Juno’s microwave sounding instrument reveals that topical weather phenomena extend deep below the cloudtops, to pressures of 100 bars, 100 times Earth’s air pressure at sea level.

“However, there’s a north-south asymmetry. The depths of the bands are distributed unequally,” Bolton said. “We’ve observed a narrow ammonia-rich plume at the equator. It resembles a deeper, wider version of the air currents that rise from Earth’s equator and generate the trade winds.”

Juno is mapping Jupiter’s gravitational and magnetic fields to better understand the planet’s interior structure and measure the mass of the core. Scientists think a dynamo — a rotating, convecting, electrically conducting fluid in a planet’s outer core — is the mechanism for generating the planetary magnetic fields. “Juno’s gravity field measurements differ significantly from what we expected, which has implications for the distribution of heavy elements in the interior, including the existence and mass of Jupiter’s core,” Bolton said. The magnitude of the observed magnetic field was 7.766 Gauss, significantly stronger than expected. But the real surprise was the dramatic spatial variation in the field, which was significantly higher than expected in some locations, and markedly lower in others. “We characterized the field to estimate the depth of the dynamo region, suggesting that it may occur in a molecular hydrogen layer above the pressure-induced transition to the metallic state.”

What I want to see is a depth map showing where Jupiter’s atmosphere ends and its solid core begins. I expect Juno will eventually be able to give us a first glimpse.

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Star becomes black hole without supernova explosion

10:20 am

The uncertainty of science: Astronomers think they have identified a star that, rather than die and become a black hole in a supernova explosion, merely fizzled into a black hole.

Starting in 2009, one particular star in the Fireworks Galaxy, named N6946-BH1, began to brighten weakly. By 2015, it appeared to have winked out of existence. The astronomers aimed the Hubble Space Telescope at the star’s location to see if it was still there but merely dimmed. They also used the Spitzer Space Telescope to search for any infrared radiation emanating from the spot. That would have been a sign that the star was still present, but perhaps just hidden behind a dust cloud.

All the tests came up negative. The star was no longer there. By a careful process of elimination, the researchers eventually concluded that the star must have become a black hole.

There are a lot of uncertainties here. Nonetheless, astronomers have theorized that some stars could collapse into black holes with any explosions, and it appears they might have found their first example of that.

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Civil War museum closes rather than remove its Confederate flags

9:35 am

The coming dark age: A Civil War museum is forced to close when Virginia county officials ordered them to remove all Confederate flags.

A Henry County commissioner requested a few months ago that a local Civil War museum remove its Confederate flags.

But without that symbol, the Nash Farm Battlefield and Museum announced that it can’t conduct its mission properly and will close June 1. In a Facebook post, the museum’s directors cited the request by District 2 Commissioner Dee Clemmons that all Confederate flags be removed from the museum, in addition to the gift shop, “in an effort not to offend anyone.”

“To exclude any Confederate flag would mean the historical value has been taken from our exhibits, and a fair interpretation could not be presented to each guest,” the post read. “Confederate flags were on this hallowed ground, as were the Union flags. To remove either of them would be a dishonor.”

In other words, it is better now for people to be ignorant of history so that they might avoid looking at a flag.

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College professor arrested for attacks against Trump supporters

9:26 am

Fascist: Berkeley policy have arrested the college professor who was identified as committing several violent attacks on pro-Trump demonstrators during protests in Berkeley in April.

Video of the most vicious attack, smashing a bike lock on a person’s head, can be seen at the link. It is quite ugly to see. There is also a video showing how the attacker was identified.

Note that this guy was a college professor, and he also followed the procedures of the fascist thugs that have been attacking conservatives in Berkeley, wearing a mask during protests and using violence against those he disagrees with. That he has been identified and arrested is a positive step forward. That it took an investigation by private citizens to force Berkeley police to arrest him is not good.

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Russia completes first military launch in a year

8:51 am

Russia today successfully launched a military payload on a Soyuz rocket, ending a year long gap in such launches due to the discovery of faulty and corrupt practices at rocket engine manufacturing facilities.

