April 9, 2024 Quick space links
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.
Note also that your host today is under the weather, so no culture/political column. I’m posting the quick links early also so I can hit the sack.
- Vast’s Haven-1 announces its Haven-1 commercial space station will use Starlink for internet communications
Vast hopes to launch this first station module by August 2025, using a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Two manned missions are supposedly already scheduled to follow.
- Video of Angara launch abort early today
The abort was caused by “a center core oxidizer tank pressurization system anomaly,” according to Roscosmos head Yuri Borisov. You can hear some sound burst at T-2:43, but there is nothing visible, so the sound could simply be some expected venting. They are going to try again tomorrow.
- Astrobotic’s own mini-rover, CubeRover, is now going to fly on the company’s Griffin lunar lander
To me, this suggests they have unsold payload space. They might as well fly this rover to demonstrate its capabilities.
- On this day 55 years ago NASA introduced the seven astronauts it had selected for its Mercury manned space program
They were Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, Gordon Cooper, Wally Schirra, Deke Slayton, John Glenn, and Scott Carpenter.
The support of my readers through the years has given 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. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
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. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to 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.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five 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:
5. 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. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
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.
Note also that your host today is under the weather, so no culture/political column. I’m posting the quick links early also so I can hit the sack.
- Vast’s Haven-1 announces its Haven-1 commercial space station will use Starlink for internet communications
Vast hopes to launch this first station module by August 2025, using a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Two manned missions are supposedly already scheduled to follow.
- Video of Angara launch abort early today
The abort was caused by “a center core oxidizer tank pressurization system anomaly,” according to Roscosmos head Yuri Borisov. You can hear some sound burst at T-2:43, but there is nothing visible, so the sound could simply be some expected venting. They are going to try again tomorrow.
- Astrobotic’s own mini-rover, CubeRover, is now going to fly on the company’s Griffin lunar lander
To me, this suggests they have unsold payload space. They might as well fly this rover to demonstrate its capabilities.
- On this day 55 years ago NASA introduced the seven astronauts it had selected for its Mercury manned space program
They were Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, Gordon Cooper, Wally Schirra, Deke Slayton, John Glenn, and Scott Carpenter.
The support of my readers through the years has given 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. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
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. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to 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.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five 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:
5. 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. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Someone at the National Air and Space Museum can’t do arithmetic. The Mercury Seven were announced in 1959 – 65 years ago. I’m old enough to remember the occasion.
The imagery of the eclipse from a Starlink satellite is interesting. It is not too surprising that they have cameras since today’s CCD sensors are so small, but it makes one speculate about how game changing it could be if 10 years from now about 10,000 Starlink V3 satellites also offer near realtime high resolution telephoto imagery of any location on the planet from high quality integrated cameras. No more time lag to wait for a satellite pass.
I’d expect this to be part of military Starshield satellites at the least. And probably SAR radar too.
MDN,
Almost certainly SAR. About all it would take to make a Starlink bird into a SAR bird is a modestly modified software load.
“… if 10 years from now about 10,000 Starlink V3 satellites also offer near realtime high resolution telephoto imagery of any location on the planet…”
Combined with the AI of a decade from now, I think that would tickle the Deep State’s fancy!!