November 29, 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.
- Australian rocket startup Gilmour delays first launch of its Eris Rocket to mid-January
The delay appears mostly to avoid conflict with the Christmas holidays. The launch will be from Gilmour’s own Bowen spaceport on the east coast of Australia.
- South Korea reports a sea launch platform from an unnamed “satellite launch startup” ran aground due heavy weather
The picture suggests this ship was far too small to launch anything orbital. I suspect it was instead used for communications support during launches.
- ABL replaces its CEO in its new focus on missile defense
One co-founder has stepped down, while the other has now taken charge.
- Vast touts its ongoing work on its Haven-1 space station module
The company is building it in-house, and is targeting ’26 for a launch and manned mission.
- Rocket Lab touts on-going testing of the second stage of its new Neutron rocket
The company continues to target ’25 for the first launch.
- Pdf of Chinese science paper outlining decision process to pick landing site for its Mars sample return mission
No decisions apparently have yet been made, other than the landing will be somewhere between 17 to 30 degrees north latitude, with all but one of the candidate sites in the northern lowland plains.
- On this day in 1969, the Soviet Union accidentally crashed a spacecraft in China, at a time the two nations were not talking to each other
The spacecraft was part of a program to test upper stages for future lunar missions, but few details are really known about the whole project.
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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
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.
- Australian rocket startup Gilmour delays first launch of its Eris Rocket to mid-January
The delay appears mostly to avoid conflict with the Christmas holidays. The launch will be from Gilmour’s own Bowen spaceport on the east coast of Australia.
- South Korea reports a sea launch platform from an unnamed “satellite launch startup” ran aground due heavy weather
The picture suggests this ship was far too small to launch anything orbital. I suspect it was instead used for communications support during launches.
- ABL replaces its CEO in its new focus on missile defense
One co-founder has stepped down, while the other has now taken charge.
- Vast touts its ongoing work on its Haven-1 space station module
The company is building it in-house, and is targeting ’26 for a launch and manned mission.
- Rocket Lab touts on-going testing of the second stage of its new Neutron rocket
The company continues to target ’25 for the first launch.
- Pdf of Chinese science paper outlining decision process to pick landing site for its Mars sample return mission
No decisions apparently have yet been made, other than the landing will be somewhere between 17 to 30 degrees north latitude, with all but one of the candidate sites in the northern lowland plains.
- On this day in 1969, the Soviet Union accidentally crashed a spacecraft in China, at a time the two nations were not talking to each other
The spacecraft was part of a program to test upper stages for future lunar missions, but few details are really known about the whole project.
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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. 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 Soviet Union accidentally crashed a spacecraft in China . . . ”
Who knew that a young engineer in the nascent Chinese space program saw that, and thought, ‘Hey, that’s not a bad idea.’
I know that Neutron is supposed to be around the same class/size as the Falcon 9, but seeing the second stage “in the flesh” really drives the point home. Can’t wait to see it fly! (And come back.)
China’s latest
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/chinese-space-program.5642/page-35