August 21, 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.
- Blue Origin celebrates completion of full-duration static fire test of its BE-7 engine
The engine is for the company’s proposed lunar landers. I can’t help noticing how complex it is compared to SpaceX’s more recent engines.
- For the first time, two rockets are visible at the same time at China’s coastal Wenchang spaceport
The tweet says that the rockets are “Long March 7A in transfer and the Long March 12 in integration.”
- Relativity touts the advantages it sees from its use of 3D printing
The company still hasn’t successfully flown a rocket, but without doubt, its 3D printing operation gives it an asset it can sell for billions.
- ISRO details the mass and launch vehicle for each of the planned modules of its space station
All will fly on its largest rocket, using two different configuations. The image suggests it is following the simple design concepts first used by the Soviets and since copied by the Chinese.
- On this day in 1977, Voyager-2 was launched
It flew past Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus before leaving the solar system. Also, two years earlier on this same day Viking 1 was launched to Mars.
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.
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.
- Blue Origin celebrates completion of full-duration static fire test of its BE-7 engine
The engine is for the company’s proposed lunar landers. I can’t help noticing how complex it is compared to SpaceX’s more recent engines.
- For the first time, two rockets are visible at the same time at China’s coastal Wenchang spaceport
The tweet says that the rockets are “Long March 7A in transfer and the Long March 12 in integration.”
- Relativity touts the advantages it sees from its use of 3D printing
The company still hasn’t successfully flown a rocket, but without doubt, its 3D printing operation gives it an asset it can sell for billions.
- ISRO details the mass and launch vehicle for each of the planned modules of its space station
All will fly on its largest rocket, using two different configuations. The image suggests it is following the simple design concepts first used by the Soviets and since copied by the Chinese.
- On this day in 1977, Voyager-2 was launched
It flew past Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus before leaving the solar system. Also, two years earlier on this same day Viking 1 was launched to Mars.
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.
Wow. To Blue Origin: Video, or it didn’t happen…
The Voyager launches were so long ago, seemingly. I saw the PBS documentary on the probes, and it was a wonderful retrospective complete with music of the day and other pop culture moments, like, “Message From Space: Send more Chuck Berry!” I had entirely forgotten that the ‘Challenger’ blew up the day the Uranus pictures came back from deep space. Alas…
Voyager-2 still has not left the solar system. Still has some ways to go. Our solar system extends to about 10,000 A.U. That is past the Ort cloud.
“For the first time, two rockets are visible at the same time at China’s coastal Wenchang spaceport”
*Yaaaaawn* Call me when you have two rockets landing at the same time.
The Indians seem to be making good progress at overtaking the Russians. Kudos.
Thing is; engineering wise; why do you even want to have a BE-7? Liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen engines have the most complex starting requirements. If your life depended on it, then wouldn’t you want either a pressure fed hypergolic like in the Apollo Lunar Module or you would want an engine that was ubiquitous across thousands of production uses before it is your only way to land or take off?