Author: Robert Zimmerman

Russia and Venezuela sign space cooperation agreement

9:53 am

Even as the U.S. has gathered nineteen other countries — including most of the world’s space-faring nations — to sign the Artemis Accords protecting property rights in space, Russia yesterday announced that its government has approved its own space agreement with bankrupt and socialist Venezuela.

The agreement between the governments of the two countries was signed in Caracas on March 30, 2021. It is intended to create “organizational and legal foundations for mutually beneficial cooperation between the parties and relevant organizations of both states in the field of exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes.”

Russia also has an agreement with China, which like this Venezuela deal is somewhat vague. The countries have agreed to work together, but appear to have few plans for actual joint missions. What is clear is that both oppose the Artemis Accords.

Compared to the American alliance of nations, which includes Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Canada, Columbia, France, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Singapore, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, and the Ukraine, the Russian alliance seems quite paltry, except for China.

4 comments

Progress in completing the deployment of one of Lucy’s solar panels

9:45 am

Lucy solar panel graphic
Artist’s impression of solar panel

In the past month engineers for the Lucy asteroid mission have conducted a series of successful short tests to see if they can complete the unfolding of one of the probe’s two large solar panels.

On May 9, the team commanded the spacecraft to operate the array’s deployment motor using both the primary and back-up motor windings simultaneously to generate more torque, i.e. a harder pull. The motor operated as expected, further reeling in the lanyard that pulls the solar array open. After running the motor for a series of short intervals to avoid overheating, the team paused to analyze the results. Data from the spacecraft showed that the deployment was proceeding similarly to engineering ground tests, allowing the team to move forward with the second stage of the attempt. Analysis of the data also suggested that there was still additional lanyard to be retracted. The team sent the same commands again on May 12. Although this series of commands did not latch the solar array fully open, it did advance the deployment enough to increase the tension that stabilizes the arrays as was hoped.

On May 26, the spacecraft was again commanded to deploy the solar array. As in the first two attempts, both motor windings were operated simultaneously for short periods of time to avoid overheating. Afterwards the team again analyzed the data from the event, which again showed that the array was continuing to open. The team repeated the deployment command sequence a fourth time on June 2. While the array still did not latch, the data indicates that it continued to further deploy and stiffen throughout the attempt.

The graphic above illustrates the problem. The engineers will attempt further windings, and still hope the panel will open entirely and latch. If not, the stiffening suggests the panel will still stabilize in this open position, which up to now has been sufficient to produce about 90% of the power predicted and enough to complete the mission.

One comment

Vulcan likely delayed until ’23

9:35 am

According to Eric Berger at Ars Technica, continuing delays with both the rocket’s payload and main engines, ULA’s Vulcan rocket will almost certainly not launch before the end of this year, as hoped by the company.

The rocket’s first stage BE-4 engines are being built by Blue Origin, and are already four years behind schedule. According to Berger’s sources, they will not be delivered to ULA until mid-August, which makes a launch in ’22 very unlikely, especially because both the engines and rocket are new, and will need time for fitting and further testing as a unit.

As for the payload, Berger’s assessment is not based on any new information. The payload, Astrobotic’s first lunar lander dubbed Peregrine, has also been experiencing delays, but the article provides no further information on whether it will miss its targets to be ready in ’22.

Regardless, it appears that Blue Origin is still dragging in its effort to build the BE-4 engine. If Vulcan cannot launch this year, it will threaten ULA’s long term future, since the company is depending on it to replace its Atlas-5 and Delta rockets. The delays now are allowing others to catch up and grab business that ULA might have garnered had Vulcan been operational as planned.

2 comments

Webb gets its first large micrometeoroid impact

9:18 am

In a carefully worded press release this week, NASA revealed that one segment of the primary mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope had been hit by a micrometeoroid.

Between May 23 and 25, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope sustained an impact to one of its primary mirror segments. After initial assessments, the team found the telescope is still performing at a level that exceeds all mission requirements despite a marginally detectable effect in the data. Thorough analysis and measurements are ongoing. Impacts will continue to occur throughout the entirety of Webb’s lifetime in space; such events were anticipated when building and testing the mirror on the ground.

