Category: Points of Information

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

India proposes new oppressive space law

12:03 am

India’s government has proposed a new space law that essentially places all control of future space projects under the control of the central government.

The proposed law, which is open for comment for the next month, can be read here [pdf]. I’ve read it, and it astonishes me in its oppressiveness and hostility to private enterprise. This clause, one of many similar clauses, sums this up quite well:

Any form of intellectual property right developed, generated or created onboard a space object in outer space, shall be deemed to be the property of the Central Government.

The law would also require anyone who wants to launch a space project to get a license from the government, and gives the government the power to control that license in all aspects, including the power to cancel it for practically any reason.

If this law passes I expect that India’s burgeoning space industry will suffer significantly, especially because it will make it difficult to attract investment capital. Instead, it will be the central government that will run the business, and in the long run such government businesses always do badly.

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Another Navy ship collision in the Pacific

10:51 pm

Another Navy ship was involved in a collision in the Pacific on Saturday, this time with a Japanese tugboat.

The USS Benfold, a guided-missile destroyer, sustained minor damage when a tugboat lost propulsion and drifted into the ship, the Navy said. No one was injured on either vessel and an initial assessment of the damage showed that the destroyer only sustained minimal damage including scrapes.

It sounds as if the majority of the blame falls on the tugboat, though one must still wonder how a Navy destroyer was unable to avoid the drifting tugboat.

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New study says recurring dark streaks on Mars are from flowing sand, not water

9:49 am

The uncertainty of science: A new study has concluded that the recurring dark streaks on Martian slopes are caused not from flowing seeps of water but from small sand avalanches.

Continuing examination of these still-perplexing seasonal dark streaks with a powerful camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) shows they exist only on slopes steep enough for dry grains to descend the way they do on faces of active dunes.

The findings published today in Nature Geoscience argue against the presence of enough liquid water for microbial life to thrive at these sites. However, exactly how these numerous flows begin and gradually grow has not yet been explained. Authors of the report propose possibilities that include involvement of small amounts of water, indicated by detection of hydrated salts observed at some of the flow sites.

The results do not exclude the possibility that water plays a part, but do suggest it plays a much smaller part, or none at all.

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Air Force to shift focus to smallsat constellations

8:54 am

The head of the the Air Force’s Strategic Command revealed this past weekend that he wants the military to quickly shift its focus to buying small satellite constellations.

As one of nine U.S. combatant commanders, Hyten has a say in how the Pentagon plans investments in new technology. With regard to military satellites, STRATCOM will advocate for a change away from “exquisite” costly systems that take years to develop in favor of “more resilient, more distributed capabilities.” This is the thinking of the new “space enterprise vision” adopted by the Air force and the National Reconnaissance Office, Hyten said. “That vision is about defending ourselves. In that vision you won’t find any of those big, exquisite, long-term satellites.”

“I’ve made a call at U.S. Strategic Command that we’ll embrace that as a vision of the future because I think it’s the correct one,” he added. STRATCOM will “drive requirements,” Hyten noted, “And, as a combatant commander, I won’t support the development any further of large, big, fat, juicy targets. I won’t support that,” he insisted. “We are going to go down a different path. And we have to go down that path quickly.”

Makes sense to me. Not only will the Air Force save money, but their satellite assets will be harder to attack and easier to sustain and replace should they be attacked.

For the satellite industry this shift will accelerate the growth of the smallsat industry, and provide a lot more business for the new smallsat rocket industry that is now emerging.

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ARCA issues statement after arrest of CEO

8:38 am

ARCA has issued a statement following the arrest last week of Dumitru Popescu for embezzlement and fraud.

ARCA Space Corporation will continue the development of its aerospace technology as scheduled. The company has full confidence in CEO Dumitru Popescu and expects him to lead the efforts. Mr. Popescu was charged in New Mexico state courts with alleged embezzlement and securities issues. However, Mr. Popescu maintains his innocence and expects to prevail in court proceedings.

Meanwhile the work of the company will proceed with a goal of presenting a successful aerospike rocket engine.

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Vector makes deal to launch from Vandenberg

11:06 pm

Capitalism in space: Smallsat rocket company Vector has made a deal with Harris Corporation to use its launch facilities at Vandenberg in California for future launches.

