Mozart – Piano Concerto No. 23: II Adagio
An evening pause: Performed in 2020 by the National Orchestra of France with a piano solo by Khatia Buniatishvili and a ballet duet by Jordan Kindell and Verity Jacobson.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
Category: Behind The Black
Boeing replaces the head of its defense/space/security division
Ted Colbert
Boeing today announced that the head of its defense/space/security division, Ted Colbert, has been removed, effective immediately.
New Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg in his first significant move since taking over in August, said Ted Colbert would be leaving and Steve Parker, the unit’s chief operating officer, would assume Colbert’s responsibilities until a replacement is named at a later date.
One project that Colbert was in charge of was Starliner, a program that has cost the company at least $1.6 billion in overruns because of numerous faulty engineering problems.
Colbert might not be to blame for the endless problems at Starliner, but the fish stinks from the head. He also might be very qualified, but sadly, as his picture shows, he is a minority, and since Boeing went all in on DEI racist hiring quotas a few years ago, which makes the skin color and gender of an applicant a major qualification in hiring, one can’t help wondering if he was a DEI (Didn’t Earn It) hire. At Boeing that policy created a goal to increase black staffing by 20%. Its full report [pdf] makes it very clear it no longer made talent, experience, or skill the primary qualification for getting hired, but skin color and sex took precedence.
As I said, one cannot help wondering if Colbert was hired not because of his great management and engineering knowledge, but because he happened to born with a dark skin color. If so, that might help explain the failures in this paricular division.
China’s solid-fueled Kuaizhou-1A rocket launches four satellites
China this afternoon launched four satellites using its solid-fueled Kuaizhou-1A rocket, lifting off from its Xichang spaceport in the southwest of China.
It is unclear what the satellites purpose are, though there are hints they are part of a constellation providing communications for the internet of things. No word was also released where the rocket’s lower stages crashed in China.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
93 SpaceX
40 China
11 Russia
10 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 108 to 62, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including American companies, 93 to 77.
September 20, 2024 Quick space links
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.
- Chinese pseudo-company building lunar low-gravity simulation test platform
China developed something similar to test its Zhurong Mars lander. This appears to be an upgraded version.
- Russia’s geosynchronous surveillance satellite moves close to Intelsat satellite
The Russians appear to use this geosynchronous Luch satellite to do reconnaissance of the electronic signals coming from these satellites.
- On this day in 1956 the Jupiter-C rocket was test fired for the first time
This was the rocket used to launch the U.S.’s first orbital satellite, Explorer-1, in 1958.
Land of cracks
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on June 28, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Labeled a “terrain sample,” it was likely taken not as part of any specific research project but to fill a gap in the camera’s schedule in order to maintain its proper temperature. When the camera team needs to do this, they try to pick something interesting, but don’t always have that option.
In this case, the landscape available included the channel shown to the right. About a half mile wide and only about fifty feet deep, the floor of this canyon appears to have a lot of trapped dust, forming ripple dunes, along with a lot of knobby protrusions, likely small mesas. The canyon walls appear layered, with the erosion processes producing different features on opposite sides. On the southeast the layers appear to produce distinct terraces, while on the northwest the cliff is very steep at the top and then forms a long gently descending slope that appears formed of alluvial fill (from that cliff) and formed from erosion and landslides.
» Read more
A review of Firefly’s new launch facilities in both the U.S. and Sweden
Link here. The company already has leases for launchpads at both Vandenberg and Cape Canaveral, though only the Vandenberg pad is presently operational. It now building new pads in Viriginia at Wallops Island and in Sweden at the commercial Esrange spaceport.
Regarding the purpose of offering a launch site in Europe, Firefly stated to NSF, “The launch cadence will largely be driven by customer demand. With the inaugural Alpha launch from Esrange as early as 2026, the new complex can support commercial customers in the broader European market and enable tactically responsive space missions to further advance national security for NATO countries.”
The company has already completed five launches from Vandenberg, with a sixth upcoming.
Brazil approves space bill that appears to crush that country’s future in space
The Brazillian legislature has now approved a new space regulatory bill that appears to create a whole range of new agencies and regulatory bodies, all designed to heavily supervise all space activities while giving a great deal of arbitrary power to the government.
The quote below says it all. Note that the term “space operators” refers to any private aerospace operation.
