September 27, 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.
- Direct evidence from China that all its so-called “private” companies are government-controlled
Apparently they jointly created a single entity to share data on developing reusable rockets. Nothing is proprietary.
- American Astronomical Society demands transparency and government supervision for lunar and interplanetary spaceflight activities
The link upholds a pdf. While some of the suggestions make sense, the overall tone is a cry of desperation against the possibility that private entities might operate in space out of the control of the government and this scientific organization.
- NASA approves use of SuperDraco launch abort system should all parachutes fail during landing
Up until now NASA limited use of the SuperDracos to situations where a failure occurred during launch.
- On this day in 1997 Mars Pathfinder and its mini rover Sojourner sent its final data transmission
This lander laid the groundwork for the entire American Mars unmanned exploration program of the past quarter century.
- During this week in 1970 the Soviets’ Luna-16 unmanned lunar probe successfully returned a 1/4 pound of lunar soil to Earth
It was the first time an unmanned mission accomplished this task, though it came after two American manned landings brought back a much greater haul of lunar samples.
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.
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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.
- Direct evidence from China that all its so-called “private” companies are government-controlled
Apparently they jointly created a single entity to share data on developing reusable rockets. Nothing is proprietary.
- American Astronomical Society demands transparency and government supervision for lunar and interplanetary spaceflight activities
The link upholds a pdf. While some of the suggestions make sense, the overall tone is a cry of desperation against the possibility that private entities might operate in space out of the control of the government and this scientific organization.
- NASA approves use of SuperDraco launch abort system should all parachutes fail during landing
Up until now NASA limited use of the SuperDracos to situations where a failure occurred during launch.
- On this day in 1997 Mars Pathfinder and its mini rover Sojourner sent its final data transmission
This lander laid the groundwork for the entire American Mars unmanned exploration program of the past quarter century.
- During this week in 1970 the Soviets’ Luna-16 unmanned lunar probe successfully returned a 1/4 pound of lunar soil to Earth
It was the first time an unmanned mission accomplished this task, though it came after two American manned landings brought back a much greater haul of lunar samples.
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.
Breaking news from Friday’s NASASpaceflight “Flame Trench” stream! Steve Sich (sp), NASA manned spaceflight honcho, has just announced that Dragon manned spacecraft will be able to use their SuperDraco engines to soft land in the event of a parachute failure, including a failure of ALL FOUR chutes!
The most mind-boggling aspect of this is that it apparently not only applies to the upcoming Crew-9 mission, but to the Crew-8 capsule ALREADY IN ORBIT at the ISS! What?!
I have always been horrified at the prospect of a parachute failure killing a spacecraft crew! And I knew that SpaceX originally wanted to use propulsive landing for manned Dragon landings (with parachutes as backup), but NASA choked on the idea.
This is simply amazing.
Curious why there must be a total failure in the primary, before the secondary can be used. I am sure there is redundancy in the system; a soft landing with three ‘chutes, perhaps. But two functioning canopies? Or one? I’d be looking real hard at that switch.
Good grief! NASA has been a joke on this issue all along.
First they denied using SuperDraco which was SpaceX’s original plan, and they even had planned to land a Dragon on Mars with them as a test that would have provided a free (or greatly discounted) ride for another Mars mission. And if we’d done that, then we’d already have a great platform to efficiently build a Mars sample return mission around. Oh well!
So SpaceX had to add parachutes because of NASA , and this added to cost, complexity, and mass to Dragon (the last limiting its payload capacity by a few hundred Kg.). What stupidity.
As far as Super Dracos go, I am certain they have some redundancy designed in or SpaceX never would have proposed them for manned missions. Elon has been very clear that safety takes priority for Man Rated applications. So I expect that however many thrusters there are it can lose 1 or 2 without compromising safety.
One last point. SuperDracos can back up parachutes no problem, but the reverse is not true. If the Dracos fail during a propulsive landing there is no time for any chutes to deploy and save the day.
It is embarrassing to see how stodgy and innovation averse NASA has become. : (
What I’m wondering is: if all four chutes had failed before this, would the crew have just been expected to die in accordance with the NASA dictate forbidding the use of the SuperDracos for landing? If it was possible to ignite them, and the alternative was an unsurvivably hard landing, I don’t think the crew would care what NASA had dictated.
Does this lead to the potential for a parachute landing on land, using the SuperDracos to reduce the touchdown shock ala Soyuz?! Get rid of water landings.
So SpaceX had to add parachutes because of NASA , and this added to cost, complexity, and mass to Dragon (the last limiting its payload capacity by a few hundred Kg.). What stupidity.
As Elon just noted on X, the plan all along was to have parachutes on Crew Dragon. But they were going to be the backup to the Super Dracos. Now, it is going to be the other way around.
That said, unexpected dynamics that showed up in parachute testing did require extensive reworking of the chutes, including the addition of a fourth chute, that perhaps might not have been done had the parachute system merely been an EDL backup. So, maybe it added a little bit of complexity, cost, and mass. But probably not all that much.
What I’m wondering is: if all four chutes had failed before this, would the crew have just been expected to die in accordance with the NASA dictate forbidding the use of the SuperDracos for landing?
It’s a good question. And the official answer, if you asked them on the record, would likely be: “The odds of even just two chutes failing are astronomical, so it’s a moot point anyway.”
