January 2, 2025 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.
- The rough specs of the Chinese Halong re-usable mini-shuttle being built to ferry cargo to the Tiangong-3 space station
It can carry two tons of cargo and stay docked for three months, then return with cargo.
- Chinese pseudo-company Landspace touts completion of nine engines for its Zhuque-3 rocket
The rocket is essentially a copy of the Falcon 9, with a re-usable first stage. The first three launches in ’25 will use an older version, followed by the upgraded re-usable version.
- A detailed survey of the new rockets China will launch in 2025
Most of the rockets are coming from pseudo-companies, with several aiming for re-usability soon thereafter.
- Astronomers now posit that at least one fast radio burst came from the magnetosphere of neutron star
Interesting study, with a lot of uncertainty.
- Eutelsat-OneWeb constellation down for two days, now back in operation
The outage was caused because software did not realize 2024 was a leap year.
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either. IMPORTANT! If you donate enough to get a book, please email me separately to tell me which book you want and the address to mail it to.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID 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. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
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.
- The rough specs of the Chinese Halong re-usable mini-shuttle being built to ferry cargo to the Tiangong-3 space station
It can carry two tons of cargo and stay docked for three months, then return with cargo.
- Chinese pseudo-company Landspace touts completion of nine engines for its Zhuque-3 rocket
The rocket is essentially a copy of the Falcon 9, with a re-usable first stage. The first three launches in ’25 will use an older version, followed by the upgraded re-usable version.
- A detailed survey of the new rockets China will launch in 2025
Most of the rockets are coming from pseudo-companies, with several aiming for re-usability soon thereafter.
- Astronomers now posit that at least one fast radio burst came from the magnetosphere of neutron star
Interesting study, with a lot of uncertainty.
- Eutelsat-OneWeb constellation down for two days, now back in operation
The outage was caused because software did not realize 2024 was a leap year.
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either. IMPORTANT! If you donate enough to get a book, please email me separately to tell me which book you want and the address to mail it to.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID 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. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
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.
Haolong? 10 meters long! :)
Re: Leap Year software
I thought we’d seen the last of this sort of thing in the late 90s when so much software had to be rejiggered to handle 4-digit year values. My own experience with Leap Year calcs lies more than a half-century in the past when I was writing a library of calendar arithmetic subroutines for a then-cutting-edge on-line hospital system using assembly language on a Xerox Data Systems Sigma-series mainframe. My stuff way back then apparently worked better than what present-day Europeans can turn out.
“Boeing’s 737 Max Software Outsourced to $9-an-Hour Engineers”
“It remains the mystery at the heart of Boeing Co.’s 737 Max crisis: how a company renowned for meticulous design made seemingly basic software mistakes leading to a pair of deadly crashes. Longtime Boeing engineers say the effort was complicated by a push to outsource work to lower-paid contractors.”
“Increasingly, the iconic American planemaker and its subcontractors have relied on temporary workers making as little as $9 an hour to develop and test software, often from countries lacking a deep background in aerospaceーnotably India.”
https://www.industryweek.com/supply-chain/article/22027840/boeings-737-max-software-outsourced-to-9-an-hour-engineers