Year: 2019

Parker to extend instrument operations in future solar fly-bys

9:40 am

The engineering and science team for the Parker Solar Probe have decided they can turn on its science instruments for a longer period during future solar fly-bys, and have now done so for its upcoming third approach.

Parker Solar Probe turned on its four instrument suites on Aug. 16, 2019 — earlier than during its previous two solar encounters, extending the observation period from 11 days to about 35 days.

During the spacecraft’s first two solar encounters, the science instruments were turned on when Parker was about 0.25 AU from the Sun and powered off again at the same distance on the outbound side of the orbit. (One AU, or astronomical unit, is about 93 million miles, the average distance between the Sun and Earth.) For this third solar encounter, the mission team turned on the instruments when the spacecraft was around 0.45 AU from the Sun on the inbound side of its orbit and will turn them off when the spacecraft is about 0.5 AU from the Sun on the outbound side.

This decision will allow them to get more data about the solar wind from farther from the Sun.

11 comments

Northrop Grumman leases part of VAB for assembling Omega rocket

9:30 am

Northrop Grumman has become the first private company to lease a bay of the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center, where it will its new OmegA rocket.

Northrop Grumman will assemble and test its new OmegA rocket inside the massive facility’s High Bay 2, one of four high bays in the building. … The company also is modifying mobile launcher platform-3 (MLP-3) to serve as the launch vehicle’s assembly and launch platform. Both the VAB and MLP-3 were originally built for the Apollo Program and went on to enable the three-decade Space Shuttle Program.

OmegA’s development is being funded by an $800 million contract with the Air Force.

In many ways, I could ask the exact same question here as I just did in the post below about the Chinese government’s pseudo private launch industry: From an American private enterprise perspective, this Air Force attempt to create a commercial launch industry using government funds but tight government supervision and control is very puzzling. OmegA will be competing directly with other American launch companies that are privately funded, owned, and run by private corporations (though also getting significant government contracts for their already operational products). How the federal government prevents its government agencies (NASA, the Air Force) from putting their thumbs on the scale to favor one over the other I do not understand.

6 comments

China launches three satellites on new rocket

9:21 am

China today successfully completed the first orbital launch of its privately-funded but government-built smallsat Smart Dragon rocket, putting three smallsats into orbit.

From the Chinese state press:

The rocket, developed by the China Rocket Co. Ltd. affiliated to the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALVT), blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China at 12:11 p.m. (Beijing Time).

The three satellites, respectively developed by three Beijing-based companies, will be used for remote sensing services, communication and Internet of Things.

Different from the carrier rockets of the Long March family, the new Dragon series is developed in a commercial mode to meet the market demand of launching small commercial satellites, said Wang Xiaojun, head of CALVT.

What they mean by “a commercial mode” is that the funding comes from private Chinese investors who hope to make money from the rocket’s launches. However, this is not a private operation by any means, since the rocket is owned and built by a government entity and uses military solid motors.

From an American perspective, this Chinese attempt to create a commercial launch industry using private funds but tight government supervision and control is very puzzling. This government company is now competing directly with other Chinese launch companies that are, at least superficially, owned and run by private corporations (though also supervised closely by the government). How the Chinese government prevents its government agencies from putting their thumbs on the scale to favor one over the other I do not understand.

The leaders in the 2019 launch race:

12 Russia
12 China
10 SpaceX
6 Europe (Arianespace)
4 India

The U.S leads 17 to 12 over Russia and China in the national rankings.

0 comments

Marshall wins Artemis manned Moon lander pork

8:57 am

As expected and despite opposition from some Texas lawmakers, NASA yesterday announced that it has given the bulk of the management of its Artemis manned lunar lander project to the Marshall Space Flight Center.

Marshall will be in charge of two of the contractors who will build what NASA conceives as three components for the lander: the transfer vehicle, the descent module, and the upper ascent stage:

The lunar lander, consisting of three components, also will be launched atop commercial rockets and docked at the Gateway before any astronauts arrive. One component, a sort of carrier craft known as a transfer vehicle, would take the lander from Gateway down to a lower orbit. From there, the lander’s descent module will make a rocket-powered landing on the moon, initially carrying two astronauts.

The astronauts would ride down to the surface in the pressurized cabin of an upper ascent stage. That stage will use the descent module as a launching pad, much like the Apollo astronauts did 50 years ago, to climb back up to the transfer vehicle and then on to Gateway.

Marshall will supervise construction of the transfer vehicle and the descent module, while the Johnson Space Center in Texas will manage construction of the upper ascent stage.

Does no one in NASA or the Trump administration see the stupidity of this? It is as if Ford decided that the interior and exterior sections of its cars will be assembled in two different factories, and only combined after they are assembled. The logistics of making sure they will fit and work together during final assembly could only increase costs, delay assembly, and almost guarantee engineering issues. No intelligently run business would do such a thing.

