Category: Behind The Black

Blue Ghost watches the Earth eclipse the Sun from the Moon

10:23 am

Eclipse as seen by Blue Ghost
Click for original image.

Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander last night successfully recorded images and data as the Earth slowly over hours crossed the face of the Sun, producing an eclipse.

The image to the right, cropped and reduced slightly to post here, is one such image. From the Firefly update page:

Captured at our landing site in the Moon’s Mare Crisium around 3:30 am CDT, the photo shows the sun about to emerge from totality behind Earth. This marks the first time in history a commercial company was actively operating on the Moon and able to observe a total solar eclipse where the Earth blocks the sun and casts a shadow on the lunar surface. This phenomenon occurred simultaneously as the lunar eclipse we witnessed on Earth.

The company has the right to tout its success, since it is the first of five private companies to actually succeed at a landing on the Moon. However, this is not the first such eclipse captured by a lander on the Moon. Surveyor 3 did it in April 1967, while Japan’s Kaguya orbiter did it also in 2009. (Watch this great lecture outlining the entire Surveyor program, presented during the 50th anniversary of its success. Hat tip reader Richard M.)

It is now past noon on the Moon, the temperatures will begin dropping, and Firefly will begin reactivating some instruments for the final week of operations before lunar sunset and shutdown for the long very cold lunar night.

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Is the nomination of Jared Isaacman as NASA’s administrator facing political headwinds?

10:18 am

Jared Isaacman
Jared Isaacman

I admit immediately that I have no inside information to back up the speculation that will follow. Instead, it is based entirely on my fifty years of experience observing the political machinations that take place inside the DC swamp.

In the past week there have been a slew of stories all aimed at pressuring Congress to quickly confirm Jared Isaacman (billionaire, jet pilot, businessman, and commercial astronaut), Trump’s pick to be NASA’s next administrator. For example, two days ago NASA’s last Republican-appointed administrator Jim Bridenstine publicly called for Isaacman’s confirmation by the Senate.

“I think Jared Isaacman is going to be an amazing NASA administrator,” he said. “I think he’s got all the tools to be what could be the most consequential NASA administrator given the era in which we live in now.” That era, he said, involves greater reliance on commercial space capabilities. “He’s going to be able to take that and do things that have never been able to be done before.”

This week there was also an article in Space News, touting Isaacman’s desire to increase funding to NASA’s planetary defense program, expressed by him in February when it looked like asteroid 2024 YR4 had a good chance of hitting the Earth in 2032.

Furthermore, a group of seven Republican senators this week also joined the chorus, sending a letter [pdf] to Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Maria Cantwell (D-Washington), the chair and ranking members respectively of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, extolling Isaacman in glowing terms and calling for his quick confirmation.

So with all this enthusiastic support bubbling out everywhere, why do I suspect Isaacman might actually be in trouble?
» Read more

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Indian engineers successfully undock its two Spadex robot satellites

9:33 am

After a delay of several months following the first autonomous robotic docking of its two-satellite Spadex mission, engineers from India’s space agency ISRO have now successfully undocked the chase satellite from its target satellite.

According to ISRO, the in-orbit performance of the docked satellites was extensively analysed, with a viable operational window identified from March 10 to March 25. Isro plans to conduct further experiments with the satellites in the coming days.

…Now that the undocking is complete, more docking attempts are expected to evaluate: How precisely ISRO can execute multiple docking maneuvers, how well the algorithms perform under various conditions, how the integrated inertial systems function and how the propulsion system performs during repeated operations.

These rendezvous and docking capabilities are essential for India to achieve its goal of building a manned space station and resupplying it on a regular basis.

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Ohio lawmakers lobby Trump to move NASA headquarters there

9:26 am

In a letter [pdf] dated March 11, 2025 to both vice president J.D. Vance and Jared Isaacman, presently nominated to become NASA administrator, a group of federal and state lawmakers from Ohio urged the Trump administration to move the agency’s headquarters to their state.

“While we recognize that other states, including Florida, Alabama, and Texas, may pursue similar proposals, Ohio presents a uniquely advantageous case due to its rich aerospace heritage, lower operational costs, and central role in the nation’s technology and defense sectors,” read the letter, signed by Ohio Republican Reps. Max Miller, Troy Balderson, Mike Carey, Warren Davidson, Jim Jordan, Dave Joyce, Bob Latta, Michael Rulli, Dave Taylor and Mike Turner and Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur. Buckeye State Sens. Bernie Moreno and Jon Husted, both Republicans, signed onto the letter as well.

