Category: Points of Information

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

May 31, 2023 Quick space links

4:30 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

 

 

 

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Pushback: If the young are beginning to resist the leftist queer agenda, then there is real hope

12:01 pm

A little child shall lead them, by James Johnson
“A little child shall lead them,” painting by James L. Johnson.

And a little child shall lead them: There appears to be increasing evidence that it isn’t just the parents that are becoming aware and opposed to the queer and Marxist agenda that the public schools and leftist governments have been force feeding down children’s throats for the past decade. It now appears the students themselves are beginning to rise up in rebellion.

This story from May 29, 2023 illustrates the point:
» Read more

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Curiosity looks back again as it climbs higher onto Mount Sharp

10:02 am

Panorama
Click for full panorama.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

After completing several weeks of drilling, Curiosity has once again started climbing the rocky rough slope of Mount Sharp in Gale Crater, working its way up into the giant slot canyon dubbed Gediz Vallis.

The panorama above, cropped, reduced, sharpened, and annotated to post here, was created from 31 pictures taken on May 30, 2023 by the rover’s right navigation camera. It looks back both at Curiosity’s past travels climbing Mount Sharp as well as the now increasingly distant floor and rim of Gale Crater. The rim is about 20-30 miles away.

On the overview map to the right, the blue dot marks Curiosity’s position when this panorama was taken, with the yellow lines indicating the approximate area covered. The white dotted line on both the panorama and map indicates the rover’s actual route, with the red dotted line its planned route.

Because of the steep rough terrain, the science team has shifted the rover a bit to the west as it climbs. It is going to be fascinating to watch how it manages this climb into Gediz Vallis, as it appears the terrain is going to get no less steep or rough.

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North Korean rocket fails in attempt to put spy satellite into orbit

9:04 am

In North Korea’s first attempt today to place a spy satellite into orbit since 2016, the rocket failed shortly after launch, dropping into the ocean.

But the rocket lost thrust and plunged into the sea with its satellite payload, the official Korean Central News Agency reported. It added that authorities would investigate the “serious defects” revealed by the launch and conduct another test as soon as possible.

South Korea’s military said it had managed to locate and salvage a portion of the suspected debris. It released images showing a large barrel-like metal structure with thin pipes and wires at the bottom, which experts said might be a liquid fuel tank.

The U.S., Japan, and South Korea all condemned the launch as violating UN sanctions, as did the UN’s secretary-general.

The recovery by South Korea could yield a great deal of technical information about North Korea’s rocketry and missile program.

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Russia delays launch of its Luna-25 mission one month to August

8:55 am


Click for interactive map.

Russia today announced that it is delaying the July launch of its Luna-25 mission to August.

No reason for the delay was revealed. The mission itself has been under development for almost a quarter century, with numerous delays. It will be the first lunar probe by Russia since the 1970s.

The lunar mission will be launched atop a Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket with a Fregat booster from the Vostochny space center in the Russian Far East. Under the lunar project, the Luna-25 automatic station will be launched for studies in the area of the lunar south pole. The lander is set to touch down in the area of the Boguslawsky crater.

The green dot on the map shows this crater, with the white cross the Moon’s south pole. The other two missions are also targeting launches this summer, with Chandrayaan-3 set for a July launch and Nova-C in late September.

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Spain becomes 25th nation to sign Artemis Accords

8:36 am

In a ceremony yesterday in Spain, that country became the 25th 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, 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.

This alliance gives the United States a great deal of leverage in establishing legal policy, if it is used as originally intended. It however at present remains unclear if the Biden administration intends to do so, considering its general hostility to the private sector and freedom.

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SpaceX launches another 52 Starlink satellites

11:15 pm

SpaceX tonight successfully launched another 52 Starlink satellites, using its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The first stage completed its fourteenth flight, landing successfully on a drone ship in the Pacific. The fairing halves completed their fifth and seventh flights respectively.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

36 SpaceX
20 China
8 Russia
5 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads China 41 to 20 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 41 to 36. SpaceX alone is now tied with the rest of the world combined 36 to 36, but trails the entire world including American companies 36 to 41.

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AX-2 commercial passenger flight to ISS splashes down safely

8:16 pm

Axiom’s second commercial passenger flight to ISS, dubbed AX-2, successfully splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico a little after 11 pm (Eastern) tonight after spending eight days in space.

