Category: Behind The Black

Intuitive Machines wants to land VIPER rover on Moon

9:04 am

VIPER's planned route on the Moon
VIPER’s now canceled planned route at the Moon’s south pole

The lunar lander startup Intuitive Machines has now revealed it is putting together an industry partnership to bid on flying NASA’s VIPER lunar rover on its own largest lander, still under development.

In an Aug. 13 earnings call about its second quarter financial results, Intuitive Machines executives said they were planning to respond to a request for information (RFI) that NASA issued Aug. 9 seeking input from companies and organizations interested in taking over the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) mission that the agency said in July it would cancel.

Steve Altemus, chief executive of Intuitive Machines, said on the call that his company, which also responded to an earlier call for “expressions of interest” from NASA regarding VIPER, is working with other companies, universities and international partners on responding to NASA’s RFI. He did not identify any of those prospective partners.

…NASA, in its RFI, said that prospective partners would be responsible for the costs of any final testing and other work on the rover itself, as well as delivering it to the lunar surface and operating it once there. NASA, in its July 17 announcement that it would cancel VIPER, said the agency would save at least $84 million by halting work now on the rover, now complete and undergoing environmental testing.

Whether this company can raise the capital to finish this mission, now that NASA has said it cannot, remains unclear. That it is trying, and NASA is not, illustrates however why NASA should get out of the business of building anything and just buy it from the private sector. NASA’s attempt to build VIPER went 3Xs over budget and is considerably behind schedule. Now the private sector see profits in finishing the job, which will in turn save the agency considerable money. Imagine if NASA had done this from the beginning. The savings would have been even greater, and VIPER might right now be even closer to launch.

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5th Dimension – Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Performed live on television in 1969 by the group’s original members, Billy Davis Jr., Florence LaRue, Marilyn McCoo, Lamonte McLemore, and Ronald Townson. This music, from the Broadway musical Hair, reflects the naive and somewhat arrogant attitude of that baby boom generation. It is also a very beautiful song, sung beautiful.

Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.

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Let’s take a look at the college teachers and students who support Hamas and the torture and murder of little children

2:23 pm

Hamas vs Israel
Apparently too many college students and teachers
support Hamas despite these very obvious facts.
Courtesy of Doug Ross.

Fight! Fight! Fight! At the website Campus Reform one of its reporters, Michael Duke, has been doing magnificent work in identifying in detail college by college the students and professors who rioted this spring on numerous university campuses in support of the terrorist organization Hamas and its October 7, 2023 massacre of more than 1200 people, including the rape, torture, and murder of men, women, children, and babies.

I thought it was time to do the public a service and provide a link to all of Duke’s reports, so that future employees will have a handy place to go to find out whether the future college prospect before them thinks it is acceptable to kill babies in support of an ideology. Duke’s work has only begun, but it appears he is trying to identify every single pro-Hamas rioter this year who was arrested. His list so far:
» Read more

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Buried peaks in a sea of Martian sand

12:46 pm

Buried peaks in a sea of sand
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on April 13, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the MRO science team labels as “streamlined features”, though that doesn’t seem to me to be the best description.

Granted, the prevailing winds, from the northeast to the southwest, appear to pushing the sand dune fields to the southwest. The dark line — created recently by a dust devil — indicates the wind direction. The mesas, from 100 to 200 feet high, do not however appear very streamlined. Instead, they simply look like they are poking up through this sea of sand and dunes, with the wind able over time to successfully push that sand uphill a hundred-plus feet into the saddle between the mesas.

The overview map below provides some context and possibly an explanation, though not a very conclusive one.
» Read more

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It’s the audience that counts

11:27 am

The short clip below from the Stephen Colbert late night show has been making the rounds today. Colbert is interviewing a CNN news anchor and says the following, ““I know you guys are objective over there, that you just report the news as it is.”

