Category: Points of Information

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

Las Vegas developer touts spaceport plan

9:47 am

A Las Vegas developer is publicizing his plan to build a spaceport for rockets and spaceplanes on his 240 acre lot, with launches taking place within five to seven years.

He is also building a hotel/casino at this location, and I suspect the spaceport proposal’s purpose has more to do with publicizing that casino than actually launching rockets. He claims he will have a spaceport permit in two years, but for him to get such a thing for this land-based site is questionable.

The developer is also proposing to include a space-focused engineering school at the site, as well as fly zero-gravity planes from there, both of which are far more feasible.

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Europe successfully tests rocket engine to be used in its first reusable rocket

9:31 am

The European Space Agency (ESA) on June 22, 2023 successfully completed a 12-second static fire test of the Prometheus rocket engine it plans to use in its first reusable rocket.

The engine, like SpaceX’s Raptor-2 engine for Starship/Superheavy, uses methane as its fuel. The plan is to use it in a future rocket to replace or upgrade the Ariane-6 rocket, still being developed, with the ability to vertically land and reuse the first stage. The plan after this first round of static fire tests is complete is to begin to do short vertical hop tests next year, similar to the Grasshopper tests SpaceX did as it developed the Falcon 9.

However, the following quote from the article indicates their are some limitations to the engine:

According to CNES, the new engine will be reusable up to five times and can deliver variable thrusts of up to 100 tonnes.

SpaceX builds its Merlin and Raptor engines with the goal of many more reuses than this. Possibly this number is simply a conservative estimate that will change once the engine is operational. If all goes as planned, ESA hopes to have this new reusable rocket flying by 2026, at the earliest.

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June 27, 2023 Quick space links

3:29 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Today’s blacklisted American: Anyone who dares to criticize the left at Bakersfield College

2:26 pm

Professor Daymon Johnson
Professor Daymon Johnson

They’re coming for you next: Though this story begins with an announced lawsuit by professor Daymon Johnson against Bakersfield College in California for repeatedly threatening him and his colleagues whenever they dared to write or say anything that dissents from the university’s decidedly Marxist and leftist ideology, this story really is about blacklisting and the desire of the academic left to silence all dissent, by any means necessary.

The left is made up of close-minded thugs and goons, and if you think I am overstating the case, then read the opening words from Johnson’s lawsuit [pdf], filed by the Institute for Free Speech and quoting John Corkins, one of the trustees of the Kern Community College Board of Trustees that controls Bakersfield:

“They’re in that five percent that we have to continue to cull. Got them in my livestock operation and that’s why we put a rope on some of them and take them to the slaughterhouse. That’s a fact of life with human nature and so forth, I don’t know how to say it any clearer.”

The five percent that Defendant John Corkins referred to are faculty of Bakersfield College. They must be slaughtered, so to speak, for transgressions including the writing of op-eds in the local newspaper, appearances on radio programs, and the failure to censor their colleagues’ Facebook posts, all in opposition to the school’s official ideology. The first “cullee,” Professor Matthew Garrett, has just been fired for these forms of pure political speech. [emphasis mine]

When Corkins made this ugly statement as board of trustees meeting, likening college professors with whom he disagrees to cattle that have to be taken to slaughter, one trustee, Nan Gomez-Heitzeberg, “chuckled heartily at the suggestion. Others smiled.” No one objected to this vicious suggestion. [Watch the video here.]

As I said, thugs and goons, quite eager to commit genocide if they don’t get their way in all things.

The lawsuit describes in painful detail the effort at Bakersfield College to harass and destroy any dissenters, including firing a different professor, Matthew Garrett, for simply expressing his opinion, while accusing him of being a racist without any evidence.
» Read more

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Spring near the Martian north pole

12:28 pm

Spring near the Martian north pole
Click for original image.

Overview map

Cool image time! The picture above, rotated, reduced, and brightened slightly to post here, was taken on April 13, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It cuts a swath across an eleven-mile-wide crater only about 500 miles from the edge of Mars’ north pole ice cap.

