Year: 2023

FAA issues Starship launch license; SpaceX schedules launch for April 17th

4:53 pm

Starship stacked on top of Superheavy
Starship prototype #24 stacked on top of Superheavy prototype #7

FAA just sent out an email notice announcing that it has issued SpaceX the launch license for the first orbital test launch of Superheavy/Starship.

After completing an evaluation of all applicable Vehicle Operator License requirements, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a commercial Vehicle Operator License to SpaceX for launches of the Starship/Super Heavy Launch Vehicle Program in Cameron County, TX.

The affected environment and environmental impacts of Starship/Super Heavy operations at the Boca Chica Launch Site had been analyzed in the 2022 Final Programmatic Environmental Assessment for the SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy Launch Vehicle Program at the SpaceX Boca Chica Launch Site in Cameron County, Texas. Since the 2022 Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA), SpaceX provided the FAA with additional information regarding Starship’s planned landing, Super Heavy’s planned soft water landing, and the Launch Pad Detonation Suppression System. In accordance with FAA Order 1050.1F, Environmental Impacts: Policies and Procedures, the FAA prepared the Written Re-evaluation of the 2022 Final Programmatic Environmental Assessment for the SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy Launch Vehicle Program at the Boca Chica Launch Site in Cameron County, Texas to describe and evaluate this additional information.

Based on the Written Re-Evaluation, the FAA concluded that the issuance of a vehicle operator license for Starship/Super Heavy operations conforms to the prior environmental documentation, that the data contained in the 2022 PEA remains substantially valid, that there are no significant environmental changes, and all pertinent conditions and requirements of the prior approval have been met or will be met in the current action. Therefore, preparation of a supplemental or new environmental document is not necessary to support the Proposed Action.

In plain English, the FAA (and other federal agencies) have finally agreed that this launch will do nothing to change the conclusions of the environmental reassessment report that was approved in June 2022. That these agencies decided apparently decided to rehash that approved environmental reassessment for a launch that was also approved in that reassessment suggests that there are individuals in these agencies salivating for an opportunity to squelch SpaceX.

SpaceX has now set April 17, 2023 as the launch date, with its live stream going live in two days. I will embed that live stream late on April 16, 2023, for those who wish to watch it here.

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April 14, 2023 Quick space links

4:21 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

  • Video of the explosion during a recent Centaur stage test

    • According to the tweet by ULA CEO Tory Bruno, “Hydrogen leak. H2 accumulated inside the rig. Found an ignition source. Burned fast. Over pressure caved in our forward dome and damaged the rig.” They still need to locate the source of the leak.

 

 

 

 

 

  • Russian movie, The Challenge, shot on ISS, to be released in 20 countries

    • The list kind of indicates the allies (or potential allies if the U.S. continues to screw up) for the new Chinese/Russia axis: “China, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia and North Macedonia, Palestine, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the UAE, Iran and Sudan.”

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The very icy high northern latitudes of Mars

2:04 pm

Pedestal crater on Mars
Click for full image.

Today’s cool image to me illustrates how the presence of near surface ice in the high latitudes of the northern lowland plains of Mars helps to produce a very strange and alien terrain.

The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on January 31, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a typical example of what the scientists have dubbed a “pedestal crater,” where the crater ends up higher than the surrounding terrain because the impact had packed the ground and made it more resistant to erosion.

This theory however does not explain entirely what we see here. That apron mesa surrounding the crater also resembles the kind of splash field that is created when an impact occurs in less dense ice-rich ground. Note too the soft stippled nature of the ground. Wind erosion is not the sole cause of change here.
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Licensing authorities use power to deny doctors freedom of speech

1:31 pm

Doctors Eric Hensen and John Littell
Blacklisted doctors Eric Hensen (l) and John Littell

They’re coming for you next: Two stories today illustrate how government medical licensing authorities have used their power inappropriately and very oppressively in the past three years to silence any dissent in the medical community.

If a doctor dared to question the now very clearly misguided medical policies of government during the Wuhan panic, state medical boards were quite willing to take away their license to practice.

Our first story began when Texas’s Republican governor Greg Abbot imposed a mask mandate in 2020. Dr. Eric Hensen refused to comply, recognizing that masks do nothing to prevent transmission and actually carry health risks in themselves.
» Read more

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Ingenuity completes its 50th flight on Mars

10:28 am

Present location of Perseverance and Ingenuity on Mars
Click for interactive map.

The Ingenuity team yesterday announced that the Mars helicopter has successfully completed its 50th flight on Mars on April 13, 2023, flying 1,057.09 feet (322.2 meters) in 145.7 seconds, while setting a new altitude record of 59 feet. The green dot marks its new location on the overview map to the right, with the blue dot marking Perseverance.

Built with many off-the-shelf components, such as smartphone processors and cameras, Ingenuity is now 23 Earth months and 45 flights beyond its expected lifetime. The rotorcraft has flown for over 89 minutes and more than 7.1 miles (11.6 kilometers). “When we first flew, we thought we would be incredibly lucky to eke out five flights,” said Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity team lead at JPL. “We have exceeded our expected cumulative flight time since our technology demonstration wrapped by 1,250% and expected distance flown by 2,214%.”

The helicopter is beginning to show signs of age, with its engineering team recognizing that its life could end at any time, especially because it now has to fly more often to keep ahead of Perseverance, while also keeping within communications range.

