April 28, 2023 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold in two parts.
To listen to all of John Batchelor’s podcasts, go here.
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Author: Robert Zimmerman
The Thornton Quarry in Illinois
An evening pause: A drone view of the Thornton Quarry in Illinois, one of the largest stone quarries in the world, which is located here.
Hat tip Wayne DeVette.
SpaceX successfully launches Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral
SpaceX today successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to put a SES communications satellite into orbit.
The first stage successfully completed its eighth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The company also attempted to complete a second launch just a little more than three hours later from Cape Canaveral, but the countdown of the Falcon Heavy rocket aborted just 59 seconds prior to liftoff. No word on what happened, though the company has another launch window beginning around 7:30 pm Eastern time tomorrow. If successful it would be the second Falcon Heavy launch in 2023, using two side boosters flying their eighth and third flights respectively. Because of the fuel needs of the payload, neither the side boosters or the core stage will be recovered.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
27 SpaceX
16 China
6 Russia
3 Rocket Lab
3 India
American private enterprise now leads China 30 to 16 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 30 to 28. SpaceX by itself trails the rest of the world, including other American companies, 27 to 31.
April 28, 2023 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- The flight path and drop zones for the expendable Long March 7 stages to be launched on May 10th
This launch will carry the next Tianzhou cargo spacecraft to China’s Tiangong-3 station. The drop zones will this time be over the ocean, not on people’s heads in China or elsewhere.
- China to create office to coordinate international participation on its planned moon base
This is China’s response to the Artemis Accords, but do not expect more than a handful of nations outside of Russia to sign on.
- Phantom signs deal with proposed spaceport in Australia
The spaceport, Arnhem Space Centre (ASC), is being developed by Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA), and hopes to attract international rocket companies. Phantom meanwhile hopes to complete its first launch first quarter of 2024.
- Rocket Lab touts its next NASA launch on May 1st
Just some pictures of the rocket on the launchpad.
- It appears ISRO has delayed the launch of its lunar lander Chandrayaan-3 to 2024
The delay was mentioned almost as an aside in the press release. As recently as March all looked good for a June 2023 launch, so this delay appears very puzzling.
Pushback: FIRE sues school for banning students from wearing “Let’s Go Brandon” shirts
The evil shirt Tri-County school officials banned
Bring a gun to a knife fight: Because school officials at Tri-County Middle School in Michigan forbid two students from wearing sweatshirts that said “Let’s Go Brandon” on their fronts, even as they permitted other students to wear shirt promoting the queer agenda, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) has filed a lawsuit against the schools.
In Feb. 2022, two Tri County Middle School students wore sweatshirts to school with the phrase “Let’s Go Brandon,” a political slogan critical of President Biden with origins in a more profane chant. Even though the political slogan is widely used — multiple members of Congress used it during floor speeches — an assistant principal and a teacher ordered the boys to remove the sweatshirts. However, administrators allowed students to wear apparel with other political messages, including gay-pride-themed hoodies.
The incident is part of a pattern of political favoritism by the school district. When the school district relaxed the dress code for field day, a school administrator ordered a student to stop wearing a Trump flag as a cape, but permitted other students to wear gay pride flags in the same manner.
Glacier layers on the border of Hellas Basin
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on February 21, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label as “dipping layers”, referring specifically to the mesas with the terraces on their western flanks.
The layers obviously signify past cycles of geological events on Mars. That the terraces are only on one side of the mesas suggests that they are tilted, with the downhill grade to the east.
These layers however pose several mysteries. First, why are they located so specifically in only certain places of this region? It appears that the layered terrain is only found in the lower hollows and valleys. Why?
Second, why are they tilted at all?
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Maxar’s Worldview-3 satellite snaps in-orbit pictures of Landsat-8 satellite
Click for original short movie.
Using its high resolution imaging capability, mostly designed to do Earth observations, Maxar engineers took a series of pictures of NASA’s Landsat-8 satellites when the two satellites happened to pass reasonably close to each other. One of those pictures, a screen capture from the short movie that Maxar created, is to the right.
