Bahar Amrollahi playing Persian Qanun
An evening pause: The sound is reminiscent of the harpsichord or maybe even more the dulcimer, but the music is without question not European.
Hat tip Alton Blevins.
Category: Behind The Black
November 27, 2023 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- European Safran and American Terran Orbital partner to work jointly on satellite propulsion systems
Safran is an old big space defense contractor, It wants American business, and by linking with startup Terran Orbital it gets its foot in the door. Terran Orbital in turn gets enormous resources to tap into, and its own foot in Europe’s door.
- Astra obtains $2.7 million in new financing
The status of this company is right now entirely unknown. It is not clear how this financing impacts the proposal of the company’s founders to buy up the stock and take Astra private. Nor is it clear how this financing satisfies other loans that have already expired and had to be paid. Based on the article, it seems to me that the company will soon have to shut down due to lack of cash.
- NASA administrator Bill Nelson is in India talking space and getting photo ops
Nelson is there for show. Any agreements being discussed were negotiated by underlings, who actually know what is going on.
- ISRO touts Vikram’s laser reflector, which is still usable by scientists though the lander is dead
The reflector is similar to one’s used on Apollo, and allows scientists to precisely measure distances and timing by reflecting a laser beam off it.
- Today is the 60th anniversary of the first successfull Atlas-Centaur launch
It was also the first use of a hydrogen-fueled engine in space.
Mars’ giant sinkholes
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on June 27, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a small section of the floor and northern slope of Hebes Chasma, one of the many very large enclosed pits that can be found to the north of Valles Marineris, the largest canyon in the solar system. Though Hebes seems small next to the 1,500 mile long Valles Marineris, it still is 200 miles long by 80 miles wide, and could easily fit a half dozen Grand Canyons within it.
For example, the Grand Canyon is from 4,420 to 5,400 feet deep, hiking down from the south and north rim lodges respectively, which sit about ten miles apart. On this picture, the peak on the right sits about 5,300 feet above and only about 3.8 miles from the low spot on the bottom left, which means this one small picture encapsulates the Grand Canyon. And yet, the northern rim of Hebes sits another 21,000 feet higher and twelve miles away. And the entire chasma itself extends 50 miles to the west, 150 miles to the east, and 50 miles to the south.
» Read more
Blue Origin begins third major expansion of Huntsville facility
Blue Origin has been issued a $8.4 million building permit by local Huntsville authorities as part of the third major expansion of its rocket-manufacturing facility there.
According to the report, of the 377 permits issued so far in October and November, this was the largest. All three expansions have occurred in the past three years.
The article however includes this ridiculous statement:
The aerospace company owned by Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin has emerged as one of the top commercial spaceflight companies as the country has placed a renewed effort on returning to the moon and eventually to Mars.
How could Blue Origin be “one of the top commercial spaceflight companies” when it has still not launched anything into orbit? Even the tiny rocket startup Astra, now on the verge of bankruptcy, put more mass into orbit than Blue Origin. Everyone has, since the mass Blue Origin has put into orbit so far equals a nice fat zero.
This expansion however does suggest that something positive might finally be happening at the company. With the removal of Bob Smith as CEO and Jeff Bezos now living in Florida and closer to the action it could be that the continuing string of non-accomplishment that has made Blue Origin a bit of a joke in the space industry might possibly be ending.
We shall have to wait and see, however.
Russia launches military satellite
Russia today successfully placed a classifed military satellite in orbit, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from its Plesetsk spaceport in northern Russia.
The satellite is likely a reconnaissance satellite. No word on where the rocket’s core stage and strap-on boosters landed inside Russia, though launches from Plesetsk generally head north over very empty regions and the Arctic, and as the satellite appears to have an orbit with an inclination of 67 degrees that is likely in this case.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
86 SpaceX
53 China
15 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India
American private enterprise still leads China 98 to 53 in successful launches, and the entire world combined 98 to 84. SpaceX meanwhile maintains its lead over the rest of the world (excluding American companies) 86 to 84.
Erik Wernquist – One revolution per minute
An evening pause: A short film that attempts to visualize what it would really be like to be on a rotating interplanetary spaceship, with artificial gravity. Quite mesmerizing.
Hat tip Rex Ridenoure.
Did the Capitol police instigate violence by firing on peaceful January 6th demonstrators?
