Year: 2022

Watching Firefly’s next attempt to launch tonight

8:55 pm

Firefly will try again to complete the first successful launch of its Alpha rocket tonight from Vandenberg Space Force Base.

Last night they attempted twice to launch, the first aborting about 4 minutes before launch, the second aborting at T-0, with the first stage engine’s actually igniting and then shutting down.

I have embedded the live stream below. The launch window opens at 12:01 am (Pacific) and lasts two hours, giving them time for at least two launch attempts, should an abort occur on the first attempt.

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September 30, 2022 Quick space links

3:49 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, who trolls Twitter so I don’t have to.

A robot arm made the move at China’s Tiangong-3 space station. Wentian docked at the main port, so that it sat in a straight line with the Tianhe main module. Moved to the side, the station is now in an L-shape, so that Mengtian can dock with that center port. Once docked, the same robot arm will shift it to the port opposite Wentian, so that the station is T-shaped.

The drop zone for the Long March 5B’s solid boosters is in the ocean, to the southwest of the Philippines. The core stage of course will reach orbit, and unless something as changed (unlikely), will crash uncontrolled somewhere on Earth within a week of launch.

The money will buy for two satellites that the Russians are presently contracted to launch, but will not due to sanctions. Reports suggest South Korea is talking to either SpaceX or Arianespace, but only SpaceX could do the launch at this low price.

This bank’s approval was probably encouraged by several recently won contracts by Astroscale.

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Part 3: Against the COVID liars and their strong-arm edicts the wheels of justice are grinding forward slowly

1:43 pm

Renewing the Declaration of Independence
Renewing the Declaration of Independence

In the first two parts of this series I very carefully outlined the ugly corrupt lie of the experimental COVID jab, and then followed up with a detailed summary of the lies put forth to justify imposition of the many COVID mandates.

Today, in this concluding essay, we will take a look at the battle by many to resist and end those COVID mandates, a battle that is increasingly successful because the mandates themselves were both immoral and illegal. They desecrated all the fundamental tenets and principles that underlie all American culture and law.

First however an addendum to yesterday’s essay, where I noted that “The royalties possibly received by Fauci and others in the government for their work developing the COVID jab — that the government then mandated — boggles the mind.” Shortly after I posted that essay, this story hit the web:

Fauci’s Net Worth Doubled During Pandemic, As Americans Struggled to Make Ends Meet

In 2021 alone Fauci earned almost two million dollars in royalties, travel perks, and investment gains. We still do not know however exactly what companies paid Fauci this money, or the precise amounts, because, according to the organization Open the Books which obtained this data, NIH has redacted that information.

To paraphrase Shakespeare, “Something is very rotten in the state of COVID”. The only reason I can fathom for keeping the source of those royalties secret is if their unveiling would reveal a serious conflict of interest. Fauci was one of the most visible government officials pushing the COVID shots on adults and children. Was he also making money on each jab? The public has a right to know.

Now, on to the fight against the illegal and immoral COVID mandates.
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A look back at Virgin Galactic’s failed history

10:25 am

Link here. Doug Messier has probably provided the best news coverage of every up and down (mostly down) of Virgin Galactic since its beginning. As he notes at the beginning of his article:

A lot can happen in 18 years.

A mother can go from holding her newborn baby in her arms to sending her child off the college for the first time. In between, the child has learned to walk and talk, endured the rigors of puberty, and spent at least 13 years in school.

During that same time, Virgin Galactic essentially accomplished nothing, while wasting billions in private investment capital. Meanwhile, Richard Branson pumped and dumped, getting out when the getting was good and leaving others to hold the bag.

Definitely worth the read. The story of Virgin Galactic demonstrates the risks inherent in capitalism and freedom. Freedom allows for big dreams, but before you commit to any dream you better look it over very carefully or you might be burned.

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FCC approves new regulation requiring defunct satellite deorbit in five years

10:13 am

Despite questions from Congress and others about the agency’s legal authority to do so, the FCC yesterday approved a new regulation that will require satellite companies to de-orbit defunct satellites within five years, shortening the rule from the previous requirement of 25 years.

Commissioners voted 4-0 to adopt the draft rule, published earlier this month, intended to address growing debris in LEO. Under the new rule, spacecraft that end their lives in orbits at altitudes of 2,000 kilometers or below will have to deorbit as soon as practicable and no more than five years after the end of their mission. The rule would apply to satellites launched two years after the order is adopted, and include both U.S.-licensed satellites as well as those licensed by other jurisdictions but seeking U.S. market access.

The article notes how this rule replaces “a longstanding FCC guideline” Note the difference. Previously the FCC had made a recommendation, recognizing it did not have the authority to impose it. Now, our power-hungry DC bureaucracy has decided it can ignore the law and impose any rule it desires. Nor does it feel it needs to listen to Congress, one committee of which sent a stern letter recently questioning the then proposed new rule and calling for the FCC to hold off any action on it while elected officials review the situation.

The FCC yesterday responded, essentially telling Congress to bug off.

None of these questions have anything to do with whether this rule makes sense. It likely does, but that still doesn’t give FCC officials to right to arbitrarily give themselves more power. Whether our elected officials will act to defend their own power is uncertain, as the pattern in the past half century is for Congress to consistently cede its power to the bureaucracy, whenever challenged.

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NASA releases first Juno image from the first close fly-by of Europa in decades

10:00 am

First released Juno image of Europa
Click for full image.