The overview map to the right marks its location, as indicated by the white dot on the right edge of the map. The inset shows the soft and likely icy nature of the surface in which this impact occurred. The crater resulted in a secondary outside ripple, that quickly hardened after impact.

The image was taken during spring, shortly after the sun’s light hit this crater. The cracks in the ice indicate long term sublimation that is slowly reducing the amount of water ice inside the crater. Like mud cracks in the desert after a puddle has evaporated, the ice here is cracking to produce polygon fractures.

It is also very likely that everything here is coated with a thin mantle of clear dry ice, deposited as snow from the atmosphere in the winter and then sublimating away with the coming of spring. That spring dry ice sublimation is likely ongoing, and this picture is probably an attempt by scientists to detect that process.

Why the surface colors shift from aquablue to orange might have to do with that sublimation process, or it might be revealing areas covered with dust (orange). That the northern parts of the strip is blue and the southern parts orange suggests the former. Or not. I don’t have enough information to answer this question with any confidence.

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Zhurong data shows very weak magnetic field at landing site

10:17 am

Using data accumulated by Zhurong while it was still rovering on Mars, Chinese scientists have determined that the weak Martian magnetic field at Utopia Basin where the rover landed was very weak, much weaker than expected.

Results from NASA’s Mars’ lander InSight, which landed about 2,000 km southeast of Zhurong, have revealed that the crustal magnetic field at InSight’s landing site was an order stronger than that inferred from orbital measurement. Measurements from Zhurong, however, revealed the opposite result, with the average intensity an order less than that inferred from orbit.

The weak field suggests that the crust under Utopia Basin was never magnetized, or was demagnetized by some large later impact.

Meanwhile, no word on Zhurong itself, which either remains in hibernation or has died due to lack of power caused by the dusty Martian winter.

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Surprise! The cost for the Mars Sample Return mission is ballooning!

10:11 am

According to NASA, the cost for the Mars Sample Return mission could possibly rise to as high as $8 to $9 billion, more than double the $3.8 billion to $4.4 billion estimated by a 2020 review.

NASA itself has recently become very silent about the project’s expected cost.

NASA officials have been careful not to give any estimates of costs for MSR in recent presentations, stating that it will wait until a formal confirmation review for the program, scheduled for the fall, before providing an official cost and schedule baseline. That will come after a series of preliminary design reviews and a review by a second independent board led by Orlando Figueroa, a former director of NASA’s Mars exploration program.

Those earlier numbers were never realistic, based on NASA’s recent track record. The cost of its big projects — Webb, SLS, Orion, Roman Telescope — always grows exponentially, once the project gets going.

This cost increase however is a serious political problem for NASA and this sample return mission, as the House is demanding major real cuts in the budgets of almost all federal agencies. While I expect NASA to survive these cuts without great harm, a program that shows out-of-control budget growth might become a target by the House, which is likely why NASA scheduled its review of the sample return mission to occur in the fall, after the House approves its next budget. Better to announce bad news as late as possible.

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The last Ariane-5 launch scheduled for July 4th

10:01 am

Arianespace has now scheduled the last Ariane-5 launch for July 4, 2023, after a delay caused by a problem with “the pyrotechnic transmission lines” on the rocket, requiring their replacement.

The replacement happened faster than originally expected. The launch will place a French military communications satellite into orbit as well as a German experimental communications satellite.

After this launch, Europe will temporarily be without any method for launching its own payloads, for the first time this century. Its Vega-C rocket is presently grounded due to a launch failure in December 2022, and the Ariane-6 rocket that was to replace the Ariane-5 is years behind schedule, and not expected to fly until 2024. The original plan was for there to be an overlap between the two rockets, but the delays ended that plan.

