Author: Robert Zimmerman

SpaceX launches another 23 Starlink satellites; but with streaming issues

2:43 pm

SpaceX today succeeded in launching another 23 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral. However, after stage separation and the ignition of the upper stage, with the rocket operating normally, the live stream from X suddenly went down. The problem was not with the rocket, as all feeds from both stages disappeared, with the entire live stream going blank.

The first stage was on its twelfth launch. SpaceX has now confirmed that it landed successfully on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The company has also confirmed as successful orbital insertion.

This was SpaceX’s 40th launch so far in 2024, all successful. To get some perspective on the company’s continuing and spectacular success, the entire United States could not achieve that many launches in any year from 1969 through 2019, and in 2020 it merely matched this number (because SpaceX that year launched 25 times). And SpaceX has done it this in only three and a half months. Based on this pace, its goal of 150 launches in 2024 appears increasingly possible.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

40 SpaceX
15 China
6 Russia
4 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined 46 to 27, while SpaceX by itself now leads the rest of the world, including other American companies, 40 to 33.

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Io on Juno’s 60th close fly-by of Jupiter

2:01 pm

Volcano Plumes on Io
Click for original image.

Io as seen by Juno
Click for original image.

The photos above and to the right were both taken by Juno during its 60th close fly-by of Jupiter on April 9, 2024. The image above, cropped slightly to post here, was processed by citizen scientist Gerald Eichstädt, who states the following:

The stretched and enlarged crop is derived from a reprojected Io image with a margin of 100 km greater than Io’s nominal radius. Two plumes are obvious. The plume on the night siide is visible in several frames of the PJ60 Io sequence.

That Juno captures plumes like this on every close fly-by tells us the extent of activity that is on-going on the moon. Basically, eruptions are continuous and never ending.

The image to the right, reduced and sharpened to post here, was processed by Eichstädt and enhanced by citizen scientist Thomas Thomopoulos. It gives us a global view of Io’s many volcanoes and flood lava plains.

During that 60th fly-by Juno’s closest approach to Io was 10,778 miles. Though close, this is not as close as the approach of 930 miles during the 57th and 58th fly-bys. Nor will future fly-bys be as close again. This is essentially Juno’s last close look at the volcano world.

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Confirmed: California’s coastal commission is looking for ways to block SpaceX launches at Vandenberg

10:06 am

According to an article yesterday in the Santa Barbara Independent, the California Coastal Commission is aggressively looking for ways it can prevent SpaceX and other commerical rocket companies from increasing the launch pace out of Vandenberg Space Force Base.

When asked how many launches at VSFB benefit the Department of Defense (DOD), Colonel Bryan Titus, vice commander for Space Launch Delta 30, said that 25 percent hold DOD satellites and payloads, but argued that all SpaceX launches support the DOD and its allies.

“I just don’t think that SpaceX should be able to skirt the requirements for a Coastal Development Permit when its clear intent is to conduct primarily for-profit business activity and not federal activity,” said Kristina Kunkel, the Environmental Policy Director of the California State Controller’s Office.

The article confirms what I had speculated last week, that the Coastal Commission wants to find ways to impose its regulatory power over commercial launches inside Vandenberg, expressly to limit or stop those launches.

Side note to my readers: Posting will be light for much of today, as I will be visiting my doctor for a follow-up on my rib injury. Nothing bad has happened, but a follow-up seems wise to make sure things are healing as they should.

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Sweden signs Artemis Accords

9:55 am

Sweden yesterday became the 38th nation to sign the Artemis Accords, one day after Switzerland had officially signed.

The alliance now includes the following nations: Angola, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Columbia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

The press release once again focuses on “reinforcing” the Outer Space Treaty, rather than using the accords to get around that treaty’s limitations of private property. More and more it appears the Biden administration and the global community wants to use this alliance not to encourage the establishment of a legal framework for private ownership, but to retain that power within the governments involved.

As I said last week, “Under these circumstances, I wonder why China and Russia haven’t signed on as well.”

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NASA approves Dragonfly mission to the Saturn moon Titan

9:50 am

NASA yesterday announced that it has given final approval for the Dragonfly helicopter mission to the Saturn moon Titan.

