Rumpus Machine – Down to the Waterline
An evening pause: Nice cover of the Dire Straits song.
Hat tip Ferris Akel.
Author: Robert Zimmerman
April 10, 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.
- NOAA touts upcoming test to monitor radiation for Artemis astronauts on the way to the Moon
Blather. This is what they are hired to do. They aren’t doing anything special.
- France signals readiness to bail out EutelsatGroup and OneWeb
It appears investment capital from previous sources is now drying up.
- Amazon’s CEO touts the Kuiper constellation to shareholders
He also admits that it is going to require a lot of investment capital before any income comes in.
- SpaceX signs deal to offer Starlink direct-to-cell service in Japan
While OneWeb and Amazon dither, SpaceX keeps scooping up the customers.
Congress: Let’s throw some more astronaut lives away so we can preen for the camera!
Jared Isaacman
Here we go again: As I noted yesterday, the hearing this week of Jared Isaacman, Donald Trump’s nomination to become NASA’s next administrator, revealed almost nothing about what Isaacman plans to do once confirmed by the Senate. He very carefully kept his options open, even while he strongly endorsed getting Americans on the Moon as fast as possible in order to beat the Chinese there. When pressed by senators from both parties to commit to continuing the SLS, Orion, and Lunar Gateway projects to make that happen, Isaacman picked his words most cautiously. He noted that at the moment that plan seemed the best for getting to the Moon first. He also noted repeatedly that this same plan is years behind schedule and overbudget.
Like any smart businessman, Isaacman knows he cannot make any final decisions about SLS, Orion, or Gateway until he takes office and can aggressively dig into the facts, as administrator. He also knew he could not say so directly during this hearing, for to do so would antagonize senators from both parties who want those programs continued because of the money it pours into their states. So he played it coy, and the senators accepted that coyness in order to make believe they were getting what they want.
But what do these senators want? It appears our politicians (including possibly Trump) want NASA to launch humans to the Moon using SLS and Orion and do so as quickly as possible, despite knowing that both have real engineering issues of great concern. Instead, our elected officials want politics to determine the lunar flight schedule, instead of engineering, the same attitude that killed astronauts on Apollo 1 in 1967, on Challenger in 1986, and on Columbia in 2003. The engineering data then said unequivocally that things were not safe and that disaster was almost guaranteed, but NASA and Congress demanded the flights go on anyway, to serve the needs of politics.
With SLS and Orion it is now the same foolishness all over again. » Read more
Curiosity climbs into a new Martian canyon
Click image for full resolution panorama. Click here, here, and here for original images.
Click for interactive map.
Cool image time! The Curiosity science team has finally completed the rover’s climb up one canyon on the flanks of Mount Sharp and crossed over into a second, switch-backing up through a gap they have dubbed Devil’s Gate.
The panorama above, created from three pictures taken by Curiosity’s left navigation camera on April 9, 2025 (here, here, and here) looks south from that gap. On the horizon about 20-30 miles away can be seen the rim of Gale Crater. From this position the floor of the crater is almost out of side, blocked by the foothills on the lower flanks of Mount Sharp.
Though the ground in this new canyon (on the left of the panorama) continues to be amazingly rocky and boulder strewn, it is actually more benign that the canyon Curiosity has been climbing for the past six weeks.
The blue dot on the overview map to the right marks Curiosity’s present position, with the yellow lines indicating the approximate direction of the panorama. The rover’s next major geological goal is the boxwork to the southwest. In order to get to it quickly the science team decided to abandon its original planned route, indicated by the dotted red line, and climb upward through these canyons.
Chinese scientists say the lunar far side appears drier than the near side
Click for original image.
Based on a comparison of samples brought back by two Chinese unmanned lunar landers, Chinese scientists believe the lunar far side contains far less water in its mantle than the near side.
…the research team focused on analyzing water content and hydrogen isotopes in melt inclusions and apatite within [Chang’e-6] mare basalts—the first samples returned from the farside SPA Basin.
The team’s results indicate that the parent magma of these basalts contain 15–168 μg.g⁻¹ of water. Additionally, the team estimated that the mantle source of the CE6 basalts has a water content of 1–1.5 μg.g⁻¹, significantly lower than that of the nearside mantle. This disparity points to a potential hemispheric dichotomy in the Moon’s internal water distribution, mirroring many of the asymmetrical features observed on the lunar surface.
The map to the right, figure 1 in the scientists’ paper, shows the water content from the samples that have so far been brought back from the Moon. Note how the Chang’e-6 sample shows far less water content than all the near side samples.
Note however also that this is just one data point from the far side. To confirm these conclusions will require many more samples.
Lunar Outpost unveils its proposed “Eagle” manned lunar rover
In the bidding competition to win the full NASA contract to build the manned lunar rover the astronauts will use in the Artemis program, the startup Lunar Outpost this week unveiled its proposed “Eagle” manned lunar rover at a conference in Colorado.
