Year: 2021

Perseverance’s next drill attempt

9:40 am

Perseverance short term planned route
Click for full image.

The Perseverance science team today announced its near-future plans for where it will send the rover, but also when and how it will attempt its next core sample drilling.

The map to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, shows the rover’s future route. The red dot indicates its present location. The blue dot indicates where next they will attempt to drill. The route shows that they have decided to also make a short side trip south, an target that until now was considered optional.

As for what they plan to do in that next drill attempt:

We will first abrade the selected rock and use the science instruments to confirm (to the best of our ability) that the new target is likely to result in a core after the sampling process.

If we choose to sample the rock, Perseverance will perform a set of activities very close to what was done on the prior coring target. The main difference will be, after coring, we’ve added a “ground in the loop” session to review the images of the tube in the bit and confirm a sample was collected. Then, the tube will be transferred into the rover for processing.

If post-coring imagery shows no sample in the tube, we may elect to try again, using an alternate geometry (e.g. more horizontal) for the coring activity. Another option, if the targeted rock doesn’t allow for a change in geometry, is to look for a different rock in this region that is more easily cored horizontally.

They really want to get a sample of this particular bedrock on the floor of Jezero Crater. Their problem is that the first core sample failed because the bedrock was too structurally weak, crumbled into powder during drilling, and thus poured out of the drillbit once retracted from the ground. It could be that this will be a consistent issue with any sample attempts in this bedrock. This is why they are also considering drilling sideways, in order to hold any material they grab.

I suspect that the short side trip south might be to an outcrop that the rover could drill sideways into. Thus, if they are successful in getting a sample at the blue dot they might still cancel that side trip.

0 comments

NASA freezes work on SpaceX’s lunar lander version of Starship

9:23 am

In response to Blue Origin’s lawsuit that is attempting to cancel the contract award to SpaceX for adapting its Starship upper stage rocket as a manned lunar lander, NASA yesterday officially paused all work by it and SpaceX on this project.

From NASA’s statement:

NASA has voluntarily paused work with SpaceX for the human landing system (HLS) Option A contract effective Aug. 19 through Nov. 1. In exchange for this temporary stay of work, all parties agreed to an expedited litigation schedule that concludes on Nov. 1. NASA officials are continuing to work with the Department of Justice to review the details of the case and look forward to a timely resolution of this matter.

The optics for Blue Origin remain ugly. Not only does the company appear more interested in fighting court battles than building spaceships and rockets, it now is acting to prevent others from doing so.

The timeline of events however is interesting. Blue Origin filed its lawsuit on August 13th. NASA issued the first $300 million payment to SpaceX for this $2.9 billion contract on August 16th. Even with this announcement today, the payment suggests that NASA is doing what it can to make the contract award an accomplished fact that the courts will not find easy to overturn.

1 comment

Japan to attempt sample return mission to Martian moon

9:06 am

Japan’s space agency JAXA today announced that it will launch in ’24 an unmanned probe to the Martian moon Phobos that will return a sample to Earth in ’29.

The plan is to bring back about 10 grams of material.

If launched as planned, Japan will beat everyone in getting the first samples back from Martian space. China says it hopes to grab samples from Mars itself by 2030, while the U.S. and Europe hope to launch a mission to return the Perseverance cached samples sometime in the 2030s.

3 comments

Two new smallsat rockets now set for launch

8:57 am

Capitalism in space: The launch dates of two different new smallsat rockets is now confirmed.

First, Astra has obtained from the FAA a launch operator license that will allow it to launch rockets from now until March 2026. This license now allows the company to proceed with its August 27th first orbital launch of its Rocket-3 rocket. If successful, Astra hopes to move to monthly launches before the end of the year.

Second, Firefly has announced that it will attempt its own first orbital launch of its Alpha rocket on September 2nd. The company had been promising a launch before the end of the year, but until now had not set a date. The successful completion of a static fire test of the rocket cleared the way.

Three other smallsat rocket companies, Relativity, ABL, and Aevum, have also said they are targeting this year for their first orbital launches, but none has set any dates yet.

If successful, these companies will join Rocket Lab and Virgin Orbit in providing launch capabilities for tiny satellites like cubesats and nanosats.

0 comments

A weak avalanche season on Mars?

1:39 pm

The north pole scarp
Click for full image.

Today’s cool image from Mars is cool both for what is visible in the photo and for what is not, the latter of which might turn out to be a discovery of importance.

The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on June 24, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a section of the edge of Mars’ north polar ice cap, with north at the top.

This scarp is probably more than 2,000 feet high, though that height drops to the south as the upper layers disappear one by one from either long term erosion or sublimation. Those layers represent the visible information in the photo that is cool. They give us tantalizing clues about the geological and climatic history of Mars. Each layer probably represents a climate period when the north icecap was growing because the tilt of the planet’s rotation was even less than the 25 degrees it is now. When that tilt is small, as small as 11 degrees, the poles of Mars are very cold, and water ice migrates from the mid-latitudes to the poles, adding thickness to the icecaps. When the tilt grows, to as much as 55 degrees, the mid-latitudes are colder than the poles, and the water ice migrates back to the mid-latitudes.

