Forgotten Weapons – Winchester Thumb Trigger Rifle
An evening pause: A bit of engineering history. Note the simplicity.
Hat tip Gene Shipp.
Category: Behind The Black
March 7, 2023 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- Rocket engine builder Ursa Major to provide engines to Vector Launch
It is unclear if this Vector is the same Vector rocket startup that failed the first time because its own engines were underpowered. If so, the new management has changed course, since previously it has said it would still build its own engines, but of a different design.
- Dream Chaser is no longer scheduled to fly on Vulcan flight #2
Rumors suggest the removal is due to delays at Sierra Space getting Dream Chaser ready for flight. Sadly this is becoming a pattern, as the mini-shuttle is well behind schedule.
- New Glenn’s first launch likely delayed until 2025
No surprise, as Blue Origin more and more seems to be an unserious company that cannot get anything done fast or on schedule.
- A new trailer for Russian movie that had scenes shot on ISS
All in Russian unfortunately. The release date is now April 20th.
- ESA’s chief reaffirms its support of the Ukraine, despite blaming its Vega-C rocket failure on Ukrainian nozzles
Josef Aschbacher essentially grovels in response to the Ukrainian government’s objection to that investigation’s conclusions.
Flat-topped mesas in the icy northern lowland plains of Mars
Click for full image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped and rotated to post here, was taken on December 27, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and shows what the scientists have labeled “flat topped hills in Utopia Planitia.”
Utopia Planitia is the largest impact basin on Mars, approximately 2,100 miles across and located in the northern lowland plains.
Orbital evidence strongly suggests it is a region with a lot of near surface ice. The picture to the right reinforces that conclusion, as the entire flat plain surrounding these buttes appears like an ice field. Moreover, the full image shows many craters filled with glacial features, most of which also have softened features, as if with time the ice that impregnates their material has sublimated away.
» Read more
America’s blacklist culture: Republican in Florida proposes bill to regulate speech
Jason Brodeur: Republican politician in love with
restricting free speech
They’re coming for you next: The desire of people in our culture today to control and regulate the behavior of everyone else is not a partisan thing. Though the Democrats and their leftist allies have certainly led the way in blacklisting, censoring, and destroying anyone who disagrees with them, Republican politicians are just as likely to try to use their power to squelch opposition, and should never be trusted either.
Today we have a perfect example of this non-partisan lust for power. On March 7, 2023, Florida Republican state senator Jason Brodeur introduced a bill that would amend state law to require all websites to register with the government if they made any money reporting on government actions.
You can read the bill here. The underlined portions are the sections that Brodeur wishes to add to the law. The key paragraphs state the following:
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Fuel spill cleanup begins at Space Force telescope facility in Maui, Hawaii
The cleanup of the diesel fuel spill that occurred on January 29, 2023 at Space Force telescope facility on the top of the dormant volcano Haleakala on the island of Maui in Hawaii began last week.
Samples of the soil will be sent for testing to determine that it has been excavated to a depth that captures all the diesel fuel, the Air Force said. All the soil from those test samples, as well as the mass of earth removed, will be stored, cleaned and returned to the ground, according to the approved plan.
Hawaiians regard Haleakala’s summit as sacred and that no soil or stones should be removed from the site.
The facility is used by the U.S. military to track orbiting objects, from satellites to space junk.
UK awards $1.9 million in development grants to universities and private companies
The space agency of the United Kingdom today announced the award of nearly $1.9 million in grants to six universities and two private companies to do a variety of space engineering research.
The stated goal of the grants is to encourage the growth of a private space sector in the UK, as stated by one official in the press release:
Today’s funding is part of the government’s strategy to use our £5 billion investment in space science and technology to grow our £16.5 billion commercial space sector to create the businesses, jobs and opportunities of tomorrow, and the space clusters from Cornwall to Scotland.
The university research from these grants will thus hopefully produce viable products that the researchers can then use to establish private space companies.