The [government] may economically exploit, directly or indirectly, without bidding, the space infrastructure, including ground equipment and logistical resources, installations and computer systems necessary to carry out space activities.
The regulatory authorities, AEB and the Air Force Command, will have free access to the facilities and equipment of space operators. They may, at any time, cancel or change the licenses granted in the event of non-compliance with obligations or when there is a threat to national security or violation of international commitments. Even if its activities are suspended or canceled, the operator remains responsible for the artifacts that are in operation. [emphasis mine]
There is a lot more, all of it adding more heavy regulation while imposing great responsibilities both legal and financial on the private companies, all to the benefit of the government.
Who is going to invest billions, even millions, under such an arbitrary regime? No one, especially because the Brazillian government has already proven its willingness to unilaterially block or take over private companies with its actions in connection with Starlink and X.
SpaceX finds a way to extend the launch window for Europa Clipper
The launch window for SpaceX’s launch of NASA’s Europa Clipper to Jupiter has now been extended a full week because the company has revised the launch process and made hardware changes.
The new launch window runs from October 10th to November 6th.
Usually the two side boosters come back to land at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station so they can be reused and sometimes the core booster is recovered at sea, but not this time. All their fuel will be used to get Europa Clipper on its way to Jupiter. Piloto said SpaceX “made some hardware modifications that enable the launch vehicle to utilize all the fuel in the boosters,” but couldn’t go into detail about what they are because the information is proprietary.
[The NASA official] added that SpaceX has gained experience in flying this configuration — it’s the 11th Falcon Heavy launch — and the company has “come up with a strategy to optimize throttling of the launch vehicle to get more performance out of it.”
NASA and SpaceX have also decided to use NASA’s orbiting communications constellation during the launch instead of ground stations, which increases their flexibility and margins.
I wonder if the FAA has approved these changes. Or even if anyone there even understands them.
SpaceX and Elon Musk blast the FAA’s red tape again
Fight! Fight! Fight! Yesterday both SpaceX and Elon Musk renewed their attack on the FAA’s apparent arbitrary harassment of the company, both by slowing down development of Starship/Superheavy as well as imposing fines and delays on the company for petty issues relating to Falcon 9 launches.
First, Elon Musk sent out a tweet on X, highlighting a successful static fire launchpad engine test of the Starship prototype the company plans to fly on the sixth Starship/Superheavy orbital flight. As he noted with apparent disgust, “Flight 5 is built and ready to fly. Flight 6 will be ready to fly before Flight 5 even gets approved by FAA!”
Second, and with more force, the company released a public letter that it has sent to the leading Republican and Democratic representatives of the House and Senate committees that have direct authority over space activities, outlining its issues with the FAA’s behavior. The letter details at length the irrational and inexplicable slowdown in FAA approvals that caused two launches last summer to occur in a confused manner, with SpaceX clearly given the impression by the FAA that it could go ahead which the FAA now denies. In one case the FAA claims SpaceX removed without its permission a poll of mission control during its countdown procedure. SpaceX in its letter noted bluntly that the regulations do not require that poll, and that the company already requires two other polls during the count.
In another case involving SpaceX’s plan to change to a new mission control center, the company submitted its request in June, and after two months the FAA finally approved the control center’s use for one launch, but had still not approved it for a second. The first launch went off, so SpaceX thus rightly assumed it could use the control center for the second. Yet the FAA is now trying to fine SpaceX for that second launch.
The third case of FAA misconduct appears to be the most egregious. » Read more
SpaceX launches 21 more Starlink satellites
SpaceX this morning successfully launched another 21 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.
The first stage completed its thirteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
93 SpaceX
39 China
11 Russia
10 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 108 to 61, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including American companies, 93 to 76.
Mireille Mathieu – La Marseillaise
An evening pause: Performed live in 1989, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Eiffel Tower. What I especially like are the English subtitles, because for some reason this song is rarely translated. Knowing the meaning of what they are singing in the scene in the movie Casablanca makes that scene even more moving.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
China launches two GPS-type satellites
China today successfully launched two more BeiDou satellites for its GPS-type navigation constellation, its Long March 3B rocket lifting off from its Xichang spaceport in the southwest of China.
No word on where the strap-on boosters and lower stages crashed in China, all using toxic hypergolic fuels.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
92 SpaceX
39 China
11 Russia
10 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 107 to 61, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including American companies, 92 to 76.