To his shock the audience laughs, clearly recognizing how inaccurate, stupid, and clueless Colbert’s description of CNN is. Kaitlan Collins, the news anchor, responds, “That supposed to be a laugh line?” and Colbert, clearly uncomfortable, answers, “It wasn’t supposed to be.”

Watch an enjoy:
» Read more

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More bad journalism, this time about a hypothesized “underground ocean” on Mars

10:14 am

How today's journalists analyze potential stories
How today’s journalists analyze potential stories

Today’s example of modern bad journalism from our dismal mainstream press concerns a paper published yesterday in the journal of the National Academy of Sciences describing the possibility of liquid water in the Martian “mid-crust,” based on InSight seismological data and computer modeling.

I read the paper yesterday and decided that there really wasn’t much there. While the data suggests a lot of liquid water might be saturated within the fractured rocks of this deep underground crustal layer six to twelve miles down, the paper was based on many assumptions and had many uncertainties. It is also not confirmed by other researchers, and remains nothing more than educated speculation at this point.

Not surprisingly, our ignorant mainstream press today has immediately declared the discovery of a vast underground ocean on Mars, ready for the taking and possibly harboring life!
» Read more

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Orbital tug startup Astroscale expands partnership with European aerospace giant Airbus

9:36 am

The Japanese-based orbital tug startup Astroscale has signed an agreement with the European company Airbus to expand their partnership beyond an earlier agreement to use Airbus’s robot arm on Astroscale’s tug.

Under the MoU, Astroscale and Airbus will explore ways to boost the development of navigation and docking technologies for satellite servicing and debris removal missions they did not specify. According to the news release, the expanded partnership seeks to combine Airbus’s satellite manufacturing and space systems heritage with technologies Astroscale is developing for in-orbit servicing.

Astroscale has been aggressively working to get business both in Europe and the U.S. by opening divisions in both regions. This deal is clearly part of that effort. It also provides Astroscale resources as a new startup it previously did not have.

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Axiom’s next commercial manned mission to ISS delayed until 2025

9:26 am

Axiom’s next commercial manned mission to ISS, dubbed Ax-4, which had been targeting an October 2024 launch date, has now been delayed until 2025 because of “required interagency approval processes.”

NASA’s only announcement describing the delay was a tweet on X, which stated the following:

The Ax-4 crew members are pending approval to fly to the orbiting lab by the Multilateral Crew Operations Panel.

Neither Axiom nor NASA provided further comment or explanation. The mission will fly three passengers from India, Poland, and Hungary and be commanded by Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut who now fulfills that role for Axiom. Since the three passengers are all government astronauts, it is possible that the bureaucracies from all three nations, plus NASA and its ISS partners, are entangled in negotiations far more complex than necessary.

This situation highlights quite clearly why both billionairs Jared Isaacman and Chun Wang have signed on with SpaceX to flight orbital missions — avoiding a docking with ISS — that require no permissions from NASA. Wang for example announced his deal yesterday, for a flight that is targeting a launch before the end of the year. Though that schedule is tight and might not be met, it appears the mission will likely fly before the Axiom one, which has been planned now for quite awhile.

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Portugal’s air traffic agency signs deal with company wishing to build spaceport in Azores

9:14 am

Santa Maria spaceport

Portugal’s air traffic agency, Portugal NAV, today signed an agreement with the spaceport company Atlantic Spaceport Consortium, to work out the details of placing a commercial spaceport on the island of Santa Maria in the Azores.

Under the cooperation agreement, the pair aim to define the guidelines that a future spaceport will need to adhere to when launching from Santa Maria. This includes defining exclusion zones, examining how to monitor and authorize launch activities, and studying under what conditions to impose partial or total launch restrictions for safety reasons.

The map to the right shows the location of the island, relative to Europe and Africa. No timeliine for construction has been given, though the consortium hopes to launch “a small atmospheric rocket” in September. It has also signed a deal in 2022 (just before Russia’s invasion) with a Ukrainian rocket startup.

