Category: Points of Information

Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.

April 2, 2025 Quick space links

3:30 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

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ESA isn’t forcing private companies building cargo capsules to hire contractors from all its partners

10:33 am

Capitalism in space: When the European Space Agency (ESA) in May 2024 awarded two contracts to the French startup The Exploration Company and the established Italian contractor Thales-Alenia to develop unmanned capsules for bringing cargo to and from orbit, it also made a major policy change that went unnoticed at the time.

During a press briefing on 23 May [2024], following the Phase 1 awards, ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher explained that the agency would not require participants in the initiative to adhere to its geo-return policy. The policy typically ensures that contracts are distributed among ESA member states in proportion to their financial contributions. “We contract very differently because we will be the anchor customer,” said Aschbacher. “That means we buy a service. We give industry all the freedom to find the best solution technically, but also the best partners, with whomever they want to work with.”

What means is that the two companies, in developing their capsules, have not been required to spread the work out across Europe. Instead, they have been free to do the work entirely in house, or hire just the subcontractors they prefer, from anywhere. As the CEO of The Exploration Company noted, “In plain terms, we choose our suppliers based purely on quality and cost—not because they’re French, Italian, or German. We choose the best supplier for the job.”

In the past, as part of its bureaucratic and political needs, ESA’s “geo-return policy” required every space project to spread the wealth to all of the ESA’s partner nations, in amounts proportional to their financial contributions to the ESA. The result was that every project went overbudget, took too long to complete, and was unrealistically complex. Many projects simply failed because of these issues. Others took decades to get completed, for too much money. And when it came to rockets, it produced the Ariane-6, that is too expensive and cannot compete in today’s market.

This decision last year means that ESA is very slowly adopting the concept of capitalism in space, whereby it acts merely as a customer, buying products that are completely owned and controlled by the seller.

This new policy presently only applies to the development phase of these capsules. Though no decision has been made about the construction phase, involving much more money, ESA publications indicate it will apply there as well.

Though it is taking time, Europe’s space bureaucracy is beginning to accept the idea of freedom and capitalism.

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Fram2 passengers take their first pictures of Earth’s polar regions

10:10 am

The Arctic as seen from Fram2

SpaceX yesterday released a short video of the first pictures of the Earth’s polar regions taken by its Fram2 passengers on the capsule Resilience.

The picture to the right is a screen capture from that film, looking out the capsule’s large cupola window in its nose. The capsule’s nosecone can be seen at the bottom, having hinged sideways out of the way during orbital operations.

The tweet provided little information about the images. For example, it did not say which pole was imaged. Since the ground and ice below is dark, we are likely looking at the north pole, which at this time of year is mostly in shadow. You can see what looks like the edge of the ice pack, partly hidden by clouds.

The flight is scheduled to last from three to five days, and is presently in its second day. Not much information from the crew in orbit has at this point been released. I suspect they are simply enjoying their experience in private, since they are not obligated to share it with the world.

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Another example of the weird taffy terrain in Mars’ death valley

1:29 pm

More taffy terrain

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on January 30, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The scientists label it dimply as “layers in Helles Planitia.” Other scientists have given this strange landscape a much more interesting label, “taffy terrain.” It is found only in the Hellas Basin, the basement of Mars, having the lowest elevation found anywhere on the red planet. According to a 2014 paper, the scientists posit that this material must be some sort of “a viscous fluid,” naturally flowing downward into “localized depressions.” Because of its weird nature I have posted many cool images of it in the past (see here, here, here, here, and here).

Is taffy terrain still viscous, or has it become solidified? That question I think remains unanswered, though pictures taken of the same spot over time do not yet appear to show changes.
» Read more

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Chinese man who used drone illegally over Vandenberg, spying for China, given slap on wrist in sentencing

9:19 am

Yinpiao Zhou, the Chinese man who flew a drone illegally over Vandenberg last fall in order to spy for China, has now been sentenced for his crime.

Yinpiao Zhou was sentenced Monday morning by a U.S. district judge in Los Angeles to four months in prison with a year of supervised released [sic]. He was also ordered to pay a $200 fine and $25 special assessment.

Since Zhou has been held in prison almost four months already, he will likely be released in days for time served.

