Category: Behind The Black

Resilience successfully moves from one ISS docking port to another

4:29 am

With four astronauts on board the Dragon capsule Resilience tonight successfully undocked from one docking port on ISS and redocked to a different port.

This was the first time an American spacecraft had accomplished this task. It was necessary to clear the docking port that the next Dragon capsule, Endeavour, will use to bring its crew to ISS, presently set for launch on April 22nd.

Russian astronauts have piloted Soyuz spacecraft between different ports numerous times, both on ISS and on Russia’s earlier space stations. Tonight’s transfer by Resilience however was done entirely on autopilot. The American astronauts could have taken over manually at any time, but the spacecraft did the entire maneuver on its own.

There is a certain irony in how the Russians have always done this maneuver, manually, and how Resilience did this, without any human intervention. From the 1960s through the entire space shuttle program Americans and all its astronauts strongly demanded that their spacecraft be piloted, by the humans on board, rather than being controlled by software or ground control. The Russians instead insisted, at least initially, that while their astronauts had the capability of doing all maneuvers manually, their software or mission control should run things. This difference seemed to nicely symbolize the down-up nature of America versus the top-down culture of Russia.

Things are now reversed. I wonder if that tells us anything about the two cultures today.

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More leaks found in Russian Zvezda module on ISS

10:34 am

Earlier this week Russian astronauts located and patched three more leaks in the 20+ year old Russian Zvezda module on ISS.

Prior to this week’s discovery, the recent patching done by Russian astronauts had reduced the air loss by about half. They need to do another seal test of Zvezda to see if these newer patches have reduced it further.

The report at the link from Russia is as usual very vague. No photos of any of the leaks have been released, by either Russia or NASA. No cause either has been described. This lack of information suggests that the leaks represent a more systemic problem, possibly related to stress fractures from age and wear. If so, it also suggests that Zvezda is nearing its pull-date. How this central module will be replaced from the station remains a major mystery.

Above all, this puts some urgency to the launch of newer modules, such as those being built by the private company Axiom.

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Ingenuity released from Perseverance

12:57 am

Ingenuity on the ground
Click for full image.

Perseverance engineers have now confirmed that the Ingenuity helicopter was successfully released below the rover earlier today, and the rover immediately moved away to expose the helicopter to sunlight so that its solar panels can charge its batteries.

The photo to the right, cropped to post here, was taken by one of Perseverance’s rear hazard avoidance cameras, shortly after the release and move. They will now begin about a week of check-outs to make sure Ingenuity is functioning properly, even as they drive Perseverance a distance away to a lookout point where it can safely observe the helicopter’s test flight on Mars, presently targeted for April 11th. If successful this will be the first powered flight ever achieved on another world.

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Sunspot update: Higher than predicted activity continues

12:10 am

The uncertainty of science: Time for our monthly update of the Sun’s on-going sunspot cycle. Below is NOAA’s April 1, 2021 monthly graph, showing the Sun’s sunspot activity through the end of March 2021. I have annotated it as always to show the previous solar cycle predictions.

The higher than expected sunspot activity that has been occurring almost from the moment the ramp up to solar maximum began in 2020 continued in March. The numbers weren’t as high as they were in December and January, but they were still higher than the predicted sunspot number.

» Read more

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Falcon 9 upper stage debris lands on Washington farm

9:57 am

Falcon 9 helium pressure tank
Click for full image.

When a Falcon 9 upper stage broke up over the Pacific northwest last week apparently one of its interior helium pressure tanks, used to help push the fuel or oxidizer from the larger tank during launch, fell on a Washington farm and has since been recovered.

The image to the right is that tank, in what appears to be remarkable shape. From the article:

Composite-overwrapped pressure vessels, or COPVs, are standard components in Falcon 9 rockets. They’re designed to hold the helium gas that’s used to pressurize propellant tanks. COPVs are likely candidates to survive re-entry because they’re relatively lightweight and heat-resistant.

The tank has been returned to SpaceX, which I am sure is going to be very interested in studying its condition very thoroughly.

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Russian gov’t okays extension of U.S cooperative space treaty to ’30

9:45 am

The Russian government yesterday officially approved an extension to 2030 of the cooperative space treaty with the United States that was initially signed in 1992.

According to the TASS article at the link, the U.S. government has already approved this extension. The original agreement was for U.S. flights to the Russian space station Mir. It has been renewed four times since to cover the deal to build and use ISS.

