Category: Points of Information

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

February 15, 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.

This will be Jay’s last quick space links post until March 11th, as he is off to the Solomon Islands as part of a ham radio DX expedition. For those other hams who want to try to make contact with him during this expedition, the call sign is H40WA.

Note too that posting has been light today because of software issue that prevents me from uploading images. I hope it will be fixed momentarily.

 

 

 

 

 

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SpaceX launches 22 Starlink satellites

2:57 pm

SpaceX today successfully launched another 22 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California at 1:34 pm Pacific.

This was the launch scrubbed yesterday, and its launch today means the company completed three launches in less than 24 hours. The first stage successfully completed its second flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

15 SpaceX
8 China
2 Iran
2 Russia

American private enterprise now leads the entire world combined 17 to 14 in successful launches, with SpaceX by itself is leading the rest of the world combined (excluding American companies) 15 to 14.

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OSIRIS-REx brought home twice as much material from Bennu than planned

10:17 am

The inside of OSIRIS-REx's sample return capsule
The material found inside the sample return
capsule. Click for original image.

Curators cataloging the material returned by OSIRIS-REx’s sample capsule from the asteroid Bennu have now completed weighing the material,l and have discovered that the spacecraft grabbed more than twice as much material from Bennu as planned.

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft delivered 4.29 ounces (121.6 grams) of material from asteroid Bennu when it returned to Earth on Sep. 24, 2023; the largest asteroid sample ever collected in space and over twice the mission’s requirement. The mission team needed at least 60 grams of material to meet the mission’s science goals, an amount that had already been exceeded before the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) head was completely opened.

More than 60 grams were recovered outside the capsule that had stuck to it during touch-and-go operations. Once they were able to open the capsule and weigh the material inside, they found it had captured as much stuff, so that in total the mission brought back a double complement of material.

This material will now be distributed to scientists worldwide for study. It is likely that it will overturn almost all assumptions presently held about the make-up of the solar system’s asteroid population, since previous to the recent asteroid sample return missions of OSIRIS-REx and Japan’s Hayabusa-2 our only samples came from material that survived after burning through the Earth’s atmosphere. That journey resulted in an incomplete and biased census, with the most delicate material destroyed.

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Space Force cancels major satellite contract with Northrop Grumman

10:02 am

The Space Force today announced it has cancelled a major multi-satellite contract with Northrop Grumman, worth almost a billion dollars, because of cost overruns and scheduling delays.

Northrop was formally notified last month of the termination within “our restricted Space Business,” the defense contractor said in a regulatory filing, using jargon for classified programs. The filing offered no details on the classified satellite or the reasons it was called off, which were provided by people who commented on condition of anonymity because of its secret status.

Based on previous contract announcements, this cancellation appears to be the contract awarded to Northrop Grumman in August 2023, as part of two awards, one to Northrop and the second to Lockheed Martin, with each building 36 satellites of a 72 satellite communications constellation. The Northrop contract was valued at $733 million.

Apparently in the six months since, the Space Force found that Northrop Grumman wasn’t doing a satisfactory. Whether Lockheed Martin will pick up the contract to replace Northrop however is not clear. The Space Force might put it up for bid again.

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SpaceX moves its corporation home from Delaware to Texas

9:51 am

As had been threatened by Elon Musk, SpaceX has now officially filed to move its incorporation home from Delaware to Texas, taking with it signicant tax dollars.

SpaceX, which was incorporated in the famously corporation-friendly Delaware, filed to relocate its business incorporation with the Texas Secretary of State, Bloomberg reported.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk publicly railed against the Diamond State and a judge’s decision to void his $55 billion Tesla pay package.

Another Musk company, Neuralink, has also shifted its incorpoation from Delaware to Nevada.

None of this involves the movement of any physical facilities. However, Musk is making it very clear once again that if a state government interferes unreasonably with his business operations, he will leave it. He did this by the actual shifting previously large parts of SpaceX operations from California to Texas when California government officials attempted to punish him for remaining open during the Wuhan panic. Now he is doing the same to Delaware because it appears one judge decided he didn’t like Musk’s Tesla’s pay package, even though 80% of the company’s stockholders approved.