All the evidence suggests he did this either willingly or unwillingly under orders from China. A second man that was with him while he flew the drone was never identified or arrested, and has likely been allowed to flee the country. Zhou himself tried to flee as well, as he was arrested at the airport as he tried to board a plane back to China. He is a Chinese citizen who is lawfully in the U.S., but having been caught spying it is astonishing that he is being allowed to remain in the country. He should be deported immediately.

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Twenty years of Hubble data map one long season on Uranus

9:09 am

Uranus over twenty years
Click for original image.

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope multiple times since 2002 have now tracked the changes in its atmosphere during one quarter of its 84 year orbit around the Sun.

The image to the right, reduced and sharpened to post here, shows Hubble’s views across several electromagnetic wavelengths. Uranus’s rotational tilt or inclination is almost 90 degrees, so that it literally rolls on its side as it orbits the Sun. You can see this especially in the bottom two rows. From 2012 to 2022 one pole slowly shifted westward. From the press release:

The Hubble team observed Uranus four times in the 20-year period: in 2002, 2012, 2015, and 2022. They found that, unlike conditions on the gas giants Saturn and Jupiter, methane is not uniformly distributed across Uranus. Instead, it is strongly depleted near the poles. This depletion remained relatively constant over the two decades. However, the aerosol and haze structure changed dramatically, brightening significantly in the northern polar region as the planet approaches its northern summer solstice in 2030.

Since we have not yet observed Uranus over one full year, there are a lot of uncertainties in any conclusions the scientists propose. For one, we don’t know the general atmospheric patterns across all four seasons. For another, any changes seen now might simply be the planet’s weather, random events not directly related to long term climate patterns.

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SpaceX launches 28 Starlink satellites; China launches test internet satellite

8:39 am

SpaceX yesterday successfully placed 28 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Thank you from several readers for letting me know that I missed it. This was the company’s first of two launches yesterday, the second of which was the Fram2 manned mission. I was so focused on that I missed the first.

The first stage completed its seventeenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

China in turn today launched a satellite to test new technology for providing the internet from orbit, its Long March 2D rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in China’s northwest. Little information was released about the satellite, and no information was released about where the rocket’s lower stages — using very toxic hypergolic fuels — crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

37 SpaceX
17 China
5 Rocket Lab
4 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 37 to 30.

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SpaceX launches four commercial private citizens on the first manned polar orbital mission

7:54 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX tonight successfully launched its Resilience capsule carrying four private citizens on commercial manned mission, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Kennedy in Florida.

The first stage completed its sixth mission, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. Resilience in turn is on its fourth flight, with the last three all dedicated to commercial flights for private citizens.

The crew is made up of four rookie space-flyers, mission commander Chun Wang (who paid for the flight), vehicle commander Jannicke Mikkelsen, vehicle pilot Rabea Rogge, and mission specialist and medical officer Eric Philips. The plan is for them to stay in orbit from three to five days, circling the Earth in a polar orbit, the first time any humans have flown in space in such an orbit.

As always, the mission, dubbed Fram2 to honor Fridtjof Nansen’s Fram ship that explored the north pole region from 1893 to 1896, touts its many science experiments, but we should not fool ourselves. Its real goal is to provide Wang and his compatriots the thrill of flying in space.

That the flight is attracting relatively little press compared to previous private and NASA missions indicates how routine SpaceX is making its business. It is making space exploration profitable and no longer reliant on government funds. This is a big deal. Too bad most news outlets don’t realize it.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

36 SpaceX
16 China
5 Rocket Lab
4 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 36 to 28.

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March 31, 2025 Quick space links

3:20 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

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Blue Origin completes investigation of the failed landing of New Glenn’s 1st stage

3:18 pm

Blue Origin today announced that it has completed its investigation into the failure of New Glenn’s first stage when it attempted to land on a barge in Atlantic during the rocket’s first launch on January 16, 2025.

Our ambitious attempt to land the booster, “So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance,” was unsuccessful due to our three BE-4 engines not re-igniting properly. Our review confirmed that all debris landed in our designated hazard area with no threat to public safety. The report identified seven corrective actions, focusing on propellant management and engine bleed control improvements, which we’re already addressing. We expect to return to flight in late spring and will attempt to land the booster again.