The lull in activity has in part been down to manufacturing defects and quality control issues affecting Russia’s production of rocket engines. A contractor was found to have been using cheaper materials in place of precious metals in alloys used to make parts of the engines. Seventy-one Proton engines and a number of Soyuz engines were recalled for inspection and repair.

Reliability concerns have lingered around Russia’s launch fleet in recent years, with Proton failing ten times since 2007 and Soyuz experiencing seven failures in the last eight years. Two Rokots and a Zenit have also failed in the last decade, while Russia’s flagship Fobos-Grunt mission to Mars never left low Earth orbit after the spacecraft itself malfunctioned.

In 2016, Russia experienced just one launch failure – with a Soyuz-U rocket suffering a third stage failure during December’s attempted launch of the Progress MS-04 vehicle to resupply the International Space Station. Despite this, there were two near-misses: a Soyuz-2-1b underperformed during the launch of a GLONASS navigation satellite last May, and the Proton launch in June suffered a second stage engine failure. In both cases the rockets’ upper stages – Fregat-M and Briz-M respectively – were able to alter their flight plans and inject the satellites into their planned orbits despite the anomalies.

They hope to resume Proton flights next month. Either way, it looks likely that in 2017 Russia will launch the fewest rockets in decades.

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Rocket Lab launches its first Electron rocket

8:34 am

Capitalism in space: Rocket Lab today successfully completed the first test flight of their Electron rocket.

The rocket did not reach orbit, though it did reach space altitude. More details here.

“It has been an incredible day and I’m immensely proud of our talented team,” said Peter Beck, CEO and founder of Rocket Lab. “We’re one of a few companies to ever develop a rocket from scratch and we did it in under four years. We’ve worked tirelessly to get to this point. We’ve developed everything in house, built the world’s first private orbital launch range, and we’ve done it with a small team.

“It was a great flight. We had a great first stage burn, stage separation, second stage ignition and fairing separation. We didn’t quite reach orbit and we’ll be investigating why, however reaching space in our first test puts us in an incredibly strong position to accelerate the commercial phase of our program, deliver our customers to orbit and make space open for business,” says Beck.

It appears they had a problem with the upper stage. Nonetheless, this is a great achievement. They were completely privately funded. They built their own launchpad. When they make orbit they will be the first company to have done such a thing.

I have embedded footage of the launch below the fold.
» Read more

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Boeing wins DARPA contract to build reusable first stage spaceplane

10:04 pm

Capitalism in space: DARPA has selected Boeing to build its XS-1 spaceplane concept, a reusable first stage that would launch vertically and land on a runway.

Boeing will develop its “Phantom Express” vehicle for phases 2 and 3 of DARPA’s Experimental Spaceplane 1 (XS-1) program, which has the goal of performing 10 flights in 10 days to demonstrate responsive and low-cost launch. Phase 2 will cover development of the vehicle and ground tests though 2019, with a series of 12 to 15 test flights planned for phase 3 in 2020.

DARPA spokesman Rick Weiss said the value of the award to Boeing is $146 million. The award is structured as a public-private partnership, with Boeing also contributing to the overall cost of the program, but Boeing declined to disclose its contribution. “As it’s a competitive market, we do not plan to disclose our investment,” Boeing Phantom Works spokeswoman Cheryl Sampson said. “We are making a significant commitment to help solve an enduring challenge to reduce the cost of space access.”

It makes sense that Boeing won the contract, since that company also built the X-37B and knows how to do this. Moreover, with this contract it appears that DARPA is following in the footsteps of NASA initial cargo and crew commercial contracts, where the companies were required to commit some of their own capital for development, the costs were kept low, and the resulting spacecraft belonged to the company to market to the launch industry.

In this case, Boeing is going to have a first stage that it can combine with many other available upper stages to produce a rocket that can compete both with SpaceX and Blue Origin.

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How to land a space shuttle

6:01 pm

An evening pause: This talk was given in October 2016, so the speaker, Bret Copeland, readily admits with great humor that he is describing something that no longer happens. Nonetheless, there will come a time when this will be done again, by vehicles better made and more often used. It is important to know how it was done.

Hat tip Edward Thelen.

