Year: 2021

Update on Starship/Superheavy preparations for orbital test flight

9:15 am

Starship prototype #20 being prepped
Screen capture from Labpadre live stream, available here.

Link here. In sum it appears that SpaceX is getting very close to launch, with the permit approval of the FAA increasingly becoming the biggest obstacle to progress.

Although the completion of all of this testing could take a long time, in Elon Musk’s mind, the path to returning B4 and S20 to being an integrated stack could be during this month.

A week ago, Musk tweeted that the “first orbital stack of Starship should be ready for flight in a few weeks, pending only regulatory approval.” Ultimately, once the vehicle is in its launch configuration, there will be a lengthy process of passing the aforementioned regulatory approval, with an environmental public comment period triggered ahead of launch. This has to be completed before the launch license can be granted by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The screen capture above shows Starship prototype #20 sitting on the suborbital flight test pad, as workers on cherry-pickers work on its exterior. The orange, green, and white tiles are likely tile locations still needing some level of installation work.

Based on SpaceX’s normal pace of operations, the engine testing for both Starship and Superheavy will take several weeks, once both are ready for such testing. While Starship appears just about ready, Superheavy apparently needs more work. When SpaceX stacked both together on the orbital launchpad several weeks ago, it suggested both were closer to launch than they were. Their present status suggests engine testing will likely begin in September, with Starship at the beginning of the month and Superheavy at the end of the month. That would make a launch possible sometime in late October, assuming the federal government doesn’t decide to shut this entire operation down by refusing to issue a permit.

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Asteroid discovered with shortest orbit yet

8:55 am

Astroid's orbit
Click for full image.

Astronomers have discovered an asteroid that circles the Sun with the shortest orbit yet found, flying mostly inside the orbit of Mercury.

The illustration to the right shows the asteroids orbit, which is also tilted 32 degrees from the plane of the solar system.

The orbit of the approximately 1-kilometer-diameter asteroid takes it as close as 20 million kilometers (12 million miles or 0.13 au), from the Sun every 113 days. Asteroid 2021 PH27, revealed in images acquired during twilight, also has the smallest mean distance (semi-major axis) of any known asteroid in our Solar System — only Mercury has a shorter period and smaller semi-major axis. The asteroid is so close to the Sun’s massive gravitational field, it experiences the largest general relativistic effects of any known Solar System object.

Relatively few asteroids have been found with orbits shorter than Earth’s, because to find them astronomers have to turn their telescopes sunward, where viewing is limited to the early evening or early morning. Few space-based telescopes in all wavelengths also don’t look this way much, because of the risk of damage from the intense sunlight.

It is thus unknown exactly how many asteroids exist with similar orbits. There may be many, with many having short eccentric orbits, similar to comets, that extend out to Earth’s orbit and thus pose a risk. Or there may be few, since such orbits so close to the Sun are likely to cause the asteroid’s break-up and destruction over time.

Knowing how many of course is important, in order to obtain a full census of those asteroids in the solar system that might hit the Earth. To get it will likely require placing a probe designed to look for them.

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Russia launches another 34 OneWeb satellites

12:38 am

Russia today put another 34 OneWeb satellites into orbit, using its Soyuz-2 rocket.

OneWeb now has 288 satellites in orbit, out of the planned 648. At present the constellation is able to provide service to customers in latitudes north of 50 degrees. Though SpaceX’s Starlink constellation is also offering service to customers in the same northern latitudes, the two companies service different customer bases, with OneWeb aimed at big business and government operations and Starlink aimed at individual residential customers.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

27 China
20 SpaceX
13 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman.

The U.S. still leads China 31 to 27 in the national rankings.

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Trump says he “single-handedly” decided to move Space Force command from Colorado to Alabama

9:19 am

On Friday former President Donald Trump stated that it was his decision to put the headquarters of the new Space Force in Alabama, not in Colorado where most military related space operations have been located for decades.

“Space Force — I sent to Alabama,” Trump said. “I hope you know that. (They) said they were looking for a home and I single-handedly said, ‘Let’s go to Alabama.’ They wanted it. I said, ‘Let’s go to Alabama. I love Alabama.’”

