Category: Behind The Black

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

• DHL touts its deal with Astrobotic to send more than 100,000 messages to the Moon

Anyone can send a picture, which will go digitally on Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander scheduled for launch late this year.

 

• Lynk satellite constellation starts cell phone to satellite service in Solomon Islands

Because Lynk only has three satellites in orbit, the service is presently limited to text and emergency messages.

 

• ESA shifts control of Vega-C rocket from Arianespace to the private Italian company Avio

The press release at the link summarizes all the actions taken by ESA at its just ended conference, all except this story had been covered here previously. Avio essentially builds Vega-C. It will now have full ownership and control. Arianespace — the government middle-man that never made a profit — is meanwhile slowly going away.

 

• Three companies tout their partnership to develop nuclear power propulsion for interplanetary travel

Lockheed Martin is the lead contractor for DARPA. The contract was awarded in July 2023.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

• Euclid releases its first images

Euclid is designed to produce a 3D map of billions of nearby galaxies.

 

• Webb and Chandra detect supermassive black hole only a half billion years after the Big Bang

Lots of uncertainty here, with most now centering on the Big Bang theory itself. There shouldn’t be a supermassive black hole that soon after the bang. Not enough time for it to form, based on present models.

 

• Ingenuity completes its 66th flight

As noted in my last Ingenuity post, it was a short flight, 23 seconds long moving less than two feet, merely to reposition the helicopter in advance of the three-week solar conjunction when communications will be cut off.

 

• First data from India’s Aditya-1 solar observatory

The observatory, located a million miles closer to the Sun than the Earth, is presently undergoing its final caliberations even as its instruments begin gathering data.

 

• Dish’s CEO stepping down ahead of merger with Echostar

His resignation was part of the merger deal. Both companies are under severe pressure from competition, which is why they merged.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

• Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander will carry seeds that also flew on Apollo 14

The Apollo 14 trees, dubbed the Moon Trees, came back to Earth and were planted in many places. It is unclear from the link whether the seeds now going to the Moon are the same seeds, or seeds from a Moon tree subsequently grown on Earth.

 

• ESA head endorses using private enterprise for sending European cargo to ISS and other stations

In other words, the Europe Space Agency has no rocket or capsule to do the job, has no capacity to build either, but sees from America that private enterprise can do it better.

 

• French space agency head blames the government mostly for the failure of ArianeGroup to launch Ariane-6 on schedule

Like the ESA story above, European space leaders are finally beginning to realize the benefits of freedom and capitalism. It just took them a decade longer than it should have.

 

• Chinese pseudo-company rolls its Zhuque-2 methane-fueled rocket to launchpad

The pseudo-company is Landspace, this will be its rocket’s third launch. The first failed, the second was the first methane-fueled rocket to reach orbit. In related news, the company’s CEO claims it will be doing 100 launches per year within five years.

 

• Video of crashed Long March 6 solid-fueled strap-on booster, which landed in farm country in Ji County of Shanxi Province

Shanxi province is in the middle of China, and to the immediate southwest of Beijing. I am surprised the Chicoms didn’t censor this video.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

• Firefly puts its new Miranda rocket engine on the test stand, ready for its first hot fire tests

This is the engine that will power the first stage that Firefly is building for Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket, replacing the Ukrainian stage and Russian engines it used to use.

 

• ULA’s CEO shows off four Vulcan upper stages under assembly at its factory

As Jay notes, “At least he is building something,” taking a jab at another company with the word “blue” in its name.

 

• Bezos is abandoning Seattle and moving to Florida

He says he wants to be closer to both his family and his Cape Canaveral space facilities in Florida, which as he says is “shifting increasingly to Cape Canaveral.” He also likely decided to get out because of a new state tax that will steal $70 million from him for every stock sale of $1 billion.

 

• The Times of India brags about the use of an nuclear power source for the Chandrayaan-3 propulsion module still functioning in lunar orbit

The units are engineering tests, designed to work out the kinks so this power source can be used on future unmanned rovers to Mars and elsewhere.

 

• Next Gaganyaan launch abort test scheduled for March 2024

This second test vehicle will be closer to the final capsule version. According to ISRO, four total abort tests are planned before the manned mission.

 

• Review of Kepler archive confirms solar system with seven exoplanets

The review also refined the present understanding of this alien solar system.

 

• NASA officials say they are willing to extend ISS beyond 2030

That’s nice, but the question is whether the Russians will stay on after ’28, and even more important, whether their modules will last until then.