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As I noted in July, the support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.

 

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November 25, quick space links

3:21 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.

  • Landspace touts upgrades it is planning for its Zhuque-3 rocket
    It hopes to do the first three launches in 2025 using the older version, and then upgrade. A comparison of its Zhuque-2 and Zhuque-3 rockets can be viewed here. Zhuque-2 has launched three times successfully, though nothing in the past year. Zhuque-3 will attempt to reuse its first stage.

Genesis cover

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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. 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

2 comments

2 comments

  • Richard M
    November 25, 2024 at 5:36 pm

    Jeff Foust tonight has a news story of special interest to Behind the Black readers: an update on the three commercial spaceflight companies planning to send landers to the Moon in the coming weeks. The bad news is, they all slipped from 4Q 2024 to 1Q 2025. But the good news is, the slips are pretty small, and seem to be due to a typical mix of last minute testing delays and launch schedule issues. (They are all launching on Falcon 9’s, of course). That’s right: three Western missions are going to the lunar surface shortly, and not one of them is owned by a government (though governments are among the customers with payloads on board each of ’em). And they are all launching on commercially owned rockets!

    Firefly Aerospace says it is planning a launch of its first lunar lander mission in January, meaning that none of the three commercial lander missions once slated to launch in the fourth quarter of this year will do so.

    Firefly announced Nov. 25 that it is planning to launch its Blue Ghost 1 lander mission during a six-day window in mid-January. The spacecraft will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Florida.

    …At one point this fall, as many as three commercial lunar lander missions were slated to launch in the fourth quarter of the year, but now none of them will do so. Japanese company ispace announced Nov. 12 in an earnings release for its fiscal second quarter that its Mission 2 lunar lander, once projected to launch in December, is now planned for launch no earlier than January. Like Firefly, the lander will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9.

    Intuitive Machines, which had been targeting a launch in December or early January for its IM-2 mission, announced in a Nov. 14 earnings call that the mission is now scheduled to launch no earlier than February on a Falcon 9. The company did not disclose a reason for the slip.

    https://spacenews.com/firefly-sets-january-launch-date-for-first-lunar-lander-mission/

    So the first 6 weeks or so of 2025 should be exciting for lunar activity, at any rate.

  • Richard M
    November 25, 2024 at 6:28 pm

    Speaking of SpaceX launches, they just landed a contract for a big one today!

    NASA has selected SpaceX to provide launch services for the Dragonfly mission, a rotorcraft lander mission under NASA’s New Frontiers Program, designed to explore Saturn’s moon Titan. The mission will sample materials and determine surface composition in different geologic settings, advancing our search for the building blocks of life.

    The firm-fixed-price contract has a value of approximately $256.6 million, which includes launch services and other mission related costs. The Dragonfly mission currently has a targeted launch period from July 5, 2028, to July 25, 2028, on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. …

    Full press release: https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-awards-launch-services-contract-for-dragonfly-mission/

    That price is almost exactly what SpaceX is charging for the launch of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, by the way. A lot of special payload processing requirements for both of these. (It is worth noting that Dragonfly is powered by an MMRTG, making this the first nuclear payload SpaceX has ever launched.)

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