With the release of the president’s fiscal year 2025 budget request, Dragonfly is confirmed with a total lifecycle cost of $3.35 billion and a launch date of July 2028. This reflects a cost increase of about two times the proposed cost and a delay of more than two years from when the mission was originally selected in 2019. Following that selection, NASA had to direct the project to replan multiple times due to funding constraints in fiscal years 2020 through 2022. The project incurred additional costs due to the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain increases, and the results of an in-depth design iteration. To compensate for the delayed arrival at Titan, NASA also provided additional funding for a heavy-lift launch vehicle to shorten the mission’s cruise phase.

The rotorcraft, targeted to arrive at Titan in 2034, will fly to dozens of promising locations on the moon, looking for prebiotic chemical processes common on both Titan and the early Earth before life developed. Dragonfly marks the first time NASA will fly a vehicle for science on another planetary body. The rotorcraft has eight rotors and flies like a large drone.

Be prepared for the project to go overbudget, as NASA’s biggests projects almost always do.

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Engineers say goodbye to Ingenuity

9:45 am

Ingenuity with missing blade
Ingenuity with its missing blade. Click for original image.

Because Perseverance is about to move out of range of direct communications with the disabled Ingenuity helicopter, engineers have now completed their final transmission from the helicopter yesterday, confirming that a new software update has been successfully installed.

The telemetry confirmed that a software update previously beamed up to Ingenuity was operating as expected. The new software contains commands that direct the helicopter to continue collecting data well after communications with the rover have ceased.

With the software patch in place, Ingenuity will now wake up daily, activate its flight computers, and test the performance of its solar panel, batteries, and electronic equipment. In addition, the helicopter will take a picture of the surface with its color camera and collect temperature data from sensors placed throughout the rotorcraft. Ingenuity’s engineers and Mars scientists believe such long-term data collection could not only benefit future designers of aircraft and other vehicles for the Red Planet, but also provide a long-term perspective on Martian weather patterns and dust movement.

The engineers belief that the helicopter could collect data for as long as twenty years. That data will sit on Ingenuity until such time as a later exploration team arrives, either manned or unmanned. There is also the possibility that later in Perseverance’s mission it could pass nearby again, allowing engineers to grab some of the data then.

According to the press release, those same engineers are now exploring future helicopter missions to Mars. Based on imagery I have seen coming down from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), the as yet unstated target locations could be inside the eastern end of Valles Marineris or on the northern perimeter of Hellas Basin.

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April 16, 2024 Quick space links

3:21 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

 

 

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Isolated flat-topped mesa inside large Martian crater

1:17 pm

Isolated flat-topped mesa
Click for original image.

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

The camera team labels this “layers in butte”, but because we are looking straight down at this 400-foot-high butte, it is difficult to see any layers at all. Based on most Martian geology however it would be shocking if this butte is not made up of multiple horizontal layers, ending with that flat surface layer at the top. Moreover, the base of the mesa to the northeast is clearly made up of a series of terraces that appear obscured at other points due to the presence of dust and dunes.

A side view would help clarify the number of layers and their thickness, but it does appear that this butte contains evidence of the geology that once covered this whole area, but over eons has eroded everything away but this butte.
» Read more

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Scientists: Any ice trapped in Ceres’ permanently shadowed craters has to be very young

10:51 am

The permanently shadowed craters at Ceres' north pole
The permanently shadowed craters (blue) at Ceres’
north pole. Click for original image.

Scientists reviewing the archive data from the Dawn probe that orbited the asteroid Ceres from 2016 to 2018 have found that the permanently shadowed craters at the asteroid’s poles are periodically exposed to sunlight due to long term variations in Ceres’ orbit, meaning that any of the ice in those craters detected by Dawn must be extremely young.

When Ceres reaches its maximum axis tilt, which last occurred about 14,000 years ago, no crater on Ceres remains perennially shadowed and any ice in them must have quickly sublimated into space. “That leaves only one plausible explanation: The ice deposits must have formed more recently than that. The results suggest all of these ice deposits must have accumulated within the last 6,000 years or less. Considering that Ceres is well over 4 billion years old, that is a remarkably young age,” Schorghofer said.

This does not mean that Ceres doesn’t have ice. In fact, it is very ice rich, below the surface. This data instead suggests that the surface remains active, and that there are processes bringing that underground ice to the surface on a regular basis. Except for these craters, which remain permanently shadowed for long time spans, that ice sublimates away relatively quickly. This result fits with earlier data from Dawn, that suggested many active locations on the surface, including its most distinct crater, Occator.