But it is also obvious that this is something SpaceX and NASA have been working on for a while…as in, *years*; and of course, the Super Dracos have been in place since day one. It would not surprise me if, on recent NASA Dragon missions, some kind of provisional program *was* sitting in the computer banks that could be activated in a catastrophic chute failure, but it wasn’t something anyone would officially acknowledge.
It is worth noting that in over 200 capsule missions since the dawn of the space age, only once has there ever been a fatal parachute failure: Soyuz 1 in 1967. Of course, it was probably easier to tally up the systems that actually *worked* on Soyuz 1 rather than the systems that failed…
Since unassisted parachutes aren’t going to work for landing anywhere* in the solar system except Earth, I say learn to explore without them, and without water to land in for the same reason!
* anywhere we’re gonna land…
ZimmerBob,
While I yield to no one in the depths of my contempt for whiny and entitled would-be space dictators in the astronomical ranks, I think you have mischaracterized what the American Astronomical Society is seeking with their letter. They are requesting transparency, not control. They simply want a registry of trajectory data for all artificial deep space objects in order to avoid confusing such with natural objects. Seems reasonable to me.
The last paragraph of the letter even suggests that the U.S. government, for some incomprehensible reason, is actively keeping such information secret in certain cases and requests that it stop doing so. I am definitely on-board with that request.
I suspect that, overall, the AAS’s quest for total transparency anent artificial deep space objects will fall short of fulfillment given the increasing number of nations building and launching such things including nations in which secrecy is the default reflex. But good luck to them anyway, say I – at least in this particular case.
Dick Eagleson: Having spent my entire professional life first in the movie business, then as a teacher at a very leftwing college in New York, then as science journalist who had many contacts inside organizations like the AAS, I stand by my position. The AAS would never have issued this kind of political statement prior to 1980. It isn’t its place to do so.
Now however, I am certain there are people in the AAS who want this registry of space objects because it will provide them a tool for attacking the new satellite constellations going up that are going to make ground-based astronomy difficult. Rather than work to establish space-based astronomy to get around this issue and get better data as a bonus, they want to protect the turf, and are looking for any way they can do it.
We mustn’t ever be naive about the motives from national organizations like this. Behind every proposal lurks the lust for power and control.
MDN wrote: “SuperDracos can back up parachutes no problem, but the reverse is not true. If the Dracos fail during a propulsive landing there is no time for any chutes to deploy and save the day.”
Richard M replied: “As Elon just noted on X, the plan all along was to have parachutes on Crew Dragon. But they were going to be the backup to the Super Dracos. Now, it is going to be the other way around.”
My recollection is that the SuperDracos were to be tested (only momentarily) at altitude to verify that they still operated correctly, or at least enough of them, then they would shut down until their time came to land the capsule. With this test, if the SuperDracos were not functional, the parachutes could still be deployed as backup. I also recall that it was a problem with the SuperDraco valves that caused the infamous explosion during a ground test (or would be infamous, if anyone remembered it), so these valves were replaced with burst discs, which are one-use only.
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/spacex-completes-crew-dragon-static-fire-tests/
Unless more reliable valves replace these burst discs, Dragon is unlikely to use propulsive landing as a primary method.
__________________
Similar topic:
Valves have been a bane to many companies. Boeing and its Starliner have merely been especially unlucky with them. (By the way, how many of us have a leaky faucet at home or at work?)
I thought de-orbiting would have used that propellant up. Going up it’s for Super Dracos–then after the mission is over, hypergolics are spent on retro-fire.
ZimmerBob,
The megaconstellations are all in LEO and there is already a registry for them. It has been run for decades by the USAF/USSF and is in the process of being transitioned to the Commerce Department.
The astronomers aren’t happy about LEO megaconstellations, but I think they now understand that quietly and reasonably dealing directly with the companies putting them up to limit their impact on Earth-based astronomy is really the only rational path forward. Starlink, alone, now has 4 million subscribers with more and more large institutional subscribers coming aboard by the day – like United Airlines and Air France. There is, in essence, a rapidly growing multi-national “lobby,” if you will, that will resist any attempts to gratuitously mess with Starlink.
That will be true, in varying degrees, for other LEO constellations too. Starlink and AST SpaceMobile are both in the early stages of becoming part of the basic infrastructure of terrestrial cell phone service with other providers, such as Iridium, looking to follow suit. The established terrestrial cell phone service giants – with which Starlink and AST SpaceMobile are partnering – have considerable political influence and will constitute another bulwark against arbitrary mucking about with the growth of LEO-based telecom.
And the astronomers can at least get a ready hearing from Starlink and other Western LEO comms providers. If the PRC ever starts getting either or both of its proposed LEO megaconstellations off the ground, I suspect it will prove less cooperative with the world’s astronomers.
I have no doubt there are not-so-latent megalomaniacs among the higher-ups in Big Science organizations such as the AAS. But a request for information about – not control over – beyond-GEO probes and systems does not strike me as some thin-edge-of-the-wedge ploy to try for control in future. As Freud said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Transparency and reporting for things beyond Earths orbit?
The problem with that is that they would for you to report this to a government office or agency. And eventually, someone in that agency or government will decide they don’t like that, so you will need permission to go to those distances. And that will lead to someone decided that they really need to control all this activity…
… Followed shortly thereafter by Congress deciding they need to tax it.
Down the Rabbit Hole – slide down SpaceX Launch Pad Emergency Escape https://youtu.be/5uCW77-gKnE