Government however is not an intelligently run business. It is run by politicians, whom we the public have not held to any kind of quality standard for the past half century. Thus, NASA is forced to spread this pork around because politicians in Alabama (Senator Richard Shelby) and Texas (Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn) demand it do so.

14 comments

A directory of skeptical climate websites

11:09 pm

Link here. The list is very comprehensive, including many of the sites I check frequently. Note too that many of these sites are very rigorous in the analysis of data, often far more rigorous than many modern peer-reviewed climate papers I read.

As they are skeptical, so should you be. Don’t take anything said at these sites at face value, but don’t dismiss what they say outright either. Pay attention, because you might find that you will become more discerning in the future when you are bombarded with chicken-little pronouncements from the global warming activist crowd.

One quote from the article bears some contemplating:

Virtually all powerful vested interests in the Western hemisphere recognize climate change alarm as leverage to impose self-serving policies and garner higher profits. The reasons for this are myriad. [The article then lists sixteen such reasons, all well known and well documented.]

Taken individually, each of these reasons—and this list undoubtedly omits additional special interests that benefit from climate change alarm—represent a profound shift in public policy. Each of them represents investments skewing away from optimal returns and instead towards returns that favor a politically entitled group. The overall impact of all of them is regressive, increasing the cost-of-living for the most economically vulnerable populations.

3 comments

Tlaib lies about desire to visit grandmother in West Bank

2:11 pm

Congresswoman Rashida Tlaid (D-Michigan), banned by the Israeli government from making a political trip to visit Israel and the West Bank, then wrote a private letter to Israel interior minister Aryeh Deri, asking for permission to just go to the West Bank to visit her aged grandmother.

In a letter obtained by CNN, Deri revealed Tlaib had requested and was granted permission to enter the West Bank to visit her grandmother, who is 90 years old. “This could be my last opportunity to see her. I will respect any restrictions and will not promote boycotts against Israel during my visit,” the Michigan Democrat wrote to Deri. [emphasis mine]

As soon as the interior minister gave her this permission, Tlaib then announced publicly today that she would not accept this offer:

“Silencing me & treating me like a criminal is not what she wants for me. It would kill a piece of me. I have decided that visiting my grandmother under these oppressive conditions stands against everything I believe in–fighting against racism, oppression & injustice,”

As the interior minister noted correctly today, “I agreed to this humanitarian request, but it turns out that it was just a provocation aimed at embarrassing Israel.”

Tlaib is a dishonest liar who hates Israel and all Jews. She allies herself with the worst Jew-hating Palestinians who want to wipe Israel out and kill all the Jews that live there. It thus no surprise that Israel banned her political visit. (And if you doubt the anti-Semitism of Tlaib and her partner Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota), read this story: Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib Partnered with Vicious Anti-Semites to Plan Their Trip to Israel.)

Yet, that Israel still was willing to let her come, on the condition it was only to visit her grandmother, says a great deal about Israel itself.

17 comments

Protest filed against NASA contract awards for unmanned lunar landers

1:54 pm

Deep Space Systems, one of the private companies that bid for a NASA contract to build a private lunar lander to carry NASA instruments to the moon, and did not get the contract, has filed a protest against that decision.

I found out about this through my industry sources. I have no further information about the protest itself.

The timeline however is intriguing. The contracts were awarded to three different companies on May 31, 2019. Deep Space Systems’ protest was filed on June 24, 2019.

On July 30, 2019 one of contract winners, Orbit Beyond, backed out of the deal. Whether the protest or Orbit Beyond’s exit are related is at present unknown, though I wonder if they might be connected.

Either way, the question now arises: Who will replace Orbit Beyond? I also wonder if this protest gives Deep Space Systems an advantage for getting that replacement contract. This last thought is pure speculation and very unlikely. There are several other companies that are more well known and might be better qualified, and it would be inappropriate for NASA to allow its decision-making process to be pressured because of this protest.

Regardless, stay tuned for more information. This story is going to get more interesting.

0 comments

When told Clinton’s missing classified emails were sent to gmail, FBI was uninterested

12:02 pm

But Russia! A new Senate report has revealed that the computer specialist hired by Hillary Clinton to wipe her private server had copied and sent all her missing classified emails to an ordinary gmail account, and when this illegal fact was revealed to fired FBI agent Peter Strzok, in charge of the investigation, Strzok had no interest in following up.

Virtually every single one of Hillary Clinton’s emails were sent, potentially secretly, to a cryptically named Gmail address, according to a new Senate report.

The finding, which has not been previously reported, means that Clinton’s emails, including classified ones and ones which were later deleted, likely existed on Google’s U.S.-based servers. The FBI said in the report that it knew this — and of the suspicious explanation for it — but did not alert other intelligence agencies or the public, according to the report.

The FBI says that the suspicious Gmail address was set up by an IT aide, Paul Combetta, who worked for a company that managed Clinton’s server. Combetta is the same IT aide who used BleachBit to permanently erase copies of Clinton’s emails after they were subpoenaed by the House, misled the FBI about it, and was given immunity from prosecution, all while asking for basic computing advice on Reddit.

