China launches gamma-ray space telescope
China today successfully launched the Space-based Multi-band Variable Object Monitor (SVOM) gamma-ray space telescope, a 20-year-long joint Chinese-French project to monitor astronomical gamma ray bursts.
SVOM was placed in orbit by a Long March 2C rocket lifting off from China’s Xichang spaceport in the southwest of China. No word on where the rocket’s lower stages — which use very toxic hypergolic fuels — crashed inside China. UPDATE: See this video from China. Apparently one stage landed close to homes, spewing that orange hypergolic fuel.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
64 SpaceX
28 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise still leads the world combined in successful launches, 75 to 42, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including other American companies, 64 to 53.
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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.
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China today successfully launched the Space-based Multi-band Variable Object Monitor (SVOM) gamma-ray space telescope, a 20-year-long joint Chinese-French project to monitor astronomical gamma ray bursts.
SVOM was placed in orbit by a Long March 2C rocket lifting off from China’s Xichang spaceport in the southwest of China. No word on where the rocket’s lower stages — which use very toxic hypergolic fuels — crashed inside China. UPDATE: See this video from China. Apparently one stage landed close to homes, spewing that orange hypergolic fuel.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
64 SpaceX
28 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise still leads the world combined in successful launches, 75 to 42, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including other American companies, 64 to 53.
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.
You been here four hour–you go now
https://x.com/CNSpaceflight/status/1804542638034661522
Jeff Wright: Thank you. I have added this video to the post.
Mr. Zimmerman,
of course it is a disgrace that China is exposing its population to these dangers. But a small correction: what we see here as an orange plume of fumes is not (!) the fuel, as you wrote, but the remaining oxidizer still in the tank, namely N2O4 (nitrous oxide). The fuel is probably UDMH, which produces white fumes.
Questioner: N2O4 is nitrogen tetroxide, not nitrous oxide.
David M. Cook, you are right. The translator was not working properly, which I missed.
Nitric acid has been used with kerosene before IIRC—just not in this rocket.