It is very concerning that the three BE-4 engines that were supposed to relight were unable to do so, especially because this engine was supposedly designed from the start of re-usability.

The next scheduled New Glenn launch in for June, launching NASA’s Escapade Mars orbiters.

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CEO of rocket engine startup accused of bankrupting company by misuse of funds

9:10 am

Buyer beware: Christopher Craddock, the founder in 2014 of the rocket engine startup RocketStar, has now been accused by his former CEO of bankrupting the company by the misuse of funds for “pricey jaunts to Europe, jewelry for his wife, child support payments, and, according to the company’s largest investor, ‘airline tickets for international call girls to join him for clandestine weekends in Miami.'”

Onetime stockbroker Christopher Craddock established RocketStar in 2014 after financial regulators barred him from working on Wall Street over a raft of alleged violations. Craddock held the firm out as “an entity that intended to reinvent space exploration,” states a $6 million lawsuit filed by former CEO Michael Mojtahedi and obtained by The Independent.

….according to Mojtahedi’s complaint, RocketStar “is nothing more than a Ponzi scheme… [that] has been predicated on Craddock’s ability to con new people each time the company has run out of money.”

“Craddock recklessly and lavishly misappropriated for his lifestyle almost every cent RocketStar received from investors, running the company into the ground by August 2024,” the complaint says. “At that point, Craddock’s ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ lifestyle caught up with him, investor funds dried up completely, and his house of cards collapsed.”

Whether Craddock was the crook Mojtahedi say he was remains at this moment unproved. In a sense however this is beside the point. This story illustrates one reality about capitalism that no one should ever forget: Be careful with whom you invest your money. Make sure you know their background. And above all, investigate the company thoroughly before investing in it.

It sure appears that the wealthy people who invested in RocketStar did none of this research. They were the con-man’s perfect mark, innocently handing over cash to someone because what he said sounded good. Rocket science however ain’t easy, and merely sounding good is not enough.

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Isar Aerospace’s first launch attempt fails seconds after lift-off

8:41 am

Isar's first launch attempt fails

The first launch attempt of the German rocket startup Isar Aerospace’s Spectrum rocket from Norway’s upgraded orbital Andoya spaceport failed early this morning shortly after lift off, when the rocket started to swivel out of control. When its engines then cut off the rocket then fell to the ground and crashed.

The live stream at the link cuts off at that point, with the screen capture to the right the last thing shown. BtB’s stringer Jay however found a different viewpoint that shows the stage falling and crashing to the ground. I have embedded that video below.

As the company admitted repeatedly prior to launch, this was a test flight. They were quite ready to see such a failure, with they main goal gathering data on the rocket and its systems to figure out what needs to be revised and improved. From the video it appears the company above all needs to upgrade its flight termination system. Out of control rockets should not be allowed to crash. When they fail so soon after launch it is better to hit the self-destruct button and destroy them in the air. Isar’s rocket clearly failed in this matter.

For Norway however this launch is a resounding success. Andoya has now become the first spaceport on the continent of Europe to attempt an orbital launch. Though Andoya has been used for suborbital launches for decades, it was only upgraded for commercial orbital launches in the past two years. Unlike the United Kingdom, where two spaceports in Scotland and the Shetland Islands were proposed more than six years ago and have been blocked by government red tape and some local opposition, preventing any launches for years, Norway streamlined the licensing process at Andoya so that launches can proceed with speed.

Expect business to flow from these stymied spaceports to Andoya.
» Read more

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NASA approves SpaceX’s Starship to bid for some launch contracts

9:48 pm

NASA yesterday announced that it has added SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy rocket to its launch services program, thereby allowing the company to bid that rocket for some launch contracts.

The NLS II contracts are multiple award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, with an ordering period through June 2030 and an overall period of performance through December 2032. The contracts include an on-ramp provision that provides an opportunity annually for new launch service providers to add their launch service on an NLS II contract and compete for future missions and allows existing contractors to introduce launch services not currently on their NLS II contracts.

This change is mostly bureaucratic in nature. SpaceX has not won a Starship launch contract from NASA. It has only been given the opportunity to bid that rocket in the future.