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China conducts parachute tests for returning asteroid sample to Earth

9:53 am

China has successfully conducted tests of the parachute design that will be used by the sample return capsule of its Tianwen-2 mission to grab samples from the near Earth asteroid dubbed 469219 Kamoʻoalewa.

The mission will launch on a Long March 3B rocket in 2025, and rendezvous with the asteroid in 2025. After getting its samples and releasing the sample return capsule, the plan is to then send Tianwen-2 to Comet 311P/PANSTARRS, arriving in the 2030s.

The probe uses fanlike solar panels, apparently copied from those used by NASA’s Lucy asteroid probe. China also has copied the touch-and-go sample grab methods used by OSIRIS-REx and Hayabusa-2, but it will also try its own original idea, to anchor to the asteroid and use drills in the probe’s landing legs.

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SpaceX completes six-engine static fire test of Starship prototype #25

9:43 am

SpaceX yesterday successfully completed a six-engine static fire test of Starship prototype #25, the prototype that will be stacked on top of Superheavy prototype #9 and flown on the next orbital test flight.

Musk said in an interview on Saturday that more than a thousand upgrades were planned before the next flight of the Starship/Super Heavy. Including a significant change to the stage separation system that will see the Starship ignite its engines while still attached to the Super Heavy. Improvements are also being made to the Raptor engines to prevent leaks of super-heated gas which resulted in multiple engine failures during the April launch.

Major repair work and modifications are also underway to the Starship launch pad, after extensive damage occurred during the April 20 test flight.

Musk has also said the company will be ready to launch by August. While it is certainly possible that engineering will cause a slight delay to that schedule, more likely SpaceX will be ready, and then have to sit and wait for the FAA and the Biden administration to issue a launch permit. I am predicting it will not be issued by then, and likely not for months afterward.

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South Korea recovers North Korea’s failed spy satellite

9:37 am

South Korea officials have revealed that their salvage operation has recovered the North Korean spy satellite that was lost when its rocket failed during launch on May 31, 2023.

The satellite, known as Malligyong-1, is reported to be designed to take high-resolution images of Earth to provide intelligence for the reclusive country’s military.

Pieces of debris believed to be the Chollima Type 1 rocket used for the mission were recovered just days after the attempted launch, Reuters reported on June 15. South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency is now reporting that the South Korean military has salvaged “an object believed to be a military reconnaissance satellite,” offering a valuable opportunity to learn about the spacecraft and its planned capabilities.

We should not expect South Korea to tell us much of what it finds. I predict the satellite will be very unsophisticated, and to reveal that would not serve the purposes of the South Korean government, which benefits from overstating North Korean military capabilities. North Korea is certainly a threat to South Korea, but all governments always take advantage of such threats to expand their power.

All told South Korea had recovered about 180 pieces of debris, including parts of the failed rocket. The salvage operations are continuing.

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Russians launch weather satellite and 42 smallsats

9:29 am

Russians today successfully launched a Russian weather satellite plus 42 smallsats on a Soyuz-2 rocket, lifting off from Vostochny in Russia’s far east.

Almost all of the secondary payloads were Russian. The one exception known was a demo cubesat from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), apparently built by its own engineers and flown to test their growing capabilities. Previous UAE satellites and probes have previously been built by others and used to train UAE engineers.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

43 SpaceX
24 China
9 Russia
5 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 49 to 24 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 49 to 41, with SpaceX by itself still leading the rest of the world, excluding other American companies, 43 to 41.

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A northern lowland ice sheet on Mars?

9:39 am

A northern lowland ice sheet on Mars?
Click for original image.

Cool image time. The picture to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on March 14, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Dubbed simply a “terrain sample,” this image was likely taken not as part of any specific research project, but to fill a gap in the camera’s schedule in order to maintain its temperature by taking regular images. When the camera team needs to do this, they try to find interesting locations not previously photographed. Sometimes the photos turn out somewhat boring. Most of the time however they capture something very intriguing.

