Category: Behind The Black

A jumble of blocks in the middle of a Martian flood lava plain

11:25 am

A jumble of blocks on Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on March 18, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

This is one of what I like to call “What the heck?” images. The broken up blocks resemble ice floes on the edge of the Arctic ice cap that have broken off and have begun floating away.

The problem with this theory is many fold. First, this is on Mars and not on Earth. Second the “sea” these blocks are supposedly “floating” in is actual solid lava. There is no water or ice here, on the surface or even underground. This is in the dry tropics of Mars, where little or no near-surface ice has so far been detected.

The overview map below provides some context, and possibly an explanation.
» Read more

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Japan dithers about capitalism in space

9:38 am

Despite its government creating in November 2023 a new “Space Strategic Fund” worth more than $6 billion designed to encourage capitalism in space and handing it to Japan’s space agency JAXA to administer, JAXA officials continue to dither on how to use that money to encourage private enterprise in space.

Japan’s space agency is seeking industry proposals for technologies that could contribute to future commercial space stations as the government studies what role it would play in supporting efforts to replace the International Space Station.

…That work will inform plans by Japan on how it can participate in commercial space stations being developed by American companies in partnership with NASA. “We are discussing how we will join NASA’s Commercial LEO Destination program,” said [Yasuo Ishii, senior vice president of JAXA]. “Our responsibility is not clear yet, but, of course, commitment at the government level is essential to commercial operations.” [emphasis mine]

The highlighted phrases above reveal the underlying motives of JAXA, which is not to encourage private independent space companies and reduce its involvement. Just the opposite. And it appears Japan’s government is a partner in this. While Japan gave that money to its space agency, which seems to be searching for ways to hold onto its power, both Europe and India instead quickly took power and funding away from their government agencies (Arianespace and ISRO respectively) to encourage independent private space companies to flourish.

This dithering will only put Japan further behind these countries as well as China, a reality that has become increasingly embarassing for the island nation.

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Webb: Hot Jupiter exoplanet has atmosphere with the smell of rotten eggs

9:20 am

Using spectroscopy from the infrared Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have measured some of the molecules in exoplanet HD 189733 b, one of the first hot Jupiter exoplanets ever discovered, and found it has an atmosphere rich in hydrogen sulfide, which emits a smell like rotten eggs.

In addition to detecting hydrogen sulfide, the team analyzed the planet’s oxygen and carbon content, pinpointing water, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide as major components of the planetary atmosphere. Measuring these heavy elements allows astronomers to compare the composition of exoplanets to that of gas giants in our solar system like Jupiter and Uranus.

The exoplanet, about 64 light years away, has an orbit lasting only about two Earth days, with atmospheric temperatures has hot as 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit.

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Watch the first launch of Europe’s Ariane-6 rocket

9:14 am

Europe’s Ariane-6 rocket, first proposed in 2014 and about four years behind schedule, will finally make its first launch at 2 pm (Eastern) today.

I have embedded the live stream below.

The rocket was conceived by the European Space Agency (ESA) as an attempt to compete with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. It failed to do this from day one, since the rocket was from day one designed to be expendable. By the 2020s it became clear to European satellite companies and government agencies that its launch cost would be far higher that the Falcon 9, and these companies and agencies have therefore resisted signing launch contracts with ArianeGroup. In fact, if Amazon had not decided in ’22 to give the Ariane-6 a contract for 18 launches to put up its Kuiper satellites, the rocket would have almost no launches in its manifest.

This situation was made even more starkly evident at the end of June, when the European governent weather company Eumetsat cancelled its Ariane-6 contract and switched to the Falcon 9.

Though the unelected bureaucrats and apparatchiks in the European Union are trying to require the use of Ariane-6, ESA and Europe’s rocket future resides in the independent rocket startups (Rocket Factory Augsburg, Isar Aerospace, Hyimpulse, PLD). Because they are in competition with each other as well as SpaceX, and are not saddled with heavy government interference, they can focus on innovating to lower cost. Expect them to quickly begin launching in the next three years, with reusability soon to follow.

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$243.6 million plea deal allows Boeing to avoid a criminal trial

9:59 pm

The Justice Department and Boeing have made a plea deal so that the company can avoid a criminal trial for breaking its previous plea deal over 737-Max plane crashes that killed 346 people.