Screen capture from bodycam of officer,
preparing grenade to throw into crowd.
Video evidence recently released by House speaker Mike Johnson, combined with many videos taken by participants during the January 6, 2021 demonstrations on Capitol Hill, now suggest strongly that the violence was instigated by the DC police, not the January 6th demonstrators, who until then had been peaceful.
The video at the second link above ties together police bodycam footage with surveillance footage and smart phone footage — all time-stamped — and shows the Capitol security police firing on the demonstrators, who until that moment were doing nothing wrong and were simply standing in front of the Capitol in a crowd, chanting “USA! USA!”
Furthermore, the firing began at about 1:07 pm, eight minutes before Trump had finished giving his speech blocks away. The audience to his speech didn’t begin arriving at the Capitol until more than an hour later, when they found doors to the building open and security police welcoming them in.
Thus, the violence, set off by the police, had nothing to do with anything Trump said.
» Read more
Striped terrain on Mars
Click for original image.
Today’s cool image will be a mystery with the answer below the fold. Before you look at the answer, however, you must try to come up with your own explanation for the picture to the right, cropped to post here, that was taken on September 25, 2018 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
What we see in this picture is what looks like a striped terrain, alternating bands of light and dark. What caused the bands? Why the different colors?
The overview map above provides some clues. The white rectangle inside Juventae Chasma near the map’s center marks the area within which this picture was taken, though the picture to the right covers only about a pixel inside that rectangle.
Can you guess what these stripes reveal, from this little information? For this quiz to work you must make a guess, but be prepared to be wrong and quickly reassess your conclusions. Such is the real scientific method, so rarely taught now in schools.
» Read more
Ariane-6’s core stage completes full 7 minute engine test
Engineers yesterday successfully completed a two-hour dress rehearsal countdown and fueling of an Ariane-6 first stage followed by a full seven minute engine burn, simulating what that stage would do during a launch.
The test took place on Ariane-6’s launchpad in French Guiana.
The November 23 test sequence was run the same way as the previous ones, with a launch sequence and final countdown representative of a launch, including removal of the mobile gantry and filling the launcher’s upper and core stage tanks with liquid hydrogen (-253° Celsius) and liquid oxygen (-183° Celsius). The test ended with the ignition of the core stage Vulcain 2.1 engine, followed by more than 7 minutes of stabilized operation covering the entire core stage flight phase. All functional aspects of Ariane 6’s core stage during the flight phase were tested.
According to the European Space Agency, only one more engine test of the Ariane-6’s upper stage remains before the spring launch can be attempted, and that engine test is planned for next month in Germany.
With the retirement of the Ariane-5 rocket in July, Europe has had no large rocket to launch payloads. Originally Ariane-6’s first launches were supposed to be in parallel with Ariane-5’s last launches, but its development is four years behind schedule.
Miracle on 34th Street
An evening pause: This movie used to be a tradition for television on Thanksgiving. At that time the holiday was well linked with the then joyous and relatively Christian Macy’s Day Parade (now warped into a queer agenda demonstration).
I think it makes for a good opening to the holiday season.
China delays till ’25 the launch of its Hubble-class optical space telescope
China today revealed that it is delaying the the launch of its Xuntian space telescope from early next year to 2025.
Zhan Hu, project scientist of Xuntian space telescope system, revealed that the delay was necessary for the team to finalize a preflight “engineering qualification model.” This model will undergo rigorous performance tests early next year. Despite the setback, China is making significant strides by domestically developing all five instruments for Xuntian, a first for the country, Scientific American reported.
The optical telescope, designed to somewhat comparable to Hubble, is intended to fly close to China’s Tiangong-3 space station where astronauts will periodically fly over to do maintenance and repair. Its primary mirror, two meters in diameter, is only slightly smaller than Hubble’s 2.4 meter mirror.
The article says the launch was supposed to happen before the end of this year, but that is incorrect. The launch has been targeting the spring of 2024 since February.
China launches classified satellite
China today used its Long March 2D rocket to launch what it described as “a technology experiment satellite for satellite internet technologies”, the rocket lifting off from its Xichang spaceport in the southwest of China.
No other information was released. While the satellite could be a test satellite for a constellation comparable to Starlink, the lack of information suggests otherwise.
