Year: 2022

SLS rides out hurricane; engineers now assessing damage

9:00 am

NASA’s SLS rocket has apparently successfully survived on the launchpad the hurricane-force winds from Nicole, though engineers will need to inspect the rocket to see if there is any less obvious damage that might delay the now scheduled November 16th launch.

With blastoff on a long-delayed maiden flight on tap next week, sensors at pad 39B recorded gusts as high as 100 mph atop a 467-foot-tall lightning tower near the rocket. But winds at the 60-foot-level, which are part of the booster’s structural certification, peaked at 82 mph, just below the 85 mph limit.

The observed winds were “within the rocket’s capability,” said Jim Free, manager of exploration systems at NASA headquarters. “We anticipate clearing the vehicle for those conditions shortly.”

“Our team is conducting initial visual check outs of the rocket, spacecraft and ground system equipment with the cameras at the launch pad,” he tweeted. “Camera inspections show very minor damage such as loose caulk and tears in weather coverings. The team will conduct additional on-site walk down inspections of the vehicle soon.”

If no issues are found, the countdown will begin on November 14th.

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Divers for documentary discover large piece of Challenger

8:55 am

Divers for a television documentary have discovered a large piece from the shuttle Challenger that broke up 74 seconds after launch in 1986.

The piece is more than 15 feet by 15 feet (4.5 meters by 4.5 meters); it’s likely bigger because part of it is covered with sand. Because there are square thermal tiles on the piece, it’s believed to be from the shuttle’s belly, Ciannilli said.

The fragment remains on the ocean floor just off the Florida coast near Cape Canaveral as NASA determines the next step. It remains the property of the U.S. government. The families of all seven Challenger crew members have been notified.

The History Channel will air a show describing this discovery on November 22nd.

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Poulenc – Trio for piano, oboe and bassoon

6:01 pm

An evening pause: The players are Henri Sigfridsson, Rachel Bullen and Etienne Boudreault. The music is late 20th century classical. Though this can sometimes be grating, this piece is quite comparable in sound and melody to a lot of great 20th century art rock. And the instruments are unusual, the playing is grand, and it definitely gives us some variety.

Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Student mob shuts down Ann Coulter speech at Cornell

4:59 pm

The modern dark age: Despite Cornell University’s refusal to agree to their demands and cancel the lecture, a mob of students prevented her from speaking last night, forcing her in the end to cancel her lecture because she could not get a word out without being interrupted.

What appears to have happened, the Review added, is that protesters “seemed to be employing a chain tactic, beginning just as soon as the last heckler was removed, so as to continuously speak over Coulter.”

As The College Fix previously reported, Cornell University had denied a student petition to disinvite Coulter.

And at the beginning of Coulter’s talk Wednesday evening, the dean of students warned the audience that disruptors would be removed and referred to the Office of Student Conduct, the Review reported.

» Read more

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November 10, 2022 Quick space links

4:25 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

  • Images of China’s Tiangong-3 station, from in space and from the ground

    • Here, here, and here. The first was taken from the Tianzhou-4 cargo ship after it undocked. The second is a nice short movie. The third’s ground-based telescope was a bit unsteady, to put it mildly.

 

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A cliff face of volcanic erosion on Mars

12:11 pm

A cliff face of volcanic erosion on Mars
Click for full image.

Today’s cool image is a variation of yesterday’s, showing another area on the edge of Mars’ largest volcanic ash field, dubbed the Medusae Fossae Formation and about the size of India. This time however the edge is an abrupt cliff, not the slow petering out of wind-shaped mesas.

The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on August 27, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what I very roughly estimate to be a 1,500 to 2,500 foot high cliff that appears to delineate the edge. To the north we have a plateau of intersperse layers of flood lava and ash. To the south those layers have eroded away, leaving a rough lava plain with a handful of scattered wind-sculpted mesas.

The overview map below, by providing a wider view of his region, makes its nature clearer.
» Read more

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Rocket Lab sets date for 1st launch from Wallops

9:38 am

On the same day it won a contract to build a control center for Globalstar’s satellite constellation, Rocket Lab also set December 7, 2022 as the target date for its first Electron launch from Wallops Island in Virginia.

The company had originally hoped to launch from Wallops two years ago, but delays caused by NASA’s bureaucracy in approving the flight termination software made that impossible.

With two operating launchpads, one in New Zealand and one in the U.S., Rocket Lab should now be able to ramp up its launch pace, assuming it has the customers. So far this year the company has done about one launch per month.

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Atlas-5 completes last launch at Vandenberg

8:58 am

ULA’s Atlas-5 rocket early this morning successfully launched a NOAA weather satellite, completing this soon-to-be-retired rocket’s last launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base.

The company also successfully tested an inflatable heat shield it wants to use to safely recover and reuse the first stage engines on its new Vulcan rocket.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

51 SpaceX
48 China
19 Russia
9 Rocket Lab
8 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 74 to 48 in the national rankings, but trails the rest of the world combined 76 to 74.

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November 9, 2022 Quick space links

3:48 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, who also clued me into the two previous posts, which I decided to give more attention to. Thanks Jay!

 

  • Thales Alenia Space completes next Cygnus, ready for shipment to U.S.

    • I am not sure if Thales installs the solar panels. If so, I suspect they will want to wait before shipment in order get a report on why one panel did not deploy on the Cygnus now in orbit. It is also possible that Northrop Grumman installs the panels, and will handle any revisions after delivery.

 

  • A closer look at Virgin Orbit’s financial picture

    • Apparently, the delays in the UK are seriously hurting the company. Because they only have one 747 carrier plane, Cosmic Girl, they can only do one launch at a time, which means later launches — and the revenue they produce — are pushed back. The company thus desperately needs a second 747 so the delays on one launch don’t impact others.

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China switches heavy-lift Long March 9 from expendable to reusable

3:34 pm

China has abandoned its original plans to build its Long March 9 heavy lift rocket — intended to be comparable to NASA’s SLS — as an expendable rocket with side boosters and instead design it with a reusable first stage.

A new model of a Long March 9 rocket featuring grid fins and no side boosters recently went on display at the ongoing Zhuhai Airshow in southern China, prompting speculation that the long-standing plan of an expendable rocket had been dropped.

Liu Bing, director of the general design department at the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), later confirmed the new direction in an interview with China Central Television Nov. 7. The new, current plan for the rocket will be a three-stage, 108-meter-high, 10-meter-diameter and 4,180 metric ton rocket capable of delivering 150 tons to low Earth orbit (LEO), 50 tons to lunar transfer orbit (LTO), or 35 tons to Mars transfer orbit. The rocket is scheduled to be ready for test flight around 2030.

The design however has not been finalized.

It appears that China has been watching NASA’s attempts to launch SLS, and decided copying that rocket is likely a mistake. So instead, they have decided to copy Falcon 9 instead, though make Long March 9 a much bigger rocket.

All of this however is really nothing more than engineering by PowerPoint. Nothing so far really exists, and any plans for a rocket whose first test launch is eight years away are plans that no one should take very seriously.

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