Year: 2022

China’s Long March 3B rocket launches “experimental satellite”

9:20 am

China today successfully used its Long March 3B rocket to launch from an interior spaceport what its state-run press labeled an “experimental satellite.”

No word on where the rocket’s strap-on side boosters or first stage crashed within China.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

62 China
60 SpaceX
21 Russia
9 Rocket Lab
8 ULA

The U.S. still leads China 84 to 62 in the national rankings, but trails the entire world combined 94 to 84.

This launch cements for China the top spot in launches over SpaceX, since SpaceX only has one more launch planned in 2022, scheduled for just before midnight tonight.

5 comments

Lex Fridman – Playing Guitar in a Self-Driving Car

6:01 pm

An evening pause: The guitar playing is great, but if this is supposed to be a demonstration of the abilities of self-driving cars, to me it is a utter failure. The drive was on a test track, with no other cars. The car itself was probably never going faster than 25 miles per hour.

In fact, if anything this proves the impracticality of self-driving cars. Such technology might work in a completely controlled environment, but as soon as you add any random human element, it can’t work. Thus our options: we continue to drive ourselves, or we give up our freedom to drive so that all vehicles can be autonomous.

But as I say, the guitar playing is great.

Hat tip Wayne Devette.

12 comments

A “What the heck?” glacier image on Mars

5:36 pm

Glacial material on Mars
Click for full image.

Sometimes a cool image goes from bafflement to obvious as you zoom into it. The cool image to the right, cropped to post here, does the opposite. It was taken on October 11, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). I have purposely cropped it at full resolution, so that its eroded glacier nature is most obvious.

The cracks and hollows are likely caused by the sublimation of the near surface underground ice, breaking upward so that the protective surface layer of debris and dust collapses at some points, and cracks at others.

The overview map below further confirms the likelihood that we are looking at glacial features, but when we also zoom out from this close-up we discover things are not so easily explained.
» Read more

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December 28, 2022 Quick space links

2:46 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

  • NASA’s contract to Collins for space station spacesuit was sole source

    • This story seems to be trying to make a tempest in a teapot. NASA awarded two contracts to two different companies, one to Collins for station suits and a second to Axiom for lunar suits. In the end, both will be competing against each other, as both will clearly work to adapt their suits for other uses.

 

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Today’s blacklisted American: Computer maker Raspberry Pi boycotted because it hired a former policeman

2:02 pm

Toby Roberts: Targeted for blacklisting
Toby Roberts: blacklisted because he once was
a policeman

They’re coming for you next: The mini-computer maker Raspberry Pi has found itself being boycotted because it hired a former policeman.

Toby Roberts, the former policeman, had spent years using Raspberry Pi’s in his policework building covert surveillance devices. As he wrote about his new job, “While I enjoyed my time in the police, it was tough at times, so it’s really pleasant now to be in such a joyful environment.”

The Buzzfeed article at the first link above quotes a small handful of people outraged at this hire. These two comments are typical:

Matt Lewis, a Denver-based site reliability engineer, echoed those sentiments. “I am disgusted that [Raspberry Pi’s] official post on Toby Roberts’ hiring promotes his use of their products to surveil individuals without their consent,” he wrote via Twitter DM. “In my eyes, this behavior is completely unethical and the work Toby has done for 15 years is indefensible. I’m also upset that they have chosen to double down on this position against the community outrage.”

Wikipedia consultant Pete Forsyth, who is from Oregon, also had strong words for Raspberry Pi. “I think this event will mark a turning point in the organization’s reputation,” he wrote via Twitter DM. “It’s hard to see how they can recover the trust they seem to have almost willfully dismantled today.”

» Read more

30 comments

Using reflected light from Jupiter to photograph Ganymede’s night side

12:15 pm

Ganymede as seen in the reflected light of Jupiter
Click for full image.

During Juno’s June 7, 2021 close fly-by of Ganymede, scientists used its instruments to obtain the first good image of a part of this Jupiter moon. What made the achievement especially amazing was that the area photographed was only lit by the reflected light from Jupiter, the equivalent of its “earthshine.” From the paper’s abstract:

On 7 June 2021, the Juno spacecraft flew within about 1,000 km of the surface of Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede. The Mission used their sensitive navigation camera to photograph the moon’s dark side where it was lit only by scattered sunlight from Jupiter. This new imaging approach revealed multiple surface features, including a patchwork of different surface textures (such as grooved terrain), several craters, and ejecta deposits. These features had not been visible in images collected by previous spacecraft.

The picture to the right is from figure 2 of the paper, cropped and reduced to post here. It shows a region on Ganymede that in the earlier images had shown few details because the lighting was poor and thus features were not easily discerned (as can be seen by the inset in the lower right). In the new picture, the only light was reflected from Jupiter, and its low angle brings out the surface topography.

