Category: Points of Information

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

Liechtenstein signs the Artemis Accords

10:16 am

The tiny nation of Liechtenstein in Europe yesterday became the 52nd nation to sign the Artemis Accords.

The full list of nations now part of this American space alliance: Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Panama, Peru, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

There has been a flurry of new nations signing the accords since the November election of Trump. I suspect his coming encouraged these nations to sign, knowing the moribund leadership of Biden will soon be replaced with something more robust. It is also likely that these nations see a renewal of Trump’s original goals for the Artemis Accords, to create an international alliance, led by the United States, with the goal of overcoming the Outer Space Treaty’s limitations on private property.

I hope this turns out to be true. This alliance gives Trump a powerful lobby he can wield to force change.

2 comments

SpaceX and Rocket Lab complete two launches overnight

10:04 am

Though one SpaceX launch early last night had a launch abort, both SpaceX and Rocket Lab completed additional launches later in the evening.

First, SpaceX completed its second Bandwagon in which 30 payloads were sent to mid-inclination orbits, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California. The first stage flew its twenty-first flight, landing successfully back its landing site at Vandenberg. The two fairings completed their 14th and 18th flights.

Next, Rocket Lab completed its sixth launch of sixteen for the commercial satellite company Synspective, its Electron rocket lifting off from one of its two launchpads in New Zealand. This was the 14th successful launch for Rocket Lab in 2024, a significant increase from the nine and eight launches it flew in 2022 and 2023.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

133 SpaceX
64 China
16 Russia
14 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 153 to 96, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 133 to 116.

1 comment

SpaceX experiences a launch abort at T-0

10:29 pm

During a launch attempt tonight from Cape Canaveral in Florida, SpaceX experienced a launch abort at T-0 seconds for reasons that have not yet been determined but apparently were complex enough that mission control decided to scrub for the evening. No new launch has been scheduled as yet.

The launch was to have placed four smallsats into geosynchronous orbit. The satellites were built by the satellite company Astranis, which appears to be the first to launch smallsats to geosynchronous orbit. It had already placed one in orbit, and these four satellites expand its constellation.

0 comments

Enrollment in colleges nationwide dropped 5% in 2024

4:47 pm


Modern college education: “But Brawndo’s got
what plants crave. It’s got electrolytes!”

According to a report by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, college enrollment in 2023 dropped by 5% from the previous year, suggesting that high school students are beginning to question the value of attending colleges where anti-Semitism and bigotry is promoted and white and Asian students are treated like dirt.

It could also be because they are beginning to realize that — at least in the soft sciences like history, sociology, literature, etc — all they will get is leftist/Marxist indoctrination, not a true education.

The statistics point in this direction:

Enrollment declined across racial groups for 18-year-old freshmen, though white students saw the steepest decline, the analysis found. White 18-year-old enrollment dropped 10 percent between fall 2023 and 2024, compared to 8.4 percent for multiracial students, 8.2 percent for Black students, 5.7 percent for Asian students and 2.1 percent for Hispanic students.
» Read more

5 comments

December 20, 2024 Quick space links

3:44 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.

0 comments

China launches a communications test satellite

3:36 pm

According to China’s uninformative state-run press, it today launched “a test satellite for communication technology,” its Long March 3B rocket lifting off from its Xichang spaceport in southwest China.

No other details about the satellite were released. Nor did the state-run press provide any information about where the rocket’s lower stages, using very toxic hypergolic fuel, crashed inside China.

As is usual for China, it is doing a lot of launches at the end of the year. Though weather might be a factor, I also suspect it is the ordinary “use-it-or-lose-it” symptom of a government-run communist society. Budgets are set for the year. Government agencies find that they better launch or they will lose that budgeted amount in the next year’s budget.

This might not apply to China but if so it would explain its strange end-of-year launch pattern.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

132 SpaceX
64 China
16 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 151 to 96, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 132 to 115.

0 comments

Perseverance takes its first good look west at its future journey

12:32 pm

Peservance looks west
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, reduced and enhanced to post here, was taken today by the left navigation camera on the Mars rover Perseverance. Though I am not 100% certain, I think this picture looks almost due west, and is aimed not only at the rover’s near term target, Witch Hazel Hill, but the rover’s long term and very important goal, the Nils Fossae ridge and canyon that appears to be crack formed during the impact that created giant 745-mile-wide Isidis Basin. Jezero Crater sits on the western rim of that impact basin.

The rover team expects to reach Witch Hazel Hill within days. To get there quickly the team has moved the rover more than a thousand feet west and dropped down from the rim about 170 feet in just the past ten days.
» Read more

0 comments

December 19, 2024 Quick space links

3:10 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.

0 comments

Land of dust devils

2:17 pm

Land of dust devils
Click for original image.

Today’s cool image to the right demonstrates that the atmosphere and climate of Mars is truly different in different places. The picture, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on July 22, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Labeled simply as a “terrain sample”, it 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 proper temperature.

I post it today almost to illustrate the difference between this location and the spot where the lander Insight landed on Mars. Earlier this week the MRO camera team released a short movie created by images of the lander taken over six years, showing how the dust around it had changed over time. I noted further how those images showed a very small number of dust devil tracks, which explained why no dust devil every crossed over the lander’s solar panels to clean them of dust.

For the picture on the right, however, there are a lot of dust devil tracks, so many near the bottom that they almost completely darken the ground.
» Read more

0 comments

Pushback: Blacklisted doctor gets lawsuit reinstated by higher court

1:25 pm

What apparently passes for medical treatment at the Hennepin Healthcare system
The kind of policies advocated by Hennepin Healthcare system
that Gustilo criticized

Fight! Fight! Fight! Back in August 2021, I reported the horrible blacklisting of Tara Gustilo, a biracial physician from the Philippines, who had been demoted and experienced a $150K cut in salary at the Hennepin Healthcare system in Minnesota simply because she had posted criticisms of the racist Black Lives Matter movement as well as the critical race theory policies, now known as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), that Hennepin was pushing.

In addition to filing a discrimination complaint with the federal government, Gustilo sued, represented by the Minnesota-based Upper Midwest Law Center (UMLC). You can read her lawsuit here [pdf].

That lawsuit however had been dismissed by a lower court. Last week however the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals threw out that decision, reinstating the lawsuit.

The court’s decision can be read here. The court specifically noted that Gustilo’s right to free speech appeared to have been violated, and that fact must be considered by a jury.
» Read more

2 comments

Vast signs deal with SpaceX for two ISS tourist missions

12:34 pm

Depending on whether it gets NASA contractual approval, the space station startup Vast has now signed a deal with SpaceX for flying two tourist missions to ISS.

These two missions expand Vast’s launch manifest with SpaceX, which includes the company’s Falcon 9 rocket delivering Haven-1 to low-Earth orbit and a subsequent Dragon mission to fly crew to the commercial space station. Haven-1 will also be supported by Starlink laser-based high-speed internet.

Axiom, which has flown three tourist missions to ISS and has a fourth planned, is also bidding for the next two tourist slots NASA has made available for ISS in the coming years. It is not clear who will get those slots. Axiom has the advantage it has done it before, but the rumors that it lost money on those flights and now has a cash shortage work against it. Vast hasn’t yet flown, but it is moving fast to fly and occupy Haven-1 next year. NASA might want to give it at least one of those slots to balance the scales.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay.

3 comments
1 … 208 209 210 211 212 … 2,413