Category: Behind The Black

Antrim County election audit: Dominion machines unreliable, evidence suggests vote tampering

9:29 am

The computer audit of the Atrim County election Dominion tabulator machines has found [pdf] irrevocable evidence that these machines and their software is unreliable, that the evidence suggests significant vote tampering, and also suggests criminal activity to do it.

The preliminary findings including 24 points, all of which are shocking. The second sums it up:

We conclude that the Dominion Voting System is intentionally and purposefully designed with inherent errors to create systemic fraud and influence election results. The system intentionally generates an enormously high number of ballot errors. The electronic ballots are then transferred for adjudication. The intentional errors lead to bulk adjudication of ballots with no oversight, no transparency, and no audit trail. This leads to voter or election fraud. Based on our study, we conclude that The Dominion Voting System should not be used in Michigan. We further conclude that the results of Antrim County should not have been certified.

The audit also included data from two other counties as well, all of which confirmed the results from Antrim.
The audit found that the software for this election somehow failed to properly scan a “staggering” number of ballots, up to 81% in one case, requiring a manual unsupervised adjudication of the scan in order to record the vote. This failure rate — averaging 68.05% — was completely different than past election records, and exceeded the allowable election error rate established by the Federal Election Commission guidelines, 1 in 250,000 ballots (.0008%), by many orders of magnitude.

They also found evidence of willful obstruction of justice to hide these facts. The files and adjudication logs are missing. There was also an attempt to zero out the machines before the audit could obtain its data. Finally, the software was updated just before the election, and then just afterward.

The only reason to change software after the election would be to obfuscate evidence of fraud and/or to correct program errors that would de-certify the election. Our findings show that the Central Lake Township tabulator tape totals were significantly altered by utilizing two different program versions (10/232020 and 11/05/2020), both of which were software changes during an election which violates election law, and not just human error associated with the Dominion Election Management System. This is clear evidence of software generated movement of votes. The claims made on the Office of the Secretary of State website are false.

Read it for yourself. More important, download it immediately and pass it to friends. I predict that many of your Democratic Party friends will dismiss it as fake. Some however will not. If just ten percent recognize these facts the election will likely get invalidated.

And make sure you pass it to your legislators. Any state that used these machines needs to review the results, and most likely must invalidate them. We need a new election.

78 comments

Data: Hospitals underwhelmed by 2nd COVID wave, as they were with 1st

9:19 pm

Chicken Little report: Federal government data now shows that hospital capacity has never been at full capacity or even strained during the first wave of COVID-19 in the spring, as well as the current spike now.

[F]ederal government data compiled from state-level reports suggests that hospitals nationwide have considerable space left to deal with both routine medical issues and COVID-19 patients. The Department of Health and Human Services offers on its website estimates of hospitalization rates across the United States.

…The HHS numbers belie forecasts of impending collapse of the U.S. medical system. As of Saturday, the department estimated that hospitals nationwide were at about 75% capacity. ICU beds were even lower, at 63.5%. Patients who had tested positive for COVID-19 occupied just under 15% of all beds nationwide. Even in areas that have recently posted huge surges in positive COVID tests, the numbers were largely similar to the national average: In New York, 76% of hospital beds (and 61% of ICU beds) were taken.

In California, where positive test results have skyrocketed, 76% of inpatient beds were likewise filled (though the ICU numbers were notably higher than New York’s, at 79%). Ohio, which has also seen a surge in positive tests over the last few months, has 71% of inpatient beds taken, and 77% of ICU beds.

Those numbers are not far out of line with national average occupancy rates seen in normal times and are, in some cases, lower than what are widely considered optimal rates.

There’s more at the link, but overall the data confirms what I wrote back in March, only two weeks after some states had declared statewide emergencies, imposed lockdowns, and destroyed their economies based on a panicked fear of a gigantic spike that would overwhelm their hospitals. The data then strongly suggested that these fears were unwarranted. This new data confirms that conclusion.