What is significant about this announcement is the change it signals in the way NASA’s bureaucracy functions. In the past these service contracts at NASA (and at the Pentagon) were routinely used to limit who could bid. NASA had to approve your company, and if it decided you weren’t good enough, or maybe didn’t like your politics, or possibly you weren’t one of the old-time big space companies the bureaucrats were buddies with, you stood no chance of getting in the game. For example, SpaceX had to sue the military when it would only allow ULA to bid while blocking any and all competitors.

These limits never made any sense. The best thing any customer can do is consider the products of as many businesses as possible, in order to get the best deal.

NASA decision here suggests its bureaucracy and management is loosening things up. Starship/Superheavy is not yet ready to put payloads in orbit, but this decision makes it possible for it to begin doing so, as soon as possible. No need to wait until it is 100% operational. NASA can now consider using it as a cheap way to launch some high risk missions during the testing period.

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Next SpaceX commercial manned flight set to launch on March 31, 2025

5:36 pm

The next SpaceX manned commercial spaceflight, dubbed Fram2, is now targeting a 9:47 pm (Eastern) launch on March 31, 2025 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, carrying four private astronauts on their first flight, using SpaceX’s Resilience manned capsule on its fourth flight.

The crew consists of Malta resident Chun Wang, Vehicle Commander Jannicke Mikkelsen, Pilot Rabea Rogge and Mission Specialist and Medical Officer Eric Philips. All four of them will fly to space for the first time on this mission that is being funded by Wang for an undisclosed amount.

I have embedded the Space Affairs live stream below. This will be the third straight private commercial flight for Resilience. Since its first flight for NASA to ISS in 2020, it has flown two missions paid for by Jared Isaacman, with the second mission including the first spacewalk by a private citizen.

This mission will break new exploration ground, as it will be the first manned mission to fly a polar orbit taking humans above both the north and south poles. All other human missions, by the U.S., Russia, and China, have always flown a range of orbits over the Earth’s equatorial regions. Because of this orbit, Wang named the mission Fram2 in honor of Fridtjof Nansen’s Fram ship that explored the north pole region and its icecap from 1893 to 1896.

As always, it is important in watching this launch to remember that there is no government employee involved anywhere. This mission is entirely private, run by a private company for profit, and flown by a customer who had the cash to pay for it.
» Read more

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Airbus wins contract to build lander for Europe’s long delayed ExoMars Franklin rover

5:17 pm

Low resolution cropped section of map
Geology map for Franklin landing site. Click for
original image. Click here for original article.

The European Space Agency (ESA) late yesterday announced that it has awarded Airbus a $194 million contract to build the lander that will place Europe’s long delayed ExoMars Franklin rover on the Martian surface, replacing the Russian lander that became unavailable when the ESA/Russian partnership ended after Russia invaded the Ukraine in 2022.

Airbus announced late March 28 (Eastern time) that it was selected by ESA and Thales Alenia Space, the prime contractor for the mission, to build the landing platform for that rover mission, scheduled to launch in 2028.

The landing platform is the part of the ExoMars spacecraft that handles the final phases of its descent to the Martian surface in 2030, including performing the final landing burn. After landing, the platform will deploy ramps to allow the ExoMars rover, named Rosalind Franklin, to roll onto the Martian surface.

This project was first begun in the early 2010s, with a launch date targeting 2018. Initially a partnership between ESA and NASA, Obama canceled all American participation in 2012. Russia picked up the slack, but then the mission had numerous technical problems that caused it to miss first that 2018 launch window, and then 2020 window as well. Then, just months before launch in 2022, Russia invaded the Ukraine, resulting in Europe ending all its partnership deals with Russia.

The mission is now working to launch in the 2028 window. We shall see if it can meet that date.

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March 28, 2025 Quick space links

3:08 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

10 comments

Democrats: “We have the right to vandalize Teslas, and if you try to stop us you are fascists!”

1:44 pm

The modern Democratic Party
The modern Democratic Party

My headline above paraphrases somewhat the insane position of Congressman Dan Goldman (D-New York), but so slightly that I think I can be forgiven. In a tweet posted earlier this week, Goldman’s reaction to a new federal task force aimed at investigating and catching the terrorists who have been firebombing Tesla dealerships and vandalizing Tesla cars was as follows:

This is the political weaponization of the DOJ. Trump uses his official authority to defend his benefactor Elon Musk. The FBI then creates a task force to use our law enforcement to “crack down” on adversaries of Musk’s.