Under the agreement, Boeing will plead guilty to a criminal fraud charge stemming from the fatal crashes in Indonesia in October 2018 and in Ethiopia less than five months later that killed a combined 346 people.

Boeing must also pay the hefty fine [$243.6 million], invest at least $455 million in compliance and safety programs, and have an independent monitor oversee Boeing’s safety and quality procedures for three years

The company had made similar deal in 2021 with Justice when it became clear it had deceived FAA regulators about the software on new 737-Max planes that caused these crashes. This new deal is because the company apparently violated that 2021 deal, and allows it to avoid a criminal trial.

A judge still has to approve this new plea deal. Many families of the deceased oppose it, demanding instead that company managers be put on trial. Even if the judge accepts it, Boeing will still be liable for other more recent incidents.

All in all, Boeing comes off as a morally corrupt and incompetent company that was willing to cut corners, lie about it, thus allow more planes to crash because of its actions.

No wonder everyone wants to blame Boeing for every single incident that has recently occurred on various commercial jets, even though in many cases the blame resides more with the maintenance departments of the airlines that had purchased the planes. And no wonder no one believes the claim that the astronauts that flew up to ISS in June are not “stuck” there. They probably aren’t, but why believe anyone from such a compny.

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SpaceX launches Turkey’s first homebuilt geosynchronous communications satellite

4:39 pm

SpaceX today successfully launched Turkey’s first homebuilt geosynchronous communications satellite, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage completed its fifteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The fairings on this flight completed their tenth and sixteenth time, respectively.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

71 SpaceX
30 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the world combined in successful launches, 83 to 45, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including other American companies, 71 to 57.

In just over half a year, SpaceX has now exceeded the annual record of 70 launches by the entire United States, set in 1966 and held until 2022.

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Study: Mortality rates higher for those who got the COVID jab

12:50 pm

According to a new study [pdf] of death rates from all causes in a province in Italy, mortality was greater for those who got the jab versus those who did not.

From the paper’s conclusion:

We found all-cause death risks to be even higher for those vaccinated with one and two doses compared to the unvaccinated and that the booster doses were ineffective. We also found a slight but statistically significant loss of life expectancy for those vaccinated with 2 or 3/4 doses.

As noted in the second link above,

“The main point of the paper is that COVID-19 vaccination did not ‘save lives’ as so many in Washington have proclaimed without evidence,” commented epidemiologist and cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough on his Substack Courageous Discourse. “The trend was for multiple vaccine doses to increase COVID-19 mortality and there was an important signal for increased all-cause death with one or two doses.”

We should therefore not be surprised that several thousand doctors and scientists have signed a declaration called the Hope Accord, calling for all governments worldwide to ban COVID mRNA shots.
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New print edition of Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8

12:06 pm

Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8

After years of procrastination, I have finally produced a new print edition of my classic history, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8.

You can buy the book as either a paperback or hardback directly from Amazon.
Or you can order it directly from me for a slightly higher price and get an autographed copy. The autographed price is $50 for the hardback and $40 for the paperback, plus $7 shipping for each. (These prices will go up at the end of this July fund-raising campaign.)

To place an order, either send the money by Zelle (using my email address zimmerman at nasw dot org), or mail a check, payable to Robert Zimmerman to:

Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

“Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America’s quest for the moon… Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America’s greatest human triumphs.” –San Antonio Express-News

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Can you spot the supernova?

9:53 am

Supernova 2022zut
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, reduced and sharpened to post here, was taken using the Hubble Space Telescope and was done as part of a larger research project studying what astronomers call Type 1a supernovae.

NGC 3810, the galaxy featured in this image, was the host of a Type Ia supernova in 2022. In early 2023 Hubble focused on this and a number of other galaxies to closely examine recent Type Ia supernovae. This kind of supernova results from a white dwarf exploding, and they all have a very consistent brightness. That allows them to be used to measure distances: we know how bright a Type Ia supernova should be, so we can tell how far away it must be from how dim it appears.

One uncertainty in this method is that intergalactic dust in between Earth and a supernova blocks some of its light. How do you know how much of the reduction in light is caused by distance, and how much by dust? With the help of Hubble, there’s a clever workaround: take images of the same Type Ia supernovae in ultraviolet light, which is almost completely blocked by dust, and in infrared light, which passes through dust almost unaffected. By carefully noting how much light comes through at each wavelength, the relationship between supernova brightness and distance can be calibrated to account for dust. Hubble can observe both these wavelengths of light in great detail with the same instrument. That makes it the perfect tool for this experiment, and indeed, some of the data used to make this beautiful image of NGC 3810 were focused on its 2022 supernova. You can see it as a point of light just below the galactic nucleus, or in the annotated image here.