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Using Gaia data scientists discover the heaviest stellar black hole ever found

10:30 am

In digging into the precise motion data from the Gaia space telescope scientists have discovered the Milky Way’s heaviest stellar-sized black hole, with a mass thirty-three times the mass of our Sun.

Stellar black holes are formed from the collapse of massive stars and the ones previously identified in the Milky Way are on average about 10 times as massive as the Sun. Even the next most massive stellar black hole known in our galaxy, Cygnus X-1, only reaches 21 solar masses, making this new 33-solar-mass observation exceptional.

Remarkably, this black hole is also extremely close to us — at a mere 2000 light-years away in the constellation Aquila, it is the second-closest known black hole to Earth.

The only known black hole inside the Milky Way that is larger is Sagittarius A* (pronounced A-star), the supermassive central black hole at the galaxy’s center and weighing over four million solar masses. That creature is a very different thing, as it involves the long term evolution of the galaxy itself. Stellar-sized black holes only involve the death of a single star, with possible additions from a handful of others.

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NASA admits that its Mars Sample Return project needs new ideas

10:09 am

The present plan for Mars Sample Return
The present plan for Mars Sample Return

In issuing yesterday its reponse [pdf] to the February 28, 2024 audit [pdf] by NASA’s inspector general (IG) of its Mars Sample Return mission (MSR), NASA has admitted that its Mars Sample Return project needs new ideas and major changes. From the press release:

“The bottom line is, an $11 billion budget is too expensive, and a 2040 return date is too far away,” said [NASA administrator Bill] Nelson.

The agency will today issue a call for proposals from the private sector for alternative ideas for picking up the samples on Mars and getting them up into orbit.

This NASA response to the IG report however changes little else in overall project, and almost certainly will not succeed in either reducing cost or shortening the timeline in any way.
» Read more

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NASA: The piece of space junk that crashed through a Florida house came from ISS, and we released it

8:56 am

After completing a careful analysis of the 1.6 pound object that had crashed through two floors of a house in Florida on March 8, 2024, NASA engineers have confirmed that it came from the cargo pallet that was dumped from ISS in March 2021.

As part of the analysis, NASA completed an assessment of the object’s dimensions and features compared to the released hardware and performed a materials analysis. Based on the examination, the agency determined the debris to be a stanchion from the NASA flight support equipment used to mount the batteries on the cargo pallet. The object is made of the metal alloy Inconel, weighs 1.6 pounds, is 4 inches in height and 1.6 inches in diameter.

Though the NASA press release notes the agency will revise its computer models for determining what will burn up in the atmosphere and what will not, it says nothing about reinbursing the homeowner, Alejandro Otero, for the damage to his home. Based on the Outer Space Treaty, the U.S. is likely liable for this damage. I suspect the negotiations are on-going, and if Otero doesn’t have a lawyer yet, he should get one immediately.

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Salomé’s Dance

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Music by Charles Barber. This comes from the 1913 silent film, Salomé, based on an Oscar Wilde play. Rarely seen, the movie represents a very early attempt to do something “edgy”. It succeeds about as well as modern “edgy” films, showing us a very shallow representation of human existence. But the visuals give us a glimpse into that early film world, when sets and costume were usually the only way to show something strange and striking.

Hat tip Judd Clark.

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April 15, 2024 Quick space links

3:55 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

 

 

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The value of Trump’s Abraham Accords once again proven

2:59 pm

Hamas vs Israel
Even the Arabs recognize these facts.
And they know that Iran is allied with Hamas.
Courtesy of Doug Ross.

Over the weekend the Iranian attempt to bomb Israel drove home starkly the effectiveness of the Abraham Accords that Donald Trump pushed through during his term between Israel and a number of its Arab neighbors.

The effectiveness of the accords was not only illustrated by the moral and technical support given to Israel by the UAE and Bahrain (two accord signatories), the good will these agreements produced between Israel and the Arab world caused other Arab nations to add their own support as well.

First, when Iran tipped off several Arab countries of its intentions — which likely included both Jordan and Saudi Arabia (neither of which has signed the accords) — those countries then immediately passed that information to the United States, knowning full well it would then be passed to Israel. Iran had thought the Arab world was united with it, when in truth at least half the Arab world is now allied with Israel (either overtly or covertly).

Then Jordan denied Iran permission to use its airspace, and then followed this up by first opening its airspace to Israel and American fighter jets. All three then proceeded to shoot down Iran’s missiles and drones, preventing almost all from even reaching Israel.

