Author: Robert Zimmerman

Russia launches new GPS-type satellite

2:27 pm

Russia today successfully launched another one of its GPS-type Glonass satillites, using its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from its Plesetsk spaceport.

This was the first launch of this type of satellite in more than five years due to an inability to get parts because of U.S. sanctions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In response, the Russian government instituted an export-replacement program aimed at providing indigenously produced electronics for the nation’s industries. The effort was complicated by the need in some cases to build entire factories virtually from scratch.

Around 2016, ISS Reshetnev, the prime developer of GLONASS satellites, began re-designing the GLONASS-K variant for the Russian-built components. It is unclear to what extent the original GLONASS-K series relied on foreign components, but the new batch of spacecraft did not come out of assembly until the end of the 2010s.

The leaders in the 2020 launch race:

26 China
18 SpaceX
12 Russia
4 ULA
4 Europe

The U.S. continues to lead China 28 to 26 in the national rankings.

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Reviewing the development of Starship/Super Heavy

10:11 am

Link here. This five-part article is a detailed review of SpaceX’s development of its new completely reusable heavy-lift rocket, with Super Heavy being the first stage booster and Starship being the orbital upper stage capable of returning to Earth, landing vertically, and being reused.

From the article’s conclusion:

The Starship program is unique and one of the most ambitious in the history of rocketry. The design has now gone through at least twelve known versions and four different names!

Its first version was a single or triple-core rocket back in 2013, which has evolved into the single-core stainless steel Starship design under construction today. Even as the design’s size has fluctuated dramatically, its repertoire of missions and roles has expanded.

It started out as a rocket meant to colonize Mars but now is envisioned as an all-purpose carrier rocket to replace the Falcon 9 rocket family. It is expected to launch satellites into Earth orbit, fly people point-to-point on Earth, ferry cargo and crew to and from the Moon, in addition to its original role as a Mars colonization vehicle.

Two significant points: First, SpaceX as a company has shown itself remarkably capable of shifting design and development tracks, on a dime, if it realized there was a better way to do things. Second, the company has also smartly rethought this big rocket’s reason for existing. In the beginning they focused on Musk’s goal of getting to Mars. That concept however had few if no customers, and therefore have little chance of producing profits. Overtime the company adjusted their design goals to expand the rocket’s purposes so that its capabilities would serve as many customers as possible.

The result is a useful product that still could take people to Mars.

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Rogozin shakes up Vostochny management, again

9:38 am

The head of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, has reprimanded two and fired one high level managers running the construction of the new Vostochny spaceport in Russia’s far east.

Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Rogozin trekked out to the Amur Region in Russia’s Far East on Friday to check on how construction is proceeding at the Vostochny Cosmodrome. The answer was apparently, not real well. “Following the results of hearing reports at a production meeting at the Vostochny cosmodrome, Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Rogozin reprimanded Andrei Okhlopkov, Director General of the Center for Operation of Ground-Based Space Infrastructure Facilities, and Vladimir Zhuk, TsENKI Chief Engineer,” Roscosmos said in a press release.

“Prior to that, by decision of Dmitry Rogozin, Evgeny Rogoza, General Director of the Vostochny Cosmodrome Directorate, was fired,” the document said.

The article then outlines the slow pace of development at Vostochny over the last few years.

This is not the first time Russia has shaken up the Vostochny management. Early shake-ups had included arrests and prosecutions due to corruption. None have apparently succeeded in speeding up development of this giant government-run project that in many ways reminds me of NASA’s SLS/Orion project. The delays are really a feature, not a bug, as the Russian government mostly wants to be able to claim it has created jobs, and really doesn’t care too much if they actually accomplish anything.

Eventually Vostochny will become operational. I have great doubts it will ever act to make Russia once again competitive in the international launch market.

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SpaceX launches 60 more Starlink satellites

9:37 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX today successfully launched another sixty Starlink satellites, bringing the total in orbit to over 800.

The company also recovered the first stage, completing its third flight. The fairings were to be picked up in the ocean, rather than caught in a ship’s net, as the last launch one fairing broke the net. SpaceX engineers might have determined ocean recovery is now safer and sufficient for reuse.

This was also the company’s 100th successful launch and its 63rd successful first stage recovery.

The leaders in the 2020 launch race:

26 China
18 SpaceX
11 Russia
4 ULA
4 Europe (Arianespace)

The U.S. now leads China 28 to 26 in the national rankings.

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Why Do Stupid People Not Realize They Are Stupid?

6:10 pm

A bonus second evening pause: Considering some of the foolishness being imposed on free Americans by clearly stupid politicians, their minions in various government bureaucracies, and much of the mainstream media (as illustrated by tonight’s first satirical evening pause), I thought it worthwhile to post this short video, explaining the Dunning Kruger effect. I also thought it especially worthwhile to post, prior to the election.

