Author: Robert Zimmerman

New Shepard test flight set for tomorrow

9:42 am

Capitalism in space: Blue Origin has scheduled a New Shepard test flight set for tomorrow morning at 10 am (Central), the first test flight in ten months.

This will be the seventh flight of this particular New Shepard spacecraft, the thirteenth overall for the program.

In March the company’s CEO had promised three flights by the end of 2020, with the last manned. The press release above howeveronly mentions that tomorrow’s test flight is the first of two, both now emphasizing how they will be flying payloads testing technology for lunar landings. No mention is made of a later manned mission.

It seems increasingly that Blue Origin is abandoning its suborbital space tourism business. If not, they sure don’t seem very enthusiastic about it any longer. Instead, they appear to be hyping New Shepard as a testbed for their effort to develop the manned lunar lander for NASA.

That same March update from the CEO had also said they would be initiating commercial production of their BE-4 rocket engine this year. All we have had so far is delivery of one testbed engine — not flightworthy — to ULA. ULA soon revealed there are problems with the engine.

All in all, Blue Origin is becoming less and less impressive, as time passes. Their suborbital tourism project appears to be abandoned. Their rocket engine has problems. And their New Glenn orbital rocket appears stalled.

All they have right now is their development contract with NASA to build a manned lunar lander, and in that case Blue Origin is only a minor player, even if the company is listed as the lead contractor. Their big partners (Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Draper) will build the bulk of the lander, should NASA finally get the project financed by Congress.

The company’s failure to deliver so far is a true shame, as the company has ample finances, backed by Jeff Bezos’ billions.

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A patch of chaos in the Martian cratered southern highlands

1:12 pm

A patch of chaos in the southern cratered highlands of Mars
Click for full image.

Today’s cool image, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, takes us to the cratered southern highlands of Mars. Taken by the context wide angle camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, this image shows us a strange isolated patch of what appears to be chaos terrain, which on Mars generally means an area of random knobs and mesas cut by canyons and channels.

The large bulk of chaos terrain on Mars is found near or in the transition zone between the lowland northern plains and the southern cratered highlands, and is thought to have been created by slow erosion, possibly by glaciers. This erosion process is aided by the gradient downhill from those highlands to the lowlands.

This location however is in the middle of the cratered highlands, and shows no obvious slope in any direction. And though the location is in the mid-southern latitudes, there is no obvious evidence of glaciers among these knobs and mesas. Furthermore, the mesas are not all the same height. Instead, a large portion appear to have been shaved off, as if some giant came in with a putty knife and scrapped away at them.

This can be clearly seen by the close-up below, taken by MRO’s high resolution camera on July 16, 2002 of the area indicated by the white box, which for scale is about 2 1/4 miles square.
» Read more

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NASA lays out Artemis budget and plan to get astronauts to Moon

10:10 am

In a obvious lobbying effort to get Congress to fund the Trump administration’s Artemis project to land humans on the Moon by 2024, NASA yesterday released a new updated plan and budget for the program.

More here.

The document [pdf] outlines the specific plans for each of the first three Artemis flights, with the first unmanned, the second manned and designed to fly around the Moon, and the third to land a man and a woman on the Moon. Overall the plan is budgeted at about $28 billion, with $3.2 billion needed immediately to fund construction of the lunar lander. From the second link:

Bridenstine said he remains optimistic Congress will fully fund lander development because of what he described as broad bipartisan support for the Artemis program. He said he’s hopeful an expected continuing resolution that would freeze NASA’s budget at last year’s spending levels will be resolved in an “omnibus” spending bill before Christmas or, if the CR is extended, by early spring. “It is critically important that we get that $3.2 billion,” he said. “And I think that if we can have that done before Christmas, we’re still on track for a 2024 moon landing. … If we go beyond March, and we still don’t have the human landing system funded, it becomes increasingly more difficult.”

And what happens then?

“It’s really simple. If Congress doesn’t fund the moon landing program, then it won’t be achieved (in 2024), I mean it’s really that simple,” Bridenstine said. But he quickly added: “I want to be clear, if they push the funding off, our goal will be to get to the moon at the earliest possible opportunity.”

I remain doubtful the present Congress, with the House controlled by the Democrats, will fund this 2024 lunar landing. Since 2016 the entire political platform of the Democratic Party has been “oppose anything Trump.” They will not fund this project if it means he will get this landing during his second term.

If however Trump loses in November, the lame duck Congress might then go ahead and fund it before December, since the landing in 2024 will then occur during the Biden presidency.

