Daryl Hall – Can We Still Be Friends
An evening pause: With Todd Rundgren.
Hat tip Ferris Akel.
Year: 2024
ADRAS-J gets within 50 feet of abandoned rocket stage
Image taken during ADRAS-J’s initial approach in April 2024.
Click for original image.
The demo maneuvering spacecraft ADRAS-J, built by the Japanese orbital tug startup Astroscale, has successfully maneuvered to within 50 feet of the abandoned rocket stage that the company hopes to grab and de-orbit on a later mission.
When ADRAS-J was 50 meters behind the upper stage the spacecraft reduced the gap in a straight-line approach then maneuvered to approximately 15 meters below the Payload Attach Fitting (PAF) — the planned capture point for the follow-on ADRAS-J2 mission — aligning the spacecraft’s relative speed, distance, and attitude. ADRAS-J successfully maintained this position until an autonomous abort was triggered by the onboard collision avoidance system due to an unexpected relative attitude anomaly with the upper stage. The spacecraft safely maneuvered away from the debris as designed before reaching the CIP. Astroscale Japan is currently investigating the cause of the abort.
Engineers will have to understand that the cause of that abort prior to launching ADRAS-J2, the mission that will grab the stage and de-orbit it.
Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay.
December 11, 2024 Quick space links
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.
- Vast touts completion of the primary structure of its Haven-1 module, still targeting a 2025 launch
Next on the list is “painting, window, and hatch integration,” then pressure and load testing.
- Spanish rocket startup PLD touts the on-going work on its Miura-5 orbital rocket
The company is targeting a 2025 launch date.
- Chinese pseudo-company CosmoLeap touts the on-going development of its “Leap-1” “chopstick” reusable liquid rocket
It is very dangerous building things like this by watching youtube videos of SpaceX Starship/Superheavy launches. Some very important details will not be evident.
- Video of Tiangong-3 astronauts adding protective layers to the front and back of station’s hatches
The shields are obvious designed to lower the risk of impact to the hatch while it is open during spacewalks. Damage at that time might prevent the astronauts from getting back inside.
- On this day in 1972 Apollo 17 landed on the Moon
Fifty-two years later it remains the last time humans walked on another planet.
A review of the last half century of major ice calving events in Antarctica detects no trend
Click for original image.
The uncertainty of science: A review by scientists of major ice calving events in Antarctica that have occurred in the last 47 years has detected absolutely no trend either up or down, despite decades of predictions that human caused global warming would cause huge sections of the icecap to break off and catastrophically change the Earth’s climate.
The graph to the right comes from figure 4 of the paper, and illustrates the lack of trend. Note how the actual observations, the blue dots, show no increase in large calving events. From the abstract:
We use 47 years of iceberg size from satellite observations. Our analysis reveals no upward trend in the surface area of the largest annual iceberg over this time frame. This finding suggests that extreme calving events such as the recent 2017 Larsen C iceberg, A68, are statistically unexceptional and that extreme calving events are not necessarily a consequence of climate change.
The researchers of course genuflect to human-caused global warming in their conclusion by stating that the shrinkage predicted in the Antarctic ice cap (but not yet seen in any significant amount) could instead be occurring due to an increase in small calving events.
The lack of an upward trend in annual maximum iceberg area could be attributed to an overall increase in the number of smaller calving events, which may inhibit the development of extremely large calving events. As such, small calving events pose the greatest threat to the current stability of Antarctic ice shelves.
Since there is no detailed or reliable data of the number of smaller calving events, this hypothesis is entirely made up, and carries no weight. It is simply a fantasy created to maintain the fiction of global warming. A more open-minded look at these results would say that the larger events provide an excellent guide to the overall trend, and that the icecap simply isn’t shrinking as predicted.
Part 2 of 2: De-emphasize a fast Moon landing and build a real American space industry instead
In part one yesterday of this two-part essay, I described the likelihood that Jared Isaacman, Trump’s appointment to be NASA’s next administrator, will push to cancel NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and its Orion capsule, deeming them too expensive, too unsafe, and too cumbersome to use for any viable effort to colonize the solar system.
I then described how the Artemis lunar landings could still be done, more or less as planned, by replacing SLS with Starship/Superheavy, and Orion with Starship. Such a change would entail some delay, but it could be done.