Maxar Technologies’ Worldview-3 satellite has delivered images of NASA’s Landsat 8 spacecraft from ranges of between 56 miles (91.4 kilometers) and 80 miles (129.9 km), showing clear details of the powerful Earth-observation satellite. A still image reveals the 29.5-by-1.3 foot (9 by 0.4 meters) solar array powering Landsat 8, as well as distinct science payloads on the satellite’s 9.8-foot-long (3 m) bus, or main body.
Both satellites are in similar, near-polar orbits, with Worldview-3 circling around 381 miles (613 km) above Earth, while Landsat has a higher altitude of 437 miles (703 km).
Though very cool, this image was taken by Maxar to sell the company’s capabilities to future customers. The military wants the ability to do surveillance of foreign satellites, while satellite companies often need to get such imagery of their satellites to assess their condition. Maxar has now proven it can provide this service to both.
Big space Raytheon shifts gears to compete in the new space market
Capitalism in space: Raytheon, a traditional big space contractor focused mostly on winning military contracts, has decided to shifts gears from what has in recent years been a failed effort to compete for major contracts direct from the military and instead offer its capabilities to other commercial space companies.
This decision was fueled largely by the approach of the military’s Space Development Agency (SDA) to commercial contracts.
SDA’s approach to buying satellites from multiple prime contractors under fixed-price contracts is “revolutionizing space acquisitions,” [Raytheon official David Broadbent] said. The agency has been a “huge disrupter,” he said.
“Let’s call it what it is,” Broadbent added. “Raytheon and many of our traditional defense primes were constructed around sole source classified cost-plus businesses, and five to seven-year acquisition cycles.” Those markets no longer exist, he said. “So we’ve had to take a very hard look at ourselves … and drive to a far more efficient model of producing capabilities.”
In other words, Raytheon has recognized that the government golden goose of unlimited cost-plus contracts is gone, and that the company’s over-priced habits under those contracts made it difficult for it to compete against new startups designed to be efficient, low-cost, and quick on their feet.
By marketing its available products directly to other satellite and rocket companies, Raytheon can avoid the long contract competitions of the government, and make sales more effectively. As it does this it will also have time to restructure the company itself, trimming it down and making it more efficient so that it can better compete for government contracts at a later time.
Raytheon’s change is the result of the SDA essentially accepting many of the recommendations put forth in my 2017 policy paper, Capitalism in Space (a free pdf download). Rather than have the military the designer and builder of a few big and expensive satellites (also very vulnerable to attack), it is now the customer buying constellations of many small and cheap satellites from many private companies. Such smallsat constellations are much more difficult to disable by hostile powers.
Stevie Ray Vaughan – Lenny
An evening pause:Hat tip Rex Ridenoure.
April 27, 2023 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- Astra to sell propulsion systems to satellite company
Though Astra needs to buy its main upper stage rocket engines from Ursa Minor, it has still developed its own smaller altitude systems which it can (and now has) marketed to others.
- Russia claims it will build a nuclear-powered space tug for use in connection with the Chinese lunar base
Based on Chinese news outlets, it doesn’t appear they are depending on Russia’s tug. According to Jay, “The Chinese were talking about nuclear propulsion a few days ago for their Kuiper probes, but nothing about a joint effort with Russia. If anything, the Chinese will buy the plans and that will be it.”
- Blue Origin celebrates opening of new office in Phoenix
My heart be still. More desk space for Blue Origin managers! That’ll certainly get New Glenn launched sooner.
- China publishes its own analysis of Superheavy/Starship launch
This is all part of China’s design research, whereby you don’t create anything but simply copy what others achieve. To do that well however you need to study what others do very aggressively.
- NASA’s pick to be first black astronaut on Moon decides to denigrate his own mission as well all whites
The astronaut, Victor Glover, invoked a 1970s racist song called “Whitey on the Moon” during an interview. The song strongly implies that the 1960s Apollo missions were simply another expression of the oppression of blacks by the white race.
April 26, 2023 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold in two parts.
To listen to all of John Batchelor’s podcasts, go here.
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With the federal bureaucracy gleefully sharpening its knives to shut down Boca Chica, SpaceX should quickly shift Starship/Superheavy operations to Florida
Superheavy still going strong, shortly after Max-Q
The results of the spectacular test launch last week of SpaceX’s Superheavy/Starship heavy lift rocket was predictable in almost all ways.