In this case, the intriguing feature of this picture is its stippled surface that seems to overlay a relatively flat surface underneath, with some faint covered craters visible. On top are several more recent craters that suggest either the impact landed in very soft material, thus producing little ejecta and no crater rims or the craters are not craters but sinks, places where the ground is subsiding due to some underground process.
» Read more

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Japan’s military tests using Starlink for communications

8:49 am

Japan’s Self-Defense Forces (SDF) have been testing since March the use of SpaceX’s Starlink constellation to augment that nation’s own geosynchronous communications satellites.

Japan’s Defense Ministry signed a contract with an agent that provides SpaceX’s services to equip units of the Air, Ground and Maritime SDF with Starlink antennas and other communication devices. The SDF has been using the service at about 10 locations, including bases and camps, to verify whether there are any operational issues.

The ministry currently has two of its own X-band communication satellites in geostationary orbit about 36,000 kilometers above Earth for SDF units to use. The Starlink deal marks the first time the SDF is using a private-sector satellite constellation in low orbit.

An agreement with another company that provides a similar service will be concluded during the current fiscal year. [emphasis mine]

The goal is to provide Japan redundant communications capabilities in case China or Russia — both of which have become more aggressive militarily in the past few years — attempt to take out its own satellites. The highlighted sentence strongly suggests a deal with OneWeb is also being negotiated.

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Webb makes first detection of one particular carbon molecule

8:42 am

The uncertainty of science: Using the Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have made the first detection of methyl cation (pronounced cat-eye-on) (CH3+) in space, located in a baby solar system the star-forming region of the Orion nebula about 1,350 light years away.

While the star in d203-506 is a small red dwarf, the system is bombarded by strong ultraviolet (UV) light from nearby hot, young, massive stars. Scientists believe that most planet-forming disks go through a period of such intense UV radiation, since stars tend to form in groups that often include massive, UV-producing stars.

Typically, UV radiation is expected to destroy complex organic molecules, in which case the discovery of CH3+ might seem to be a surprise. However, the team predicts that UV radiation might actually provide the necessary source of energy for CH3+ to form in the first place. Once formed, it then promotes additional chemical reactions to build more complex carbon molecules.

Broadly, the team notes that the molecules they see in d203-506 are quite different from typical protoplanetary disks. In particular, they could not detect any signs of water. [emphasis mine]

In the next day or so we shall likely see a number of stories in the mainstream press shouting some variation of “Webb finds key element of life!” Webb has done no such thing. It has found a carbon molecule not seen previously, which simply provides scientists another small data point in trying to understand the development of complex solar systems.

The highlighted sentences make clear the uncertainty in this field and the general shallow amount of knowledge. For example, why carbon molecules but no water, which is made up of hydrogen and oxygen, both ubiquitous throughout the universe and found in large amounts in star-forming regions?

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Real pushback: Thirteen university-run child mutilation clinics to shut down this year

1:45 pm

Owned for the purpose of mutilation and castration
Up to now, government-controlled apparently to allow their
mutilation and castration

Bring a gun to a knife fight: Because of pressure from state legislatures, up to thirteen university-run child mutilation clinics — falsely called “gender-affirming clinics” — are to shut down before the end of this year, with more shut downs likely next year as well.

Up to 13 pediatric gender clinics at university hospitals could close or scale back by the end of the year, as a result of Republican-led states restricting doctors from removing healthy organs or injecting hormones into minors who are confused about their gender.

In some cases, university youth gender clinics have already scaled back their operations as a result of state law. Litigation against the legislation could slow down or stop some clinics from closing. However, some are being closed while litigation proceeds.

The closures represent a quick change from just a year ago when The College Fix identified at least thirteen Republican-led states that funded pediatric gender clinics through universities, including Oklahoma, Florida and West Virginia.

» Read more

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Determining whether a Martian crater is impact or volcanic

12:02 pm

Determining whether a Martian crater is impact or volcanic
Click for original image.