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SpaceX announces another commerical passenger flight on a Dragon capsule

10:17 pm

SpaceX today announced it will fly a four-passenger commerical flight, using the Dragon capsule dubbed Endurance and flying the first manned human flight to circle the poles.

The private Crew Dragon mission will be led by a Chinese-born cryptocurrency entrepreneur named Chun Wang, and he will be joined by a polar explorer, a roboticist, and a filmmaker whom he has befriended in recent years.

The “Fram2” mission, named after the Norwegian research ship Fram, will launch into a polar corridor from SpaceX’s launch facilities in Florida and fly directly over the north and south poles. The three-to-five day mission is being timed to fly over Antarctica near the summer solstice in the Southern Hemisphere, to afford maximum lighting.

As with the Jared Isaacman’s previous and future Dragon manned missions, the flight avoids any of the NASA bureucracy and costs by not docking with ISS. The flight is targeting a launch date before the end of this year, but that date is not firm.

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August 12, 2024 Quick space links

5:06 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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The strange carbon dioxide ice cap of Mars’ south pole

12:33 pm

The strange carbon dioxide cap of Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on July 1, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The image is labeled simply as a “terrain sample,” which usually means it was taken not as part of any specific research project but to fill a gap in the picture-taking schedule in order to maintain the camera’s proper temperate. When the camera team needs to do this, they try to picture interesting features availabe at that time slot. Sometimes the image is boring. Sometimes it is surprisingly interesting.

In this case the picture is the latter, and certainly quite alien. The curly parallel dark lines appear to be grooves, and seem to have ripple dunes within them, as if the only dust here got trapped in those low spots. It is also possible that the dunes are frozen and ancient, and are only being revealed as the top layer in each groove goes away.

What could possibly explain what we are looking at? The overview map below gives only a clue.
» Read more

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Trump to sue Justice Department over Mar-a-Lago raid and subsequent indictments

11:36 am

Trump defiant after being shot
Trump defiant

Fight! Fight! Fight! According to a report today by Fox News, Trump’s lawyers are about to sue the Justice Department for $100 million, claiming the Mar-a-Lago raid and subsequent now-dismissed indictments by Jack Smith (who the courts have ruled was appointed illegally) were done with the “clear intent to engage in political persecution.”

Trump attorney Daniel Epstein filed the notice to sue the Justice Department. The Justice Department has 180 days from the date of receipt to respond to Epstein’s notice and come to a resolution. If no resolution is made, Trump’s case will move to federal court in the Southern District of Florida.

…Epstein argued that the DOJ violated Florida law, intrusion upon seclusion, which is recognized as a form of invasion of privacy. Intrusion upon seclusion includes “an intentional intrusion, physically or otherwise, into the private quarters of another person” and the intrusion “must occur in a manner that a reasonable person would find highly offensive.”
» Read more

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FAA cancels scheduled public meetings to review new Boca Chica environmental assessment

9:52 am

For as yet unknown reasons, the FAA today sent out an email canceling all the public meetings that it had scheduled in mid-July and were designed to allow the public to comment on its new environmental assessment of SpaceX’s application to increase its Starship/Superheavy launch rate at Boca Chica from five to as much as 25 launches per year.

The FAA is cancelling the in-person public meetings on the Draft EA scheduled for: Tuesday, August 13, 2024; 1:00 PM–3:00 PM & 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM CDT City of South Padre Island Convention Center, 7355 Padre Blvd, South Padre Island, TX 78597 Thursday, August 15, 2024; 1:00 PM–3:00 PM & 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM CDT Port Isabel Event & Cultural Center, 309 E Railroad Ave, Port Isabel, TX 78578 The FAA is also cancelling the virtual public meeting scheduled for: Tuesday, August 20, 2024; 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM CDT The FAA will provide notice for new dates for the meetings and a new date for the close of the comment period in the future.