The helicopter however is now giving us clues as to where the Perseverance science team wants to send the rover. Notice how its path has shifted north away from its planned route (along the red dotted line) to travel just below the rim of Belva Crater, following Ingenuity. The helicopter team is thus providing the rover team some specific additional information about the ground ahead, aiding in planning travel.

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Lucy snaps its first pictures of four of the Trojan asteroids it will visit

10:05 am

Lucy's first look at four Trojan asteroid targets
Click for original movie.

Lucy's route through the solar system
Lucy’s route through the solar system

Though still many millions of miles away and really nothing more than tiny dots moving across the field of stars, the science team for the asteroid probe Lucy have used the probe to take its first pictures of four of the eight Trojan asteroids it will visit during its travels through the solar system, as shown on the map to the right. The dots along its path show where Lucy will fly past asteroids, some of which are binaries.

The image at the top is a screen capture from a very short movie created from all of the images Lucy took of each asteroid. If you click on the picture you will see that movie. As I say, at this distance, more than 330 million miles away, the asteroids are nothing more than dots. The short films of each were obtained by pictures taken over periods from two to 10 hours long, depending on the asteroid.

These asteriods are all in the L4 Trojans, the first that Lucy will visit from ’27 to ’28.

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Curiosity gets a software update that will speed its travels and better protect its wheels

9:45 am

Panorama on March 27, 2023 (Sol 3781)
Click for full resolution panorama. The original images can be found here, here, here, here, and here.

Engineers this week completed a major software update on the Mars rover Curiosity that, among many other improvements, will allow it to travel more quickly across the rocky Martian surface but at the same time better protect its damaged wheels.

The team also wants to maintain the health of Curiosity’s aluminum wheels, which began showing signs of broken treads in 2013. When engineers realized that sharp rocks were chipping away at the treads, they came up with an algorithm to improve traction and reduce wheel wear by adjusting the rover’s speed depending on the rocks it’s rolling over.

The new software goes further by introducing two new mobility commands that reduce the amount of steering Curiosity needs to do while driving in an arc toward a specific waypoint. With less steering required, the team can reach the drive target quicker and decrease the wear that inherently comes with steering. “That ability was actually dreamed up during the Spirit and Opportunity days,” Denison said. “It was a ‘nice to have’ they decided not to implement.”

The software will also make it possible for Curiosity to travel more without the help of humans on Earth, which will also speed its travels up Mount Sharp, on ground that is getting increasingly rough, as shown in the mosaic above of navigation images from March 27th.

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Arianespace launches JUICE mission to Jupiter

9:21 am

Arianespace early today used its Ariane-5 rocket, on its next-to-last launch, to send the European Space Agency’s (ESA) JUICE mission on its way to Jupiter to study its large moons.

It will take eight years for JUICE to get to Jupiter, using flybys of the Earth, Moon, and Venus along the way. This journey might also include a flyby of an asteroid, depending on orbital mechanics and the spacecraft’s condition.

Once at Jupiter it will, from ’31 to ’34, do thirty-five flybys of the Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa, and then enter orbit around Ganymede for most of 2035, before being sent to crash onto the planet to end its mission.

Ariane-5 meanwhile has one more launch, in June. After this Arianespace will not at present have an active large rocket, as its Ariane-6 replacement is not yet flying, its maiden flight presently scheduled for the fourth quarter of this year.

This was also Europe’s first launch in 2023, so it does not get listed on the leader board. The leaders of the 2023 launch race are as follows:

23 SpaceX (with a launch scheduled for tonight)
15 China (with a launch scheduled for tomorrow)
6 Russia
3 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads China 26 to 15, but is now tied with the entire world combined 26 all.

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April 13, 2023 Quick space links

9:00 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, sent these out on time but was stymied when his email bounced back hours later.

I say, better late than never.

 

 

 

 

 

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A pyramid on Mars

1:04 pm

A pyramid on Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on January 21, 2023 by the high resolution camera of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label a “pyramidal mound”, which is I think understating the point somewhat.

This pyramid is almost perfectly square, with two perpendicular ridgelines rising from its corners to meet perfectly at the pyramid’s peak. A similar pyramid mound in the Cydonia region, where the so-called “Face on Mars” was found, caused endless absurd speculations in the 1990s of past Martian civilizations, all of which burst into nothingness when good high resolution images were finally obtained in the 2000s.

But what caused this very symmetrical natural feature?
» Read more

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Blacklist followup: Rhode Island school district fails to respond to lawsuit accusing it of discriminating against Christians

11:44 am

Rhode Island: haven to oppression
Oppressive Rhode Island

Bring a gun to a knife fight: Because a Rhode Island school district in Providence failed to respond to a lawsuit accusing it of discriminating against Christians, it has now defaulted and awaits a final judgment against it.

Liberty Counsel filed a lawsuit against the school district on March 10, 2023. The Providence Public School District did not answer the complaint by the court’s deadline. Yesterday, Liberty Counsel filed an application to enter a default against the school district which will allow Liberty Counsel to seek a final judgment against the defendants. Today, the federal court entered the default against the district and its superintendent. Having raised no defense to the lawsuit, the district will be subject to a judgment requiring it to provide equal access to the Good News Clubs. Liberty Counsel will also pursue attorney’s fees and costs against the defendants.

This is a followup on a March 2023 blacklist column. » Read more

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