Author: Robert Zimmerman

SpaceX launches NASA X-ray telescope

9:17 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX early this morning successfully launched NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), a small X-ray telescope designed to black holes and neutron stars.

The first stage, making its fifth flight, successfully landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

This launch, SpaceX’s 28th for 2021, extends once again the company’s all time record for the most launches in a year by a private company.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

46 China
28 SpaceX
21 Russia
6 Europe (Arianespace)
5 ULA
5 Rocket Lab

China’s lead over the U.S, in the national rankings has now shrunk to 46 to 45. The launch was the 121st in 2021, making this year tied as the seventh most active year in the history of space, a ranking that is sure to go up before the end of the year.

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Rocket Lab successfully launches two more BlackSky Earth observation satellites

5:15 pm

Capitalism in space: Rocket Lab today successfully launched from its launchpad in New Zealand two more satellite for the Earth observation company BlackSky, completing the launch only 21 days after their previous launch, tying the company’s fastest turnaround.

This was Rocket Lab’s fifth launch in 2021, which the company states will be its last this year. At the start of the year it had predicted it would complete this number, so the company has at least matched its expectations for 2021, despite governmental hold-ups in both New Zealand and Wallops Island that slowed the launch pace.

The leaders in the 2021 launch:

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

China’s lead over the U.S. in the national rankings is now 46 to 44. SpaceX has a scheduled launch later tonight, so the race between the two countries should continue to tighten.

This was also the 120th successful launch in 2021, the most in a single year since 1984, and making it the ninth most active year in the history of space exploration.

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Strange eroded glacial flows in unnamed crater on Mars

12:20 pm

Eroded glacial flows in unnamed crater on Mars
Click for full resolution image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on November 1, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a series of strange glacial-like flows coming off the western slopes of the central peak of a 40-mile-wide unnamed crater, located smack dab in what I call Mars’ glacier country, that 2,000 long mid-latitude strip where almost every image shows evidence of glaciers.

The cropped section to the right doesn’t really do these strange flows justice. Make sure you click on the image to see the full resolution version. There are numerous separate flows coming off that central peak. Each appears to show that as time passed, each flow traveled a shorter distance down the mountain, leaving a moraine behind at higher and higher points.

The overview map below provides the context.
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Colorado Democrats move to blacklist all mascots and imagery honoring the American Indian

11:25 am

American Indian banned by Democrats
The American Indian, banned by Democrats

Blacklists are back and the Democrats have got ’em: After the Democrats controlling the state government in Colorado passed a bill banning the use of any mascot or imagery that makes any reference to any American Indian tribe or cultural icon, a Native American group immediately filed suit, claiming that the policy essentially discriminates against American Indians, banning them from the public sector in all ways.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis [a Democrat], who is listed as a defendant in the lawsuit, in June signed Senate Bill 21-116 into law, which prohibits public schools from using “a name, symbol, or image that depicts or refers to an American Indian tribe, individual, custom, or tradition that is used as a mascot, nickname, logo, letter, or team name.” Schools with American Indian-themed mascots have until June 1, 2022 to cease use or face $25,000 fines each month for noncompliance, according to the law, which doesn’t apply if a school has an existing agreement with a federally recognized tribe.

The lawsuit, which was filed [in early November] in U.S. District Court by the Mountain States Legal Foundation, a conservative public-interest law firm, is brought by current and former Yuma High School students and the Native American Guardian’s Association (NAGA), a nonprofit that advocates for the recognition of Native American heritage.
» Read more

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NASA upgrades software for monitoring potentially dangerous asteroids

9:59 am

NASA has installed a major upgrade to the software it uses for monitoring, tracking, and predicting the future orbits of potentially dangerous asteroids.

Sentry [the original software used for the past 20 years] was very effective at calculating orbital paths based on how an asteroid is affected by the gravitational pull of the Sun and planets, but there were a few factors that it couldn’t account for. In the long run, these uncertainties can snowball into many possible orbits that may or may not impact Earth.