This could very well be the last extension of this deal. By 2030 private commercial American stations should be operational, and the age of some of the oldest sections of ISS will likely need replacement. At that point the U.S. will probably decide to retire its half of ISS.

What the Russians will do is uncertain. The government doesn’t have the cash to build its own station. Nor has that government allowed a private commercial space industry to thrive and thus be financially able to build private commercial stations. Russia may separate its part of ISS and attempt to keep it aloft, but some of their modules are the oldest, and have shown signs of that age.

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Two pits at opposite ends of Mars’ big volcanoes

12:40 pm

Overview map

Regular readers of Behind the Black know that since 2018 I have regularly documented all the images of pits taken by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). (See my last pit post in January for a full list of these previous articles.) The black dots on the map to the right shows the location of all the pits near the volcanoes Arsia and Pavonis Mons that have so far been highlighted here.

The two white dots are the two most recent MRO pits, and are the subject of today’s cool image. They also happen to be the farthest north and south pits so far documented. The southernmost pit, which I am saving till last, is the most interesting.
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: the David Horowitz Freedom Center and its webpage FrontPage

10:45 am

Today's modern witch hunt
Burn witches: What the Southern Poverty Law Center
does to ordinary conservatives.

They’re coming for you next: The conservative David Horowitz Freedom Center and its publication FrontPage Magazine has found itself repeatedly blackballed by various major companies, simply because the center stands for freedom and the principles of western civilization.

In just the past couple of years, MasterCard temporally shut us down, one of our local banks closed our account due to our “controversial positions on issues,” and a brokerage firm closed our account for “unknown reasons.” Amazon will not allow the Freedom Center, a 501 c3 IRS designated nonprofit, to participate in their Amazon Smiles charity campaign because of the SPLC’s [Southern Poverty Law Center] designation of the Center has a “hate group” and now Disqus, the largest networked community platform on the Internet, has canceled our service.

The last example from Disqus involved that company’s sudden decision to cease providing the FrontPage website its commenting service.
» Read more

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InSight detects additional 3+ magnitude quakes on Mars

8:23 am

Martian quake map as seen by InSight

According to a JPL press release today, the seismometer on the Mars lander InSight detected two new 3+ magnitude quakes in March, both coming from the Cerberus Fossae region, the same region where the bulk of seismic activity has so far been pinpointed on Mars.

The map to the right was presented several weeks ago at the 52nd Lunar and Planetary conference, and could possibly include one of these two new quakes. The timing however of these March quakes is significant:

The new quakes have something else in common with InSight’s previous top seismic events, which occurred almost a full Martian year (two Earth years) ago: They occurred in the Martian northern summer. Scientists had predicted this would again be an ideal time to listen for quakes because winds would become calmer. The seismometer, called the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS), is sensitive enough that, even while it is covered by a dome-shaped shield to block it from wind and keep it from getting too cold, wind still causes enough vibration to obscure some marsquakes. During the past northern winter season, InSight couldn’t detect any quakes at all.

They are beginning to use the lander’s scoop to cover the seismometer and its communications tether with sand to protect both from the wind and temperature fluctuations. Once done they hope to be able to detect quakes during the entire Martian year, though this ability will be further limited by a reduction in power.

Despite the winds that have been shaking the seismometer, InSight’s solar panels remain covered with dust, and power is running lower as Mars moves away from the Sun. Energy levels are expected to improve after July, when the planet begins to approach the Sun again. Until then, the mission will successively turn off the lander’s instruments so that InSight can hibernate, waking periodically to check its health and communicate with Earth. The team hopes to keep the seismometer on for another month or two before it has to be temporarily turned off.

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Tianwen-1’s engineers set mid-May for rover landing on Mars

7:59 am

The new colonial movement: The science team for China’s Tianwen-1 orbiter are now targeting mid-May for when they will release and land the as-yet unnamed rover for its landing on Mars.

Wang Chi, director of the National Space Science Center at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said March 23 that Tianwen 1’s lander and rover are scheduled to touch down on Mars in May.

“The first Chinese Mars mission, Tianwen 1, is now orbiting Mars, and we are landing in the middle of May,” Wang said in a presentation to the National Academies’ Space Studies Board. “We are open to international cooperation, and the data will be available publicly soon.” [emphasis mine]

Though China has generally released the scientific data of its lunar probes eventually, they have done it slowly. In the case of Tianwen-1, they released so far practically nothing, with the only images released being two hi-resolution ground images and a handful of distant global pictures of Mars.

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