October 5, 2022 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold in two parts.
To listen to all of John Batchelor’s podcasts, go here.
» Read more
Category: Points of Information
Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.
SpaceX launches another 52 Starlink satellites
Capitalism in space: SpaceX this afternoon successfully completed its second Falcon 9 launch of the day, placing 52 Starlink satellites into orbit from Vandenberg..
The seven hour gap between launches was a record for the shortest time between two SpaceX launches. The first stage landed successfully on a drone ship in the Pacific, completing its fifth flight.
The leaders in the 2022 launch race:
45 SpaceX
41 China
12 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 ULA
American private enterprise now leads China 64 to 41 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 64 to 61. The U.S. total, 64, ties the total from 1965, the second most active year in American rocketry. The record of 70 successful launches, set in 1966, will almost certainly be broken sometime in the next month.
Another “What the heck?” formation on Mars
Click for full image.
Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on May 28, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and shows what the scientists label “unique terrain.”
I have increased the contrast to bring out the details. It appears that we have a flat plain of criss-crossing ridges that in large areas have somehow gotten flattened across their top. Imagine someone laying plaster on a wall and using a scraper tool to smooth the surface, but only partially. In this case on Mars, our imaginary worker only smoothed the surface a little, and only in some areas. To try to come up with a geological process however to explain this seems daunting.
And what created the criss-crossing ridges? The overview map provides only a little help in answering these questions.
» Read more
October 5, 2022 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, who reads Twitter so I don’t have to.
- The fixes needed to get Russia’s Luna-25 ready for launch in the summer of 2023
Jay says, “I bet you a Coke it will not launch on that date.” I wouldn’t take that bet if I were you.
- China names its new sea launch platform HAIFA
My question: Why did they name it after an Israeli city?
- The UK and South Korea join U.S. anti-satellite missile test ban coalition
They join Canada, Germany, Japan, and New Zealand, making seven total, including the U.S.
- ESA unveils latest design of its ESPRIT refueling module for Lunar Gateway
According to Anatoly Zak, this is a major redesign.
- Iran releases close-up of suborbital rocket that launched what it claims was a test of a rocket upper kick stage subbed Saman
Might be true. Might not. Nothing that comes from Iran’s state-run press can be trusted.
Pushback: Cornell’s library lifts its blackballing of Abraham Lincoln
Our modern dark age: Faced with a storm of criticism from donors, alumni, and the public, the removal of a bust of Abraham Lincoln from the library at Cornell University, has been cancelled, and Lincoln will once again be given an honored place at the university.
The bust’s removal, along with a plaque celebrating Lincoln’s Gettysburg address (to the right), were removed in 2021 because some unnamed individual had filed a complaint. As I noted in June:
» Read more
Firefly wins Space Force launch contract
Capitalism in space: Shortly after Firefly completed the first successful orbital launch of its Alpha rocket, the U.S. Space Force awarded the company its first military launch contract.
The VICTUS NOX mission will demonstrate an end-to-end Tactically Responsive Space capability, including the launch segment, space segment, ground segment, and on-orbit operations. VICTUS NOX will perform a Space Domain Awareness (SDA) mission from Low-Earth Orbit (LEO).
The next Alpha mission, a demonstration launch of a climate smallsat for NASA, presently hopes to launch before the end of the year, though more likely early next year.
Virgin Orbit ready to launch from Cornwall, United Kingdom
Capitalism in space: Virgin Orbit announced today that it has completed its preparations for its first launch from Cornwall, United Kingdom, which would also be the first launch ever from British soil.
An actual launch date has not yet been set, due to the “launch permitting regulatory process” in the UK. At the moment Cornwall is vying with two new spaceports in Scotland for the honor of that first launch.
SpaceX successfully launches astronauts to ISS
Capitalism in space: SpaceX this morning successfully launched two NASA astronauts, one Japanese astronaut, and one Russian astronaut into orbit for a mission to ISS, with the docking scheduled for tomorrow.
The capsule, Endurance, is making its second flight. This was SpaceX’s eighth manned launch. The first stage, making its first fight, landed successfully on the drone ship in the Atlantic. This was the first new first stage launched since May 2022, and only the second this year. All other launches in 2022 were completed using SpaceX’s existing fleet of boosters. The company also continues to hold to the pattern of last year for maintaining that fleet, by adding two new boosters each year.
That this achievement is now becoming as routine as SpaceX’s unmanned launches proves the company’s success. And SpaceX did it in less than a decade, something NASA with its government-built shuttle was never able to accomplish.
The leaders in the 2022 launch race:
44 SpaceX
41 China
12 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 ULA
American private enterprise now leads China 63 to 41 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 63 to 61.
