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My February birthday fund-raising campaign for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone that so generously donated. You don’t have to give anything to read my work, and yet so many of you donate or subscribe. I can’t express what that support means to me.

 

For those who still wish to support my work, please consider donating or subscribing to Behind the Black, either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:

 

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Launch failure for Arianespace’s Vega-C rocket

The second launch of Arianespace’s Vega-C rocket, an upgrade from the Vega rocket that has launched previously, failed yesterday when a problem with the second stage occurred at 2 minutes 27 seconds into the flight.

Designated Vega Vehicle 22 (VV22), the rocket was the second Vega flight of the year and Arianespace’s fifth mission of 2022. VV22 was originally set to launch in November 2022, but a component in the upper composite in the payload fairing needed to be replaced. The launch failure occurred during stage 2 flight, with CEO Stephane Israel citing an “underpressure” indicated during that stage’s burn.

I have embedded video of the launch below, cued to T-30 seconds, just before launch. The rocket was carrying two Earth observation satellites built by Airbus.

The rocket itself has four stages, with the failure occurring when the second stage clearly did not maintain the rocket’s correct path. Though it appeared to be working, it was not providing enough power, so instead of continuing upward into space, the rocket fell back into the atmosphere.

Genesis cover

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 from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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

2 comments

  • Bill Mullen

    OMG the Female announcer is awful. She is so afraid of having dead air, that she has to ask David to speculate as to what happened. I can imagine him sitting across the table giving her the stink eye!

  • Jeff Wright

    Solids-which you need for deterrants-are tough to master…and the only way to do that is to stay in practice. SRBs are a wonder of engineering. It still astounds me that no shuttle ever cartwheeled right off the pad.

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