Recovery efforts of the Freedom capsule are still underway by SpaceX crews. It is necessary again to emphasize that this is a private mission, launched by a private company in a privately owned capsule for a private company and private passengers. The only government involvement was when the capsule was docked to ISS and the crew was on the station.

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May 30, 2023 Quick space links

3:33 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

 

 

  • China announces plan to land humans on Moon before 2030

    • The officials claim they are working full speed on their manned lunar lander, the rocket, lunar spacesuits, etc. I have no idea if they will meet the date, but I agree with Jay, who wrote, “I bet they beat Blue Moon.”

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A typical glacier, on Mars

11:16 am

Overview map

A typical glacier, on Mars
Click for original image.

The cool image from Mars to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, provides us a good illustration of the lineated grooves that are typically seen on the surface of valley-confined glaciers, both on Earth and on Mars, and are also seen on the patched, grooved surface of Ganymede.

The picture was taken on March 13, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and shows what appears to be a glacier flowing through a constriction. The arrow indicates the direction of the downhill grade.

The location, indicated by the white dot inside the inset on the overview map above, marks the location, in the western end of the 2,000 long northern mid-latitude strip on Mars I dub glacier country. In these three mensae regions (Deuteronilus, Protonilus, and Nilosyrtis) of chaos terrain practically every high resolution image shows features that resemble glaciers.

In this case, the glacial flow appears to be draining from a 10-mile-wide ponded circular valley though a narrow gap.

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The grooved surface of Ganymede

9:39 am

The grooves of Ganymede
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, reduced to post here, was taken on June 7, 2021 when the Jupiter orbiter Juno did a close flyby of the moon Ganymede, taking four pictures.

Citizen scientists Gerald Eichstädt and Thomas Thomopoulos have now reprocessed parts of those images to bring out the details more clearly (the other new versions available here, and here).

I have chosen to highlight the picture to the right however because it so clearly shows the puzzling grooves that cover much of Ganymede’s surface. While these parallel grooves in many ways mimic the grooves often seen on top of valley glaciers on Earth and Mars, on Ganymede they do not follow any valley floor. Instead, they form patches of parallel grooves that travel in completely different directions, depending on the patch. At the moment their origin is not understood.

These grooves are one of the mysteries that Europe’s Juice probe will attempt to solve when it arrives in orbit around Jupiter in 2031.

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SpaceX confirms Starship prototype to fly on next Superheavy test flight

9:19 am

SpaceX has confirmed that it will use Starship prototype #25 to fly on top of Superheavy prototype #9 on the next orbital test flight.

Starship #25 does not include a lot of the upgrades that have been installed on later Starship prototypes, but by using it SpaceX tells us its focus on that next orbital test flight will be to test Superheavy. Using this less capable Starship gets it used and out of the way so that the kinks in Superheavy can more quickly be worked out.

It also means SpaceX’s prime focus on that second flight will not be reaching orbit, though the company will try nonetheless.

The article at the link also notes that this next orbital test cannot take place any sooner than August, based simply on engineering requirements.

Ship 25 is now at the launch site and awaiting a six-engine static fire test, with Elon Musk noting the pad modifications should be complete in a month, ahead of another month of testing before the next test flight.

This gives the FAA two full months to approve the launch license. I predict however that come August, that launch license will still not be approved, and we will still have no clear idea of when that approval will come. Nor should we be surprised if approval does not come before the end of this year.

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Webb detects large water plume released from Saturn’s moon Enceladus

9:10 am

Water vapor plume seen by Webb
Click for original image.

Using the infrared cameras on the Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have detected a surprisingly long and large plume of water vapor erupting from the tiger stripe fractures on Saturn’s moon Enceladus that scientists for years have detected vapor plumes.

The false color image to the right shows that plume.

A water vapor plume from Saturn’s moon Enceladus spanning more than 6,000 miles – nearly the distance from Los Angeles, California to Buenos Aires, Argentina – has been detected by researchers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Not only is this the first time such a water emission has been seen over such an expansive distance, but Webb is also giving scientists a direct look, for the first time, at how this emission feeds the water supply for the entire system of Saturn and its rings.

…The length of the plume was not the only characteristic that intrigued researchers. The rate at which the water vapor is gushing out, about 79 gallons per second, is also particularly impressive. At this rate, you could fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool in just a couple of hours. In comparison, doing so with a garden hose on Earth would take more than 2 weeks.

Though that rate of release sounds large, we must remember it is being released from a moon 313 miles across. From that perspective the rate of flow is quite reasonable.

