Author: Robert Zimmerman

Engineers lose contact with CAPSTONE on its way to Moon

2:24 pm

Shortly after the spacecraft was successfully deployed from its Proton upper stage on yesterday, engineers lost contact with the spacecraft as it headed towards the Moon.

“The spacecraft team currently is working to understand the cause and re-establish contact. The team has good trajectory data for the spacecraft based on the first full and second partial ground station pass with the Deep Space Network,” NASA spokesperson Sarah Frazier wrote in an emailed statement today (July 5).

“If needed, the mission has enough fuel to delay the initial post-separation trajectory correction maneuver for several days,” Frazier added. “Additional updates will be provided as soon as possible.”

The spacecraft will not arrive in lunar orbit until November, but along the way it needs to do a number of course corrections. Thus, there is some time pressure to reestablishing communications. That task now falls with the private company Advanced Space, which won a contract to operate the spacecraft for NASA.

UPDATE: More details are provided by the operators of the spacecraft, Advanced Space press, here. Though they canceled a course correction burn today, they apparently have plenty of time to do it, since the probe is already on a course to reach lunar orbit. The burn was simply intended to increase the accuracy of the trajectory.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Democrat politicians threaten local Aspen newspaper for its news coverage

12:29 pm

The goal of Democrats everywhere
The goal of Democrats everywhere

Blacklists are back and the Democrats have got ’em: Because a bunch of local Aspen, Colorado, politicians dislike how the Aspen Times has been covering one story, they wrote a letter to that newspaper demanding it change its coverage and hire their preferred journalists or they would use their power to silence it.

From their letter, written to Robert Nutting, CEO of Ogden Newspapers which owns the Aspen Times:

Our faith in Ogden Newspapers is shattered and we are individually considering separate reactions as a result, including: directing our individual organizations to pull advertisements and notices from the paper; encouraging local businesses to do the same; refusing interviews with reporters at the Aspen Times; or calling for a community boycott of the paper.

To reinstate our trust in the Aspen Times, we would like to see clear action from Ogden Newspapers such as the following: reinstatement of Andrew Travers as the Editor in Chief; re-publication of Marolt’s June 10 column; a joint statement from Travers, Allison Pattillo, the publisher of the Times, and yourself, detailing the editorial freedom and standards of transparency that will be carried forward; and, public clarity about the settlement that was reached by Doronin’s lawsuit.

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Europe’s new long term space strategy calls for its own independent and competing manned program

10:25 am

Figure 6 from the Terrae Novae policy paper

The new colonial movement: The European Space Agency (ESA) yesterday unveiled a new roadmap for its future space effort, aimed primarily in developing an independent space program capable of launching its own astronauts and taking them to both the Moon and Mars.

The program is dubbed Terrae Novae (“New Worlds”) and aims to put European astronauts on other worlds using its own rockets and landers by the 2030s. The graphic to the right, figure 6 from the policy paper, illustrates this long term goal.

From the full document [pdf]:
» Read more

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ArianeGroup chosen by Europe to develop reusable rockets

9:47 am

The new colonial movement: The European Commission, which makes the major decisions for the European Space Agency, has chosen the European commercial company ArianeGroup to run two programs designed to produce that continent’s first reusable rocket.

From the press release [pdf]:

The SALTO project will facilitate the first flight tests of the Themis reusable stage demonstrator in Kiruna, Sweden. The ENLIGHTEN project will speed up the development and introduction of reusable engine technologies.

The main goal of SALTO will be to develop the kind of vertical landing technology that SpaceX now does routinely. ENLIGHTEN in turn will develop rocket engines using either methane or hydrogen as the fuel. The total budget allocated for both is just under 50 million euros, which seems quite small. The press release also made no mention of a schedule for accomplishing these tasks.

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Scientists: Comet 67P/C-G’s make-up matches the rest of the solar system

9:33 am

A detailed review of the archived data from the Rosetta mission that studied Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko closely in 2014-2016 now strongly suggests that the comet’s overall make-up closely matches the rest of the solar system.