The reason such events were expected is because — unlike most telescopes (including Hubble) — Webb’s mirrors are not enclosed in a tube for protection. To do so would have made the telescope far too expensive to build or launch.

After describing in great detail all the work done prior to launch to anticipate such hits and deal with them, the press release then mentioned this fact almost as an aside:

This most recent impact was larger than was modeled, and beyond what the team could have tested on the ground.

Localized damage to the primary mirror of any telescope is not unusual. With ground-based telescopes such issues are not infrequent and easily worked around. The same applies to Webb. The engineers will calculate how to calibrate this particular segment to minimize distortion from the impact.

However, that the telescope experienced a hit larger than ever modeled, so soon after launch, suggests that those models were wrong, and that larger and more frequent hits can be expected. If so, this could be very worrisome, as over the long run it could shorten the telescope’s life in space significantly.

9 comments

Close-up on another flaky Martian rock

3:00 pm

Close-up on another flaky Martian rock
Click for full image.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Cool image time! The picture above, reduced to post here, was taken by Curiosity’s high resolution camera on June 5, 2022 (sol 3494). It shows a close up of another flaky rock near where the rover is presently sitting (the blue dot on the map to the right), similar to the one that I highlighted on May 28, 2022 but zoomed in closer.

Not only can you seen the layered flakes extending out from the rock’s main body, you can see what appear to be small deposits of material between the flakes, as if at one point the material was being placed here by condensation, either from the atmosphere or liquid.

The curvy rounded edges of the rock’s larger flakes could have been caused by the same process, or by long slow wind erosion over the eons since the flakes were formed.

The photo appears to be part of a larger mosaic that the rover’s science team is having the camera take of the strange geology that now surrounds Curiosity. The science team also appears to be continuing its beeline south towards the rover’s original planned route, indicated by the red dotted line on the map. The green dot marks the approximate location of a seasonal recurring dark streak on the cliffside, suggesting some form of seepage, while the white arrows mark a distinct layer that scientists have identified in many places on the flanks of Mount Sharp.

3 comments

SpaceX successfully launches Egyptian communications satellite

2:38 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX today successfully launched an Egyptian communications satellite using its Falcon 9 rocket.

The first stage completed its seventh flight, and landed safely on the drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

23 SpaceX
18 China
8 Russia
3 Rocket Lab
3 ULA

The U.S. now leads China 32 to 18 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 32 to 29.

Leave a comment

Jet streams on Jupiter

12:55 pm

Jet streams on Jupiter
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was created from a raw image from the Jupiter orbiter Juno by citizen scientist Sergio Diaz-Ruiz. As he notes in his caption:

Several jet streams at high latitude, near the north pole of the planet, crowned by clouds, contrast with a dark oval just over the center.

The original was taken on February 25, 2022 during Juno’s fortieth close approach to Jupiter. As Diaz-Ruiz notes, the contrast with the dark oval and the higher lighter clouds is striking. It is almost as if thermals rising over that oval are pushing the lighter clouds away.

This is only the fourth Juno image that Diaz-Ruiz has processed. All are quite stunning, and worth a look.

2 comments

Pushback: Parents and teachers sue Virginia school board for teaching queer sex to kids and lying about it to parents

12:15 pm

The Harrisonburg school board
The Harrisonburg school board and its superintendent.

Bring a gun to a knife fight: Represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), both parents and teachers on June 1st filed a lawsuit against the Harrisonburg City Public School Board for encouraging children to use incorrect sexual pronouns as it also indoctrinated the kids into the queer sex agenda, all while setting policies intended to conceal its actions from parents.

Upon a child’s request, school district policy requires staff to immediately begin using opposite-sex pronouns and forbids staff from sharing information with parents about their child’s request, instead instructing staff to mislead and deceive parents.