U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, a Republican who represents Colorado Springs, said Trump’s remarks were “an admission” that the headquarters move “was based solely on politics and personal preference — not the Air Force’s basing criteria or national security.”

When this decision was announced in January, I then believed porkmeister Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) had forced it through, but it appears now that is wrong. It was Trump, but still for reasons of pork.

This was a bad decision, one that from the beginning was going to have both practical and political opposition. For practical reasons Colorado always made better sense as Space Force headquarters because it would require less relocation of assets. For political reasons it was flying in the face of a lot of well-established vested interests in Colorado.

Trump’s admission yesterday will likely provide the final bit of ammunition needed by Colorado politicians to get it overturned.

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Russia delays launch of next unmanned lunar probe

9:04 am

According to a story in Russia’s state-run press, Roscosmos has decided to delay the launch of its Luna-25 lander from October 2021 to May 2022.

The story gave no reason for the delay.

Luna-25 would be the first Russian lunar probe since the 1970s, and is supposed to be that country’s first probe in a partnership with China to establish a manned lunar base by the 2030s.

Want to bet the Russian contribute to this project will be repeatedly delayed, and will also likely be disappointing? That has been the track record of Roscosmos for the past two decades (like all 21st century government projects). This first delay signals many more to come.

I am not saying Russia will fail to launch anything. What I am saying is that everyone should reserve a large store of skepticism about any promises Russia’s makes.

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Top engineers and managers fleeing Blue Origin

3:58 pm

According to this story today, Blue Origin this summer lost at least sixteen top management and engineering employees, all leaving in a very short time.

At least 16 key leaders and senior engineers have left Blue Origin this summer, CNBC has learned, with many moving on in the weeks after Bezos’ spaceflight.

…Others quietly updated their LinkedIn pages over the past few weeks. Each unannounced departure was confirmed to CNBC by people familiar with the matter. Those departures include: New Shepard senior vice president Steve Bennett, chief of mission assurance Jeff Ashby (who retired), national security sales director Scott Jacobs, New Glenn senior director Bob Ess, New Glenn senior finance manager Bill Scammell, senior manager of production testing Christopher Payne, New Shepard technical project manager Nate Chapman, senior propulsion design engineer Dave Sanderson, senior HLS human factors engineer Rachel Forman, BE-4 controller lead integration and testing engineer Jack Nelson, New Shepard lead avionics software engineer Huong Vo, BE-7 avionics hardware engineer Aaron Wang, propulsion engineer Rex Gu, and rocket engine development engineer Gerry Hudak.

Those who announced they were leaving Blue Origin did not specify why, but frustration with executive management and a slow, bureaucratic structure is often cited in employee reviews on job site Glassdoor.

There is another possibility that would be more hopeful. It could be that Jeff Bezos is shaking up the company because of its poor accomplishments during the past four years, since CEO Bob Smith was hired.

That Smith however is still there makes this guess unlikely. The article also notes that Smith’s approval among Blue Origin employees is abysmal, with only 15% approving his management, when compared to high numbers given to the management leaders at SpaceX and ULA.

Thus, this exodus is more likely a sign that that the rats are fleeing what they see as a sinking ship.

It would be a mistake to dismiss Blue Origin however. The company is swimming in dough because of Bezos’ deep pockets, and he is free to do what he thinks must be done to fix things. Under such conditions it is very unlikely Blue Origin will disappear. More likely Bezos will straighten things out, though the company now has to play big catch up, not only against SpaceX but also against the fleet of new orbital rocket companies about to come on line — all doing so ahead of Blue Origin.

There is also the possibility that this story has got its facts wrong. It makes a very big error near the beginning, claiming that former SpaceX engineer Lauren Lyons had left Blue Origin to join SpaceX, when she had actually left SpaceX to take a big promotion at Firefly. My mistake. Lyons had moved from SpaceX to Blue Origin. This job change was leaving Blue Origin to go to Firefly.

Hat tip to reader Jay.

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New cracks across old Martian lava flows

1:03 pm

New cracks across an old lava flow
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on June 4, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It captures one of the many deep straight fissure canyons that make up the feature dubbed Cerberus Fossae in the center of Mars’ volcano country.