Technically the plan reveals that NASA is trying to accelerate the development of the rendezvous and docking software for Orion. During the second flight, the first manned, the crew will do proximity maneuvers with the upper stage of the rocket. Under previous management NASA had not included this ability, as they had not planned to have Orion do any rendezvouses or dockings. That lack makes it impossible for Orion to fly on any other rocket but SLS. This change means the Trump administration recognizes this is a problem, and wants to fix it, especially because they also recognize that SLS is a poor long term option for future lunar missions.

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OneWeb announces new launch schedule, cancels Ariane 6 launch

9:47 am

Capitalism in space: OneWeb, as it restructures itself after its purchase by a partnership of an Indian company and the UK government, has announced a new launch schedule for completing its satellite communications constellation by 2022, with the first launch in December.

The key change is that they have cancelled their deal to fly OneWeb satellites on the first launch of Arianespace’s Ariane 6 rocket. From the first link:

Arianespace will conduct 16 Soyuz launches for OneWeb, each carrying 34-36 satellites, to complete OneWeb’s internet megaconstellation by the end of 2022. The revised contract canceled two Soyuz launches, and removed OneWeb as the customer for the inaugural Ariane 6 launch, an Arianespace spokesperson told SpaceNews.

The Ariane 6 cancellation is bad news for Arianespace’s new rocket, which has had trouble garnering customers. I am sure OneWeb was offered a great price to launch some satellites on that inaugural flight, and still OneWeb backed out.

For Russia this announcement is good news, even if they have lost two Soyuz launches. It means the bulk of their Soyuz launches will go forward, pumping money into the Russia’s starving commercial launch industry. This launch contract is essentially the only Russian commercial contract, with SpaceX stealing all of Russia’s former customers, and the bankruptcy had threatened it.

Finally, this announcement shows that OneWeb’s new owners have recognized that they have to get their satellites launched as fast as possible if they are going to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink constellation.

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UAE to train astronauts at NASA

9:29 am

The United Arab Emirates has signed an agreement with NASA to train its two future astronauts to ISS.

UAE astronauts Hazzaa AlMansoori and Sultan AlNeyadi have already begun their training at Nasa’s Johnson Space Center in Houston starting Monday, Salem AlMarri, head of the UAE Astronaut Programme, at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC), said during a media briefing. AlMansoori and AlNeyadi had earlier trained at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Moscow, in September 2018 as part of their preparation for their launch to the ISS.

The two men will be launched to ISS by Russia using its Soyuz rocket and capsule. However, the UAE is smart to get them training in the U.S., as they need to work with U.S. mission control and U.S. systems on ISS. Moreover, I expect the UAE might wish to buy tickets eventually on either Dragon or Starliner, and this training lays the groundwork for that possibility.

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Ryugu, like Bennu, appears to have rocks from other asteroids

9:21 am

Japanese scientists today announced that 21 rocks identified by Hayabusa-2 on the asteroid Ryugu have a composition that suggests they were formed on another asteroid.

Although Ryugu’s surface is uniformly dark [because it is a C-type asteroid], the scientists behind the new research found numerous boulders scattered across the asteroid that were 1.5 or more times brighter than their surroundings — that is, they reflected at least 50% more light than most of the rest of Ryugu. This contrast made the researchers suspect these boulders may have come from outside the asteroid.

By analyzing the spectrum of light reflected off 21 of these boulders, the scientists deduced they were made of minerals known as anhydrous silicates. Prior studies have suggested that such water-poor, silicon-rich rocks make up silicaceous or S-type asteroids, the most common kind of asteroid found in the inner main asteroid belt. The brightness of these boulders also matches the brightness of S-type asteroids.

This result compliments the result yesterday from scientists studying Bennu with OSIRIS-REx, and was in fact released at the same time. Both asteroids apparently contain material from other asteroids, suggesting that asteroids in their initial formation (as rubble piles) are routinely a mixture of material from many asteroids, thrown out during impacts and then recaptured.

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Despite fading epidemic governments vow to maintain lockdowns

2:52 pm

Graph of U.S. deaths day to day through September 21, 2020

The lockdowns will never end: Despite the continuing and steady decline in COVID-19 deaths and cases, most state governments are vowing to maintain their lockdowns and mask mandates, some forever or until a vaccine is found.

Numerous high-ranking public authorities throughout the United States have pledged to continue enforcing COVID-19 restrictions — including social distancing rules and mask mandates — even as cases of and deaths attributed to the virus continue a steady two-month decline throughout the country.

Those officials have signaled that the restrictions will not be lifted unless and until an effective vaccine is developed, approved, distributed throughout the country and utilized by enough of the population to create functional herd immunity.

The graph to the right, compiled from this source, shows clearly that the epidemic is fading, and even at its peak never came even close to the terrifying predictions, all now proven to be wrong, of a lot of health officials and junk modeling scientists.