Where are the Republicans so opposed to “lawfare”?

In other words, any effort to stop leftist rioters, looters, and vandals is misuse of government power, and is thus further justification for more leftist rioting, looting, and vandalism. According to Goldman, these thugs have the right to do anything they want to hurt Elon Musk, his businesses, his products, and his customers, simply because Musk no longer supports the Democratic Party and is trying to eliminate the fraud and corruption that has been impregnated within the entire federal government by that very party.

This is the Democratic Party today, a supporter of violence, censorship, and brutality, all in the name of gaining power. Nor is Goldman an exception at the top. » Read more

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NASA/Boeing: More Starliner ground engine tests throughout 2025; Next flight likely in 2026

9:51 am

Starliner docked to ISS
Starliner docked to ISS.

According to a press release from NASA late yesterday, both the agency and Boeing will spend most of the rest of this year doing additional Starliner static fire engine tests of thruster redesigns before considering another flight of the capsule to ISS.

NASA and Boeing are working to finalize the scope and timelines for various propulsion system test campaigns and analysis that is targeted throughout the spring and summer. Testing at White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico will include integrated firing of key Starliner thrusters within a single service module doghouse to validate detailed thermal models and inform potential propulsion and spacecraft thermal protection system upgrades, as well as operational solutions for future flights. These solutions include adding thermal barriers within the doghouse to better regulate temperatures and changing the thruster pulse profiles in flight to prevent overheating. Meanwhile, teams are continuing testing of new helium system seal options to mitigate the risk of future leaks.

“Once we get through these planned test campaigns, we will have a better idea of when we can go fly the next Boeing flight,” said Steve Stich, manager, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. “We’ll continue to work through certification toward the end of this year and then go figure out where Starliner fits best in the schedule for the International Space Station and its crew and cargo missions. It is likely to be in the timeframe of late this calendar year or early next year for the next Starliner flight.”

The release indicated that the goal is to get the capsule certified prior to the next flight so that it can carry a crew on a fully operational mission. The release however left open the option that this next ISS flight might instead be an unmanned cargo mission. The announcement said nothing about who will pay for this flight. Under Boeing’s fixed-priced contract, it should foot the bill, but no one should be surprised if NASA works a deal to funnel money Boeing’s way.

Meanwhile, the agency has changed some of the crew assignments for that first and long-delayed operational Starliner flight, switching astronaut Mike Fincke from that mission to the next Dragon mission to launch later this year. (I suspect Fincke wanted to fly again, and was tired of sitting on his hands waiting for Boeing to get Starliner working.)

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NASA experiment on Blue Ghost demonstrates the ability to repel the Moon’s abrasive dust

9:31 am

Before and after
Click for original blink movie.

In a press release yesterday, NASA revealed that one of its technology experiments on Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander successfully demonstrated the ability to repel the Moon’s abrasive dust from the surfaces of various materials.

Lunar dust is extremely abrasive and electrostatic, which means it clings to anything that carries a charge. It can damage everything from spacesuits and hardware to human lungs, making lunar dust one of the most challenging features of living and working on the lunar surface. The EDS technology uses electrodynamic forces to lift and remove the lunar dust from its surfaces. The “before” image highlights the glass and thermal radiator surfaces covered in a layer of regolith, while the “after” image reveals the results following EDS activation. Dust was removed from both surfaces, proving the technology’s effectiveness in mitigating dust accumulation.

The images to the right, taken from a blink movie showing the change after the EDS technology was used, suggest that though this technology does work, it is not yet wholly successful in some cases. The thermal radiator was not cleared entirely of dust. More engineering research will be necessary, both on the Moon and here on Earth.

Nonetheless, this success is important and a major step forward for future exploration of the Moon, Mars, and the asteroids. In all these places dust is going to pose a major problem for equipment and spacesuits. New techniques must be developed to clean the dust away, since traditional Earth-based cleaning methods using water will not be available.

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Boeing now faces criminal trial for two 737-Max crashes that killed 346

9:13 am

Boeing Logo

In a criminal case against Boeing that has been going on since two Boeing 737-Max planes crashed in 2018 and 2019, the company now faces a criminal trial scheduled to begin in June over its admitted lies to the FAA about the airplane’s technical flaws that led directly to those crashes.