South Korea commits $38 million to support space startups
The South Korean government has now established a space investment fund committed to raising $38 million to support startups in its nascent private space industry.
It will be interesting to see which management companies are selected to operate the fund and how the investment process will work. This initiative can potentially create exciting new opportunities for startups, entrepreneurs, researchers, and other stakeholders in the space industry and position South Korea as a leader in this field.
…The Korean Ministry of Science and ICT plans to invest 5 billion won [$3.8 million] this year to create a fundraising fund. The goal of creating a total fund of more than 50 billion won [$38 million] by 2027 is ambitious and demonstrates the government’s commitment to promoting private investment in the space industry.
It is very unclear what this project entails. Will the government budget the investment capital, or is it establishing a private venture capital investment firm that will in turn seek out the money from the private sector?
Either way, it appears the South Korean government wants to encourage the growth in a private commercial space industry.
Curiosity’s most recent cloud campaign
Click for original image.
On January 30, 2023 I posted the picture to the right, taken by the high resolution camera on the Mars rover Curiosity. The picture was part of their ongoing cloud survey, running from January to March ’23 and using the rover’s hi-res camera to look for clouds during twilight. Today the rover science team issued a press release describing some of the results of that campaign. For example, on February 2nd the rover captured a sunset with sun rays, sunlight illuminating the bottom of clouds after the Sun has set. The release also provided this explanation for the cloud on the right.
In addition to the image of sun rays, Curiosity captured a set of colorful clouds shaped like a feather on Jan. 27. When illuminated by sunlight, certain types of clouds can create a rainbowlike display called iridescence. “Where we see iridescence, it means a cloud’s particle sizes are identical to their neighbors in each part of the cloud,” said Mark Lemmon, an atmospheric scientist with the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “By looking at color transitions, we’re seeing particle size changing across the cloud. That tells us about the way the cloud is evolving and how its particles are changing size over time.”
In the case of Mars, the clouds are not made of liquid water droplets like on Earth, but ice particles, sometimes water and sometimes dry ice.
Newly discovered comet could be brightest object in sky in October ’24
Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, discovered simultanuously by telescopes in China and South Africa, has the possibility of becoming brightest object in sky when it makes its closest approach to the Earth in October 2024.
As viewed from Earth, the comet may be as luminous as the brightest stars in the sky during its upcoming flyby, according to EarthSky. This is brighter than the green comet C/2022 E3 that just passed by Earth in January. That comet had a brightness of around magnitude +4.6, just visible to the naked eye. The new comet may have a brightness of magnitude 0.7, potentially peaking at magnitude -5, similar to Venus at its brightest.
The comet is presently between Jupiter and Saturn. Its 80,000 year long orbit will make its next close approach to the Sun on September 28, 2024.
Whether this will become a naked eye object of beauty of course remains totally uncertain. Its orbit, which appears stable but with rare swings past the Sun, suggests it will have lots of ice to sublimate into a bright tail. This also suggests the comet will survive this close approach without breaking up, since it has likely done this frequently in the past.
At the same time, the brightness of comets is unpredictable. We won’t really know how bright it will become until it is on it approach to the Sun, in the early fall of 2024.
Japan’s new H3 rocket’s second stage fails during first launch
Japan’s new H3 rocket failed today on its first launch when something went wrong at second stage ignition, after separation from first stage.
Once controllers realized the rocket would not reach orbit, they initiated a self-destruct sequence, ending the mission.
This is very bad news for Japan’s space effort. Right now it does not have a viable competitive commercial rocket industry. All rocket construction is supervised and controlled by its space agency JAXA, which almost exclusively uses Mitsubishi to build what it wants. With the H3 failing (built by Mitsubishi) and the H2A and H2B (both also built by Mitsubishi) slated for retirement, JAXA does not have a rocket it can use for future missions.
Roy Orbison – Blue Bayou
An evening pause: Hat tip Judd Clark.
