Year: 2024

More delays for first test hops of Europe’s Themis reusable first stage

9:17 am

Par for the course: The first test hops of Europe’s Themis demonstrator reusable first stage, first proposed in 2018, have now been delayed until 2025.

In a May 2024 presentation given at the International Civil Aviation Organization offices in Paris, the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) announced that initial Themis hop tests would only begin next year. SSC is in charge of the operation of Esrange Space Centre in Sweden, where these initial tests of an integrated Themis demonstrator will begin. Once ArianeGroup moves onto higher altitude flights, the testing will be moved to the Guiana Space Centre.

The demonstrator itself is being built by a partnership of the private company ArianeGroup (Airbus and Safran) and the French space agency CNES, and was originallly supposed to begin test hops in 2022. These delays are typical of European government-run space operations. Note too that this is not a usable first stage, merely a demonstrator. For it to become operational it will have to be rebuilt.

None of this should be a surprise, since the man who runs Arianespace and is likely a key player in all this work, Stephan Israel, said in 2023 this stage would not become operational until the 2030s. Israel has been hostile to reusability from day one, and apparently is having some influence in slowing or blocking this development.

By the time this reusable first stage flies, it will be entirely obsolete and an utter waste of money, at least from a business and profit point of view. It will however have served these bankrupt companies and space agencies well as an empty jobs program, accomplishing little but make-work.

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Radar detects tiny moon of asteroid

9:06 am

Binary asteroid
Click for original image.

Using the Goldstone radar dish, part of NASA’s Deep Space Network normally used to communicate with planetary missions, scientists have taken radar imageray of an asteroid that flew past the Earth at a distance of about 4.1 million miles on June 27, 2024, and discovered that it has its own tiny moon.

The series of radar images are above, reduced and cropped to post here.

Passing Earth on June 27, 2024, the asteroid was discovered in 2011 by the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey, in Tucson, Arizona. This marked the first time it came close enough to Earth to be imaged by radar. While the nearly mile-wide object is classified as being potentially hazardous, calculations of its future orbits show that it won’t pose a threat to our planet for the foreseeable future.

In addition to determining the asteroid is roughly spherical, scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory discovered that it’s a binary system: A smaller asteroid, or moonlet, orbits it from a distance of about 1.9 miles.

It is intriguing that as their ability to make high resolution images of asteroids improves, scientists are discovering that such binary asteroid systems appear to be less and less rare, and might even be quite normal. If so, these facts will reshape all theories on the initial formation processes of the solar system.

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FAA to “investigate” SpaceX launch failure

9:12 am

In what appears to be a perfect example of bureaucratic hubris, the FAA announced right after the Falcon 9 upper stage failure on July 11, 2024 that it “is requiring an investigation” and that it “will be involved in every step of the investigation process and must approve SpaceX’s final report, including any corrective actions.” The agency added:

A return to flight is based on the FAA determining that any system, process, or procedure related to the mishap does not affect public safety. In addition, SpaceX may need to request and receive approval from the FAA to modify its license that incorporates any corrective actions and meet all other licensing requirements.

It is difficult to count all the ways this announcement is arrogant and political.

First, why has the FAA made no such similar demands upon Boeing and its Starliner capsule, during any of its three flights, all of which have had serious issues? On the present manned flight, the failure of its thrusters during docking posed a safety issue to the crew then, and poses a clear safety issue to the public when it comes time for the capsule to return to Earth. If those thrusters don’t fire as planned Starliner could crash anywhere.

Yet the FAA has been entirely uninterested. Could it be because Boeing is not owned by Elon Musk, and the Biden administration isn’t demanding the FAA come down hard on it?

Second, does the FAA really think SpaceX wouldn’t do an investigation of the upper stage failure without an order from the FAA? If anything, left to its own devices it is more likely the FAA would do nothing — as it has done with Boeing with both Starliner and the issues that have occurred with both SLS and Orion. SpaceX however will do an investigation without question, because the company takes such incidents very seriously, and always fixes the problem so that it does not pop up again.

Third, there is absolutely no one at the FAA qualified to do this investigation, or to determine if SpaceX’s “corrective actions” are the right choice. These are bureaucrats, not cutting edge engineers. All they are going to do is watch SpaceX’s people do the work, kibitz a bit here and there, and then rubberstamp the conclusions of the company’s engineers, after making SpaceX wait while it retypes SpaceX’s report.

To claim the FAA has the ability to “approve” any engineering actions here is absurd.