This plan however I think is short-sighted. The Artemis lunar landings as proposed are really nothing more than another Apollo-like plant-the-flag-on-the-Moon stunt. As designed they do little to establish a permanent sustainable human presence on the Moon or elsewhere in the solar system.
Isaacman however has another option that can create a permanent sustainable American presence in space, and that option is staring us all in the face.
And now for something entire different
Capitalism in space: I think Isaacman should shift the gears of Artemis entirely, and put a manned Moon landing on the back burner. Let China do its one or two lunar landing stunts, comparable to Apollo but incapable of doing much else.
» Read more
Land-locked Zimbabwe wants a spaceport, and is asking the Russians to help build it
According to the head of Zimbabwe’s space agency, Painos Gweme, the land-locked African country hopes to build its own spaceport and launch its own rocket sometime in the next ten years, and is in negotiations the Russians for aid.
In an interview published on Tuesday, Gweme told TASS that his country has begun negotiations with Russia’s national spaceflight corporation, Roscosmos, about the planned projects, including connecting Zimbabwe to Moscow’s cosmonaut training system. “We expect that with the assistance of our Russian colleagues, we will be able to launch our own rocket into space within the next 10 years,” he said, according to the news agency.
“We hope that our first rocket will be launched from our own cosmodrome. We have already begun working on plans, selecting a location whose natural conditions would be best suited for creating a launch complex,” Gweme added.
Any launches that take place from Zimbabwe will have to cross either South Africa or Mozambique, so expect their to be some objections from those quarters.
I also suspect that if Russia is considering this, it is doing so with the intention of building that Zimbabwe spaceport for its own uses. Zimbabwe certainly doesn’t have the capability to do this, even in ten years. Because of Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine in 2022 it was banned from its launch site in French Guiana, operated in partnership with the European Space Agency. Roscosmos might be hunting for another international site to give it more options, as well as some good international publicity.
Lucy about to do close fly-by of Earth in order to slingshot it towards the orbit of Jupiter
Lucy’s route to the asteroids. Click for original image.
On December 12, 2024 the asteroid probe Lucy will do a very close fly-by of Earth, dipping to only 220 miles of the ground and thus giving it the velocity to fly through asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and on to the Trojan asteroids that orbit with Jupiter.
During the gravity assist, the Lucy spacecraft, from Earth’s perspective, will approach from the direction of the Sun. This means that observers on Earth will not be able to see Lucy approaching, as it will be lost in the Sun’s glare. Lucy’s trajectory will bring the spacecraft very close to the Earth, even lower in altitude than the International Space Station. To ensure the safety of the spacecraft as it passes through this region full of Earth-orbiting satellites and debris, NASA has procedures to anticipate and avoid potential collisions. If needed, the spacecraft will execute a small trajectory correction maneuver 12 hours before closest approach to alter the time of closest approach by 1 or 2 seconds — enough to avoid a potential collision.
Shortly after sunset, keen observers in the Hawaiian Islands may be able to catch a glimpse of Lucy as the spacecraft approaches Earth before it passes into Earth’s shadow at 6:14 p.m. HST. Lucy will speed over the continental U.S. in darkness, travelling over 33,000 miles per hour (14.8 kilometers per second), and emerge from Earth’s shadow 20 minutes later at 11:34 p.m. EST. At that time, Lucy may be visible to observers with a telescope in the western regions of Africa and the eastern regions of South America as sunlight reflects off the spacecraft’s large solar panels (observers in the eastern United States will be looking at the much dimmer “back” side of the solar panels, making Lucy harder to see
No imagery is planned for this flyby in order to protect the spacecraft’s science instruments.
After the fly-by, Lucy’s next target will be the main belt asteroid Donaldjohanson in April 2025. Its arrival in Jupiter orbit will follow in 2027.
SpaceX recovers parts of Starship from its last test launch on November 19th
Two teams of SpaceX employees have successfully recovered parts of the Starship that completed a soft vertical landing over the water in the Indian Ocean during the last test launch on November 19th.
The recovery included heat-resistant panelling and large bags of “miscellaneous metal pieces”. Images also showed large tanks being loaded off the ship, however it is unclear what they contained. Recovery of the rocket’s main section also proved too difficult, and it was left to sink to the bottom, with that part of the Indian Ocean about 6km deep. Mr Leal said allowing space material to sink after a splashdown was “pretty normal”.