The lockdowns, mandates, and cancellation of the Bill of Rights were all entirely unnecessary. Worse, corrupt politicians (mostly Democrats) have morphed their so-called purpose from easing the sudden arrival of many sick patients (“flatten the curve”) to a vain attempt to prevent the spread of the virus, something that only six months ago sane people knew was impossible.

Under this new impossible mantra (“Stop the spread!”), lockdowns will never end. Which to these corrupt politicians is just fine, as it gives them the kind of absolute power they crave.

73 comments

Chang’e-5 on its way back to Earth

3:04 pm

The new colonial movement: Chang’e-5 today successfully fired four engines for 22 minutes to leave lunar orbit and begin its journey back to Earth, with a planned arrival date in China for its sample return capsule around December 15/16th.

The return capsule is expected to land in northern China in the Inner Mongolia region after separating from the rest of the spacecraft and floating down on parachutes. The material would be the first brought back since the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 probe in 1976.

The rocks and other debris were obtained both by drilling into the moon’s crust and scooping directly off the surface. They may be billions of years younger than those brought back by earlier U.S. and Soviet missions, possibly offering insights into the moon’s history and that of other bodies in the solar system.

The landing sequence is the last major engineering challenge, though hardly as challenging as the autonomous rendezvous and docking in lunar orbit.

3 comments

SpaceX successfully launches commercial radio satellite

1:32 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX today successfully launched a new commercial radio satellite for Siruis.

The first stage was making its seventh flight, the fifth in 2020. It successfully landed on the drone ship. The fairings were also both previously flown.

The leaders in the 2020 launch race:

33 China
24 SpaceX
13 Russia
6 ULA
5 Rocket Lab
5 Europe (Arianespace)

The U.S. now leads China 38 to 33 in the national rankings. The U.S. has also completed the most launches in a single year since 1968. Unlike 1968, all the launches this year were flown by private companies, either for commercial customers or for the government, with rockets owned by the companies. In 1968 almost all the launches were for the government, and the rockets were controlled by the government, even if built by private companies.

Note that this very successful year occurred during a year when many businesses were forced to shutdown due to the Wuhan panic. It appears many rocket companies decided this was not a reason to cease operations.

4 comments

Virgin Galactic’s first Unity launch from New Mexico fizzles

3:54 pm

Capitalism in space: Virgin Galactic’s first attempt to launch its SpaceShipTwo Unity suborbital spacecraft from its New Mexico spaceport ended almost immediately after the ship was released from WhiteKnightTwo when its engines did not ignite.

All appeared normal during the flight’s early phases. VSS Unity was carried into the air by its twin-fuselage mothership, known as WhiteKnightTwo VMS Eve, and was released to fly free at an altitude of more than 40,000 feet.

A webcast provided via NASASpaceflight.com showed the flash of the plane’s hybrid rocket motor lighting up, but only for a second. After the flame-out, Test pilots Dave Mackay and C.J. Sturckow brought Unity back down to the spaceport for a gliding landing.

I wish Virgin Galactic well, but at this point consider the company a backwater in the drive to develop a commercial space tourism industry. It took them too long to get to this point. Even if they should start flying tourists next year, they will be competing with orbital tourist flights by SpaceX, and the contrast is stark. I simply no longer see a viable customer base for Virgin Galactic, unless they get a lot of government subsidies.

21 comments

Indonesia & SpaceX considering launchsite there

8:26 am

Capitalism in space: Indonesia has been in discussions with SpaceX and Elon Musk about establishing a SpaceX launch site in that country.

President Joko Widodo discussed the idea with SpaceX founder Elon Musk during a phone call on Friday, the Coordinating Ministry for Maritime and Investment Affairs said in the statement. Musk intends to send a team to Indonesia in January to study partnership opportunities, it said.

Makes sense for Musk to consider such a move, especially if the U.S. and Texas governments start to turn the screws on his Boca Chica launch site. Furthermore, it is his intention to eventually launch Starship/Super Heavy from a floating launch platform. Establishing arrangements with other foreign nations for putting it in their waters gives the company more flexibility.