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Varda finally gets FAA permission to land its capsule

9:43 am

After more than six months of paper-pushing, the FAA has finally agreed to let the commercial in-space manufacturing startup Varda land its orbiting capsule in Utah.

After months of effort and one rejected application, Varda Space Industries said Feb. 14 it has received a license from the Federal Aviation Administration to return a capsule from its first mission.

The FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation issued a reentry license for Varda’s W-Series 1 spacecraft. The license will allow the company to land a capsule from that spacecraft at the Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR) and neighboring Dugway Proving Ground west of Salt Lake City. Varda said that reentry is scheduled for Feb. 21.

…The company had hoped to return the capsule as early as mid-July, but said then was still working with the FAA to obtain a reentry license, required for any commercial spacecraft returning to Earth. One issue the company said it was facing was that it was the first company seeking a reentry license under new regulations called Part 450 intended to streamline the licensing process, but which some companies reported difficulties adjusting to. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted sentence dishonestly implies it has been the companies that are having problems adjusting to these so-called “streamlined” regulations, when the truth is that the FAA has been the one having the problem. Since Part 450 was established all FAA appovals have slowed to a crawl, when previously the FAA moved much faster.

In fact, that sentence is proven dishonest in the article’s very next paragraphs, which describe how the July approval didn’t happen because two government agencies couldn’t get their act together. Varda really had nothing to do with this lack of approval.

The capsule contains pharmaceuticals for sale on Earth that can not be manufactured in gravity. For the government to delay their return almost half a year simply because of red-tape is disgusting, especially because this delay might end up destroying the startup entirely. It is even more disgusting in that these government agencies have had had no problem approving the return of NASA capsules from space, to this very same Utah range.

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SpaceX successfully launches Intuitive Machines Odysseus lunar lander

11:20 pm

South Pole of Moon with landing sites

SpaceX has successfully launched Intuitive Machines commercial Nova-C-class Odysseus lunar lander, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral at 1:05 am (Eastern) on February 15th.

This was the third launch in less than eleven hours today, and the second launch by SpaceX. The first stage successfully completed its 18th flight, landing back at Cape Canaveral.

The green dot on the map to the right shows the planned landing site for Odysseus, next to a crater with a permanently shadowed interior, though it will have no way to travel into it. This will also be the closest landing to the Moon’s south pole, and if all goes well, will take place eight days from today, where it will operate for about ten Earth days. You can find out more about the lander’s payloads and mission from the press kit [pdf].

It must be emphasized that like India’s Vikram lander and Pragyan rover, Japan’s SLIM lander, and Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander, Odysseus is mostly an engineering test to prove out the landing systems. If this spacecraft does any science on the lunar surface that will be a bonus.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

14 SpaceX
8 China
2 Iran
2 Russia

American private enterprise now leads the entire world combined 16 to 14 in successful launches, with SpaceX by itself is now tied the rest of the world combined (excluding American companies) 14 to 14.

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Russia launches Progress freighter to ISS

8:34 pm

Russia today (February 15th in Kazakhstan) successfully used its Soyuz-2 rocket to launch a Progress freighter to ISS.

As happens on launches from Kazakstan to ISS, the rocket’s core stage and strap-on boosters crashed within Kazakstan inside planned crash zones.

This was supposed to be the third launch today, but SpaceX’s second launch today, this time of 22 Starlink satellites, was scrubbed due to weather and reschduled 24 hours till tomorrow at Vandenberg. There is still one more launch scheduled today, SpaceX launching Intuitive Machines Nova-C lunar lander at 9:57 pm (Pacific).

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

13 SpaceX
8 China
2 Iran
2 Russia

American private enterprise still leads the entire world combined 15 to 14 in successful launches, with SpaceX by itself now trailing the rest of the world combined (excluding American companies) 13 to 14.

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February 14, 2024 Quick space links

3:49 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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SpaceX launches two military prototype satellites

3:38 pm

SpaceX today successfully launched two prototype reconnaissance satellites for the U.S. military, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral at 5:30 pm (Eastern) time.

The first stage successfully completed its seventh flight, landing back on at Cape Canaveral.