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Russian investigators conclude leak on Soyuz caused by external impact

9:20 am

ISS as of November 28, 2022
ISS after November 28, 2022 docking of unmanned Dragon freighter.
MS-22 is the Soyuz capsule that is leaking.

The Russian investigators yesterday concluded that the coolant leak on the Soyuz capsule docked to ISS was caused by an external impact, either by a meteroid or a small piece of space junk.

A decision on whether this capsule is still usable for manned flight will be made sometime in January. If not, Russia will move up the launch of the next Soyuz to ISS one month from March to February, but launch it empty. If so, managers will leave the schedule as is.

If the engineers determine the capsule is not flightworthy, it will mean however that until February, ISS is short one lifeboat. At present there are two Dragon capsules docked to ISS, one manned and one cargo. Both return to Earth with a habitable interior, but the cargo capsule is not intended for manned flight. In an emergency however it might be possible to use it.

This situation suggests that NASA should pay to get SpaceX to upgrade the cargo Dragons so that they could always be used as an emergency lifeboat.

9 comments

SpaceX launches 54 more Starlink satellites

9:04 am

SpaceX early today completed its 60th successful launch in 2022, putting 54 Starlink satellites into orbit using its Falcon 9 rocket.

This achievement matches a prediction Elon Musk made early in 2022. More significant, except for two years (1965 and 1966), SpaceX completed more launches in 2022 than the United States achieved each year since Sputnik. And it did it not as a nation, but as a private company, for profit.

SpaceX’s achievement this year also allowed the U.S. to smash its own record for annual launches.

The first stage successfully completed its 11th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2022 space race:

61 China
60 SpaceX
21 Russia
9 Rocket Lab
8 ULA

The U.S. now leads China 84 to 61 in the national rankings, but trails the entire world combined 93 to 84.

Only one more launch, by SpaceX, is publicly scheduled for 2022.

3 comments

Today’s blacklisted American: Black scientist blacklisted for doing good research

1:57 pm

Oluseyi Hakeem, blacklisted
Hakeem Oluseyi, Space Science Education Lead
for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate

They’re coming for you next: Today’s blacklist column describes an effort to not only cancel from history the man who led NASA for almost the entire 1960s space race, but to also blackball a scientist for doing good research that proved the campaign was not based on any facts.

Shortly before the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope last year, a petition was instigated to get it renamed because of accusations that Webb had persecuted homosexuals during his term as NASA administrator in the 1960s. As is now typical of our modern bankrupt intellectual class, as soon as this petition was issued more than 1,700 people signed it, all accepting at face value its accusations against Webb without any further research.

One scientist, who happened to be black, took a more detailed look at those accusations however and found them to be spurious. As Hakeem Oluseyi wrote:
» Read more

9 comments

Finding Martian glaciers from orbit

11:45 am

Glacier flow on Mars
Click for full image.

Today’s cool image is a great example of the surprises one can find by exploring the archive of the high resolution pictures that Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has produced since it arrived in Mars orbit back in 2006. The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken by MRO’s high resolution camera back on May 4, 2017. I only found it because I had picked out a October 24, 2022 high resolution image that covered a different area of this same flow feature just to the north east. In trying to understand that 2022 picture I dug to see other images had been taken around it, and found the earlier 2017 photo that was even more interesting.

Neither however really covered the entire feature, making it difficult to understand its full nature. I therefore searched the archive of MRO’s context camera, which has imaged the entire planet with less resolution but covering a much wider area per picture. The context camera picture below captures the full nature of this feature.
» Read more

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SpaceX has about 100 Starlink terminals working in Iran

8:47 am

Though the Iranian government opposes their use, according to a tweet by Elon Musk SpaceX now has almost 100 Starlink terminals working in Iran.

Elon Musk announced that SpaceX has almost 100 Starlink terminals active in Iran. SpaceX activated Starlink services in Iran in September, supporting the United States’ stance on providing internet freedom and free flow of information to Iranians.

Unlike Ukraine, SpaceX does not have the cooperation of the Iranian government to expand Starlink services in the country. In Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zlenskyy and the Minister of digital transformation Mykhailo Feorov have actively supports Starlink connection during the war with Russia.

In contrast, the Iranian government is actively trying to limit its citizens’ internet access. The United States government has taken a stance against the Iranian government’s decision regarding internet access for its people.

SpaceX has routinely cooperated with foreign governments before selling terminals, likely because to do otherwise would get it in trouble with the U.S. State Department. In this case however the State Department appears to have approved this action, and SpaceX then made it happen.

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