Author: Robert Zimmerman

Japanese company proposes building a module to add to Axiom’s space station

9:24 am

Axiom's space station assembly sequence
The assembly sequence for Axiom’s space station while attached to ISS.
Click for original image.

The Japanese company Mitsui has now proposed building a module — based on Japan’s HTV cargo freighter that did several missions to ISS — and sell it to the commercial space stations now under construction.

Mitsui has created a subsidiary called LEO Shachu to develop the module. What makes this project very likely to happen is that Mitsui is also an investor in Axiom’s space station, and according to the article at the link, a Axiom official who is also a retired Japanese astronaut who flew to ISS has expressed interest in it.

This story also helps outline the international landscape of the future stations. While Voyager Space’s Starlab station has been partnering extensively with Europe and Airbus, Axiom appears to be partnering more closely with NASA and Japan. The third station that has obtained NASA money, Blue Origin’s Orbit Reef, had made an earlier deal with Mitsubishi, but appears to have obtained few other outside partners, and that Mitsubishi deal only involved “development work,” not specific hardware. Moreover, Mitsubishi later made a new deal with the Starlab station, suggesting it had broken up with Blue Origin.

A fourth station, being built by the private company Vast with no NASA money, has partnered with SpaceX and ESA. It is also likely to be the first to launch its first module in August 2025, followed soon thereafter by a 30 day 4-person Dragon mission.

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Astroscale’s ADRAS-J test spacecraft continues successfully maneuvers around abandoned rocket upper stage

9:04 am

abandoned upper stage, taken by ADRAS-J
Click for original image.

The Japaneses orbital tug startup Astroscale has revealed that its ADRAS-J test spacecraft has successfully completed more complicated autonomous proximity maneuvers around an abandoned H2A rocket upper stage that it rendezvoused with in March 2024.

Astroscale announced July 9 that its Active Debris Removal by Astroscale-Japan (ADRAS-J) spacecraft conducted a “fly around” maneuver, going part way around the H-2A upper stage it has been inspecting for the last few months. ADRAS-J used sensors to maintain a distance of just 50 meters from the stage.

However, about one third of the way through the maneuver, ADRAS-J encountered what the company called an “unexpected attitude anomaly” that triggered an automatic abort. The spacecraft moved away from the stage as designed to avoid any risk of a collision. “The abort maneuver implemented during the fly-around operation demonstrated that ADRAS-J can maintain safety even while performing close approach observations of non-cooperative objects,” the company said in a statement, adding that engineers had found the cause of the anomaly and were preparing for another close approach to the stage.

The picture to the right is of that upper stage, taken shortly after ADRAS-J arrived near the stage in the spring. According to the company, the stage is in remarkably good condition despite fifteen years in orbit, and also is flying in a very stable manner, tumbling almost not at all. This data suggests a mission to grab it and de-orbit it safely would be relatively easy.

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Webb: An exoplanet in the habitable zone with a possible nitrogen/CO2 atmosphere and water ocean

8:51 am

Using the Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have obtained new transiting spectroscopy of a “mini-Neptune-sized” exoplanet that circles in the habitable zone a red dwarf star about 48 light years away and have concluded that it appears to have a nitrogen/carbon dioxide atmosphere and even a water ocean.

While it is still only a tentative result, the presence of a nitrogen-rich atmosphere on LHS 1140 b would suggest the planet has retained a substantial atmosphere, creating conditions that might support liquid water. This discovery favors the water-world/snowball scenario as the most plausible.

Current models indicate that if LHS 1140 b has an Earth-like atmosphere, it would be a snowball planet with a vast “bull’s-eye” ocean measuring about 4,000 kilometers in diameter, equivalent to half the surface area of the Atlantic Ocean. The surface temperature at the centre of this alien ocean could even be a comfortable 20 degrees Celsius [68 degrees Fahrenheit]. [emphasis mine]

You can read the preprint of the paper here [pdf].

The highlighted phrase must be noted. These results contain a lot of uncertainties and assumptions. However, the data is tantalizing, to say the least, and justify more observations using Webb. The scientists argue in their paper that because there are only about eight transits of the exoplanet per year — requiring several years of observations to pin down this data more precisely — and because Webb has a limited life expectancy as an infrared observatory, this star should get observational priority.

