November 2, 2022 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
Bob Fosse – Cuarto de la Banda
An evening pause: A very different dance number from the 1969 film Sweet Charity, the first that Bob Fosse directed.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
Freefall: an antenna company for space
Last week I had the opportunity to tour the offices space-based antenna startup Freefall, another one of Tucson’s many space-related companies.
Not surprisingly (and probably to the company’s credit), the offices and facility were themselves not that impressive. Essentially it was an open space with some areas reserved for desks and workers, and other areas where engineers could do some antenna construction and testing. In one corner was what the company’s CEO, Doug Stetson, labeled “their antenna graveyard,” past antenna experiments that were no longer needed or in use.
However, like all of these new independently-owned small aerospace companies popping up worldwide now that western governments have given up control of their space programs, what makes this company stand out is the creative innovations — both in design and manufacturing — that it brings to its products. In the case of Freefall, those products are all kinds of antennas, designed for all kinds of space-related uses.
First, there is design. The key to Freefall’s business model is its spherical dish antenna design.
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November 2, 2022 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- Chinese pseudo-company Space Pioneer shows illustration of proposed rocket spaceplane for point-to-point transportation
This is one I’ll believe when I see something real, not an illustration.
- Last Ariane-5 launch delayed until June 2023 due to issues with payload
“The delays are the result of Covid-caused business slowdowns and the lingering effects of an arsonist attack at prime contractor OHB SE in Bremen, Germany.”
- Long March 3B launch window opens tomorrow
The payload is a Chinese communications satellite.
Vermont news outlet blacklists its own story to protect the queer agenda at a local school
WCAX: A modern news outlet, dedicated to censorship
Today’s blacklist story is a follow-up on an earlier blacklist story. In September officials running Randolph High School in Vermont banned all the girls from the school’s volley ball team from the girls locker room, so that a cross-dressing boy would have that girls dressing room all to himself.
At the time I noted how this action by the school was “so absurd that at first glance it is hard to believe.”
Well, the story has become even more absurd. The news outlet that first reported the story, WCAX-TV, decided in mid-October to blacklist its own story in order to protect and promote the queer agenda in the local schools.
But [on October 11th], links to the controversial story and a recording of the newscast from that night went instead to a page that read “404/Not Found.” When … asked about the missing content, WCAX news director Roger Garrity said the station took it down last week “to prevent others from using our reporting to attack people in the transgender community.
“We didn’t announce it then for fear it might further inflame the situation,” Garrity wrote in an email. “We are now working with LGBTQ advocates on a message to the community acknowledging the harm that was caused.” In response to follow-up questions, Garrity said the station was working with Outright Vermont and GLAAD to craft its message and would put it on the 6 p.m. newscast “as soon as we have it ready to go.”
Curiosity begins a detour
Click for interactive map.
The science team running the Curiosity rover on Mount Sharp on Mars have decided to take the rover on a detour. As shown in the overview map to the right, rather than continue climbing directly up the mountain in the canyon dubbed Gediz Vallis, they have turned the rover to the west in order to put it back on its original planned route, though traveling in the opposite direction. The goal is to get to Gediz Vallis Ridge, which the rover attempted to reach by crossing the Greenheugh Pediment back in the spring, but was forced to retreat because the ground was simply too rough for the rover’s wheels.
From their October 31st update:
We are now officially on our detour, a short round trip to image and capture geochemistry of the “Gediz Vallis ridge” up on the pediment, before coming back down to the “Marker Band valley” and rejoining the MSAR (Mount Sharp Ascent Route). This detour will allow us to access some of the area we’d planned to visit before getting turned around by the ‘gator-back’ terrain on the Greenheugh pediment. For this part of the campaign, we are prioritizing driving, getting to our destination as fast as we can, but imaging as we go and marking areas of interest for contact science as we come back down.
The panorama above, cropped and reduced to post here, shows the rover’s view uphill to get to the ridge. The blue dot marks its present position. The yellow lines mark the approximate area viewed by the panorama above.
I think the rover’s path will take it up through the saddle between the two small peaks on the left. The science team is likely hoping that once they get up over that saddle, the terrain to get to the ridge will be smoother and less treacherous than the very broken and rocky surface of the Greenheugh Pediment.
This route also appears to also get them up on the marker band more safely. That band, marked by the white arrows, is a distinct smooth layer found in many places on the flanks of Mount Sharp.
The crash of China’s Long March 5B core stage: first rough prediction
The Aerospace Corporation has made its first rough estimate of the uncontrolled reentry of the core stage of China’s Long March 5B rocket that launched the Mengtian module to its Tiangong-3 space station on October 31st.