The support Saudi Arabia gave to Israel this past weekend suggests once again that it does want to sign the accords as well. Just before the 2020 election there were numerous rumors that it would do so, once Trump was confirmed for a second term. It then backed off when Biden was installed as president, though it also has made it clear in the past three years that it is more aligned with Israel than Iran or the Palestinians. In fact, there is much evidence that many Arab countries in the Middle East are increasingly ready to abandon or seriously curtail their support of the Palestinians, in exchange for a peaceful co-existence with Israel that enhances everyone’s security. All fear Iran, and Israel can help them fight it.

The situation of course remains very complex, but it will simplify enormously after Israel finishes Hamas off and then demonstrates its determination to rebuild Gaza as a sane place for both the Gazans and its neighbors. Despite the absurd screams of “genocide” by stupid Hama supporters, Israel’s neighbors very much want to get Hamas destroyed. They might mouth some complaints about the lose of civilian lifes in Gaza, but those protests are not to be taken very seriously. Hamas has done nothing for them except instill disorder and violence in the region. Remove it, and they know everyone will benefit.

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Assuming students sign up, plagiarist Claudine Gay to teach “reading and research” class at Harvard

12:17 pm

Harvard: where you get can get a shoddy education centered on hate and bigotry
Harvard: where you can spend a lot of money
getting a shoddy education

Claudine Gay, former Harvard president and now a known plagiarist, is now scheduled to teach a “reading and research” class this coming fall at Harvard.

Harvard University’s former president who resigned after numerous plagiarism allegations is slated to teach a graduate level “Reading and Research” course this upcoming semester. Professor Claudine Gay returned to teaching and her reportedly nearly $900,000 annual salary after resigning the presidency after ongoing plagiarism accusations and criticism of her response to campus antisemitism.

…Gay taught the same class in the spring. It is a graduate-level independent study type class.

The commentary on Gay’s future teaching work has generally generally been outraged and amused, since in a sane world the last person any college should want as a teacher is a proven plagiarist. Allowing such a failure to run classes only stains the reputation of the college.

However, there is another aspect to this story that most pundits are missing. » Read more

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A Martian rock with holes

10:52 am

A Martian rock with holes
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on April 13, 2024 by the high resolution camera on the Mars rover Perseverance.

The largest rock in the picture is probably only one or a few feet or so across. It has two holes, one very visible in the center and a second less obvious in the shadow on the right. What makes the obvious hole most intriguing is that it appears it was formerly entirely enclosed by the boulder, and was exposed when a section broke off. That section is the smaller rock in the foreground. I wonder if the Perseverance team will bring the rover around to get a view of that smaller rock, to see if it has its own corresponding part of this hole.

Note the smoothness of the rocks. This smoothness is very similar to what Curiosity saw when it was either on the floor of Gale Crater, or at the base of Mount Sharp. In both cases that smoothness suggests either flowing water or glacial ice erosion, like the smooth cobbles one routinely finds in streambeds or in the moraines of glaciers.

As Curiosity climbed Mount Sharp the smoothness was replaced with a delicate flaky fleecework indicating many layers but little violent erosion capable of smoothing the surface (see for example the images here and here). It appears Perseverance is still low enough in Jezero Crater to be within the ancient active region, formed from flowing water or ice.

As for the holes, my guess is that this rock formed from lava, and the holes are what geologists call “vugs”, bubbles formed within the lava as it solidified.

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A face-on barred spiral galaxy

10:32 am

A face-on barred spiral galaxy
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope as part of a study of a nearby galaxy group of about 47 galaxies about 130 million light years away.

Whilst the focus of this image is the spiral galaxy NGC 3783, the eye is equally drawn to the very bright object in the lower right part of this image. This is the star HD 101274. The perspective in this image makes the star and the galaxy look like close companions, but this is an illusion. HD 101274 lies only about 1530 light-years from Earth, meaning it is about 85 thousand times closer than NGC 3783. This explains how a single star can appear to outshine an entire galaxy!

NGC 3783 is a type-1 Seyfert galaxy, which is a galaxy with a bright central region — so it’s particularly bright itself, as far as galaxies go. In this image it is recorded by Hubble in incredible detail, from its glowing central bar to its narrow, winding arms and the dust threaded through them, thanks to five separate images taken in different wavelengths of light. In fact, the galactic centre is bright enough to Hubble that it exhibits diffraction spikes, normally only seen on stars such as HD 101274.