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Columbia University continues to willingly condone anti-semitism among its bloated faculty and staff

2:03 pm

Columbia University's seal
The motto means “In Your Light [God],
We Shall See the Light.” Too bad no one
running Columbia now believes in this.

Recently four Columbia University deans were caught exchanging anti-Semitic texts during a panel on Jewish life on campus, attacking some Jewish students simply because those students objected to being harassed, attacked, and even blocked from entering campus buildings by pro-Hamas protesters.

The university immediately suspended three of those deans, with the fourth, Josef Sorett (who held a top position at Columbia), allowed to remain in place after he apologized publicly for his statements.

We have now learned that the university is not going to fire those three suspended deans, but will simply reassign them to other positions.

The university placed Susan Chang-Kim, former vice dean and chief administrative officer, Matthew Patashnick, former associate dean for student and family support, and Cristen Kromm, former dean of undergraduate student life, on leave in June after they exchanged dismissive text messages about the “Jewish Life on Campus: Past, Present, and Future” panel. The three are on indefinite leave and will not return to their previous jobs, according to a Monday message to the campus community. [emphasis mine]

» Read more

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Europe at last launches Ariane-6

12:47 pm

Ariane-6 seconds after liftoff
Ariane-6 seconds after liftoff

Arianespace, the commercial rocket arm of the European Space Agency (ESA) today successfully completed the first launch of its new Ariane-6 rocket, lifting off from French Guiana in South America carrying nine cubesats plus two re-entry test capsules.

As of posting, the nine cubesats have been deployed. Of the remaining payloads, one is a smallscale version of the return cargo capsule being built by the French company The Exploration Company. It will test the re-entry technology for that capsule.

UPDATE: There was an issue restarting the upper stage later in the flight that prevented the last payloads from being released. The bigwigs at the press conference at this link repeatedly insisted the flight was a complete success, but this failure of the upper stage is not a good thing, but hardly a disaster. It is similar to problems Firefly had on some of its early flights, which the company was able to overcome.

If all goes as planned, Arianespace and Arianegroup (the private company that builds and owns the rocket) hope to ramp up launches over the next three years, doing one more in 2024, six in 2025, eight in 2026, and ten in 2027. It says the rocket has contracts for thirty launches, eighteen of which are for launching Amazon’s Kuiper internet constellation.

I expect Ariane-6 to face heavy competitive pressure over that time period, not only from SpaceX but from the new European rocket startups that should begin launching at far less cost. The pressure should make the future of Ariane-6 somewhat dim, unless the European Union steps in and mandates its use by European satellite companies. If the latter happens, expect Europe’s entire space industry to suffer badly.

This was Europe’s first launch in 2024, so the leader board in the 2024 launch race has not changed:

71 SpaceX
30 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the world combined in successful launches, 83 to 46, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including other American companies, 71 to 58.

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A jumble of blocks in the middle of a Martian flood lava plain

11:25 am

A jumble of blocks on Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on March 18, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

This is one of what I like to call “What the heck?” images. The broken up blocks resemble ice floes on the edge of the Arctic ice cap that have broken off and have begun floating away.

The problem with this theory is many fold. First, this is on Mars and not on Earth. Second the “sea” these blocks are supposedly “floating” in is actual solid lava. There is no water or ice here, on the surface or even underground. This is in the dry tropics of Mars, where little or no near-surface ice has so far been detected.

The overview map below provides some context, and possibly an explanation.
» Read more

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Japan dithers about capitalism in space

9:38 am

Despite its government creating in November 2023 a new “Space Strategic Fund” worth more than $6 billion designed to encourage capitalism in space and handing it to Japan’s space agency JAXA to administer, JAXA officials continue to dither on how to use that money to encourage private enterprise in space.

Japan’s space agency is seeking industry proposals for technologies that could contribute to future commercial space stations as the government studies what role it would play in supporting efforts to replace the International Space Station.

…That work will inform plans by Japan on how it can participate in commercial space stations being developed by American companies in partnership with NASA. “We are discussing how we will join NASA’s Commercial LEO Destination program,” said [Yasuo Ishii, senior vice president of JAXA]. “Our responsibility is not clear yet, but, of course, commitment at the government level is essential to commercial operations.” [emphasis mine]

The highlighted phrases above reveal the underlying motives of JAXA, which is not to encourage private independent space companies and reduce its involvement. Just the opposite. And it appears Japan’s government is a partner in this. While Japan gave that money to its space agency, which seems to be searching for ways to hold onto its power, both Europe and India instead quickly took power and funding away from their government agencies (Arianespace and ISRO respectively) to encourage independent private space companies to flourish.