The solution for everyone, no matter your intelligence, is to be humble, to always consider the possibility you could be wrong. Do that, and you will take the first step in recognizing when you do stupid things.

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MadTV – Windstorm 97

6:02 pm

An evening pause: We find this funny because it so accurately documents the inanity and stupidity of almost all television news. And yet, so many people who would laugh at this take with complete faith the reporting on COVID-19, all of which has been as absurd and as untrustworthy.

Hat tip lazarus long.

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OSIRIS-REx sample grab so successful they are losing material

2:47 pm

The samples from Bennu
Click for full two frame gif movie.

In a briefing today and press release, the OSIRIS-REx science team announced that they estimate that they have gathered a lot of material from the asteroid Bennu, at least 100s of grams, about twice the minimum of what they hoped to get.

In fact, images of the TAGSAM sample grab equipment suggest that there are some larger rocks lodged in its opening (preventing the flap from closing), and that the small movements they have done to photograph it has caused some of the captured material to escape. The image to the right shows this. You can see floating specks and their shadows (the horizontal streaks) that have escaped. At about 9 o’clock you can see a curve in the contact between a lighter material and blackness to its outside, bending towards the center of the TAGSAM. At other exposures they can clearly see a rock there, distorting the shape and thus preventing the flap from closing properly.

Because of this, they are foregoing the spin maneuver that would have weighed the sample, as well as one engine burst that would have slowed the spacecraft’s movement away from Bennu.

This means they will not know the exact amount captured until the sample gets back to Earth. This is a gamble, but they are confident that they have gotten a lot of material. According to Dante Lauretta, the principal investigator, the sample grab-and-go “got very down” into Bennu, as much as 19 inches. He is also confident that they grabbed more than a 100 grams.

They are therefore going to as quickly as possible store the samples in the Sample Return Capsule for return to Earth, beginning on October 27. They need to do a complex series of steps to make this happen, which is why it cannot happen until then.

One more detail: In their simulations prior to the touch-and-go, they had a range of estimates of how deep the spacecraft would penetrate. According to Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx plunged into Bennu at the softest part of that range, telling them that the asteroid is probably much more loosely packed than expected.

Because they are not doing that last engine burst means that they are moving away from Bennu for good. They will not return to the asteroid. Whether they will be able to get post sample grab images of Nightingale is unknown.

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US sets new record of COVID-19 cases in one day

11:54 am

O no! We’re all gonna die! The United States yesterday set a new record of 77,770 new COVID-19 cases detected in one day.

Thursday’s numbers — 77,640 new cases — eclipsed the previous record set on July 29, when 75,723 new cases were reported, according to a tally by NBC News.

A total of 921 coronavirus-related deaths were also reported on Thursday. [emphasis mine]

I highlight the number of deaths to make the same point I have made repeatedly. Less than a thousand deaths with so many cases demonstrates again how this virus is relatively harmless to practically everyone who gets it. I am quite sure that of those 921 deaths, almost all were over seventy, and all were saddled with other very serious chronic illnesses that even without COVID-19, were on the verge of killing them.

Also, 921 deaths out of 77,770 cases calculates as a death rate of 1.2%. While this is much higher than the flu’s normal death rate of 0.1%, it almost certainly includes almost all flu deaths this year, since the CDC records practically none, something that is just not creditable. Moreover, there is ample evidence that the number of deaths that have been assigned to the coronavirus has been inflated, at least as much as 25%, so that higher number is certainly an overstatement. Moreover, it includes the epidemic’s earlier period, when the virus was more lethal and doctors were struggling to learn how to treat it properly.

To sum up, COVID-19 is merely a variation of the flu. It is weakening in strength. And it never was the plague our fear-mongering political class was claiming it to be.

Sadly, the story above does the same as all mainstream stories about COVID-19. It fails to mention these basic facts, and instead focuses on the increase in cases, as if that increase means millions more will die. It is all a lie, and disgraceful for anyone in a civilized society to do it.

But then, there are a lot of journalists today who have no self-respect, and are quite willing to do many disgraceful things for partisan and emotional reasons, rather than do their jobs properly.

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Sudan joins UAE and Bahrain in normalizing relations with Israel

10:52 am

The Trump administration’s successes in the Middle East continue: Sudan is apparently about to join the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain as the first Arab countries in decades to normalize its relations with Israel.

Moreover, there are rumors than another five more Arab countries are about to join in. They are probably holding back to see what happens on November 3rd. Expect a swarm of new agreements should Trump win.

