Author: Robert Zimmerman

Curiosity looks back at its entire journey

10:03 am

Curiosity looking back across Gale Crater
Click for high resolution mosaic. Original images here, here, here, and here.

Wide overview map
Click for interactive map.

Cool image time! The mosaic above was created from four photos taken by Curiosity’s left navigation camera on December 12, 2021, just after the rover had moved into Maria Gordon Notch. The view is to the north, looking back at the rover’s journey climbing up the floor of Gale Crater into the foothills of Mount Sharp. The rim of Gale Crater can be seen about 25 to 30 miles away.

The cliff in shadow on the left is about 40 feet high. The cliff in sunlight on the right is between 30 to 60 feet high, depending on where you measure.

The overview map to the right shows Curiosity’s entire journey, with the yellow lines indicating the approximate area covered by the mosaic above. All told the rover has climbed about 1,700 feet since it landed. While much of the rover’s route is blocked from our view by the cliffs on left, the nearest sand dune sea in the center of the mosaic is the one that the rover circled around from January 2021 to June 2021.
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Russia’s Proton rocket launches two communications satellites

8:35 am

Russia early today successfully launched two Russian civilian communications satellites using its Proton rocket on its second launch in 2021.

This was Russia’s 22nd successful launch in 2021, matching its total from 2019 and the highest since 2015. In that year its launch totals dropped as its international commercial market share switched to SpaceX, partly because of the lower prices that American company offered and partly because of the many quality control problems in the Russian aerospace industry that were causing numerous launch failures.

With two more launches still on its manifest, ’21 looks like it will be a good year for Russia.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

47 China
28 SpaceX
22 Russia
6 Europe (Arianespace)
5 ULA
5 Rocket Lab

China still leads the U.S. 47 to 45 in the national rankings. With 123 launches this year, ’21 is now tied as the sixth most active year in the history of rocketry.

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Mexico signs Artemis Accords

12:33 pm

Mexico on December 9, 2021 became the fourteenth nation to sign the U.S.-led Artemis Accords, designed to bypass the Outer Space Treaty’s restrictions on private property in space.

[Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon, Mexico’s secretary of foreign relations,] announced Mexico’s accession to the accords at an event attended by several other Mexican government officials as well as U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar and José Hernández, a former NASA astronaut. Hernández said in the statement that Mexico’s decision to join the Artemis Accords was evidence that, for this return to the moon, “we are going to do it as a community.”

The full list of signatories at this moment: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Ukraine, and the United States.

Russia and China have both said they oppose the accords. Both want control to be centralized to the government, and the accords act instead to strengthen the rights of the citizens and private companies in space.

France and Germany remain the two major Western space powers who have not signed the accords. Both undecided on what they will do. Both seem eager to partner with Russia and China, and to do so also seem willing to abandon in space concepts of private property and individual rights in order to make those partnerships happen. At the same time both — especially Germany — have been pushing private enterprise in space.

This policy conflict is making both countries appear very confused.

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FAA to discontinue program to issue wings to everyone who flies in space

10:20 am

The FAA has decided to end an on-again-off-again program, only started in 2005, that issue wings to everyone who makes their first flight into space on a private commercial spacecraft.

he Federal Aviation Administration will stop awarding commercial astronaut wings at the end of this year, five months after it revised the criteria for receiving the wings.

The FAA announced Dec. 10 that it will award wings to all non-government individuals that flew on FAA-licensed commercial vehicles to date in 2021, as well as those who fly on any remaining launches through the end of the year. However, it will not award wings to anyone, either crew members or spaceflight participants, that flies on FAA-licensed vehicles after this year.

The program was merely a public relations effort designed to give an honor to tourists and others who flew on non-governmental space missions. The FAA is now getting out of that business, leaving it to the commercial space companies themselves.

That part of the reasons is that the FAA was finding it difficult to come up with a good criteria for awarding the wings based on the increasing numbers of people now flying on private missions is actually wonderful. It means going into space is becoming more routine.

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New Shepard completes another suborbital passenger flight

9:21 am

Capitalism in space: Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital spacecraft today completed its third commercial suborbital passenger flight, this time carrying six people, including Laura Shepard Churchley, the daughter of Alan Shepard, the first American to fly in space.

Churchley, as well as former football player Michael Strahan, were not a paying passengers. What the other passengers paid for their flights has not been revealed. Nor has Blue Origin listed a ticket price anywhere.