“It turned out that, on average, [the comet’s] complex organics budget is identical to the soluble part of meteoritic organic matter”, explains [Nora Hänni of the University of Bern] and adds: “Moreover, apart from the relative amount of hydrogen atoms, the molecular budget of [comet 67P/C-G] also strongly resembles the organic material raining down on Saturn from its innermost ring, as detected by the INMS mass spectrometer onboard NASA’s Cassini spacecraft”.

“We do not only find similarities of the organic reservoirs in the Solar System, but many of [comet 67P/C-G]’s organic molecules are also present in molecular clouds, the birthplaces of new stars”, complements Prof. Dr. Susanne Wampfler, astrophysicist at the Center for Space and Habitability (CSH) at the University of Bern and co-author of the publication. “Our findings are consistent with and support the scenario of a shared presolar origin of the different reservoirs of Solar System organics, confirming that comets indeed carry material from the times long before our Solar System emerged.”

These results are not unexpected, but having those expectations confirmed was one of the main scientific goals of the Rosetta mission. Now, almost a decade later, the results are in.

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South Korea ships its first lunar orbiter to U.S. for August launch

9:22 am

The new colonial movement: South Korea today packed and shipped its first lunar orbiter, dubbed Danuri, to the United States for an August 3, 2022 launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

According to the Ministry of Science and ICT, Danuri was sent from the Korea Aerospace Research Institute in Daejeon, 160 kilometers south of Seoul, to Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul, in a specially designed container. The orbiter will be flown to Orlando International Airport and arrive at the Floridian space center Thursday. It will later undergo maintenance, assembly and other pre-launch preparations for about a month before launch.

If all goes right, Danuri will orbit the Moon for a year, both testing its own technology as well as observing the lunar surface.

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Food fight! China denies NASA chief’s charge that it wants to dominate space

9:16 am

On July 2, 2022, in an interview for a German news outlet, NASA administrator described in somewhat overbroad terms the long range goals of the Chinese space program.

“We must be very concerned that China is landing on the moon and saying: ‘It’s ours now and you stay out,’” Mr. Nelson said in an interview published Saturday in the German newspaper Bild.

….China’s space program, at its heart, is a military space program, Mr. Nelson said. “China is good. But China is also good because they steal ideas and technology from others,” he said, according to Bild.

A China spokesman for its Foreign Ministry, Zhao Lijian, immediately slammed Nelson’s comments, adding some of his own overbroad accusations against the U.S.
» Read more

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Victory Boyd – The Star Spangled Banner

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Victory Boyd was supposed to perform the national anthem at the opening game of the NFL’s 2021 season. They canceled her because she has refused to get vaccinated for religious reasons. She responded with this performance made available to all. The NFL should burn in hell.

Her passion in singing the last two lines of the anthem are important. The words, “The land of the free, the home of the brave,” are meant to remind us that you can’t have the former without the latter. Right now, every time I see someone mindlessly wearing a mask I wonder if the latter still exists.

Sing it! Believe it! Make ’22 the year that freedom and courage return to America.

Hat tip Mike Nelson.

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Sunspot update: For the first time in 2022, sunspot activity eases

3:58 pm

With the year half over, the Sun in June did something it had not done since the start of the year: The number of sunspots seen daily on the Sun’s visible hemisphere actually declined from the month before.

I know this because, as I do every month, I have posted below NOAA’s monthly update of its graph tracking the number of sunspots on the Sun’s Earth-facing hemisphere, with some addition details added to provide a larger context.

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The new damage on Curiosity’s wheels

9:30 am

Comparing a Curiosity wheel from January to June 2022
To see the original images, go here and here.

On June 23, 2022 the Curiosity team provided a major update on the rover’s status on Mars, noting that because of new damage discovered on one of wheels, they were increasing the frequency of their wheel checks from once every 1000 meters of travel to once every 500 meters.

The team discovered that the left middle wheel had damaged one of its grousers, the zig-zagging treads along Curiosity’s wheels. This particular wheel already had four broken grousers, so now five of its 19 grousers are broken.