The lawsuit [pdf] is even more blunt than the press release above:
» Read more

6 comments

Musk: Starlink will not go public until ’25 at the earliest

9:17 am

Capitalism in space: According to Elon Musk, a public sale of stock for the Starlink internet satellite constellation has now been pushed back another three to four years, and will not occur any earlier ’25.

His revised date means Starlink’s IPO has been delayed once again for another three years. In an email to SpaceX workers in 2019, also obtained by CNBC, Musk gave a three-year timeline for Starlink’s public offering, meaning an IPO could have taken place this year.

In 2020, Musk tweeted that Starlink would “probably IPO” in “several years.” He then tweeted in June 2021 that it would be “at least a few years before Starlink revenue is reasonably predictable” and taking it public any earlier would be “very painful.”

This quote however from Musk I think best describes his experience being in charge of a publicly traded company: “Being public is definitely an invitation to pain.”

5 comments

Rogozin suggests Russia will stay on ISS till at least ’24

9:10 am

In remarks this past weekend on Russian television, Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin said that Russia now plans to continue its international partnership on ISS till at least 2024.

“The ISS will work exactly as long as the Russian side needs to work on it,” Rogozin said. “There are technical problems. The station has been operating beyond its lifespan for a long time. We have a government decision that we are working until 2024.”

…Earlier this year, it was reported by some media outlets that Russia was planning to quit the ISS, blaming Western sanctions, following comments Rogozin made on state television. Rogozin said: “The decision has been taken already, we’re not obliged to talk about it publicly. I can say this only—in accordance with our obligations, we’ll inform our partners about the end of our work on the ISS with a year’s notice.”

The Russian government is presently attempting to develop its own space station for launch before the end of this decade. Since such Russian projects have for decades routinely been delayed, for decades, it is likely that the Putin government has decided that it is better to stay on ISS for the moment then quit and have no space station at all.

Russia has also been negotiating with China to partner with it on China’s space station. While China says it is willing, it also appears entirely uninterested in committing any of its funds to help Russia. It might allow a Russia astronaut to visit its station at some point, but that would likely be the limit of that space station partnership.

All in all, Russia’s space effort faces a dim future. ISS is going to be replaced with several private commercial stations owned by American companies, none of which want to partner with Russia. And Russia doesn’t really have the funds to build its own station. Nor does it have a competitive aerospace industry capable of developing its own stations.

Unless something significant changes soon, Russia’s place in space will shrink considerably in the next ten years.

5 comments

South Korea cancels probe to asteroid Apophis

8:57 am

The South Korea government has canceled its proposed unmanned probe to asteroid Apophis that had been designed to reach the asteroid during its ’29 close approach of Earth and fly in formation with it.

The science ministry, which manages state-funded space programs, recently ruled the mission “unfeasible” and decided not to request the $307.7 million budget it initially sought for the mission. … “We’ve decided not to pursue Apophis probe mission because there were various issues making it difficult for the mission to be successful,” Shin Won-sik, a science ministry official, told SpaceNews. “To probe Apophis, we have to launch a spacecraft by 2027 at the latest. But with the rocket and spacecraft-making capabilities we have, it’s unrealistic to launch in time.”

South Korean officials insisted they are not abandoning all future asteroid missions, but merely shifting this effort to other asteroids in which there is less time pressure to launch. Right now they are considering a mission in the mid-2030s, which could also be an asteroid sample return mission.

Leave a comment

Russian company S7 ends project to build private rocket

8:50 am

The Russian company S7 has ended its project to build a private rocket, citing lack of funds and a dearth of Russian investors.

Due to a lack of opportunity to raise funding, the project to create a light-class carrier rocket has been suspended,” the press service said.

The company said that was the reason why it let go some of its staff – 30 people out of more than 100 – in June. “Still, S7 Space continues to operate in some areas, such as additive and welding technologies where work is underway,” it said.

S7 first announced this rocket project in 2019. Development was suspended in 2020, however, when the Putin government imposed new much higher fees on the company for storing the ocean launch platform Sea Launch, fees so high that the company was soon negotiating to sell the platform to a Russian state-run corporation.

