Junshatang – Making a Yixing purple clay teapot
An evening pause: Watch a real artist at work.
Hat tip Cotour.
Category: Behind The Black
April 12, 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.
- Gilmour is now targeting a May 4th first test launch of its Eris rocket, subject to launch permit approvals
There have been a string of these press announcements in the past two weeks. The company is apparently doing what SpaceX does, applying public pressure on Australia’s bureaucrats to get them to stop tiddling their thumbs. We shall find out if this will work in the next few weeks. Their permit application went in two years ago.
- Amateur spots what he thinks is the NRO satellite launched on the last Delta-4 Heavy launch
He also mentions two other possibilities, so this conclusion is uncertain.
- Chinese state-run press report describes the upcoming Chang’e-6 lunar sample return mission
The launch is targeting a May launch, and it will bring back the first samples from the Moon’s far side.
Remember: The climate data foisted on us by NOAA is based 30% on nonexistent weather stations
A story yesterday at Zero Hedge noted once again that the yearly global data that NOAA inflicts on us, each year claiming that a new record has been set as the hottest year ever, is all based on fake data, with about one-third of the data created from weather stations that no longer exist.
The problem, say experts, is that an increasing number of USHCN’s stations don’t exist anymore. “They are physically gone—but still report data—like magic,” said Lt. Col. John Shewchuk, a certified consulting meteorologist. “NOAA fabricates temperature data for more than 30 percent of the 1,218 USHCN reporting stations that no longer exist.”
He calls them “ghost” stations.
Mr. Shewchuck said USHCN stations reached a maximum of 1,218 stations in 1957, but after 1990 the number of active stations began declining due to aging equipment and personnel retirements. NOAA still records data from these ghost stations by taking the temperature readings from surrounding stations, and recording their average for the ghost station, followed by an “E,” for estimate.
This is not a new story. » Read more
LA Times: Can California’s coastal commission stop SpaceX launches from Vandenberg?
Link here. This article is a follow-up on the story I posted yesterday, about a meeting of the California Coastal Commission where locals demanded and the commission considered measures for attempting to limit an increase in launches from Vandenberg.
The article provides many more details about this political battle. It appears the military, out of courtesy, was letting the commission know that it wants to raise the number of launches to accomodate not just SpaceX but other private companies. It can do so without the commission’s permission, but wishes to work with it.
The commission and the ten or so people at the meeting complaining were exploring ways to block this increase. Though the meeting postponed any action until the next meeting in May, it was clear its commissioners will use the next few months to explore ways to expand their control, including looking for funding sources for initiating court actions.
Amazon: First operational launch of Kuiper satellites delayed
Though Amazon’s CEO Andy Jassy, in his annual letter to shareholders yesterday, touted the Kuiper internet constellation’s profit potential, he also implied that the planned first launch of operational satellites has been delayed.
When Project Kuiper’s first two prototype satellites were launched last October for testing, Amazon said that its first production-grade satellites were on track for launch in the first half of 2024, and that it expected broadband service to be in beta testing with selected customers by the end of the year.
Today, Jassy put a slightly different spin on that schedule. “We’re on track to launch our first production satellites in 2024,” he wrote in his letter. “We’ve still got a long way to go, but are encouraged by our progress.”
Later in a television interview Jassy was more blunt, stating that the first operational satellites will not be ready until “the second half of ’24”, with the service becoming available “in the next year or so.”
The company’s incredibly slow roll-out of this constellation puts it at a significant disadvantage. Both it and Starlink were announced at about the same time, but Starlink already has several thousand satellites in orbit, has been operational for several years, and has almost three million customers signed on. It has gotten all the low-hanging fruit. Amazon will either have to convince those customers to switch — generally a difficult thing to do — or find new customers that have so far been less inclined to buy such satellite services.
Swiss company tests three-legged hopper for asteroid exploration on zero-G airplane
SpaceHopper in flight
A Swiss company, ETH Zurich, has successfully tested the ability of an unmanned three-legged hopper, designed to explore asteroids by hoping in the light gravity, to orient itself using its legs by flying on a zero-G airplane.
The picture to the right is a screen capture from the video embedded below.
All nine leg motors [three per leg] work together to launch the SpaceHopper high off the asteroid’s surface when jumping. As the robot is subsequently in flight, it maintains its upright orientation by selectively extending or withdrawing its legs to shift its center of mass as needed. Upon landing, its legs flex to absorb impact and to keep the bot from falling over.
During zero-G on the airplane flights the hopper successfully jumped, then used its legs to correctly orient itself afterward.
Developing this hopper was initially a student project, and its success has gotten it upgraded, still led by those students.