People always migrate toward freedom. For two hundred and fifty years, that meant they moved to the United States. This now is changing, as the U.S. culture is signaling its increased hostility to this most important founding principle. Expect more stories like this in the coming decades.

15 comments

Supreme Court dismisses Texas suit on election

7:04 pm

The dead Constitution

The Supreme Court today dismissed the Texas lawsuit asking it to invalid the election results in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia because of election law changes made by bureaucrats rather than the state legislatures as directed by the Constitution.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday evening rejected the state of Texas’ challenge to the 2020 election results in four battleground states, extinguishing one of the last remaining hopes for President Trump’s campaign to reverse Joe Biden’s lead in those states.

“The State of Texas’s motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution,” the justices ruled. “Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections. All other pending motions are dismissed as moot.”

No one should be surprised by this. It is not the court’s job to give permission to the state legislatures to do their job. It is their responsibility to act, and they have ample evidence that the vote has been, if not stolen, very unreliable and not trustworthy.

They are just too cowardly to do it. They’d rather have an excuse to cop out. They will now do so, saying that they can’t do anything because the Supreme Court told them they couldn’t. This is a lie, and a joke.

The election has been stolen. Do not expect there ever again to be a legitimate election in the United States. Expect Democrats to begin winning every race, in every battleground swing state.

94 comments

New data confirms and localizes uplifted lunar dust as seen by Apollo astronauts

1:11 pm

The uncertainty of science: In a paper released today, scientists reveal the detection of electrostatic dust events on the Moon similar to those observed by Apollo astronauts, and find that these events might not be global but instead confined to craters during twilight. From the abstract:

Lunar horizon glows observed by the Apollo missions suggested a dense dust exosphere near the lunar terminator. But later missions failed to see such a high‐density dust exosphere. Why the Apollo missions could observe so large number of dust grains remains a mystery. For the first time, we report five dust enhancement events observed by the Lunar Dust Experiment on board Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer [LADEE] mission, which happen near a twilight crater with dust densities comparable to the Apollo measurements. Moreover, the dust densities are larger on the downstream side of the crater and favor a higher solar wind temperature, consistent with an electrostatic dust lofting from the negatively charged crater floor. We also check the Apollo observations and find similar twilight craters, suggesting that the so‐called dust exosphere is not a global phenomenon but just a local electrified dust fountain near twilight craters.

The dust clouds the astronauts thought they saw near the horizon have been theorized to be dust uplifted by static electricity. However, all later missions had so far failed to detect this phenomenon, until now. That the result also pinpoints the location and ties it to twilight is important for future missions to the Moon. Astronauts can thus minimize any damage by this dust by shutting down operations during lunar twilight periods.

2 comments

Breaking: Starship prototype #9 tips over inside assembly building

12:43 pm

It appears from the 24-hour live stream provided by LabPadre that the ninth Starship prototype tipped over inside the assembly building to rest against one wall. You can see it happen at about 8 seconds into the video below:

No word on whether anyone was hurt, nor any information about the cause. My guess is that it occurred during the operations to move this prototype to the launchpad.

UPDATE: It appears no one was hurt, but there is damage to the fins, which might also mean damage to the hull. This in turn might make it unsafe to fly this prototype, as the hull forms the walls of the methane/oxygen tanks.

The day has not been good for SpaceX. Earlier they had to scrub the launch of a commercial communications satellite at T-30 seconds for reasons that they did not provide. High altitude winds had delayed the launch an hour or so, but it appears this was not the reason. According to SpaceX’s website, “SpaceX is standing down from Friday’s launch attempt of the SXM-7 mission to perform additional ground system checkouts.” They are targeting Sunday for the next launch attempt.

13 comments

Strange crater in the basement of Mars

12:25 pm

Strange crater in Hellas Basin
Click for full image.

Today’s cool image to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, is intriguing for a number of reasons. Taken on September 11, 2020 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), it shows a partially buried crater found in the middle of Hellas Basin, the lowest point on Mars and what I like to call the red planet’s basement.

