April 18, 2025 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.
- The military has a reason for delaying the next Atlas-5 launch but it won’t tell us why
Essentially there appears to be some military-relating scheduling conflict at Cape Canaveral that has caused ULA to hold up the first Atlas-5 launch of Amazon’s Kuiper satellites.
- An exoplanet has been discovered circling binary star system with an orbit tilted 90 degrees to their orbit
As Jay notes, “Nice visualization of the orbits of this system.” Jay also adds that the system is “…120 light years away in the constellation Libra, and it is not just a binary system, it is a triple system with 2M1510C and possible sighting of a fourth brown dwarf to make it a quadruple system.”
- Cute artwork on the elevator doors in a building at the Johnson Space Center
This graphic of Starliner routinely docks more reliably than the real thing.
- Zhuque-2 and Zhuque-3 rockets of the Chinese pseudo-company Landspace on the factory floor.
Zhuque-2 was the first methane-fueled rocket to reach orbit. Zhuque-3 is a Falcon-9 copycat that the company hopes to launch for the first time this year. Later upgrades will have a reusable first stage.
- Video of China’s next manned rocket launch rolling to the launchpad
Launch is scheduled for April 24, 2025.
- Rumors abound concerning China’s program to send humans to the Moon
Nothing concrete, except the rumors imply both delays along with attempts to accelerate the schedule.
- Indian rocket startup Skyroot touts the successfully 200 second static fire test of the engine for use on its Vikram-1 rocket’s fourth stage
The company has completed engine tests for most of this rocket’s engines, but there is no word when it will attempt a first launch.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID 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. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
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.
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.
- The military has a reason for delaying the next Atlas-5 launch but it won’t tell us why
Essentially there appears to be some military-relating scheduling conflict at Cape Canaveral that has caused ULA to hold up the first Atlas-5 launch of Amazon’s Kuiper satellites.
- An exoplanet has been discovered circling binary star system with an orbit tilted 90 degrees to their orbit
As Jay notes, “Nice visualization of the orbits of this system.” Jay also adds that the system is “…120 light years away in the constellation Libra, and it is not just a binary system, it is a triple system with 2M1510C and possible sighting of a fourth brown dwarf to make it a quadruple system.”
- Cute artwork on the elevator doors in a building at the Johnson Space Center
This graphic of Starliner routinely docks more reliably than the real thing.
- Zhuque-2 and Zhuque-3 rockets of the Chinese pseudo-company Landspace on the factory floor.
Zhuque-2 was the first methane-fueled rocket to reach orbit. Zhuque-3 is a Falcon-9 copycat that the company hopes to launch for the first time this year. Later upgrades will have a reusable first stage.
- Video of China’s next manned rocket launch rolling to the launchpad
Launch is scheduled for April 24, 2025.
- Rumors abound concerning China’s program to send humans to the Moon
Nothing concrete, except the rumors imply both delays along with attempts to accelerate the schedule.
- Indian rocket startup Skyroot touts the successfully 200 second static fire test of the engine for use on its Vikram-1 rocket’s fourth stage
The company has completed engine tests for most of this rocket’s engines, but there is no word when it will attempt a first launch.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID 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. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
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.
Life imitating fiction. Planet circling binary stars…
The solar system of the sci-fi firefly.
https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/9564/are-the-planets-in-firefly-in-just-one-star-system-or-spread-across-the-galaxy
In the comments at the site referenced in the first comment above, the question is raised whether a multi-star, multi-planet system could be gravitationally stable. My conjecture is… probably not, but it probably doesn’t matter, if advanced intelligences have enough time to arise in it.
This is because a powerful intelligence (biological, assisted by AI) could certainly derive and execute the relatively minor adjustments to planetary orbits required to maintain stability.