The previously damaged grousers attracted attention online recently because some of the metal “skin” between them appears to have fallen out of the wheel in the past few months, leaving a gap.

The photo comparison to the right might be showing that specific wheel, or not. The top image was taken January 11, 2022, and when compared then with an image taken six months earlier showed little change. Thus, in January 2022 it seemed the wheels were holding up well as Curiosity traveled into the mountains.

The new image at the bottom, taken June 3, 2022, shows new damage (as indicated by the plus sign) which had occurred sometime in the past six months. During that time the rover had attempted to cross the incredibly rough ground of the Greenheugh Pediment, and had been forced to retreat because the ground was too rough.

This most recent wheel survey in June thus confirms that the decision to retreat was a wise one. It appears that while the rover’s wheels can take the general roughness of the terrain in the foothills of Mount Sharp, the Greenheugh Pediment was beyond the wheels’ capabilities.

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Rocket Lab’s Photon completes course corrections, deploys CAPSTONE to Moon

8:45 am

Capitalism in space: Rocket Lab’s Photon upper stage successfully completed its seventh engine burn, putting NASA’s cubesat test lunar orbital on a path toward the Moon.

Following its launch on June 28, CAPSTONE orbited Earth attached to Rocket Lab’s Photon upper stage, which maneuvered CAPSTONE into position for its journey to the Moon. Over the past six days, Photon’s engines fired seven times at key moments to raise the orbit’s highest point to around 810,000 miles from Earth before releasing the CAPSTONE CubeSat on its ballistic lunar transfer trajectory to the Moon. The spacecraft is now being flown by the teams at Advanced Space and Terran Orbital. [emphasis mine]

From here on out CAPSTONE will use its own tiny thrusters to do any course corrections as it heads for an arrival in lunar orbit on November 13, 2022.

The highlighted words in the quote above are significant in and of themselves. The spacecraft is not being operated by NASA. In fact, other than paying for it, NASA has little to do with CAPSTONE. It was designed and built by Terran Orbital. It was launched by Rocket Lab. And it is now being controlled by Advanced Space, a private commercial company focused on providing in-space operations for others.

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Why we really celebrate the Fourth of July

6:00 am

The Declaration of Independence

If you really want to know why the Fourth of July has been the quintessential American holiday since the founding our this country, you need only return to the words of the document that became public to the world on that day.

Below the fold is the full text of the Declaration. Read it. It isn’t hard to understand, even if the style comes from the late 1700s. Its point however is clear. Governments that abuse the rights of the citizenry don’t deserve to be in power. The most important quote of course is right near the beginning:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed — that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. [emphasis mine]

What a radical concept — a nation founded on the principle of allowing its citizens to pursue happiness.

Right now, however, we have a federal government in America that more fits the description of King George III’s Great Britain in 1776 in the Declaration. The corrupt elitist uni-Party of federal elected officials and the federal bureaucracy in Washington has for too long run roughshod over the general population. If you take the time to read the full text of the Declaration, you will be astonished at the remarkable conceptual similarity between the abuses that Jefferson describes coming from Great Britain and the many abuses of power that are now legion and common by the uni-Party in Washington.

When November comes the American public will likely have its last chance to overthrow the political wing of the uni-Party, led by the Democratic Party. The Republicans are no saints, but at least that party contains within it many decent politicians who honor the Constitution, the rule of law, and the Bill of Rights. Many are right now campaigning on those ideals. Based on the past six years, we now know that no one in the Democratic Party honors those values. What they honor is blacklisting, racism, segregation, anti-American hate, and above all power. If they are not removed from office, they will ramp up that power, in league with quislings like Romney and Cornyn in the Republican Party, to further corrupt our Constitutional government.

These people do not like losing power. The longer they hold it, the more they will work to undermine the election system to make sure they do not lose. The corruption and election fraud in 2020 election was merely a dress rehearsal of what these goons will do if they have the chance next year.