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Chinese launch yesterday set record for number of humans in space

8:59 am

The launch yesterday of three Chinese astronauts to that country’s Tiangong-3 space station established a new record, seventeen, for the number of humans in space.

The launch of the next crew to China’s Tiangong space station late Monday (U.S. time) added three astronauts to the population of humans in space, which reached a record number of 17 people in orbit — six Chinese citizens, five Americans, three Russians, two Saudis, and one Emirati astronaut.

The arrival of Chinese astronauts Jing Haipeng, Zhu Yangzhu, and Gai Haichao in space following their launch atop a Long March rocket broke the previous record of 14 people in orbit at one time.

Meanwhile, the four-person crew of the commercial AX-2 mission to ISS, has undocked from ISS, with SpaceX’s Freedom capsule expected to splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico at 11:09 pm (Eastern) tonight.

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China sends a new crew to its Tiangong-3 space station

7:31 pm

Using its Long March 2F rocket, China today (May 30th in China) sent a new three-man crew to its Tiangong-3 space station for a five month mission.

The launch was from the Juiquan spaceport in the interior of China, so both the four side strap-on boosters as well as the core stage crashed somewhere in China. No word of any damage or injuries.

The Shenzhou capsule is expected to dock with the station about six hours after launch. The old crew’s stay will overlap with this new crew for a short time before returning to Earth.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

35 SpaceX
20 China
8 Russia
5 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads China 40 to 20 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 40 to 36. SpaceX alone now trials the rest of the world combined 35 to 36, but trails the entire world including American companies 35 to 41.

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Cracking pedestal crater near Mars’ north pole

12:10 pm

Cracking pedestal crater near Mars' north pole
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on March 18, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). I have also rotated it so that north is to the top.

Labeled a “terrain sample” by the camera team, this picture was likely taken not as part of any specific research project, but to fill a gap in the camera’s schedule so as to maintain its proper temperature. As usual, when the camera team needs to do this, they try to pick a target of interest. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes not.

In this case, the picture is of a location only about 800 miles from the Martian north pole, on the northern lowland plains. While the section shown to the right focuses on the largest crater, the full picture includes a few others, all of which appear to have their interior floors cracking in the same way, and all appear to be pedestal craters, sitting above the surrounding terrain, though by not as much.
» Read more

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China unveils next Shenzhou launch date and crew to its space station

9:07 am

China today revealed the next three-man crew to occupy its Tiangong-3 space station, with a planned launch in a Shenzhou crew capsule targeting May 30, 2023, Chinese time.

Because of time differences, that launch will occur tonight at 6:28 pm tonight, Pacific time. The rocket will be a Long March 2F taking off from China’s western interior Jiuquan spaceport. The rocket’s lower stages will therefore crash somewhere in China.

The crew will remain on board the station for five months, and with one astronaut the first Chinese to fly in space four times.

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North Korea notifies Japan of orbital rocket launch; Japan and South Korea protest

8:56 am

North Korea today sent a notification to Japan’s coast guard announcing a May 31st to June 1st launch window for an orbital rocket launch aimed at placing a military reconnaissance satellite into orbit.

Japan’s coast guard said North Korean waterway authorities revealed that the launch window was between May 31 and June 11 and that the launch may affect waters in the Yellow Sea, East China Sea and east of the Philippines’ Luzon Island.

A safety warning was issued by Japan’s coast guard for ships in the area on those dates due to the possible dangers of falling debris. The coast guard coordinates and distributes maritime safety information in East Asia, which is most likely why it received North Korea’s notice.

For North Korea to launch a satellite into space, it would need to use long-range missile technology banned by U.N. Security Council resolutions. The country’s previous launches of Earth observation satellites were viewed as missile tests in disguise.

Both Japan and South Korea have protested, saying this launch would violate UN sanctions, with one Japanese official claiming that country would shoot it down if it crossed over its territory.

It is unknown if Japan has the military capability to shoot down a rocket in flight. It has never tested such technology. North Korea meanwhile has done numerous suborbital missile tests in the last two years, and has three times in the past launched small satellites into orbit, the last time in 2016.

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India’s space agency ISRO launches GPS-type satellite

10:31 pm

India’s space agency ISRO today successfully used its GSLV rocket to place the first of a new constellation of that country’s second generation GPS-type satellites into geosynchronous orbit, lifting off from its Sriharikota east coast spaceport.