Overview map

Cool image time! The picture above, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on March 22, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The camera team labeled this “Crater rim and ejecta,” which subtly reveals the picture’s scientific purpose.

The white dot on the overview map to the right indicates the location of this 15-mile-wide unnamed crater, about 150 miles northwest of where the rover Opportunity landed and traveled south to the rim of Endeavour Crater. It also shows in the inset that the crater appears to sit in the center of an upraised mound, suggesting it was formed not by impact but by volcanic processes.

This picture however says otherwise. The many small mounds and mesas to the south of the crater rim are not what one would expect on the apron of a volcano. Instead, they suggest this crater is an impact, with those mounds the eroded ejecta from that impact, now also partly buried by dust. This hypothesis is strengthened by the data from Opportunity, which found a great deal of impact ejecta during its travels, possibly from the very event that created this crater.

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Rocket Lab to attempt full recovery of first stage on next launch

9:46 am

In announcing the launch window, opening July 14th, for its next New Zealand launch, Rocket Lab also revealed that it will attempt the full recovery of the first stage after it splashes down softly in the ocean using parachutes.

Rocket Lab is also planning to conduct a marine recovery of Electron’s first stage as part of this mission. Rocket Lab’s recovery team will retrieve Electron using a customized vessel and transport the stage back to Rocket Lab’s production complex for analysis. Data from this recovered stage will inform Rocket Lab’s ongoing recovery and reuse program.

The company recently decided to forego any further attempts to snatch the first stage in the air before splashdown using a helicopter. Instead, it thinks it can recover the stage in good enough condition out of the water to use it or its engines again.

The launch itself will carry seven smallsats, four for NASA and three for two commercial companies.

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House Democrats propose and Republicans approve Space Force increasing spaceport fees

9:37 am

We’re here to help you! The House Armed Services Committee, controlled by a majority of Republicans, has approved a defense funding bill that includes an amendment, proposed by a Democrat, that would allow the Space Force to charge much larger fees for the use of its spaceports.

Committee members signed off on the legislation June 22, which proposes $874 billion in defense spending. The full House is slated to vote on the bill in July. Included in the bill is an amendment offered by Rep. Salud Carbajal, D-Calif., that would allow the Space Force to collect fees from companies for the indirect costs of using the military’s launch ranges, like overhead infrastructure or other charges that a traditional port authority might impose on its users.

Today, per the Commercial Space Launch Act of 1984, the service is limited to collecting fees for direct costs like electricity at a launch pad. The law also restricts the Space Force from accepting in-kind contributions from commercial companies to upgrade its ranges.

The committee’s bill, if approved, would require commercial launch companies to “reimburse the Department of Defense for such indirect costs as the Secretary concerned considers to be appropriate.”

The bill also includes a Republican amendment that encourages the Space Force to charge other additional fees, or require private companies to do work the Space Force is presently handles.

Though the latter amendment might make sense, both amendments will likely achieve just one thing: making it much more expensive to launch from Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg. Whether those increased costs will be kept as low as possible is entirely unknown. We certainly should not trust officials in the federal government to do so.

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Two ultraviolet images of Mars, taken six months apart

9:28 am

Mars in ultraviolet

The two images to the right, rearranged, cropped, and reduced to post here, were taken six months apart by the Mars orbiter MAVEN using its Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS). From the press release:

The IUVS instrument measures wavelengths between 110 and 340 nanometers, outside the visible spectrum. To make these wavelengths visible to the human eye and easier to interpret, the images are rendered with the varying brightness levels of three ultraviolet wavelength ranges represented as red, green, and blue. In this color scheme, atmospheric ozone appears purple, while clouds and hazes appear white or blue. The surface can appear tan or green, depending on how the images have been optimized to increase contrast and show detail.

