Category: Points of Information

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

Perseverance looks ahead, beyond Jezero Crater

11:13 am

Perseverance looks ahead, beyond Jezero Crater
Click for original image.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Cool image time! The panorama above, enhanced and annotated to post here, was taken on October 21, 2023 by one of the navigation cameras on the Mars rover Perseverance. As shown on the overview map to the right, it looks to the west, at the gap in the rim of Jezero crater, dubbed Neretva Vallis, through which the delta in the crater had once poured.

The blue dot marks the location of Perseverance. The green dot marks the location of Ingenuity, which suggests it is visible within the panorama. I have indicated two features on the panorama that could be the helicopter, but the resolution of this navigation camera image is not good enough to determine with certainty if either is the helicopter or simply a rock.

Beyond the gap can be seen several small mountains, a hint at the generally rough terrain that sits to the west of Jezero that Perseverance will eventually enter and explore. This region is also an area where orbital images suggest a wide variety of minerals, making it a potentially valuable mining location for future Martian settlers.

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A dance of three galaxies

10:40 am

Three galaxies merging
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Though it appears to show two galaxies interacting with each other, other spectroscopic data proves there are actually three large galaxies in the picture. From the caption:

The two clearly defined galaxies are NGC 7733 (smaller, lower right) and NGC 7734 (larger, upper left). The third galaxy is currently referred to as NGC 7733N, and can actually be spotted in this picture if you look carefully at the upper arm of NGC 7733, where there is a visually notable knot-like structure, glowing with a different colour to the arm and obscured by dark dust. This could easily pass as part of NGC 7733, but analysis of the velocities (speed, but also considering direction) involved in the galaxy shows that this knot has a considerable additional redshift, meaning that it is very likely its own entity and not part of NGC 7733.

All three galaxies are quite close to each other, which means they are in the long process of merging together into one larger galaxy.

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SpaceX gets ESA contract to launch up to four of its Galileo GPS-type satellites

9:41 am

The European Space Agency (ESA) this week announced that it has awarded SpaceX a launch contract to put up to four of its Galileo GPS-type satellites into orbit. Though the deal is signed, approval must still be obtained by ESA’s members and executive commission.

This will be the first time SpaceX will launch any ESA satellites, and the first time in fifteen years that a Galileo satellite will launch outside of Arianespace operations. Previously the Russians had done a number of Galileo launches, using its Soyuz-2 rocket launching out of Arianespace’s French Guiana spaceport, but that partnership ended with Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine.

For the ESA the situation is even worse. It needs SpaceX to launch its satellites because at present it doesn’t have any of its own rockets to do it. The Ariane-5 is retired, and the new Ariane-6 (meant to replace it) is long delayed, and will not have its first test launch until next year, at the earliest. The Vega-C (too small for Galileo anyway) is also grounded due to design defects in the nozzle of its upper stage, while the Vega rocket it replaces has only one more launch before its own retirement.

Much like the Axiom-UK deal posted below, the American commercial space industry is once again making money from others, solely due to the capabilities developed in the past decade due to competition and freedom.

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Axiom signs deal with the United Kingdom to fly all British mission

9:30 am

The space agency of the United Kingdom today announced that it has signed a deal with Axiom to fly an manned mission in space, with four astronauts spending up to two weeks in space (likely in a SpaceX Dragon capsule).

The flight, estimated to cost around £200 million, is being organized in cooperation with the European Space Agency (ESA), though all the astronauts will be British. The announced commander, Tim Peake, spent six months on ISS in 2015, and has come out of retirement to do the flight.

It is also unclear at this moment whether it will fly to ISS, or simply remain in orbit. In fact, few specific details have yet been released.

The bottom line however is that the new American space industry is going to make money from Britain’s desire to be a space power. Seems like a good deal to me.

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No Starship/Superheavy launch likely until January?

9:13 am

No Starship test launch until 2024
SpaceX is ready but the federal government says “No!”