This dithering will only put Japan further behind these countries as well as China, a reality that has become increasingly embarassing for the island nation.

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Webb: Hot Jupiter exoplanet has atmosphere with the smell of rotten eggs

9:20 am

Using spectroscopy from the infrared Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have measured some of the molecules in exoplanet HD 189733 b, one of the first hot Jupiter exoplanets ever discovered, and found it has an atmosphere rich in hydrogen sulfide, which emits a smell like rotten eggs.

In addition to detecting hydrogen sulfide, the team analyzed the planet’s oxygen and carbon content, pinpointing water, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide as major components of the planetary atmosphere. Measuring these heavy elements allows astronomers to compare the composition of exoplanets to that of gas giants in our solar system like Jupiter and Uranus.

The exoplanet, about 64 light years away, has an orbit lasting only about two Earth days, with atmospheric temperatures has hot as 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit.

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Watch the first launch of Europe’s Ariane-6 rocket

9:14 am

Europe’s Ariane-6 rocket, first proposed in 2014 and about four years behind schedule, will finally make its first launch at 2 pm (Eastern) today.

I have embedded the live stream below.

The rocket was conceived by the European Space Agency (ESA) as an attempt to compete with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. It failed to do this from day one, since the rocket was from day one designed to be expendable. By the 2020s it became clear to European satellite companies and government agencies that its launch cost would be far higher that the Falcon 9, and these companies and agencies have therefore resisted signing launch contracts with ArianeGroup. In fact, if Amazon had not decided in ’22 to give the Ariane-6 a contract for 18 launches to put up its Kuiper satellites, the rocket would have almost no launches in its manifest.

This situation was made even more starkly evident at the end of June, when the European governent weather company Eumetsat cancelled its Ariane-6 contract and switched to the Falcon 9.

Though the unelected bureaucrats and apparatchiks in the European Union are trying to require the use of Ariane-6, ESA and Europe’s rocket future resides in the independent rocket startups (Rocket Factory Augsburg, Isar Aerospace, Hyimpulse, PLD). Because they are in competition with each other as well as SpaceX, and are not saddled with heavy government interference, they can focus on innovating to lower cost. Expect them to quickly begin launching in the next three years, with reusability soon to follow.

» Read more

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$243.6 million plea deal allows Boeing to avoid a criminal trial

9:59 pm

The Justice Department and Boeing have made a plea deal so that the company can avoid a criminal trial for breaking its previous plea deal over 737-Max plane crashes that killed 346 people.

Under the agreement, Boeing will plead guilty to a criminal fraud charge stemming from the fatal crashes in Indonesia in October 2018 and in Ethiopia less than five months later that killed a combined 346 people.

Boeing must also pay the hefty fine [$243.6 million], invest at least $455 million in compliance and safety programs, and have an independent monitor oversee Boeing’s safety and quality procedures for three years

The company had made similar deal in 2021 with Justice when it became clear it had deceived FAA regulators about the software on new 737-Max planes that caused these crashes. This new deal is because the company apparently violated that 2021 deal, and allows it to avoid a criminal trial.

A judge still has to approve this new plea deal. Many families of the deceased oppose it, demanding instead that company managers be put on trial. Even if the judge accepts it, Boeing will still be liable for other more recent incidents.

All in all, Boeing comes off as a morally corrupt and incompetent company that was willing to cut corners, lie about it, thus allow more planes to crash because of its actions.

No wonder everyone wants to blame Boeing for every single incident that has recently occurred on various commercial jets, even though in many cases the blame resides more with the maintenance departments of the airlines that had purchased the planes. And no wonder no one believes the claim that the astronauts that flew up to ISS in June are not “stuck” there. They probably aren’t, but why believe anyone from such a compny.

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SpaceX launches Turkey’s first homebuilt geosynchronous communications satellite

4:39 pm

SpaceX today successfully launched Turkey’s first homebuilt geosynchronous communications satellite, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage completed its fifteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The fairings on this flight completed their tenth and sixteenth time, respectively.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

71 SpaceX
30 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the world combined in successful launches, 83 to 45, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including other American companies, 71 to 57.

In just over half a year, SpaceX has now exceeded the annual record of 70 launches by the entire United States, set in 1966 and held until 2022.

