Category: Behind The Black

Hubble in safe mode

10:15 am

Barred galaxy
Click for original image.

The Hubble Space Telescope has gone into safe mode, pausing science observations on April 23, 2024 when its computer detected problems with one of its three working gyroscopes.

This particular gyro caused Hubble to enter safe mode in November after returning similar faulty readings. The team is currently working to identify potential solutions. If necessary, the spacecraft can be re-configured to operate with only one gyro, with the other remaining gyro placed in reserve . The spacecraft had six new gyros installed during the fifth and final space shuttle servicing mission in 2009. To date, three of those gyros remain operational, including the gyro currently experiencing fluctuations. Hubble uses three gyros to maximize efficiency, but could continue to make science observations with only one gyro if required.

If they cannot recover that gyro and are forced to resume science operations in one-gyro mode, it will mean the end of sharp images such as the one to the right, released today of the barred galaxy NGC 2217, located about 65 million light years away. Three gyros stablize the telescope in all three dimensions. One gyro can stablize it, but not in all three dimensions. Sharpness will suffer. We will no longer have a fully capable general purpose optical telescope in orbit, no plans in the U.S. to replace it.

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Billie Holiday – Fine And Mellow

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Hat tip Judd Clark, who gives this background, “Written by Billie Holiday, who first recorded it on April 20, 1939 on the Commodore label. Performed by Billie Holiday in 1957 in a television special, The Sound of Jazz.”

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China launches three astronauts to its space station

4:23 pm

Earlier today China successfully launched a three-person crew to its Tiangong-3 space station, its Long March 2F rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in the northwest of China.

No word on where the four strap-on boosters, the payload fairing, the core stages, and the upper stage crashed inside China, using very toxic hypergolic fuels. This new crew will replace the present crew, who are completing a six-month tour. The new crew will complete a similar-length mission.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

42 SpaceX
17 China
6 Russia
5 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 49 to 29, while SpaceX by itself still leads the rest of the world, including other American companies, 42 to 36.

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These are the idiots WE have put in power

2:16 pm

Bill Nelson exhibiting his ignorance to Congress
Bill Nelson exhibiting his ignorance to Congress

On April 17, 2024 Bill Nelson, former Democratic Party senator and now NASA’s administrator, testified at a budget hearing in the House of Representives about the proposed 2025 NASA budget proposed by the Biden administration.

Such testimony is routinely boring and tells us nothing, which is why I no longer waste much time listening to it.

Other do, however, and as a result we all find out about moments of stupidity such as this one, spouted by Nelson:

“What do you think the Chinese are trying to get at, at the back side of the moon?” Rep. David Trone (D-MD) asked Nelson at a congressional hearing last week.

“They are going to have a lander on the far side of the moon, which is the side which is always in dark. Uh, we’re not planning to go there,” he said.

Trone followed up by asking, “And why not? What’s the benefit of doing so?”

“We don’t know what’s on the back side of the moon, so, uh, that would be something that they would discover,” the NASA administrator told lawmakers on Capitol Hill. “But our decision is that it’s more profitable for us to go to the South Pole of the moon because that’s where we think the water is,” he added.

First, Nelson exhibits the same kind of utter ignorance about basic space science as did congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) when she proclaimed on April 8, 2024 that the Moon “was made up mostly of gases.” Nelson says the “dark side” is always dark, when it is well known for many centuries that the back side of the Moon is sometimes referred to as the “dark side” not because it is dark, but because it is never visible to us on Earth, and until the space age no one knew what was there.

Furthermore, since the 1960s however we have known what is there, even if Nelson is an ignoramus about these basic facts. Landing there to research it up close and in detail is a entirely laudable science goal, something American scientists have wanted to do for decades. China is simply doing it.

Finally, China is also targeting the south pole for its lunar base, something Nelson seems utterly unaware, an ignorance that is shocking considering their lunar base goals are potentially in direct conflict with our lunar base goals.

You would think the administrator of NASA would know these basic facts.
» Read more

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Numerous layers in the interior slopes of Argyre Basin on Mars

12:28 pm

Numerous layers on Mars
Click for original image.

The cool image to the right, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on February 22, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It gives us another example the many-layered geological history of Mars, seen in numerous locations across the entire Martian surface.

This example shows many thin layers, going downhill about 450 feet from the mesa near the bottom of the picture to the low point near the picture’s top. At this resolution there appear to be roughly two dozen prominent layers in that descent, but a closer look suggests many more layers within those large layers. Like the terrain that Curiosity is traversing on Mount Sharp, the closer one gets the more layers one sees. And each layer signifies a different geological event, possibly even marking the annual seasons, each either adding or removing a layer of dust or ice, or placing down a new layer of lava.
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China reveals its rough plans for building its manned moon base.

9:35 am

At a conference in China this week, the chief designer of China’s lunar exploration program, Wu Weiren, outlined roughly the plans for building China’s International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) on the Moon.