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After 7 years Cassini reaches Saturn’s solstice

3:55 pm

In 2010 NASA extended the Cassini mission orbiting Saturn for seven years to the planet’s next solstice, so that the spacecraft could observe Saturn, its moons, and its rings, for one full season of its 28 year orbit.

Today, Cassini reached that target.

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft still has a few months to go before it completes its mission in September, but the veteran Saturn explorer reaches a new milestone today. Saturn’s solstice — that is, the longest day of summer in the northern hemisphere and the shortest day of winter in the southern hemisphere — arrives today for the planet and its moons. The Saturnian solstice occurs about every 15 Earth years as the planet and its entourage slowly orbit the sun, with the north and south hemispheres alternating their roles as the summer and winter poles.

The article provides a detailed review of all the changes that have occurred during this long time period.

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Washington rallies around the Outer Space Treaty

1:52 pm

Yesterday Senator Ted Cruz (D-Texas) held the second in what he says will be a series of hearings on the future government regulation of the commercial space industry. The specific focus of this hearing was the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and its effect on private enterprise.

The hearing saw two panels of witnesses, the first three legal experts on the Outer Space Treaty, the second four industry experts from a variety of private space businesses.

Like the first hearing on April 27, the witnesses this time were once again unanimous in their call for a simplification of the present regulatory arrangement. They also emphasized repeatedly that private enterprise should not be required by Congress to get permission to do things in space. Instead, Congress should merely provide regulation that will facilitate private enterprise while helping them avoid interfering with each other.

Unlike the first hearing, however, the atmosphere was decidedly less interested in improving the overall international regulatory framework created under the Outer Space Treaty. Instead, the witnesses in unison were supportive of the treaty and did not want the U.S. to either pull out of it or try to change it. All advocated the position that the treaty as written allowed the U.S. to regulate private businesses in a manner that could protect property rights in space.

As I watched the hearing I was struck by this unity of position. To me, it appeared that the Washington elitist community was circling its wagons in order to protect the status quo.

The witnesses from the business community appeared afraid of the consequences of any effort to change the Outer Space Treaty. As Mike Gold, Vice President of Space Systems Loral, noted,
» Read more

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Sixty-six programs slated for elimination in Trump budget

10:38 am

The Trump budget followed through in one area very clearly: It proposes to completely eliminate sixty-six government programs.

The programs eliminated would only save $26.7 billion, which in terms of the deficit is chicken-feed. Still it would be a step in the right direction.

The pigs are squealing however, including one recent failed presidential candidate:
Clinton: Trump Budget Shows ‘Unimaginable Level of Cruelty’

Based on past experience, expect the Republican leadership in Congress to gut most of these cuts. The budget will grow. The deficit will grow. The federal debt will grow. The power of the people in Washington will grow. And we will be one step closer to bankruptcy and collapse.

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Lawsuit by fired SpaceX employee goes to court

8:57 am

The jury trail of a lawsuit by a fired SpaceX employee, claiming that he was dismissed because he complained about bad practices at the company, has now begun.

A Los Angeles state court jury will be asked to decide whether Blasdell had good reason to believe testing documents were falsified and whether his firing was unjustified. “He went up the chain of command as he had learned in the Marines was the proper procedure,” Blasdell’s lawyer, Carney Shegerian, told jurors in his opening statement Tuesday. “He had nothing personal to benefit from this other than to do the right thing.” SpaceX made misrepresentations to the federal government, cut corners in areas where safety was concerned and labeled Blasdell “insubordinate” for pressing his concerns, Shegerian said.

Not surprisingly, the SpaceX lawyer disagreed:

“Jason Blasdell is not a whistle-blower and this is not a whistle-blower case,” SpaceX’s lawyer, Lynne Hermle, said in her opening statement. He never observed or conducted any unlawful testing of rocket parts, never complained about unlawful testing, and never brought any concerns about unlawful testing to federal authorities, Hermle told jurors.

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California woman arrested for selling space technology to China

8:51 am

A California woman has been arrested for smuggling space communications technology and equipment to China illegally.

Chen, a resident of the Los Angeles suburb of Pomona, is accused of violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which controls the export of certain goods and technology from the United States.

