Category: Points of Information

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

April 16, 2024 Quick space links

3:21 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.

 

 

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Isolated flat-topped mesa inside large Martian crater

1:17 pm

Isolated flat-topped mesa
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on February 18, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The camera team labels this “layers in butte”, but because we are looking straight down at this 400-foot-high butte, it is difficult to see any layers at all. Based on most Martian geology however it would be shocking if this butte is not made up of multiple horizontal layers, ending with that flat surface layer at the top. Moreover, the base of the mesa to the northeast is clearly made up of a series of terraces that appear obscured at other points due to the presence of dust and dunes.

A side view would help clarify the number of layers and their thickness, but it does appear that this butte contains evidence of the geology that once covered this whole area, but over eons has eroded everything away but this butte.
» Read more

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Scientists: Any ice trapped in Ceres’ permanently shadowed craters has to be very young

10:51 am

The permanently shadowed craters at Ceres' north pole
The permanently shadowed craters (blue) at Ceres’
north pole. Click for original image.

Scientists reviewing the archive data from the Dawn probe that orbited the asteroid Ceres from 2016 to 2018 have found that the permanently shadowed craters at the asteroid’s poles are periodically exposed to sunlight due to long term variations in Ceres’ orbit, meaning that any of the ice in those craters detected by Dawn must be extremely young.

When Ceres reaches its maximum axis tilt, which last occurred about 14,000 years ago, no crater on Ceres remains perennially shadowed and any ice in them must have quickly sublimated into space. “That leaves only one plausible explanation: The ice deposits must have formed more recently than that. The results suggest all of these ice deposits must have accumulated within the last 6,000 years or less. Considering that Ceres is well over 4 billion years old, that is a remarkably young age,” Schorghofer said.

This does not mean that Ceres doesn’t have ice. In fact, it is very ice rich, below the surface. This data instead suggests that the surface remains active, and that there are processes bringing that underground ice to the surface on a regular basis. Except for these craters, which remain permanently shadowed for long time spans, that ice sublimates away relatively quickly. This result fits with earlier data from Dawn, that suggested many active locations on the surface, including its most distinct crater, Occator.

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Using Gaia data scientists discover the heaviest stellar black hole ever found

10:30 am

In digging into the precise motion data from the Gaia space telescope scientists have discovered the Milky Way’s heaviest stellar-sized black hole, with a mass thirty-three times the mass of our Sun.

Stellar black holes are formed from the collapse of massive stars and the ones previously identified in the Milky Way are on average about 10 times as massive as the Sun. Even the next most massive stellar black hole known in our galaxy, Cygnus X-1, only reaches 21 solar masses, making this new 33-solar-mass observation exceptional.

Remarkably, this black hole is also extremely close to us — at a mere 2000 light-years away in the constellation Aquila, it is the second-closest known black hole to Earth.

The only known black hole inside the Milky Way that is larger is Sagittarius A* (pronounced A-star), the supermassive central black hole at the galaxy’s center and weighing over four million solar masses. That creature is a very different thing, as it involves the long term evolution of the galaxy itself. Stellar-sized black holes only involve the death of a single star, with possible additions from a handful of others.

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NASA admits that its Mars Sample Return project needs new ideas

10:09 am

The present plan for Mars Sample Return
The present plan for Mars Sample Return

In issuing yesterday its reponse [pdf] to the February 28, 2024 audit [pdf] by NASA’s inspector general (IG) of its Mars Sample Return mission (MSR), NASA has admitted that its Mars Sample Return project needs new ideas and major changes. From the press release:

“The bottom line is, an $11 billion budget is too expensive, and a 2040 return date is too far away,” said [NASA administrator Bill] Nelson.

The agency will today issue a call for proposals from the private sector for alternative ideas for picking up the samples on Mars and getting them up into orbit.

