September 19, 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.
- Blacksky wins contract from Australian company to use its satellite constellation to gather images of orbiting objects
The company is HEO, and it wants the data for “defense, intelligence, and commcial use.”
- Blue Origin’s New Glenn landing barge, Jacklyn, departed Port Canaveral this morning for sea trials
The company says it will attempt a first stage landing on the first launch of New Glenn, but if so there isn’t much time for these trials before the launch, now targeting sometime before the end of the year.
- China touts the success of Yutu-2, which it says is still working on the Moon’s far side nearly 5 years and 9 months after launch
The tweet says it has now traveled a total distance of 1,613 meters, which is just over one mile.
- On this day in 1962 the weather satellite TIROS 6 was launched
It was the sixth in a series of increasingly sophisticated satellites, following the first in April 1960.
The support of my readers through the years has given 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. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
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. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to 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.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me 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.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
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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. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
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.
- Blacksky wins contract from Australian company to use its satellite constellation to gather images of orbiting objects
The company is HEO, and it wants the data for “defense, intelligence, and commcial use.”
- Blue Origin’s New Glenn landing barge, Jacklyn, departed Port Canaveral this morning for sea trials
The company says it will attempt a first stage landing on the first launch of New Glenn, but if so there isn’t much time for these trials before the launch, now targeting sometime before the end of the year.
- China touts the success of Yutu-2, which it says is still working on the Moon’s far side nearly 5 years and 9 months after launch
The tweet says it has now traveled a total distance of 1,613 meters, which is just over one mile.
- On this day in 1962 the weather satellite TIROS 6 was launched
It was the sixth in a series of increasingly sophisticated satellites, following the first in April 1960.
The support of my readers through the years has given 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. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
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. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to 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.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me 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.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. 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. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
SpaceNews had an image of a Starlink satellite from Black sky
–only it was a picture of ISS…(corrected now)
SpaceX letter to Congress.
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1836923457960919224?s=46
Regarding the SpaceX letter to Congress: Yeah, this really has to be read to be believed.
There’s one episode involving the Echostar-3 launch (Part 3(j)) related in here which bears some discussion: In the letter, SpaceX points out the FAA did not elect to stop the launch with the unapproved tank farm, even though they had the opportunity to do so. SpaceX sees this as an implicit agreement of safety/approval.
A commenter on the SpaceXLounge subreddit, Know-Your_Rites, makes a great point about this claim:
“It’s a little more complicated. SpaceX says the FAA did not elect to use its authority “on console” to stop the launch, but that the FAA did send SpaceX a letter in the middle of the launch countdown. SpaceX pointedly does not tell us what that mid-countdown letter said, but from context it seems like the letter said “you’re still not approved for launch.”
“Apparently SpaceX then called up the FAA and said “this is a crazy and potentially unsafe way to tell us our launch isn’t approved,” and the FAA guy said, “yeah probably” and didn’t explicitly order a stand down, so SpaceX took that as permission to go ahead and launch.”
https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1fkmp65/spacexs_letter_to_congress_regarding_the_current/
I would say that it’s mind-boggling that the FAA staff had several weeks to review this, and literally only gets back to SpaceX in the middle of the launch countdown for the mission with a letter suggesting the change is not approved after all, and then sheepishly admits that this isn’t exactly the safest way to run their regulatory railroad — except that, well, it’s kinda not.
The FAA’s space division feels like an operation built to operate at telegraph speed, suddenly thrust into the age of repeater satellites and optical fibers.
Richard M: Another point that must be noted is that these incidents all occurred more than a year ago. Yet the FAA felt no need to do anything until now, right after SpaceX finally went public with its criticisms about the FAA’s red tape related to Starship/Superheavy.
I also must say at this point I feel somewhat vindicated. A lot of people in the space community accused me of being unfair to the FAA with my criticisms of it since 2022, when in truth my criticisms now appear right on the money. As I said repeatedly, something corrupt is going on in the bowels of FAA management, likely connected to political pressure from higher ups in the White House.