According to Wu, the first phase of the ILRS construction project will see a basic station built by 2035 in the lunar south pole region. This basic station will have comprehensive scientific facilities with complete basic functions and supporting elements to carry out regular scientific experiments, and develop and utilize resources on a limited scale.

The second phase will see expansion of the station, set for completion by 2045, with a moon-orbiting space station as the hub and facilities featuring complete functions, considerable scale and stable operation. It will carry out comprehensive lunar-based scientific research and resource development and utilization, and conduct technical verification as well as scientific experiments and research for a manned landing on Mars.

This schedule contradicts other recent government statements that suggested the first phrase would be completed by 2030. Either way, we now have a rough timeline which, based on China’s past announcements, should be a reasonably accurate measure of what it now plans to do.

The timeline however is very long, and many other events outside of this program, such as war with Taiwan or sudden changes in the leadership of the ruling communist party, could change it drastically.

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Russia vetos UN resolution put forth by U.S to ban nuclear weapons in space

9:27 am

Russia yesterday vetoed a UN resolution by the U.S and Japan that proposed banning all nuclear weapons as well as “other weapons of mass destruction” in space.

This is all a game by the diplomats and politicians in power on both sides.

U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on Wednesday echoed [U.S. ambassador] Thomas-Greenfield, reiterating that “the United States assesses that Russia is developing a new satellite carrying a nuclear device.” If Putin has no intention of deploying nuclear weapons in space, Sullivan said, “Russia would not have vetoed this resolution.”

Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia dismissed the resolution as “absolutely absurd and politicized,” and said it didn’t go far enough in banning all types of weapons in space. Russia and China proposed an amendment to the U.S.-Japan draft that would call on all countries, especially those with major space capabilities, “to prevent for all time the placement of weapons in outer space, and the threat of use of force in outer spaces.”

The vote was 7 countries in favor, 7 against, and one abstention and the amendment was defeated because it failed to get the minimum 9 “yes” votes required for adoption.

So Russia vetos the U.S. resolution, and the U.S. and its allies veto the Russian resolution. In both cases neither side intends to stop work on its space weaponry, nor will either allow any independent inspections of their facilities. Moreover, both resolutions are irrelevant, because these nations are all signatories to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which already outlaws the placement of nuclear weapons in space.

As I said, it is all a game, intended not to stop deployment of such weapons but to try to embarrass their opponents.

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UK’s CAA gives Saxavord on Shetland Islands its range license

9:15 am

Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea
Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has now issued the range license for the Saxavord spaceport on the Shetland Islands, following up issuing it a spaceport license in December.

A range licence is a legal requirement ahead of a space launch, but is not in itself permission to launch. This licence grants the broad approval to provide ‘range control services.’ Specifics will depend on the launch vehicle and will be outlined as part of relevant launch licences.

Work by the Civil Aviation Authority continues in assessing potential launch operators from SaxaVord.

Sounds good, eh? Not so fast. It took the CAA about two years to issue these two spaceport licenses, but that doesn’t give anyone the right to launch from Saxavord. The CAA must still issue launch licenses to the specific rocket companies wishing to launch. Though the German rocket startup Rocket Factory Augsburg wants to do the first orbital test flight this year from Saxavord, it still must get that launch license. Do not be surprised if it takes the CAA more than a year to issue it.

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China releases new geological atlas of the Moon

9:03 am

China's geologic map of the Moon

The map above is one low resolution example of a new detailed geological atlas that Chinese scientists have created and just released, using data obtained from all of China’s recent lunar missions, both orbiters and landers.

More information here.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has released the highest-resolution geological maps of the Moon yet. The Geologic Atlas of the Lunar Globe, which took more than 100 researchers over a decade to compile, reveals a total of 12,341 craters, 81 basins and 17 rock types, along with other basic geological information about the lunar surface. The maps were made at the unprecedented scale of 1:2,500,000.

…The CAS also released a book called Map Quadrangles of the Geologic Atlas of the Moon, comprising 30 sector diagrams which together form a visualization of the whole Moon.

The map has been released in both Chinese and English.

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First and second stages of first Ariane-6 rocket are now assembled and on the launchpad

8:48 am

Having integrated together the core first stage and the upper stage of the first Ariane-6 rocket, engineers have now lifted both vertical on the launch pad in preparation for its launch sometime in June or July.

Next two strap-on boosters will be attached to the core stage, as well as the payloads made up of eighteen different smallsats and experiments, including two test re-entry capsules testing their ability to bring payloads safely back to Earth.

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Astroscale wins contract to complete removal of large piece of space junk

8:39 am

Capitalism in space: Japan’s space agency JAXA has now awarded the orbital tug startup Astroscale a contract to complete the removal of an abandoned upper stage from a previously launched rocket.

Astroscale has already flown the first phase of this project, with its ADRAS-J tug flying in March and April a demo rendezvous mission with the rocket stage, getting to within several hundred meters of the stage. The second phase, now approved, will grab the stage with a robot arm and then de-orbit it. No date for the launch of that second phase was announced.

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