Year: 2024

SpaceX announces a mini-version of Starlink designed for backpackers

9:28 am

SpaceX today unveiled what it calls Starlink Mini, a smaller version of the Starlink antenna that can fit inside a backpack.

Early Starlink customers were invited to purchase the Starlink Mini kit for $599, according to an invitation sent to customers and viewed by TechCrunch. That’s $100 more than the standard Starlink kit. They were also given the option to bundle Mini Roam service with their existing service plan for an additional $30 per month, though the data is capped at 50 gigabytes per month.

That would mean a Starlink residential customer on the standard service plan would spent $150 month. SpaceX aims to reduce the price of the kit, it said in the invitation. As of now, there is no stand-alone Mini Roam plan.

The unit weighs only 2.5 pounds, with the first deliveries arriving in July. It is designed specifically for travelers who want a reliable internet connection wherever they go.

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Nova Scotia spaceport approved for new government grants

9:23 am

The proposed Nova Scotia spaceport run by the company Maritime Services has now been approved to apply for new government grants for its proposed satellite processing facility.

The Nova Scotia CITC is an annualized reimbursement program designed by the Government of Nova Scotia to drive economic growth and incentivize development within Nova Scotia. The program provides significant financial advantages to eligible corporations that invest in infrastructure and capital equipment for approved projects located in Nova Scotia.

Maritime Launch has received approval for an initial qualification of up to $7.5M in reimbursements under the CITC for the satellite processing facility project. Reimbursement is eligible to begin at the start of the construction of the satellite processing facility, planned for late 2024 and follows approval of a separate application in September 2023 for a project at Spaceport Nova Scotia.

Maritime Launch has been around since 2016 but as of this moment it is unclear when the first orbital launch from the spaceport will occur. Initially the plan had been to provide both spaceport and a Ukrainian rocket for satellite makers, but the Ukraine war ended that plan. Now the spaceport offers its facility to any rocket company, but so far no launch company has yet signed a launch deal.

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New debris from another Dragon service module discovered in North Carolina

9:11 am

NASA has now confirmed that debris discovered in scattered places in North Carolina several weeks ago came from the trunk section of a Dragon service module that was supposed to burn up in the atmosphere.

Between late May and early June, News 13 spoke with three mountain residents who stumbled upon what some believed to be debris from space. One piece found on a remote trail in Haywood County was three feet high and so heavy it had to be carried out using a lawn mower. Two smaller objects were found by residents in Franklin and Jackson County.

It is believed the material came from a Dragon cargo capsule that undocked and returned to Earth on April 30, 2024, its service module supposedly burning up in the atmosphere.

This is the second time in the past few months that debris from a Dragon service module trunk has been recovered on Earth. SpaceX nor NASA can no longer assume it will burn up completely, and are required to instead to de-orbit that service module more precisely over the ocean, not only because the Outer Space Treaty demands it but because crashing debris carries serious liabilities that SpaceX especially does not want to face.

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Japan’s space agency reveals it was hacked in 2023

9:02 am

Japan’s space agency JAXA today revealed that beginning in 2023 and periodically into this year it has been attacked repeatedly by hackers, with data from more than 10,000 files stolen.

Attacks occurred in June 2023 and multiple times a year, although investigations are ongoing regarding whether more information was stolen in this year’s attacks.

In addition to internal data, potentially compromised entities include NASA, Toyota Motor Corp., Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and the Defense Ministry, with which JAXA has nondisclosure agreements. Information from numerous aerospace and defense-related organizations and companies was also exposed.

JAXA stated that no sensitive information related to national security or rocket technologies was stolen in last year’s breach. Personal data of approximately 5,000 JAXA personnel and employees from partner companies was used to access the Microsoft 365 accounts of JAXA executives.

It appears JAXA officials only found out about the attack when police told them about it months after the June 2023 attack. Agency officials now say no sensitive rocket or satellite data was stolen. Instead, it appears the attack targeted personal communications as well as research facilities.

The report provided no indication about the source of these attacks, but noted that a 2016 attack is known to have come from China.

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SpaceX launches commercial geosynchronous satellite for SES

4:59 pm

SpaceX today successfully launched a commercial geosynchronous satellite for the Luxembourg company SES, its Falcon 9 lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

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

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

64 SpaceX
27 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the world combined in successful launches, 75 to 41, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including other American companies, 64 to 52.

