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.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
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P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
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.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Here is a nice link of lander effects upon regolith
https://phys.org/news/2023-04-planet-safely.html
The white paper
https://pubs.aip.org/aip/pof/article/35/4/043331/2885299/Full-continuum-approach-for-simulating-plume
Some thoughts from the paper–though developed for thin or non-existent atmospheres:
“As mentioned earlier, although the investigated geometry is axisymmetric, some non-axisymmetric features can be observed on the dusty beds. This counterintuitive feature was observed in our preliminary studies….The NSF solution under-predicts the location of the reflected shock [consequently, the standoff shock (SS) position].”
These might be the gays to ask about what happened here:
https://phys.org/news/2023-04-giant-spacex-rocket-crater-texas.html
This may count as the *strangest* NASA story I have seen in a long time, and may deserve at least inclusion in the next Quick Space Links: Ashlee Vance’s new forthcoming book (When the Heavens Went on Sale: The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space Within Reach) relates an amazing anecdote about the time the FBI tried to figure out if Obama and Elon Musk, among others, were trying to destroy the US space program via NASA.
Still, things escalated quickly and dramatically from that point. A group of Ames employees handed Congress a fifty-five-page report that, according to Worden, suggested the existence of a far-reaching conspiracy to destroy the US space program. Not only were Worden and his buddies allegedly involved in the conspiracy, but so, too, were President Barack Obama, Elon Musk, and Lori Garver, the deputy administrator of NASA, who had been a major advocate of SpaceX and private space exploration. Fueled by the document, the FBI kicked off an investigation that ended up taking four years and dragged Ames through the press as a bastion of spies.
Lori Garver responded directly to this revelation with a tweet a few hours ago: “I wrote in my own book about the orchestrated attempt to paint me, @elonmusk, @POTUS44 & others as trying to destroy the US space program. Attacks on us came from such a wide range of directions I’d forgotten the Ames paper! FBI should have investigated those making the charges!”
https://twitter.com/ashleevance/status/1652815580406386688