Category: Behind The Black

Trump administration considering major positive changes at NASA

8:45 am

According to a report two weeks ago by Eric Berger at Ars Technica and reviewed today by Mark Whittington at The Hill, the transition team for the Trump administration is reviewing a number of very major positive changes at NASA. The transition team has set up a five-person committee to review the following:

  • canceling the costly Space Launch System rocket and possibly the Orion spacecraft
  • Redesigning the entire Artemis program to make it more cost effective
  • Set a new goal to put humans on the Moon by 2028
  • consolidating three NASA centers into one to reduce overhead
  • Reducing the size of NASA headquarters

The first two recommendations would be doing what I have been recommending since 2011. SLS is an over-priced boondoggle that is too cumbersome and expensive. It can never do the job of establishing a lunar base, NASA’s prime goal. The same applies to Orion, which NASA for years touted as an interplanetary spaceship, an utter lie. It is merely an overweight ascent/descent capsule, nothing more.

The third recommendation is mostly for photo op purposes, since it is unlikely a manned landing can occur that quick, especially if the entire Artemis program is redesigned, replacing NASA’s the SLS rocket with SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy. At the same time, if Trump shuts down the FAA’s red tape, we might be seeing many test flights of this rocket in the next two years, accelerating its development considerably.

The last two recommendations match the only recommendation from my 2017 policy paper, Capitalism in Space [free pdf here] that NASA has not yet embraced. I had recommended NASA reduce its overhead and bureaucracy, since it widely known in the business that its many agencies do relatively little for their cost. The rumored proposal under consideration is to consolidate the Goddard center in Maryland, the Ames center in California with the Marshall center in Alabama, with the new combined center in Alabama.

Getting this done however remains difficult. The centers exist because elected officials want them in their states and congressional districts. Expect strong resistance in Congress.

That the Trump administration is considering it anyway suggests these big changes are coming, regardless. And if so, I say Hallelujah!

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Italy’s military negotiating with SpaceX to use its Starlink constellation for communications

8:14 am

In what would be a five year deal costing $1.56 billion, Italy’s military is presently negotiating with SpaceX to use its Starlink constellation for communications, rather than wait for the European Space Agency’s (ESA) IRIS2 constellation, which is years from launch and likely to experience delays, as do all of ESA’s projects.

By negotiating a five-year deal with SpaceX, Italy may be aiming to bridge the gap until Europe’s IRIS2 system becomes operational. With the ongoing war in Eastern Europe, the country’s Armed Forces likely view secure military communications as an urgent priority. However, critics may argue that the €1.5 billion price tag represents 14.15% of the total IRIS2 budget for just five years of service. For context, Italy is the third-largest contributor to the European Union, with its €18.6 billion contribution in 2023 accounting for roughly 10% of the EU’s total budget.

This story illustrates the good business sense of Elon Musk. He moved to get Starlink in orbit ahead of anyone else, and now is reaping the cash awards because he can provide services while others cannot.

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ISRO delays its unmanned docking in orbit two days

8:08 am

India’s space agency ISRO today announced that it has decided to delay the attempted unmanned autonomous docking of its two orbiting Spadex spacecraft two days, from January 7 to January 9.

“The docking process requires further validation through ground simulations based on an abort scenario identified today (Jan 6),” Isro said Monday. Multiple sources told TOI that “there was nothing concerning” with the Space Docking Experiment (SpaDeX) satellites and that the additional simulations are being carried out to validate the docking process.

This follows the pattern at ISRO since its present head, S. Somanath, took over in 2022. He pushes hard to get missions launched, but simultaneous demands caution and testing along the way to make sure the mission is a success. For example, when he took over he quickly added a number of unmanned test flights for India’s Gaganyaan manned capsule, to take place before the manned mission.

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SpaceX successfully completes the first launch in 2025

11:10 pm

SpaceX tonight successfully launched a commercial communications satellite for the United Arab Emirates (UAE), its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The first stage completed its 20th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The two fairings completed their 16th and 19th flights respectively.

As this was the first launch in 2025, SpaceX is the only rocket company or nation on the leader board. This will not last long, as there are a lot of launches coming in the next few weeks, including the first launch attempt of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, the seventh test orbital launch of SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy, the first launch of China’s Long March 8 rocket, a launch of India’s GSLV rocket, and a number of SpaceX Falcon 9 launches, including one that will send Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander on its way to the Moon.

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FBI investigating reports of an effort to bomb SpaceX’s Boca Chica Starship facility

9:00 pm

According to news stories from several sources tonight, the FBI is investigating a reported threat to bomb SpaceX’s Boca Chica Starship facility.

The source to the story comes from a local.

The report was made by Calvin Wehrle of Galveston, who frequently camps along Texas 4 near the Starship launch site.

In an interview Friday, he said he was there on the afternoon of Christmas Eve when an SUV pulled up with five male passengers who rolled down their windows to converse. They said they were from the Middle East. “I said something like, ‘What are y’all here for? ’ and the driver said, ‘Oh, we’re here to blow (Starship) up,’ ” Wehrle said. “I just went stone cold, and he said, ‘Oh, I got you. I was joking.’ ”

As the conversation went on, though, Wehrle’s visitors said at least three times they were in South Texas to attack Starship. He reported the incident to SpaceX and the sheriff’s office and said he was contacted later by an investigator.