ULA successfully launches two communications satellites
Capitalism in space: ULA today successfully used its Atlas-5 rocket to place two SES communications satellites into orbit.
Satellite deployment will occur in about five hours, after the rocket gets them to their proper geosynchronous orbit.
43 SpaceX
41 China
12 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 ULA
American private enterprise now leads China 62 to 41, and the entire globe combined 62 to 61. This lead will grow before the week is out. SpaceX has scheduled two launches on October 5th, first a manned mission to ISS followed a few hours later by an unmanned launch of 52 Starlink satellites. Rocket Lab follows on October 6 with another Electron launch.
October 4, 2022 Quick space links
- Northrop Grumman names next Cygnus cargo freighter after Sally Ride
The launch is presently scheduled for November 6, 2022.
- China to develop nine new rocket engines by 2028
The first on the list is their attempt to copy or beat SpaceX’s Raptor-2 engine. I wonder if their academic spies in the U.S. have managed to steal some juicy engineering data.
- Astronauts growing rice and tomatoes on Tiangong-3 space station
Too early to say if these experiments are a success, but they follow many similar planet experiments on the Salyut stations, Mir, and ISS.
- Iran completes suborbital rocket test launch
According to the state-run press, the rocket, dubbed Saman, tested an “orbital transmission system and … its capability to change the orbit of satellites in near-space conditions.”
- Viasat sells off part of its company to pay debts
Company officials try to paint a rosy picture, but the future does not look good for this established geosynchronous satellite company.
- OneWeb satellites installed on GSLV rocket for October launch
Though OneWeb signed first with SpaceX to replace the Russians launch services, it appears the company wants to launch first with India.
Today’s blacklisted Americans: UC-Berkeley law school clubs ban Jewish speakers
Becoming Judenfrei at UC-Berkeley
Persecution is now cool! Nine different law school clubs at the University of California-Berkeley have now made it their official policy to ban all “pro-Zionist” speakers, and are doing so with the full support of the college administration.
And these are not groups that represent only a small percentage of the student population. They include Women of Berkeley Law, Asian Pacific American Law Students Association, Middle Eastern and North African Law Students Association, Law Students of African Descent and the Queer Caucus. Berkeley Law’s Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, a progressive Zionist, has observed that he himself would be banned under this standard, as would 90% of his Jewish students.
Zionism has always been used by leftist hate-monger groups as a euphemism for Jew. Its meaning is generally unclear and vague, and in the end usually ends up covering anyone who is support of Israel’s existence. Since this opinion fits the description almost every Jew, banning Zionism essentially bans Jews.
The university’s support and backing of this anti-Semitic ban has come from Dean Chemerinsky himself, who admits he would be banned under these rules but in a rebuttal posted at the link above, expresses full support for the anti-Semitic policy of these clubs.
» Read more
Chandra takes an X-ray look at early Webb infrared observations
Chandra’s X-ray view of the Cartwheel Galaxy
Webb’s infrared view of the Cartwheel Galaxy
Click for full image.
Hubble’s optical view of the Cartwheel Galaxy. Click for original image.
Astronomers have now taken X-ray images using the orbital Chandra X-ray Observatory of four of the first Webb Space Telescope observations. The four targets were the Cartwheel Galaxy, Stephan’s Quintet, galaxy cluster SMACS 0723.3–7327, and the Carina Nebula.
The three images to the right illustrate the importance of studying astronomy across the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Each shows the Cartwheel Galaxy as seen by three of the world’s most important space-based telescopes, each looking at the galaxy in a different wavelength.
The top picture is Chandra’s new X-ray observations. As the press release notes,
Chandra data generally show higher-energy phenomena (like superheated gas and the remnants of exploded stars) than Webb’s infrared view. … X-rays seen by Chandra (blue and purple) come from superheated gas, individual exploded stars, and neutron stars and black holes pulling material from companion stars.
The middle picture was produced by Webb, shortly after the start of its science operations. It looks at the galaxy in the infrared.
In this near- and mid-infrared composite image, MIRI data are colored red while NIRCam data are colored blue, orange, and yellow. Amidst the red swirls of dust, there are many individual blue dots, which represent individual stars or pockets of star formation. NIRCam also defines the difference between the older star populations and dense dust in the core and the younger star populations outside of it.
The bottom picture was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995. I have rotated the image to match the others. It looks at the galaxy in optical wavelengths, the wavelengths that our eyes perceive.
Note how bright the central galactic region is in the infrared and optical, but is invisible in X-rays. Chandra is telling us that all the most active regions in the Cartwheel are located in that outer ring, not in its center.