Embedded below the fold in two parts.
To listen to all of John Batchelor’s podcasts, go here.
» Read more
An evening pause: How about some Cold War military aviation history to take us into the weekend?
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
It would be nice if this system was put to use during a launch, now only four years late.
The number is slightly higher than previously stated, and likely was made public now because of SpaceX’s problems getting regulatory approval for test flights. NASA needs Starship, and the intransigence of the FAA and Fish & Wildlife to give launch approval is likely delaying that lunar manned mission by years.
Russian officials are saying they want to encourage new private Russian companies to compete for contracts for such things, but it is all smoke and mirrors. The big entities in power in Russia, such as Energia, are going to work to block it as hard as they can.
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on August 24, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
Labeled “flow margin in Elysium Planitia,” it shows the very edge of what scientists believe was the most recent large lava event on Mars, dubbed the Athabasca Valles, that is thought to have occurred only 600 million years ago. In only a matter of weeks the fast flowing lava covered a region about the size of Great Britain. What we see here is the southernmost edge of that flow, with the smooth terrain on the west an older lava flood plain, covered by the new flood lava from Athabasca on the east.
The polygon cracks likely indicate cracks that formed during the hardening process (like the polygon cracks in drying mud). Hot lava then pushed up from below to form the ridges. It is also possible the ridges are what scientists call “wrinkle ridges,” formed when material shrinks during the drying process.
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From Figure A1 of paper.
Based on a new analysis of data from the Messenger spacecrat that orbited Mercury from 2011 to 2015, scientists today posited the possibility that salt glaciers exist on Mercury and have reshaped its terrain in manner vaguely comparable to what Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has found on Mars.
You can read the paper here [pdf]. The image to the right, enhanced by the scientists to bring out the faint blue in the hollows, is remarkably reminiscent of the hollows and scallop terrain found in many places in the high Martian latitudes. From its conclusion:
Detecting widespread elemental volatile surface compositions, ubiquitous sublimation hollows, and extensive chaotic terrains has significantly reshaped our perception of Mercury’s geological past. These observations collectively point to the presence of volatile-rich strata spanning several kilometers in depth and likely formed before the [Late Heavy Bombardment] (∼3.8 billion years ago). This notion challenges the conventional view of a volatile-depleted Mercurian crust.
The morphologies within Mercury’s Raditladi basin bear a striking morphologic resemblance to glaciers on Earth and Mars, suggesting their origin from an impact-exposed [volatile-rich layer], likely containing halite. Our numerical simulations show that the unique rheological properties of halite, including the high thermal sensitivity of its viscosity, reinforce this hypothesis. These glacier-like features occur beyond the chaotic terrain boundaries, indicating a potentially global yet concealed, volatile-rich upper stratigraphy. We posit that the exposure of these volatile-rich materials, instigated by impact events, could have been instrumental in the formation and evolution of hollow features, signifying a complex geodynamic history of volatile migration and redistribution, essentially interconnecting some of the oldest and youngest stratigraphic materials on the planet.
The scientists do not have enough information as yet to determine if these glaciers are still active or not. Moreover, the theorized layer of volatile material near the surface remains unconfirmed, requiring in situ investigation to determine its existence with certainty. Like Mars, if it exists it likely only does so in the high latitudes.
The crash site is the double crater in the
lower image.
Researchers have now confirmed that the unknown rocket stage that impacted the Moon in 2022 was from a Chinese rocket, a Long March 3B that launched China’s Chang’e-5 lunar sample return mission in November 2020.
“In this paper, we present a trajectory and spectroscopic analysis using ground-based telescope observations to show conclusively that WE0913A is the Long March 3C rocket body (R/B) from the Chang’e 5-T1 mission,” the researchers, led by Tanner Campbell, a doctoral student in the UA’s Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, wrote in a study that came out Thursday (Nov. 16) in the Planetary Science Journal. These two lines of evidence — how the object was moving and what it was made of — leave little doubt about WE0913A’s provenance, Campbell and his colleagues report.
The data, combined with the unusual double crater caused by the impact, also suggests that this stage had additional unknown equipment at its top, matching the mass of its engines at the bottom. Since the Chinese continue to deny it was their stage and have said nothing about it, we have no idea what that extra equipment might have been.
The German rocket startup Isar Aerospace has signed a deal to provide the Andoya spaceport in the north of Norway with a new flight tracking and safety system, to be used by all launches including Isar’s own Spectrum rocket.