This is the first of four launches scheduled for the next eleven hours. Next up is another Falcon 9 launch, carrying 22 Starlink satellites and lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

13 SpaceX
8 China
2 Iran

At present American private enterprise leads the entire world combined 15 to 13 in successful launches, with SpaceX by itself tied with the rest of the world combined (excluding American companies) 13 all.

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Spiders on the rim of a Martian crater

3:06 pm

Spiders on the rim of a Martian crater
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on December 29, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows strange spidery formations on the rim of a 17-mile-wide crater about 500 miles from the south pole of Mars.

Scientists think these spider features are formed due to the seasonal cycle on Mars. In the winter at the poles the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere falls as snow in the polar regions, creating a thin dry ice mantle that covers everything. When spring arrives, sunlight goes through the clear mantle to heat its base, causing that dry ice to sublimate into gas that is trapped below the mantle. Eventually that mantle cracks at a weak point and the gas escapes, spewing dark dust on its top. By summer the mantle is entirely gone, and the black splotches disappear as they blend back into the same colored ground.

At the south pole the ground appears to be firmer and more structurally sound than at the north pole. The trapped gas appears to travel upward along the same tributary paths to the same escape points each year, thus carving these spidery features that are permanent features.
» Read more

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Orbital perturbations caused by passing stars might very well have caused past extinctions

11:21 am

According to new computer simulations, scientists now think that any calculations of the long term changes in the orbits of the planets in our solar system must include the orbital perturbations caused by passing stars, perturbations that might very well have caused past extinctions. From their paper’s introduction:

Simulations of the long-term orbital evolution of the Sun’s planets have nearly always modeled the solar system as an isolated system. For many purposes, this is a very good approximation, but the solar system is of course part of the Milky Way Galaxy. Consequently, it occasionally suffers close encounters with other field stars, and solar neighborhood kinematic studies predict an average of ∼20 stellar passages within 1 [parsec] of the Sun each [million years].

Because the solar system cross section scales with the square of heliocentric distance, the large majority of these encounters will be distant and inconsequential to the planets’ dynamics, but this is not guaranteed. In fact, there is a ∼0.5% chance that a field star passage will trigger the loss of one or more planets over the next 5 [billion years], and such passages may actually guarantee the disruption of the planets’ orbits many [billion years] after the Sun becomes a white dwarf. Yet, encounters need not trigger an instability for them to have dynamical consequences for the planets. For instance, it has been suggested that ∼one-third of Neptune’s modern eccentricity has been generated through past stellar encounters, but many of the long-term dynamical effects of stellar passages remain unknown.

Their simulations as well as other data suggest that for computer models to have any chance of accurately calculating the orbital evolution of the solar system’s planets, those models must include the passing of nearby stars.

Or to put it in more blunt terms, the uncertainties here are so great that it is unlikely any computer model will ever be able to reconstruct our solar system going back further than 50 million years.

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SpaceX announces plans to build $100 million office complex in Brownsville

10:13 am

According to a filing with the Texas Department of Regulations and Licensing, SpaceX is now planning a $100 million office complex in Brownsville, Texas, in addition to the extensive facilities it is building nearby at its launch site at Boca Chica.

Just a few miles away from its launch site, SpaceX will construct the multimillion-dollar office inside an industrial factory. It will be located at 52198 San Martin Blvd., Brownsville, TX 78521, according to the Texas Department of Regulations and Licensing filing.

Construction is slated to begin this month and is expected to have just under a year turnaround. An estimated start date is listed as February 23, with a completion date of January 1, 2025, according to the TDLR filing. All TDLR filings are subject to change.

It seems to me that the activist group Save RGV (Rio Grand Valley) that is suing SpaceX to shut down Boca Chica is acting to destroy this region, not save it. Before SpaceX showed up the economy of Brownsville and the Rio Grand Valley was very depressed and going nowhere. SpaceX has brought in billions in investment capital as well as tens of thousands of new jobs.

One wonders how any court can rule in favor of Save RGV’s lawsuit that seeks to prevent any future temporary beach closures at Boca Chica and thus outlaw any further launches. Such a ruling would essentially shut down much of what SpaceX is doing in the Brownsville region, and would result in the destruction of this new economic growth.

Such a ruling seems insane, but we should not ignore its possibility. Stupider decisions by courts have been made many times in the past. And it does appear we live in very stupid times.