No word also on whether the rocket’s first stage, using toxic hypergolic fuels, landed near habitable areas. The drop zone was over heavily populated areas in China.
Furthermore, China’s Kuaizhou-1 rocket had also been expected to launch today from Xichang in the wee hours of the morning, also carrying a classified payload. No word yet on whether that launch occurred, was scrubbed, or was simply the Long March 2D launch, the name of the rocket misunderstood prior to launch because of China’s secrecy.
Putting that unknown launch aside, here are the present leaders in the 2023 launch race:
86 SpaceX
53 China
14 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India
American private enterprise still leads China 98 to 53 in successful launches, and the entire world combined 98 to 83. SpaceX by itself still leads the rest of the world (excluding American companies) 86 to 83.
Abraham Lincoln proclaims a day of Thanksgiving in the middle of the Civil War
Abraham Lincoln
The date was October 3, 1863. The Civil War was at its height, with no end in sight and no clear sign yet of victory for the Union. For all anyone knew, the great American experiment in self-government, freedom, and constitutional law was about to end in failure, with one half of the nation continuing on founded on the idea that it was okay to enslave other human beings, based on their race.
In such a moment, President Abraham Lincoln did what all past leaders in America had done, call for a day of prayer to God for the future while giving thanks for the blessings still abounding. For this purpose he set aside the last Thursday of November of that year.
Since then, Americans have never stopped celebrating Thanksgiving on that day. Today comes another Thanksgiving during a time of chaos, hate, violence, and oppression. There is much to invoke horror and outrage.
There is much more to be thankful for. As much as some have tried to squelch freedom here in America and abroad, all signs say that freedom-lovers everywhere are refusing to go down without a fight. Let us join together to renew that effort, so that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Below is Lincoln’s Thanksgiving proclamation. If only we had leaders today who could think and write with similar elegance and humility.
—————————–
A Proclamation.
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.
» Read more
November 22, 2023 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold in two parts.
To listen to all of John Batchelor’s podcasts, go here.
» Read more
Kaja Mianowana – O zapomnieniu
An evening pause: I am pretty sure this is in Polish. The music however swings from Eastern European folk to American blues.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
November 22, 2023 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, who with I wish everyone a great Thanksgiving tomorrow.
- China touts concept for two-stage to orbit reusable space plane
Cute looking, but right now nothing more than engineering by PowerPoint.
- Chinese pseudo-company shows off video of separation test of its large fairing
The fairing will be used on a launch scheduled for December.
- Commercial lunar rover startup announces eight payload customers for 2026 mission
The company, Astrolab, has a contract to fly on SpaceX’s Starship to the Moon. The customers have contracts with Astrolab equaling $160 million. Everything involved however is extremely tentative and in the early development stages, even the lunar landing version of Starship.
- South Korea camera catches North Korean launch, showing 1st stage separation and its apparent destruction immediately thereafter
The video, part of a meteor-survey project, suggests the North Koreans might have purposely destroyed that first stage so that the South Korean military could not recover it, as was done after the May failed launch.
- Blue Origin shows off the now welded first stage tanks of its New Glenn rocket
It is assumed these are for the first launch, whenever that might be. Since there are no workers on the factory floor, Jay speculates it was taken after hours. I wonder, since this lack of activity has been seen in every such picture of this rocket assembly operation. I really wonder how many people even work there.
- Jeff Bezos sells off $240 million more Amazon shares
Though the reporters on the CNBC video at the link speculate this money is for Blue Origin, there is no evidence of this. In fact, recently Bezos has appeared to donate almost all his stock sale cash to leftist political charities, not Blue Origin.
Martian ice sheets sublimating like peeling paint?
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 19, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
The features are described as “ribbed terrain” in the label. To my eye they more resemble flakes of peeling paint, most especially the mesas in the lower left. On the full image there are many more examples that resemble old paint peels, barely attached to the wall.
The white dot on the overview map above marks the location, deep inside the 2,000-mile-long strip in the northern mid-latitudes I dub glacier country, because everything seems covered by glacial features. This location is at 42 degrees north latitude, where plenty of near-surface ice features are found on Mars.
At first glance it looks like the top “paint-peel” layers to the south have been slowly sublimating away, leaving behind the smooth plain to the north. The problem is that this smooth area in the full image actually appears to be a glacial ice sheet of its own, filling all the low areas between mesas.
