Mark Knopfler – Brothers in arms
An evening pause: Performed live in Berlin, 2007.
Hat tip Insomnius.
Category: Behind The Black
ESA approves ExoMars 2020 funding
Despite the failure of the Schiaparelli lander on ExoMars 2016, the European Space Agency today approved funds to build and fly the ExoMars 2020 rover mission.
At a meeting of European government ministers in Lucerne, Switzerland, on 1 and 2 December, ESA member states agreed to provide an extra €339 million for ExoMars 2020. ESA also announced that it will find a further €97 million by moving funds internally. Speaking at a press briefing after the meeting, ESA director-general Jan Wörner said this would be done “without detriment” to ESA’s wider science budget.
But not all projects were so fortunate. Member states did not commit the €250 million needed to fund a plan for ESA to participate in a mission to deflect the moon of an asteroid, although they left door open to future, similar projects.
I am not at present sure how they are going to divide up the work between Europe and Russia. Earlier it was my understanding that Russia would provide the roving technology, but right now I am very unsure about this.
One side note: At this same meeting ESA committed to sticking with ISS through 2024.
Trump initial agenda includes Obamacare repeal and “fundamental tax reform”
This article provides a good summary and analysis of comments by vice-president-elect Mike Pence describing the initial plans of the Trump administration.
The new administration’s first priorities would include curbing illegal immigration, abolishing and then replacing Mr. Obama’s signature health-care system, nominating a justice to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court, and strengthening the military, said Mr. Pence, whose wife, Karen Pence, sat nearby during the interview.
…By springtime, the Trump administration would work with congressional leaders “to move fundamental tax reform” meant to “free up the pent-up energy in the American economy,” he said. Pillars of the tax overhaul would include lowering marginal tax rates, reducing the corporate tax rate “from some of the highest in the industrialized world” to 15%, and repatriating corporate cash held overseas, he said.
Overall, if they do what Pence says (some of which was confirmed by Trump in his remarks at the Carrier plant yesterday), they will move the government in the right direction.
Hampshire College ends ban on U.S. flag
Hampshire College, faced with intense criticism over its decision to stop flying the American flag, has ended the ban.
Hampshire President Jonathan Lash says the flag was not removed to make a political statement or to offend, but to facilitate dialogue. He says the flag has been raised again “as a symbol of … freedom, and in hopes for justice and fairness for all.”
Yeah, right, dialogue is always facilitated by banning something. What I think really happened here is that Lash suddenly discovered that his anti-American ban had really facilitated the end of all donations from alumni, and thus he suddenly discovered that he really is a loyal American who loves his country.
Personally, I think donations should continue to dry up until the college replaces Lash and the rest of its academic personnel that initially supported this ban.
Another captive carry flight test of Virgin Galactic’s Unity
After cancelling a planned first glide test of Virgin Galactic’s Unity spaceship in early November, the company completed a second captive carry flight on November 30.
“As part of our ground and flight testing, we made a few tweaks to the vehicle,” Virgin Galactic tweeted before the Nov. 30 flight. “We’ll test those in a captive carry flight today.” Virgin Galactic has not announced when the next test flight will take place or if it will include a glide test.
They apparently found some issues both from the first captive carry flight as well as ground tests that required them to make some changes to the spaceship and do another captive carry flight.
Aldrin condition stable
This update into Buzz Aldrin’s health condition says that his condition is stable and appears to recovering. Apparently the problem was “fluid in his lungs”, which suggests pneumonia.
Japanese company developing suborbital mini-shuttle
The competiion heats up: A private Japanese company is developing a sub-orbital mini-shuttle capable of carrying up to eight people, and hope to fly it by 2023.
An unmanned trial run of the prototype to an altitude of 100 kilometers is scheduled for 2018, and if a manned mission is successfully achieved by 2020, the company hopes to commence its space travel enterprise by the end of 2023. The price of a trip into space is aimed to be about 14 million yen — which is approximately 70 percent of that announced by American company Virgin Galactic. PD Aerospace aims to take passengers to an altitude of 100 kilometers, where they will be able to enjoy a “zero-gravity floating experience” for about 5 minutes, before returning to Earth.
They are entering this competition very late. Considering how slowly Virgin Galactic has moved, though, they still might beat them into orbit.
Japan developing small rocket for commercial smallsats
The competition heats up: Canon has joined a new project by the Japanese space agency JAXA to develop a small rocket for commercial smallsats.
The three-stage rocket is an upgrade to JAXA’s two-stage SS-520, which carries instruments for research observations. Measuring 52cm in diameter and less than 10 meters in length, the new version will cost less than one-tenth as much to launch as leading rockets and is expected to be used to lift microsatellites in orbit. An initial launch is slated for early next year from the Uchinoura Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture.
Fourth Google Lunar X-Prize team gets launch deal
The competition heats up: TeamIndus, based in India, has signed a contract with ISRO to launch its Google Lunar X-Prize rover as a secondary payload on a Indian PSLV rocket.
This is the fourth X-Prize team to announce a launch contract. According to the rules, the teams have until the end of the year to obtain a contract or else they are out of the competition. We should therefore expect more of these announcements in the coming weeks.