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Many launches in the next 24 hours, even with some having been scrubbed

10:01 am

The next 24 hours will be one of the most busy launch days in human history, and it will achieve this even though two launches have already been scrubbed and rescheduled.

First the scrubs. Last night SpaceX called off the launch of Intuitive Machiens Nova-C lunar lander, set for shortly after midnight, because of “off-nominal methane temperatures prior to stepping into methane load.” Since the Falcon 9 rocket doesn’t use methane as a fuel, I am puzzled by this. Nonetheless, the company has rescheduled this launch for tonight.

The second scrub was by Japan’s space agency JAXA, which cancelled the second test launch of its new H3 rocket due to weather issues (the first test launch was a failure). It has rescheduled the launch to February 17th.

Even with these scrubs, there are still four launches scheduled in the next 24 hours, listed below with the times all adjusted to Pacific time to give a sense of the pace. The links go to the live streams of each launch.

  • 2:30 pm: SpaceX Falcon 9 launch of two military satellites from Cape Canaveral
  • 4:30 pm: SpaceX Falcon 9 launch of 22 Starlink satellites from Vandenberg
  • 7:25 pm: Russian Soyuz-2 launch of Progress freighter to ISS from Kazakhstan
  • 9:57 pm: SpaceX launch of Intuitive Machines Nova-C lunar lander from Cape Canaveral

That’s four launches in less than eleven hours from three different spaceports. SpaceX by itself will attempt three launches in one day, something that is unprecedented for a private company.

I think four launches on a single day has been attempted previously, but not achieved. We shall see if SpaceX and Russia make it happen today.

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Update on SpaceX preparations for 3rd Superheavy/Starship orbital test launch

9:35 am

Link here. SpaceX is apparently now gearing up for a wet dress rehearsal countdown, whereby it performs a full countdown, including fueling both stages and taking everything to T-0. Such rehearsals are a standard procedure for all SpaceX launches.

Whether this launch will occur in early March, as Musk claimed yesterday, remains very uncertain, but not for technical reasons.

The FAA said that the mishap investigation for OFT-2 is still open, pending more information from SpaceX. The license modification requires all needed information to be submitted and reviewed, and the investigation needs to be closed before Starship returns to flight.

Apparently SpaceX has not yet completed its own investigation of the November second test launch. If so, this third launch might be delayed until April, since after the first test launch in April the FAA and Fish & Wildlife took three months after receiving SpaceX’s completed investigation report to approve it and issue a license. The FAA falsely claimed it was doing its own investigation, but the GAO has made it clear this is not so. All it does is rubber stamp the investigations of private companies.

We shall see. Some reports have said that no Fish & Wildlife approval will be required this time, which will speed things up. Others have indicated that the FAA is ready to move quicker. Even so, there remains the outstanding lawsuit by activists against the closing of nearby beaches for each launch. If those litigants demand a court injunction against such closures while the case is on-going, this launch could be delayed far longer.

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One instrument on Perseverance has a problem

9:16 am

One of the instruments on the Mars rover Perseverance appears to have a problem that is preventing it from using its laser to collect spectroscopic data of the nearby Martian surface.

Data and imagery from NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover indicate one of two covers that keep dust from accumulating on the optics of the SHERLOC instrument remains partially open. In this position, the cover interferes with science data collection operations. Mounted on the rover’s robotic arm, SHERLOC uses cameras, a spectrometer, and a laser to search for organic compounds and minerals that have been altered in watery environments and may be signs of past microbial life.

The mission determined on Jan. 6 that the cover was oriented in such a position that some of its operation modes could not successfully operate. An engineering team has been investigating to determine the root cause and possible solutions. Recently, the cover partially opened. To better understand the behavior of the cover’s motor, the team has been sending commands to the instrument that alter the amount of power being fed to it.

Should this troubleshooting fail to fix the dust cover, the rover’s other instruments can still compensate, gathering spectroscopy in other ways. Losing SHERLOC however will still reduce the data that Perseverance can obtain.

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February 13, 2024 Quick space links

3:20 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.