The purpose of the autonomous flight tracking system is to precisely and reliably keeping track of the Spectrum launch vehicle’s position, speed and direction of travel as it ascends to orbit, which is important to guarantee Andøya Spaceport’s flight safety requirements. The objective is to further evaluate the use of the system in enabling automated flight termination functionality for launches by Andøya Spaceport’s ground system, autonomously triggering an abort of the mission if ever operational parameters of the launch vehicle are out of bounds.
This announcement today illustrates the rising competition between German rocket startups and European spaceports. Yesterday the Saxavord spaceport in Scotland and another German rocket startup, HyImpulse, announced their own launch deal. Today’s announcement is the response from Andoya and Isar.
Today’s announcement also increases the pressure in the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to get its regulatory act together. Andoya is positioning itself as a good alternative to the two new British spaceports in Scotland, as shown by the red dots on the map above, should red tape in the UK slow launches there.
Because of the sudden announcement by the White House of its own version of a new commercial regulatory space bill, the House Science committee was forced to delay the voting on November 15, 2023 of its own new commercial space bill, put forth by Republicans.
The committee met Nov. 15 to mark up the Commercial Space Act of 2023 and one other bill. At the end of the markup, lasting more than three and a half hours including a recess, the committee’s chairman, Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) said the committee would delay votes to advance both bills until after the Thanksgiving break because of votes on the House floor and “and the nature of additional information that has become available to us.”
The latter comment appeared to be a reference to a legislative proposal released by the White House’s National Space Council less than an hour before the markup regarding a mission authorization concept for new space activities. That proposal would establish a system where both the Commerce Department and the Transportation Department would oversee activities not regulated today, based on the type of activity.
The House bill, introduced Nov. 2 by Lucas and space subcommittee chairman Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas), would create its own mission authorization system at the Commerce Department. It would also direct Commerce to hand over responsibility for a civil space traffic coordination system to a consortium led by an academic or nonprofit organization, rather than keeping it within the Office of Space Commerce as currently planned. Lucas, in his opening remarks, said he was aware of the new White House proposal but has reservations about it. “These proposals, I fear, simply go in the wrong direction and hurt rather than support America’s space industry,” he said.
Both bills were aimed at realigning the regulatory regime governing private space activities. The House bill’s final form apparently had been written with a lot of industry input. The White House bill, supported by Democrats, appears designed instead to clamp down on commercial space by allowing the federal bureaucracy to regulate everything.
Both bills unfortunately give too much power to the federal government, though the Republican bill at least tries to shift some of that power to the private sector, where it belongs.
One of the main reasons we have had a rennaisance in commercial space in the past decade is that there has been little regulation. The private sector has been left to regulate itself, and it has generally done so very successfully because of the invisible hand of free market forces. Build things right and the world beats a path to your door. Do it badly and no regulation is needed, you go out of business.
Modern Americans no longer trust these fundamentals of freedom and capitalism, and so we have a rush by government to establish “rules,” none of which will really accomplish anything but slow development and innovation and squelch this emerging industry.
Sierra Space yesterday did a major staffing shake up, laying off 165 workers while shifting 150 with secruity clearances from its parent company Sierra Nevada.
Sierra Space this week shipped the first Dream Chaser, named Tenacity, for pre-launch testing at NASA’s Armstrong facility in Ohio. The layoffs began soon after, the Sierra Space spokesperson said, noting the company conducted a surge in hiring this year to complete work on the Tenacity spacecraft.
With Tenacity shipped, Sierra Space’s spokesperson said the company is realigning to focus on the operations phase of Dream Chaser’s first mission, as well as on classified national security work. The latter part of Sierra Space’s realignment includes adding nearly 150 employees with security clearances from Sierra Nevada Corp., the aerospace and defense contractor owned by Fatih and Eren Ozmen, which the space company was spun out of two years ago. Sierra Space’s spokesperson said the company is creating a national security space team to work on several classified contracts.
This shift suggests that at least in the short run, Sierra is putting more focus on future military contracts rather than its civilian manned space projects like its LIFE space module (for the Orbital Reef space station) and future manner versions of its Dream Chaser mini-shuttle. I wonder if the company is having more internal doubts about Orbital Reef and its main partner, Blue Origin. Unlike the stations being built by Axiom and Voyager Space, which have already garnered contracts from both national and international customers, Orbital Reef has not done the same. There could be great doubts in the space community it will be built because of Blue Origin’s absymal record for building anything.