This story confirms several blatantly obvious facts, as well as reveals some new ones about the partisan agenda of the FBI.

First, we must underline again the very obvious fact that Hillary Clinton had broken the law by using a private email server. There is no question about this. If she was brought to trial on this charge the evidence would have her found guilty in a nanosecond.

Second, Peter Strzok’s disinterest in the facts against her, and the support he got at the time from his superiors, provides more proof of the FBI’s pro-Democrat partisanship and its willingness to provide cover for Clinton, for political reasons. The FBI at the end of the Obama administration was entirely corrupt, and willing to be weaponized to help Democrats (and Clinton) win elections. After Trump won it then became weaponized to try to overturn that election.

Third, this story strongly implies that those missing emails, more than thirty thousand, might very well be recoverable. They were sent to Google, and Google is notorious for keeping material it isn’t supposed to keep. Moreover, the report appears to confirm earlier news reports that Clinton’s unsecured emails had been captured by outside hackers tied to China, which means that China probably has them also.

In other words, Trump’s joke asking the Russians to provide them to us was wrong. He should have been asking the Chinese.

Jokes aside, this evidence proves that many people from the Obama administration should be prosecuted for a variety of crimes, the worst of which was an effort to interfere with a legal and constitutional election. Whether that happens remains very doubtful in my mind, considering how much illegality Democratic politicians have gotten away with in recent years.

5 comments

The Philippines creates its own space agency

10:40 am

The new colonial movement: Rodrigo Duterte, the president of the Philippines, today signed a new law creating that country’s own space agency.

According to the law, the Philippine Space Policy focuses on six key development areas: national security and development, hazard management, climate studies, space research and development, space industry capacity building, and space education and awareness.

In an interview with ANC News, Marciano said that research facilities will be built in the upcoming development New Clark City in Pampanga province. Under the Philippine Space Development Fund, approximately $190 million will be dedicated to the development of PhilSA across five years.

In reading the law itself, it appears that this is mostly a governmental power play, taking over supervision of any space-related industries while justifying some pork and bureaucracy.

The Philippines wants to compete for the future resources of space, but like India, UAE, and most other third world nations they are copying the worst aspects of the model created by the U.S. in the 1960s: a government-run program that designs and controls everything. This can work for awhile, assuming your society and government is not very corrupt (which was the case initially with NASA in the U.S.). In the end however the dry rot sets in, and the whole thing becomes a fake government jobs program, accomplishing relatively little for the money spent.

0 comments

Texas and Alabama fight over space pork

10:20 am

Turf war: Several powerful Texas lawmakers announced yesterday their opposition to NASA’s decision to give the lead management for the next lunar lander to the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama.

The question is which Center will manage development of the landers, a plum assignment. NASA plans to procure them through public-private partnerships rather than traditional contracts. The actual design will be determined by whatever companies win the contracts, but NASA’s concept is for a trilogy of vehicles: a transfer vehicle to take the crew from the Gateway to a lower lunar orbit, then a descent vehicle to take them to the surface and an ascent vehicle to return them to Gateway.

…According to Ars Technica, … NASA is assigning overall responsibility for the lunar lander program to Marshall, which will also oversee acquisition of the transfer and descent vehicles. JSC will oversee the ascent vehicle.

In a letter to Bridenstine today, Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn and Rep. Brian Babin, all Republicans, expressed surprise and asked Bridenstine to reconsider. They argue that JSC should be in charge of the entire program, not just one of the three vehicles. Marshall’s expertise is in rocketry while JSC is “ground zero for human space exploration.”

They also disagree with splitting the work between two Centers, “an unnecessary and counterproductive departure from the unquestionable success” of the lander for the Apollo program.

This fight is not over who will actually build anything, but how to distribute the pork. In truth, the NASA agency that does this “management” does almost nothing. It is the contractor that builds the spacecraft. You could condense the management into a team of less two dozen (and that’s probably high). Instead, NASA and these politicians use the contractors to justify the existence of whole departments and hundreds of employees and large facilities, all of which are mostly irrelevant, especially if the Trump administration is serious about letting private industry do the job.

Worse, this fight — and NASA’s need to make these politicians happy — is forcing the agency to turn the work once again into a Frankenstein monster, distributing responsibility in absurd ways. I guarantee that in the end the management will not all go to Texas, meaning that the management of the different contractors will be split to different agencies, making for a very inefficient and badly managed program.

The result is going to be, as always, delays, cost overruns, bad designs, a lot of wasted money, and little accomplished.

I want to make special note of Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in this affair. He ran for president as a new conservative, out to drain the swamp of Washington. Now, as senator, he is increasingly becoming captured by that swamp, participating in all the same corruption he railed against during his presidential run.

If he was really serious about draining the swamp, he would be pushing to trim NASA’s management, both in Alabama and in Texas. Instead he is fighting to build it up.

6 comments
1 … 53 54 55 56 57 … 156