 

 

 

  • Progress undocks from ISS

    • This undocking today clears the Zvezda port for a new Progress launching on February 15, 2024. Note the use of Zvezda. When stress fractures were found in that module, Russia had said it would no longer dock there. Apparently the Russians are now satisfied that the repairs done by their astronauts are sufficient to prevent further fractures and leaks. Or maybe the Russians are willing to deal with the risk for the few years left before ISS is retired.

 

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German-built mini-rover for Japanese Phobos mission shipped to Japan

10:05 am

A German-built mini-rover, dubbed Idefix, has now been shipped to Japan to intergrate it as a secondary payload on that country’s MMX mission to the Martian moon Phobos.

The rover itself weighs 25 kilograms (55 pounds), is 51 centimeters long (20 inches), and is designed to explore up to 100 meters of Phobos’ surface. During one of MMX’s closest approaches to Phobos, the rover will be released at an altitude between 40 and 100 meters above the surface and touch down on Phobos. The drop utilizes the low gravity of Phobos, which will allow IDEFIX to just fall onto the surface, roll, and then raise itself to prepare for the roughly three-month-long mission. The gravity of Phobos is only roughly 1/1000th of the gravity of Earth, which can be attributed to the moon’s small size. Phobos only has a diameter of approximately 27 kilometers.

“Thanks to the low gravity, IDEFIX will need between 60 to 80 seconds from release to the touchdown on Phobos. The impact will be with less than one meter per second,” explained Professor Markus Grebenstein, who is DLR’s project lead for IDEFIX, in an interview with NSF.

If all goes right, the rover’s mission will last at least 100 days. MMX itself it scheduled to reach Phobos in 2029.

Meanwhile, scientists used one of the Perseverance’s high resolution cameras to capture another partial eclipse of the Sun by Phobos. This is not the first such Phobos eclipse that Perseverance has photographed (see for example here and here), but it is neat nonetheless.

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Water found on two main-belt asteroids?

9:44 am

Using data from the now-retired SOFIA airplane telescope, scientists think they have detected evidence of water molecules on Iris and Massalia, two well-known asteroids in the main asteroid belt.

“We detected a feature that is unambiguously attributed to molecular water on the asteroids Iris and Massalia,” Arredondo said. “We based our research on the success of the team that found molecular water on the sunlit surface of the Moon. We thought we could use SOFIA to find this spectral signature on other bodies.”

SOFIA detected water molecules in one of the largest craters in the Moon’s southern hemisphere. Previous observations of both the Moon and asteroids had detected some form of hydrogen but could not distinguish between water and its close chemical relative, hydroxyl. Scientists detected roughly equivalent to a 12-ounce bottle of water trapped in a cubic meter of soil spread across the lunar surface, chemically bound in minerals.

“Based on the band strength of the spectral features, the abundance of water on the asteroid is consistent with that of the sunlit Moon,” Arredondo said. “Similarly, on asteroids, water can also be bound to minerals as well as adsorbed to silicate and trapped or dissolved in silicate impact glass.”

You can read their paper here.

There remains uncertainty with this result, but there is also no reason for water not to be found on these main belt asteroids. They are far enough away from the Sun so that conditions are likely cold enough for that water to remain frozen or locked in the ground.

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Botswana bans Starlink

9:36 am

On February 2, 2024 regulators in Botswana rejected SpaceX’s application to sell Starlink terminals in that country, “citing the company’s failure to meet all requirements.”

In an email statement, BOCRA [Botswana Communications Regulatory Authority] emphasized that Starlink has not authorized any entity to import or resell its Internet kits in Botswana. Offenders will be committing an offence, although the specific charges remain undisclosed.

Notably, some Starlink kit owners, who claim to have purchased the devices for personal use, find themselves stranded at the Kazungula border in Zambia, facing restrictions on bringing the kits into Botswana. Options provided at the border include returning the device to Zambia or seeking permission from Botswana’s telco regulator, with no successful requests reported thus far.

The article is unclear as to what government requirements SpaceX has so far failed to meet. The article however does describe how many individuals have purchased Starlink terminals elsewhere and then brought them into countries where the service is not yet approved and used the company’s “roaming option in Africa” to make them work. SpaceX has been shutting down such terminals, but apparently it has not been entirely successful.