The diffraction spikes of the galactic center are difficult to see in the reduced image. Click on the original, then click on the galaxy’s center, and you will be able to see them clearly.

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A Martian river of sand

10:16 am

A Martian river of sand
Click for original image.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Cool image time! The panorama above, cropped, reduced, enhanced, and flipped to post here, was taken on April 14, 2024 by the right navigation camera on the Mars rover Curiosity, created from a total of 31 images.

The full mosaic covers a full 360 degree view from where Curiosity presently sits, inside the slot canyon Gediz Vallis. The part shown above only covers a little more than half, looking west at the butte which forms the western wall of the slot canyon, as shown by the yellow lines and the arrow in the overview map to the right. The blue dot marks Curiosity’s present position, while the red dotted line its planned route.

What makes this part of the mosaic especially distinct is the narrow river of sand that flows downhill from the right to the left. While everywhere else the ground is heavily covered with rocks, along this strip the surface is smooth sand, with many frozen dunes resembling waves or ripples as the flows downhill slowly.

The river is formed against a low cliff wall, which is why the sand gathered along this strip. At the same time, the downhill grade to the left (north) is allowing the sand to carve a distinct path, at the base of that cliff.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Mars is alien, Mars is unique, but above all, Mars is wonderful.

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Obama: The man behind today’s Middle East madness

9:30 am

Considering my present condition (see the previous post), I thought I would quickly put up a link to an excellent essay by Doug Ross detailing how the present instability in the Middle East is all tied to Barack Obama, both during his first two presidential terms as well as his third term manipulating Joe Biden from behind the scenes.

The most telling quote is this, comparing how things changed before, during, and after Donald Trump’s term:

The stunning populist victory of Donald Trump meant a quick demise for many of Obama’s pro-terror policies. It also resulted in the destruction of the ISIS scourge, another terror spawn of Obama’s people and policies. Trump’s pragmatic view of Iran resulted in a demolition of Obama’s nuclear deal as well as termination of various Palestinian terror funding initiatives. Trump’s Abraham Accords remain one of the most dramatic Middle East peace agreements in modern history.

And They’re Back! The instant Trump departed the presidency in 2021, the ostensible Biden administration — led by cadres of Obama acolytes — reactivated funding for Islamist terrorism.

…As part of Barack Obama’s de facto third term, Iran received yet another infusion of cash less as recently as November of 2023. As Majid Rafizadeh put it: “Who needs the Nobel Peace Prize when you can have the Biden War Prize? That’s right, the Biden administration announced last week that it plans to give the Iranian regime another $10 billion in unfrozen assets from Oman.”

The funds are apparently as a small token of appreciation for helping to orchestrate a war in the Middle East and targeting U.S. troops in the region at least 56 times, wounding at least 56 U.S. servicemen, many of whom suffered traumatic brain injuries—in just one month! Where does everyone sign up

Ross concludes by asking what is the reason behind Obama’s obsession in funding this terrorism. The shadow of bigotry and anti-Semitism lurks heavily over everything.

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China launches remote sensing satellite

9:17 am

China today successfully launched a remote sensing satellite, its Long March 2D rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China. Video of the launch can be found here.

No word on where the rocket’s lower stages, using toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

39 SpaceX
15 China
6 Russia
4 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined 45 to 27, while SpaceX by itself still leads the rest of the world, including other American companies, 39 to 33.

To my readers: Posting will be unpredictable for the next few days, as yesterday during a hike I fell, smashing my nose and cracking a rib. The nose is now pretty much fine, though it took a while for the bleeding to stop, but the rib makes doing almost anything somewhat painful. I shall see how the day goes.

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SpaceX launches 23 more Starlink satellites with 1st stage on record-setting 20th flight

7:44 pm

The bunny flies again! SpaceX tonight successfully launched 23 more Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage completed its 20th flight, a new record for a Falcon 9 first stage, landing successfully on a droneship in the Atlantic. At this moment SpaceX is beginning to collect a fleet of Falcon 9 first stage boosters that have flown almost as much as NASA’s space shuttle fleet, which flew as follows:

Discovery 39 flights
Atlantis 33 flights
Columbia: 28 flights
Endeavour 25 flights
Challenger: 10 flights

At present SpaceX has one booster with 20 flights, and two with 19, and I think one with 18. It will take a lot more launches to catch up, but it certainly appears possible for at least a few of these Falcon 9 stages to exceed the shuttle numbers.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

39 SpaceX
14 China
6 Russia
4 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined 45 to 26, while SpaceX by itself now leads the rest of the world, including other American companies, 39 to 32.

