April 14, 2023 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold in two parts.
To listen to all of John Batchelor’s podcasts, go here.
» Read more
Category: Behind The Black
SANS ICS HyperEncabulator
An evening pause: Essentially, a detailed and accurate history of the important encabulating technology that has revolutionized all technology, both real and imagined.
Hat tip Wayne DeVette.
FAA issues Starship launch license; SpaceX schedules launch for April 17th
Starship prototype #24 stacked on top of Superheavy prototype #7
FAA just sent out an email notice announcing that it has issued SpaceX the launch license for the first orbital test launch of Superheavy/Starship.
After completing an evaluation of all applicable Vehicle Operator License requirements, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a commercial Vehicle Operator License to SpaceX for launches of the Starship/Super Heavy Launch Vehicle Program in Cameron County, TX.
The affected environment and environmental impacts of Starship/Super Heavy operations at the Boca Chica Launch Site had been analyzed in the 2022 Final Programmatic Environmental Assessment for the SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy Launch Vehicle Program at the SpaceX Boca Chica Launch Site in Cameron County, Texas. Since the 2022 Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA), SpaceX provided the FAA with additional information regarding Starship’s planned landing, Super Heavy’s planned soft water landing, and the Launch Pad Detonation Suppression System. In accordance with FAA Order 1050.1F, Environmental Impacts: Policies and Procedures, the FAA prepared the Written Re-evaluation of the 2022 Final Programmatic Environmental Assessment for the SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy Launch Vehicle Program at the Boca Chica Launch Site in Cameron County, Texas to describe and evaluate this additional information.
Based on the Written Re-Evaluation, the FAA concluded that the issuance of a vehicle operator license for Starship/Super Heavy operations conforms to the prior environmental documentation, that the data contained in the 2022 PEA remains substantially valid, that there are no significant environmental changes, and all pertinent conditions and requirements of the prior approval have been met or will be met in the current action. Therefore, preparation of a supplemental or new environmental document is not necessary to support the Proposed Action.
In plain English, the FAA (and other federal agencies) have finally agreed that this launch will do nothing to change the conclusions of the environmental reassessment report that was approved in June 2022. That these agencies decided apparently decided to rehash that approved environmental reassessment for a launch that was also approved in that reassessment suggests that there are individuals in these agencies salivating for an opportunity to squelch SpaceX.
SpaceX has now set April 17, 2023 as the launch date, with its live stream going live in two days. I will embed that live stream late on April 16, 2023, for those who wish to watch it here.
April 14, 2023 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- Video of the explosion during a recent Centaur stage test
According to the tweet by ULA CEO Tory Bruno, “Hydrogen leak. H2 accumulated inside the rig. Found an ignition source. Burned fast. Over pressure caved in our forward dome and damaged the rig.” They still need to locate the source of the leak.
- China’s spaceport deal with Middle East nation Djibouti has been cancelled
The deal had been announced in January. I suspect Djibouti was pressured by the U.S. to cancel, since we have so many military bases there.
- Firefly touts its project to build a medium-lift launch vehicle, larger than its Alpha rocket
The link however only shows pictures of the construction of the buildings where the rockets will eventually be built.
- Road closure notice for Boca Chica on April 17th, with back up dates on April 18th and 19th
I do not think this is for the launch itself, but for the wet dress rehearsal countdown and static fire test SpaceX said it would do before launch.
- Russian movie, The Challenge, shot on ISS, to be released in 20 countries
The list kind of indicates the allies (or potential allies if the U.S. continues to screw up) for the new Chinese/Russia axis: “China, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia and North Macedonia, Palestine, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the UAE, Iran and Sudan.”
The very icy high northern latitudes of Mars
Click for full image.
Today’s cool image to me illustrates how the presence of near surface ice in the high latitudes of the northern lowland plains of Mars helps to produce a very strange and alien terrain.
The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on January 31, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a typical example of what the scientists have dubbed a “pedestal crater,” where the crater ends up higher than the surrounding terrain because the impact had packed the ground and made it more resistant to erosion.
This theory however does not explain entirely what we see here. That apron mesa surrounding the crater also resembles the kind of splash field that is created when an impact occurs in less dense ice-rich ground. Note too the soft stippled nature of the ground. Wind erosion is not the sole cause of change here.