The prediction at present is very uncertain, covering about 20 orbits (about 30 hours) centered on November 5, 2021 over the Atlantic Ocean northeast of Brazil, as shown in the graphic to the right. Though this prediction will eventually narrow down to less than one full orbit, it will never be possible to predict in advance the core stage’s exact impact point. As the margin of error shrinks, the predictions will come more frequently.
At this moment, however, the core stage’s orbit crosses over most of the habitable areas of the Earth, and thus all those regions are under threat.
Two Saudi passengers to fly on Axiom’s second commercial flight to ISS
According to one NASA official, Axiom now plans on launching two as yet unnamed Saudi passengers on AX-2, its second commercial flight to ISS scheduled to launch in May 2023 on a Dragon capsule.
The names of the two Saudis on the flight have not been released, she said, but that “we are working very hard with them on training already.” A slide for her presentation noted the two would be named after formal approval by the ISS program’s Multilateral Crew Operations Panel. That slide also stated that crew training for the mission started Oct. 17.
The Saudi Space Commission and Axiom Space separately announced Sept. 22 plans to fly two Saudi citizens on a future Axiom Space mission. However, while it was widely rumored the two would fly on Ax-2, neither announcement stated a specific mission. The Saudi statement said that one of the two people would be a woman but did not disclose how the astronauts would be selected.
Neither Axiom nor the Saudis have revealed the ticket price, though it probably runs somewhere in the range of $20 to $50 million per ticket, based on past known purchase prices by NASA and others.
Rocket Lab to attempt 1st stage recovery on November 4th launch
Rocket Lab announced yesterday that it will make its second attempt to catch the first stage of its Electron rocket using a helicopter during its next launch on November 4, 2022.
Using a modified Sikorsky S-92 helicopter to catch and secure the rocket by its parachute line, Rocket Lab will bring the captured stage back to its Auckland Production Complex to be processed and assessed by engineers and technicians for possible re-use.
This Electron recovery effort follows the catch of an Electron first stage during Rocket Lab’s first helicopter recovery attempt on the “There And Back Again” launch in May, and the recovery attempt for this mission will follow the same concept of operations as the previous launch.
In the May recovery attempt, the helicopter caught the stage, but then released it almost immediately because of unexpected stresses on the helicopter. If Rocket Lab is successful this time, it will be only the second private rocket company to recover a first stage capable of reuse, after SpaceX.
The launch itself will take place at 10:15 am (Pacific). When the live stream is available I will embed it on Behind the Black.
Russian Soyuz-2 rocket launches military early warning satellite
Russia today successfully used its Soyuz-2 rocket to launch a military early warning satellite, designed to detect the launch of any incoming missiles.
The leaders in the 2022 launch race:
50 SpaceX
47 China
19 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA
American private enterprise still leads China 70 to 47, though it trails the rest of the world combined 75 to 70.
InSight status update: still alive!
UPDATE: JPL has released a press release, outlining the steps the InSight team will take to shut the mission down. Key quote:
NASA will declare the mission over when InSight misses two consecutive communication sessions with the spacecraft orbiting Mars, part of the Mars Relay Network – but only if the cause of the missed communication is the lander itself, said network manager Roy Gladden of JPL. After that, NASA’s Deep Space Network will listen for a time, just in case.
There will be no heroic measures to re-establish contact with InSight. While a mission-saving event – a strong gust of wind, say, that cleans the panels off – isn’t out of the question, it is considered unlikely.
Original post:
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Another update on the power levels on the Mars lander InSight was released today, and is shown on the graph to the right.
As of October 31, 2022, InSight is generating an average between 280 and 290 watt-hours of energy per Martian day, or sol. The tau, or level of dust cover in the atmosphere, was estimated at 1.33 (typical tau levels outside of dust season range from 0.6-0.7).
Though the dust level in the atmosphere has dropped, it still is high. Moreover, there is no sign of any clearing of dust from InSight’s solar panels. During the press conference late last week announcing the discovery of impact craters using InSight’s seismometer, the science team gave the lander no more than six weeks of life. One of those weeks has now ticked off.
The Revenge: Timo Boll vs. KUKA Robot
An evening pause: It is a commercial for KUKA robotics, and it is a bit staged, a competition between a KUKA robot and table tennis professional Timo Bollo playing music on glasses. Nonetheless, the punchline is good. Human creativity can always beat out robotic programming.
Hat tip Alton Blevins.