Trans-Siberian Orchestra – Christmas Eve/Sarajevo
An evening pause: Makes me think of Disney’s Peter Pan (1953) and Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro (1988), about how some things only children can see.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
Category: Behind The Black
December 22, 2023 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. Early today because Diane and I have a social event this afternoon and I want this posted before we leave. It is the holiday season, which has made it hard for me to write any political essays yesterday or today.
- ULA video showing Peregrine lunar lander being stacked on Vulcan
Years late, it does look like Vulcan will finally launch in early January. Let us all pray all goes well.
- Extra objects released after launch of China’s X-37B copy were likely normal rocket debris
Jonathan McDowell, who tweets this, has been tracking objects launched and in orbit for decades, so his suppositions carry weight.
- Chinese pseudo-company touts video of test of rocket stage landing legs
It appears to me that these test legs are not full scale. It is also interesting how they bounce when they come down.
- Sierra Space claims it has completed a full-scale pressure test-to-failure of its inflatable LIFE inflatable space station module
This post provides no video of the test, and is merely a tease for the video’s release next month. Why they can’t release it now suggests they want to do some clean-up and editing beforehand, which raises other questions.
- Russia delays launch of ultraviolet space telescope until 2030 due to lack of funds
Gee, maybe invading the Ukraine and cancelling its deal with OneWeb and Arianespace might not have been such a good idea, eh? The lost revenue, in the billions, might have helped pay for this.
- The ground-based imagery taken when Apollo 8’s fired the upper stage of its Saturn 5 rocket to leave Earth orbit and head to the Moon
This was hardly one of the most important firsts achieved during Apollo 8, but the imagery, as Jay notes, is cool. For the full history of Apollo 8’s 1968 manned Christmas mission to the Moon, read Genesis, the Story of Apollo 8.
Curiosity takes a close-up of distant cliffs
Panorama on December 20, 2023. Click for full image.
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, reduced and sharpened to post here, was taken on December 21, 2023 by the chemistry camera (ChemCam) on the rover Curiosity. Originally designed to take close-ups of rocks very nearby the rover, the science team over time discovered that they could also use this camera to get close-ups of very distant objects, providing them another way to study the geology in Gale Crater and on Mount Sharp.
The picture to the right I think shows the horizon area indicated by the arrow on the panorama above, taken the day before. Note the many many layers, a geological feature that Curiosity has discovered is ubiquitous on Mars. Over eons the entire surface of the red planet has been layered repeatedly by cyclical geological events, producing layers within layers within layers. I guarantee that when Curiosity gets closer to this cliff it will see layers inside the smallest layers ChemCam can see now.
The red dotted line on the panorama above indicates the approximate planned route that Curiosity will eventually take, cutting across in front of that mountain and turning south somewhere near but to the west of where the cliff in this picture is located.
» Read more
Firefly successfully launches for the second time in 2023
Alpha seven seconds after liftoff
UPDATE #2: According to a Firefly tweet on X, the second stage failed to fire its second burn. The satellite however was deployed, communications established, and mission operations started. Though its orbit will decay prematurely, it appears the customer, the Space Force, will achieve most of its mission objectives. This should be considered a successful launch, albeit not one that Firefly will want to repeat in this manner.
UPDATE: It appears the upper stage might have had a problem in its final engine burn intended to circularize the orbit for deployment. Either the burn failed to occur, or did not fire correctly. See this tweet. (Hat tip Jay.) I have found other reports that indicate the same question.
The question now is whether this is considered a successful launch. One of its main tasks was to demonstrate fast assembly and prelaunch procedures, for the Space Force. This was accomplished. If the satellite cannot function however is isn’t a full success. I will wait for more information before deciding whether to remove it from the launch stats.
Original post:
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Firefly today successfully completed its second launch in 2023, its third launch overall, its Alpha rocket lifting off from its launchpad at Vandenberg in California.