The bottom line here remains an issue of freedom versus government control. Africans very clearly want the service, and in fact the article describes at length the benefits it brings to poor rural areas. Freedom demands they should get it, as its use does no one harm and everyone good. All that stands in the way is government regulation and intransigence.

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Musk: 3rd Starship/Superheavy test launch expected in early March

9:27 am

According to a tweet on X by Elon Musk, the third test flight of SpaceX’s heavy-lift Starship/Superheavy rocket is now expected in about three weeks, in early March.

The rocket is presently on the launchpad, undergoing final tests.

This confirms my December prediction that the launch would not happen earlier than March. SpaceX was ready to launch in January, but as I predicted red tape in the federal government have left the rocket sitting on the ground.

However, that prediction may have been too optimistic. First, SpaceX has still not gotten its launch license from the FAA, with no word from that agency when it will rubber-stamp SpaceX’s investigation into the second test launch in November. Second, the lawsuit by activists challenging the right of local authorities to close beaches at Boca Chica for launches remains active. It is very possible those activists will be successful in getting the court to issue an injunction preventing any beach closures (and thus launches) while the case is being litigated. If so, the next test launch could be months away.

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The core and upper stages of the first Ariane-6 rocket are now on the way to French Guiana

9:17 am

After almost a decade of development and delays of more than four years, the core and upper stages of Europe’s Ariane-6 rocket are now on board ship and on the way to French Guiana for that rocket’s inaugural launch.

The Canopée ship left the port of Le Havre, in France, carrying the core and upper stages of the Ariane 6 launcher which will be used on the inaugural flight. Arrival at the port of Pariacabo in Kourou, French Guiana, from where it will be transferred to Europe’s Spaceport, is scheduled for the end of February.

Once in French Guiana, the two stages will be assembled vertically and once on the launchpad, will then have attached two solid-fueled strap-on boosters. The launch window is presently from June 15th to July 31st.

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SpaceX has caused a 77% drop in price for transferring data by satellite

9:12 am

According to a new study, SpaceX’s lower launch costs and its Starlink satellite constellation has caused a 77% drop in the price for transfering data by satellite in the past five years.

The costs involved in providing capacity have also declined in recent years following satellite manufacturing advances — and greater availability of launches thanks primarily to SpaceX. The average cost base of supplying HTS capacity in North America has dropped from around $40 a month per megabit per second in 2019 to about $12 in 2023, according to Euroconsult.

However, Euroconsult expects costs to stabilize over the next two to three years in the Americas and Europe, potentially slowing down the decline in capacity prices.

I think Euroconsult might be wrong about that last conclusion. Increased competition in the launch industry as well as the launch of other satellite constellations will force further drops in prices. The only threat to this continuing drop will outside forces, such as an overall economic collapse, war, or increased regulation.

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February 12, 2024 Quick space links

3:27 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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Martian dunes with strange splotches

2:00 pm

Martian dunes with splotches

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on December 20, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the science team labels as “Dunes with Blotches.”

The blotches, or as I call them splotches, are the round dark patches on dunes themselves. Though their darkness is reminiscent of the dark patches that appear as spider features in the south polar regions of Mars, there are problems linking the two. The spiders form when the winter mantle of dry ice that falls as snow begins to weaken when the Sun reappears in the spring. Sunlight travels through the clear dry ice to warm the base of the mantle, causing it to sublimate into carbon dioxide gas. That gas however is trapped at the base, and only escapes when the thin mantle cracks at weak points. As the gas puffs out it carries with it dust, which leaves dark patches on the surface that disappear when the mantle disappears entirely by summer.

In the southern hemisphere at the poles the ground is somewhat stable, so the trapped gas appears to travel along the same paths each year to the same weak spots. This in turn causes it to carve spidery patterns in the ground, like river tributaries, except here the tributaries of gas flow uphill to their escape point. At the north pole the ground is not as stable. Instead we have many dunes, so that the dry ice mantle sublimates away at different places each year. There is no chance to form such spider patterns over time.

Making these splotches more puzzling is the season. This picture was taken in the winter, at a time one would think no dry ice is sublimating away.
» Read more

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The volcanic world of Io, as seen by Juno in all its fly-bys

9:16 am

Map of Io
Click for full resolution image.