In the configuration shown here at the symposium, the Eagle vehicle features two seats for crew, each with its own redundant and mirrored controls, meaning either astronaut can control the rover. The steering controls on each side consist of a single handle that controls four individual motors that drive each wheel. Each wheel can turn independently of the other three, allowing the Eagle rover to turn on its center axis or “crab walk” sideways, Gerner said.
The rover can also be operated unmanned remotely, providing an method for sending it places the astronauts might prefer to avoid, for safety reasons.
Lunar Outpost is competing with Intuitive Machines and Venturi Astrolab for the main contract.
Anti-Musk terrorists damage Musk statue in Brownsville
In another demonstration of their intolerance and willingness to commit violence and vandalism, anti-Musk terrorists have damaged a bust of Elon Musk in Brownsville that had been placed there by a French entrepreneur.
A 9-foot-tall statue depicting a bust of tech billionaire Elon Musk has been vandalized in South Texas. According to multiple posts across social media, the statue of the SpaceX CEO was vandalized not far from where the company’s Starbase facility sits near Boca Chica Beach.
“The recently installed Elon Musk statue, known as ‘Elonrwa,’ has been damaged. Visible patches of the outer layer appear to have been peeled off the face,” a Facebook user who goes by RGV.me said in an April 8 Facebook post. The Facebook post is accompanied by a photograph showing two areas where it appears a top layer of material has been stripped from the statue, revealing a white or pale gray layer underneath.
This senseless hate of Musk, almost certainly committed by supporters of the Democratic Party — which has been encouraging this violence because it sees Musk as an opponent — must end. And if the fools perpetrating this vandalism don’t come to their senses and stop voluntarily, they should be stopped by force and imprisonment. Just because you disagree with someone on policy does not give you the right to break the law.
And if you doubt this vandalism isn’t being spurred on eagerly by the leadership of the now vile and wholly evil Democratic Party, you need only watch that party’s Senate leader, Senator Charles Schumer (D-New York), practically endorse it when asked:
» Read more
Juno enters and then recovers from safe mode
During its most recent close fly-by of Jupiter on April 4, 2025 — its 71st — the orbiter Juno went into safe mode two different times, causing its science instruments to shut down.
The mission operations team has reestablished high-rate data transmission with Juno, and the spacecraft is currently conducting flight software diagnostics.The team will work in the ensuing days to transmit the engineering and science data collected before and after the safe-mode events to Earth.
Juno first entered safe mode at 5:17 a.m. EDT, about an hour before its 71st close passage of Jupiter — called perijove. It went into safe mode again 45 minutes after perijove. During both safe-mode events, the spacecraft performed exactly as designed, rebooting its computer, turning off nonessential functions, and pointing its antenna toward Earth for communication.
Since arrival in its present Jupiter orbit in 2016 Juno has operated almost perfectly, having experienced only two other safe mode events, once in 2016 and a second in 2022. The two recent events on this most recent fly-by suggest however that the harsh environment surrounding Jupiter might be beginning to impact the spacecraft.
April 9, 2025 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold in two parts.
To listen to all of John Batchelor’s podcasts, go here.
» Read more
Average White Band – Pick Up The Pieces
An evening pause: Performed live 1977.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
April 9, 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.
- NASA’s Deep Space Network breaks ground on new antenna dish in Australia
The event (on March 19th) also celebrated sixty years operating out of Australia.
- Mission profile for a Chinese mission to target a 30 meter asteroid
Launch is scheduled for 2027. I like Jay’s comment: “The asteroid will be deflected by a power-point presentation.”
- On this day in 1959 NASA introduced its first class of seven astronauts for its Mercury program
Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, Gordon Cooper, Wally Schirra, Deke Slayton, John Glenn, and Scott Carpenter. All but Slayton flew Mercury missions. Slayton eventually flew on the Apollo-Soyus docking mission in 1975.
Isaacman’s nomination hearing reveals nothing of note
Jared Isaacman
The Senate committee on commerce, science, and transportation has just concluded its hearing on the nomination of Jared Isaacman as NASA administrator. Several take-aways:
First, there was little opposition to Isaacman on either side of the aisle. He will be confirmed easily.
Second, Isaacman was very careful to say nothing that might commit him to keeping all present Artemis programs (such as SLS, Orion, or Gateway) unchanged. He instead made it clear his goal is for NASA to attempt a parallel programs to establish a permanent American presence on both the Moon and Mars. This enthusiasm suggests he sees Starship as the vehicle capable of making those parallel programs possible.
In other words, he kept his options open. His goal is to get the Artemis program functioning more efficiently, and will do whatever is necessary to do so. He repeatedly made it clear that too many of NASA’s projects, including specifically Artemis, are routinely overbudget and behind schedule, and this must be fixed.
At the same time he said his goal is to get Americans back to the Moon ahead of the Chinese, and suggested that the present plan using SLS and Orion is likely the fastest way to do so. The technical issues that might make that program very unsafe for the astronauts however were never mentioned.
We shall see whether Isaacman as administrator will be so sanguine about sending Americans around the Moon within an Orion capsule with a questionable heat shield.