In fact, November 2022 might very well be the last election that has any chance of producing legitimate results. Americans had better not waste this last chance.
» Read more

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One of Perseverance’s two wind sensors damaged by wind-blown material

5:09 pm

According to the principal investigator for Perseverance’s two wind sensors, one was recently damaged by a wind-blown tiny pebble.

Pebbles carried aloft by strong Red Planet gusts recently damaged one of the wind sensors, but MEDA can still keep track of wind at its landing area in Jezero Crater, albeit with decreased sensitivity, José Antonio Rodriguez Manfredi, principal investigator of MEDA, told Space.com. “Right now, the sensor is diminished in its capabilities, but it still provides speed and direction magnitudes,” Rodriguez Manfredi, a scientist at the Spanish Astrobiology Center in Madrid, wrote in an e-mail. “The whole team is now re-tuning the retrieval procedure to get more accuracy from the undamaged detector readings.”

…Like all instruments on Perseverance, the wind sensor was designed with redundancy and protection in mind, Rodriguez Manfredi noted. “But of course, there is a limit to everything.” And for an instrument like MEDA, the limit is more challenging, since the sensors must be exposed to environmental conditions in order to record wind parameters. But when stronger-than-anticipated winds lifted larger pebbles than expected, the combination resulted in damage to some of the detector elements.

The term “pebble” implies a larger-sized particle than what probably hit the sensor. I suspect the “pebble” was no more than one or two millimeters in diameter, at the most.

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Lucy solar panel almost completely open

11:19 am

Engineers have now been able to get the one solar panel that did not deploy completely after launch on the Lucy asteroid probe almost completely open.

From May 6 to June 16, NASA’s Lucy mission team carried out a multi-stage effort intended to further deploy the spacecraft’s unlatched solar array. The team commanded the spacecraft to operate the array’s deployment motor for limited periods of time, allowing them to closely monitor the response of the spacecraft. As a result of this effort, the mission succeeded in further deploying the array and now estimates that the solar array is between 353 degrees and 357 degrees open (out of 360 total degrees for a fully deployed array). Additionally, the array is under substantially more tension, giving it significantly more stabilization. The mission team is increasingly confident the solar array will successfully meet the mission’s needs in its current tensioned and stabilized state.

The spacecraft’s orbit is now moving into a position where communications will be limited until October, so further attempts to completely open the array will have to wait until then.

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Virgin Orbit puts seven Space Force smallsats in orbit

10:05 am

Capitalism in space: Virgin Orbit last night successfully launched seven smallsats for the Space Force, using its Cosmic Girl 747 carrier plane and its LauncherOne rocket.

This was the company’s first night time launch, and its second in 2022. The leader board for the 2022 launch race remains the same:

27 SpaceX
21 China
8 Russia
4 Rocket Lab
4 ULA

The U.S. now leads China 39 to 21 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 39 to 35.

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In 2022 freedom continues to fuel the launch industry towards new records

4:27 pm

With 2022 now half over, we can now get a quick sense of the state of the world’s rocket industry by the number of launches that have so far been accomplished this year.

Last year was the most successful year in rocketry since the launch of Sputnik in 1957. Both nations and private companies managed to launch successfully 134 times, one more than the previous record in 1975. Similarly, with 48 launches in 2021, the U.S. completed the most launches since the height of the 1960s space race, 48 total.

These high numbers last year also suggested that the growth was not a one time thing, but based on a wider sustained growth that would continue.

It now appears that both these records will be smashed in 2022. Below is a graph showing the total number of successful launches year-by-year by the United States since Sputnik, as of June 30, 2022.
» Read more

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Strange pitted and isolated ridges on Mars

2:30 pm

Context camera image of isolated ridges
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on February 17, 2012 by the wide-view context camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a section of the northern lowland plains of Mars, latitude 31 degrees north, where several very inexplicable and isolated ridges can be seen.

One ridge meanders mostly in a north-south direction, while a second instead meanders east-west. The shape of both says that neither has anything to do with any past impact crater. In fact, their random snakelike shape doesn’t really fit any obvious explanation. For example, they do not fit the look of the many fossil rivers found on Mars, where the hardened and dry riverbed channel resists erosion and becomes a ridge when the surrounding terrain erodes away.