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April 12, 2024 Quick space links

3:01 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

 

 

 

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Remember: The climate data foisted on us by NOAA is based 30% on nonexistent weather stations

2:24 pm

The uselessness of the global temperature record

A story yesterday at Zero Hedge noted once again that the yearly global data that NOAA inflicts on us, each year claiming that a new record has been set as the hottest year ever, is all based on fake data, with about one-third of the data created from weather stations that no longer exist.

The problem, say experts, is that an increasing number of USHCN’s stations don’t exist anymore. “They are physically gone—but still report data—like magic,” said Lt. Col. John Shewchuk, a certified consulting meteorologist. “NOAA fabricates temperature data for more than 30 percent of the 1,218 USHCN reporting stations that no longer exist.”

He calls them “ghost” stations.

Mr. Shewchuck said USHCN stations reached a maximum of 1,218 stations in 1957, but after 1990 the number of active stations began declining due to aging equipment and personnel retirements. NOAA still records data from these ghost stations by taking the temperature readings from surrounding stations, and recording their average for the ghost station, followed by an “E,” for estimate.

This is not a new story. » Read more

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LA Times: Can California’s coastal commission stop SpaceX launches from Vandenberg?

9:48 am

Link here. This article is a follow-up on the story I posted yesterday, about a meeting of the California Coastal Commission where locals demanded and the commission considered measures for attempting to limit an increase in launches from Vandenberg.

The article provides many more details about this political battle. It appears the military, out of courtesy, was letting the commission know that it wants to raise the number of launches to accomodate not just SpaceX but other private companies. It can do so without the commission’s permission, but wishes to work with it.

The commission and the ten or so people at the meeting complaining were exploring ways to block this increase. Though the meeting postponed any action until the next meeting in May, it was clear its commissioners will use the next few months to explore ways to expand their control, including looking for funding sources for initiating court actions.

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Amazon: First operational launch of Kuiper satellites delayed

9:38 am

Though Amazon’s CEO Andy Jassy, in his annual letter to shareholders yesterday, touted the Kuiper internet constellation’s profit potential, he also implied that the planned first launch of operational satellites has been delayed.

When Project Kuiper’s first two prototype satellites were launched last October for testing, Amazon said that its first production-grade satellites were on track for launch in the first half of 2024, and that it expected broadband service to be in beta testing with selected customers by the end of the year.

Today, Jassy put a slightly different spin on that schedule. “We’re on track to launch our first production satellites in 2024,” he wrote in his letter. “We’ve still got a long way to go, but are encouraged by our progress.”

Later in a television interview Jassy was more blunt, stating that the first operational satellites will not be ready until “the second half of ’24”, with the service becoming available “in the next year or so.”

The company’s incredibly slow roll-out of this constellation puts it at a significant disadvantage. Both it and Starlink were announced at about the same time, but Starlink already has several thousand satellites in orbit, has been operational for several years, and has almost three million customers signed on. It has gotten all the low-hanging fruit. Amazon will either have to convince those customers to switch — generally a difficult thing to do — or find new customers that have so far been less inclined to buy such satellite services.

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Swiss company tests three-legged hopper for asteroid exploration on zero-G airplane

9:26 am

SpaceHopper in flight
SpaceHopper in flight

A Swiss company, ETH Zurich, has successfully tested the ability of an unmanned three-legged hopper, designed to explore asteroids by hoping in the light gravity, to orient itself using its legs by flying on a zero-G airplane.

The picture to the right is a screen capture from the video embedded below.

All nine leg motors [three per leg] work together to launch the SpaceHopper high off the asteroid’s surface when jumping. As the robot is subsequently in flight, it maintains its upright orientation by selectively extending or withdrawing its legs to shift its center of mass as needed. Upon landing, its legs flex to absorb impact and to keep the bot from falling over.

During zero-G on the airplane flights the hopper successfully jumped, then used its legs to correctly orient itself afterward.

Developing this hopper was initially a student project, and its success has gotten it upgraded, still led by those students.
» Read more

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