The first image [top] was taken in July 2022 during the southern hemisphere’s summer season, which occurs when Mars passes closet to the Sun. The summer season is caused by the tilt of the planet’s rotational axis, similar to seasons on Earth. Argyre Basin, one of Mars’ deepest craters, appears at bottom left filled with atmospheric haze (depicted here as pale pink). The deep canyons of Valles Marineris appear at top left filled with clouds (colored tan in this image). The southern polar ice cap is visible at bottom in white, shrinking from the relative warmth of summer. Southern summer warming and dust storms drive water vapor to very high altitudes, explaining MAVEN’s discovery of enhanced hydrogen loss from Mars at this time of year.

The second image [bottom] is of Mars’ northern hemisphere and was taken in January 2023 after Mars had passed the farthest point in its orbit from the Sun. The rapidly changing seasons in the north polar region cause an abundance of white clouds. The deep canyons of Valles Marineris can be seen in tan at lower left, along with many craters. Ozone, which appears magenta in this UV view, has built up during the northern winter’s chilly polar nights. It is then destroyed in northern spring by chemical reactions with water vapor, which is restricted to low altitudes of the atmosphere at this time of year.

Though of course not visible, the landing sites for Viking-1 (1976), Pathfinder (1997), and Franklin (2028) are captured in the bottom global image, as indicated by the white dots I have added. The two left dots are Viking-1 and Pathfinder respectively, located in the northern lowland plain dubbed Chryse Planitia. Franklin will land to the right, in the transition zone between those northern lowland plains and the southern cratered highlands.

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Ariane-6 engineering test rocket at launchpad for engine tests

9:05 am

Ariane-6 test version at launchpad
Click for original image.

An engineering test version of ArianeGroup’s Ariane-6 rocket has arrived at the launchpad in French Guiana, where it will undergo a series of static fire engine and fueling tests.

As seen in this image [to the right] taken on 22 June 2023, the doors of this mobile gantry have been opened and the structure rolled back on rails. The operation, which takes about half an hour, was a trial run in preparation for a series test firings of the Vulcain 2.1 engine. These test firings will be conducted on the launch pad as part of ongoing preparations for the first-ever flight of Ariane 6. Removing the gantry for the first time – and then returning it – also helped validate the Ariane 6 ground infrastructure.

The Ariane 6 rocket visible here is not intended for flight. It is being used to check assembly procedures, electrical and fuel connections, telemetry, etc. Flight models, including the rocket that will make Ariane 6’s inaugural flight, are being built in Europe and integrated by prime contractor Ariane Group. After shipping to French Guiana, Ariane 6 core and upper stages are assembled horizontally, before being transferred to the launch pad and lifted upright inside the gantry, where the solid-fuel boosters and payload are attached. The horizontal assembly method cuts the time and cost of a launch campaign, and is a first for an Ariane rocket.

With only one Ariane-5 rocket launch left on its manifest, the European Space Agency desperately needs to get Ariane-6 off the ground and operational. It was originally supposed to make its first launch in 2020, thus overlapping the final launches of Ariane-5 by several years. At this moment it appears there will be a gap between when one rocket retires and the other begins flying.

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SpaceX launches 56 more Starlink satellites

8:45 am

SpaceX this morning successfully launched another 56 Starlink satellites, with its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage completed its eighth flight, landing on its drone ship in the Atlantic. The fairing halves completed their 7th and 10th flights, with the latter a new record.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race remain the same:

43 SpaceX
24 China
8 Russia
5 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 49 to 24 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 49 to 40, with SpaceX by itself still leading the rest of the world, excluding other American companies, 43 to 40.

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Why is this rare? School board members react in horror when hearing the porn they allow in schools

2:17 pm

Maybe no longer in Brainerd
Maybe the parents of Brainerd have finally decided their children
are theirs, not the government’s

In what seems to be the exception rather than the rule, when parents began reading the pornography that the Brainerd Public school district allowed in its school libraries, the school board members didn’t try to shut them up, but instead were horrified.

When Kevin Boyles, the board chair, attempted to move on from the public comment without addressing the concerns, [D.J.] Dondelinger told him to “hold on a second.” He told Boyles that he would like to make a motion to discuss the book at the next board meeting. “Something needs to be done,” Dondelinger said. “I’m shocked. We need to dig in and find out what the hell’s going on.”