This deal, along with the one with the UAE and Bahrain, are the direct result of Trump’s hard-nosed policies against the terrorist organizations running the Palestinian territories adjacent to Israel. Unlike past presidents from both parties since the first Bush, Trump has made no effort to pander to either the Palestinian Authority or Hamas. Instead, he has cut off their funding. He has also recognized the real strategic landscape in the Middle East, divided between Iran and its terrorist surrogates in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, and every other Arab nation, and used that divide to gain allies.

During the 2016 campaign, he promised to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, just as practically every presidential candidate had promised since the mid-1990s. Unlike all those other liars, Trump kept that promise. He however also reshaped U.S. Middle East policy in fundamental ways, as described above, and thus has achieved real progress. Voters must remember this when they vote.

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Space officials, from in and out of NASA, meet to plan Biden administration space policy

10:25 am

A group of senior space officials from both inside and outside of NASA held a closed door “war game” on October 20th, designed to plan out what they thought should be the space policy of the Biden administration.

About a dozen officials participated. Attendees included two former astronauts, Charlie Bolden and Pam Melroy, who have worked in space policy since their retirements. Bolden was NASA administrator under President Obama. Also participating were two former senior NASA officials—Mike French, chief of staff under Bolden, and Doug Loverro, a chief of human spaceflight for the Trump administration. Loverro was forced to step down in February and is now under investigation for improper contact with Boeing. The meeting also had participation from industry, including entrepreneur Rick Tumlinson and Marc Berkowitz of Lockheed Martin.

They claim that this is not at the behest of the Biden campaign, but what I see is a group of high-level bureaucrats from Washington gathering together to plan space policy strategy for Biden, with the expectation that should he win they will be well placed to inaugurate his policy for him.

The article did not name all the participants, but if any are presently working in the Trump administration or in NASA their participation in this “war game” was highly inappropriate. It is not their place to set policy, only to implement the policy determined by the elected president now in office.

Should Trump win on November 3rd, the attendance list of participants will thus provide a good guide on who not to hire, as well as who to fire should Trump’s new looser policy on hiring and firing take effect. These individuals have now signaled their partisan loyalties, and it isn’t with Trump or the Republicans. If any are part of his administration now they are wolves in sheep’s clothing, likely acting against his interests when no one is looking.

On this topic, I just bought this book “The Memo: 20 Years Inside the Deep State Fighting for America First,” based on this review, which states:

Higgins’ new book, “The Memo: 20 Years Inside the Deep State Fighting for America First,” is an eye-opening and unique book for a political memoir. It is not heavy on political wonkiness, policymaking stratagems, and personal vendettas typical of Washington, DC tell-alls. It is a refreshingly direct tale of a talented young man’s rise from the enlisted ranks of the military into politics and then policy-making, only to discover the realities of a brutal and seditious opposition fighting to preserve a decrepit, America-destroying agenda that culminated in an outrageous coup attempt against a U.S. president.

And while Higgins does “name names” in his book, when describing the subversion of the Trump agenda by those inimical to it, he does so only to drive home his larger point about the incredible obstacles President Trump has faced in orienting U.S. policies toward advancing his America-first agenda.

Seems very apropos at this moment in time.

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Starship prototype #8 gets its nosecone

10:09 am

Starship prototype #8, with nosecone
Screen capture from LabPadre live stream.

Capitalism in space: SpaceX has now installed the nosecone on Starship prototype #8 in advance of its first vertical hop to 50,000 feet, or more than ten miles, expected sometime in November.

Curiously, hours prior to nose installation, SpaceX apparently removed one of Starship SN8’s three Raptor engines while also revealing that a spare fourth engine was already in Boca Chica. In other words, the prototype likely has only two Raptor engines installed at the moment, meaning that SpaceX will need to install another before the company can prepare for SN8’s next major test campaign.

According to CEO Elon Musk, the plan was to static fire Starship SN8’s three Raptor engines, perform final inspections and checkouts, perform another static fire, and finally attempt the first high-attitude Starship flight test. As of October 22nd, SpaceX has seemingly completed the two steps. Nosecone freshly installed, it’s likely that SpaceX will use the second triple-Raptor static fire opportunity to test the engines while feeding propellant solely from Starship’s liquid oxygen and methane header tanks – the latter of which is located in the nose.

The removal of one engine suggests they found something in that engine they didn’t like during last week’s static fire test, though that is mere speculation on my part.

The addition of the nosecone, with its own fins, clearly changes the appearance of prototype #8, making it look truly like a rocket ship. In fact, it looks more like the rocket ship imagined by science fiction writers for decades prior to the advent of spaceflight in the 1960s. The irony is that this is the first real rocket since the V2 in World War II to have this look.

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