Specifically, the indictment alleges Chen purchased and smuggled sensitive materials to China without obtaining required export licenses, including components commonly used in military communications “jammers.” She also is accused of smuggling devices typically used in space communications applications, and falsifying the paperwork used in shipping those items to list them as worth $500, rather than their true value of more than $100,000.

The exports in question date from March 2013 to December 2015.

How dare they arrest her! All she is doing is supporting international diversity against the white power oppression of the evil United States. Moreover, we must allow her to express her beliefs. Treason is merely an expression of one’s opinion, and must not be oppressed!

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Trump budget released only to be immediately trashed

11:22 pm

Today the Trump administration released its proposed 2018 budget for the federal government. Here is a good article on what that budget proposed for NASA.

The Trump administration’s fiscal 2018 budget request includes $19.1 billion for NASA, a $561 million decrease over previously enacted levels that would reduce the number of Earth science missions, eliminate the agency’s education office and do away with the Obama administration’s plans to robotically retrieve a piece of an asteroid as a precursor to eventual flights to Mars.

The budget closely reflects the administration’s blueprint, released in March, and overall, NASA’s acting administrator said America’s space program remains healthy and suffered relatively modest cuts compared to other federal agencies.

Though the NASA budget did include the cancellation of a handful of Earth Science projects as well as a cut in the Earth science budget, those cuts were nowhere near what had been hinted at previously.

The Trump administration has made no secret of its skepticism about global warming and its presumed causes and impacts and as expected, the budget eliminates funding for five Earth science missions and instruments. Earth science would receive $1.8 billion overall, reflecting a reduction of nearly $170 million. “The hard choices are still there, and we can’t do everything,” Lightfoot said. But the budget “still includes significant Earth science efforts, including 18 Earth observing missions in space as well as airborne missions.”

That’s a reduction of less than 10% in the total Earth science budget, hardly a catastrophe. The overall budget proposal was a little more daring, calling for a 30% cut at the EPA, and a 16% cut at Commerce, mostly in NOAA.

What does this all mean? Nothing. A president’s budget proposal is generally only a statement of desires. It has no force of law. Congress decides how to spend money, and the Republicans controlling this Congress are not really interested in cutting anything. In fact, the pigs have already begun to squeal, including a complete rejection of the budget by many Republican leaders in Congress.

‘President Trump’s $603 billion defense budget request is inadequate to the challenges we face, illegal under current law, and part of an overall budget proposal that is dead on arrival in Congress,’ said Arizona Sen. John McCain.

The administration didn’t seem to signal its own vote of confidence by releasing the document during President Trump’s first overseas trip.

Longtime GOP Rep. Hal Rogers of Kentucky, a longtime appropriator, declared proposed cuts to safety net and environmental proposals ‘draconian.’

‘I don’t think the president’s budget is going anywhere,’ said Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, asked if he’s concerned about the message sent by slashing the Medicaid program for the poor and disabled.

That’s only a sampling. Essentially, these Republicans have no interest in gaining control of the out-of-control federal budget. They like having that budget out-of-control, as it feeds money to their friends and partners whom then line their pockets with campaign contributions.

I should note that I fully expect Trump to bow to their demands, and back off. When it has come to budget matters, he has so far shown no stomach for the fight.

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Spacewalkers successfully replace failed unit on ISS

7:59 am

In a a short spacewalk just under three hours two astronauts today successfully replaced the failed MDM data relay unit on the outside of ISS.

Some additional details about this unit:

The MDM that failed and an identical unit are part of the tier 2 command architecture and relay commands to a variety of critical station systems, including the station’s guidance, navigation and control system, the lab’s stabilizing gyros, the environmental control system, the station’s cooling system and others.

Both tier 2 computers were installed during spacewalks March 30 and March 24 respectively, replacing two older units with models featuring upgraded data processing cards. It is not yet known whether the problem with MDM-1 involved the upgraded components or some other circuitry or software

I suspect this upgraded but failed unit is going to be looked at very carefully.

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Democrats have worst fundraising April since 2009

6:11 pm

The Democrats this year took in the lowest amount of donations for the month of April since 2009.