The mosaic of images above, reduced and sharpened to post here, was compiled by citizen scientists Gerald Eichstädt, Jason Perry, and John Rogers from images taken of the Jupiter moon Io during the three close fly-bys by the orbiter Juno that occurred during its 55th, 57th, and 58th orbits. From the caption:

Global map of Io by JunoCam, combining maps from PJ55, PJ57 and PJ58. Both the sunlit side and the Jupiter-lit-dark side are included. PJ55 map by Gerald Eichstädt; PJ57 map by Jason Perry; PJ58 map by Gerald Eichstädt and John Rogers. Some scaling and shifting was performed in order to align the maps with each other and with the USGS Voyager/Galileo map. Colours were adjusted for better compatability. –John Rogers.

A labeled version, showing the names of many volcanoes but only of the areas photographed during the most recent 58th orbit fly-by on February 3, 2024, can be seen here.

As Juno’s later fly-bys will be progressively farther away, we will no longer get better views of Io until another spacecraft arrives in a Jupiter orbit capable to returning to Io, possibly decades from now. Though Europa Clipper will arrive in Jupiter orbit April 2030, that orbit is designed to repeatedly fly close past Europa, and will likely never get close to Io.

Thus, this map provides a baseline for determing any changes that occur on Io in the coming years.

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Ukraine: Russia using Starlink; Musk: No we don’t allow it

8:40 am

Over the weekend Ukrainain officials reiterated the claim from last week that Russia soldiers are using Starlink terminals illegally in occupied territories.

Earlier on Sunday, Ukrainian military intelligence said Russia is using Musk’s satellites to facilitate communications on the battlefield. The intelligence agency posted audio of an exchange between two Russian soldiers from the 83rd Assault Brigade in the Donetsk region, claiming that the Russians were speaking over Starlink.

Ukraine intelligence did not specify how many terminals it believed Russia had or how they might have been obtained. Still, Ukrainian Military Intelligence Spokesperson Andriy Yusov said that the use of Starlink by Russians was becoming “systemic.”

Musk soon responded on X, stating that SpaceX does not sell any of its terminals in Russia, and it immediately blocks use of stolen terminals in Russia once detected.

Musk however was very careful to say nothing about what happens in the occupied territories of the Ukraine where Russia troops operate. In the recent slow gains of territory that the Russians have achieved it could have captured terminals and begun using them, in their correct location. SpaceX would have no way to knowing who the user is.

I expect SpaceX will now take actions to deal with this issue, using information provided by the Ukrainians.

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Greece signs Artemis Accords

10:00 am

Greece yesterday became the 35th nation to sign the Artemis Accords, joining the American alliance established by these bi-laterial individual agreements between the U.S. and each nation.

The full list of signatories to the Accords is now as follows: 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, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, and the United States.

The original goal of the Artemis Accords, established during the Trump administration, was to create an alliance focused on allowing property rights in space that would also act to establish legal rules to protect those rights, something that the Outer Space Treaty forbids. It appears that under the Biden administration those goals have increasingly been pushed aside for the globalist goals of the UN. The language of NASA’s press release illustrates this:

“As humanity embarks on a great adventure, returning to the Moon and preparing for traveling beyond the Moon, the Artemis Accords serve as a beacon of collaboration and cooperation among nations, paving the way for a sustainable and peaceful exploration of space,” said [Giorgos Gerapetritis, Greek’s foreign minister].

The Artemis Accords reinforce and implement key obligations in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. They also strengthen the commitment by the United States and signatory nations to the Registration Convention, the Rescue and Return Agreement, as well as best practices NASA and its partners support, including the public release of scientific data. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted word is one of the many buzzwords used by globalists to signal their priorities, similar to the use of the term ” equitable access” by Belgium officials when it signed the accords in January. Rather than focus on allowing private enterprise and freedom, the focus now is to establish rules to control what people do.

The right leadership from the United States could change this shift in focus, but right now the U.S. does not have such leadership.

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SpaceX launches 22 Starlink satellites

11:50 pm

After about four scrubs due to weather, SpaceX today finally launched another 22 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The first stage successfully completed its fourteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

12 SpaceX
8 China
2 Iran

At present American private enterprise leads the entire world combined 14 to 13 in successful launches.

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