We’re from the government and we’re here to help! In describing the effort of Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to help SpaceX prod the federal bureaucracy into approving a new launch license for the company’s Starship/Superheavy rocket, space writer Mark Whittington included this significant but not previously mentioned tidbit that might help us predict when Fish & Wildlife (FWS) might finally give its okay for a launch:

The FWS has as long as 135 days to complete its review.

Let’s review the situation to understand what this tidbit means. At present it appears the FAA is ready to issue a launch licence, having closed its own investigation into the April Starship/Superheavy test flight on September 8, 2023.

At the time the FAA however was very clear: No launch license until Fish & Wildlife gave its environmental approval as well. Never before had this environmental agency had veto power over launches, but under the Biden administration it now has it.

Though Fish & Wildlife could have begun its own investigation in April, and met the 135-day deadline to give its approval for a launch the same time as the FAA, in September, it now appears that it did not start its clock ticking until after the FAA closed its work. If so, it appears Fish & Wildlife has until early January to complete its investigation.

Since FWS admitted in April, right after the failed test launch of Starship/Superheavy, that it caused no harm to wildlife, there appears no reason for this long delay.

The delay therefore can only be for two reasons, neither good. Either the people at Fish & Wildlife are utterly incompetent, and need eight months to write up the paperwork (even though in April they already knew that there was no reason to delay), or they are vindictive, power-hungry, and wish to exercise an animus against SpaceX in order to hurt the company.

Mostly likely we are seeing a combination of both: The bureaucrats at Fish & Wildlife are incompetent and hate SpaceX, and are using their newly gained power over issuing launch licenses to hurt it.

Either way, if Fish & Wildlife uses its entire 135-day window to issue its launch approval to SpaceX, no launch can occur this year. SpaceX will be stymied, and the development of this new heavy-lift reuseable rocket, possibly the most important new technology in rocketry ever, will be badly crushed. Not only will NASA’s Artemis program be damaged (it wants Starship as its manned lunar lander), SpaceX might face huge financial loses, as it needs Starship to launch and maintain its Starlink communications constellation.

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ULA sets Christmas Eve as launch date for first Vulcan rocket launch

8:35 am

In an interview for CNBC, ULA’s CEO revealed that the company has now scheduled the first orbital launch of its new Vulcan rocket for December 24, 2023, Christmas Eve, with a backup launch window in January.

The rocket will carry Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander, targeting the western edge of the lunar mare dubbed Mare Imbrium. It will also carry human ashes to be buried in space, from the private company Celestis.

Vulcan was also originally supposed to carry Amazon’s first two test Kuiper satellites, but the delays in developing Vulcan forced ULA to use an Atlas-5 rocket instead, that launched on October 6th.

If the launch is successful, the company will try to quickly ramp up its launch pace to 24 times per year, in order to meet the contract for 47 launches it has with Amazon to launch Kuiper satellites, as well as its contract obligations to the Pentagon to launch military satellites.

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October 24, 2023 Quick space links

3:18 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

 

 

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More Io images by Juno, enhanced by citizen scientists

1:27 pm

Io in natural and enhance colors
Click here for original of top image,
here for bottom.

Since Juno completed its 55th close swing past Jupiter on October 15, 2023, including the closest fly by of its volcano-covered moon Io since the 1990s, citizen scientists have been grabbing the spacecraft’s raw images of the moon and enhancing them to bring out the details.

Immediately after the fly-by I posted on October 17, 2023 the top image to the right, processed by Ted Stryk. This version attempted to capture the view of Juno is natural color. As I noted then, “The dark patches are lava flows, with the dimensions of mountains along the terminator line between night and day clearly distinguishable.”

The bottom picture to the right was first processed by citizen scientist Gerald Eichstädt, who like Stryk attempted to capture Io’s natural colors. Thomas Thomopoulos then took Eichstädt’s image and enhanced the colors as well as reduced the brightness, in order to bring out the details as much as possible.

I have rotated, cropped, and reduced this bottom image further to post it here.

In comparing this image with earlier pictures of Io, taken by both Juno and Galileo in the 1990s, there is evidence that some of the lava flows visible now have changed significantly in the intevening time. This is not a surprise, as volcanic eruptions take place on Io so frequently that it has not unusual to capture one in the rare times close up images are possible, going back to the discovery of volcanic activity by Voyager-1 in 1979.