Vector now has arrangements to launch its rockets from Kennedy, from Wallops Island, from Alaska, from the new spaceport in Georgia, and now from Vandenberg. With the rocket designed small enough for easy transportation by truck around the country, this will give them the ability to reach a large variety of orbits while also maintaining a fast launch rate.

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Arecibo gets a backer to keep it running

10:59 pm

The National Science Foundation has found at least one backer to pick up the majority of the cost for running the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, thus keeping it operational.

For about a decade, the National Science Foundation, which owns the observatory and supplies about two-thirds of its $12 million budget, had been mulling downsizing or even shuttering the telescope to free up funds for other projects. Instead, the NSF will continue scientific operations at the facility in collaboration with an unnamed partner organization, according to a Record of Decision signed this week.

Arecibo sustained $4 million to $8 million in damage during the hurricane, according James Ulvestad, acting assistant director for the agency’s mathematical and physical sciences directorate. Some scientists worried that would weaken the case for keeping the observatory operational.

But Ulvestad said the agency’s Record of Decision reflects that it has received viable partnership proposals from one or more collaborators — though he would not provide details about those proposals. This announcement allows the NSF to move forward with negotiations on a new management contract.

Under the new plan, the agency will reduce its annual contribution to the observatory from about $8.2 million to $2 million over the next five years. It is also committed to funding any repairs required to restore Arecibo to its pre-hurricane condition, Ulvestad said.

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Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne wins Defense launch contract

10:53 pm

Capitalism in space: Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne has won a contract to launch a Defense Department payload.

The details are vague, but the deal appears real. The article also suggests that Virgin Orbit is on schedule to complete its first launch next year.

Its carrier aircraft, a Boeing 747 that was formerly a passenger airliner for Virgin Atlantic, is currently in flight tests after undergoing modifications to accommodate the launch vehicle. A pathfinder version the rocket, meanwhile, has been shipped from the company’s factory in Long Beach, California to Mojave for testing, including static fire tests of both stages.

All evidence now suggests that my prediction one year ago that this Virgin company will make its first operational flight before Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, despite being in development only six years, compared to the fourteen years SpaceShipTwo has been under development.

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Rocket Lab prepares for second test launch of Electron rocket

10:40 pm

Capitalism in space: Rocket Lab’s second test Electron rocket has arrived at the company’s New Zealand launch facility in preparation for the rocket’s second flight.

They hope after several weeks of check-out they will be able to announce a launch date. The launch, though intended entirely as a test, will still carry three commercial cubesats, which Rocket Lab hopes to place in orbit.

For the Google Lunar X-Prize contestant Moon Express this launch is critical. They must launch by the end of March to win the prize, and are dependent on Electron as their rocket.

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Launch by SpaceX of mysterious Zuma payload delayed indefinitely

10:30 pm

The expected Falcon 9 launch this past week of the mysterious Zuma government payload, built by Northrop Grumman but linked to no government agency, has been postponed indefinitely because of a fairing issue identified during testing for a different customer.

This delay also suggests that this may be an issue that will delay more than one launch, which could effect SpaceX’s effort to achieve 20 launches in 2017.

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Off caving

8:01 pm

Because I am off on a caving project this weekend in the mountains where there is no internet service, I will not be able to approve comments or post anything until I return on Sunday.

The next few days should be most interesting, as there are SpaceX and ULA launches scheduled. The SpaceX launch tonight will place a secret government satellite in orbit while trying to land its first stage. The ULA launch on Saturday will be the last launch for its Delta 2 rocket, which the company is retiring because it costs too much to operate.

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Another LIGO black hole merger detected

8:47 am

Astronomers have announced another black hole merger detected by the LIGO gravitational wave observatory.

Dubbed GW170608, the latest discovery was produced by the merger of two relatively light black holes, 7 and 12 times the mass of the sun, at a distance of about a billion light-years from Earth. The merger left behind a final black hole 18 times the mass of the sun, meaning that energy equivalent to about 1 solar mass was emitted as gravitational waves during the collision.