The crack is called a graben, and happens when the ground is either stretched from pressure from below, or when two adjacent large blocks of material move sideways relative to each other.

What makes this particular graben interesting are two features. First, the overlapping break suggests something complex took place at this spot when the crack separated. Second, the crack cut across the foot of an older frozen lava flow, meaning it has to be younger than that flow.

The overview map below provides a clue when that lava flow might have occurred, while also suggesting this crack in Cerberus Fossae might be much younger than expected.
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Unvaccinated students at Quinnipac University to be punished

11:53 am

Coming to your town in America soon!
Rounding up the unclean unvaccinated: coming soon to America.

Genocide is coming: Quinnipac University in Connecticut, having reimposed an indoor mask requirement, has now announced that it will fine and punish any students who do not provide proof that they have either been vaccinated against COVID or have a proper exemption.

Quinnipiac students may be fined up to $200 per week eventually until they prove their vaccination status. Fines for students who don’t supply vaccination proof will begin at $100 per week for the first two weeks. The penalty will increase by increments of $25 every two weeks until a max fine of $200 per week.

Currently non-complying students can avoid the fines if they show the proper documentation by Sept. 14. If they fail to meet the directive by then, they will lose access to the campus internet network.

No longer is the left screaming “My body! My choice!” Then that mantra for abortion worked to garner it political support from naive followers. Now the mantra is “Your body is ours! Let us do to it what we want or we will oppress you!”

It is a very short leap from merely punishing those who refuse a vaccine to rounding them up in camps to isolate them from the rest of society. From there, it is an even shorter leap to imposing mass executions to keep society clean from such unpure individuals.
» Read more

65 comments

British court dismisses billionaire’s lawsuit against Sutherland spaceport

10:52 am

A British judge today dismissed entirely [pdf] the lawsuit filed by billionaire Anders Povlsen, who had been trying to block the construction of a spaceport in Sutherland, Scotland, a region where he owns thousands of acres and is involved in many environmental issues.

Povlsen instead has been lobbying to have a spaceport instead built in the Shetland Islands, by a company he has invested in.

The ruling on all points went against Povlsen. The judge concluded:

Since I have held that none of the grounds of challenge is well founded it is unnecessary to [do anything], and I do not propose to do so (other than to say what I have already said….)

I shall sustain [the defense’s case and]… repel the petitioner’s pleas-in-law, and refuse the petition. I shall reserve meantime all questions of expenses.

This likely clears the way for construction of the Sutherland spaceport, from which the British smallsat rocket company Obex wants to launch. Lockheed Martin has said it would launch smallsats from Sutherland, but it has also said it would launch from Shetland too.

Povlsen’s opposition based on environmental concerns was of course a smokescreen to get this competing spaceport closed so that the one he has invested in in Shetland would get all the business. For more than three-quarters of a century launches have taken place at both the Kennedy and Vandenberg spaceports in the U.S., with neither doing any harm to the surrounding wildlife. Moreover, at Kennedy that spaceport forced the creation of a wildlife preserve, which prevented development. As long as they are operated with care and properly, spaceports are good for wildlife.

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China’s astronauts complete 2nd spacewalk at Tianhe space station

9:50 am

The new colonial movement: Two Chinese astronauts yesterday successfully completed a six hour spacewalk, installing components on the outside of the Tianhe space station module necessary for future construction work.

The pair, wearing second generation Feitian (“flying to space”) extravehicular mobility suits, completed installing foot restraints and an extravehicular working platform to the large robotic arm. Chinese media outlets streamed footage of the EVA. … The EVA also included work on a panoramic camera, installing a toolkit, adding a pump set for the Tianhe thermal control system and other apparatus in preparation for the arrival of two further modules in 2022. The EVA was completed at 2:33 a.m. Friday, around an hour ahead of schedule.

The first spacewalk occurred in the first week in July.

These astronauts have been working at the station since mid-June, and are expected to return to Earth in mid-September, completing a three month mission. Shortly thereafter a new cargo freighter will launch to the station to provide supplies for the next crew, due in October.

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