An evening pause: I’m not sure if John Tams is singing, but these are his lyrics used in the British historical television series, Sharpe, set to a traditional British song from the 18th century (hence the line “King George commands and we obey). I like this lyric however:
When Evil stalks upon the land
I’ll neither hold nor stay me hand
But fight to win a better day,
Over the hills and far away.
Hat tip Alton Blevins.
UPDATE: My quickie two-week fund-raising campaign for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to all those who donated or subscribed. I am as always overwhelmed with gratitude. No one has to give me a dime to read what I write, and yet you all do so anyway.
This note of thanks will remain at the top of the page for the next few days, just to make sure everyone sees it. Scroll down for new stories.
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, who notes it has been “a slow news day. I guess everyone is waiting to see SpaceX launch.” For me this has been good, as the day has mostly been tied up with doctors (nothing serious).
The rover, dubbed Resilience, is essentially a copy of the Rashed rover the UAE built for Ispace’s first Hakuto-R1 lunar lander which unfortunately failed at landing.
India’s space agency noted that it made sure the stage was emptied of fuel prior to re-entry, but did not mention whether it did anything to control that re-entry to arrive over the Pacific.
Amazon announced today that its first two Kuiper satellites, launched into orbit by ULA’s Atlas-5 rocket on October 6, 2023, have worked exactly as planned, thus allowing the company to begin building operational satellites.
With the prototypes’ testing in space now complete, Badyal said Amazon plans to begin building the first production Kuiper satellites in December and launch the first satellites for its network in the “latter part of the first half” of 2024. Badyal emphasized that Amazon wasn’t sure what performance to expect from the prototype satellites, since “you don’t know how well it’s going to work in space.”
“They’re working brilliantly,” Badyal said.
The need of Amazon to start launching lots of satellites next year — in order to meet its FCC license requirements to put half of its 3,000+ constellation in orbit by 2026 — puts great pressure on ULA, Blue Origin, and Arianespace to get their new but as yet unlaunchd rockets operating. All three have big launch contracts with Amazon, but none presently appear to have the capability to meet the demands of those contracts.
SpaceX has pushed back the orbital test launch of its Starship/Superheavy rocket one day, to November 18, 2023, because one of the rocket’s grid fins was not working properly during a prelaunch test.
The new launch window opens at 7 am (Central), but is now only twenty minutes long. SpaceX says it will begin its live stream on X and here 35 minutes before liftoff.
A 2020 Hubble picture of Jupiter.
Click for full image.
Long term data from numerous observatories shows that the Great Red Spot on Jupiter, the largest and longest lasting storm in the solar system, has been continuously shrinking for decades, and appears approaching this year its smallest size ever measured.
Despite so many factors working to keep it “alive” the Spot may be in need of life support. It’s been shrinking for decades. In 2012 the rate of shrinkage abruptly accelerated, something many amateur observers have commented on since that time. Several years later, while still shrinking in diameter, it expanded in latitude becoming more circular. Now it’s narrowed again and continues to diminish in both axes. This observing season I’ve been struck by the Spot’s unusually small size. That, along with its pale pink color and turbulent environment, have made it less obvious than ever.
…Using the WinJUPOS program and one of his recent high-resolution images, Peach measured the Great Red Spot’s diameter on November 6, 2023, at 12,500 kilometers or about 7,770 miles across. If confirmed it would make this season’s GRS not only smaller than the Earth (12,756 kilometers or 7,926 miles across) but the smallest size in observational history. A British Astronomical Association Jupiter section bulletin on October 30th described it as “the smallest it has ever been.” That’s a far cry from the late 1800s when the Spot ballooned to 41,000 kilometers (25,500 miles) — big enough to swallow three Earths with room to spare. Now it can barely contain one!
No one knows if this shrinkage is merely a normal long term fluctuation, or a sign that this many-centuries-old storm is finally dissippating. When it comes to the solar system’s gas giants, their size and long orbits make any firm conclusion difficult in only a few centuries of observation. To understand them properly will likely require thousands of years of observations, covering many orbits and seasons.
The Saxavord spaceport, one of two being built in Scotland, has signed a launch deal from the German rocket startup Hy-Impulse, with two suborbital test launches scheduled for next year and an orbital launch targeting 2025.
HyImpulse, a launch services provider and DLR spinoff based in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, is currently gearing up for its inaugural suborbital launch early next year from Australia. It will however look to conduct two suborbital launches from SaxaVord Spaceport, located in Scotland’s Shetland Islands, from August 2024 onwards. HyImpulse has already secured an Air Navigation Order (ANO) license from the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority for one launch.