With this launch Firefly also met its launch prediction for 2023, two launches. The mission was its second for the Space Force this year, both designed to test quick launch procedures. As of posting the payload has not been deployed.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race remain the same:
92 SpaceX
61 China
18 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 India
American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 106 to 61, and the entire world combined 106 to 97. SpaceX still trails the rest of the world (excluding other American companies) 92 to 97.
Chinese astronauts do spacewalk to repair Tiangong-3 solar panel
Two Chinese astronauts yesterday completed a 7.5 hour spacewalk on that country’s Tiangong-3 space station to test a repair technique to what the state-run press said was minor damage on a solar panel from micrometeorites.
The EVA posed new challenges for the astronauts, according to Dong Nengli, deputy chief designer of China’s human spaceflight program. “For the previous extravehicular activities, the major tasks for astronauts were to install and check. This round of extravehicular activities on Thursday we call experimental servicing,” Dong told CCTV. “This time the astronauts operated on one of the solar wings. It is flexible, to a certain extent, and also very thin, which limits the space of operation to a certain degree,” Dong said.
Dong added that the successful EVA meant the teams had mastered the ability for some extravehicular repairs. Success was thus, “laying a solid foundation for us to guarantee the space station’s safety and reliability in the future.”
It must be noted that no specific details about what was done were provided, nor did the short video released by China showing highlights of the spacewalk show the specific repair work.
Nonetheless, there is an aspect of China’s space station that makes it a far more powerful national symbol than ISS: It is China’s alone, built, launched, occupied, and maintained by China alone. It fuels national pride in a way that ISS never has, because President Bill Clinton decided to use it in the 1990s for foreign policy concerns by giving the Russians an equal partnership. Neither the U.S. nor Russia have obtained the same kind of prestige at home and abroad because neither really built ISS on their own. It was a shared effort, which meant neither could claim it.
Spectacular 2,300-year-old wall mosaic found in archaeological dig in Rome
Archaeologists have uncovered a 2,300-year-old wall mosaic in almost perfect condition in Rome that had been part of a banquet room overlooking a garden.
Estimated to be around 2,300 years old, the work is part of a larger aristocratic mansion, located near the Roman Forum, that has been under excavation since 2018. Almost five meters long (16.4 ft) and featuring depictions of vines, lotus leaves, tridents, trumpets, helmets and mythological marine creatures, the mosaic scene was painstakingly created using mother of pearl, shells, corals, shards of precious glass and flecks of marble. The piece is framed by polychrome crystals, spongy travertine, and exotic, ancient Egyptian blue tiles.
What makes this discovery “unmatched,” said archaeologist Alfonsina Russo, head of the Colosseum Archaeological Park in charge of the site, is not only the incredible conservation of the mosaic, but its decoration which also features celebratory scenes of naval and land battles likely funded — and won — by an extremely wealthy aristocratic patron who commemorated the victories on their walls.
Though it is believed such tiled mosaics were common in the homes of wealthy Roman aristocrats, most have not survived in good condition, making this discovery significant as well as beautiful. In addition, the location of the house and the details within the mosaic could make it possible to actually identify the Roman who lived here, which in itself would be a major historical find.
The Fendertones – Little Saint Nick
An evening pause: A nice cover of the Beach Boys classic.
Hat tip Alton Blevins.
December 21, 2023 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- Firefly scrubs launch due to weather, reschedules for December 22, 2023 at 9:18 am (Pacific)
The live stream can be found here, starting one hour before launch.
- Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus capsule to leave ISS on December 22, 2023 at 9:18 am (Pacific)
It will be unberthed and released by an astronaut in ISS using a robot arm, after which it will be de-orbited, burning up over the ocean.
- Flying over Pluto
A short animation created using the New Horizon images taken during its July 2015 fly-by.
- The launch of Apollo 8 at 7:51 am December 21, 1968
The footage is only 18 seconds long, covering the final countdown and liftoff. For a full history go here. Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders would go on to circle the Moon for 20 hours, read from the Old Testament on Christmas eve, and essentially win the 1960s space race for the free world.
A glacial lake on Mars?