He then proceeded to ask if “this stuff is accessible to fifth graders” and was told by the room of concerned citizens that yes, it was.

Boyles said that they would address the topic at the board’s retreat that took place on June 16, saying that he didn’t think a board meeting was the appropriate venue for a discussion about it initially. “I think it’s fair to say that several of us have questions,” he said.

Dondelinger pushed back, asking for a second to his motion to add the books to the agenda for the next school board meeting, to the applause of the audience.

I have embedded video of this board meeting, cued to when the parents begin reading. If you want to skip listening to badly written porn, Dondelinger’s demand for action begins at the 31 minute point of the video.
» Read more

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A spectacular Martian glacier

11:24 am

Overview map

A spectacular Martian glacier
Click for original image.

Mars appears to be a planet filled with past surface flows, none of which are active today but all of which came from widely different geological processes. Yesterday’s Martian cool image showed the hardened remains of a lava flow on Mars. Today’s cool image shows us what might one of the best examples of the kind of glacial evidence orbital images have been finding throughout the mid-latitudes of Mars.

The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on April 27, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The red dot in the inset on the overview map above indicates its location on Mars, in the chaos region dubbed Protonilus Mensae that forms the central part of the 2,000-mile-long Martian region in the north mid-latitudes I dub glacier country. In this region almost every high resolution image shows evidence of glaciers, all protected by a thin layer of dust and debris so they do not sublimate away.

This particular glacier fills a canyon carved into the southern cliff of a mile-high mesa five miles by ten miles in size, and drops dramatically almost 4,700 feet in about four miles. In fact, it so epitomizes what glaciers look like that the camera team for MRO’s high resolution camera used a 2020 image to give a quick lesson on how to spot a glacier on Mars.

This 2023 picture was likely taken as part of a long term monitoring program. Though planetary scientists presently do not think the glaciers on Mars are active and moving, this assumption is not yet confirmed. Taking repeated pictures of this same glacier over time will eventually answer this question.

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Update on SpaceX’s work leading to next Starship/Superheavy test launch

10:29 am

Link here. A static fire engine test program has begun for Starship prototype #25, which will fly on top of a Superheavy prototype. Also, work on the launchpad, badly damaged by the first test flight in April, has proceeded quickly.

During the first integrated test flight of Starship, Super Heavy Booster 7’s 30 working engines dug a sizable hole under the OLM [Orbital Launch Mount] during liftoff. The first images of it pictured a dramatic scene and pointed at some tough repair work ahead for SpaceX teams. Over the last two months, the hole was covered and reinforcements have been installed deep into the ground to strengthen the soil.

More recently, teams have been installing several tons of rebar underneath the OLM. While some rebar remains to be installed, as seen from aerial pictures captured by NSF, this work is expected to be finished soon and should be followed by a convoy of concrete trucks to fill up the pit. SpaceX will then install water-cooled steel plates over this concrete which will help support them and serve as an anchor for them.

The update also describes the numerous additional prototypes SpaceX is building at Boca Chica for further flight tests. It also notes this disturbing fact about the company’s planned Starship/Superheavy launch facility in Florida:

Work on the second set of tower sections, chopsticks, carriage system, and QD arm at SpaceX’s Roberts Road facility has come to a halt. Contractor equipment has visibly disappeared and other construction equipment has been removed. The Florida Mega Bay parts have also made their way to Starbase, becoming the second Mega Bay at the Texas facility. The two big cranes that were previously at Roberts Road were also moved to Starbase to aid in the construction of that new Mega Bay.

On top of this, SpaceX has changed the use of the building previously thought to be the factory for Starship sections. This facility is now being used to process Starlink payload integration with Falcon 9’s fairings.