At the moment it appears that while Russia has possession of the Sea Launch ocean floating launch platform, it has nothing to launch from it. Nor does there appear to be any Russia project that might eventually do so. The Putin government has quite successfully choked off S7 — fearing the competition it would bring to Roscosmos — and with it any other new rocket company.

One comment

France signs Artemis Accords

8:35 am

The U.S. State Department yesterday announced that France has become the twentieth nation to sign the Artemis Accords.

The full list of signatories so far: Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Canada, Columbia, France, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Singapore, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, and the United States.

France’s signing is a major breakthrough, as both it and Germany, major players in the European Space Agency, have appeared to resist signing on because to do so would have limited their ability to partner with Russia on space projects (Russia opposes the accords). The Ukraine War has apparently ended France’s resistance. It no longer has any partnerships with Russia, and is not likely to form any new ones in the near future.

We should expect Germany to sign on in the near future as well.

As I wrote in May, the future factions in space are now becoming clearer. On one side we have the American Alliance, signers of the accords who support private property. On the other we have Russia and China, who oppose the accords because they also oppose private property.

In May I also included a third faction, made up of non-aligned space powers. That faction now appears to be fading away, though it still includes Germany and India.

6 comments

Today’s blacklisted American: Georgetown University succeeds in blacklisting conservative for having opinions

12:04 pm

Georgetown University: No free speech allowed

They’re coming for you next: Though Georgetown University announced last week that it had finally decided to reinstate Ilya Shapiro as a senior lecturer and executive director for the university’s Georgetown Center for the Constitution, Shapiro responded almost immediately by announcing his resignation from the job.

Shapiro had been suspended and under investigation for the past four months because of a single tweet he had issued criticizing President Biden’s decision to make race and gender more important than a judge’s legal qualifications in picking Ketanji Brown Jackson for the Supreme Court. For the background to this story see my May 13, 2002 post.

Shapiro’s resignation letter to William M. Treanor, Dean & Executive Vice President of the law center (available at the second link above), makes clear his reasons for quitting:
» Read more

3 comments

The Ukraine War: After a third month of fighting the battlelines clarify

11:04 am

The Ukraine War as of May 5, 2022
The Ukraine War as of May 5, 2022. Click for full map.

The Ukraine War as of May 5, 2022
The Ukraine War as of June 6, 2022. Click for full map.

With more than three months of fighting since Russian began its unprovoked invasion of the Ukraine in late February and a full month since my last update on May 6th, it is time to do another follow-up to get a clear assessment of the war.

The two maps to the right are simplified versions of those produced daily by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). For their full interactive version go here. The top map comes from its May 5th assessment, while the bottom map comes from its assessment on June 6th. The red hatched areas are regions Russia captured in 2014. The red areas are regions the Russians have captured in this invasion and now fully control. The pink areas are regions they have occupied but do not fully control. Blue regions are areas the Ukraine has recaptured. The blue hatched area is where local Ukrainians have had some success resisting Russian occupation.

Though the changes since early May are small, they make clear that the war’s battlelines have now become very clear. While Russia is very slowly but successfully taking ground in the center regions of its invasion, the Ukraine has been just as slowly but successfully retaking territory at the invasion’s outer edges.
» Read more

77 comments

France re-approves Starlink service

8:56 am

Capitalism in space: After finally completing what France’s telecom bureaucracy ARCEP calls “a public consultation,” the French government once again approved Starlink service on June 2nd.

ARCEP had authorized Starlink in February 2021, however, France’s highest administrative court revoked the license April 5 after ruling that the regulator should have first launched a public consultation.

That ruling came after two French environmental activist organizations submitted an appeal to challenge Starlink’s frequency rights, citing concerns including the impact of megaconstellations on views of the night sky and space debris.

This approval, combined with recent approvals of Starlink in the Philippines and Nigeria, continues the steady expansion of Starlink service globally.