The FAA’s email also noted that public comments can still be submitted either electronically here or by mail sent to Ms. Amy Hanson, FAA Environmental Specialist, SpaceX EA, c/o ICF 1902 Reston Metro Plaza Reston, VA 20190. In both cases, the commenter must reference Docket No. FAA-2024-2006. The email also stated that the public comment period would be extended beyond its August 29, 2024 closure date.

This cancellation mirrors the situation in 2021-2022, when the FAA was reviewing its previous environmental reassessment of the Boca Chica site. At that time the agency repeatedly failed to meet its own deadlines, sometimes on a month-by-month basis, so that the final approval process ended up stretching out more than a half year. Similar delays further stalled the first Starship/Superhavy test flight by another full year.

I once again suspect that higher ups in the White House are applying pressure on the FAA to stall this process, for political reasons, probably because those higher ups want no action taken before the November election. I am guessing, but this is how Washington works. Real achievement by American private citizens must always take a back seat to the power lusts of the DC politicos who now rule us.

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A galaxy with a ring

9:34 am

A galaxy with a ring
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, and appears part of a long term survey of nearby ringed galaxies. From the caption:

MCG+07-07-072 has quite an unusual shape, for a spiral galaxy, with thin arms emerging from the ends of its barred core to draw a near-circle around its disc. It is classified, using a common extension of the basic Hubble scheme, as an SBc(r) galaxy: the c denotes that its two spiral arms are loosely wound, each only performing a half-turn around the galaxy, and the (r) is for the ring-like structure they create. Rings in galaxies come in quite a few forms, from merely uncommon, to rare and astrophysically important!

Lenticular galaxies are a type that sit between elliptical and spiral galaxies. They feature a large disc, unlike an elliptical galaxy, but lack any spiral arms. Lenticular means lens-shaped, and these galaxies often feature ring-like shapes in their discs. Meanwhile, the classification of “ring galaxy” is reserved for peculiar galaxies with a round ring of gas and star formation, much like spiral arms look, but completely disconnected from the galactic nucleus – or even without any visible nucleus! They’re thought to be formed in galactic collisions.

This galaxy is about 320 million light years away, and is also known as Abell 426. Though astronomers think that these various shapes of galaxies, from barred to lenticular to ringed, are formed from a variety of galactic collusions and interactions with each galaxy’s nucleus, that remains nothing more than an educated guess. The complexity of galaxy evolution, involving billions of years and millions of stars, is barely in its infancy, and requires a lot of assumptions because our observations only involves a mere nanosecond in that grand history.

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Dawn Aerospace completes new round of flight tests of its small-scale rocket-powered airplane

9:17 am

The crew and Mk-II prototype
The crew and Mk-II prototype

The space startup Dawn Aerospace on August 7, 2024 announced the successful completion of a second set of flight tests of its small-scale rocket-powered Mk-II Aurora airplane, reaching speeds just below the speed of sound, with the goal in the next round of flights to set several major records and lay the groundwork of building a reuseable orbital spaceplane that can launch and land on a runway, and do so twice in one day.

The campaign (dubbed Campaign 2-2) saw three flights completed in late July. In flight three, we achieved a maximum speed and altitude of Mach 0.92 (967 km/h) and 50,000ft (15.1km). That is 3x and 5x of what we had achieved in the previous campaign – a massive jump in demonstrated performance.

We are now poised to fly supersonic in Campaign 2-3, scheduled for September. But that is just the beginning. In many respects, the Mk-II is slated to be the highest-performance vehicle to take off from a runway. By the end of 2025, we’re looking to climb faster than an F15, fly higher than a Mig 25, faster than an SR-71, and, ultimately, be the first vehicle to fly above the Karman line; 100km altitude (the generally accepted definition of “space”), twice in a single day.

Some of these records have stood for over 50 years.

The company has so far spent $10 million on this project, and has raised a total of $20 million. Nor is this Dawn’s only effort. It builds and sells thrusters for smallsats, and is also selling to smallsat makers its own docking and refueling port.