It is good news that Blue Origin is now doing these suborbital commercial flights regularly. It would be much better news if the company started manufacturing its BE-4 engine as regularly so that its orbital New Glenn rocket could do the same.

Sorry for the lack of posting yesterday. I was starting the preparations for a caver’s party today at my home, and needed to do stuff related to that. While most of the organized caving community has blacklisted me and several others because we don’t cower in our basement doing zoom meetings but go caving instead, a good number agree with us and are coming today. Partying sometimes comes ahead of work!

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Russia selects first astronaut to fly on Dragon

8:19 am

Russia, as part of the continuing barter deal with NASA for seats on the capsules of both countries, has selected rookie astronaut Anna Kikina to be the first Russian to fly on a Dragon capsule.

Kikina is the only woman currently active in the Russian cosmonaut corps. She was selected in 2012 but has yet to fly in space, although Rogozin and other Russian officials had previously said she would fly in the fall of 2022. She would likely be on the Crew-5 Crew Dragon mission, to which NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada and JAXA astronaut Koichi Wakata are currently assigned.

While according to the Russians the barter deal is finalized, according to NASA negotiations are still ongoing. This announcement by the Russians might actually be a negotiating tactic, since the tensions between the U.S. and Russia over Russian threats to the Ukraine could threaten the partnership at ISS. By making this announcement the Russians might be trying to make the barter deal an accomplished fact.

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China launches two satellites with Long March 4B

8:08 am

China today launched two satellites thought to be for military reconnaissance, using its Long March 4B rocket.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

47 China
27 SpaceX
21 Russia
6 Europe (Arianespace)
5 ULA
5 Rocket Lab

China now leads the U.S. 47 to 45 in the national rankings. There have now been 122 successful launches in 2021, making it the seventh most active year in the history of space exploratoin.

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Christmas Food Court Flash Mob – Hallelujah Chorus

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Most claimed flash mob performances are not really what they claim, often well staged with lots of cameras and hardly a surprise to the surrounding innocent crowd. This one, performed during the Christmas season in 2010, appears quite genuine, building out of nowhere at an ordinary mall food court. Even the camera work appears to be mostly from phones, many of which I think the producers obtained from the onlookers after the fact.

And of course, the music of Handel using the words of the Bible cannot be beat.

Hat tip Chris McLaughlin.

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Today’s blacklisted Americans: Whites and Asians at Washington & Lee U

12:55 pm

The Civil Rights Act of 1964: repealed at Washington and Lee University in Virginia
The Civil Rights Act of 1964: repealed at
Washington and Lee University in Virginia

“Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” A program to teach business practices to college students at Washington & Lee University in Virginia makes it very clear that whites and Asians are not welcome to apply, and will be shadow-banned should they do so.

The program is offered by the Williams Investment Society, or WIS, “a student organization that manages a portion of Washington and Lee University’s endowment in equity securities,” its website states.

“To promote equality of opportunity, the WIS has developed a successful diverse shadow program and we encourage you to apply if you self-identify with any of the following communities: Women, Black, Lantinx, Latin, Native American, LGBTQ+, Veterans, and Students with Disabilities,” the society states in advertising the program.

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Curiosity takes a close look at a Martian cliff

11:15 am

A cliff of Mars
Click for full resolution. Original images here and here.

Curiosity has now moved up and into Maria Gordon Notch, a gap in the mountains of Gale Crater that is about forty feet wide, with a 40-foot-high cliff on its western side and a 30 to 60 foot cliff on its eastern side.

The mosaic above, created from two navigation camera images, looks up at the top half of that western cliff. Note the many many layers, each one of which records some climate or volcanic event in Mars’ geological history. The Mars we see today took a long time and many events to become what it is. Such layers however have not been seen everywhere by Curiosity. Compare for example this layered cliff with the massive outcrop dubbed Siccar Point and looked at closely by the rover in October. In that outcrop the layers were either non-existent, or merged together during some subsequent geological process.

Note also the pond of sand/dust at the center-bottom, nestled in a hollow but sitting almost vertical. That the dust can maintain itself at such an angle illustrates Mars’ lighter gravity, about 39% of Earth’s, which in turn allows for a much steeper angle of repose. That lighter gravity also allows for some sections of rock to stick out more precariously than possible on Earth.

As Curiosity moves through the notch in the next few days, more such cool pictures will become available, and I shall post them.

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