March 6, 2023 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- Branson pumps another $5 million into Virgin Orbit
Branson has now invested $60 million in Virgin Orbit since November 2022 in order to keep the company above water because delays with licensing at the UK bureaucracy prevented it from doing further launches in 2022. No launches, no revenue. And we now know for sure this is his reason, because his investment deal allows him to pull that money out at any time. Expect him to do so once Virgin Orbit begins flying again and making money.
- The Ukraine disputes ESA’s finding that its nozzles caused Vega-C launch failure
The Ukrainian space agency says ESA’s finding was premature and require further investigation. This conclusion might even be correct, in that ESA desperately needs to get its Vega rockets flying again with Ariane 6 not yet ready and Ariane 5 about to be retired.
- Ispace touts new liquid-fueled engine and new rocket variations
Since this company has had three straight launch failures with its solid-fueled rocket, it seems there is a lot of fantasy in this PR.
- China officially approves Tianwen-2 asteroid sample return mission
After dropping off its sample return capsule to Earth the spacecraft will then head to visit a comet.
- Agreement not yet reached between NASA and Roscosmos on additional astronaut barter flights
The original agreement covered only two flights, two Americans on two Soyuz flights and two Russians on two Dragon flights, and has now been completed. It is expected however that this deal will be extended.
- NASA shifts away from flying astronauts on suborbital flights of Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic
This decision is for lots of reasons, many related to safety and training needs. For example, these suborbital companies do not require flight suits, something NASA astronauts must wear. Thus, doing flights without the suits is somewhat pointless.
A blacklist victory? Professor wins million dollar settlement for being blacklisted
Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, blacklisted for being
white, Jewish, and willing to speak the truth.
Today’s blacklist story is a followup on one from April 2022, in which Jewish English professor at Linfield University in Oregon, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, was fired without due process because he reported the sexual misconduct of four of the university’s ten trustees. Before they fired him however school officials, including its university president and chair of the board of trustees Miles Davis, spewed anti-Semetic comments against him, including joking about sending Jews to gas chambers.
Pollack-Pelzner has now gotten some financial satisfaction in the courts, though hardly justice.
Linfield University has agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by former Professor Daniel Pollack-Pelzner for $1,037,500 in compensation for emotional distress, lost wages, and attorney fees.
The University insists that it is not admitting guilt and only wants to avoid further loss of “time and energy from the mission of the institution.” If so, it found a weird way of doing it. They have litigated this weak case for two years and were compelled to reach a seven figure settlement.
IBEX leaves safe mode and returns to full science operations
Engineers have restored the orbiting astronomy probe IBEX out of safe mode, returning it to full science operations after a computer issue on February 18, 2023 that prevented the spacecraft from accepting commands.
To take the spacecraft out of a contingency mode it entered last month, the mission team performed a firecode reset (which is an external reset of the spacecraft) instead of waiting for the spacecraft to perform an autonomous reset and power cycle on March 4. The decision took advantage of a favorable communications environment around IBEX’s perigee – the point in the spacecraft’s orbit where it is closest to Earth.
After the firecode reset, command capability was restored. IBEX telemetry shows that the spacecraft is fully operational and functioning normally.
As I noted previously, IBEX was designed to study the boundary between the interstellar space and the solar system, and do it somehow from Earth orbit.
An inactive volcanic vent on Mars
Click for full image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on October 5, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Labeled by the science team as “Vents and Lava Flows on Flank of Pavonis Mons,” the section to the right shows the picture’s largest vent. The downhill grade is to the south.
In the full photo you can see that this vent sits on top of a flat mound of hardened lava, all of which flowed from the vent in the distant past. The main flow of course went to the south, out the channel and down the flanks of Pavonis Mons, the middle volcano in the line of three just to the west of Mars’ giant Valles Marineris canyon. The caldera peak of Pavonis Mons is about 35 miles away, and sits at a height of 47,000 feet elevation, far higher than Mount Everest but still only the fourth highest Martian volcano.