The press release at the link is very detailed, and worth perusing. Four of the company’s founders come from the rocket field, with the fifth from aviation. Their goal, to build from scratch a commercial orbital spaceplane using private funds entirely, is quite laudible but incredibly challenging. It remains to be seen whether they can do it. That the company has diversified successfully into the satellite industry is very encouraging however.

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SpaceX launches another 23 Starlink satellites

8:50 am

After a launch abort less than a minute before launch yesterday, SpaceX successfully launched another 23 Starlink satellites this morning, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The first stage completed its 17th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The past three days for SpaceX was quite busy, as my readers can easily see: Three launches in three days. It appears the company is working hard to recover its launch pace from the several week pause after an upper stage had a leak on a July 11th launch.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

80 SpaceX
33 China
10 Rocket Lab
8 Russia

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 95 to 49, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world combined, including American companies, 80 to 64.

The launch schedule for the rest of the week will be as busy, with the Russians launching a Progress freighter to ISS, India launching its SSLV rocket, and SpaceX having two more launches on its manifest.

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FAA red tape apparently stalling the next Starship/Superheavy orbital test launch

9:37 pm

Superheavy being captured by the tower chopsticks at landing
Superheavy being captured by the tower chopsticks at landing.
Click for video.

Back in mid-June, shortly after 4th orbital test flight of SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy rocket, it appeared based on an FAA statement that the company could proceed with the next test flight as soon as it was ready to fly.

Subsequently, Elon Musk said the company expected to be ready by early August. There were also indications that the company wished to attempt a chopstick landing of Superheavy back at the launch tower at Boca Chica. Such an attempt however would require approval from the FAA, as the flight profile would not be the same as the previous flight.

I and others speculated that SpaceX would forego that chopstick landing in order to fly the fifth test flight quickly, while simultanously requesting permission from the FAA for such a landing on a later test flight. My thinking was that this would allow test flights to proceed with as little delay as possible.

Though it remains unknown whether or not the next test flight will include that chopstick landing attempt, it does appear that FAA red tape is blocking the next flight. In an update from NASASpaceflight.com about the work at Boca Chica posted on August 9, 2023 was a link to a SpaceX tweet the day before that said the following:
» Read more

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SpaceX launches two broadband satellites for the Space Force and Norway

8:49 pm

SpaceX tonight successfully launched two broadband satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The satellites will provide improved broadband service in the Arctic regions for both the Space Force and Norway, which partnered with Northrop Grumman to build the satellites.

The Falcon 9 first stage completed its 22nd flight, tying the record of one other booster for the most reuses. It landed on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

79 SpaceX
33 China
10 Rocket Lab
8 Russia

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 94 to 49, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world combined, including American companies, 79 to 64.

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Rocket Lab launches commercial radar satellite

7:52 am

Rocket Lab early this morning successfully launched a radar satellite for the company Capella, its Electron rocket lifting off from its launchpad in New Zealand.

This was Rocket Lab’s fifth launch for Capella. It is also the tenth launch for Rocket Lab this year, maintaining a pace of more than one launch per month. It remains uncertain at this moment whether the company can reach its goal of 20 launches for the year.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

78 SpaceX
33 China
10 Rocket Lab
8 Russia

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 93 to 49, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world combined, including American companies, 78 to 64.

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SpaceX launches an additional 21 Starlink satellites

10:25 am

SpaceX early this morning successfully launched an additional 21 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage completed its 21st flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. Note how a first stage is now used more than twenty times, and it almost goes without notice.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

78 SpaceX
33 China
9 Rocket Lab
8 Russia

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 92 to 49, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world combined, including American companies, 78 to 63.

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Are these Martian terraced mesas or pits?

2:52 pm

Are these Martian pits or mesas?
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on July 2, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). I have purposely enhanced the contrast to bring out the strangely shaped and terraced features.

What I cannot figure out from any data available to me is whether these terraced features are mesas rising up, or pits descending down. The resolution in the global mosiac of Mars created both from MRO’s context camera and its elevation data is simply not good enough. It suggests these are pits, but the sunlight is coming from the west, which based on the shadows suggest these could be pits or mesas.