The Democratic National Committee reported its worst April of fundraising since 2009, according to Federal Election Commission records released Monday. The DNC reported taking in $4.7 million last month. While this is an off-year for fundraising, the DNC hauled $8.5 million last year, and nearly $5 million in 2015. Between 2010 and 2014, the Democrats received anywhere from $6.3 million to $14.4 million per year.

However, the drop in donations coincides with an effort by DNC Chair Tom Perez and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., to rally support for the party. The two traveled the country on a “unity tour.”

Could it have something to do with the violent behavior of their supporters? Or maybe the outright childish and obscene behavior of California elected officials?

The anti-Trump fervor at California’s Democratic Party convention this weekend can be summarized in choice words from outgoing chair of the California Democratic Party, John Burton: “#*%! Donald Trump.”

The always foul-mouthed Burton, 84, stood before thousands of Democratic delegates at Saturday’s general assembly and as a rallying cry asked the crowd to join in. He then shoved two fists in the air, flipping the bird. Across the room at the Sacramento Convention Center, others onstage and in the audience followed suit.

Onstage were House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, Rep, Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, state Sen. Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, and others.

Such behavior by elected officials is not just childish, it is barbaric, uncivilized, and uneducated, and should disqualify everyone who condones it from getting anyone’s votes, forever. Sadly, the Democrats now have a sizable population of voters who are as barbaric, uncivilized, and uneducated, and will vote for Democrats because they are barbaric, uncivilized, and uneducated, and will use that barbarism to further their uncivilized aims. Remember, even though the Democrats had a bad fund-raising month in April, they still garnered $4.7 million in donations. That indicates the existence of a lot of supporters of this behavior.

I am once again reminded of this:
» Read more

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The face of Ceres

9:35 am

The face of Ceres

Cool image time! The image on the right, reduced in resolution to show here, was taken by Dawn on April 29, 2017, when the spacecraft had been positioned between the Sun and the dwarf planet at a moment when its entire surface was lit. They have enhanced the colors to bring out the contrasts.

Images combining these different color filter perspectives reveal fine details of Ceres’ surface. For example, they emphasize the distinct compositions and textures of the material ejected from craters. The brightest region on Ceres, called Cerealia Facula, is highlighted in Occator Crater in the center of this image. Vinalia Faculae, the set of secondary bright spots in the same crater, are located to the right of Cerealia Facula.

One of the darkest regions on Ceres is next to Occator, and represents ejected material from the impact that formed the crater. The ejected material forms a large arc that extends over several hundred kilometers, below the center of Ceres in this image. That material’s distribution is partly determined by Ceres’ rotation.

Be sure to take a close look at the full image. It isn’t super high resolution, but it reveals a lot of interesting details

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Emergency spacewalk on ISS to replace electronics relay box

11:23 pm

Astronauts will perform an emergency spacewalk on May 23 to replace the failed MDM electronics relay box that failed on Saturday.

So, they have a spare on board, which is good. The article does note, however, that the unit that failed had only been installed less than two months ago, on March 30. This is not good. These units should last longer than two months, especially considering how critical they appear to be.

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Rocket Lab launch delayed

7:55 am

Capitalism in space: Rocket Lab has delayed its first test launch of its Electron rocket because of predicted high winds.

The company has not yet said if they have rescheduled for Tuesday.

This article gives a very detailed overview of the rocket, its engines, and the history of its launch site. It also notes that if successful, the launch will be first orbital flight ever from a commercial company from its own commercial launch site.

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Primary data relay electronics unit on ISS truss fails

9:00 pm

ISS managers are meeting to make a plan to deal with the failure on Saturday of the #1 data relay electronics box on the S0 truss of the station.

The unit, called an MDM, has an identical backup in place so no station operations have so far been effected. However, that backup had failed back in 2014 and required a spacewalk to replace it, so it is not clear to me as yet whether the station has any additional spares available to replace the newly failed unit. If so, it will still require a spacewalk to make the switch.

If there is no spare, they will likely have to ship one up on the next cargo flight, as the MDM is essential for operating the solar panels and radiators as well as the robot arms.

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