This could be nothing, or it could be serious. The location of the Starship/Superheavy facilities is right along the road at Boca Chica, and it is very easy for anyone to get quite close. In fact there have been several incidences where people were caught trespassing.

Considering that SpaceX is gearing up for the seventh orbital test flight of Starship/Superheavy on January 10, 2025, the risks are now higher. The tank farm there, also not far from public access, is going to be filled with oxygen and methane, and will be an ideal target for attack.

And we can thank Joe Biden and his Democratic Party for allowing millions of illegals to enter the country un-vetted over the past four years, including tens of thousands who the evidence suggests could be potential terrorists. And we can also thank the Biden administration for sucking the quality out the FBI, making it incapable of doing its real job while it was used for political purposes harassing and persecuting Trump, many Republicans, and many ordinary conservatives.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay.

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January 3, 2025 Quick space links

2:52 pm

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.

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Scientific American is looking for a new and “diverse” editor-in-chief!

1:15 pm

Scientific American, where discrimination and bigotry thrive!
Scientific American, where discrimination and
bigotry thrive!

Scientific American needs a new editor-in-chief, but right off the bat I must warn qualified white men they needn’t bother to apply. They won’t get the job.

More on why later. First we must give the background. In November Scientific American’s editor-in-chief, Laura Helmuth, resigned, claiming it was time for her “to take some time to think about what comes next (and go birdwatching).”

In truth, it was time for her to go. She had disgraced herself repeatedly by posting some very ugly posts condemning Trump and insulting his supporters in a most emotional and irrational manner. But those posts weren’t the real reason she need to leave.
» Read more

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Mars gives us another “What the heck?” image

11:59 am

Another
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on October 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The science team labels this “layered rock.” I label it another one of my “What the heck is that?” images on Mars. If I didn’t know this was an orbital image looking down at an alien planet, I’d think it was a paisley pattern on a piece of dark fabric.

The converging “streams” suggest flows, but there really is no clear downhill grade, the landscape generally flat. The lighter patches suggest either higher terrain the flows went around, or places where something bubbled up from below. Or maybe the “flows” are actually cracks that the bubbling material filled as it rose.

I have no idea if any of these theories is right.
» Read more

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FAA cancels one of three public meetings on the Starship/Superheavy environmental reassessment

9:38 am

The FAA today announced that it has canceled one of three meetings that it plans to hold in the Brownsville region next week to obtain public feedback on SpaceX’s request to increase its Starship/Superheavy launch rate at Boca Chica to 25 launches per year.

The FAA was scheduled to hold in-person public meetings on January 7th and 9th, 2025. However, due to the designation of January 9, 2025 as a National Day of Mourning to honor the late former President Jimmy Carter, the January 9th meetings are now cancelled.

The meeting schedule is now as follows:

  • In-person meeting: Tuesday, January 7, 2025; 1:00 PM–3:00 PM & 5:30 PM–7:30 PM CDT at the Texas Southmost College, Jacob Brown Auditorium, 600 International Boulevard, Brownsville, TX 78520
  • Virtual on-line meeting: Monday, January 13, 2025; 5:30 PM–7:30 PM CDT Registration Link here. Dial-in phone number: 888-788-0099 (Toll Free), Webinar ID: 879 9253 6128, Passcode: 900729

As I noted in November when the new environmental reassessment and these meetings were announced, it is practically certain that the fringe anti-Musk activists groups SaveRGV, Sierra Club, the Friends of Wildlife Corridor, and the fake Indian Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas (which never existed in Texas) are organizing to be there in force, demanding SpaceX’s Boca Chica operations be shut down.

If the rest of the public, which is the vast majority of the Brownsville community, does not show up to counter these fringe activists, it will make it much easier for the bureaucrats who hate Musk at the FAA to take action against SpaceX. It is essential that the business community at least make an appearance, as the arrival of SpaceX has brought billions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs to Brownsville.

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Parker confirms it gathered science data during its record-breaking solar fly-by on December 24th

9:06 am

Parker flight plan
The flight plan for Parker. Click for original.

Engineers have now confirmed that during its record-breaking close fly-by of the Sun on December 24, 2024 all of its science instruments functioned as planned and were able to collect data as to that previously unexplored near-solar environment.

Breaking its previous record by flying just 3.8 million miles above the surface of the Sun, Parker Solar Probe hurtled through the solar atmosphere at 430,000 miles per hour — faster than any human-made object has ever moved. A beacon tone, received in the mission operations center at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, late in the evening of Thursday, Dec. 26, confirmed the spacecraft had made it through the encounter safely.

The telemetry (or housekeeping data) that APL began receiving on Jan. 1 provided more detail on the spacecraft’s operating status and condition. It showed, for example, that Parker had executed the commands that had been programmed into its flight computers before the flyby, and that its science instruments were operational during the flyby itself.

A full download of this data will occur later this month, after the spacecraft further retreats from the Sun and gets in a better position to transmit it.

This ain’t the end, however. Parker has two more similar close-up fly-ups coming in March and June. Neither will break December’s records, but both will be almost as close to the Sun. After this the probe’s primary mission will be complete. At the moment there is no word if it will get extended should the probe survive intact after those fly-bys.

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