In fact, the dark lines that appear to distinguish the terraces might not be shadows at all, but simply darker material that contrasts with the lighter material on each side.
» Read more

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SpaceX’s new Raptor-3 methane-fueled engine is so advanced the CEO of ULA doesn’t understand it

12:31 pm

SpaceX's new Raptor-3 engine
Click for original image.

When Elon Musk on August 2, 2024 proudly tweeted a picture of SpaceX’s new Raptor-3 methane-fueled engine, the third iteration of the engine it uses on this Starship/Superheavy rocket, Tori Bruno, the CEO of ULA, looked at the image (to the right) and complained that Musk and SpaceX were touting pictures of a “partially assembled engine.” As Bruno tweeted:

They have done an excellent job making the assembly simpler and more producible. So, there is no need to exaggerate this by showing a partially assembled engine without controllers, fluid management, or TVC systems, then comparing it to fully assembled engines that do.

It turns out that this engine is so advanced that Bruno — the CEO of SpaceX’s best competitor — didn’t understand it. Both Musk and SpaceX’s CEO Gywnne Shotwell immediately responded with images of this same engine operating during hot fire tests. As Shotwell tweeted, “Works pretty good for a ‘partially assembled’ engine :).”

Musk in one of his first tweets describing the engine’s specifications was also right when he described it as “Truly, a work of art.” Look at it. For what is the most powerful rocket engine ever built it looks as streamlined and a simple as the slant-6 car engine I had in my 1969 Plymouth Valient, built long before environmental regulations caused car engines to become incredibly overbuilt and complicated.

This little anecdote illustrates quite starkly how advanced SpaceX is over its competitors. It is now building rocket engines with technology beyond the immediate understanding of the CEO of the United States’ second largest rocket company.

Almost a decade after SpaceX successfully reused a Falcon 9 first stage, and now does it routinely, no other rocket company as yet to do the same, and only one company, Rocket Lab, is doing flight tests in an attempt to eventually do so.

SpaceX has no competition because too many of its competitors are simply not trying to compete. It is both sad and shameful.

Hat tip to reader Rex Ridenoure.

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Crazily eroded rock on Mars

11:15 am

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

A crazily eroded rock in Jezero crater
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken today by the Perseverance Mars rover, using its SHERLOC-WATSON close-up camera at the end of its robot arm.

The size of this rock is tiny, no more than a few inches across. The many holes remind me of surface limestone on Earth. When it rains, the water dissolves the limestone, and so holes will develop and grow over time. You can see this process if you spray very hot water on top of a block of ice.

The problem is that it doesn’t rain on Mars. Lava can sometimes freeze and look this way, but is it lava? The blue dot on the overview map above shows where Perseverance was two days earlier. The rover team has not updated that map so it is not known exactly where the rover was when it snapped this picture today. Nor has the science team posted an update on their activities since June 27th.

These strange features however mirror somewhat the same surface features seen back in June, when the rover was on the north side of Neretva Vallis, so it is likely this rock was produced by the same geological processes. I will however not guess what those processes were.

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NASA inspector general blasts Boeing’s management relating to its work on SLS’s new more powerful upper stage

9:52 am

Boeing's schedule slips in building SLS's upper stage
Boeing’s schedule slips in building SLS’s upper stage

In a report issued today [pdf], NASA’s inspector general harshly criticized the Boeing managment and operations at its Michoud facility, where the company is developing SLS’s new more powerful upper stage. From the report’s executive summary:

Quality control issues at Michoud are largely due to the lack of a sufficient number of rained and experienced aerospace workers at Boeing. To mitigate these challenges, Boeing provides training and work orders to its employees. Considering the significant quality control deficiencies at Michoud, we found these efforts to be inadequate. For example, during our visit to Michoud in April 2023, we observed a liquid oxygen fuel tank dome—a critical component of the SLS Core Stage 3—segregated and pending disposition on whether and how it can safely be used going forward due to welds that did not meet NASA specifications. According to NASA officials, the welding issues arose due to Boeing’s inexperienced technicians and inadequate work order planning and supervision. The lack of a trained and qualified workforce increases the risk that Boeing will continue to manufacture parts and components that do not adhere to NASA requirements and industry standards.