» Read more
China: Quequiao-2 is successfully operating in lunar orbit
China’s state-run press today announced that its Quequiao-2 communications relay satellite in lunar orbit has successfully completed its initial in-orbit tests, and is functioning as planned.
The satellite successfully completed a communication test on April 6 with Chang’e-4, which is now carrying out an exploration mission on the far side of the moon. From April 8 to 9, it conducted communication tests with the Chang’e-6 probe, which is yet to be launched. Queqiao-2 was launched on March 20 and entered its target highly elliptical orbit on April 2 after midway correction, near-moon braking and orbital maneuver around the moon.
Two communication and navigation technology test satellites, Tiandu-1 and Tiandu-2, were sent into space together with Queqiao-2. They entered their target circumlunar orbits on March 29 and separated with each other on April 3. They are now conducting a series of tests on communication and navigation technology.
According to the article, Quequiao-2’s orbit is relatively stable for a lunar orbit and requires less fuel to maintain. The spacecraft thus should be able to operate for a very long time. The orbit “has also significantly improved its communication coverage on the south pole region of the moon.” It will be used for all of China’s future unmanned and manned lunar missions, and will provide China the ability to do farside missions routinely.
Switzerland to sign Artemis Accords
NASA revealed today that Switzerland will become the 37th nation to sign the Artemis Accords in an official ceremony on April 15, 2024.
With this signing, these are the members of the American alliance: Angola, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Columbia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.
The NASA press release is revealing about the goals of this alliance, under the Biden administration, both by what it says and what it does not say:
The Artemis Accords reinforce the 1967 Outer Space Treaty as well as the commitment by the United States and partner nations to the Registration Convention, the Rescue and Return Agreement, as well as best practices and norms of responsible behavior that NASA and its partners have supported, including the public release of scientific data.
When established by the Trump administration, the accords were not intended to “reinforce the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.” The accords were intended to create an alliance that would have the political clout to overcome that treaty’s limitations on establishing a private property legal framework in space. Right now the treaty seriously impairs investiment because no company has any assurance it will own any piece of ground it occupies.
The press announcement makes no mention of private enterprise, and implies that the Biden administration is aggressively working to eliminate that goal, and instead use the accords as a way to strengthen government control in space.
Under these circumstances, I wonder why China and Russia haven’t signed on as well.
Natalie Imbruglia – Torn
An evening pause: Performed live 1998.
Hat tip Alton Blevins.
April 11, 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.
- Firefly touts new software available to its customers in orbit
They already have a new customer who will demonstrate this new software for them.
- Chinese pseudo-company Ispace to build a rocket assembly facility at China’s coastal Wenchang spaceport
Including Ispace, four pseudo-companies have similar plans at Wenchang, but the government is building only one pad for their use. Since it appears the governement is retaining control over launches, it will either have to build more pads, or decide at some point more to shutdown some of these pseudo-companies. Since this is China, the companies aren’t real, and can be confiscated or shuttered at will by the communists.
- FAA denies stories that it plans to tax commercial space launches
The NYTimes had reported that the Biden administration was considering these taxes. I guarantee it still is, and will push for them should it remain in power after November.
- On this day in 1970 Apollo 13 launched
The mission became a desperate rescue mission, not a lunar mission, when an explosion in the Apollo capsule’s service module occurred on the way to the Moon. It took some amazing improvisions in space and on the ground to get the crew home safely.
A squeezed Martian landscape
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on February 20, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label “tilted blocks in the low northern latitudes.”
At first glance this circle of tilted blocks appear to mark a place where something erupted from below, pushing and cracking the blocks away in all directions. If there was an eruption however it appears very little if anything poured out from below. Instead, the ground inside the hollow in the center is about the same elevation as the ground surrounding the tilted blocks.
Clearly some pressure from below pushed these surface blocks upward to crack and tilt, but the answer cannot be found in this close-up picture. Instead, we need to look wider, not only at the overview map below, but at the inset on that overview map.
» Read more
A local California commission looks to restrict launches at Vandenberg
Though it has no authority over military launches at Vandenberg, a local California commission is now demanding some control and regulartory power because those launches are now all done by commercial companies.
The demands took place during a public meeting yesterday.
The biggest question centered on whether commercial space launches from Vandenberg could be considered federal activity as commissioners appeared irked at their limited role. They also again expressed disappointment that Vandenberg officials were on hand, but representatives of launch companies weren’t present.
In the end no decision was reached, and the discussion will resume in the next meeting in May. Based on the article at the link, the panel clearly wants more regulatory power to limit launches, but it doesn’t have it and the meeting didn’t give it an opening to grab that power, especially because there were no representatives from private companies to interrogate.
This situation will need watching, as meetings like this are almost always the first shot across the bow by leftist activists. They probe, looking for an opening to exert power. Even if they don’t have it, they use the opening to make trouble to slow things down.