What geological process caused them? In the decade since this photo was taken the scientists who use MRO have only been able to snap a handful of high resolution images of these ridges. The image below is the most recent, covering the area in the white rectangle above.
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: University of Arizona gives free tuition to American Indians; All other races must pay

12:01 pm

Academia: dedicated to segregation!
University of Arizona: dedicated to the new segregation!

“Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” The University of Arizona has begun a new racist policy whereby anyone who is a member of one of 22 American Indian tribes that exist in the state will be excused from paying any tuition or fees while studying on campus.

Beginning in the fall, new and continuing full-time, degree-seeking, in-state undergraduates will be eligible for the Arizona Native Scholars Grant, the first program of its kind in Arizona. The program will be administered by UArizona Enrollment Management.

“Serving Arizona’s Native American tribes and tribal students is a crucial part of the University of Arizona’s land-grant mission, and the Arizona Native Scholars Grant program is another important step among many to do that,” said University of Arizona President Robert C. Robbins. “I am so proud that that this university has found a way to help hundreds of students more easily access and complete a college education, and I look forward to finding ways to take these efforts even further.”

To be eligible, students must complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, and provide tribal identification. Native American tribes’ federal legal status allows universities to administer scholarships and grants to tribal members.

More than 400 students enrolled at UArizona last year meet the criteria for the new program.

Let me translate what UA president Robert C. Robbins is really saying:
» Read more

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Kepler signs up D-Orbit’s orbital tug for its next two satellites

9:56 am

Capitalism in space: The Canadian company Kepler — which already has nineteen satellites in orbit providing data communications — will use the orbital tug developed by the start-up D-Orbit and dubbed ION on its next two satellites.

After separating from the launch vehicle, D-Orbit intends to use ION to drop Kepler’s satellites off at a sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) between 500 and 600 kilometers. Each satellite is the size of six cubesats, a standard smallsat form factor measuring 10 centimeters on each side.

Kepler previously had a deal to use Momentus’s Vigoride tug, but delays and further in-orbit technical problems with that tug has apparently forced it to switch to D-Orbit.

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New research confirms long term bone loss during long missions in weightlessness

9:46 am

According to new research done on ISS, scientists have confirmed what Soviet-era scientists had learned back in the 20th century, that long term bone loss during long missions in weightlessness can take many months to recover once back on Earth.

The bone density lost by astronauts was equivalent to how much they would shed in several decades if they were back on Earth, said study co-author Dr Steven Boyd, of Canada’s University of Calgary and director of the McCaig Institute for Bone and Joint Health.

The researchers found that the shinbone density of nine of the astronauts had not fully recovered after a year on Earth – and they were still lacking about a decade’s worth of bone mass. The astronauts who went on the longest missions, which ranged from four to seven months on the ISS, were the slowest to recover. “The longer you spend in space, the more bone you lose,” Boyd said.

The study also confirmed that some exercises in space helped to mitigate the bone loss, which ranged from 1% to 2% per month. No exercises prevented it however.

For missions to Mars, the bone loss appears less of an issue than the loss of muscle strength. Even with extensive bone loss after six months to a year in space astronauts do not notice this loss when returning to Earth gravity. They will certainly not notice it on Mars, with a gravity field 39% that of Earth’s.

More concerning is the loss of muscle strength during long missions in weightlessness. After six months to a year in weightlessness astronauts struggle on Earth to walk after first landing. This is why they are helped immediately placed to chairs upon return. On Mars no such help will be available.

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OneWeb signs up startup rocket company Relativity for future satellite launches

9:34 am

Capitalism in space: The rocket startup Relativity, which hopes to complete its first test launch of its small Terran-1 rocket before the end of the year, yesterday announced that it has won a launch contract with OneWeb to use its larger but not-yet-ready-for-launch Terran-R rocket to place future OneWeb satellites into orbit.