In fact, the numbers continue to show that coronavirus is really nothing more than a bad flu. Like the flu, it is relatively harmless to the young and healthy, who either will show no symptoms from it at all, or might get sick for a week or so and then recover completely. And like the flu, it is only really dangerous to the old and sick, who already have serious health problems which make them vulnerable to any new illness.

Note too that the average age at death from COVID-19 is about 78 years old, which is also identical to the average age expectancy of Americans. In other words, the disease did little to change the number of deaths at all. Even if there were excess deaths this year, they were not much more than we’ve had in previous bad flu seasons, and those additional deaths had no effect on the general population.

For such a disease, you do what we have done for centuries, you protect the weak, and let everyone else live their lives normally. We did not do this this time, and are now suffering from it.

Worse, too many people seem unwilling to accept the reality that the epidemic is ending. Instead, they get outraged by anyone who even suggests such a thing. They have fallen in love with their fear, and want to embrace it, forcing masks and restrictions on everyone forever, just so that they have a false sense of safety.

Unfortunately too many of our fascist governors and health bureaucrats have decided to take full advantage of that panicky fear and use it to gain more power over everyone. As it is said, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. For the past six months we have seen a perfect demonstration of this.

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Martian channels within Martian channels

2:01 pm

Channels within channels on Mars
Click for full image.

Whatever caused the meandering canyons on Mars, whether glaciers or liquid water, it was a process that was long-lived and multi-staged, as indicated by today’s cool image to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here. This photo, taken on June 28, 2020 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), shows a large canyon cutting downward from a high ridgeline to the north. As that canyon begins to flow out out of the mountains and into the plains to the south, a secondary inner channel appears, meandering down the center of the larger canyon.

This canyon is located at 35 degrees south latitude, in the mid-latitude region where scientists have found evidence of a lot of glaciers. In fact, there are some hints of eroded glacial material in the small channels to the west of this main canyon. Also, there appear to be patches of corroding glacial ice on the south-facing slopes of the east and west hills that define the main channel. In the canyon itself however there appear to be few if any glacial-type features.

The overview map below gives the location context.
» Read more

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A UV aurora found on Comet 67P/C-G

9:06 am

Using data from Europe’s now completed Rosetta mission to Comet 67P/C-G, scientists have detected evidence that the comet’s interaction with the Sun’s solar wind creates an aurora above the comet in ultra-violet wavelengths.

The data indicate 67P/C-G’s emissions are actually auroral in nature. Electrons streaming out in the solar wind – the stream of charged particles flowing out from the Sun – interact with the gas in the comet’s coma, breaking apart water and other molecules. The resulting atoms give off a distinctive far-ultraviolet light. Invisible to the naked eye, far-ultraviolet has the shortest wavelengths of radiation in the ultraviolet spectrum.

Labeling this phenomenon as an aurora is a bit of hype, as nothing is visible. However, the discovery does tell scientists how this comet’s coma, produced when the comet heats up in its approach to the Sun, interacts with the solar wind, and this in turn can teach them more about that wind, as well as other comets.

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Rocks from Vesta on Bennu?

8:51 am

Scientists reviewing data of Bennu from OSIRIS-REx have found six very bright boulders that have a make-up similar to that found on Vesta, which suggests they initially came from that asteroid.

The unusual boulders on Bennu first caught the team’s eye in images from the OSIRIS-REx Camera Suite. They appeared extremely bright, with some almost ten times brighter than their surroundings. They analyzed the light from the boulders using the OSIRIS-REx Visible and Infrared Spectrometer instrument to get clues to their composition. … The signature from the boulders was characteristic of the mineral pyroxene, similar to what is seen on Vesta and the vestoids, smaller asteroids that are fragments blasted from Vesta when it sustained significant asteroid impacts.

Of course it’s possible that the boulders actually formed on Bennu’s parent asteroid, but the team thinks this is unlikely based on how pyroxene typically forms. The mineral typically forms when rocky material melts at high-temperature. However, most of Bennu is composed of rocks containing water-bearing minerals, so it (and its parent) couldn’t have experienced very high temperatures. Next, the team considered localized heating, perhaps from an impact. An impact needed to melt enough material to create large pyroxene boulders would be so significant that it would have destroyed Bennu’s parent-body. So, the team ruled out these scenarios, and instead considered other pyroxene-rich asteroids that might have implanted this material to Bennu or its parent.

The make-up of Vesta matches. While these rocks might have been flung from Vesta during an impact there, eventually to settle on the surface of Bennu, Vesta is not the only possibility. We do not have a good census of the asteroids in the solar system. Others whose make-up is not yet determined could be a source, as well as an asteroid that no longer exists, destroyed by a collision long ago.

Regardless, these rocks confirm that in the process of formation in the early days of the solar system, asteroids of all types exchanged material.

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