Can you spot the supernova? If you can’t without checking the annotated or original image, don’t be disappointed. It is there but hard to distinguish unless you know where to look.

This supernova however does illustrate the advances in astronomical observational capabilities in the past two decades, resulting not from the giant big ground-based telescopes that cost a fortune and take decades to build nor from the space telescopes like Hubble and Webb that get all the press. These new capablities come from sophisticated smaller telescopes designed to do daily surveys of the entire sky, combined with software that can quickly compare images each day and identify anything that changed.

For example, this 2022 supernova was the 18,142nd discovered that year. That total exceeds the entire number of supernovae that had been discovered in all history prior to this century.

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SpaceX releases new video of the fourth Starship/Superheavy test flight in June

9:35 am

SpaceX on July 4, 2024 released a new compliation video of the fourth Starship/Superheavy test flight in June, showing some footage not previously released.

I have embedded it below. As is the policy now of many rocket companies as well as many space agencies worldwide, SpaceX added a pounding music score to the event. While sometimes this is fun, I must admit that I am finding it increasingly annoying. This is not a movie, it is real life. If anything, I think the music robs this particular event some of its magnificence by trivializing it.

But then, what do I know?

At the end, SpaceX teased a launch tower capture of Superheavy on the next flight, but I still think this is not going to happen because of the delays it would cause getting FAA approval.

» Read more

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Coeur d’Alene’s regional chamber proves it hates the First Amendment and free speech

1:47 pm

Hostile to free speech
Hostile to free speech

An uproar took place in the Idaho town of Coeur d’Alene prior to July 4th this year when the town’s regional chamber issued regulations on what was allowed to be displayed by individuals during its July 4th holiday parade.

Under parade regulations adopted by the chamber board this year, “Symbols associated with specific political movements, religions, or ideologies” were unacceptable. [Linda Coppess, chamber president and CEO,] wrote that in the past, the chamber received numerous complaints about displays that people found offensive, including “Confederate flags, derogatory illustrations, harsh politically-based language, and graphic photographs.” Coppess wrote that last year alone, she received over 50 complaints about different signage and symbols that were deemed offensive.

To address those concerns, the chamber consulted national organizations to ensure its guidelines were transparent and fair, she wrote. “Our intention with this policy was simple: to create an environment where everyone feels welcome and respected,” Coppess wrote.

The chamber listed several other things as unacceptable for the parade, including signs promoting controversial political issues, displays containing divisive or inflammatory language related to political debates and signs displaying slogans or messages that incite political division or unrest. [emphasis mine]

Within days the chamber was overwhelmed with thousands of complaints from local citizens, most of whom appeared to be especially offended by the ban of religious symbols. As a result, the chamber backed down partly, rescinding that particular restriction. Below is a short clip from the July 4th Coeur d’Alene parade. As you can see, a lot of people came carrying crosses. I suspect they would have been there whether or not the religious ban was rescinded, expressing defiance.
» Read more

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A drainage gully on Mars?

11:25 am

A drainage gully on Mars?
Click for original image.

Overview map

Cool image time! The picture above, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on April 18, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a gully that cuts down from the western rim of a 21-mile-wide unnamed crater in the southern cratered highlands of Mars.

The small rectangle on the overview map to the right marks the location, with the inset providing a close-up of this crater, with the white bar indicating the area covered by the photo above. The overall elevation loss from the rim on the left down to the crater floor on the right is about 3,800 feet.

The first high resolution picture of this gully was taken in 2016, with subsequent pictures taken in 2021 and 2022. In comparing the newest picture above with the 2016 photo I can detect no changes, but I am not looking a the highest resolution available. In addition, both of these pictures were taken during the Martian spring. The 2021 and 2022 pictures were taken during the Martian summer, and in both the north-facing wall where the gully is beginning to narrow seemed brighter.

It is likely the researchers are looking to see if any frost — either ice or dry ice — appeared during the winter and then sublimated away in the summer. Such a change could cause some of the erosion that produced this gully.