What is not visible in this picture, however, might be far more significant.
» Read more

0 comments

Today’s blacklisted American: Priest removed by Catholic Church for condemning Democrats who violate actual Catholic teachings

12:17 pm

Catholic Church now opposes its own basic tenets in order to politically help Democrats
The Catholic Church: Down with Catholic teachings!
Up with the leftist Democratic Party!

They’re coming for you next: A Wisconsin priest was removed from his parish by his superiors in the Catholic Church in late May because he has bluntly condemned Democratic Party politicians for their “pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, and pro-transgender agendas” that violate the church’s foundational teachings.

The priest, James Altman, is most well known for a video homily he posted that stated the following:

“Here’s a memo to clueless baptized Catholics out there: You cannot be Catholic and be a Democrat. Period,” Altman said in the video. “Their party platform absolutely is against everything the Catholic church teaches. So just quit pretending that you’re Catholic and vote Democrat. Repent of your support of that party and its platform, or face the fires of hell.”

Altman’s homily also strongly criticized his own superiors for their willingness to protect these same Democrats, no matter what those Democrats do.
» Read more

10 comments

The knives aimed at SpaceX are getting sharpened

10:01 am

Starship must be banned!
Banning Starship: The new goal of our leftist masters.

Two stories today mark what appears to be a growing political campaign focused on squelching by any means possible the continued unparalleled success of the company SpaceX. And the simultaneous publication of both stories on the same day also suggests that this campaign is deliberately timed to force the FAA to shut down SpaceX at Boca Chica.

First we have a story at Space.com aimed at SpaceX’s Starlink constellation, making it the big villain in the growing threat of satellite collisions.

SpaceX’s Starlink satellites alone are involved in about 1,600 close encounters between two spacecraft every week, that’s about 50 % of all such incidents, according to Hugh Lewis, the head of the Astronautics Research Group at the University of Southampton, U.K. These encounters include situations when two spacecraft pass within a distance of 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) from each other.

Lewis, Europe’s leading expert on space debris, makes regular estimates of the situation in orbit based on data from the Socrates (Satellite Orbital Conjunction Reports Assessing Threatening Encounters in Space ) database. This tool, managed by Celestrack, provides information about satellite orbits and models their trajectories into the future to assess collision risk.

Though his data appears accurate and the growing risk of collisions is real, it appears from the story that Lewis, one of only two experts interviewed, has a strong hostility to SpaceX. He doesn’t like the fact that SpaceX is so successful in such a short time, and appears to want something done to control it.

The article also nonchalantly sloughs off one very significant fact: Very few satellite collisions have actually occurred. While the risk is certainly going to increase, that increase is not going to be fueled just by SpaceX. At least four large constellations are presently in the works, all comparable to Starlink in some manner. To focus on SpaceX in particular makes this article appear like a hatchet job.

Then we have a news story from CBS and its very partisan and leftist news show, Sixty Minutes+, providing a loud soapbox for the very small number of anti-development environmentalists fighting to block SpaceX’s operations in Boca Chica, Texas.
» Read more

31 comments

Firefly hires noted SpaceX engineer

9:03 am

Capitalism in space: Firefly Aerospace announced earlier this week that it has hired as it chief operating officer Lauren Lyons, a former SpaceX engineer familiar to many for her regular appearances as a announcer on SpaceX’s launch telecasts.

The company said that Lyons will focus on “transitioning Firefly from an R&D environment to a production environment” for its Alpha small launch vehicle, Space Utility Vehicle tug and Blue Ghost lunar lander. “Firefly is entering a pivotal and exciting phase of its growth,” Lyons said in the statement. “I’m thrilled to take on the challenge of leading the efforts in scaling the company’s infrastructure to support rapid growth, high execution rate, and deliver exceptional value and service to our customers.”

Translation: Using Lyons expertise from SpaceX, Firefly intends to operate much like SpaceX, upgrading its rockets and spacecraft continuously even as they operate commercially.

The launch date for the company’s first orbital attempt remains unannounced, though it says it will occur before the end of the year. It appears they are ready to go, except for one component of their flight termination system.

7 comments

China launches two more military surveillance satellites

8:52 am

China today used its Long March 4B rocket to put two more military surveillance satellites into orbit.

No word on whether the spent first stage landed near habitable areas in China. China also said nothing about whether that stage carried grid fins or parachutes for bringing it back to Earth more precisely.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

27 China
20 SpaceX
12 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman

Russia plans a launch later today (tomorrow in Russia) of another 34 OneWeb satellites. In the national rankings, the U.S. still leads China 31 to 27.

1 comment
1 … 59 60 61 62 63 … 167