It will take a bit of time for scientists, both professional and amateur, to pick out the specific changes. That work will be further aided by Juno’s next fly-by on December 30, 2023, where it will dip to less than 1,000 miles of the surface.

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At the moment our modern Nazi movement appears to be winning

12:25 pm

Chamberlain in 1938
In 1938 Chamberlain thought he could negotiate
with Hitler. Today American politicians think
they can negotiate with Hamas.

Now that we have clear evidence that the left is nothing more than a revised but reborn Nazi movement — allied with murderous Islamic groups like Hamas, it is imperative we track whether the good people in the world are willing to fight it, or appease it as was done so stupidly in the 1930s when Hitler first began his march for world domination and the extermination of the Jews.

In the past week, it seems more and more that appeasement is the watchword of the day.

First, Israel has repeatedly delayed its invasion into Gaza, mostly because of demands from western leaders, led by Democrat Joe Biden, to hold off so that negotiations can continue to get the hostages released. A news report today further reiterated that Israel has agreed to hold off, pending these negotiations.

The reasoning from Israel is the hope that Hamas will release a “big number” of hostages quickly, such as all women and children. Getting one or two hostages released on a weekly basis — which is what Hamas is presently doing — is not considered acceptable to Israel. At that pace it will take more than two years to get all released, and based on how the news cycle goes, after a few more months Israel will have lost its military initiative and Hamas will likely stop releasing any hostages.
» Read more

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Scientists: The solar cycle was only 8 years long during the Maunder Minimum in the 1600s

9:58 am

Using archival records gathered in Korea during the 1600s when the Sun was undergoing a long period of almost no sunspots — called the Maunder Minimum — scientists have discovered evidence that the solar cycle during that time was only 8 years long.

You can read their paper here. Since almost no sunspots were visible at that time, the scientists used reports of aurora in Korea to determine periods when the Sun was more active. From their abstract:

By analyzing the variations in solar activity-related equatorial auroras recorded in Korean historical books in the vicinity of a low-intensity paleo-West Pacific geomagnetic anomaly, we find clear evidence of an 8-year solar cycle rather than the normal 11-year cycle during the Maunder Minimum.

This 8-year cycle is shorter than the 9-year cycle that other researchers had estimated based on the few sunspots that did appear during this grand minimum. Both conclusions however challenge what is known of the Sun. Since the 11-year cycle resumed in the 1700s, short cycles have generally been associated with very active periods, the opposite of what has been found during Maunder.

In other words, we know better what happened, but have no understanding of why. Since the Maunder Minimum appears associated with the Little Ice Age of the 1600s, and fits other data that says the climate cools when the Sun produces few sunspots, gaining some understanding of this process is important for understanding past and future changes to the global climate.

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India releases on-board camera views during its Gaganyaan launch abort test

9:46 am

India’s space agency ISRO today released the on-board camera views taken during its Gaganyaan launch abort test on October 21, 2023.

The test was a complete success, and the footage shows each step clearly, from launch to stage separation to deployment of parachutes.

ISRO is still targeting 2024 for the first manned Gaganyaan mission, which will carry two to three astronauts into orbit for three to seven days. To meet that target however will require a lot of fast work, as the agency intends to fly three separate unmanned orbital missions of the Gaganyaan capsule prior to putting humans in it. More likely the manned mission will happen in 2025.

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Belarus joins China’s lunar base project

9:33 am

The former province of the Soviet Union Belarus has now signed an agreement to partner in China’s lunar base project, joining another former part of the U.S.S.R., Azerbaijan, as well as Russia, Pakistan, Venezuela, and South Africa.

Except for Russia, all the other partners in this project have little space capabilities, so don’t expect Belarus to contribute much. This deal is mainly for public relations purposes, to show that China has obtained some international partners.

In truth, the partnership more resembles the communist block run by the former Soviet Union — made up of failing communist states — except that communist China is now leads it.

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