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on August 30, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
It shows what appears to be a glacial flow of ice, flowing downhill to the southwest and inside a wide canyon about three miles across. The canyon rims to the north and south are about 2,000 to 2,100 feet above the canyon’s lowest point, indicated by the string of “+” signs.
This close-up view immediately suggests a canyon whose glacier flows outward to the southwest into open lowland terrain, though the three craters, because they are undistorted, suggests that this flow is presently not active. That suggestion however would be wrong. It is always necessary to understand Martian geology to not only take close-in views at high resolution, but to zoom back and see the terrain in context.
» Read more
New Hubble image of Saturn
The annotated image above was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope on October 22, 2023, showing Saturn, its glorious rings, and several of its dozens of moons from a distance of about 850 million miles. For the unannotated version, go here. Of all the features, the spokes in the rings are the most intriguing.
Saturn’s spokes are transient features that rotate along with the rings. Their ghostly appearance only persists for two or three rotations around Saturn. During active periods, freshly-formed spokes continuously add to the pattern. In 1981, NASA’s Voyager 2 first photographed the ring spokes. Hubble continues observing Saturn annually as the spokes come and go. This cycle has been captured by Hubble’s Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program that began nearly a decade ago to annually monitor weather changes on all four gas-giant outer planets.
Hubble’s crisp images show that the frequency of spoke apparitions is seasonally driven, first appearing in OPAL data in 2021 but only on the morning (left) side of the rings. Long-term monitoring shows that both the number and contrast of the spokes vary with Saturn’s seasons. Saturn is tilted on its axis like Earth and has seasons lasting approximately seven years.
This year, these ephemeral structures appear on both sides of the planet simultaneously as they spin around the giant world. Although they look small compared with Saturn, their length and width can stretch longer than Earth’s diameter!
Though the origin of the spokes remains unsolved, the leading theory proposes they are caused by interactions between Saturn’s magnetic field and the seasonal changes in solar radiation.
Ingenuity’s engineers explain what they have learned flying the helicopter on Mars
Link here. The essay details carefully the problems they have faced, and how they have not only overcome them but used them to refine operations to squeeze far more capabilities out of the helicopter, beyond its initial design.
Saving flight time saves energy, reduces heating, and provides more freedom to use slower speeds to tiptoe around disruptive terrain that might otherwise endanger or significantly degrade the landing accuracy of the helicopter. Higher speeds and higher accelerations reduce the time needed to execute a given flight path. Higher altitudes permit higher speeds, as the wider field of view helps to keep ground features in view of Ingenuity’s navigation camera longer, counteracting the effect of increased speed. Expanding Ingenuity’s flight envelope had the potential to relax flight planning constraints and allow Ingenuity to operate more effectively alongside Perseverance.
As a result, beginning with flight 45 the team has made changes to increase flight speeds and acceleration at every point of every flight, thus allowing the helicopter to fly higher and farther with less strain.
This report however does not provide any information on Ingenuity’s last two flights, especially its 68th, which did not go as planned. The helicopter appears to be in good shape (the team has already planned the 69th flight, which was supposed to happen two days ago), but a more detailed update would be appreciated.
ULA’s Vulcan rocket fully stacked for the first time
The landing site for Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander
In preparation for its targeted January 8, 2024 launch, ULA’s Vulcan rocket has now been fully stacked for first time in its assembly building at Cape Canaveral.
ULA’s new rocket has rolled between its vertical hangar and the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station several times for countdown rehearsals and fueling tests. But ULA only needed the Vulcan rocket’s first stage and upper stage to complete those tests. The addition of the payload shroud Wednesday marked the first time ULA has fully stacked a Vulcan rocket, standing some 202 feet (61.6 meters) tall, still surrounded by scaffolding and work platforms inside its assembly building.
It will next be rolled to the launchpad for some final checks prior to launch on January 8, 2023. Unlike most first launches, it carries a real payload, Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander, which hopes to softly place several NASA and commercial payloads near the Gruithuisen Domes in the northwest quadrant of the Moon’s visible hemisphere, as shown on the map above.