What makes this crater intriguing is the layered pile of material filling its interior. If I didn’t know any better, I would think some construction crew has used a bulldozer to push debris from the crater’s right half in order to smooth the ground in preparation for building a strip mall, office building, or housing development.

This of course is not what happened. Then what did create those layered piles in the crater’s left half?
» Read more

One comment

Boeing and NASA delay again the 2nd unmanned demo flight of Starliner

12:23 am

Boeing and NASA yesterday announced that they now plan to fly the second unmanned demo flight of Starliner in late March, rather in January as last scheduled.

Though there have been hints for awhile that a launch close to the start of the new year was no longer likely, this announcement confirms those hints. This means that it will have taken Boeing more than a year to fix the software issues that forced the first demo mission to abort its docking with ISS and come back early.

Whether this will delay the manned mission, which they are still targeting for as early as the summer of ’21, remains unclear. I think it will all depend on how well that the demo mission goes.

8 comments

ULA’s Delta-4 Heavy successfully launches reconnaissance satellite

6:18 pm

Capitalism in space: After a several month delay, ULA’s Delta-4 Heavy tonight successfully launched a reconnaissance satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office.

The leaders in the 2020 launch race:

33 China
23 SpaceX
13 Russia
6 ULA
5 Rocket Lab
5 Europe (Arianespace)

The U.S. now leads China 37 to 33 in the national rankings. The U.S. launch total this year matches the number of launches achieved in 1969, and is the most launches by the U.S. in a single year since then.

10 comments

Arizona state senate to hold official hearing tomorrow on election

3:23 pm

In a major shift, the Arizona state senate will tomorrow to hold an official hearing, with subpoena powers, on the questions relating to the vote count of the November 3rd election.

The hearing will be live streamed on the Arizona government’s website.

Whether it will be substantive, or designed to obscure the issues, remains unclear. The track record of the Republican leadership nationwide for the past two decades has consistently had them mouth platitudes in order to con their conservative base into thinking they were working in their interest, when in truth that leadership was repeatedly trying to do the exact opposite.

I hope I am wrong. It does appear that the many serious and substantive allegations relating to the vote are forcing the Republican leadership to respond, even if it is against their desire. Such an official Senate hearing would have to be called by the Senate president, Republican Karen Fann, which means it must have her endorsement.

5 comments

Morocco agrees to Abraham accords, normalizing relations with Israel

2:23 pm

Today President Trump announced that Morocco has agreed to become the fourth Islamic/Arab nation to sign the Abraham Accords, thus establishing normal diplomatic relations with Israel.

America gave Morocco an important concession as part of the deal. “Today, I signed a proclamation recognizing Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara,” Trump added. “Morocco’s serious, credible, and realistic autonomy proposal is the ONLY basis for a just and lasting solution for enduring peace and prosperity! Morocco recognized the United States in 1777. It is thus fitting we recognize their sovereignty over the Western Sahara.”

Whether these deals will survive a Biden administration remains unclear. What is clear is that unlike any administration since the Carter administration in the late 1970s, Trump has successfully achieved the first peace deals between Israel and its Arab neighbors. His approach, different than the accepted wisdoms of the Washington establishment, succeeded where those accepted wisdoms had failed.

It is a shame that the unmitigated and irrational hate that so many on the left have of Trump has made them incapable of recognizing this accomplishment. The nation, in fact the world, should be celebrating these deals with enthusiastic joy. It is not, for these childish reasons.

7 comments

Video: How election officials can cheat with Dominion voting software

1:45 pm

The video is from today’s hearing in the Georgia legislature on the questions regarding the November 3rd election. Just watch. As noted at the link where I got the video:

Elections Supervisor Misty Martin gives a hands on demonstration of how to cheat with Dominion. This video was shown today by Colonel Waldren during his Georgia House of Representatives testimony.

The Dominion voting machines that Georgia and several other states use are open to manipulation during the counting process. This first of two videos shows the weaknesses of the system and the ways in which an unscrupulous election official may alter ballots with virtually no chance of being caught.

The point here is not whether anyone tampered with the results. The point is that the Dominion software used is utterly unreliable and can be used easily to tamper with the results. Any election that depended on this software is thus highly suspect, and should be thrown out.

