February 7, 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.
- BE-4 engine rolled out for installation on ULA’s next Vulcan rocket
Jay writes, “Rumor is that there are only five BE4 engines built after the last two were used.” If so, there will be serious shortage once ULA starts launching Vulcans at the rate it plans, twice a month.
- Webb detects two exoplanets orbiting two different white dwarfs
Neither detection is as yet confirmed.
- Russian proposal to fly a “Kosmoplan space plane (a kind of BOR-4/Fat Spiral) for the future Russian space station”
This is essentially their version of Dream Chaser. It is also nothing more than a powerpoint presentation. Based on past Russian performance, the odds of it getting built are slim to none.
- Japanese lunar lander company Ispace unveils its micro-rover
It is named Resilience, and will fly on their second lunar landing mission, Hakuto-R2.
- Six years ago today the Falcon Heavy launched successfully
My 2018 post on that launch can be read here.
- Today in 1984 astronaut Bruce McCandless performed the first untethered spacewalk using a jetpack
While neat, NASA found the jetpack impractical and abandoned it. It was simpler to do ordinary tethered spacewalks then deal with the jetpack’s added weight and complexity
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. Or you can buy it directly from the author and get an autographed copy.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.
- BE-4 engine rolled out for installation on ULA’s next Vulcan rocket
Jay writes, “Rumor is that there are only five BE4 engines built after the last two were used.” If so, there will be serious shortage once ULA starts launching Vulcans at the rate it plans, twice a month.
- Webb detects two exoplanets orbiting two different white dwarfs
Neither detection is as yet confirmed.
- Russian proposal to fly a “Kosmoplan space plane (a kind of BOR-4/Fat Spiral) for the future Russian space station”
This is essentially their version of Dream Chaser. It is also nothing more than a powerpoint presentation. Based on past Russian performance, the odds of it getting built are slim to none.
- Japanese lunar lander company Ispace unveils its micro-rover
It is named Resilience, and will fly on their second lunar landing mission, Hakuto-R2.
- Six years ago today the Falcon Heavy launched successfully
My 2018 post on that launch can be read here.
- Today in 1984 astronaut Bruce McCandless performed the first untethered spacewalk using a jetpack
While neat, NASA found the jetpack impractical and abandoned it. It was simpler to do ordinary tethered spacewalks then deal with the jetpack’s added weight and complexity
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. Or you can buy it directly from the author and get an autographed copy.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The Russians couldn’t even get Kliper built—snd that long before current sanctions.