This NASA response to the IG report however changes little else in overall project, and almost certainly will not succeed in either reducing cost or shortening the timeline in any way.
» Read more

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NASA: The piece of space junk that crashed through a Florida house came from ISS, and we released it

8:56 am

After completing a careful analysis of the 1.6 pound object that had crashed through two floors of a house in Florida on March 8, 2024, NASA engineers have confirmed that it came from the cargo pallet that was dumped from ISS in March 2021.

As part of the analysis, NASA completed an assessment of the object’s dimensions and features compared to the released hardware and performed a materials analysis. Based on the examination, the agency determined the debris to be a stanchion from the NASA flight support equipment used to mount the batteries on the cargo pallet. The object is made of the metal alloy Inconel, weighs 1.6 pounds, is 4 inches in height and 1.6 inches in diameter.

Though the NASA press release notes the agency will revise its computer models for determining what will burn up in the atmosphere and what will not, it says nothing about reinbursing the homeowner, Alejandro Otero, for the damage to his home. Based on the Outer Space Treaty, the U.S. is likely liable for this damage. I suspect the negotiations are on-going, and if Otero doesn’t have a lawyer yet, he should get one immediately.

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April 15, 2024 Quick space links

3:55 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.

 

 

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The value of Trump’s Abraham Accords once again proven

2:59 pm

Hamas vs Israel
Even the Arabs recognize these facts.
And they know that Iran is allied with Hamas.
Courtesy of Doug Ross.

Over the weekend the Iranian attempt to bomb Israel drove home starkly the effectiveness of the Abraham Accords that Donald Trump pushed through during his term between Israel and a number of its Arab neighbors.

The effectiveness of the accords was not only illustrated by the moral and technical support given to Israel by the UAE and Bahrain (two accord signatories), the good will these agreements produced between Israel and the Arab world caused other Arab nations to add their own support as well.

First, when Iran tipped off several Arab countries of its intentions — which likely included both Jordan and Saudi Arabia (neither of which has signed the accords) — those countries then immediately passed that information to the United States, knowning full well it would then be passed to Israel. Iran had thought the Arab world was united with it, when in truth at least half the Arab world is now allied with Israel (either overtly or covertly).

Then Jordan denied Iran permission to use its airspace, and then followed this up by first opening its airspace to Israel and American fighter jets. All three then proceeded to shoot down Iran’s missiles and drones, preventing almost all from even reaching Israel.

The support Saudi Arabia gave to Israel this past weekend suggests once again that it does want to sign the accords as well. Just before the 2020 election there were numerous rumors that it would do so, once Trump was confirmed for a second term. It then backed off when Biden was installed as president, though it also has made it clear in the past three years that it is more aligned with Israel than Iran or the Palestinians. In fact, there is much evidence that many Arab countries in the Middle East are increasingly ready to abandon or seriously curtail their support of the Palestinians, in exchange for a peaceful co-existence with Israel that enhances everyone’s security. All fear Iran, and Israel can help them fight it.

The situation of course remains very complex, but it will simplify enormously after Israel finishes Hamas off and then demonstrates its determination to rebuild Gaza as a sane place for both the Gazans and its neighbors. Despite the absurd screams of “genocide” by stupid Hama supporters, Israel’s neighbors very much want to get Hamas destroyed. They might mouth some complaints about the lose of civilian lifes in Gaza, but those protests are not to be taken very seriously. Hamas has done nothing for them except instill disorder and violence in the region. Remove it, and they know everyone will benefit.

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Assuming students sign up, plagiarist Claudine Gay to teach “reading and research” class at Harvard

12:17 pm

Harvard: where you get can get a shoddy education centered on hate and bigotry
Harvard: where you can spend a lot of money
getting a shoddy education

Claudine Gay, former Harvard president and now a known plagiarist, is now scheduled to teach a “reading and research” class this coming fall at Harvard.

Harvard University’s former president who resigned after numerous plagiarism allegations is slated to teach a graduate level “Reading and Research” course this upcoming semester. Professor Claudine Gay returned to teaching and her reportedly nearly $900,000 annual salary after resigning the presidency after ongoing plagiarism accusations and criticism of her response to campus antisemitism.