It also means that if this software is used we cannot trust the results from the runoff of two Senate races in Georgia in January.

22 comments

Starship: Old-fashioned American know-how

11:39 am

Starship about 2 minutes into its flight

Yesterday’s truly epic first flight of SpaceX’s giant Starship rocket illustrated several truths that bear repeating, in clear and forceful language.

SpaceX succeeded because its company philosophy is open-minded, fearless, and thus free.

The open-mindedness culture comes from Elon Musk’s insistence that they never settle on any design if they can find a better way to do it. It is this approach that drives the company’s developmental process. The first Falcon 1 rocket made orbit, but despite that triumph Musk quickly abandoned it for the Falcon 9 when it was clear that it wasn’t powerful enough to garner enough satellite business.

The Falcon 9 that first launched in 2008 was a very different rocket from the Falcon 9 that launches today, as shown by the two pictures below. In the 2008 Falcon 9 the engines were configured differently and it had no legs. The modern Falcon 9 has landing legs, a different engine arrangement, and much of the innards have been redesigned to give the rocket more oomph.
» Read more

26 comments

Watch ULA try again to launch its Delta-4 Heavy

9:09 am

Capitalism in space: ULA will today try once again, after numerous scrubbed and aborted attempts in August and September, to launch its Delta-4 Heavy rocket carrying a National Reconnaissance Office spy satellite.

The mission is set to take off at 6:15 p.m. EST (2315 GMT) Thursday from pad 37B at the newly-renamed Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Forecasters predict near-ideal weather with a 90% chance of favorable conditions during the launch window Thursday evening.

Many of the launch problems earlier this year were due to issues in the launch pad. The article at the link describes the major refurbishing that ULA has done since then to fix them.

I have embedded their live stream of the launch, below the fold. It is set to go live at 5:55 pm (Eastern).

Note also that the next few days will be very busy for the American rocket industry. Tomorrow (Friday) both SpaceX and Astra have launches scheduled, with the latter making its second attempt to complete its first orbital launch. Then Rocket Lab has another Electron launch from New Zealand scheduled for the next day (Saturday).

That’s four launches in three days. If just two succeed, it will raise the total U.S. launches in 2020 to 38, which would be the most American launches in a single year since 1969, the year the country put men on the Moon.
» Read more

Leave a comment

Smallsat rocket startup Obex raises $24 million

8:52 am

Capitalism in space: The smallsat rocket startup Obex of the United Kingdom today announced that it has raised $24 million in private investment capital to support the development of its Prime rocket.

Conceived and developed as an environmentally sustainable launch system, the Orbex Prime rocket uniquely uses bio-propane, a renewable biofuel that cuts CO2 emissions by 90% compared to traditional kerosene-based rocket fuels. Designed to be recoverable and re-usable, Orbex Prime is intended to leave no debris in the ocean or in orbit around the Earth. The company is constructing the rocket vehicle at factories in Forres, near Inverness in Scotland, and Copenhagen in Denmark.

…Orbex has already confirmed six commercial satellite launch contracts, with the first launches expected in 2022. The company’s preferred launch site will be the Sutherland spaceport on the northernmost coast of Scotland, which was granted planning permission in mid-August 2020.

Whether the Sutherland spaceport happens however remains uncertain. Though it still appears to be moving forward, there is a lot of local opposition to it, some with clout. It appears however that Orbex is aware of this reality, and is developing Prime to allow it to launch from other sites.

That the company is trying to build this rocket as reusable right from the beginning is encouraging. It shows that the rocket industry is finally accepting the new paradigm established by SpaceX. For them to achieve this by ’22 however will be quite challenging.

Leave a comment

Beresheet-2 will have two landers instead of one

8:42 am

The new colonial movement: SpaceIL, the Israeli non-profit company that built the failed Beresheet-1 lunar lander, yesterday announced its plans to build Beresheet-2, this time with an orbiter and two lunar landers, and launch it by ’24.