This event, detected by the two NSF-supported LIGO detectors at 02:01:16 UTC on June 8, 2017 (or 10:01:16 pm on June 7 in US Eastern Daylight time), was actually the second binary black hole merger observed during LIGO’s second observation run since being upgraded in a program called Advanced LIGO. But its announcement was delayed due to the time required to understand two other discoveries: a LIGO-Virgo three-detector observation of gravitational waves from another binary black hole merger (GW170814) on August 14, and the first-ever detection of a binary neutron star merger (GW170817) in light and gravitational waves on August 17.

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Petroglyphs found depicting the earliest leashed dogs?

8:43 am

Archaeologists have found petroglyphs in Saudi Arabia that could be the earliest depiction of dogs being held by leashes.

Carved into a sandstone cliff on the edge of a bygone river in the Arabian Desert, a hunter draws his bow for the kill. He is accompanied by 13 dogs, each with its own coat markings; two animals have lines running from their necks to the man’s waist.

The engravings likely date back more than 8000 years, making them the earliest depictions of dogs, a new study reveals. And those lines are probably leashes, suggesting that humans mastered the art of training and controlling dogs thousands of years earlier than previously thought.

The dating however remains uncertain. The carvings could be much younger.

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Haze on Pluto lowers its global climate temperature 54º F

8:32 am

Using data collected during New Horizons’ fly-by, scientists have found that the planet’s atmosphere is 54º F colder than predicted, and from this they theorize that the presence of haze in that atmosphere is what cools it.

Pluto’s atmosphere is made mostly of nitrogen, with smaller amounts of compounds such as methane. High in the atmosphere — between 500 and 1,000 kilometres above the surface — sunlight triggers chemical reactions that transform some of these gases into solid hydrocarbon particles.

The particles then drift downward and, at around 350 kilometres above Pluto’s surface, clump with others to form long chemical chains. By the time they reach 200 kilometres’ altitude, the particles have transformed into thick layers of haze, which the New Horizons spacecraft saw dramatically blanketing Pluto.

Zhang and his colleagues compared the heating and cooling effects of the atmosphere’s gas molecules to those of its haze particles. Earlier studies have suggested that the presence of gas molecules, such as hydrogen cyanide, could help explain why Pluto’s atmosphere is so cold. But Zhang’s team found that including haze was the only way to get their model to match the temperatures that New Horizons measured as it flew by the dwarf planet.

This theory remains unproven. Moreover, there are other explanations proposed for the cold atmosphere by other scientists. It will take new instruments and future probes to resolve the question.

The post has been corrected. My math in calculating the conversion from Celsius to Fahrenheit was initially faulty. Thanks to reader Kirk for spotting the error.

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Interstellar object resembles asteroid

6:43 pm

Astronomers who have been observing the interstellar object that zipped past the Sun last month have concluded that it mostly resembles asteroids seen in our own solar system.

From its changing brightness, the team inferred that U1 is highly elongated with rough dimensions 30m x 30m x 180m. About twice the height of the Statue of Liberty, the 6:1 aspect ratio of U1 is “similar to the proportions of a fire extinguisher — although U1 is not as red as that,” says David Jewitt (UCLA), the first author of the study.

“With such an elongated shape, U1 probably needs a little cohesive strength to hold it together. But that’s not really unusual,” remarked study coauthor Jayadev Rajagopal (National Optical Astronomy Observatory). Commenting on its size, rotation, and color, Rajagopal mused that, “the most remarkable thing about U1 is that, except for its shape, how familiar and physically unremarkable it is.”

I wonder if they are still tracking it.

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India and China to reduce launch costs

9:31 am

Capitalism in space: In response to the announcement by Chinese officials that they aim to reduce their launch costs in order to attract more commercial business, Indian officials announced that they plan to do the same in order to compete.

Interestingly, the reduced price that China revealed, $5,000 per kilogram, remains about twice that of SpaceX’s estimate per kilogram price for a launch using a reused first stage.

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NASA completes first high altitude supersonic test of Mars 2020 rover parachute

9:26 am

NASA successfully completed its first high altitude supersonic test of the parachute that the Mars 2020 rover will use as part of its landing operation.

The rocket carried the payload as high as about 32 miles (51 kilometers). Forty-two seconds later, at an altitude of 26 miles (42 kilometers) and a velocity of 1.8 times the speed of sound, the test conditions were met and the Mars parachute successfully deployed. Thirty-five minutes after launch, ASPIRE splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean about 34 miles (54 kilometers) southeast of Wallops Island. “Everything went according to plan or better than planned,” said Clark. “We not only proved that we could get our payload to the correct altitude and velocity conditions to best mimic a parachute deployment in the Martian atmosphere, but as an added bonus, we got to see our parachute in action as well.”