It appears from this report that the Starship broke in two pieces when it fell over and hit the water. It sounds like the recovery teams focused mostly on recovering the flaps and heat shield, though getting them off the spaceship’s outer hull while it floated in the water and was sinking must have been quite an interesting experience. My guess is that salvage operations lifted out of the water for this purpose.
Ingenuity’s last flight: an accident investigation
Click for original image.
Using all the data available, engineers at JPL have done a more detailed accident investigation into Ingenuity’s last flight on Mars on January 18, 2024, and are about to publish their report. Their conclusions however were published today by NASA, with the graphic to the right the main conclusion.
One of the navigation system’s main requirements was to provide velocity estimates that would enable the helicopter to land within a small envelope of vertical and horizontal velocities. Data sent down during Flight 72 shows that, around 20 seconds after takeoff, the navigation system couldn’t find enough surface features to track.
Photographs taken after the flight indicate the navigation errors created high horizontal velocities at touchdown. In the most likely scenario, the hard impact on the sand ripple’s slope caused Ingenuity to pitch and roll. The rapid attitude change resulted in loads on the fast-rotating rotor blades beyond their design limits, snapping all four of them off at their weakest point — about a third of the way from the tip. The damaged blades caused excessive vibration in the rotor system, ripping the remainder of one blade from its root and generating an excessive power demand that resulted in loss of communications.
The reason Ingenuity’s system couldn’t find enough features to track was because it was flying over a dune field, the ground almost all smooth sand. The only features were the soft changes of topography caused by the dunes, which were not small.
Not surprisingly, these same engineers are working on a larger drone-type helicopter for a future mission, dubbed Mars Chopper, which based on an short animation released by NASA, is the mission targeting Valles Mariner that I first described in June 2022. The investigation into Ingenuity’s failure will inform the design of Chopper.
ABBA – Chiquitita
An evening pause: Performed live 1979.
Hat tip Doug Johnson.
ULA’s CEO outlines a bright 2025 for its Vulcan rocket
In an interview for the website Breaking Defense, ULA’s CEO Tory Bruno outlined his optimistic outlook in 2025 for its Vulcan rocket, despite the loss of a nozzle from a strap-on booster during its second test launch.
The important take-aways:
- He expects the military to certify the rocket “momentarily”, though this could mean one to several months.
- The company plans 20 launches in 2025, with 16 Vulcans already in storage.
- Eventually Bruno expects to be launching 20 to 30 times per year.
- Blue Origin has so far delivered 12 BE-4 engines, of which four have flown.
- Blue Origin’s production rate is presently one per week.
The last two items are significant. If this production rate is the fastest Blue Origin can do, it will limit the number of Vulcan and New Glenn launches significantly per year. For example, Vulcan uses two engines per launch. To do 20 launches in 2025 will require 40 engines. Blue Origin however wants to also launch its New Glenn a number of times in 2025, and it uses seven BE-4 engines per launch. A production rate of one per week means that Blue Origin will not be producing enough engines for the number of launches planned for both rockets. Either ULA will have to delay its Vulcan launches awaiting engines, or Blue Origin will have to do the same for its New Glenn.
Of course, it is also possible that Blue Origin will be able to up this production rate with time. It has certainly made progress in this area in the past year, since a year ago it was having trouble producing one engine per month.
December 10, 2024 Quick space links
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.
- Chinese pseudo-company Space Epoch successfully completes 20-second static fire test of its stainless steel Yuanxingzhe-1 rocket
It uses methane-fuel engines, and intends to land the first stage vertically after launch.
- China’s Long March 5B to launch the first 10 satellites in the Chinese SatNet megaconstellation
According to tweet, the core stage will not reach orbit, which means it will drop into the ocean instead of crashing uncontrolled somewhere else on Earth.
- Vast touts video showing the shield design it is using on its Haven-1 space module
The video shows a test where the shield blocked 6mm projectile moving at 6.5 kilometers per second.
- On this day in 1999 Europe’s XMM space telescope was launched
The article outlines some of the space telescope’s discoveries in the past 25 years.