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European Parliament member demands cancellation of launch deal with SpaceX

9:26 am

Christophe Grudler, a member of the European Parliament (MEP) has written a letter to the government-run weather satellite company Eumetsat, demanding that it cancel its decision on June 26, 2024 to use a Falcon 9 rocket rather than the Ariane-6 on its next launch.

In a letter headlined “Request to reconsider launch decision in favour of European strategic interests”, Grudler disputes the decision of EUMETSAT, the intergovernmental European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, to choose America rather than Europe for launching its new satellite. He argues it goes against the principle of giving preference to Europe, something the organisation denies.

“I am writing to urgently request that you reconsider the recent decision to allocate the MTG-S1 satellite launch to a non-EU launch provider, and instead await the results of the inaugural launch of Ariane-6, which was your first choice for this satellite,” the Liberal member of Parliament wrote in a letter to the board.

…Grudler’s requests are threefold: “Cancel the last Council decision regarding a specific launcher solution, Await the inaugural launch of Ariane-6 before making any final decisions for MTG-S1; Reaffirm your dedication to European strategic autonomy by supporting European launch solutions”.

Eumetsat’s decision was clearly a financial one. SpaceX charges much less than Ariane-6, and its Falcon 9 rocket is proven and launching routinely. Ariane-6 won’t have its first launch until next week, on July 9th.

Grudler’s demands are purely political, but since the EU has generally been run top-down, letting politics and power determine its policy, he could force a cancellation of the contract. In the short term this will help ArianeGroup, a partnership of the aerospace companies Airbus and Safran that own Ariane-6, while hurting Europe’s weather satellite capabilities. In the long run it however might aid the growth of Europe’s new competing rocket startups, as it will provide them a guaranteed market. At the same time, having a guaranteed market by government fiat tends to limit competition and thus raise costs.

It appears that some politicians in Europe are still not sold on capitalism and freedom.

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ESA approves taking the Vega-C rocket away from Arianespace

9:12 am

The council that runs the European Space Agency (ESA) today approved a resolution that shifted ownership of the Vega-C rocket away from government-run Arianespace and giving it back to its builder, the Italian aerospace company Avio.

Arianespace and Avio have agreed that Arianespace will remain the launch service provider and operator for Vega and Vega-C launch services until Vega flight 29 (VV29), scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2025. For Vega-C launches following VV29, the customers who have already contracted with Arianespace will be offered the possibility to transfer their contracts to Avio as the new launch service provider and sole operator of Vega.

Arianespace will primarily focus with ArianeGroup on the Ariane 6 exploitation to best meet the customer needs.

The council also agreed with France’s plan to allow independent commercial rocket startups to launch from French Guiana. Control of that spaceport has also been taken from Arianespace and returned to its owner, the French space agency CNES.

Essentially, this decision ties Arianespace’s future to Ariane-6, which is likely to disappear once its present manifest of launches, mostly for Amazon’s Kuiper constellation, gets launched.

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Kazakhstan joins China’s lunar base project

9:03 am

Kazakhstan today became the twelth nation to join China’s International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) project, and the first besides Russia with a real viable space industry.

The agreement appears to also include language allowing both nations to use each other’s spaceports. Since Kazakhstan’s main area of participation in space is its Baikonur spaceport, built during the Soviet days and up to now used exclusively by the Russians, this agreement could be a big deal. As the article notes,

China is currently working to boost pad access for emerging commercial launch service providers. The Baikonur cosmodrome was set up by the Soviet Union in Kazakhstan. It is leased to Russia until 2050. The country also hosts the Sary Shagan Test Site. Kazakhstan shares a border with Xinjiang, in China’s west.

“Kazakhstan will need to diversify away from Russia if it wants to have a big future in space,” Bleddyn Bowen, an associate professor specializing in space policy and military uses of outer space at the University of Leicester, told SpaceNews.

This deal indicates once again the foolishness of Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine. It highlighted to all of its neighbors that they need to form alliances with others to strengthen their hand should Russia turn its aggressive eye in their direction. Kazakhstan has now done so, to Russia’s long term detriment.

China’s twelve partner nations are Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Russia, Serbia, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, and Venezuela. In addition, about eleven academic or governmental bureaucracies have signed on along with several other countries (Bahrain and Peru) who have not signed on but are involved in other ways.