…Gay taught the same class in the spring. It is a graduate-level independent study type class.

The commentary on Gay’s future teaching work has generally generally been outraged and amused, since in a sane world the last person any college should want as a teacher is a proven plagiarist. Allowing such a failure to run classes only stains the reputation of the college.

However, there is another aspect to this story that most pundits are missing. » Read more

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A Martian rock with holes

10:52 am

A Martian rock with holes
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on April 13, 2024 by the high resolution camera on the Mars rover Perseverance.

The largest rock in the picture is probably only one or a few feet or so across. It has two holes, one very visible in the center and a second less obvious in the shadow on the right. What makes the obvious hole most intriguing is that it appears it was formerly entirely enclosed by the boulder, and was exposed when a section broke off. That section is the smaller rock in the foreground. I wonder if the Perseverance team will bring the rover around to get a view of that smaller rock, to see if it has its own corresponding part of this hole.

Note the smoothness of the rocks. This smoothness is very similar to what Curiosity saw when it was either on the floor of Gale Crater, or at the base of Mount Sharp. In both cases that smoothness suggests either flowing water or glacial ice erosion, like the smooth cobbles one routinely finds in streambeds or in the moraines of glaciers.

As Curiosity climbed Mount Sharp the smoothness was replaced with a delicate flaky fleecework indicating many layers but little violent erosion capable of smoothing the surface (see for example the images here and here). It appears Perseverance is still low enough in Jezero Crater to be within the ancient active region, formed from flowing water or ice.

As for the holes, my guess is that this rock formed from lava, and the holes are what geologists call “vugs”, bubbles formed within the lava as it solidified.

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A Martian river of sand

10:16 am

A Martian river of sand
Click for original image.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Cool image time! The panorama above, cropped, reduced, enhanced, and flipped to post here, was taken on April 14, 2024 by the right navigation camera on the Mars rover Curiosity, created from a total of 31 images.

The full mosaic covers a full 360 degree view from where Curiosity presently sits, inside the slot canyon Gediz Vallis. The part shown above only covers a little more than half, looking west at the butte which forms the western wall of the slot canyon, as shown by the yellow lines and the arrow in the overview map to the right. The blue dot marks Curiosity’s present position, while the red dotted line its planned route.

What makes this part of the mosaic especially distinct is the narrow river of sand that flows downhill from the right to the left. While everywhere else the ground is heavily covered with rocks, along this strip the surface is smooth sand, with many frozen dunes resembling waves or ripples as the flows downhill slowly.

The river is formed against a low cliff wall, which is why the sand gathered along this strip. At the same time, the downhill grade to the left (north) is allowing the sand to carve a distinct path, at the base of that cliff.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Mars is alien, Mars is unique, but above all, Mars is wonderful.

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Obama: The man behind today’s Middle East madness

9:30 am

Considering my present condition (see the previous post), I thought I would quickly put up a link to an excellent essay by Doug Ross detailing how the present instability in the Middle East is all tied to Barack Obama, both during his first two presidential terms as well as his third term manipulating Joe Biden from behind the scenes.

The most telling quote is this, comparing how things changed before, during, and after Donald Trump’s term:

The stunning populist victory of Donald Trump meant a quick demise for many of Obama’s pro-terror policies. It also resulted in the destruction of the ISIS scourge, another terror spawn of Obama’s people and policies. Trump’s pragmatic view of Iran resulted in a demolition of Obama’s nuclear deal as well as termination of various Palestinian terror funding initiatives. Trump’s Abraham Accords remain one of the most dramatic Middle East peace agreements in modern history.

And They’re Back! The instant Trump departed the presidency in 2021, the ostensible Biden administration — led by cadres of Obama acolytes — reactivated funding for Islamist terrorism.

…As part of Barack Obama’s de facto third term, Iran received yet another infusion of cash less as recently as November of 2023. As Majid Rafizadeh put it: “Who needs the Nobel Peace Prize when you can have the Biden War Prize? That’s right, the Biden administration announced last week that it plans to give the Iranian regime another $10 billion in unfrozen assets from Oman.”