This was India’s fourth successful launch in 2023, matching its entire total last year. It appears that country has finally recovered from its panic during COVID.

The leader board for the 2023 launch race remains the same:

35 SpaceX
19 China
8 Russia
5 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads China 40 to 19 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 40 to 35. SpaceX alone is now tied with the rest of the world combined 35 to 35, but trails the entire world including American companies 35 to 40.

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SpaceX launches Arabsat communications satellite

1:14 pm

SpaceX early today launched an Arabsat geosynchronous communications satellite into orbit, using its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage successfully completed its fourteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The fairing halves completed their eighth and ninth flights respectively.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

35 SpaceX
19 China
8 Russia
5 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads China 40 to 19 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 40 to 34. SpaceX alone leads the rest of the world combined 35 to 34, but trails the entire world including American companies 35 to 39.

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May 26, 2023 Quick space links

3:30 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

 

 

 

3 comments

A fractured spot in Mars’ northern lowland plains

11:52 am

A fractured spot in Mars' northern lowland plains
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on February 16, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a pockmarked flat plain with a scattering of meandering hollows, each filled with ripple sand dunes that make these depressions resemble at first glance the tracks of tires.

Obviously, we are not looking at evidence of a past giant vehicle moving across the ground on Mars. The MRO science team labels these “fractures,” suggesting some past geological process caused the surface to crack in this manner, with those cracks widening with time due to erosion or sublimation.

The location of course tells us something about that process.
» Read more

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NASA inspector general finds more cost overruns in the agency’s SLS rocket program

10:12 am

Surprise! Surprise! A new NASA inspector general report [pdf] has found that the agency’s SLS rocket program is continuing to experience cost overruns and mismanagement that are “obscene”, as noted in this news report.

An independent report published Thursday contained troubling findings about the money spent by the agency on propulsion for the Space Launch System rocket. Moreover, the report by NASA Inspector General Paul Martin warns that if these costs are not controlled, it could jeopardize plans to return to the Moon.

Bluntly, Martin wrote that if the agency does not rein in spending, “NASA and its contracts will continue to exceed planned cost and schedule, resulting in a reduced availability of funds, delayed launches, and the erosion of the public’s trust in the agency’s ability to responsibly spend taxpayer money and meet mission goals and objectives—including returning humans safely to the Moon.”

Things are really much worse than this, mostly because it appears the Marshall Space Flight Center that runs the SLS program for NASA uses cost-plus contracts, which are essentially a blank check for contractors to run up costs endlessly, all of which the government must cover, and allows the process to go over-schedule against its own regulations. Furthermore, the cost overruns are for rockets and engines that are not newly developed, but in use for decades by Northrop Grumman and Aerojet Rocketdyne.

Note that this really isn’t news. Anyone with any intellectual honesty at all will know that every aspect of SLS and Orion is mismanaged and will go over budget and behind schedule endlessly. These problems are not a bug, however, but a feature of the system. The goals of SLS and Orion are not really to build a rocket to explore the solar system but to create an endless jobs program in congressional districts here on Earth. This misguided approach meanwhile robs America of a viable space effort because the money wasted could have actually been used to jumpstart a viable and competitive space-faring economy that actually achieves something.

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Northrop Grumman wins $45.6 million contract to launch Space Force weather smallsat

9:59 am

Northrop Grumman has won $45.6 million contract from the Space Force to launch a weather smallsat, using its Minotaur-4 rocket that was formerly a military ICBM.

The weather satellite, built by General Atomics, is part of an effort by the military to stop building its big expensive and continuously delayed weather satellites and instead buy the services from the private sector. This three year demonstration mission will prove whether General Atomics’ weather satellite can do the job. The Space Force has also contracted with Orion Space Systems to test its own weather satellite in orbit.

For Northrop Grumman, this contract helps keep its launch business alive while it awaits a new American engine for its Antares rocket, replacing the Russian engines it has previously depended on.

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Satellite fuel company Orbit Fab signs Impulse to build part of its fuel depot

9:51 am

The satellite fuel company Orbit Fab, which is offering a way for satellites to get refueled on a regular basis based on a firm price schedule, has selected the orbital tug company Impulse to build part of its fuel depot in advance of a demonstration refueling mission for the Space Force.

The Space Force last year awarded Orion Space Solutions a $50 million contract for the Tetra-5 experiment. Three satellites will be stationed in geostationary orbit (GEO) where Impulse Space’s Mira orbital service vehicle will serve as a hosting platform for Orbit Fab’s fuel depot. “This demonstration will pave the way for future commercial orbital refueling services, as well as additional collaborative opportunities and missions between Orbit Fab and Impulse Space,” said Barry Matsumori, chief operating officer of Impulse Space.