What remains tragic to me is that very few others in the press — even in the space press — were willing to hold the FAA’s feet to the fire. Instead, they went out of their way to belittle my concerns or defend the FAA or lay the blame on SpaceX. Yet, it is the job of the press to make government people uncomfortable, not criticize other press people for doing so. As such, this story is just another example of our vaunted free press getting captured by the government to act as its agent.
Since Musk bought Twitter and, especially, since he threw in with Trump, it has become flagrantly obvious that the current – and would-be next – Democrat regimes intend to try doing to Musk what they’ve long-since been trying to do to Trump. It is imperative that these grifters and petty führers be turfed out ASAP.
Hello Bob, Dick,
1. The timing of these fines is…curious, indeed.
2. As Mr. Wright has observed, the FAA is is still rather opaque about motivations at work. How much is a) ineptitude, b) understaffing, c) simple bureaucratic retaliation, and d) politically directed attacks? No doubt all could be at work, but in what mixture? Whereas with the FCC and DOJ, they don’t seem to be even trying much to hide the political motives now.
3. Speaking of which, an anecdote of contrasts: Eric Berger was just on the Off Nominal podcast again yesterday, this time to promote his new book on SpaceX, Reentry. Berger recounts the book’s discussion of SpaceX’s first attempt to do a Falcon 9 landing on a drone ship in 2014. The whole thing was an insane fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants operation on par with the Falcon 1 days. Port Canaveral had actually refused SpaceX any dock space because they thought the whole thing was insane and dangerous, so SpaceX was forced to scramble to secure pier space up at Jacksonville. The whole operation was so rushed that when the drone ship left the port, they literally had no structure in place for receiving the booster if they *did* manage to catch it. The engineers just whipped up a sketch of what they thought would work, rushed to pour the concrete, and prayed it would set by the time the drone ship brought the booster back. The landing was a failure, of course, but that isn’t the point.
Amazed, Jack and Anthony prodded Eric about just how the FAA handled those early landing attempts. Berger responded that the agency did almost nothing. SpaceX of course filed an outline of what they were going to attempt, as best they could, in the launch license application, and noted that they expected only a 10% chance of success. The FAA simply signed off. No static from them each time the boosters crashed and burned.
Contrast those lazy days with how the FAA is policing SpaceX launch licenses *now*.
4. To Dick’s point: Berger’s final observation was that Elon is taking a hell of a risk in not just backing Trump, but backing him so aggressively. He may well be betting one or more of his companies’ survival on this election — or possibly, at minimum, his continued involvement with them, which probably amounts to the same thing. If Harris wins it seems almost certain to expect an even greater exercise in lawfare against him. Of course, Elon may be thinking of what Kipling once said about the dane-geld: “Once you have paid him the Danegeld/ You never get rid of the Dane.” The trick, however, is that you have to be damned well prepared to whip the Dane in the field when he shows up to try to collect his protection money the hard way. It is an open question whether even the richest man in the world can beat back a full-scale assault of the U.S. administrative state.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82mG9lXaOxQ&ab_channel=Off-Nominal
Richard M,
The current and would-be future Democrat White House regimes might as well be Muslim – their one entirely non-negotiable demand of everyone is obedience. If they manage to pull off a second Big Cheat, things may have to get very ugly for awhile in order to forestall the dawning of a new dark age of leftist tyranny. Recent events in Brazil are a foretaste of what can happen here. In point of fact, the current regime in Brazil also cheated its way into office using techniques it was taught by Democratic Party consultants and Deep State types from DC. The people in the shadows who are doing all of this intend to impose PRC-style regimes on the entire currently free world. They must be stopped. The Trump of 2016 wasn’t the man to lead that charge. The Trump of 2024 is a different breed of cat. And Elon understands the stakes too. It is looking very much as though it is “lives, fortunes and sacred honor” time again.