In the full picture, the entire surface also generally flows south, except for a crack that goes from northeast to southwest, possibly caused when the mountain flank sagged to the south.
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A confused spiral galaxy
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and released today. From the caption:
The irregular spiral galaxy NGC 5486 hangs against a background of dim, distant galaxies in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The tenuous disc of the galaxy is threaded through with pink wisps of star formation, which stand out from the diffuse glow of the galaxy’s bright core. While this particular galaxy has indistinct, meandering spiral arms it lies close to the much larger Pinwheel Galaxy, one of the best known examples of ‘grand design’ spiral galaxies with prominent and well-defined spiral arms. In 2006 Hubble captured an image of the Pinwheel Galaxy which was — at the time — the largest and most detailed photo of a spiral galaxy ever taken with Hubble.
This galaxy is defined I think as an irregular spiral because if you look close, you can see a very faint hint of a central bar and two large arms spiraling away at its ends. It is faint however, and might simply be caused by the human mind’s natural desire to see patterns. To my eye this galaxy could just as well be a patchy elliptical galaxy, with no arms at all.
Juno captures close-up images of Jupiter’s moon Io
On March 1, 2023 the Jupiter orbiter Juno passed within 33,000 miles of the gas giant’s moon Io, getting its first close-up images.
Several citizen scientists have processed those images. The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was created by Andrew R Brown. This particular picture was one of five taken by Juno during the fly-by. Jason Perry processed all five here, with this caption:
Most of the dark spots seen across Io’s surface are the result of volcanic eruptions. These include East Girru, a dark spot that was not seen the last time Io was seen at this resolution during the New Horizons encounter with Jupiter in February 2007. East Girru was undergoing a major eruption at the time but hadn’t had time to produce a new lava flow before the end of the week-long encounter. This small flow field, measuring 3,200 square kilometers (1,390 square miles) in size, may have also been reactivated during an eruption in October 2021, as seen by Juno JIRAM.
Another apparent surface change is at Chors Patera, which has undergone a significant reddening since Galileo last observed it in October 2001. Reddish materials on Io are indicative of the presence of short-chain sulfur and are often associated with high-temperature, silicate volcanism. Additional dark spots near the terminator, the boundary between Io’s day and night sides, are the shadows of tall mountains. The dark spot at middle right in the upper right image may be due a mountain 5500 meters (18,000 feet) tall.
The smallest object resolved in this image is about 22 miles across.
ISRO attempting controlled reentry of old satellite originally lacking in such plans
India’s space agency ISRO has been attempting the controlled reentry of an old India-French climate satellite that had originally been placed in a high enough orbit that de-orbit was not expected.
An uninhabited area in the Pacific Ocean between 5°S to 14°S latitude and 119°W to 100°W longitude has been identified as the targeted re-entry zone for the [Megha-Tropiques-1 (MT1)]. Since Aug 2022, 18 orbit manoeuvres have been performed to progressively lower the orbit and on March 7 the ground impact is expected to take place between 4.30 p.m. and 7.30 p.m. IST.
The satellite, once no longer able to do its primary function, still had a lot of fuel left that left it a threat. ISRO managers decided to use that fuel to lower the high orbit — where MT1 was expected to remain for at least 100 years — so that the satellite could be brought down safely now.
The real story here is ISRO’s decision to commit funds to pay for this work. Until recently, most satellites are launched without any funding to remove them once launched. SpaceX changed this with its Starlink constellation, with deorbit always included as part of each satellite’s operational plan.
March 3, 2023 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold in two parts.
To listen to all of John Batchelor’s podcasts, go here.
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Eartha Kitt – Think I’m Being Had
An evening pause: Performed live on the Dick Cavett Show, 1969. The second half of the clip is Cavett interviewing her about her autobiography Thursday’s Child.
Hat tip Gene Shipp.