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China launches “satellite group” of Earth observation satellites

8:50 am

According to China’s state-run press, a Long March 6A rocket today successfully launched a “group of satellites … for geographic mapping, land resource surveys, scientific experiments and other purposes,” lifting off from its Taiyuan spaceport in northeast China.

No further information was provided, including where the rocket’s oxygen-fueled lower stages and its four solid-fueled strap-on boosters crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

70 SpaceX
30 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the world combined in successful launches, 82 to 45, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including other American companies, 70 to 57.

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July 4 mid-day pause: 1776

12:03 pm

Let’s celebrate Independence Day with the brilliant film version of the 1972 Broadway musical, 1776. It is not only great because of the wonderful music and witty dialogue, it is great because it actually captures quite accurately the real personalities of these Founding Fathers.

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Repost: Why we really celebrate the Fourth of July

10:30 am

I posted this essay in 2022 on July 4th and reposted it last year as well. It needs to be reposted again today. As I noted last year, my hopes for the November 2022 election were not realized, and we have suffered by that failure the past two years. We now face an even more critical election in November 2024. I wonder if Americans might finally decide to vote to clean house. I am hopeful, but also recognize that my optimism has been proven wrong consistently for decades.

—————-
Why we really celebrate the Fourth of July

The Declaration of Independence

If you really want to know why the Fourth of July has been the quintessential American holiday since the founding our this country, you need only return to the words of the document that became public to the world on that day.

Below the fold is the full text of the Declaration. Read it. It isn’t hard to understand, even if the style comes from the late 1700s. Its point however is clear. Governments that abuse the rights of the citizenry don’t deserve to be in power. The most important quote of course is right near the beginning:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed — that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. [emphasis mine]

What a radical concept — a nation founded on the principle of allowing its citizens to pursue happiness.

Right now, however, we have a federal government in America that more fits the description of King George III’s Great Britain in 1776 in the Declaration. The corrupt elitist uni-Party of federal elected officials and the federal bureaucracy in Washington has for too long run roughshod over the general population. If you take the time to read the full text of the Declaration, you will be astonished at the remarkable conceptual similarity between the abuses that Jefferson describes coming from Great Britain and the many abuses of power that are now legion and common by the uni-Party in Washington.

When November comes the American public will likely have its last chance to overthrow the political wing of the uni-Party, led by the Democratic Party. The Republicans are no saints, but at least that party contains within it many decent politicians who honor the Constitution, the rule of law, and the Bill of Rights. Many are right now campaigning on those ideals. Based on the past six years, we now know that no one in the Democratic Party honors those values. What they honor is blacklisting, racism, segregation, anti-American hate, and above all power. If they are not removed from office, they will ramp up that power, in league with quislings like Romney and Cornyn in the Republican Party, to further corrupt our Constitutional government.

These people do not like losing power. The longer they hold it, the more they will work to undermine the election system to make sure they do not lose. The corruption and election fraud in 2020 election was merely a dress rehearsal of what these goons will do if they have the chance next year.

In fact, November 2022 might very well be the last election that has any chance of producing legitimate results. Americans had better not waste this last chance.
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Space Force adds Stoke Space and Blue Origin to its list of smallsat launch companies

9:59 am

The Space Force has now added rocket startups Stoke Space and Blue Origin to its list of launch companies who are now approved to bid on launches of the military’s small satellites.

The two firms join 10 other vendors in the OSP-4 pool: ABL Space Systems, Aevum, Astra, Firefly Aerospace, Northrop Grumman, Relativity Space, Rocket Lab, SpaceX, United Launch Alliance (ULA), and X-Bow.

This program is designed for launches that are not critical and can be used to help new rocket companies, while also encourage all the companies to move more quickly, as the contracts are designed to be require a launch within 12 to 24 months after award, and sometimes much sooner. For example, several recent Firefly launches required the company to deliver the payload to the assembly building and get it mounted in less than a few days, and to do so only when told by the military.

This military smallsat launch program is also wholly different than the Space Force’s large payload launch program, which presently only allows SpaceX, ULA, and Blue Origin to bid on launches. With both programs however it appears the military is no longer limiting the companies that can bid to as small a number as possible — which had been its policy for the first two decades of this century — but instead is eagerly expanding the number over time to increase competition and its own options. With the large payload program the Pentagon intends to revisit its list yearly to widen it as new companies mature.