The funds are apparently as a small token of appreciation for helping to orchestrate a war in the Middle East and targeting U.S. troops in the region at least 56 times, wounding at least 56 U.S. servicemen, many of whom suffered traumatic brain injuries—in just one month! Where does everyone sign up

Ross concludes by asking what is the reason behind Obama’s obsession in funding this terrorism. The shadow of bigotry and anti-Semitism lurks heavily over everything.

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China launches remote sensing satellite

9:17 am

China today successfully launched a remote sensing satellite, its Long March 2D rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China. Video of the launch can be found here.

No word on where the rocket’s lower stages, using toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

39 SpaceX
15 China
6 Russia
4 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined 45 to 27, while SpaceX by itself still leads the rest of the world, including other American companies, 39 to 33.

To my readers: Posting will be unpredictable for the next few days, as yesterday during a hike I fell, smashing my nose and cracking a rib. The nose is now pretty much fine, though it took a while for the bleeding to stop, but the rib makes doing almost anything somewhat painful. I shall see how the day goes.

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SpaceX launches 23 more Starlink satellites with 1st stage on record-setting 20th flight

7:44 pm

The bunny flies again! SpaceX tonight successfully launched 23 more Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage completed its 20th flight, a new record for a Falcon 9 first stage, landing successfully on a droneship in the Atlantic. At this moment SpaceX is beginning to collect a fleet of Falcon 9 first stage boosters that have flown almost as much as NASA’s space shuttle fleet, which flew as follows:

Discovery 39 flights
Atlantis 33 flights
Columbia: 28 flights
Endeavour 25 flights
Challenger: 10 flights

At present SpaceX has one booster with 20 flights, and two with 19, and I think one with 18. It will take a lot more launches to catch up, but it certainly appears possible for at least a few of these Falcon 9 stages to exceed the shuttle numbers.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

39 SpaceX
14 China
6 Russia
4 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined 45 to 26, while SpaceX by itself now leads the rest of the world, including other American companies, 39 to 32.

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April 12, 2024 Quick space links

3:01 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.

 

 

 

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LA Times: Can California’s coastal commission stop SpaceX launches from Vandenberg?

9:48 am

Link here. This article is a follow-up on the story I posted yesterday, about a meeting of the California Coastal Commission where locals demanded and the commission considered measures for attempting to limit an increase in launches from Vandenberg.

The article provides many more details about this political battle. It appears the military, out of courtesy, was letting the commission know that it wants to raise the number of launches to accomodate not just SpaceX but other private companies. It can do so without the commission’s permission, but wishes to work with it.

The commission and the ten or so people at the meeting complaining were exploring ways to block this increase. Though the meeting postponed any action until the next meeting in May, it was clear its commissioners will use the next few months to explore ways to expand their control, including looking for funding sources for initiating court actions.

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Amazon: First operational launch of Kuiper satellites delayed

9:38 am

Though Amazon’s CEO Andy Jassy, in his annual letter to shareholders yesterday, touted the Kuiper internet constellation’s profit potential, he also implied that the planned first launch of operational satellites has been delayed.

When Project Kuiper’s first two prototype satellites were launched last October for testing, Amazon said that its first production-grade satellites were on track for launch in the first half of 2024, and that it expected broadband service to be in beta testing with selected customers by the end of the year.

Today, Jassy put a slightly different spin on that schedule. “We’re on track to launch our first production satellites in 2024,” he wrote in his letter. “We’ve still got a long way to go, but are encouraged by our progress.”

Later in a television interview Jassy was more blunt, stating that the first operational satellites will not be ready until “the second half of ’24”, with the service becoming available “in the next year or so.”