» Read more
Today’s blacklisted American: Licensing authorities use power to deny doctors freedom of speech
Blacklisted doctors Eric Hensen (l) and John Littell
They’re coming for you next: Two stories today illustrate how government medical licensing authorities have used their power inappropriately and very oppressively in the past three years to silence any dissent in the medical community.
If a doctor dared to question the now very clearly misguided medical policies of government during the Wuhan panic, state medical boards were quite willing to take away their license to practice.
Our first story began when Texas’s Republican governor Greg Abbot imposed a mask mandate in 2020. Dr. Eric Hensen refused to comply, recognizing that masks do nothing to prevent transmission and actually carry health risks in themselves.
» Read more
Ingenuity completes its 50th flight on Mars
Click for interactive map.
The Ingenuity team yesterday announced that the Mars helicopter has successfully completed its 50th flight on Mars on April 13, 2023, flying 1,057.09 feet (322.2 meters) in 145.7 seconds, while setting a new altitude record of 59 feet. The green dot marks its new location on the overview map to the right, with the blue dot marking Perseverance.
Built with many off-the-shelf components, such as smartphone processors and cameras, Ingenuity is now 23 Earth months and 45 flights beyond its expected lifetime. The rotorcraft has flown for over 89 minutes and more than 7.1 miles (11.6 kilometers). “When we first flew, we thought we would be incredibly lucky to eke out five flights,” said Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity team lead at JPL. “We have exceeded our expected cumulative flight time since our technology demonstration wrapped by 1,250% and expected distance flown by 2,214%.”
The helicopter is beginning to show signs of age, with its engineering team recognizing that its life could end at any time, especially because it now has to fly more often to keep ahead of Perseverance, while also keeping within communications range.
The helicopter however is now giving us clues as to where the Perseverance science team wants to send the rover. Notice how its path has shifted north away from its planned route (along the red dotted line) to travel just below the rim of Belva Crater, following Ingenuity. The helicopter team is thus providing the rover team some specific additional information about the ground ahead, aiding in planning travel.
Lucy snaps its first pictures of four of the Trojan asteroids it will visit
Click for original movie.
Lucy’s route through the solar system
Though still many millions of miles away and really nothing more than tiny dots moving across the field of stars, the science team for the asteroid probe Lucy have used the probe to take its first pictures of four of the eight Trojan asteroids it will visit during its travels through the solar system, as shown on the map to the right. The dots along its path show where Lucy will fly past asteroids, some of which are binaries.
The image at the top is a screen capture from a very short movie created from all of the images Lucy took of each asteroid. If you click on the picture you will see that movie. As I say, at this distance, more than 330 million miles away, the asteroids are nothing more than dots. The short films of each were obtained by pictures taken over periods from two to 10 hours long, depending on the asteroid.
These asteriods are all in the L4 Trojans, the first that Lucy will visit from ’27 to ’28.
Curiosity gets a software update that will speed its travels and better protect its wheels
Click for full resolution panorama. The original images can be found here, here, here, here, and here.
Engineers this week completed a major software update on the Mars rover Curiosity that, among many other improvements, will allow it to travel more quickly across the rocky Martian surface but at the same time better protect its damaged wheels.
The team also wants to maintain the health of Curiosity’s aluminum wheels, which began showing signs of broken treads in 2013. When engineers realized that sharp rocks were chipping away at the treads, they came up with an algorithm to improve traction and reduce wheel wear by adjusting the rover’s speed depending on the rocks it’s rolling over.
The new software goes further by introducing two new mobility commands that reduce the amount of steering Curiosity needs to do while driving in an arc toward a specific waypoint. With less steering required, the team can reach the drive target quicker and decrease the wear that inherently comes with steering. “That ability was actually dreamed up during the Spirit and Opportunity days,” Denison said. “It was a ‘nice to have’ they decided not to implement.”
The software will also make it possible for Curiosity to travel more without the help of humans on Earth, which will also speed its travels up Mount Sharp, on ground that is getting increasingly rough, as shown in the mosaic above of navigation images from March 27th.
Arianespace launches JUICE mission to Jupiter
Arianespace early today used its Ariane-5 rocket, on its next-to-last launch, to send the European Space Agency’s (ESA) JUICE mission on its way to Jupiter to study its large moons.