These will be followed by first orbital launches from late 2025 onwards. The plan envisions rising to full commercial operations by 2030.
All this assumes that the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) can issue the launch licenses in time. After all it only six to ten months to approve those suborbital launches, and almost two years to approve the orbital launch. So far the CAA has proven unable to approve anything within even those long time frames.
We’re here to help you! The Biden White House yesterday proposed a major expansion of the regulations that govern commercial space, with the changes aimed at splitting all regulation within the Transportaion and Commerce Departments, but expand the regulations to so as to increase the power of the government over all future activitives, from rockets to spacecraft to space stations.
According to the White House’s statement [pdf]:
Specifically, this proposal would amend 51 U.S.C. 50902 to define a “human space flight vehicle” as a vehicle, including a launch vehicle or reentry vehicle, habitat, or other object, built to operate in suborbital trajectory or outer space, including on a celestial body, with a human being on board. A license would then be required for a citizen of the United States to operate a human space flight vehicle in outer space. (51 U.S.C. 50904).
DOT would authorize the operation of a human space flight vehicle consistent with public health and safety, safety of property, space sustainability, international obligations of the United States, and national security, foreign policy, and other national interests of the United States. (51 U.S.C. 50905). This proposal adds “space sustainability” and “other national interests” to DOT’s current authority. Including “space sustainability” would allow DOT to include debris mitigation and require measures to protect the sustainable use of outer space in their regulations, to include the mitigation and remediation of orbital debris and consideration of impacts to the space operational environment. [emphasis mine]
Essentially, these new rules — purposely written to be vague — will allow the government to forbid any activity in space by private citizens it chooses to forbid. No private space station could launch without government approval, which will also include the government’s own determination that the station will be operatied safely. Once launched, the vagueness of these regulations will soon allow mission creep so that every new activity in space will soon fall under its review.
Since no one in the government is qualified to supervise things like this, in the end politics and the abuse of power will be the rule.
Moreover, by what constitutional right does the federal government have to supervise the work of all space companies, in all things? It doesn’t have that right, and in fact the Constitution was written expressly to forbid it from attempting such a thing. The Constitution however is nothing more than fish wrap in modern America.
Note that most other news reports on this proposal are making it sound as nothing more than a simple revision of the law to better organize the regulatory system. The assumption is always that the government is all-knowing and all-seeing, and has the ability to act as school teacher for everyone else.
Initially we can expect these regulations will be followed with good faith, but such things never last. Given time they will end up squelching freedom in space and the entire American effort to colonize the solar system. And should any American colony become reasonably self-sufficient under these rules (something not likely), the rules guarantee that they will revolt from American rule as quickly as possible.
At this moment this proposal is simply that. Congress needs to review it and decide if it wishes to do as the Biden White House proposes. Though it is unlikely it will pass as written, it is also likely that our present Congress will simply reword it to accept this expansion of power, in some manner.
China today successfully launched what it claimed was the first of a new generation of ocean observation satellites, its Long March 2C rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China.
No word on where the rocket’s lower stages, which use toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
83 SpaceX
52 China
14 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India
American private enterprise still leads China 95 to 52 in successful launches, and the entire world combined 95 to 81. SpaceX by itself is still leads the rest of the world (excluding American companies) 83 to 81.
Tomorrow (November 16) during the 5 to 6 pm (Central) time slot I will be appearing with Robert Pratt of Pratt on Texas for a 30-minute interview, updating his Texas audience on commercial space matters in Texas. Obviously, SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy was high on the list.
You can listen live here or here. The podcast is now available here. I have also embedded below the fold.
» Read more
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
Translation: Russia’s own proposed space station won’t launch this decade (surprise) and it is likely it won’t launch next decade either.
And if you believe that I have a bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you cheap.
That shuttle never flew again, and was finally destroyed when the roof of its storage hanger fell on it in 2002.
The right’s approach to its own side.
Rather than write another depressing essay detailing the uniform madness on the left, with its eager desire to censor, blacklist, and imprison its opponents — now topped by a desire to see Jews slaughtered — I think I will let a short essay by Mark Judge speak for me:
The Left uplifts its artists. Why doesn’t the Right?
Key quote:
When a gifted young singer or filmmaker emerges on the left, the entire media ecosystem works in tandem to lift that person up. They are noticed in Vanity Fair, the Hollywood Reporter, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. There are profiles on the morning shows, grants and financial support. Everybody pulls in one direction.