The two landers would be much smaller than the first spacecraft — about 260 pounds each, fully fueled, compared with a bit less than 1,300 pounds for Beresheet — and they would land on different parts of the moon. The orbiter would circle the moon for at least a couple of years. The three spacecraft of Beresheet 2 would together weigh about 1,400 pounds.

Even though the designs would be new, they would reuse many aspects of Beresheet, and the founders said they had learned lessons that would increase the chances of success for the second attempt. SpaceIL will again collaborate with Israel Aerospace Industries, a large satellite manufacturer.

SpaceIL is looking for funding from both private and Israeli government sources. It is also looking for funds from other nations, a decision which revealed the most intriguing part of this announcement:

SpaceIL hopes that international partnerships will pay for half of the cost of Beresheet 2. Mr. Damari said the United Arab Emirates, a small but wealthy country in the Persian Gulf that has set up an ambitious space program in recent years, was one of seven nations interested in taking part. He declined to name the other six.

If this flight ends up to be a partnership between Israel and the United Arab Emirates it will send shockwaves through the Arab world, most especially among the supporters of the terrorist leaders ruling the Palestinian territories.

One comment

China launches two science satellites with its Long March 11 rocket

8:23 am

The new colonial movement: China yesterday completed the eleventh successful launch of its Long March 11 rocket, putting two astronomy satellites in orbit designed to supplement gravitational wave research.

The satellites appear designed to look in other wavelengths at the region of sky from which gravitational waves are detected, and better pinpoint their location and nature.

This Long March 11 launch continues its perfect launch record. It uses solid rocket motors, derived from military missiles, which allow it to be stored easily and then launched quickly.

The leaders in the 2020 launch race:

33 China
23 SpaceX
13 Russia
5 ULA
5 Rocket Lab
5 Europe (Arianespace)

The U.S. still leads in the national rankings, 36 to 33, over China. And before anyone asks, yesterday’s SpaceX test suborbital flight of Starship does not qualify as a launch in these standings, as I only include successful orbital launches.

Leave a comment

Starship flies!

4:31 pm

Starship about 2 minutes into its flight

Capitalism in space: In a spectacular achievement, SpaceX’s eighth Starship prototype today completed 6:42 minute flight that appeared to go practically perfectly, until landing.

At that point it appeared the spacecraft’s last landing burn was insufficient to slow it down enough for landing, and it crashed. However, it crashed on its landing pad, meaning it had maneuvered its way back through the atmosphere exactly as planned.

Below the fold are screen captures from the flight, in sequence.

The flight left several impressions. First, this design is viable. Though we are still looking at a prototype, it is one that works.

Second, the ship appeared to lumber into space, almost slowly. This was partly an illusion because of its size. Nonetheless, it reminded me of the 747, which always flew magnificently but with what seemed like a measured attitude. Starship appeared similar.

Third, the systems for controlling the ship on its return through the atmosphere appeared to work as intended. Though SpaceX obviously has a lot more work to do to achieve an orbital return, they have made a magnificent start.

And they have gotten this far in only two years, for less than $2 billion. Compare that to NASA and Boeing and their SLS, which is half a decade behind schedule and will likely cost $30 billion once launched.

We should expect the ninth prototype to be on the launchpad within days, and the next test flight in no more than few weeks.
» Read more

44 comments

Key legal issues behind the Texas petition to Supreme Court re election issues

3:37 pm

Link here.

The author reviews the petition, the logic behind it, and the legal possibilities. She also cogently reviews the worst examples of misbehavior in the four swing states, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Michigan, that justify Supreme Court action. If you are one of those people that refuses to recognize the illegalities in the handling of the election in those states, you should read this article to education yourself.

The key point however is this:

These injuries, Texas asserts, demand a remedy. But the remedy sought is not what some may surmise is the goal—a second term for President Trump.

No, what Texas seeks is for the Supreme Court to mandate that the defendant states comply with the Constitution, and that means that electors are selected by the states’ legislatures. Texas makes this point clear, stressing: “Plaintiff State does not ask this Court to decide who won the election; they only ask that the Court enjoin the clear violations of the Electors Clause of the Constitution.”

