Taylor Davis – Nostalgia
An evening pause: Hat tip Alton Blevins.
Year: 2022
Cygnus freighter continues to target ISS rendezvous tomorrow
Though one of its two solar panels remains undeployed, engineers and Northrop Grumman and NASA have proceeded with four engine burns so as to rendezvous with ISS tomorrow, November 9th, with arrival in the early morning hours.
Expedition 68 NASA astronaut Nicole Mann will capture Cygnus with the station’s robotic arm, with NASA astronaut Josh Cassada acting as backup. After Cygnus capture, ground commands will be sent from mission control at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston for the station’s arm to rotate and install it on the station’s Unity module Earth-facing port.
According to this NASA update, it appears that NASA managers are confident that the stuck solar panel is not blocking the grapple point, preventing the arm from grabbing the capsule. At the same time, the wording in the update is just a bit vague, and also suggests that before this capture occurs they will be inspecting Cygnus very carefully.
On the radio
I will be doing a long appearance on the Space Show tonight with David Livingston, beginning at 7 pm (Pacific). Please feel free to call in and ask questions.
SLS launch delayed until November 16
In order to give them time to make sure all is right after the coming tropical storm, NASA managers have decided to delay the first test flight of SLS two days until November 16.
A launch during a two-hour window that opens at 1:04 a.m. EST on Nov. 16 would result in a splashdown on Friday, Dec. 11. If needed, NASA has a back-up launch opportunity on Saturday, Nov. 19, and will coordinate with the U.S. Space Force for additional launch opportunities.
At the moment they have decided to keep the rocket on the launchpad, as they expect it will be able to withstand the predicted storm. If the predictions change however they still have the option to roll it back into the assembly building.
Pushback: Doctors sue to kill California law making it illegal to disagree with government
What the Democrats want to repeal.
I think today’s blacklist story about a lawsuit by five California doctors against a state law that was passed by the Democrat-controlled state legislature and signed by Democrat governor Gavin Newsom, is a perfect blacklist story for today, election day.
Two years ago, at the beginning of the Biden administration, I noticed an immediate change in the behavior of Democratic Party politicians and their supporters. No longer were they whispering about their desire to silence their opponents. Suddenly they were open and aggressive about it, calling for blacklists and commissions, as Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) enthused, “…to figure out how we rein in our media environment so you can’t just spew disinformation and misinformation.” Here is what I suggested they do:
Hey, Alexandria, I’ve got the perfect name for your congressional commission. Why not call it the House Un-American Activities Committee? You could subpoena right-wing writers and journalists to testify against their will in Congress, demanding to know their party affiliations. You could also set up lists of these proven conservatives so that businesses nationwide can blacklist them and keep them from working.
As it turned out, the Democrats did exactly this, though their commission was instead named the January 6th commission, supposedly focused on punishing anyone involved in the entirely legal demonstrations that occurred in DC that day. At no time in the past two years has that commission, or Biden’s Department of Justice, showed the slightest interest in investigating actual political violence. No, instead, the goal has been to persecute ordinary people and slander entirely innocent politicians.
Nor has the Democratic Party’s campaign against free speech and personal liberty been limited to this commission. I started my blacklist column at that time because the number of examples of blacklisting, censorship, and abuse of power by the left, both in and out of that party and among its supporters, had become so numerous I realized if I reported every case as it happened, my website would be swamped. Instead, I decided to cover one per day, to make it clear how much these thugs were normalizing this goonlike behavior. After two years, that column now lists more than four hundred examples of blacklists and abuse of power, almost all of which were done by the Democratic Party or its supporters on the left.
The law under dispute in California is a perfect example. Passed in September, 2022, it forbids any doctor from saying anything the government doesn’t like, or face the loss of their medical license for “unprofessional conduct.” Below is the bill’s specific but very vague wording, designed to allow the government to punish almost all medical professionals for anything they might say or publish, merely because someone in the government disagrees with it:
» Read more
Japan issues license allowing Ispace to do private business on Moon
With the launch of Ispace’s first lunar lander, Hakuto-R, only two weeks away, the private company has obtained a license from the Japanese government to conduct private transactions on the Moon.
The license allows Ispace to complete a contract awarded by NASA in December 2020, to acquire regolith from the lunar surface to sell to the space agency. During M1, Ispace is expected to collect regolith that accumulates on the footpad of the landing gear during the touchdown on the surface, photograph the collected regolith and conduct an “in-place” transfer of ownership of the lunar regolith to NASA. After ownership transfer, the collected material becomes the property of NASA, under the Artemis program. Under the contract, the lunar regolith will not be returned to Earth.
Under a second contract awarded to Ispace’s subsidiary [Ispace EU] … Ispace EU will acquire the lunar material on its second mission scheduled for 2024 as part of the HAKUTO-R program. An application for Mission 2 will be submitted to obtain a separate authorization.