On the right, it is almost the opposite effect. “There is a lot of gatekeeping,” Roland tells me. “Everyone is protecting their own turf.” Conservative media companies want to promote their own product. Whereas on the left everyone lends a hand to uplift talent, on the right there is more of an effort to ignore it.
Judge notes this pattern based on his own experience, as well as that of a conservative filmmaker he interviews. Judge, a journalist and author, became well known when he was accused falsely during the Kavanaugh hearings of participating in the left’s made-up rape story. Since then his career has moved forward, but as he so correctly notes, not with the kind of support you’d think he should get from the right.
I say he is correct because like him and that filmmaker, I have had the same experience now for decades. » Read more
The April Starship/Superheavy flight plan. Click for original image.
The slightly revised flight plan for flight two can be found here.
Starship stacked on Superheavy, September 5, 2023,
when Elon Musk said it was ready for launch
UPDATE: The FAA has now issued the launch licence [pdf]. Note it adds that the FAA and Fish & Wildlife have imposed new requirements (as noted in the announcements below) on SpaceX on this and future launches, all of which will have to be reviewed after each launch.
Original post:
————————-
Both the FAA and the Fish & Wildlife department of the Interior Departiment today released their completed investigations of the environmental impacts created by the first test launch of SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy rocket in April 2023, and (not surprisingly) concluded that the launch did no harm, and that a second launch can be allowed.
The FAA report can be found here [pdf]. The Fish & Wildlife report can be found here [pdf]. Both essentially come to the same conclusion — though in minute detail — that Fish and Wildlife had determined in April 2023, only a week after that first test launch.
No debris was found on lands belonging to the refuge itself, but the agency said debris was spread out over 385 acres belonging to SpaceX and Boca Chica State Park. A fire covering 3.5 acres also started south of the pad on state park land, but the Fish and Wildlife Service didn’t state what caused the fire or how long it burned.
There was no evidence, though, that the launch and debris it created harmed wildlife. “At this time, no dead birds or wildlife have been found on refuge-owned or managed lands,” the agency said. [emphasis mine]
In other words, the investigation for the past seven months was merely to complete the paperwork, in detail, for these obvious conclusions then.
As part of the FAA action today, it also issued range restrictions for a November 17, 2023 test launch at Boca Chica. Though there is no word yet of the issuance of an actual launch license, it appears one will be issued, and SpaceX is prepared for launch that day, with a 2.5 hourlong launch window, opening at 7 am (Central). SpaceX has already announced that its live stream will begin about 30 minutes before launch, at this link as well as on X.
Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay and my reader Jestor Naybor for these links.
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on August 1, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Labeled by the science team as showing “possible lava-ice interaction,” the photo features some pimply-looking mounds that, though round like craters, sit above the surrounding landscape like small volcanoes.
That these are likely not ancient pedestal impact craters that now sit higher because their material is packed and can resist erosion is illustrated by the bridge-like mound in the lower right. This mound was likely once solid, but its north and south sections have disappeared, either by erosion or sublimation. If formed by an impact the mound would have had a depression in its top center, and would have only eroded outside the rim.
» Read more
Embedded below the fold in two parts.
To listen to all of John Batchelor’s podcasts, go here.
» Read more
One of the most powerful gamma ray bursts (GRBs) ever detected was so powerful that despite occurring about 1.9 billion light years away it was powerful enough to affect Earth’s atmosphere.
On 9 October 2022, for 7 minutes, high energy photons from a gigantic explosion 1.9 billion light-years away toasted one side of Earth as never before observed. The event, called a gamma ray burst (GRB), was 70 times brighter than the previous record holder. But what astronomers dub the “BOAT”—the brightest of all time—did more than provide a light show spanning the electromagnetic spectrum. It also ionized atoms across the ionosphere, which spans from 50 to 1000 kilometers in altitude, researchers say. The findings highlight the faint but real risk of a closer burst destroying Earth’s protective ozone layer.
“It was such a massive event, it affected all levels of the atmosphere,” says solar physicist Laura Hayes of the European Space Agency (ESA).
None of these consequences were harmful or even noticeable to any life on Earth, but the data proved without question that a GRB close by within the Milky Way could have been the cause of one or more of the past extinction events. It also proved that a future such nearby explosion could do the same again.
At present astronomers think that GRBs are caused either by the collapse of a massive star into a black hole, during a supernovae event, or by the merger of two neutron stars. Neither conclusion is proved as yet, though the evidence has eliminated most other theories.
