Category: Points of Information

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

SpaceX launches four astronauts to ISS

7:20 am

Using its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral, SpaceX early this morning put four astronauts into orbit for a six month mission to ISS.

The Dragon capsule, Endurance, was making its third flight. The first stage, flying for the first time, landed successfully back at Cape Canaveral.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

58 SpaceX
37 China
12 Russia
7 Rocket Lab

In the national rankings, American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 67 to 37. It also leads the entire world combined, 67 to 60, while SpaceX by itself now trails the rest of the world (excluding American companies) 58 to 60 in successful launches.

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August 25, 2023 Quick space links

2:56 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

 

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SpaceX completes successful 6-second static fire test of Superheavy

11:28 am

screen capture during static fire test
Screen capture during static fire test

SpaceX today successfully completed a full 5-second static fire test of all 33 Superheavy Raptor-2 engines as well as the deluge system of the launchpad at Boca Chica.

The link goes to the live stream, which is still on-going. The static fire test occurs at about 42 minutes, if you wish to see it.

According to the narrators of the live stream, Elon Musk tweeted that the static fire was a success. It certainly appeared to go for the full five seconds, and it certainly appeared more robust than the previous test. We will have to wait however for confirmation that all 33 engines fired as planned.

The company clearly appears just about ready to do an orbital test flight. Too bad the Biden administration still stands in the way. There is yet no word on when the FAA will approve a launch license, and the decision of the Justice Department yesterday to file a bogus discrimination lawsuit against SpaceX strongly suggests the White House is working hard to figure out ways to squelch this private effort by an American citizen and his company.

Hat tip to Jay, BtB’s stringer.

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Flow channels on Mars

11:13 am

Flow channels on Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on May 13, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists call a “channel and depression”, though to my eye everything looks like flow channels, descending to the east.

The drop from the narrow northern channel to wider southern channel is about 200 feet, with the small crater on the left sitting about halfway between. To our Earthbound eyes, something clearly flowed downhill from that northern channel into the wider channel. What we don’t know now is what the material was that did the flowing?

Was it liquid water? Glaciers? The overview map below provides some context, though it doesn’t actually provide an answer.
» Read more

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Both Vikram and Pragyan functioning as planned on the Moon

9:29 am

Pragyan on the Moon
Click to see full movie.

According to tweets from India’s space agency ISRO, both the Vikram lander and the Pragyan rover are functioning as planned on the lunar surface, with the rover successfully activating its two science instruments.

The image to the right, taken by Vikram, shows the rover as it completed its roll down the ramp onto the lunar surface. This is a screen capture from a movie showing that roll down, which you can see by clicking on the picture. Since then it has moved another 26 feet from the lander.

I must add once again that Vikram did not land “on the south pole”, as too many so-called news organizations have been falsely claiming. It landed at about 69 degrees south latitude, quite a distance from that pole, in a flat region with no permanently shadowed craters. It is not specifically looking for water, though its instruments might help explain the orbital data that suggests there are areas on the surface of the Moon where hydrogen is somehow present.

If so many news outlets can’t seem to get these very basic facts about this mission correct, one must ask what else do they get wrong routinely? I don’t ask, because I always assume their information is wrong, check it constantly, and find repeatedly that they get numerous basic facts incorrect, especially when it comes to reporting on politics.

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China launches remote sensing satellite using rocket from pseudo-company

9:00 am

The Chinese pseudo-company Galactic Energy completed another successful orbital launch today, using its Ceres-1 rocket solid-fueled rocket carrying a remote sensing satellite and lifting off from the Jiuquan spaceport in the northwest interior of China.

As with the pseudo-company’s previous launch, the state-run press made no mention of the company in its reporting, underlining the fact that it really is simply another government-controlled entity that simply adds private investment and the profit-motive to its operations.

No word on where the rocket’s lower stages crashed within China.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

57 SpaceX
37 China
12 Russia
7 Rocket Lab

In the national rankings, American private enterprise still leads China in successful launches 66 to 37. It also leads the entire world combined, 66 to 60, while SpaceX by itself now trails the rest of the world (excluding American companies) 57 to 60 in successful launches.