The company’s incredibly slow roll-out of this constellation puts it at a significant disadvantage. Both it and Starlink were announced at about the same time, but Starlink already has several thousand satellites in orbit, has been operational for several years, and has almost three million customers signed on. It has gotten all the low-hanging fruit. Amazon will either have to convince those customers to switch — generally a difficult thing to do — or find new customers that have so far been less inclined to buy such satellite services.

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Swiss company tests three-legged hopper for asteroid exploration on zero-G airplane

9:26 am

SpaceHopper in flight
SpaceHopper in flight

A Swiss company, ETH Zurich, has successfully tested the ability of an unmanned three-legged hopper, designed to explore asteroids by hoping in the light gravity, to orient itself using its legs by flying on a zero-G airplane.

The picture to the right is a screen capture from the video embedded below.

All nine leg motors [three per leg] work together to launch the SpaceHopper high off the asteroid’s surface when jumping. As the robot is subsequently in flight, it maintains its upright orientation by selectively extending or withdrawing its legs to shift its center of mass as needed. Upon landing, its legs flex to absorb impact and to keep the bot from falling over.

During zero-G on the airplane flights the hopper successfully jumped, then used its legs to correctly orient itself afterward.

Developing this hopper was initially a student project, and its success has gotten it upgraded, still led by those students.
» Read more

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China: Quequiao-2 is successfully operating in lunar orbit

9:04 am

China’s state-run press today announced that its Quequiao-2 communications relay satellite in lunar orbit has successfully completed its initial in-orbit tests, and is functioning as planned.

The satellite successfully completed a communication test on April 6 with Chang’e-4, which is now carrying out an exploration mission on the far side of the moon. From April 8 to 9, it conducted communication tests with the Chang’e-6 probe, which is yet to be launched. Queqiao-2 was launched on March 20 and entered its target highly elliptical orbit on April 2 after midway correction, near-moon braking and orbital maneuver around the moon.

Two communication and navigation technology test satellites, Tiandu-1 and Tiandu-2, were sent into space together with Queqiao-2. They entered their target circumlunar orbits on March 29 and separated with each other on April 3. They are now conducting a series of tests on communication and navigation technology.

According to the article, Quequiao-2’s orbit is relatively stable for a lunar orbit and requires less fuel to maintain. The spacecraft thus should be able to operate for a very long time. The orbit “has also significantly improved its communication coverage on the south pole region of the moon.” It will be used for all of China’s future unmanned and manned lunar missions, and will provide China the ability to do farside missions routinely.

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Switzerland to sign Artemis Accords

8:56 am

NASA revealed today that Switzerland will become the 37th nation to sign the Artemis Accords in an official ceremony on April 15, 2024.

With this signing, these are the members of the American alliance: Angola, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Columbia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

The NASA press release is revealing about the goals of this alliance, under the Biden administration, both by what it says and what it does not say:

The Artemis Accords reinforce the 1967 Outer Space Treaty as well as the commitment by the United States and partner nations to the Registration Convention, the Rescue and Return Agreement, as well as best practices and norms of responsible behavior that NASA and its partners have supported, including the public release of scientific data.

When established by the Trump administration, the accords were not intended to “reinforce the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.” The accords were intended to create an alliance that would have the political clout to overcome that treaty’s limitations on establishing a private property legal framework in space. Right now the treaty seriously impairs investiment because no company has any assurance it will own any piece of ground it occupies.

The press announcement makes no mention of private enterprise, and implies that the Biden administration is aggressively working to eliminate that goal, and instead use the accords as a way to strengthen government control in space.

Under these circumstances, I wonder why China and Russia haven’t signed on as well.

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April 11, 2024 Quick space links

3:41 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.

 

  • Chinese pseudo-company Ispace to build a rocket assembly facility at China’s coastal Wenchang spaceport

    • Including Ispace, four pseudo-companies have similar plans at Wenchang, but the government is building only one pad for their use. Since it appears the governement is retaining control over launches, it will either have to build more pads, or decide at some point more to shutdown some of these pseudo-companies. Since this is China, the companies aren’t real, and can be confiscated or shuttered at will by the communists.