For astronomers this GRB was significant because its strength allowed many different telescopes and detectors to record it, in many different wavelengths. Having such a wealth of information helps them better figure out what happened when the burst occurred.
The Japanese government has created a new $6.6 billion fund that it will provide to its space agency JAXA, spread out over the next ten years, to help develop the country’s commercial space industry.
The very short article at the link provides little additional information. For example, will JAXA be required to act merely as a customer, buying services from competing private companies, or will it be allowed to use this money to create its own projects that it designs, builds, and owns?
The difference is fundamental. Presently JAXA functions like NASA had for decades, partnering with only a handful of big space companies (Mitsubishi for example) to build its own government rockets and spaceships. The results have been comparable to NASA prior to 2010: Little gets built and whatever is built is overbudget and far behind schedule.
Since NASA accepted the idea of capitalism in space, where it no longer builds or owns much but relies on private enterprise to get it done, things have moved fast. Similarly, India and China have followed suit, and both are getting similar good results.
The unanswered question from this story is whether Japan has finally taken the leap to do it as well. Making this transition can be politically difficult, because the space agencies and big space contractors fight to protect their turf. It is not clear if the Japanese government is willing to fight that battle.
If it doesn’t, however, Japan will continue to be a backwater in space, like Russia,as the rest of the world’s space-faring nations increasingly turn to private enterprise, competition, and (most of all) freedom to get results.
The uncertainty of science: According to high energy data from an instrument on ISS, astronomers found more evidence that the cosmic rays that enter our solar system likely come from nearby supernova remnants.
Current theory posits that the aftermath of supernovae (exploding stars), called supernova remnants, produce these high energy electrons, which are a specific type of cosmic ray. Electrons lose energy very quickly after leaving their source, so the rare electrons arriving at CALET with high energy are believed to originate in supernova remnants that are relatively nearby (on a cosmic scale), Cannady explains.
The study’s results are “a strong indicator that the paradigm that we have for understanding these high-energy electrons—that they come from supernova remnants and that they are accelerated the way that we think they are—is correct,” Cannady says. The findings “give insight into what’s going on in these supernova remnants, and offer a way to understand the galaxy and these sources in the galaxy better.”
The results however do not prove this. Nor do they eliminate the possibility that cosmic rays might also come from other sources outside our galaxy. At present the data is simply too uncertain.
Rocket Lab has won a new contract with from the Pentagon’s military hypersonic test program to launch a suborbital test vehicle in 2025 using its suborbital version of its Electron rocket, dubbed HASTE.
The hypersonic test vehicle set to fly is called DART AE. It’s a 9.8-foot-long (3 meters), 660-pound (300 kilograms) scramjet-powered technology demonstrator that can reach speeds of up to Mach 7 (seven times the speed of sound; 5,320 mph, or 8,350 kph), according to the Hypersonix website. The mission will demonstrate HASTE’s ‘direct inject’ capability by deploying the Hypersonix payload during ascent, while still within Earth’s atmosphere, according to a Rocket Lab statement.
Rocket Lab has previously announced it has already has contracts to two HASTE launches in 2024, so this new contract is in addition to those. The deal also suggests that the company’s fast adaption of Electron for these suborbital test flights has grabbed this market from Stratolaunch, which had hoped the military would purchase its giant airplane Roc and its own test vehicles for such hypersonic testing.
According to the company’s CEO, Intuitive Machines is pushing to fly two more Nova-C lunar landing missions next year after its first is launched by SpaceX on January 12th and hopefully lands successfully near the Moon’s south pole on January 19th.
Intuitive Machines is working on two more Nova-C landers for its IM-2 and IM-3 missions, also carrying NASA CLPS payloads. The company has not announced launch dates for those missions, but Altemus said he hoped both could take place by the end of 2024.
“We are planning three missions in 2024,” he said, which will depend in part on NASA’s requirements as well as orbital dynamics. Landings at the south polar region of the moon, the target for IM-2, are linked to “seasons” where lighting conditions are optimal for lander operations. IM-3, he said, would happen “a few months” after IM-2.
Though Nova-C will launch after Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander (launching on ULA’s Vulcan rocket), it will get to the Moon quickly, and will attempt its landing first. If successfully it will therefore be the first private payload to do so.
The company’s ambitions for 2024 are laudable, but depend so entirely on everything going perfectly it will not be surprising if they do not pan out. Nor will it reflect badly on the company if just one mission flies in 2024. Landing a robot on another world is hard. For private companies to do it is harder.
