May 10, 2024 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold in two parts.
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Category: Behind The Black
Rush – The Camera Eye
An evening pause: The visuals, of New York and London, were created by Still Kickin, and showing us two places once grand that our modern generation of “intellectuals” seems determined to destroy.
Hat tip Ferris.
May 10, 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.
- Amazon receives first Kuiper satellite deployment module from Swiss company
As Jay notes, “At first I thought Kuiper/Blue Origin was designing this in-house, but I was wrong. Considering Amazon gave them the contract two years ago speaks about how late they were in development.”
- Powerpoint graphics of manned Moon mission infrastructure from Chinese university
Not much here, other than some basic concept proposals. Jay notes that the graphics include a shuttle-like spaceplane, something that does not at present be in China’s plans.
- Video of static fire test of Chinese pseudo-company’s test hopper
This test was with one engine. A test with nine engines to follow, after which a 5 to 10 kilomether vertical hop test later this year.
- On this day in 1967 Bruce Peterson survived a crash during a test flight of the M2-F2 lifting body
There were several lifting body vehicles that were flown and tested in the later 60s and early 70s. The data was used to help design later vehicles like the shuttle, the X-37B, and Sierra Space’s Tenacity Dream Chaser.
Perseverance looks ahead, out of Jezero Crater
Click for high resolution. Go here and here for original images.
Cool image time! The panorama above, recropped, reduced, and annotated to post here, was created from two pictures taken by Perseverance’s right navigation camera on May 9, 2024 (here and here). It looks almost due west, out the gap in the rim of Jezero Crater to the mountains beyond.
The blue dot in the overview map below marks Perseverance’s location when these photos were taken. The yellow lines indicate the approximate area covered by the panorama. The red dots indicate the rover’s planned route.
It is obvious this panorama was taken as part of the science team’s planning for Perseverance’s upcoming traverse across Neretva Vallis. The picture also gives us a nice view of the barren terrain found here in the dry tropics of Mars. There is no ice or water present anywhere, though the geology strongly suggests H2O in one form or another once shaped this landscape.
Nor is there any visible life. As much as NASA and many others devoutly wish to find some, I doubt any will be found. There is a very tiny chance the remains of long-gone microbiotic life might be found, but I wouldn’t bet much money on that either.
Click for interactive map.
The spiral dust streams within the Andromeda galaxy
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture above, cropped and reduced to post here, was released yesterday and uses archival infrared data from the now retired Spitzer Space telescope to highlight the dust found within the Andromeda galaxy, about two million light years away.
Spitzer’s infrared view was similar to Webb’s but at a far lower resolution. In the picture above the red indicates cool dust.
By separating these wavelengths and looking at the dust alone, astronomers can see the galaxy’s “skeleton” — places where gas has coalesced and cooled, sometimes forming dust, creating conditions for stars to form. This view of Andromeda revealed a few surprises. For instance, although it is a spiral galaxy like the Milky Way, Andromeda is dominated by a large dust ring rather than distinct arms circling its center. The images also revealed a secondary hole in one portion of the ring where a dwarf galaxy passed through.
The data also suggested that the dust is flowing at a very steady rate into Andromeda’s central black hole. According to computer simulations, this steady rate would explain why the supermassive black holes at the center of both Andromeda and the Milky Way are relative inactive. If the dust fell in clumps rather than a steady flow, both black holes would exhibit bursts of high activity, similar to active galactic centers.
A side note for anyone wishing to star-gaze: Andromeda is actually the largest visible galaxy in the night sky, about six times with width of the full Moon. If you can get to a very dark-sky location, get your eyes very dark-adapted, and you know where to look, you can actually see it with the naked eye. I did this once at a star party, helped by a bunch of amateur astronomers. The galaxy is very faint, and it helps to use binoculars to help locate it, but once identified its size in the sky truly is breath-taking.
Update of the reusable cargo capsule by the French company, The Exploration Company
Link here. The article provides a detailed look at the development of the company’s second demonstrator capsule, dubbed Mission Possible, which it hopes to fly in an orbital test sometime in ’25.
Beforehand a smaller demonstrator capsule, dubbed Mission Bikini, will fly on the first launch of the Ariane-6, set for this summer.
Both demonstrators will lay the groundwork fo the launch of the company’s Nyx capsule, designed to provide freighter services to any one of the four private space stations presently being built.
German startup loses prototype of aerospike spaceplane during test
The prototype aerospike test spaceplane of the German startup Polaris Spaceplanes was destroyed recently during its first test flight.
The MIRA I, from German aerospace startup Polaris Raumflugzeuge, was traveling at approximately 105 mph during takeoff when a “landing gear steering reaction” plus a side wind caused a “hard landing event,” rendering the space plane inoperable and it’s fiberglass airframe damaged beyond repair.
Its subsystems remained mostly intact – however, rather than attempt to repair the prototype spaceplane, Polaris has opted to decommission 13.9-foot-long MIRA I to go ahead with the identically shaped 16 foot MIRA II and III design.