3 comments

Woman arrested for trespassing at SpaceX’s Boca Chica facility

8:45 am

A Pittsburgh woman, Nivea Rose Parker, 20, was arrested on June 1, 2022 while trespassing at SpaceX’s Boca Chica facility.

SpaceX security personnel informed deputies a woman, later identified as Parker, was roaming around the fifth floor of the High Bay #1 building. Parker claimed to be an employee of SpaceX and wanted to speak to Elon Musk, security said. [emphasis mine]

Very little additional information has been made available. However, that Parker could get so far into one building, where rockets are assembled, is quite worrisome, considering the “hate Musk” campaign that is growing on the left. These people willfully riot and bomb facilities. SpaceX must take this trespass as a warning that worst could happen if it doesn’t tighten security at all its facilities, especially Boca Chica.

One comment

Fuel leak scrubs launch of Dragon cargo capsule this week

8:52 pm

A fuel leak detected during fueling of hydrazine in a Dragon cargo capsule as it was being prepared for a June 10th launch has forced SpaceX and NASA to delay the launch.

SpaceX detected “elevated vapor readings” of monomethyl hydrazine, or MMH, fuel in an “isolated region” of the Dragon spacecraft’s propulsion system during propellant loading ahead of this week’s launch, NASA said in a statement.

The fueling of the Dragon spacecraft is one of the final steps to prepare the capsule for flight, and typically occurs just before SpaceX moves the craft to the launch pad for integration with its Falcon 9 rocket.

The Dragon spacecraft has propellant tanks containing hydrazine fuel and nitrogen tetroxide oxidizer. The two propellants ignite upon contact with each other, providing an impulse for the cargo ship’s Draco thrusters used for in-orbit maneuvers.

Each Dragon spacecraft has 16 Draco thrusters, small rocket engines that generate about 90 pounds of thrust. The Draco engines are used for orbit adjustment burns and control the spacecraft’s approach to the space station, then fire at the end of the mission for a deorbit burn to guide the capsule back into the atmosphere for re-entry and splashdown.

According to the article, it is not yet confirmed that the leak came from the capsule. If so, however, it could become a more serious issue, especially with the recent story — denied strongly by NASA — that a hydrazine leak caused damage to the heat shield of Endeavour during the return of its Axiom commercial passenger flight.

5 comments

Heart – Alone

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Performed live 1987. I posted a pause of this group performing this song, with full orchestra, one year ago. This performance is more intimate with just the band. It also was done thirty years earlier, so they are younger and more intense.

Hat tip Tom Wilson.

2 comments

Spiders galore on Mars!

2:36 pm

Spiders galore on Mars
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on February 27, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and shows a nice collection of what scientists have informally (but permanently) labeled as spiders, strange formations that exists only in the regions of the Martian south pole.

The spiders are believed to have formed because of the coming and going of the dry ice mantle in the polar regions that falls as snow in the winter and then sublimates away come the spring. Because dry ice is mostly clear, the spring sunlight penetrates it and warms the underlying surface, which acts to warm the base of the dry ice mantle. CO2 gas builds up, trapped below the dry ice, until the pressure causes it to break the dry ice at a weak point and spew outward, carrying with it dust that blackens the surface above. You can see three examples in today’s image.

Spiders however only happen at the south pole. In the north much of the terrain is formed by unstable dunes, which change from year to year, thus causing the gas breakage to occur at random and different spots.

In the south however the terrain is more stable, a surface of ice and dirt. The spiders form because the trapped gas always follows the same path from year to year to the same weak points, carving riverlike tributaries until these feeders combine and build up enough gas pressure to crack the overlying dry ice so that the gas can escape.

Though the gas functions much like a river of water, it has one fundamental difference that makes this phenomenon wholly Martian and quite alien. On Earth rivers flow downhill. On Mars, the gas in these spider tributaries is flowing upward, seeking a path into the atmosphere above.