This mission will also land the UAE’s first lunar rover, Rashid.
According to the Outer Space Treaty, it is the responsibility of each nation to regulate the private operations of its citizens in space. This action thus follows the laws that Japan has passed to supervise commercial space companies.
Bad news for Branson
Two stories today suggest that Richard Branson’s space empire continues to totter.
First, a judge ruled that the fraud lawsuit against Branson by other stockholders in the suborbital tourist company Virgin Galactic can go forward.
The suit claims Branson concealed safety problems while he sold off the bulk of his own stock at top dollar. Only after he had dumped his stock were those problems revealed, and the stock price plummeted, now trading at less than 10% of the peak in February 2021, when Branson sold.
Second, it appears that though Branson’s satellite orbital company Virgin Orbit is operational, it is not going to launch as many satellites this year as expected, and thus required an investment of $25 million on November 4th from Branson’s Virgin Group to stay liquid.
Branson clearly wanted to be a major player in space. In the end, he has mostly failed, though once again Virgin Orbit remains a viable launching company for smallsats.
JAXA test fires Japan’s new H3 rocket
Delayed two years because of engine cracks, Japan’s space agency JAXA yesterday successfully completed a static fire test of its new H3 rocket.
JAXA aims to conduct the first launch of an H3 rocket before the end of this fiscal year. The space agency will spend about two weeks analyzing data from the latest test to determine whether it was successful.
Two first-stage engines were fired for about 25 seconds during the test, causing smoke to billow from the base of the rocket towards the sea.
Assuming no new issues are found in the test data, Japan hopes to complete the first H3 launch in 2023.
India’s first private rocket company prepares for its first test suborbital launch
Skyroot, India’s first startup private rocket company, has now scheduled the first test launch of a suborbital version of its Vikram rocket for sometime between November 12the and 16th, depending on weather.
The rocket will be sent into space from ISRO’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre spaceport in Sriharikota, off the Andhra Pradesh coast.
The space sector was opened up to facilitate private sector participation in 2020. In 2021, Skyroot became the first space technology startup to ink an MoU with ISRO for sharing facilities and expertise.
…The company’s COO & co-founder, Naga Bharath Daka, said “The Vikram-S rocket getting launched is a single-stage sub-orbital launch vehicle, which would carry three customer payloads and help test and validate the majority of technologies in our Vikram series of space launch vehicles.” The four-year-old Skyroot has successfully built and tested India’s first privately developed cryogenic, hypergolic-liquid, and solid fuel-based rocket engines. The R&D and production activities extensively use advanced composite and 3D-printing technologies.
The company has raised $51 million in private investment capital, the most ever raised by a private Indian rocket company.
Webb’s mid-infrared instrument restored to full operations
Engineers have figured out the issue on the mid-infrared instrument on the Webb Space Telescope that was causing increased friction during operations, and are now ready to return it to full operations.
The team concluded the issue is likely caused by increased contact forces between sub-components of the wheel central bearing assembly under certain conditions. Based on this, the team developed and vetted a plan for how to use the affected mechanism during science operations.
An engineering test was executed Wednesday, Nov. 2, that successfully demonstrated predictions for wheel friction. Webb will resume MIRI MRS science observations by Saturday, Nov. 12.
Webb has three other infrared instruments, looking at different infrared wavelengths, so this issue had not prevented the telescope from doing most of its observations. Losing MIRI however would have been a very bad blow, this soon after launch.
Hurricane threatens SLS on launchpad
A storm, now rated subtropical, that is expected to cross the east coast of Florida on November 10th with the possibility that it could strengthen into a hurricane now threatens NASA’s SLS rocket that is on its Florida launchpad preparing for its first test flight on November 14, 2022.
A map of the storm’s presently predicted track can be seen here.
NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida is currently in a HURCON (Hurricane Condition) IV status, which includes implementing checklists and preparations for the storm as the agency continues to prioritize its employees in the Kennedy area. Based on current forecast data, managers have determined the Space Launch System rocket and Orion will remain at Launch Pad 39B. Teams at Kennedy will continue to monitor the weather, make sure all personnel are safe, and will evaluate the status of the Monday, Nov. 14, launch attempt for the Artemis I mission as we proceed and receive updated predictions about the weather.
Depending on the storm’s track in the next 24 hours, as well as its strength, NASA managers have the option of returning the rocket to the assembly building to protect it. If they do so, however, it is certain the November 14th launch date will be scrubbed. As they have a window of a number of additional dates [pdf] through November 27th, I suspect they will then aim for one of those dates.
The Beths – Expert In A Dying Field
An evening pause: Nicely done, in this age of no memory and a forgotten past.
How does it feel
To be an expert in a dying field
How do you know
It’s over when you can’t let go
You can’t stop
Can’t rewind
Love is learned over time
‘Til you’re an expert in a dying field
Hat tip Gavin Packard.