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August 24, 2023 Quick space links

4:10 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

  • Perseverance science team touts rover’s 19th core sample

    • If you listen closely to the two scientists in the video, they really can only guess about much of this geology, since Perseverance does not have the same geological capabilites as Curiosity. They can make some superficial analysis of the rocks, but the more detailed work will have to wait until those core samples are returned to Earth. Curiosity however can not only drill, but it has equipment to analyze those drill samples itself, there. While Curiosity can’t do what an Earth lab would do, it does it now. With Perseverance we will have to wait a decade or more to get to the samples.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Real estate company fires a mother for expressing her opinions

3:43 pm

Janet Roberson and her family
Janet Roberson and her family

They’re coming for you next: A California mother of three, Janet Roberson, was fired only days after she stood up at her local school board and objected to the queer curriculum the board was forcing on young children. This is what she had said:

Janet Roberson spoke at a Benicia Unified School District (BUSD) meeting on April 20, where she expressed concerns about the district’s sexual education curriculum that she said taught “gender confusion, not gender clarification” because it told 10-year-old students they could choose their own gender and receive puberty blockers. She said teaching “vulnerable children that lifetime dependence on medical care is a viable option is completely unacceptable and evil.”

“Children are being asked to identify their pronouns and this is now part of the ten-year-old curriculum,” Roberson said of the curriculum. “This forces a gender discussion beyond the scope of the state requirements and complicates an already overburdened classroom environment.”
» Read more

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Big mountains everywhere inside Valles Marineris

11:45 am

Big mountains in Valles Marineris
Click for original image.

While the giant canyon Valles Marineris on Mars is known best as the biggest known canyon in the solar system — large enough to cover the continental United States several times over — that size tends to diminish the mountainous nature of its interior. Today’s cool image attempts once again (see for example these earlier posts here, here, here, here, and here) to illustrate that stupendous and mountainous nature.

The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on May 15, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The goal of the picture was to get a better view of the numerous layers of this terraced cliff wall. What I see, however from my tourist’s perspective, is a steep wall that descends almost 4,500 feet from the high to the low point in just over three miles. This is as steep if not steeper than the walls of the Grand Canyon.
» Read more

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Biden’s Justice Department sues SpaceX

9:51 am

The corrupt and very partisan Justice Department of the Biden administration today sued SpaceX for discriminating against refugees and illegal immigrants because it restricts hiring to “U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents.”

The lawsuit states SpaceX “failed to fairly consider” and “refused to hire” the asylees and refugees who ended up applying anyway. It also alleges that SpaceX “wrongly claimed” that the US’s export control laws allowed it to only hire US citizens and lawful residents. Additionally, the DOJ claims SpaceX hired “only” US citizens and green card holders from September 2018 to September 2020.

“Our investigation found that SpaceX failed to fairly consider or hire asylees and refugees because of their citizenship status and imposed what amounted to a ban on their hire regardless of their qualification, in violation of federal law,” Kristen Clarke, the assistant attorney general of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, says in a statement.

Justice is demanding compensation and back pay for anyone “deterred or denied employment”, as well as civil penalties.

This suit is utter garbage and puts SpaceX between a rock and a hard place. I guarantee if SpaceX had hired any illegal or refugee who was not yet a legal citizen, Biden’s State Department would have immediately sued it for violating other laws relating to ITAR (the export control laws mentioned) which try to prevent the theft of technology by foreign powers.

The Biden administration considers Elon Musk an opponent, and since it is now moving to indict and even imprison all political opposition, it is no surprise it is beginning to use lawfare against him. As I have written repeatedly, it has almost certainly pressured the FAA to slow walk any launch license approvals for SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy. This lawsuit today simply provides further evidence that my prediction will be right that the next orbital test flight of that rocket will be delayed months.

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North Korea fails again to get a military reconnaissance satellite into orbit

9:33 am

According to a report in North Korea’s state run press, a launch attempt of its new rocket Chollima-1 rocket failed to reach orbit at dawn today, its payload of a classified military reconnaissance satellite falling into the ocean.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang reported that the National Aerospace Development Administration launched the new Chollima-1 rocket “at dawn” August 24 from the Sohae Satellite Launch Center. The first and second stages worked as planned, but “the launch failed due to an error in the emergency blasting system during the third stage flight” according to KCNA.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency identified the satellite as Malligyong-1, a military reconnaissance satellite and reported the launch time as 3:50 am local time (2:50 pm August 23 EDT).

The flight path can be found here. An earlier attempt in May failed also, but the cause was not specified. South Korea did recover the first stage and satellite from the May failure, claiming later the satellite had “no military utility.”

I expect South Korea to once again attempt recovery operations, but because the rocket traveled farther I also expect the chances of any recovery of material to be more unlikely.

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