Fourth, to threaten to deny SpaceX’s launch license for future Falcon 9 rockets — the most reliable and dependable rocket ever built — illustrates again the partisan nature of this action. The specificity of the agency’s demands here runs very counter to its demands after other past launch anomalies, involving both SpaceX and others. It is as if the agency has gotten orders to do whatever it can to micromanage everything SpaceX does in order to hinder its operation.

I still expect SpaceX to finish its investigation within weeks, and be ready to fly by the end of July, when the Jared Isaacman manned mission is scheduled. I also now expect the FAA to block that schedule and cause an additional several week delay as it slowly retypes SpaceX’s conclusions.

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Musk: European Union attempted to blackmail X into censoring tweets

2:33 pm

The EU to Elon Musk:
The EU to Elon Musk: “Nice company you got here.
Shame if something happened to it..”

Almost immediately after the European Union announced today that it considered X in violation of its Digital Services Act (DSA), claiming that the social media company owned by Elon Musk was breaking the act “in areas linked to dark patterns, advertising transparency and data access for researchers,” Elon Musk responded most bluntly in a tweet:

The European Commission offered 𝕏 an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us.

The other platforms accepted that deal.

𝕏 did not.

In other words, the EU tried to blackmail X and Musk into censoring some users of X, based on criteria that EU chose. When X refused to play that game, the EU followed through with today’s announcement, threatening the following if Musk does not kow-tow:
» Read more

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FAA is apparently starting a new environmental impact assessment for Boca Chica

12:55 pm

Damaged but working flap on Starship
Damaged but working flap during June 6, 2024
Starship/Superheavy test flight

Today I received the following email from the FAA:

Dear Interested Party:

The FAA is holding public meetings on the Draft Tiered Environmental Assessment (Draft EA) for SpaceX’s proposal to increase the number of launches and landings of its Starship/Super Heavy vehicle at the Boca Chica Launch Site in Cameron County, Texas. The Draft EA will analyze SpaceX’s proposal to increase its launch and landing cadence as follows:

  • Up to 25 annual Starship/Super Heavy orbital launches
  • Up to 25 annual landings of Starship
  • Up to 25 annual landings of Super Heavy

The Draft EA will also address vehicle upgrades.

There will be three public meetings, one on August 13, 2024 on South Padre Island, one on August 15, 2024 in Port Isabel, and the third a virtual zoom meeting on August 20, 2024. Anyone can register for the zoom meeting. For all the meetings, “The public will have an opportunity to submit written and oral comments during the meetings.” Expect the leftist anti-Musk, anti-SpaceX activists to come out in droves.

What is really significant about this is that SpaceX has applied to expand its operations at Boca Chica beyond the limitations set by the environmental reassessment issued in 2022. The FAA had said in that reassessment it would re-open it if and when SpaceX requested any changes. It has now done so.
» Read more

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A penguin and egg, as seen by Webb and Hubble

11:32 am

A penquin and egg compared
Click for original images.

Cool image time! The two pictures to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, were taken by both the Webb and Hubble space telescopes of the same unusual galactic object, officially called Arp 142 but nicknamed by astronomers the Penquin and the Egg.

Both of these objects are galaxies. The Penquin’s strange shape is caused by the presence of the Egg, which is an elliptical galaxy that is twisting and distorting the Penquin’s original spiral galaxy whirlpool as it flies past. From the caption:

Like all spiral galaxies, the Penguin is still very rich in gas and dust. The galaxies’ “dance” gravitationally pulled on the Penguin’s thinner areas of gas and dust, causing them to crash in waves and form stars. Look for those areas in two places: what looks like a fish in its “beak” and the “feathers” in its “tail.”

Surrounding these newer stars is smoke-like material that includes carbon-containing molecules, known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which Webb is exceptional at detecting. Dust, seen as fainter, deeper orange arcs also swoops from its beak to tail feathers.

In contrast, the Egg’s compact shape remains largely unchanged. As an elliptical galaxy, it is filled with aging stars, and has a lot less gas and dust that can be pulled away to form new stars. If both were spiral galaxies, each would end the first “twist” with new star formation and twirling curls, known as tidal tails.

Another reason for the Egg’s undisturbed appearance: These galaxies have approximately the same mass or heft, which is why the smaller-looking elliptical wasn’t consumed or distorted by the Penguin.

The differences between the two pictures also reveal many aspects of the Penguin. The Hubble optical image at the top captures the lanes of dust in the foreground, while the Webb infrared image at the bottom looks right through this dust to better trace the now-distorted spiral arms where star formation is presently taking place.

Astronomers estimate that these two galaxies are about 100,000 light years apart, comparable to the width of the Milky Way. In comparison, the Andromeda galaxy is around 2.5 million light years away, and will not begin interacting with our galaxy in this manner for an estimated four billion years. The Egg and Penguin however began their warped dance about 50 million years ago.