New astronomy webpage and grants devoted to next year’s eclipse
The American Astronomical Society (AAS) has launched both a new grant program and a astronomy webpage devoted to the Great American eclipse that will cross the entire lower 48 states next August.
The eclipse occurs on August 21, and will cut a strip from Oregon to South Carolina.
December 1, 2016 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold. The first half was devoted almost entirely in a discussion of the sad state of the Russian space program.
» Read more
Cygnus fire experiments a success
The fire experiments that were done on the Cygnus cargo freighter after it left ISS two weeks ago have been declared a success.
Saffire-II burned nine different samples, in an effort to gauge the flammability of various materials in a microgravity environment. These 12-by-2-inch (30 by 5 centimeters) samples included silicon of different thicknesses; a cotton-fiberglass blend; plexiglass; and Nomex, a commercially available material that’s used in spacecraft on cargo bags and as a fire barrier, NASA officials said. Everything went well during the experiment, they added: All nine samples burned as planned, and the Saffire-II team collected more than 100,000 images. All data had come back down to Earth by Friday (Nov. 25), at which point Saffire-II achieved “complete mission success,” NASA officials wrote in an update.
This was the second set of fire tests. There are plans for a third on a future Cygnus freighter.
SpaceX sets Dec 16 for next launch
SpaceX has tentatively scheduled December 16 as the date for its first launch since the September 1 Falcon 9 launchpad explosion.
The launch will place 10 Iridium satellites into orbit. It will also mean that the delay after the explosion was just over 3.5 months.
Megan Lee – Winter Wonderland
An evening pause: December has arrived, which to me is when the Christmas season should really begin. And what better way to start it but with this incredibly happy rendition of this classic.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
Buzz Aldrin evacuated from South Pole due to health issue
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin was today evacuated from U.S. South Pole station due to a worsening health condition.
Aldrin, 86, is in stable condition after “his condition deteriorated” while visiting Antarctica, according to White Desert, which organizes luxury tourism trips to the icy continent. The group said Aldrin was evacuated on the first available flight out of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station to the McMurdo Station on the Antarctic coast under the care of a doctor with the U.S. Antarctic Program. He then was flown to Christchurch, New Zealand, and arrived at about 4:25 a.m. local time Friday (10:25 a.m. Thursday ET), according to the National Science Foundation, which provided the flight for Aldrin.
They have not released much information about his condition, other than saying that Aldrin is in good spirits.
Russia Progress freighter lost during launch
Due to what appears to be the failure of the third stage of its Soyuz rocket, a Russian Progress freighter bringing supplies to ISS was lost.
The Russian space agency — Roscosmos — confirmed the demise of the Progress MS-04 cargo craft in a statement, saying the automated spaceship was lost as it flew nearly 120 miles (190 kilometers) over the Tuva Republic in Southern Russia. Engineers lost telemetry during the Soyuz rocket’s third stage engine burn, and most of the vehicle’s fragments burned up in the atmosphere, Roscosmos said.
The consequences of this failure are numerous:
- The cargo failures to ISS have been a continuing problem. Despite significant redundancy, every single cargo freighter has had failures or delays in the past two years.
- The failure of the Soyuz rocket is a major concern, since this is the rocket that we depend on to bring humans to ISS. Nor is this the first time this year that the third stage had issues. In May the third stage cut off prematurely.
- This failure, combined with the other quality control problems Russia has experienced in the past few years with the Soyuz capsule and the Proton rocket, adds to the concerns.
It now becomes even more imperative for the U.S. to get its own manned spacecraft capability back.
LIGO 25% more sensitive
After being shutdown for almost a full year for an upgrade to make it 25% more sensitive, the gravitational wave detector LIGO has resumed observations.
Modest Mussorgsky – Pictures at an Exhibition
An evening pause: Orchestration by Maurice Ravel. Performed in Carnegie Hall, New York, July 22, 2014 by the National Youth Orchestra of the U.S.A. This long for an evening pause, but it is worth listening to every note.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
November 27, 2016 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold. We talked a great deal about the failure of Schiaparelli, and the apparent dispute within ESA about it.
» Read more
Democrats pick Pelosi again
Nancy Pelosi has fought off a challenge to her position as the House Democratic leader, winning 134 to 63.
Considering how badly the Democrats have fared in elections under her leadership, her victory here indicates strongly the bankrupt state of the Democratic Party. They seem unable at all to accept any blame for their losses, which would be the first step in reforming their increasingly corrupt party. Instead, they have been doubling down on the same rejected leftwing and race-based policies. Note also how the Democratic Party has become entirely dominated by its urban and coastal regions. While those areas have become almost one-party states run unopposed by the Democratic Party, their influence is very regionally limited and has been strongly rejected by most of the rest of the country. Even so, the Democrats continue to pick as their leader an extreme leftist from the extremely leftist San Francisco area.
None of this bodes well for either the Democratic Party, or the nation on the whole. To have a healthy democracy you need a healthy opposition party. Right now we do not have it.