Kevin Gill's processed Juno image of Europa
Click for full image.

NASA yesterday released the first image from the successful close fly-by by Juno of Jupiter’s moon Europa since the 1990s. That photo, reduced and sharpened, is above.

The first picture NASA’s Juno spacecraft took as it flew by Jupiter’s ice-encrusted moon Europa has arrived on Earth. Revealing surface features in a region near the moon’s equator called Annwn Regio, the image was captured during the solar-powered spacecraft’s closest approach, on Thursday, Sept. 29, at 2:36 a.m. PDT (5:36 a.m. EDT), at a distance of about 219 miles (352 kilometers).

This is only the third close pass in history below 310 miles (500 kilometers) altitude and the closest look any spacecraft has provided at Europa since Jan. 3, 2000, when NASA’s Galileo came within 218 miles (351 kilometers) of the surface.

Meanwhile, the raw images have been pouring in, and citizen scientists have been quickly processing them. The photo to the right is only one example, created by Kevin Gill. I have cropped it to show one section in full resolution.

Expect many more processed images, especially those taken at closest approach, in the coming days.

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SpaceX and Jared Isaacman offer private mission to NASA to raise Hubble’s orbit

9:44 am

Capitalism in space: In a press release issued yesterday, NASA revealed that it has signed an unfunded agreement with SpaceX and Jared Isaacman’s Polaris program (which has purchased a series of manned missions on Dragon) to study the possibility of sending one of those private manned missions to the Hubble Space Telescope to raise its orbit.

SpaceX – in partnership with the Polaris Program – proposed this study to better understand the technical challenges associated with servicing missions. This study is non-exclusive, and other companies may propose similar studies with different rockets or spacecraft as their model.

Teams expect the study to take up to six months, collecting technical data from both Hubble and the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. This data will help determine whether it would be possible to safely rendezvous, dock, and move the telescope into a more stable orbit.

In my book describing the history of the people who created Hubble, The Universe in a Mirror, I repeatedly noted how throughout its history people have tried to kill it, first in the design phase, then in the budget, then during construction, then after it was launched and the mirror was found to be ground incorrectly, and then after the Columbia accident when NASA management tried to cancel its last shuttle servicing mission.

Every attempt failed. As I have noted in that book and many times since its publication, Hubble is a telescope that will not die. NASA has for years intended to launch a mission to de-orbit it when its orbit had decayed enough that it was unstable. I’ve always said that when that time came, someone would propose and push for a mission to instead raise that orbit.

That prediction is now coming true. Though no robot arm exists yet for Dragon to use to grab Hubble in any rendezvous attempt, creating one is hardly difficult. At that point raising the telescope’s orbit becomes relatively trivial.

Whether such a mission could do more, such as replace Hubble’s ailing gyroscopes, is unknown. It would be foolish however not to review that possibility as well.

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Firefly to try again to complete first launch of its Alpha rocket

8:14 pm

UPDATE: After a first abort about T-minus 4 minutes at around midnight, the launch team quickly recycled for a new launch at 12:52 am. At T-0 the rocket then aborted at launch.

There is still more than an hour in the launch window, so assuming they can rapidly pin down the cause of the abort, another attempt is possible, though unlikely. CONFIRMED: They will try again tomorrow, with the same launch window.

Though frustrating, these repeated launch attempts are actually wonderful real time training for Firefly’s launch team. The rocket is still in good condition, and they get to practice analyzing a situation under pressure and acting quickly to move forward.

Capitalism in space: Firefly will once again attempt to complete the first successful launch of its Alpha rocket tonight, with the launch scheduled for 12:01 am (Pacific) from Vandenberg Space Force Base. The launch window lasts two hours, so if they have an abort for a minor fixable reason there is a good chance they will still be able to cycle around and try again.

I have embedded below the live feed from Everyday Astronaut, which begins at around 10 pm (Pacific), two hours before the launch.

This will be their second attempt, with the first failing one year ago when one engine in the first stage shut down prematurely due to a loose connection. They attempted to launch this second rocket for the first time earlier this month, but had to scrub due to weather.

The rocket carries five small satellites, including one, Serenity, that was built by BtB reader (and supporter) Joe Latrell, builder of cubesats in a shop behind his garage.
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Master Du – A donkey gets a manicure

6:01 pm

An evening pause: This guy, Master Du, specializes in trimming the hoofs of donkeys that have become deformed and need specialized work. (Make sure the closed captions are on to get some translation of the narration.) This is how it is done in China. I wonder how that compares to the techniques used in the U.S., and other nations.

Hat tip Diane Zimmerman, who found this work so interesting she ended up watching Master Du videos for more than an hour.

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September 29, 2022 Quick space links

5:12 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

The video was actually posted by ULA CEO Tory Bruno. Blue Origin then reposted it. As one commenter there said, “I bet if @torybruno hadn’t posted it, you’d never have posted it.”

The test looked good, but ULA still needs two flight engines, and only has one so far.

Jay jokes, “Free little red books if you dress like Mao.”

This might even be true, simply because China’s labor costs are so tiny compared to the U.S. Sometimes those labor costs are even free (since China does use slave labor).

I wonder if UC-San Diego will also require Sierra Space to segregated astronauts by race, as it does on its campus.

The goal is to eventually launch a 50 satellite constellation to provide 5G to its cell phone customers.

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