[T]he criminal charge pending against Boeing arises out of two deadly crashes of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft in 2018 and 2019. A Justice Department investigation uncovered the fact that Boeing had lied to the FAA about the safety of the aircraft—lies that led directly and proximately to the crashes killing 346 passengers and crew. On January 7, 2021, the Justice Department filed a criminal information with a one-count conspiracy charge against Boeing, alleging that “From at least in or around November 2016 through at least in or around December 2018, in the Northern District of Texas and elsewhere, the Defendant, The Boeing Company, knowingly and willfully, and with the intent to defraud, conspired and agreed together with others to defraud the United States by impairing, obstructing, defeating, and interfering with, by dishonest means, the lawful function of a United States government agency.”

In 2021 Boeing admitted to these charges as part of a plea deal with Justice, whereby prosecution would be deferred for three years if Boeing took certain actions to clean up its act. When that deal expired in 2024, Justice determined that Boeing had failed to live up to its agreement. Rather than go to criminal trial however government lawyers instead attempted twice to settle the case by having Boeing pay a big fine, first $243 million and then $455 million. In both cases the deals fell through when lawyers for the victims’ families objected.

After many further delays, the judge in the case has now taken action and set a trial date of June 23, 2025.

The article at the link is written by one of the lawyers for the victims, so it of course has a very decidedly anti-Boeing slant. Nonetheless, the situation for the company is very dire. It has already admitted guilt in the 2021 plea deal. It will be practically impossible for it to avoid a guilty sentence at that trial, resulting in gigantic payouts that could very well bankrupt the company.

I wonder however if instead of charging just the company, a corporation, the Justice Department should also have indicted the specific individuals at Boeing who committed the fraud itself. Those people are the ones responsible, not the entire company. Leaving them out of the case allows them to literally get away with the equivalent of second degree murder for “depraved indifference.”

For example, the CEO of Boeing at the time of those 737-Max crashes, Dennis Muilenburg, was fired in 2019 shortly after the crashes, suggesting the company was aware of his culpability in the situation. And what about the specific managers who filed false reports with the FAA? Do they all get off scot free?

As it stands now, the case is likely to destroy Boeing itself, harming thousands of innocent employees who had nothing to do with this fraud or the 737-Max. It will also do great harm to Boeing’s many other contracts with the government, NASA, and other private airline companies.

Then again, maybe it is time for this company to go. It surely hasn’t demonstrated in the past decade any ability to build anything reliably.

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March 27, 2025 Quick space links

3:04 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

3 comments

Webb finds more elements not possible so soon after the Big Bang

11:19 am

A galaxy that shouldn't be there
Click for original image.

The uncertainty of science: Using the Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have now detected emissions of hydrogen from a galaxy that exists only 330 million years after the Big Bang that simply shouldn’t be possible, based on present cosmological theory.

The false-color infrared image of that galaxy is to the right, cropped to post here. At that distance, 13.5 billion light years away, all Webb can really see is this blurry spot. From the press release:

In the resulting spectrum, the redshift was confirmed to be 13.0. This equates to a galaxy seen just 330 million years after the big bang, a small fraction of the universe’s present age of 13.8 billion years old. But an unexpected feature stood out as well: one specific, distinctly bright wavelength of light, known as Lyman-alpha emission, radiated by hydrogen atoms. This emission was far stronger than astronomers thought possible at this early stage in the universe’s development.

“The early universe was bathed in a thick fog of neutral hydrogen,” explained Roberto Maiolino, a team member from the University of Cambridge and University College London. “Most of this haze was lifted in a process called reionization, which was completed about one billion years after the big bang. GS-z13-1 is seen when the universe was only 330 million years old, yet it shows a surprisingly clear, telltale signature of Lyman-alpha emission that can only be seen once the surrounding fog has fully lifted. This result was totally unexpected by theories of early galaxy formation and has caught astronomers by surprise.”

In more blunt terms, the theory that the haze would clear only one billion years after the Big Bang appears very wrong. This result is also similar to the story earlier this week about the detection of oxygen in a similarly early galaxy, oxygen that could not possibly be there only a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. Not enough time had passed for the number of star generations needed to produce it.