Florida officials have already made their own proposal for capturing NASA headquarters. Based on this growing lobby effort, it really looks like the Trump administration is serious about scaling down NASA’s headquarters and moving it from the District of Columbia.

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ULA pinpoints reason a nozzle fell off a Vulcan rocket side booster during last launch

9:11 am

During a press briefing earlier this week, ULA’s CEO Tory Bruno noted that a manufacturing defect was the reason a nozzle fell off one of the two solid-fueled strap-on boosters during the second launch of the company’s new Vulcan rocket.

In a March 12 media roundtable, Tory Bruno, president and chief executive of ULA, said the anomaly was traced to a “manufacturing defect” in one of the internal parts of the nozzle, an insulator. Specific details, he said, remained proprietary. “We have isolated the root cause and made appropriate corrective actions,” he said, which were confirmed in a static-fire test of a motor at a Northrop test site in Utah in February. “So we are back continuing to fabricate hardware and, at least initially, screening for what that root cause was.”

The company however still awaits approval by the Pentagon to begin Vulcan commercial military launches. That delay has forced it to shift its first launch in 2025 from Vulcan to an Atlas-5 launch of Amazon’s first set of operational Kuiper satellites. Bruno also revealed during the press briefing that the company has scaled down the number of launches it hopes to complete in 2025 from 20 to 12, with the reduction caused almost entirely by fewer Vulcan launches.

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NASA releases Blue Ghost movie landing while Firefly prepares lander to observe solar eclipse of the Moon by Earth

8:54 am

NASA today released a fantastic movie of Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander as it touched down on the Moon on March 2, 2025, taken by four cameras mounted on the underside of its Blue Ghost lunar lander.

I have embedded the movie below.

The compressed, resolution-limited video features a preliminary sequence that NASA researchers stitched together from SCALPSS 1.1’s four short-focal-length cameras, which were capturing photos at 8 frames per second during the descent and landing.

The sequence, using approximate altitude data, begins roughly 91 feet (28 meters) above the surface. The descent images show evidence that the onset of the interaction between Blue Ghost’s reaction control thruster plumes and the surface begins at roughly 49 feet (15 meters). As the descent continues, the interaction becomes increasingly complex, with the plumes vigorously kicking up the lunar dust, soil and rocks — collectively known as regolith. After touchdown, the thrusters shut off and the dust settles. The lander levels a bit and the lunar terrain beneath and immediately around it becomes visible.

Engineers will use this imagery to better anticipate and possibly reduce the amount of dust kicked up during future landings.

Meanwhile, Firefly engineers are preparing the lander to observe tomorrow night’s lunar eclipse, but from a completely different perspective. On Earth we will see the Earth’s shadow slowly over five hours cross the Moon. On the Moon Blue Ghost will see the Earth cross in front of the Sun. Because of our home world’s thick atmosphere, there should be a ring remaining during totality.

Because the Moon will be in shadow during the eclipse, the challenge will be power management, operating the spacecraft solely on its batteries.
» Read more

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SpaceX launches more Starlink satellites but scrubs manned Dragon launch

8:37 am

SpaceX yesterday attempted two launches from its Florida launchpads, but only got one off. First the company placed another 21 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral. The first stage completed its 22nd flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

In the second launch from the Kennedy Space Center, SpaceX had to scrub the launch because of a problem with the hydraulic system operating a support clamp arm. The flight is now rescheduled for no earlier than tomorrow at 7:03 pm (Eastern).

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

28 SpaceX
11 China
3 Russia
2 Rocket Lab

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world, including American companies, in total launches, 28 to 20.

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Graceful isolated dunes at the edge of the sea of dunes that surrounds Mars’ north ice cap

12:44 pm

Graceful isolated dunes on the edge of the dune sea that surrounds Mars' north pole
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on January 29, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). I have also rotated it so north is up. Labeled simply as a “terrain sample,” it was likely taken not as part of any specific research request but to fill a gap in the schedule in order to maintain the camera’s proper temperature.

In this case the timing allowed the camera team to capture this breath-taking picture of these graceful arching dunes sitting in what is likely the near-surface ice sheet that covers much of the red planet’s high latitudes. That sheet is not pure ice, but a complex mixture of ice, dirt, dust, and sand, covered during the winter by a thin mantle of dry ice.

The isolated dunes appear to be ridges sticking up from that flat terrain, but this impression is probably incorrect, based on the location.
» Read more

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Thank you to everyone who donated during my February birthday fund-raising drive

12:11 pm

Readers!

My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.

As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!

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