 

 

  • On this day in 1970 Apollo 13 launched

    • The mission became a desperate rescue mission, not a lunar mission, when an explosion in the Apollo capsule’s service module occurred on the way to the Moon. It took some amazing improvisions in space and on the ground to get the crew home safely.

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A squeezed Martian landscape

1:48 pm

A squeezed Martian landscape
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on February 20, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label “tilted blocks in the low northern latitudes.”

At first glance this circle of tilted blocks appear to mark a place where something erupted from below, pushing and cracking the blocks away in all directions. If there was an eruption however it appears very little if anything poured out from below. Instead, the ground inside the hollow in the center is about the same elevation as the ground surrounding the tilted blocks.

Clearly some pressure from below pushed these surface blocks upward to crack and tilt, but the answer cannot be found in this close-up picture. Instead, we need to look wider, not only at the overview map below, but at the inset on that overview map.
» Read more

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A local California commission looks to restrict launches at Vandenberg

10:14 am

Though it has no authority over military launches at Vandenberg, a local California commission is now demanding some control and regulartory power because those launches are now all done by commercial companies.

The demands took place during a public meeting yesterday.

The biggest question centered on whether commercial space launches from Vandenberg could be considered federal activity as commissioners appeared irked at their limited role. They also again expressed disappointment that Vandenberg officials were on hand, but representatives of launch companies weren’t present.

In the end no decision was reached, and the discussion will resume in the next meeting in May. Based on the article at the link, the panel clearly wants more regulatory power to limit launches, but it doesn’t have it and the meeting didn’t give it an opening to grab that power, especially because there were no representatives from private companies to interrogate.

This situation will need watching, as meetings like this are almost always the first shot across the bow by leftist activists. They probe, looking for an opening to exert power. Even if they don’t have it, they use the opening to make trouble to slow things down.

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Rocket startup Relativity foregoes bidding on present round of military launch contracts

10:01 am

The rocket startup Relativity has decided not to bid on the present round of National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 3 contracts, saying the first launch of its new Terran-R rocket will not occur until 2026, well after those contracts are going to be awarded and flown.

Relativity was initially aiming to compete for the first round of NSSL Phase 3 contracts expected to be awarded later this year. However, the California-based company’s new Terran R rocket won’t fly until 2026 at the earliest, which falls outside the timeframe for this year’s NSSL Phase 3 awards. “We’ve been fairly transparent with our schedule over the last year and have continued to hit our milestones,” Joshua Brost, chief revenue officer at Relativity Space, told SpaceNews. “We’re very comfortable about on-ramping to NSSL in the future, likely next year as we approach that 12 months from initial launch.”

Relativity, after completing one partly successful launch of its smaller Terran-1 rocket in 2023, abandoned further development on that rocket in order to focus on its larger Terran-R. That decision however put it out of the launch market for years. I have always wondered if that decision was partly influenced by the increased launch regulation of the FAA in the past two years, which has caused the launches of new American rockets to almost cease. It might have realized getting Terran-1 launched again would be difficult and waste valuable company time and resources. Better to take a break on the hope that by 2026, the regulatory atmosphere might have improved.

Furthermore, Relativity uses very sophisticated 3D technology to build its rockets, an asset whose value on the market is maybe much greater than its rockets. It could be that Relativity is exploring this avenue at the moment, and we might find it never resumes launches.

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TESS in safe mode

9:43 am

NASA today revealed that on April 8, 2024 its TESS space telescope went into safe mode, for reasons that are not yet understood.

NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) entered into safe mode April 8, temporarily interrupting science observations. The team is investigating the root cause of the safe mode, which occurred during scheduled engineering activities. The satellite itself remains in good health.

The spacecraft itself remains healthy and they expect to resume science operations “in the coming days.”

That safe mode occurred while “scheduled engineering activities” were ongoing suggests that the two are linked. The lack of any details from NASA further suggests that someone did a “oops!” during those activities, and they are now scrambling to fix things.