The Yarkovsky effect, for instance, is where the Sun unevenly heats the surface of an asteroid as it spins, creating thermal forces between the “day” and “night” sides of the rock that can produce thrust. Other times, asteroids that swing past Earth very closely could be nudged into different orbits by the planet’s gravity, changing the paths of their eventual return.

The first Sentry system couldn’t incorporate either of these two factors, meaning that for special case asteroids like Bennu or Apophis, astronomers would have to manually analyze their orbits, which is a complex and time-consuming process.

But Sentry-II is designed to account for things like these. This latest version uses a different algorithm that models thousands of random points within the uncertainty space of an asteroid’s orbit, then figures out which ones have a chance of striking Earth in future. This, the team says, could help find scenarios that have very low probability of impact.

What this upgrade means is that as new asteroids are discovered the software will be able to very quickly calculate with better accuracy any potential impacts in the coming centuries. The results won’t be perfect, but less manual work will be necessary, meaning fewer dangerous asteroids will fall through the cracks.

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Where Ingenuity and Perseverance presently sit in Jezero Crater

9:15 am

Perseverance and Ingenuity, December 8, 2021
Click for interactive map.

The map to the right, annotated to post here, shows the present location of the rover Perseverance (the red dot) in relation to the 17th flight of the helicopter Ingenuity (indicated by the green line and dot) that successfully occurred on December 5, 2021.

Perseverance has been very very very very slowly retreating south, following the same route it took to move into the rough sand dune region the scientists have dubbed Seitah. Based on their long term plans, the rover will retrace its path (the white dotted line) to its landing site, and then continue along the yellow dashed line to eventually reach the base of the delta, dubbed Three Forks, that in the distant past poured through a gap in the rim of Jezero Crater.

The helicopter meanwhile is also retracing its flights, heading north to the spot where Perseverance first placed it on the ground. Because of the seasonally thinner atmosphere, the helicopter’s flights during that return journey must be shorter, which is why the 17th flight only traveled halfway across Seitah. In crossing it the first time it had done so in one flight. Now it will take two.

During that 17th flight it appears that the topography between the rover and the helicopter’s landing site caused a loss of communications as the helicopter was landing.

The Ingenuity team believes the 13-foot (4-meter) height difference between the Perseverance rover and the top of Bras [an outcrop] contributed to the loss of communications when the helicopter descended toward the surface at the end of its flight.

That loss of communications apparently caused no problems, but it will likely mean that Ingenuity will do no more flights until Perseverance can get closer and better positioned.

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Russia launches two tourists to ISS

8:25 am

Capitalism in space: Using its Soyuz-2 rocket and Soyuz capsule, Russia today successfully launched two tourists to ISS.

Onboard the Soyuz is Yusaku Maezawa, a Japanese billionaire known for starting online businesses Start Today and Zozo. In addition to his Soyuz mission, he has a circumlunar flight aboard SpaceX’s Starship—called “dearMoon”—booked for no earlier than 2023. Maezawa purchased both available seats on this flight of Soyuz. He [is] joined by Yozo Hirano—a media producer from Zozo—who will document the MS-20 mission. This flight will mark the first time two Japanese astronauts fly together, as well as the first flight of any Japanese space tourist.

The mission is commanded by experienced Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin, on what is his third spaceflight. During the mission, he will stand ready to pilot the Soyuz in case the automated guidance software fails.

The Russians claim that this is their first tourist flight to ISS since 2009, but that makes believe the two filmmakers launched to ISS in October were not paying passengers. They might have been working on ISS, and not merely tourists, but they were not professional astronauts but paying customers.

This flight however is the first organized with Russia by the American company Space Adventures since 2009, ending that long gap caused almost entirely because all Soyuz seats since then had been bought by NASA to replace the shuttle. With manned Dragon flights available, the Russians and Space Adventures can sell tickets again.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

46 China
27 SpaceX
21 Russia
6 Europe (Arianespace)
5 ULA

China still leads the U.S. 46 to 43 in the national rankings. With SpaceX and Rocket Lab launches set for later tonight, these numbers should rise again.

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