This slow down is probably because NASA has forbidden Starship/Superheavy launches from this launchpad because it is near the launchpad SpaceX uses for NASA’s manned missions. The agency wants SpaceX to be able to launch Dragon from its other more distant pad, and that work needs to be completed first before the Starship/Superheavy pad can be used.

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More direct images released of exoplanet 87.5 light years away

9:56 am

Keck images of exoplanet over time

The Keck Observatory in Hawaii has now released its own image of the exoplanet AF Leporis b, following up the images produced by the Very Large Telescope (VLT) released in February.

The direct images Franson’s team captured revealed that AF Lep b is about three times the mass of Jupiter and orbits AF Leporis, a young Sun-like star about 87.5 light-years away. They took a series of deep images of the planet starting in December 2021; two other teams also captured images of the same planet since then.

What make the Keck observations most interesting is that they captured over time the motion of the exoplanet as it orbited its star. The two images to the right show this motion.

The paper, available here, was published today in Astrophysical Journal Letters. This particular star also has a debris disk surrounding it, suggesting it is a young solar system still in the process of forming. From the paper’s conclusion:

AF Lep joins other young planet hosts with debris disks such as β Pic, HR 8799, HD 206893, and HD 95086, reinforcing indications of a higher frequency of long-period planets orbiting stars hosting debris disks.

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Startup orbital tug company experiences technical issues on demo flight

9:36 am

The first test rendezvous and docking of two smallsats built by the startup orbital tug company Starfish Space and space station startup Launcher/Vast are facing significant technical issues because both spacecraft are spinning in an unexpected manner.

Soon after Orbiter SN3 separated from the Falcon 9 upper stage, it experienced an anomaly that set it spinning at a rate on the order of one revolution per second, far outside the bounds of normal operating conditions.

By the time Launcher’s team made contact with Orbiter, fuel and power levels were critically low — and the team made an emergency decision to deploy Otter Pup immediately. In a joint statement issued today, Launcher and Starfish Space said that quick action “gave the Otter Pup mission a chance to continue.”

With assistance from Astro Digital and ground station partners, Starfish’s team contacted Otter Pup and determined that it was generating power — but was also spinning because of the circumstances of its emergency deployment.

The plan had been to deploy Otter Pup and have it rendezvous and then dock with Orbiter, demonstrating the maneuverability of both spacecraft as well as their docking equipment. The spinning now threatens the company’s ability to do this. Over the next few months engineers will make attempts to slow the spinning of Orbiter, but it is unlikely a docking can now be attempted.

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Intelsat and SES end negotiations to merge

9:27 am

In a very short press release, the Luxembourg-based satellite company SES today announced that it has broken off negotiations to merge with the satellite company Intelsat. The full text:

SES announces today that discussions regarding a possible combination with Intelsat have ceased. On 29 March 2023, SES had confirmed that the company engaged in discussions with Intelsat and that there could be no certainty that a transaction would materialise.

It appears the two companies could not settle differences on a number of points, and according to this article Intelsat decided to end negotiations yesterday.

There has been a trend among the established satellite companies to consolidate and merge, faced with the stiff competition from the new satellite constellations of Starlink and OneWeb. It is very possible that both of these companies will either revisit the idea of this merger, or begin negotiations with other established satellite companies.

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Ecuador becomes 26th nation to sign Artemis Accords

9:20 am

In a ceremony yesterday in Washington, Ecuador became the 26th nation to sign the Artemis Accords, a bi-lateral agreement with the United States that was designed during the Trump administration to act as a work around to the limitations to private enterprise in space created by the Outer Space Treaty.

The full list of signatories so far: Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Canada, Columbia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, and the United States.

Adding third world nations to the alliance strengthens it, but it is really the clout of major space players like France, Luxembourg, the UK, the UAE, Italy, and Japan that gives the United States a great deal of leverage in establishing future space legal policy, assuming the alliance is used as originally intended. Considering however the Biden administration’s general hostility to the private sector and freedom, it is unclear if that will be the goal.

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