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Payload for the last launch of Avio’s Vega rocket now heading to French Guiana

9:44 am

While it remains unclear when the launch will occur, the two-satellite payload for the last launch of Europe’s Vega rocket is now heading to French Guiana.

The payload is two satellites that will be placed in orbits 180 degrees apart in order to make it possible to make fast repeat coverage of the Earth.

This particular launch is long delayed, for several reasons, one of which has been extremely embarrassing for Avio, the Italian company that builds the Vega family of rockets.

In December 2023, European Spaceflight reported that Avio had lost two of four propellant tanks required for the upper stage of the rocket’s final flight. The tanks were later found crushed, forcing the company to find an alternative. At the time, it proposed either using test articles of the tanks that had been used during the vehicle’s qualification phase in 2012 or modifying Vega C upper stage propellant tanks. It’s not clear which of the two options Avio selected to pursue.

The lack of any announced launch date suggests Avio might still have not come up with a solution, or if it has, the solution is not yet fully implemented.

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Isaacman’s Polaris Dawn mission to launch July 31, 2024

9:32 am

Jared Isaacman
Jared Isaacman

According to a short notice on the Polaris Dawn webpage, Jared Isaacman’s manned orbital mission where he will do the first spacewalk by a private citizen is now targeting a launch date of July 31, 2024.

The four-person mission is planned to spend five days in orbit in SpaceX’s Resilience Dragon capsule, during which it will fly to as high as 870 miles, the highest orbit flown since Gemini 11 in 1966, and the farthest any human has flown from Earth since the Apollo lunar missions. That orbit will make possible some new radiation research:

[T]his is high enough to penetrate the inner band of the radioactive Van Allen Belts that encircle the Earth. This isn’t good for the crew consisting of Mission Commander Jared Isaacman, Mission Pilot Scott Poteet, Mission Specialist Sarah Gillis, and Mission Specialist and Medical Officer Anna Menon, but their initial orbit will be highly elliptical with a lower altitude of 120 miles (190 km), so their exposure will be minimal.

The purpose of this radiological game of chicken is to conduct 38 science experiments to study the effects of spaceflight and space radiation on human health. When these are completed, the altitude for the remainder of the five days in orbit will be reduced to 430 miles (700 km).

Isaacman will then attempt his spacewalk, opening a hatch on Resilience that replaced its docking port. While Isaacman will be the only one to exit the capsule, all four crew members will be in comparable spacesuits, since the capsule has no airlock and thus its entire atmosphere will escape during these activities.

If this mission is successful, I expect Isaacman will renew his push at NASA for making the goal of his next Polaris mission to replace the gyros on the Hubble Space Telescope. At the moment agency officials have expressed skepticism and seem uninterested. That might change however.

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Survey: Major shift rightward in Israel since October 7

10:43 pm

According to a series of surveys taken from August 2023 through June 2024, the Israeli population shifted significantly rightward in Israel after the Hamas massacre on October 7, 2023.

The shift was not so much ideological — leftists still professed support for socialist policies — but mostly related to security issues and attitudes towards the Arabs living in Gaza and the West Bank. For example,

According to the Agam Labs survey, 52 percent of Jewish Israelis oppose the government’s wartime facilitation of humanitarian aid to Gaza, and just 30 percent support the policy—roughly the reverse of the numbers prior to Oct. 7.

Support for direct Israeli aid to and cooperation with the Palestinians has fallen even faster and farther, down to roughly one-fifth of the public in both cases.

One former leftist is quoted in the article as follows, “They can have aid in Gaza when they give us back our hostages. That’s how I feel,” she said. “I guess that makes me a right-wing extremist.”

I would say this survey proves Israel is the perfect example of a liberal who becomes a conservative after getting mugged.

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Firefly’s Alpha rocket launches eight smallsats into orbit

9:13 pm

Firefly tonight successfully launched eight smallsats for NASA and others, its Alpha rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The payloads on this launch were not all built by NASA, but I think NASA paid the launch costs as part of a program to help startups. One payload, Catsat, is a test of a spherical inflatable antenna created by the startup Freefall. If successful, it will be make it possible for cubesats to transmit much more data than they can now. As of posting seven of the eight satellites had been deployed. Catsat’s deployment however had not been confirmed.

As this was Firefly’s first launch in 2024, the leader board of the launch race does not change:

70 SpaceX
29 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise however now leads the world combined in successful launches, 82 to 44, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including other American companies, 70 to 56.

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