Under the agreement, Relativity will launch OneWeb’s low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites on Terran-R, the first fully reusable and entirely 3D printed rocket, starting in 2025. These launches will support OneWeb’s deployment of its Gen 2 satellite network, which will add capacity and fresh capabilities to build upon the initial constellation of 648 satellites the company is currently building out.

Since its launch contract with Arianespace using Russian Soyuz rockets fell apart due to Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine, OneWeb has been signing up a range of rocket companies, first SpaceX, then India, now Relativity. Apparently the satellite company realized it was a bad idea to depend on only one rocket, and is now lining up several to make sure its satellites can launch on schedule, no matter what.

For Relativity, this agreement solidifies its future, even before it has completed its first launch. It now has five customers for its Terran-R rocket, with contracts worth $1.2 billion. All it has to do now to become a major player in the global launch market is to get its rockets off the ground.

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ISRO chief: India’s manned mission will be delayed

9:22 am

The new colonial movement: The head of India’s space agency ISRO revealed during a press conference following yesterday’s PSLV launch that he is delaying by one or two years Gaganyaan manned mission.

Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) Chairman S Somanath on Thursday said the launch of the ambitious Gaganyaan mission, the country’s first manned space flight, cannot happen this year or next year as the agency is keen to ensure that all safety systems are in place.

Somanth’s comments confirm an earlier report. It appears he wants the agency to do at least two unmanned tests of the spacecraft’s crew abort system. He also want further tests of the GSLV rocket that will launch the manned capsule.

Somanth also indicated that India’s next attempt to land a rover on the Moon, Chandrayaan-3, might also be delayed from the presently scheduled August ’22 target launch as they review the lander’s systems.

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FCC approves Starlink for moving vehicles; rejects DISH’s request to use Starlink wavelength

9:06 am

The FCC made two decisions yesterday that were both favorable to SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation.

First, it gave Starlink permission to provide service on moving vehicles such as cars, trucks, boats, and aircraft. Second, it rejected a DISH network request to use a wavelength in its ground-based system that is presently being used by both Starlink and OneWeb satellites.

This decision will continue the shift in communications from high-orbit/ground-based to low-orbit satellite constellations.

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Glacial features in a Mars crater at 29 degrees south latitude?

3:56 pm

Glacial features in Mars crater
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on January 2, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Simply labeled “slope features,” it was likely taken to monitor the gullies and streaks on the interior walls of this 4-mile-wide crater. Scientists have been using MRO to track the coming and going of frost on this crater’s interior walls since 2016.

Equally intriguing however are what appear to be squashed layers within the crater’s interior. These appear to be some form of glacial feature created by repeated climate cycles, similar to the glacial features routinely seen throughout the 30 to 60 degree mid-latitude strips north and south.

What makes the glacial features in this particular crater particularly intriguing is its location, as shown in the overview map below.
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Amazon employees demand company blackball everyone who disagrees with them

1:38 pm

The apparent goal of Amazon's woke employees
The apparent goal of Amazon’s woke employees

Persecution is now cool! Hundreds of Amazon employees have apparently signed a company-wide open letter demanding that the company immediately blacklist everyone who is anti-abortion while also blackballing every state that passes anti-abortion laws.

“As part of Amazon’s wide-reaching efforts toward a more inclusive and diverse workforce, we believe that Amazon cannot let this recent decision go unanswered,” the letter said. “We ask Amazon, the world’s best employer, to actively defend against this assault on our liberty.”

Among other actions, the authors are requesting that Amazon “allow employees of all genders the space and time to grieve, express their frustrations, and protest against this assault on our rights.” In addition, they want the company to “donate and match donations to bail funds” to help “women and pregnant people” seeking abortions in states with protections for pre-born babies.

It also demanded Amazon organize pro-abortion protests and donate money to the political organizations the letter signatories endorse.

Essentially, the letter calls for Amazon to focus its business entirely on leftwing political action rather than its central purpose of providing retail products to its customers. That such actions will cost the company money and possibly harm its profit line apparently does not matter to these employees.

The letter however went much farther. The cropped image from the letter below shows this:
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