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As I do every July, it is once again time for my annual anniversary fund-raising campaign to support this website and the work I do here.

 

This year I celebrate Behind the Black’s sixteenth anniversary. In those sixteen years I have done more than 35,000 posts (which means I added more than 2,000 in the last year), with my main focus covering the global space industry and the related planetary and astronomical science that comes from it. Along the way I sometimes also post my thoughts on the politics and culture of the time, partly because I think it is important for free Americans to do so, and partly because those politics and culture have a direct impact on the future of our civilization and its on-going efforts to explore and eventually colonized the solar system.

 

You can’t understand one without understanding the other.

 

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:

 

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. Takes about a 10% cut.

 

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NASA switches launch provider from ULA to SpaceX for its SunRise solar mission

NASA yesterday announced that it has switched the rocket it will use to launch its SunRise six-cubesat mission to study the Sun’s corona, from ULA’s Vulcan rocket to SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, becoming a secondary payload on a Space Force launch.

NASA’s SunRISE (Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment) mission will launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, shifting from its original ride into space aboard a United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur vehicle. NASA will share updated launch timing in the near future. The heliophysics mission will fly as a rideshare sponsored by the United States Space Force’s Space Systems Command.

The launch was originally supposed to take place now, in the summer of 2026, but at present the Vulcan rocket is grounded due to problems with its solid-fueled strap-on boosters. NASA apparently decided it would be better to switch to the Falcon Heavy launch, even though as a secondary payload it loses control over exactly when it can launch, and at present the Space Force’s next Falcon Heavy launch is scheduled for 2027.

The switch means a loss of more income for ULA due to its inability to get Vulcan launching regularly and reliably. It also suggests Vulcan repairs remains stalled, and that it will not resume regular launches until next year.

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

3 comments

3 comments

  • Dick Eagleson

    Given NASA’s level of “insight” into the status of Vulcan, this decision just bolsters my notion that Amazon Leo is secretly negotiating with SpaceX for a Really Big Block Buy of F9 launches to insure its constellation gets deployed by the three-years-from-now deadline. Vulcan was supposed to do the biggest part of the Amazon Leo deployment job, but its ability to do so is now in serious question – more serious than we previously knew it would seem. Even the Trump administration FCC has indicated that the window at the mercy bank is now closed to further withdrawals for Amazon Leo. Amazon either has its full constellation on-orbit by 7-30-2029 or it will have to make do with whatever population of birds it has managed to loft by that date.

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