Texas is essentially demanding what I suggested several weeks ago: If election issues are not fixed, elected state Republicans must refuse to certify.

Texas is demanding that these four states put the decision to the legislatures, since their election counts cannot be trusted. While the arguments are sound, it remains to be seen whether the Supreme Court will listen.

15 comments

Watch the attempted first high altitude flight of SpaceX’s Starship

2:26 pm

Starship on launch pad
Screen capture from SpaceX live feed during 1st launch attempt.
Click for LabPadre live stream,
from which this image was captured today.

UPDATE: Less than six minutes to launch.

UPDATE: Hold called at T-2:06. They have reset the clock for a 4:40 pm (Central) launch.

Original post:
——————-
Capitalism in space: SpaceX’s live stream is on, with a liftoff in six minutes. I have embedded below the fold the live stream for this first high altitude flight of SpaceX’s Starship.

The LabPadre live stream, to the right, shows that they have already proceeded through most of preliminary stages prior to liftoff.

If all goes right, this eighth prototype of Starship will go about 40,000 feet in the air, turn over and attempt to control its return belly side down, and then upright itself just before landing so it can complete a vertical landing like a Falcon 9 first stage. The company gives themselves a one in three chance of landing the spacecraft. SpaceX has also made it clear that their primary engineering goal on this flight is to test that return through the atmosphere, so that is the part of the flight they most need to succeed. Failing to land afterward but getting that data will make this test a complete success.

No matter what happens, the company has prototypes 9 through 15 waiting in the wings.

UPDATE: This post will remain at the top of the page until the flight occurs, or is scrubbed. Scroll down for new stories.
» Read more

58 comments

Cryptic Terrain on Mars

1:01 pm

Cryptic terrain near Mars' south polar ice cap
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated and cropped to post here, was taken on September 27, 2020 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what is likely a crater that is partly buried by ice and dust and sand near or on the edge of Mars’s south polar ice cap.

It also shows an example of what planetary scientists have dubbed “cryptic terrain,” found generally on the margins of that ice cap. In this case, the location is on a plateau adjacent to the ice cap dubbed Promethei Planum. Despite a lot of searching, I could not locate any research papers describing Promethei Planum, though data outlined in one Mars Express press release from 2008 suggested it was part of the polar ice cap more than two miles thick that is covered by a thin mantle of dry ice each winter.

The strange curlicue cliffs and plateaus seen here are thought to form as part of the arrival and then sublimation away of that seasonal dry ice mantle, but how that process exactly works to create these particular geological features remains I think a mystery. North is to the top. The general grade is also downhill away from the icecap to the north.

Moreover, the overview map below, with the location of this image indicated by the blue cross, illustrates more mysteries.
» Read more

One comment

ESA funds construction of its own X-37B, dubbed Space Rider

11:23 am

The new colonial movement: The European Space Agency (ESA) has now signed the contracts to fund the construction of its first reusable mini-shuttle, dubbed Space Rider and comparable to the Air Force’s X-37B.

ESA signed two contracts with industry on 9 December at Palazzo Chigi in Rome, Italy in the presence of Italian government representatives. The first contract is for delivery of the Space Rider flight model including the reentry module and the AVUM orbital service module, by co-prime contractors: Thales Alenia Space Italy and Avio. The second contract covers the delivery of the ground segment by Italian co-prime contractors: Telespazio and Altec.

Activities are on track for the first flight of Space Rider in the third quarter of 2023 from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.

Like the X-37B, Space Rider will provide Europe with a space platform for performing long term experiments in space and recovering them undamaged, though initially the flights will be no more than two months long. While it will launch on a rocket like the X-37B, and will use its body to shed velocity as it returns through the atmosphere, it will not land on a runway but will instead use parachutes to drop it to the ground.

More importantly, Space Rider will be available to the private sector. The X-37B is controlled by the U.S. military, and they have made it available for only a limited number of non-military experiments.

Leave a comment
1 … 291 292 293 294 295 … 1,055