First, everyone knew that it was highly unlikely that the launch would do everything intended. This was the first time ever that SpaceX had fired all 33 Raptor-2 engines at the base of Superheavy, at full power. It was the first time ever that this firing took place with Starship stacked on top. It was the first time ever that the entire stack was fueled. It was the first time ever that this rocket — the world’s most powerful (twice as powerful as the Saturn-5 and about three times more powerful than SLS) — had every launched.
The number of unknowns were gigantic, which was exactly why SpaceX needed to do the launch. The company’s engineers needed to find out what they didn’t know about Superheavy in order to refine their engineering so that Superheavy will be more likely for success in its next launch. They also needed to find out what such a launch would do to their preliminary launchpad, in order to refine its engineering as well so that future launches could take place with little or no damage.
Thus, it is not surprising that there were surprises. The most significant was the actual amount of success. Superheavy functioned far better than anyone could have dreamed, retaining flight control through max-q and then flying for almost three minutes before Starship failed to separate and the entire stack lost control and had to be destroyed. Most of its engines worked, though discovering the reasons for the handful that failed will be a prime question in the subsequent investigation.
The second unsurprising thing about this launch is the reaction of the federal bureaucracy, run by Democrats and the Biden administration. It has quickly moved in to squelch any further launches at Boca Chica, likely for a considerable time. The FAA immediately initiated its own investigation while grounding all further launches from Boca Chica. The Fish & Wildlife Service has now begun detailing, almost gleefully, the amount of ground damage the launch caused, including ripping out the concrete base below the rocket and flinging chunks of debris hundreds of feet away as well as depositing a cloud of sand dust on everything up to 6.5 miles from the launchpad.
This quote however is significant, and tells us the real truth:
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If global warming doesn’t kill us the fog will!
Illustration showing the distance and time saved by going north
through the Arctic Ocean
A new report published by the American Geophysical Union, and touted by it though a press release today, says that while the melting Arctic Ocean icecap — caused by human-caused global warming — will make shipping more convenient, that shipping will be hindered by increased fog — caused by human-caused warming.
Arctic sea ice has been shrinking for decades. That loss has opened shipping channels in the Northwest Passage and the Northern Sea Route, allowing even non-icebreaker vessels to skip the time-consuming Panama and Suez Canals farther south. But as the ice recedes, cold air is exposed to more warm water, and warm vapor condenses into fog in those new passages. Hidden chunks of ice already pose risks to vessels making their way through foggy, low-visibility routes.
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Astronomers discover 25 more repeating fast radio bursts, doubling the number known
Using a ground-based radio telescope in Canada that scans the northern sky each night, astronomers have discovered another 25 repeating fast radio bursts (FRBs), doubling the number that was previously known.
One surprising aspect of this new research is the discovery that many repeating FRBs are surprisingly inactive, producing under one burst per week during CHIME’s observing time. Pleunis believes that this could be because these FRBS haven’t yet been observed long enough for a second burst to be spotted.
The cause of FRBs still remains unsolved. The knowledge of specific repeating FRBs however will go a long way to figuring out this mystery, because other telescopes will be able to better observe later bursts, knowing when they are expected to occur.
SpaceX and Canadian phone company Rogers sign deal
SpaceX and the Canadian phone company Rogers Communications yesterday announced that they have signed an agreement to provide satellite-to-phone communications to customers throughout Canada.
Rogers and SpaceX will offer satellite-to-phone technology in Canada using SpaceX’s Starlink low earth orbit satellites and Rogers national wireless spectrum. The companies plan to start with satellite coverage for SMS text and will eventually provide voice and data across the country’s most remote wilderness, national parks and rural highways that are unconnected today.
This deal makes SpaceX now a direct competitor to OneWeb, as it is apparently structured comparable to how OneWeb operates. Up until now, SpaceX has been almost exclusively marketing to individuals, who connect up to Starlink directly. OneWeb meanwhile provides its service to large ground-based customers who then sell their network — enhanced by OneWeb capabilities — to individuals or small businesses. Because of this difference in approach, the two companies were selling their wares to different markets, making the competition less intense.
SpaceX with this deal is copying OneWeb’s approach almost exactly, which means the competition for satellite internet communications is now going to heat up considerably. For users of the internet, this is the best thing that could happen.