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June 20, 2024 Quick space links

3:16 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

 

 

 

 

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The intellectual dishonesty of Democrats proven once again

12:43 pm

Democrat Neil Baron, either very lazy or a enthused slanderer
Democrat Neil Baron, either very lazy
or a enthused slanderer

The Cleveland Plain Dealer was forced on June 18, 2024 to retract entirely a June 9th op-ed written by Democrat lawyer and political consultant Neil Baron when it was threatened with slander and libel lawsuits from three FBI whistleblowers because of the blatent false accusations Baron included in this op-ed.

Baron’s op-ed, which can still read here, was mostly a partisan attack on Congressman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and his effort to expose the FBI’s non-stop abuse of power. In doing so, however, Baron accused three FBI whistle-blowers of doing things they did not do.

George Hill, advocated dismantling the FBI, claiming it’s better to “die than to have domestic intelligence.” Another, Garret O’Boyle, said Jan. 6 was a “set up” by Democrats and the FBI. He posted a video of himself at the Capitol sporting body armor, a gas mask and an AR-15 rifle. A third, Marcus Allen, assaulted several Capitol Police on Jan. 6, and claimed the insurrection was a government scheme.

As noted in the newspaper’s apology and retraction it admitted Baron’s accusations were simply false.

Allen was not a participant in the Jan. 6 insurrection in Washington D.C. and has never been accused of assaulting Capitol Police officers during the insurrection. O’Boyle did not claim the insurrection was set up by Democrats or post video of himself at the Capitol wearing body armor, a gas mask and an AR-15 rifle. While George Hill has been critical of his former employer, he did not make a quote attributed to him in the column or advocate for dismantling the FBI.

In other words, Baron was making these accusations up, and the newspaper did no fact-checking prior to publication, accepting those bald-faced lies without question. » Read more

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Rocket Lab launches five smallsats for French commercial constellation

11:24 am

Rocket Lab today successfully launched the first five smallsats of a 25-satellite “Internet-of-Things” commercial constellation of the French company Kinéis.

This was Rocket Lab’s 50th launch, putting this company among a very small club of private companies, which includes SpaceX and ULA. Governments and government-owned entities (such as Arianespace) have done more, but that is going to change in the coming years as private enterprise takes over.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

63 SpaceX (with another launch scheduled for later today)
27 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the world combined in successful launches, 74 to 41, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including other American companies, 63 to 52.

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June 20, 2024 Zimmerman/Pratt on Texas podcast

10:04 am

Robert Pratt has now posted the second 30-minute part of an hour-long interview with me last week, as part of his Pratt on Texas podcast, discussing a whole range of recent blacklist stories, and their larger context within our sadly presently debased culture.

The first part of the interview can be found here.

Part 2 of that podcast is embedded below. It can also be listened to here.
» Read more

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2,000-year-old wine found in Roman tomb

9:47 am

According to tests done on a liquid found in an urn in a Roman tomb discovered in Spain in 2019, that liquid is an ancient white wine that likely came from that region.

As part of that ritual, the skeletal remains of one of the men were immersed in a liquid inside a glass funerary urn. This liquid, which over time has acquired a reddish hue, has been preserved since the first century AD, and a team with the Department of Organic Chemistry at the University of Cordoba, led by Professor José Rafael Ruiz Arrebola, in collaboration with the City of Carmona, has identified it as the oldest wine ever discovered, thus topping the Speyer wine bottle discovered in 1867 and dated to the fourth century AD, preserved in the Historical Museum of Pfalz (Germany).

It is unclear from the report whether anyone has actually tasted the wine, which even if drinkable is tainted by the bones and the cremated ashes of that one individual.

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Update on SpaceX activities leading to the next Superheavy/Starship orbital test flight

9:36 am

Link here. Lots happening, including fueling and static fire tests of Starship prototype #26 (which will not fly) and major changes on Starship prototype #30, which is slated to make that fifth test flight:

Ship 30 continues to receive upgrades, preparing it for Flight Five. Now, with most of the older tiles removed [18,000 total], new similar-sized tiles are being attached to Ship 30. These tiles could potentially have a different formula, which would make them more resistant to heat while holding a similar size.

Also, an ablative pyron layer is being added to the hot spots where Ship 30 is most likely infiltrated by plasma during entry. Pyron is used in the Falcon 9’s engine bay and is a material that SpaceX knows and trusts.

SpaceX has said it is targeting July for the flight, and the FAA has said the company’s launch license will allow it to launch whenever it is ready, with no FAA red tape to stand in the way.

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