October 4, 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.
- ASTSpaceMobile’s 1st Bluebird cell-to-satellite satellite in orbit is about to go operational
The satellites are the largest commercial arrays ever placed in orbit, 700 square feet in area.
- German startup Polaris Spaceplanes raises €7.1 million in private investment capital
It will use the funds to develop its “Aurora multipurpose spaceplane and hypersonic transport system.”
- On this day in 1957, the Soviet Union opened the space age by launching the first artificial satellite, Sputnik
And as they say, the rest is history.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.
- ASTSpaceMobile’s 1st Bluebird cell-to-satellite satellite in orbit is about to go operational
The satellites are the largest commercial arrays ever placed in orbit, 700 square feet in area.
- German startup Polaris Spaceplanes raises €7.1 million in private investment capital
It will use the funds to develop its “Aurora multipurpose spaceplane and hypersonic transport system.”
- On this day in 1957, the Soviet Union opened the space age by launching the first artificial satellite, Sputnik
And as they say, the rest is history.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The Problem with China’s Space Program
Real Engineering (October 5, 2024)
https://youtu.be/Dsk0aIRrHb4
16:45
The ESA Hera launch is a go for tomorrow (Monday, Oct 7), as the FAA has cleared SpaceX to launch it. But….uh, ONLY this launch is cleared. Jeff Foust tweets:
I imagine they got some pressing phone calls from NASA about this one,,,
Where does this leave Europa Clipper, scheduled to launch on Thursday (Oct. 10)? It is hard to see how it couldn’t be cleared to go on the same grounds as Hera — there is no second stage reentry for it, either. Given how much *more* important *this* mission is to NASA, and the limited launch window (it goes only until Nov. 6, then they must wait a year for a less favorable window), I assume (pending a clean launch of Hera, which I expect) FAA will grudgingly clear that one by then, too, and they’re merely flexing their muscle against Elon by only giving a limited clearance. Then again, it is kinda a moot point, since Hurricane Milton is headed on a direct course for the Cape area this week, so I doubt it will have clear weather until next weekend.
Beirut Cam
Agenda Free TV; Steve Lookner
October 5
https://youtu.be/57GIwxu56QY?t=18762
IDF airstrike, scores of secondary & tertiary explosions and then a massive airburst.
What did they hit?
Some sort of weapons bunker, hidden underneath a day-care center?
Looks exactly like when the fertilizer plant exploded in 2020.
https://youtu.be/93tV6-0Ugwk
4 hours 30 minutes, to “October 7th,” in Iran.
The latest launch mission weather forecast from Delta 45 at the Cape looks grim, grim, grim.
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=57431.0;attach=2321449;image
I don’t think Hera or Clipper will be able to launch this week, at least not until the weekend. Milton is going right for it, and it is packing quite a punch.
Richard–
getting an error message on your link.
Wayne,
Try this:
https://www.patrick.spaceforce.mil/Portals/14/Weather/Falcon%209%20HERA%20L-1%20Forecast%20-%207%20OCT%20Launch%20.pdf?ver=Q02W1KNxaZWd44ezCdCi7w%3D%3D
Basically, it shows a 90% Probability of Violating Weather Constraints.
Richard M: Can you provide a link to Foust’s tweet?
To Wayne
My guess is what you saw was a warehouse full of unguided solid rockets cooking off after an initial strike—still much smaller than the seaport warehouse blast—that was closer to Grandcamp and High Flyer exploding as part of 1947’s Texas City Disaster.
What is it with the “1958 Soviet Brutalist Architecture” they have going in Beirut?
Jeff-
A whole lot of some-thing, to be sure.
The strike that I linked to– the target that kept on giving. It wouldn’t stop burning & exploding for 20 minutes.
Similar strike on Sunday; scores of secondary & tertiary explosions from one location.
FCC gets out of way for Starlink cell service.
https://x.com/spacex/status/1842988427777605683?s=46
Some thoughts about the USSF potentially approving Vulcan for national security launches.
1. An SRB failure that does NOT degenerate into a mission-ending catastrophic failure seems like a longshot. This mission apparently “succeeding” was therefore probably a fluke.
2. Vulcan consuming four SRBs and experiencing a 25% failure rate implies a mission rate of failure, especially with 4 and 6 SRB missions, that is totally non-workable.
3. All GEM 63 XL motors must be inspected and perhaps even non-XL GEM 63s on remaining Atlas 5 missions must also. The nature of this inspection is potentially highly technical and may involve factory-level processes.
4. If USSF accepts Vulcan on this basis, the certification process must be judged a political farce, and establishes a terrible precedent.
A final question – had there been a human crew aboard, would launch officials have triggered the escape system? I think the answer is “yes”.
Wayne;
Here’s an explosion two weeks ago in Russia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukhqqRdhcMw
Ha!
Found some follow up information on the explosion including body cam footage of the guards running away. 7min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC6xVCpld_w&pp=QAFIAQ%3D%3D
The last five minutes appears to be a sales pitch for kamikaze drones in action from mounted cameras… very effective on the front lines, coming to a neighborhood near you.
(Airlines are forbidding walkie-talkies and pagers… Talking about forbidding gaming pads, computers and cell phones as their batteries can be weaponized as well)
Wayne
All eyes are watching the MV Ruby, a ship badly in need of repairs that no dock wants due to it have 20,000 tons of ammonium nitrate.