Had it flown, it would have been the first flight test ever of an aerospike nozzle. Such a nozzle has been proposed by engineers for decades to take full advantage of the changing atmospheric pressure as a rocket lifts off. Traditional nozzles can only be shaped for one specific air pressure, and lose efficiency as the pressure changes. By using the air pressure to form one wall of the nozzle, an aerospike uses that changing pressure to always function at the highest efficiency.
The company hopes to use this design to eventually create a spaceplane that will take off from a runway, reach orbit, and then return to a runway, all without any additional stages.
Neither of the upcoming prototypes however will be able to do this. Their purpose will mostly be to test the aerospike engine at various altitudes. The company hopes to fly its full scale spaceplane, dubbed Aurora, in ’26 or ’27.
Pentagon: SpaceX effectively blocking Russian illegal use of Starlink
According to one Pentagon official, SpaceX has effectively blocked Russia’s illegal use of captured or illegally purchased Starlink terminals.
Plumb declined to elaborate on what tactics, techniques or procedures are being used to stem Russia’s use of the highly portable communications terminals that connect to SpaceX’s fleet of low-orbiting satellites. Ukrainian government officials had no immediate comment.
Starlink terminals continue to be advertised for sale in Russia on platforms such as e-commerce site Ozon. Their sellers say they function through subscriptions taken out in the name of residents of European countries where the technology is licensed, and they say that connections work — not within Russia’s heartlands but near border regions such as Ukraine’s occupied territories.
This week, however, users complained of unprecedented connectivity issues. On the messaging app Telegram one of the sellers recommended transferring onto a more expensive global service plan. Bloomberg hasn’t been able to independently verify whether those workarounds restore connectivity for illicit Starlink use in Russia.
The official tried to make it sound as if the Pentagon was an equal partner with SpaceX in accomplishing this work, but that’s absurd. The military is without doubt helping SpaceX anyway it can, but the bulk of the technical work is almost certainly being done by SpaceX.
Starlink revenue in 2024 estimated at $6.6 billion
According to an independent analysis of the state of SpaceX’s Starlink constellation, the company will generate $6.6 billion in revenue in 2024.
The independent analysis was done by the market research firm Quilty, and was based largely on extrapolating out from Starlink’s 2.7 million known subscribers.
“We’re projecting a revenue jump from $1.4 billion in 2022 to $6.6 billion in 2024.”
To put that in perspective, the combined revenue of the two largest geostationary satellite operators, SES and Intelsat, which recently announced a merger, is around $4.1 billion. “The answer lies in their subscriber base,” explained Quilty. Viasat and Hughes, two dominant players in the consumer GEO satellite internet market for over 20 years, peaked at a combined 2.2 million subscribers in 2020. Starlink surpassed that number in just a few years, he said.
The financial outlook is equally impressive. Quilty Space estimates Starlink’s EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes,depreciation, and amortization) to reach $3.8 billion in 2024, a significant leap from negative $128 million in 2022.”We expect Starlink to achieve positive free cash flow for the first time in 2024,” said Quilty.
This revenue number is even more astonishing when you compare it with the $12 billion in private capital the company has raised from investors since 2017. Next year alone SpaceX’s returns will cover half that investment, practically guaranteeing a generous profit in the coming years for those investors.
Even more significant, these revenues mean SpaceX now has a very healthy cash stream for completing construction of Starship/Superheavy, or in fact practically anything the company decides to build.
SpaceX launches 20 more Starlink satellites
SpaceX tonight successfully launched 20 more Starlink satellites, 13 of which were capable of direct cell phone use, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.
The first stage completed its fourth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
49 SpaceX
20 China
6 Russia
5 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise now leads the world combined in successful launches, 56 to 32. SpaceX by itself now leads the rest of the world, including other American companies, 49 to 39.
Dusty Hanes – What a Friend We Have in Jesus
An evening pause: A nice instrumental version. You might recognize the song as used in the documentarly series, The Civil War. The visuals are not that interesting, but the music is stellar.
Hat tip James Street.
May 9, 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.
- Sierra Space’s Tenacity mini-shuttle successfully completes all pre-launch testing at NASA facility in Ohio
It is now going to be shipped to Cape Canaveral for final testing before it is stacked on ULA’s Vulcan rocket. They are still targeting a launch before the end of the year.
- Chinese university touts the launch yesterday of the first satellite of what it claims will be internet constellation
One wonders. The constellation is dubbed Skynet, which is the same name China uses for its ground-based video surveillance network, using 600 million cameras to record and track every Chinese citizen everywhere.
- Chinese-French high energy space telescope being readied for June launch on a Chinese rocket
Dubbed SVOM, working it both gamma and optical wavelengths, it will attempt to identify gamma ray bursts as they happen. It is essentially a new version of the Gehrels Swift space telescope that has been doing this work since 2004.