It will take eight years for JUICE to get to Jupiter, using flybys of the Earth, Moon, and Venus along the way. This journey might also include a flyby of an asteroid, depending on orbital mechanics and the spacecraft’s condition.
Once at Jupiter it will, from ’31 to ’34, do thirty-five flybys of the Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa, and then enter orbit around Ganymede for most of 2035, before being sent to crash onto the planet to end its mission.
Ariane-5 meanwhile has one more launch, in June. After this Arianespace will not at present have an active large rocket, as its Ariane-6 replacement is not yet flying, its maiden flight presently scheduled for the fourth quarter of this year.
This was also Europe’s first launch in 2023, so it does not get listed on the leader board. The leaders of the 2023 launch race are as follows:
23 SpaceX (with a launch scheduled for tonight)
15 China (with a launch scheduled for tomorrow)
6 Russia
3 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise still leads China 26 to 15, but is now tied with the entire world combined 26 all.
April 13, 2023 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, sent these out on time but was stymied when his email bounced back hours later.
I say, better late than never.
- A stock analyst reviews the possible buyers of ULA should the sales rumor be true
He concludes that Lockheed Martin is the mostly likely buyer. His analysis makes great sense.
- NASA official expresses confidence that New Glenn will launch its ESCAPADE Mars orbiters on time in 2024
ESCAPADE was originally going to launch as a secondary payload with Psyche, and lost that launch when Psyche was delayed. Whether New Glenn will be ready for its 2024 launch window however remains very unknown, especially because this same official has admitted the launch date is still “approximate and provisional,” and there already are reports that New Glenn won’t make its first launch until 2025.
- Russian documentary about its Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan
I haven’t yet watched it. It is 38 minutes long and in Russian, though if you set the subtitles to English you’ll get a rough auto-translation.
- Russia now says it will launch its Venera-D mission to Venus in June 2031
As Anatoly Zak correctly notes, this mission was originally supposed to launch in 2013. That would make it only eighteen years behind schedule, assuming Roscosmos can meet that 2031 date, an assumption that is wildly unrealistic.
- Firefly successfully completes full duration static fire test of Alpha rocket first stage set for launch this month
The Space Force payload is aimed at proving the ability to launch rapidly.
- China touts its concept of a lunar brick-making robot it plans to launch on its Chang’e-8 mission
Nothing here but some pretty pictures.
Sterling Cottam, Mike Massé, Jeff Hall – Can’t Help Falling in Love
An evening pause: A very nice cover of my favorite Elvis song. The camera placement could have been better but who cares.
Hat tip Sayomara.
A pyramid on Mars
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on January 21, 2023 by the high resolution camera of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label a “pyramidal mound”, which is I think understating the point somewhat.
This pyramid is almost perfectly square, with two perpendicular ridgelines rising from its corners to meet perfectly at the pyramid’s peak. A similar pyramid mound in the Cydonia region, where the so-called “Face on Mars” was found, caused endless absurd speculations in the 1990s of past Martian civilizations, all of which burst into nothingness when good high resolution images were finally obtained in the 2000s.
But what caused this very symmetrical natural feature?
» Read more
Blacklist followup: Rhode Island school district fails to respond to lawsuit accusing it of discriminating against Christians
Oppressive Rhode Island
Bring a gun to a knife fight: Because a Rhode Island school district in Providence failed to respond to a lawsuit accusing it of discriminating against Christians, it has now defaulted and awaits a final judgment against it.
Liberty Counsel filed a lawsuit against the school district on March 10, 2023. The Providence Public School District did not answer the complaint by the court’s deadline. Yesterday, Liberty Counsel filed an application to enter a default against the school district which will allow Liberty Counsel to seek a final judgment against the defendants. Today, the federal court entered the default against the district and its superintendent. Having raised no defense to the lawsuit, the district will be subject to a judgment requiring it to provide equal access to the Good News Clubs. Liberty Counsel will also pursue attorney’s fees and costs against the defendants.
This is a followup on a March 2023 blacklist column. » Read more
German students about to attempt launch of suborbital hybrid rocket
A student project at the University of Stuttgart in Germany is about to attempt the first suborbital launch of a hybrid rocket that has the possibility of setting a new altitude record for student-built rockets.
