November 29, 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.
- Australian rocket startup Gilmour delays first launch of its Eris Rocket to mid-January
The delay appears mostly to avoid conflict with the Christmas holidays. The launch will be from Gilmour’s own Bowen spaceport on the east coast of Australia.
- South Korea reports a sea launch platform from an unnamed “satellite launch startup” ran aground due heavy weather
The picture suggests this ship was far too small to launch anything orbital. I suspect it was instead used for communications support during launches.
- ABL replaces its CEO in its new focus on missile defense
One co-founder has stepped down, while the other has now taken charge.
- Vast touts its ongoing work on its Haven-1 space station module
The company is building it in-house, and is targeting ’26 for a launch and manned mission.
- Rocket Lab touts on-going testing of the second stage of its new Neutron rocket
The company continues to target ’25 for the first launch.
- Pdf of Chinese science paper outlining decision process to pick landing site for its Mars sample return mission
No decisions apparently have yet been made, other than the landing will be somewhere between 17 to 30 degrees north latitude, with all but one of the candidate sites in the northern lowland plains.
- On this day in 1969, the Soviet Union accidentally crashed a spacecraft in China, at a time the two nations were not talking to each other
The spacecraft was part of a program to test upper stages for future lunar missions, but few details are really known about the whole project.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows 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.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
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You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
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.
- Australian rocket startup Gilmour delays first launch of its Eris Rocket to mid-January
The delay appears mostly to avoid conflict with the Christmas holidays. The launch will be from Gilmour’s own Bowen spaceport on the east coast of Australia.
- South Korea reports a sea launch platform from an unnamed “satellite launch startup” ran aground due heavy weather
The picture suggests this ship was far too small to launch anything orbital. I suspect it was instead used for communications support during launches.
- ABL replaces its CEO in its new focus on missile defense
One co-founder has stepped down, while the other has now taken charge.
- Vast touts its ongoing work on its Haven-1 space station module
The company is building it in-house, and is targeting ’26 for a launch and manned mission.
- Rocket Lab touts on-going testing of the second stage of its new Neutron rocket
The company continues to target ’25 for the first launch.
- Pdf of Chinese science paper outlining decision process to pick landing site for its Mars sample return mission
No decisions apparently have yet been made, other than the landing will be somewhere between 17 to 30 degrees north latitude, with all but one of the candidate sites in the northern lowland plains.
- On this day in 1969, the Soviet Union accidentally crashed a spacecraft in China, at a time the two nations were not talking to each other
The spacecraft was part of a program to test upper stages for future lunar missions, but few details are really known about the whole project.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows 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.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
” . . . the Soviet Union accidentally crashed a spacecraft in China . . . ”
Who knew that a young engineer in the nascent Chinese space program saw that, and thought, ‘Hey, that’s not a bad idea.’
I know that Neutron is supposed to be around the same class/size as the Falcon 9, but seeing the second stage “in the flesh” really drives the point home. Can’t wait to see it fly! (And come back.)
China’s latest
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/chinese-space-program.5642/page-35