Engineers extend Voyager-2’s life by tapping into reserve power supply
Engineers have begun using a backup power supply on the Voyager-2 spacecraft — launched in 1977 and presently traveling in interstellar space — in order to extend the life of one of its five instruments one additional year.
To help keep those instruments operating despite a diminishing power supply, the aging spacecraft has begun using a small reservoir of backup power set aside as part of an onboard safety mechanism. The move will enable the mission to postpone shutting down a science instrument until 2026, rather than this year.
The solution is only temporary, as the end of the mission is inevitable as its radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) was only designed to provide power for about a half century (!). As time passes its power supply slowly declines, forcing engineers in recent years to shut down other systems to allow the science instruments to operate. That all the other systems on both Voyager-1 and Voyager-2 remained operational until the end of their RTGs tells us how well these spacecraft were built by their 1970s creators.
Assuming this works, engineers will do the same thing on Voyager-1 sometime next year. In both cases, however, power from the RTGs will likely run out entire sometime in the next 5-10 years, ending the missions.
Czech Republic to sign Artemis Accords
In a press release today describing the planned signing ceremony, NASA today revealed that the Czech Republic is going to sign the Artemis Accords on May 3, 2023, becoming the 24th nation to join this American-led alliance in space.
The full list of signatories so far: Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Canada, Columbia, Czech Republic, France, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, and the United States.
The accords, bi-lateral agreements between each nation and the U.S., were designed during the Trump administration to emphasize the rights of private investors in space and thus do an end-around of the Outer Space Treaty. Under the Biden administration it is no longer clear if that remains the goal. The existence of a signed alliance led by the U.S. and the capitalistic west however gives the U.S. the political force to protect those rights, assuming the American government is interested in the future in doing so.
It has also created a kind of bi-polar competition with the alliance of nations signing on to China’s projects in space. That alliance so far only includes China, Russia, and Venezuela, but we should expect several nations once part of the former Soviet Union, such as Kazakhstan, as well as other former communist block nations, such as North Korea, to sign up at some point. I would also expect Iran to join also.
SpaceX successfully launched 46 upgraded Starlink satellites
SpaceX early this morning successfully launched 46 upgrades Starlink satellites, launching its Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The first stage successfully completed its thirteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. The two fairings completed their sixth and seventh flights respectively.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
26 SpaceX (with a Falcon Heavy launch planned later today)
16 China
6 Russia
3 Rocket Lab
3 India
American private enterprise now leads China 29 to 16 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 29 to 28.
I have embedded the live stream of the Falcon Heavy launch below, for those that wish to view it. It is scheduled for a 7:29 pm (Eastern) launch from Cape Canaveral.
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Fiona Apple & Elvis Costello – I Want You
An evening pause: Performed live 2006.
Hat tip Lee Stevenson.
April 26, 2023 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- Interesting Twitter discussion about the Hakuto-R1 lunar landing failure
The most interesting comment, based on inconclusive and confusing data, is this: “From the Doppler profile, it looks like it descended, landed, then something went badly wrong and it accelerated back off the surface – just speculation based on radio obs.”
- ULA CEO Tory Bruno publishes paper outlining his thoughts on maintaining U.S. space assets agains attack
Bruno’s approach is very thoughtful and clearly presented. He concludes that the best approach is the one with the most variety, with both low and high orbit constellations providing communications and data. Why am I not surprised?
- The spacewalk plan to shift two solar panels on China’s Tiangong-3 space station to better locations
This effort is reminiscent of similar things the Russians did on both its Salyut and Mir stations.
- Rocket Lab says its preparations for two launches in New Zealand of NASA’s TROPICS satellites are on schedule
The first is scheduled for May 1, 2023 (New Zealand time), with the second on May 16th.
- Russia official extends its partnership on ISS until at least 2028
No surprise. What this really tells us is that Russia’s own space station is continuing to fall behind schedule, and will not be ready for launch by 2027, as previously predicted.
- Russia touts strength of Chinese-Russian space partnership by citing visit by official to China
Yeah, right. And I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you. The Chinese will make nice noises, but they know that they can expect nothing from Russia. If something shows up, great, but it would be dangerous to depend on it.
- For the first time since 2021, Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo (VSS Unity) completes a glide test flight
Their next goal is a powered flight with six crewmembers, targeting the second quarter of this year.