Oman: 1st launch from Duqm spaceport by the end of the year
According to an announcement yesterday Oman plans to complete its first launch before the end of 2024 from its proposed new spaceport near the city of Duqm on the Indian coast.
The map to the right indicates its location. Oman has dubbed the spaceport Etlaq, and it is being run by what Oman claims is a private company, the National Aerospace Services Company (NASCOM), but based on what little I can find out, it appears either to be Oman’s space agency, or a variation of the pseudo-companies in China, privately run but very tightly controlled and owned by government officials.
The announcement provided no information about the rocket or launch, which I suspect will be nothing more than a relatively simple suborbital mission, designed to demonstrate they are serious about this spaceport. The news story at the link shows a picture of a very sophisticated rocket resembling India’s GSLV rocket. I think it is a AI image having nothing to do with reality.
This project was first announced in 2023, with more information released in January 2024. It hopes to attract American rocket companies by claiming it is being built to FAA standards.
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
According to an announcement yesterday Oman plans to complete its first launch before the end of 2024 from its proposed new spaceport near the city of Duqm on the Indian coast.
The map to the right indicates its location. Oman has dubbed the spaceport Etlaq, and it is being run by what Oman claims is a private company, the National Aerospace Services Company (NASCOM), but based on what little I can find out, it appears either to be Oman’s space agency, or a variation of the pseudo-companies in China, privately run but very tightly controlled and owned by government officials.
The announcement provided no information about the rocket or launch, which I suspect will be nothing more than a relatively simple suborbital mission, designed to demonstrate they are serious about this spaceport. The news story at the link shows a picture of a very sophisticated rocket resembling India’s GSLV rocket. I think it is a AI image having nothing to do with reality.
This project was first announced in 2023, with more information released in January 2024. It hopes to attract American rocket companies by claiming it is being built to FAA standards.
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
” . . . by claiming it is being built to FAA standards. ‘
That’s a heck of a claim. seeing as how the FAA doesn’t seem to know what it’s standards are.
Another Islamic ICBM attempt—that’s my guess.
One of the “Five Eyes” is an evil eye—likely a mole in the UK—that spilled the beans on a potential strike by Israel upon Iran.
Some scuttlebutt about Iran doing an underground atomic test. Gun-style like Little Boy—not a Plutonium implosion like Fat Man/Trinity….that’s my guess. Don’t know if they kicked it up a notch using a dewar filled with lithium—that would be heavy.
You are forgetting Yemen, the foremost rocket launching superpower* in the region. The Houthis make SpaceX look like slackers, and despite all that allied air power can do (not very much, and at prohibitive cost), they persist in launching whenever they wish to. (Could the FAA / Environmental Protection be called upon to “regulate” this activity?)
*Well, there is Hesbollah.
The take away, of course, is that while the Houthis and Hesbollah operate on a shoestring like SpaceX, our military operates like NASA
with a “cost plus,” no limits budget, and we are seeing the predictable outcome. The Russians are getting a taste of this kind of asymmetrical warfare as well, and one hopes that somebody in the Pentagon is paying attention.