May 20, 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.
- Georgia governor signs law dissolving Camden spaceport plan
The spaceport had been dead due to a voter referendum, but this seals the deal.
- PLD team working with French Space Agency in French Guiana, planning future launches
The Spanish company plans to launch its orbital Miura-5 rocket from there. France, which owns and now runs the spaceport, apparently wants to open it to other independent European companies.
- Another instrument installed on Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander
The launch is presently targeting a launch this year.
- China’s Long March 2D launch today tested grid fins on first stage
This apparently was the third such test, aimed at simply narrowing the crash sites for these stages, not recovering the stages.
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.
- Georgia governor signs law dissolving Camden spaceport plan
The spaceport had been dead due to a voter referendum, but this seals the deal.
- PLD team working with French Space Agency in French Guiana, planning future launches
The Spanish company plans to launch its orbital Miura-5 rocket from there. France, which owns and now runs the spaceport, apparently wants to open it to other independent European companies.
- Another instrument installed on Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander
The launch is presently targeting a launch this year.
- China’s Long March 2D launch today tested grid fins on first stage
This apparently was the third such test, aimed at simply narrowing the crash sites for these stages, not recovering the stages.
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
As long as this is an open thread for space-related topics, I urge everyone to check out Tory Bruno’s Twitter feed. He has photos of stacks of Atlas V first stages, Centaur III upper stages (for Atlas V), and Centaur V upper stages (for Vulcan). In addition, he has a photo of both BE-4s integrated on the next Vulcan (for the Cert-2 mission) and has stated that the first engine for the next Vulcan (for USSF-106) has been installed and the second engine has passed ATP and is being boxed up for shipment.
It sounds like they really are just waiting for payloads right now.
mkent: As much as I have criticized Blue Origin over the past five years, I am increasingly encouraged by the positive change that seems to have come over the company since Bob Smith left last fall. I truly hope it is able to deliver on the 100+ engines that both ULA and itself need in the next few years.
Re: LM 2D grid fins. China, being a socialist state, does not need to save money on launches. Nor do they need to provide a lower price to their customers, because they have no customers. Socialism does not lend itself to advancing technology, unless they can steal from a nearby capitalist state as the Soviet Union did for many years.
What will it take to launch the 3,236 satellites required for the Kuiper project? Can Blue Origin launch all of them on their own in the time frame per the licensing?
To David Cook,
It was precisely the backwardness of Soviet atomics and electronics that allowed the (then) mammoth R-7 to begin the space race in earnest.
They had no fear of size and didn’t have profit-seeking Boeing suits slowing them down.
It must also be allowed that early Soviets were Cosmists/futurists…wishing to expand the noosphere, unlike today’s Greens who want us all in caves.
Libertarian theology is self contradictory in teaching fear of an all pervasive government that is also supposed to be incompetent
DJ: If you do a search on this website for “Kuiper” “ULA” you will find that Amazon has launch contracts with ULA, Blue Origin, and Arianespace. It also signed a deal for I think two launches with SpaceX, just to discount a shareholder lawsuit for not doing so.