October 22, 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.
- Next American unmanned lunar mission is Firefly before end of year, landing in early ’25, with Intuitive Machines next attempt launching and landing at about the same time
If both go off as promised the end of the year will be quite interesting.
- Intuitive Machines picks Cobalt-60 as fuel for new spacecraft electrical power source
This appears to be the first time Cobalt-60 has ever been used. From Jay: “It is easy to make Co-60, just bombard iron with neutrons. It happens all the time at nuclear reactors when stray neutrons hit steel, but it has a short half life of five years. It puts outs beta decay, that is what they are using for heat, but the gamma rays it puts out worries me with the electronics. They probably licked that problem or else they would not do it.”
- Vast unveils a new website
Nicely done. Simple and easy to navigate.
- Long March 2F and Shenzhou capsule now at launchpad for eighth manned mission to China’s Tiangong-3 space station
The video provides a lot of visual shots of the rocket, the stacked spacecraft, and the launchpad. The grid fins on what I think is the rocket’s upper stage are most intriguing. That stage takes the capsule into orbit. Is China trying to bring it back to Earth for reuse?
- A picture of Laika, the first dog in space, launched November 3, 1957 on Sputnik 2
The Soviets made no plans to bring her back to Earth, and so she died in space.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the 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. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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.
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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.
- Next American unmanned lunar mission is Firefly before end of year, landing in early ’25, with Intuitive Machines next attempt launching and landing at about the same time
If both go off as promised the end of the year will be quite interesting.
- Intuitive Machines picks Cobalt-60 as fuel for new spacecraft electrical power source
This appears to be the first time Cobalt-60 has ever been used. From Jay: “It is easy to make Co-60, just bombard iron with neutrons. It happens all the time at nuclear reactors when stray neutrons hit steel, but it has a short half life of five years. It puts outs beta decay, that is what they are using for heat, but the gamma rays it puts out worries me with the electronics. They probably licked that problem or else they would not do it.”
- Vast unveils a new website
Nicely done. Simple and easy to navigate.
- Long March 2F and Shenzhou capsule now at launchpad for eighth manned mission to China’s Tiangong-3 space station
The video provides a lot of visual shots of the rocket, the stacked spacecraft, and the launchpad. The grid fins on what I think is the rocket’s upper stage are most intriguing. That stage takes the capsule into orbit. Is China trying to bring it back to Earth for reuse?
- A picture of Laika, the first dog in space, launched November 3, 1957 on Sputnik 2
The Soviets made no plans to bring her back to Earth, and so she died in space.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the 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. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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.
Laika: The Tragic Story of the First Dog in Space
https://youtu.be/GW5vQnPuCA4
28:10
R-7/Soyuz also uses grid fins–for aborts.
That’s likely the case here too.
N-1 had them at the base.
Some bombs have them.
Here’s Homer Simpson on Co-60
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D–jytkUW8
tl;dr he should be dead.
Jeff Wright, you said “N-1 had them at the base.”
Were they movable? The pictures I have seen implied they were hinged at one edge, the edge toward the booster. This might mean they were designed to induce more or less drag as a steering mechanism. Can you elaborate?
Ps. The N1 grid fins in photos I recall seeing seemed to have a much finer grid structure than the SpaceX variety, as if they might actually be for drag. As I recall, some NSF L2 commenters (when I used to be there) asserted that grid fins work by drag, which I disputed.
In other news, ULA began stacking the Vulcan launch vehicle for USSF-106, so they must be at least a little confident that the anomaly investigation for Cert-2 won’t take too long.
I’m honestly starting to feel more optimistic (cautiously optimistic) about VAST’s space station prospects than I am Axiom’s. It feels like a lean, mean operation, trying hard for a first mover advantage. And it is not run by any former government bureaucrats.
Slick website.
Richard M,
Agree about Vast. Their intent seems to be that enunciated by Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest – “get there fustest with the mostest.” If Vast can get Haven-1 up in late 2025 or early 2026 and follow up with the initial Haven-2 4-module configuration by 2028, they will have their porchlight lit well before ISS goes into the drink and well in advance of any of their notional competitors.
Also agree about the nature of the Vast organization anent Axiom. Vast has 600 people and are making most of their own stuff – very SpaceX-ish vertical integration. But Vast has a fair number of SpaceX alums on its roster and seems intent on sliding neatly into the Greater SpaceX Space Ecosystem. All the launch services for their station modules will be provided by SpaceX. Thrusters for the Havens Vast is buying from Tom Mueller’s outfit Impulse Space. Those big round windows are probably from an outside supplier too, but I don’t know that for a fact.
Axiom, meanwhile, has had 800 on its payroll and has contracted out the manufacture of most of its hardware. Makes one wonder what all those people do there all day. But Axiom co-founder Mike Suffredini is now out.
There is more than a faint whiff of Rocketplane-Kistler wafting from Axiom I must confess. A management cadre of old NASA hands led by the late George Mueller (no relation to Tom) took over Rp-K from its founders and then proceeded to make a controlled flight into terrain as the NTSB puts it. A key error was abandoning all the work of the original Kistler team and contracting a much more conventional design out to legacy aerospace.
I’d very much like to see Axiom’s station become a thing – and also their lunar EVA suits – but I share your misgivings as to how likely that now is. I hope Axiom manages to Pull Up!, Pull Up!, Pull Up! in time to avoid a crash.
Dick Eagleson wrote: “But Vast has a fair number of SpaceX alums on its roster and seems intent on sliding neatly into the Greater SpaceX Space Ecosystem.”
SpaceX alumni would explain why Vast seems to be developing its space station so rapidly. The company got a late start, yet it may be the first in space. They also seem willing to put up a prototype module that will become obsolete within a couple of years. SpaceX did something similar with Starlink. Early satellites that were obsolete on launch allowed them to test reality before sending up its operational version of Starlink, and Vast may be planning a similar tactic for Haven-2.