2 comments

Victory against blacklisting: School district drops attempt to punish children for using wrong prounouns

1:04 pm

Owned by government
Despite its legal defeat, this is still what the Kiel school district
in Wisconsin thinks of the kids it teaches.

Bring a gun to a knife fight: In another victory against the blacklisting culture that wants to destroy all freedom in the U.S., the threat of a lawsuit from parents has forced the Kiel Area School District in Wisconsin to abandon its effort to punish three eighth grade children for daring to use the wrong pronouns.

The original story was posted here on May 16, 2022. At the time, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL), which represented the parents, had sent a letter [pdf] to the school district, threatening it with a lawsuit if it did not drop its case.

After some failed attempts by the school district to negotiate a settlement, WILL announced on June 2nd its total victory.

In recent weeks, the District proposed various resolutions, but all within the Title IX framework. WILL and the families remained resolute in their position that the Title IX investigation was inappropriate and should be dismissed. WILL issued a follow-up letter to the District on June 2, making this clear. Hours later, the District relented and sent letters to the boys while announcing the investigation was “closed.”

It is worthwhile to read the Kiel school district’s own letter [pdf] announcing its decision to abandon this witchhunt against little kids. The letter’s first few paragraphs illustrate the district’s unwillingness to change any of its policies that push the queer sexual agenda, while also revealing a clear and continuing hostility to both these kids and their parents.
» Read more

3 comments

China launches three astronauts to Tiangong station

8:42 pm

The new colonial movement: Using its Long March 2F rocket, China has successfully launched three astronauts into orbit for a six month mission to its Tiangong space station.

The crew will be transported to the station in China’s Shenzhou capsule, docking about six hours after launch. During this mission China will also launch the last two large modules planned for the station, completing its initial construction by the end of the year.

I have embedded the live stream below the fold, cued to just before launch.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

22 SpaceX
18 China
8 Russia
3 Rocket Lab
3 ULA

The U.S. still leads China 31 to 18 in the national rankings, as well as the entire globe combined, 31 to 29.

» Read more

3 comments

Russia to take control of German telescope on space orbiter

9:12 am

Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos, revealed today that he has issued orders for the scientists running the Spektr-RG telescope to figure out how to take over operations of the German instrument on the telescope.

“I gave instructions to start work on restoring the operation of the German telescope in the Spektr-RG system so it works together with the Russian telescope,” he said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 TV channel.

The head of Roscosmos said the decision was necessary for research. “They – the people that made the decision [to shut down the telescope] don’t have a moral right to halt this research for humankind just because their pro-fascist views are close to our enemies,” he said.

The Europeans had shut down operations when it broke off all of its space partnerships with Russia, following the Ukraine invasion and the decision of Russia to confiscate 36 OneWeb satellites rather than launch them as it was paid to do.

22 comments

The oppressive and ignorant blacklisting culture that now dominates politics

12:50 pm

Most of all beware this boy.’
As noted by the Spirit of Christmas Present in Dickens’
The Christmas Carol, ‘This boy is ignorance, this girl is want.
Beware them both, but most of all beware this boy.’

While today’s blacklisting essay is mostly about one specific story, what it really does is illustrate starkly the overall ugliness and ignorance that fuels the blackballing, and how that ugliness and ignorance has seeped into every aspect of our political and cultural lives.

In a story that is hardly unique or surprising, the Los Angeles City Council last week passed a new regulation that bans the use of any gas appliances in new construction, both residential and commercial.

The council’s reasons for imposing this ban — as is usual for such bans — was based not on any actual documented problem that presently exists but on a fear that one might someday occur. From the opening paragraph of the actual motion:

As the gravity and urgency of the climate emergency become more apparent with each passing year of rising temperatures, dangerous wildfires, and more severe droughts—all of which disproportionately impact communities of color and the most vulnerable Angelenos—the City of Los Angeles must do all in its power to reduce its carbon emissions and move toward a sustainable, zero-carbon economy. [emphasis mine]

Note the highlighted words. » Read more

37 comments
1 … 235 236 237 238 239 … 1,105