The report also notes that delivery of that upper stage has been delayed from 2021 to 2027 (as shown by the graph to the right, taken from the IG report), and its cost has risen from $962 million to almost $2.8 billion. It also notes quite bluntly that:

Boeing’s quality management system at Michoud does not effectively adhere to industry standards or NASA requirements, resulting in production delays to the SLS core and upper stages and increased risk to the integrated spacecraft. … Boeing’s process for addressing contractual noncompliance has been ineffective, and the company has generally been nonresponsive in taking corrective actions when the same quality control issues reoccur.

Sound familiar? It should. These issues appear to be the same kind of quality control problems that have plagued Starliner, and are also the same kind of problems that had NASA reject Boeing’s bid to provide cargo to its Lunar Gateway station, and state while doing so that it will no longer consider future Boeing bids until the company straightens itself out.

It appears from today’s inspector general report that Boeing has fixed nothing. The report recommends some additional supervision of Boeing from NASA, and more importantly suggests the agency “institute financial penalties for Boeing’s noncompliance with quality control standards.”

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French startup Exploration Company has so far obtained almost $800 million in contracts

9:30 am

The French startup The Exploration Company has so far obtained almost $800 million in contracts to provide cargo ferrying services to space stations using its Nyx unmanned freighter.

During a presentation at the International Space Station Research & Development Conference (ISSRDC), The Exploration Company’s chief commercial officer, Dana Baki, outlined the company’s progress since its founding. According to Baki, the company has raised $70 million in funding and grown to 130 employees across four countries. The headline figure was, however, the $770 million in contracts won, of which 10% came from space agencies and the other 90% from private space station providers Axiom Space, Vast, and Starlab.

This French company recognized early on that if all four space stations get built, they will all need regular cargo deliveries, and that SpaceX’s cargo Dragon and Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus would be hard pressed to fill the need. Thus the demand for its untested capsule. The contracts are likely contingency-based, meaning the stations are not committing any significant money until Nyx becomes operational.

One other interesting note: The only proposed station that did not offer Exploration a contract was Blue Origin’s Orbital Reef. Though one of Blue Origin’s partners is Sierra Space, which will provide cargo ferrying capacity with its Dream Chaser mini-shuttles, it seems signing up a redundant back up would be wise. Another partner, Boeing, is supposed to use Starliner to provide crew ferrying capability, with cargo an option, but that remains an unknown considering the problems with Starliner.

It is unlikely Blue Origin has signed a deal with SpaceX, and I have not seen any news that it signed a deal with Northrop. Thus, it has no known viable backup at the moment.

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Rocket Lab completes first static fire test of new more powerful rocket engine

9:16 am

Neutron first stage deploying second stage with satellite
Neutron first stage deploying second stage with satellite

Rocket Lab yesterday announced it has successfully completed the first static fire test of its new Archimedies rocket engine, designed to be used on its new larger Neutron rocket scheduled for launch next year.

Archimedes performed well and ticked off several key test objectives, including reaching 102% power, anchoring the engine’s design ahead of Neutron’s first flight scheduled for mid-2025 – a schedule that would make Neutron the fastest a commercially developed medium-class launch vehicle has been brought to market. With the hot fire complete and full qualification campaign now underway, the Rocket Lab team is moving into full production of flight engines.

The design of Neuton is clever, as shown in the graphic to the right. In order to reuse as much as possible, the fairing encloses both the payload and upper stage. Before stage separation, the fairing will open, allowing the upper stage and its payload to be deployed. Afterward it remains with the first stage, which will land vertically back at the launch site.

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