The Tetra-5 satellites and the fuel depot will use Orbit Fab’s refueling port known as RAFTI, or Rapidly Attachable Fuel Transfer Interface. Impulse Space will provide hosting services such as power, communications, attitude control and propulsion for the fuel depot. The Tetra spacecraft will rendezvous and dock with the depot.

If successful, this mission will prove the viability of this refueling system, and encourage other satellite manufacturers to include RAFTI on their satellites.

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Betelgeuse continues to fluctuate in unexpected ways

9:42 am

Betelqeuse
An optical image of Betelgeuse taken in 2017 by a ground-based
telescope, showing its not unusual aspherical shape.
Click for original image.

After the star’s light dimmed for almost a year in 2019 to 2020 due to what astronomers believe was a dust cloud that was released from the star, it has continued to fluctuate differently than in the past.

Now, it is glowing at 150% of its normal brightness, and is cycling between brighter and dimmer at 200-day intervals – twice as fast as usual – according to astrophysicist Andrea Dupree of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics. It is currently the seventh brightest star in the night sky – up three places from its usual tenth brightest.

The astronomers believe the star is recovering from the ejection of material from that 2019-2020 dimming, its gas bag shape bouncing in and out like a blob of water floating in weightlessness. They also think it might take five to ten years for those reverberations to settle down.

Betelgeuse, a red giant star, is theorized to go supernovae sometime in the next 10,000 to 100,000 to a million years.

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NASA’s corrupt safety panel doubts Starliner is ready for its first manned flight in July

9:26 am

The head of NASA’s safety panel — which over the years has consistently missed the big safety issues while whining about things that did not matter — expressed strong doubts yesterday on whether Boeing’s Starliner manned capsule is ready for its first manned flight in July.

Speaking at a May 25 public meeting of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, Patricia Sanders, chair of the committee, expressed skepticism that NASA and Boeing will be able to close known issues with Starliner in time for a launch currently scheduled for as soon as July 21.

“There remains a long line of NASA processes still ahead to determine launch readiness” for the Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission, the first crewed flight of the spacecraft with two NASA astronauts on board. “That should not be flown until safety risks can either be mitigated or accepted, eyes wide open, with an appropriately compelling technical rationale.”

This panel hasn’t the faintest idea what it is talking about, and should be ignored. It appears that NASA and Boeing are presently reviewing the capsule’s parachute system. Sanders however raised other issues which actually appear more designed to simply slow or even prevent the capsule’s launch.

The panel did the same thing during the development of SpaceX’s manned Dragon capsule, making irrelevant claims about paperwork and the safety of the company’s Falcon 9 fueling procedures that were ridiculous. Meanwhile, it has ignored much more fundamental numerous safety issues with NASA’s SLS rocket and Orion capsule, such as the agency’s plan to fly it manned using its capsule environmental system for the first time.

It is very possible that there remain serious safety issues with Starliner. I simply note that I would not rely on NASA’s safety panel to provide me an honest or educated appraisal of the situation.

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Vulcan launchpad static fire engine test aborted

9:14 am

ULA engineers were forced yesterday to abort their first attempt to complete a launchpad static fire engine test of the first stage of the company’s new Vulcan rocket due to an issue with “the booster’s ignition system.”

[D]uring the countdown at Launch Complex 41 Thursday afternoon, ULA teams “observed a delayed response from the booster engine ignition system,” the company said in a statement. The issue meant that countdown procedures ahead of the ignition of two Blue Origin-built BE-4 engines at the business end of the company’s new rocket had to be halted.

The roughly 200-foot rocket will have to be rolled back into ULA’s nearly 300-foot protective Vertical Integration Facility for technicians to assess the booster’s ignition system.

It will obviously be necessary to attempt this static fire test again before attaching the rocket’s solid-fueled side boosters, which suggests the launch’s tentative target date in June is likely threatened.

These kinds of issues are not unexpected prior to a rocket’s first launch. ULA however is now paying for the three-plus year delay imposed on it by Blue Origin’s delays in delivering the BE-4 engines used in that first stage. These pre-launch tests had been planned for 2020, not 2023. Let us hope that ULA engineers don’t rush these tests now, because of those Blue Origin delays.

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