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Japan and NASA ink lunar deal

9:33 am

After several years of discussion, Japan and NASA have finally signed an lunar exploration agreement whereby Japan will build a pressurized rover that astronauts can use to travel large distances in exchange for NASA launching two Japanese astronauts to the Moon.

An enclosed and pressurized rover will enable astronauts to travel farther and conduct science in geographically diverse areas by serving as a mobile habitat and laboratory for the astronauts to live and work for extended periods of time. It will be able to accommodate two astronauts for up to 30 days as they traverse the area near the lunar South Pole. NASA currently plans to use the pressurized rover on Artemis VII and subsequent missions over an approximate 10-year lifespan.

This rover is being built in a deal between Japan’s space agency JAXA and Toyota. It will be very heavy, which meanst NASA is now planning its lunar exploration with Starship as a fundamental part. No other planned lunar lander could bring this kind of mass to the surface.

The two Japanese astronauts will likely fly on two different Artemis missions over that time-span. When these missions will occur will largely depend on how long NASA stubbornly sticks with is SLS/Orion/Lunar Gateway framework for getting astronauts to the Moon. These assets are not yet ready. They are also very cumbersome and expensive and slow. Missions using SLS expecially cannot occur faster than every two years, if that. If NASA depends on them, serious lunar exploration will likely not occur before 2030, at the earliest.

If however SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy becomes operational in the next two years, and NASA switches operations to it instead, the pace will pick up, exponentially. Launches could likely occur multiple times per year, and it will be possible to put large amounts of mass on the Moon quickly. That lunar base will be built fast.

The decision to switch however will require a political decision, one that it appears many in Washington are reluctant to make. First, the Democrats now see Elon Musk as an enemy. Why award his company? Secondly, SLS/Orion/Gateway are great jobs programs. Abandoning them will eliminate a lot of wasteful pork, a sin to the politicos who operate our government for their interests, not the interests of the country.

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Russia and SpaceX complete launches

9:08 am

Early today both Russia and SpaceX completed rocket launches.

First, Russia after several scrubs for technical reasons successfully completed a test launch of the largest configuration of its Angara rocket, the Angara-A5. It was the first launch of Angara-A5 from its far east spaceport Vostochny, and the first test launch of this rocket confiruration since 2014. Development had stalled for many years due to a major design issue revealed in 2019.

This launch establishes several important benchmarks for Russia’s space program. This rocket is essential for its goal of building a new space station, and the launch from Vostochny gives Russia as stronger backup to Baikonur in Kazakhstan, where long-term access is becoming problematic.

SpaceX then followed, with a launch of a military weather satellite, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California. The first stage completed its third flight, landing successfully back at Vandenberg.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

38 SpaceX
14 China
6 Russia
4 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined 44 to 26, while SpaceX by itself still leads the rest of the world, including other American companies, 38 to 32.

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Activists file lawsuit to prevent land swap at Boca Chica

2:51 pm

The same collection of activists who have been waging lawfare against SpaceX’s Boca Chica rocket facility have now filed a new lawsuit, this time against the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission (TPWD) in order to block an approved land swap that gives SpaceX 43 acres of a Boca Chica state park in exchange for receiving 477 acres nearby.

The South Texas Environmental Justice Network, the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas, and Save RGV banded together for a lawsuit filed in the District Court of Travis County on April 3. The suit alleges that Texas Parks and Wildlife violated statutory requirements for the proposal, including the requirement to consider alternatives to giving away public park land; the requirement to ensure the minimization of harm to the public park land; and the requirement to consider the best interests of the local community and TPWD.

These jokers represent very few people in south Texas. Worse, the so-called “Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas” was in Mexico, not Texas, when it existed. The corporation that exists now is a front for filing these lawsuits, taking advantage of the numerous DEI regulations that now exist to favor such minorities.

That the commission approved the swap unanimously, despite heavy pressure from these groups, illustrates the larger support in Texas for what SpaceX is doing. Expect the Texas courts to endorse that support as well. All these suits will do is delay, delay, delay.

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