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Study: Mortality rates higher for those who got the COVID jab

12:50 pm

According to a new study [pdf] of death rates from all causes in a province in Italy, mortality was greater for those who got the jab versus those who did not.

From the paper’s conclusion:

We found all-cause death risks to be even higher for those vaccinated with one and two doses compared to the unvaccinated and that the booster doses were ineffective. We also found a slight but statistically significant loss of life expectancy for those vaccinated with 2 or 3/4 doses.

As noted in the second link above,

“The main point of the paper is that COVID-19 vaccination did not ‘save lives’ as so many in Washington have proclaimed without evidence,” commented epidemiologist and cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough on his Substack Courageous Discourse. “The trend was for multiple vaccine doses to increase COVID-19 mortality and there was an important signal for increased all-cause death with one or two doses.”

We should therefore not be surprised that several thousand doctors and scientists have signed a declaration called the Hope Accord, calling for all governments worldwide to ban COVID mRNA shots.
» Read more

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New print edition of Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8

12:06 pm

Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8

After years of procrastination, I have finally produced a new print edition of my classic history, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8.

You can buy the book as either a paperback or hardback directly from Amazon.
Or you can order it directly from me for a slightly higher price and get an autographed copy. The autographed price is $50 for the hardback and $40 for the paperback, plus $7 shipping for each. (These prices will go up at the end of this July fund-raising campaign.)

To place an order, either send the money by Zelle (using my email address zimmerman at nasw dot org), or mail a check, payable to Robert Zimmerman to:

Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

“Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America’s quest for the moon… Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America’s greatest human triumphs.” –San Antonio Express-News

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Can you spot the supernova?

9:53 am

Supernova 2022zut
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, reduced and sharpened to post here, was taken using the Hubble Space Telescope and was done as part of a larger research project studying what astronomers call Type 1a supernovae.

NGC 3810, the galaxy featured in this image, was the host of a Type Ia supernova in 2022. In early 2023 Hubble focused on this and a number of other galaxies to closely examine recent Type Ia supernovae. This kind of supernova results from a white dwarf exploding, and they all have a very consistent brightness. That allows them to be used to measure distances: we know how bright a Type Ia supernova should be, so we can tell how far away it must be from how dim it appears.

One uncertainty in this method is that intergalactic dust in between Earth and a supernova blocks some of its light. How do you know how much of the reduction in light is caused by distance, and how much by dust? With the help of Hubble, there’s a clever workaround: take images of the same Type Ia supernovae in ultraviolet light, which is almost completely blocked by dust, and in infrared light, which passes through dust almost unaffected. By carefully noting how much light comes through at each wavelength, the relationship between supernova brightness and distance can be calibrated to account for dust. Hubble can observe both these wavelengths of light in great detail with the same instrument. That makes it the perfect tool for this experiment, and indeed, some of the data used to make this beautiful image of NGC 3810 were focused on its 2022 supernova. You can see it as a point of light just below the galactic nucleus, or in the annotated image here.

Can you spot the supernova? If you can’t without checking the annotated or original image, don’t be disappointed. It is there but hard to distinguish unless you know where to look.

This supernova however does illustrate the advances in astronomical observational capabilities in the past two decades, resulting not from the giant big ground-based telescopes that cost a fortune and take decades to build nor from the space telescopes like Hubble and Webb that get all the press. These new capablities come from sophisticated smaller telescopes designed to do daily surveys of the entire sky, combined with software that can quickly compare images each day and identify anything that changed.

For example, this 2022 supernova was the 18,142nd discovered that year. That total exceeds the entire number of supernovae that had been discovered in all history prior to this century.

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SpaceX releases new video of the fourth Starship/Superheavy test flight in June

9:35 am

SpaceX on July 4, 2024 released a new compliation video of the fourth Starship/Superheavy test flight in June, showing some footage not previously released.

I have embedded it below. As is the policy now of many rocket companies as well as many space agencies worldwide, SpaceX added a pounding music score to the event. While sometimes this is fun, I must admit that I am finding it increasingly annoying. This is not a movie, it is real life. If anything, I think the music robs this particular event some of its magnificence by trivializing it.

But then, what do I know?

At the end, SpaceX teased a launch tower capture of Superheavy on the next flight, but I still think this is not going to happen because of the delays it would cause getting FAA approval.

» Read more

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