The parachute tested during this first flight was almost an exact copy of the parachute used to land NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory successfully on the Red Planet in 2012. Future tests will evaluate the performance of a strengthened parachute that could also be used in future Mars missions. The Mars 2020 team will use data from these tests to finalize the design for its mission.

There is a nice video of this test flight at the link.

At first glance one wonders why they need to do these tests, since the parachute system is going to be almost identical to the one used by Curiosity in 2012, and that worked perfectly. However, they really aren’t testing the parachute but the system to fly and test future parachutes at the high altitudes that mimic Martian conditions. With this test technology working and available, it will make it possible to test all kinds of parachute designs for use on Mars, even Rogollo hang-glider chutes.

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Astronomers find habitable Earth-mass planet 11 light years away

9:15 am

Worlds without end: Astronomers have found an Earth-mass planet 11 light years away, orbiting a quiet red dwarf star in the habitable zone.

Unlike Proxima Centauri, which periodically has large flares which make its Earth-sized planet less hospitable to life, this red dwarf, Ross 128, is more stable.

Many red dwarf stars, including Proxima Centauri, are subject to flares that occasionally bathe their orbiting planets in deadly ultraviolet and X-ray radiation. However, it seems that Ross 128 is a much quieter star, and so its planets may be the closest known comfortable abode for possible life.

Although it is currently 11 light-years from Earth, Ross 128 is moving towards us and is expected to become our nearest stellar neighbour in just 79 000 years — a blink of the eye in cosmic terms. Ross 128 b will by then take the crown from Proxima b and become the closest exoplanet to Earth!

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China successfully launches two satellites

8:43 am

China’s Long March 4C rocket successfully placed two satellites in orbit today, a weather satellite and a commercial data relay satellite.

This was China’s 11th launch in 2017, well below the 20 they achieved in 2016, the drop caused by two launch failures earlier this year that resulted in an almost four month pause in launches.

At present the race for the most launches in 2017 stands as follows:

17 Russia
16 SpaceX
11 China
10 Arianespace (Europe)
7 ULA
5 Japan
4 India
3 Orbital ATK

Overall, the United States leads with 26 launches, its most since 2000.

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Zwicky Transient Facility sees first light

10:54 am

Astronomers announced today that the Zwicky Transient Facility at the Palomar Observatory in California has seen first light, and will begin full operations in 2018.

When fully operational in 2018, the ZTF will scan almost the entire northern sky every night. Based at the Palomar Observatory in southern California and operated by Caltech, the ZTF’s goal is to use these nightly images to identify “transient” objects that vary between observations — identifying events ranging from supernovae millions of light years away to near-Earth asteroids.
an image of stars and the night sky

In 2016, the UW Department of Astronomy formally joined the ZTF team and will help develop new methods to identify the most “interesting” of the millions of changes in the sky — including new objects — that the ZTF will detect each night and alert scientists. That way, these high-priority transient objects can be followed up in detail by larger telescopes, including the UW’s share of the Apache Point Observatory 3.5-meter telescope.

By producing new high resolution images of the entire northern sky every night, this telescope instrument is going to discover gobs of new transients, from supernovae to binaries to novae to things we haven’t even seen before.

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Japan to make second launch attempt of world’s smallest orbital rocket

9:44 am

JAXA, Japan’s space agency, has announced that it will make a second launch attempt in December of what would be the world’s smallest orbital rocket.

The rocket, measuring 10 meters long and 50 cm in diameter, will carry a “micro-mini” satellite weighing about 3 kg developed by the University of Tokyo to collect imagery of the Earth’s surface.

The launch scheduled for Dec. 25 will feature the fifth rocket in the SS-520 series. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is hoping small rockets made with commercially available components at low cost will help fuel the growing global demand for micro-mini satellites. JAXA used components found in home electronics and smartphones for the rocket, which is about the size of a utility pole.

The previous launch failed when vibrations during liftoff caused a short-circuit that cut off communications, forcing them to terminate the flight.

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