In other words, we are probably looking at layers and layers of ice sheets, each created during a different Martian climate cycle, caused by the wide swings of the planet’s rotational tilt, or obliquity.
The location is within Arabia Terra, the largest transitional zone on Mars between the northern lowland plains and the southern cratered highlands. Thus it sits above the glaciers that fill the lower regions of chaos to the north. What we have here is terrain that will eventually become chaos terrain, as the narrow faults and cracks are slowly widened into canyons by the cycles of glacial activity.
Real pushback: Soldiers punished by Biden for refusing jab now sue for billions
Fighting the left’s playbook
Bring a gun to a knife fight: The many military soldiers punished by Biden for refusing the Covid jab have now filed a class action lawsuit for what they expect to be worth billions.
Former troops are suing the U.S. government for lost pay and benefits due to the Biden administration’s military vaccine mandate, one of the lawyers who successfully brought down the Anthrax vaccine told Breitbart News.
Attorney Dale Saran, a retired Marine, and fellow attorneys Andy Meyer and Brandon Johnson are representing the former troops in three separate lawsuits they plan to turn into a class action lawsuit on behalf of all service members who were either kicked out or illegally ordered to stop drilling, resulting in loss of pay or benefits. Saran said the amount is in the “billions.”
“It’s worth billions. That’s just flat-out. That’s what it is in backpay. It’s billions of dollars,” he said.
Though only about 8,000 active-duty troops were kicked out of the military due to the Biden jab mandate, the lawyers estimate another 80,000 to 100,000 soldiers are due compensation for lost benefits because they were made inactive or forbidden from participating in drill activities.
The lawsuit has been filed in U.S. Court of Federal Claims, a specialized court where illegal military discharges are heard. Lawyer Saran won a similar suit in that court over the military’s anthrax mandates back in the late nineties. The case now is likely stronger because, as he notes,
They were basically [without] the benefit of any due process. No boards were held. They didn’t hold any administrative separation boards; they didn’t hold any hearings. They didn’t do any federal recognition boards; none of the administrative or judicial procedures were used. They just flat-out did it.
This willful refusal to follow the law has been typical behavior by the left since the start of the Wuhan panic. The law no longer applies to them. They want to do something, they do it, even if it is illegal and hurts someone else. Shutter businesses illegally, silence opponents illegally, favor some races illegally, fire soldiers illegaly, mandate jabs and masks illegally, demand health records illegally: All okay because the good people are doing it! How dare you question their righteousness?
The worst aspect of these violations of law has been the meek willingness of everyone to go along with them. Most shameful.
» Read more
Eutelsat-OneWeb gets license approval in India
Less than two weeks after SpaceX obtained regulatory approval to offer its Starlink system in India, Eutelsat-OneWeb (newly merged) has now gotten its own approval.
Eutelsat-OneWeb is half owned by an Indian investment firm, so it is no surprise it obtained this approval soon after SpaceX. The two companies will now be competing aggressively for business in this giant country, whose technological capabilities has been renewed in recent years by the abandonment of a socialist/communist government for a leadership focused on encouraging freedom, capitalism, and competition.
NASA laser communication experiment succeeds in sending data from beyond Moon
A NASA laser communication experiment on the asteroid probe Psyche succeeded on November 14, 2023 in sending data to and from the spacecraft as it traveled away from Earth.
NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) experiment has beamed a near-infrared laser encoded with test data fromnearly 10 million miles (16 million kilometers) away – about 40 times farther than the Moon is from Earth – to the Hale Telescope at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California. This is the farthest-ever demonstration of optical communications.
Riding aboard the recently launched Psyche spacecraft, DSOC is configured to send high-bandwidth test data to Earth during its two-year technology demonstration as Psyche travels to the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California manages both DSOC and Psyche.
The experiment seeks to demonstrate the advantages of optical communications, which if successful could have data speeds ten to a hundred times faster than standard high band radio communications. While the technology has been demonstrated as far away as the Moon, this is the first successful test from deep space, a key advance that suggests the technology is becoming mature enough to use on planetary missions.
If so, it could largely replace or at least supplement the various radio-antenna networks on Earth, such as NASA’s Deep Space Network, with smaller and more efficient communication links.