The hybrid rocket is 7.80 m long and weighs around 70 kg. It was built by around 60 students from the University Group HyEnD of the University of Stuttgart. “It’s one of the most powerful and advanced student-built hybrid rockets in the world,” says Max Öchsle, HyEnD project manager. With this, the students have big plans: They want to beat their own altitude record of 32 km for student-built hybrid rockets, which they set in 2016.
The students also hope to cross the boundary into space at an altitude of 100 km. In addition to the world record for hybrid rockets, this also makes the world record for student-built rockets in general possible. The previous record is 103.6 km and was set by the University of Southern California (USCRPL) team in 2019. “The world record is within our reach. We could indeed beat it,” says Öchsle. Öchsle is well aware that the record depends on other factors such as the weather.
The launch window begins on April 14th, and extends until April 25th, will take place at the new Esrange commercial spaceport in Sweden, and will be live streamed by the spaceport. Updates on the project can be found at the project’s own website.
What makes this particular student project interesting to me is its location, in Germany. That nation presently has three startup rocket companies racing to be the first to reach orbit. These students are clearly aiming for jobs with this emerging German rocket industry, and if successful at this project will bring to that industry some very sophisticated abilities.
Museum offers $25k for recovery of meteorite that landed in Maine April 8th
Because a instrument operated by NOAA picked up radar data of an asteroid fall over Maine on April 8, 2023, it has been possible for NASA scientists to publish a track, shown to the right, of where any pieces of the meteorite might have landed.
As a result, the Maine Mineral and Gem Museum has offered a $25k reward to anyone who turns in the first piece weighing more than one kilogram.
The $25,000 reward is only for the first kilogram, but Pitt said that the museum will also buy other fireball pieces that are found. “Depending upon the type of meteorite this is, specimens could easily be worth their weight in gold,” he said.
The American Meteor Society received six witness reports of Saturday’s fireball, half of which were in northeast Maine. One of the witnesses described the meteorite as having a “long glowing tail (but no smoke).” Another said that it was “bright red” while the tail was “very white.”
The museum also emphasized that any meteorite hunters must get landowner permission before entering private land.
Hakuto-R1 now scheduled to land on Moon on April 25th
Hakuto-R1’s planned landing site is in Atlas Crater.
The private company Ispace yesterday announced that their Hakuto-R1 lunar lander, presently in orbit around the Moon, will attempt a landing on April 25, 2023, landing in Atlas Crater.
At approximately 15:40 on April 25, 2023, (UTC), the lander is scheduled to begin the landing sequence from the 100 km altitude orbit. During the sequence, the lander will perform a braking burn, firing its main propulsion system to decelerate from orbit. Utilizing a series of pre-set commands, the lander will adjust its attitude and reduce velocity in order to make a soft landing on the lunar surface. The process will take approximately one hour.
Should conditions change, there are three alternative landing sites and depending on the site, the landing date may change. Alternative landing dates, depending on the operational status, are April 26, May 1, and May 3, 2023.
The lander carries several commercial payloads, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Rashid rover. Ispace says the landing will be publicly live streamed, with more details to follow.
The company has from the beginning been treating this entire mission as an engineering test, with ten major goals, all related to proving out the lander’s systems. It has now completed eight of those goals, with a successful landing and successful operations on the surface the last challenges. If Hakuto-R1 succeeds, Ispace will become the first private company to complete a privately funded planetary mission to the Moon.
Furthermore, the company is already planning its second lunar landing mission, Hakuto-R2 in 2024, and a third more ambitious lunar mission for NASA, partnering with the American company Draper.
Band Maid – Thrill
An evening pause: Most of the lyrics are in Japanese, but if you turn on closed captions they are translated into English.
Hat tip Wayne DeVette.
April 12, 2023 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold in two parts.
To listen to all of John Batchelor’s podcasts, go here.
» Read more
April 12, 2023 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- Flight path over China of Long March 4B launch scheduled for April 16, 2023
As Jay says, “Watch your heads!”
- Results of Relativity’s investigation into Terran-1 launch failure
Posting this as a series of images in tweets is very clumsy, but if you read all the images in the first three tweets in the thread, you will get the full report.
- Venus balloon project team disbands due to NASA cancellation
The team had completed two flight tests of a small scale balloon prototype, but budget issues have killed the mission.