You can read the peer-reviewed paper here. While the Big Bang theory is hardly dead, the data from Webb continues to suggest it either needs a major rethinking, or there is something fundamentally wrong with it.

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NASA: Cygnus capsule damaged in transit to launchpad is too damaged to launch

9:25 am

According to this Ars Technica article today, the Cygnus cargo capsule that was reported to be damaged several weeks ago while being transported in a shipping container to its launchpad has now been found too damaged for launch, according to NASA.

On Wednesday, after a query from Ars Technica, the space agency acknowledged that the Cygnus spacecraft designated for NG-22 is too damaged to fly, at least in the nearterm. “Following initial evaluation, there also is damage to the cargo module,” the agency said in a statement. “The International Space Station Program will continue working with Northrop Grumman to assess whether the Cygnus cargo module is able to safely fly to the space station on a future flight.” That future flight, NG-23, will launch no earlier than this fall.

As a result, NASA is modifying the cargo on its next cargo flight to the space station, the 32nd SpaceX Cargo Dragon mission, due to launch in April. The agency says it will “add more consumable supplies and food to help ensure sufficient reserves of supplies aboard the station” to the Dragon vehicle.

It will be at least half a year before the next Cygnus will be ready for launch.

As the article notes (and immediately occurred to me also), this incident creates an opportunity to help Boeing and Starliner. Last year there were rumors that NASA might pay Boeing to fly Starliner as an unmanned cargo flight to ISS. This would allow the company to test its fixes to the capsule without having to pay for another test flight. These rumors however have faded since Trump took power, suggesting the new administration did not want to pay that extra money.

The loss however of this Cygnus cargo mission not only frees up NASA cash that could be transferred to a Starliner cargo mission, it frees up a slot in the cargo schedule. It actually makes a lot of sense to give Boeing the job.

Unfortunately, unless someone higher up in the Trump administration (possibly Trump himself) makes the decision, we should not expect any action on this idea until NASA’s new administrator is confirmed by the Senate and takes office. And that event remains in limbo at this point.

In the meantime, NASA has no redundancy for getting cargo to ISS, and must rely entirely on SpaceX and its Dragon cargo capsules. A third option, Sierra Nevada’s Tenacity Dream Chaser reusable cargo mini-shuttle, is still not ready to launch. It was supposed to do its first test flight to ISS a year ago, but could not because ground testing had to be done first, and for reasons that are very unclear, it appears that testing has not yet been completed.

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Two more launches today

11:27 pm

Since this morning’s launch by Rocket Lab, there have been two more launches. First, SpaceX placed another 27 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The first stage completed its 24th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. This is presently SpaceX’s second most used booster, exceeded only by one that has flown 26 times.

Next China launched a communications satellite for use by its space station and other government space missions, its Long March 3B rocket lifting off from Xichang spaceport in southwest China. No word on where the rocket’s core stage and four side boosters, all using very toxic hypergolic fuel crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

35 SpaceX
15 China
5 Rocket Lab
4 Russia

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Space Force finally certifies ULA’s new Vulcan rocket for commercial military launches

9:26 pm

After significant delays in developing ULA’s new Vulcan rocket, and then further delays after the rocket’s second test launch (which experienced technical issues), the Space Force today finally announced that it has certified the rocket, thus allowing ULA to proceed with several military launches that have been stalled for months. From ULA’s press release:

In September 2016, ULA entered into an agreement with the U.S. Air Force and outlined the plan to certify Vulcan according to the Air Force’s New Entrant Certification Guide. Over the last few years, the collective ULA and Space Force team have completed 52 certification criteria, including more than 180 discrete tasks, two certification flight demonstrations, 60 payload interface requirement verifications, 18 subsystem design and test reviews, and 114 hardware and software audits.

What was not revealed was the criteria the Space Force used to finally put aside as critical the loss of a nozzle on one of Vulcan’s two side booster’s during the second test launch. While the rocket successfully got its payload into the proper orbit, for a booster to lose a nozzle is not trivial. ULA has recently said it had found the cause and has fixed it, but few details have been revealed. Nor has this new announcement revealed any further details about the fix.

Regardless, this certification is very good news for ULA. Expect it to move as quickly as it can (which will seem slow in comparison to SpaceX) to launch a number of delayed military launches.

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March 26, 2025 Quick space links

3:36 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

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