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Russia arrests three Europeans this week for trespassing at Baikonur spaceport

10:23 am

Russia this week arrested three Europeans, two Dutch and one Belgium, for sneaking onto the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan illegally.

This is the second time this year and the third time since 2022 that Russia has caught Europeans attempting to enter the spaceport illegally. In June one of those trespassers died in the attempt from dehydration. It appears it has become “a thing” to do, mostly by social media types who then post videos of their travels.

Russia and Kazakhstan however invite these trespasses because neither makes it easy or even possible to visit the spaceport and see its sights. Its inavailabiity makes it a target, and thus these illegal visits. It would be much better is both countries routinely ran public tours, at very reasonable rates, as NASA does at Cape Canaveral. India’s space agency ISRO meanwhile makes money by selling tickets to view its launches.

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China planning an asteroid collision mission similar to DART

10:12 am

It appears China is putting together an asteroid collision mission similar to NASA 2022 DART mission that impacted the asteroid Dimorphus.

The China National Space Administration (CNSA) mission may have already selected its target — the near-Earth object (NEO) 2015 XF261, a nearly 100-foot-wide (30 meters) asteroid.

According to the small-body database managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), 2015 XF261 last came relatively close to Earth just this week, on Tuesday (July 9), when it passed within 31 million miles (50 million kilometers) of our planet. The space rock was traveling at around 26,000 mph (42,000 kph), roughly 30 times faster than the speed of sound.

Much of the information about this proposed comes from a very detailed a Planetary Society report, which said that the mission is targeting a 2027 launch and described the mission as follows:

The plan is for the observer spacecraft to reach the target asteroid first and conduct three to six months of close and orbiting observations to study the asteroid’s size, shape, composition, and orbit. Then the impactor spacecraft will perform a high-speed kinetic energy impact test with the target asteroid. The observer will monitor the entire impact process and evaluate the aftermath for 6-12 months to ascertain the effects.

As with DART, the claim is that this mission is primarily focused on planetary defense (learning how to prevent asteroid impacts of Earth). That claim however is bogus. While that component of the mission exists, it is not the primary purpose, which is to study asteroids themselves.

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South Korea: Numerous close calls between its lunar orbiter and others

9:58 am

A South Korean official has revealed that during the ongoing mission of its lunar orbiter Danuri it has had to act to avoid dozens of potential collisions with three other spacecraft.

In a presentation at the Secure World Foundation’s Summit for Space Sustainability here July 11, Soyoung Chung, senior researcher at the Korea Aerospace Research Institute’s (KARI’s) strategy and planning directorate, said her agency had received 40 “red alarms” of potential collisions among spacecraft orbiting the moon in the last 18 months.

The warnings primarily involve close approaches involving KARI’s Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter from India’s space agency ISRO, which are all in similar low orbits around the moon. The three agencies voluntarily share information about the orbits of their spacecraft using a NASA platform called MADCAP that generates collision warnings.

In addition, engineers had to institute a maneuver to avoid Japan’s SLIM lunar lander, and in that case the warning occurred only a day before the potential collision was to occur.

The official noted that at present there is no system to coordinate lunar orbits and spacecraft, as exists for Earth orbit. South Korea and Romania have proposed giving this power to the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, which based on UN politics would likely be a very bad thing for the commercial space industry. I guarantee that UN agency would quickly favor government missions in its decision, and would also favor authoritarian governments over capitalist nations.

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Spanish rocket startup PLD gets $34 million loan to build orbital rocket

9:43 am

The Spanish rocket startup PLD has obtained a $34 million bank loan to build its Miura-5 orbital rocket.

On 12 July, PLD Space announced that it had received a €31.2 million syndicated loan from Banco Santander, EBN Banco, and the Instituto de Crédito Oficial. A syndicated loan is provided by a group of lenders to distribute the financial risk among the participating lenders.

…According to the company, the loan amount will primarily be used for the Miura 5 rocket development programme, which includes both the development of the rocket and the expansion of the company’s industrial capabilities. It will also be used to support the company’s growth, with PLD planning to surpass 300 employees by the end of 2024.

For a rocket startup to get significant financing through a bank loan like this is very unusual. Almost always banks are reluctant to loan money for such a risky project. Instead, rocket startups get investment capital from venture capitalists, who are willing to take greater risks. PLD itself has already raised $164 million in this manner, $46 million of which came from the Spanish government itself.

I therefore wonder if some political pressure from the Spanish government helped convince the banks to approve the loan.

Regardless, PLD hopes to do the first orbital test launch of Miura-5 in 2025, with operational flights to follow the next year.

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