Category: Points of Information

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

First suspect arrested in pipe bomb mailings

9:56 am

The FBI has arrested its first suspect in the pipe bomb mailings the past two weeks against Democratic politicians and activists.

Not much information has been released as yet about the man that I can believe. I have seen two reports that contradicted each other by saying he belonged to opposite political parties.

It is a sad testament of the low state of today’s American culture that ordinary political debate now uses these terrorist acts to score points. There are bad extremists on both sides. Only when politicians use them for their own political gain does the situation worsen.

And from what I see, the politicians that appear to be doing this the most are those on the left. Most shameful.

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Intriguing water-ice cloud on Mars

9:41 am

Water-ice cloud over Arsia Mons

An extended water-ice cloud has formed recently on the downwind side of the large Martian volcano Arsia Mons. The image above, cropped to post here, was taken by Europe’s Mars Express orbiter, and shows the cloud extending westward from the volcano.

In spite of its location, this atmospheric feature is not linked to volcanic activity but is rather a water ice cloud driven by the influence of the volcano’s leeward slope on the air flow – something that scientists call an orographic or lee cloud – and a regular phenomenon in this region.

The cloud can be seen in this view taken on 10 October by the Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC) on Mars Express – which has imaged it hundreds of times over the past few weeks – as the white, elongated feature extending 1500 km westward of Arsia Mons. As a comparison, the cone-shaped volcano has a diameter of about 250 km.

… Mars just experienced its northern hemisphere winter solstice on 16 October. In the months leading up to the solstice, most cloud activity disappears over big volcanoes like Arsia Mons; its summit is covered with clouds throughout the rest of the martian year.

However, a seasonally recurrent water ice cloud, like the one shown in this image, is known to form along the southwest flank of this volcano – it was previously observed by Mars Express and other missions in 2009, 2012 and 2015.

What the article does not mention about these seasonal water ice clouds is that they are thought to be related to the evidence of past glaciers on the volcano’s western slopes. Some scientists believe that significant underground ice, left over from those glaciers, is what causes the clouds.

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First ULA Vulcan launch delayed a year to 2021

9:29 am

The first ULA Vulcan launch has been delayed a year to 2021.

In an interview [at a recent conference, John Elbon, chief operating officer of ULA,] said the shift in the first launch to April 2021 is linked to the requirements of the LSA award from the Air Force. “As the procurement schedule was laid out, the Air Force schedule changed, and we synced up with that,” he said, adding that the company was moving ahead with more aggressive internal schedules for Vulcan’s development.

“While ULA was on schedule from a technical standpoint to meet 2020 target, once we reviewed the Air Force’s timeline in the LSA proposals & incorporated [additional] requirements into our plan, we aligned #VulcanCentaur launch dates to meet the Air Force schedule,” the company tweeted.

The LSA awards were Air Force subsidies ranging from $500 to $1 billion given to ULA, Northrop Grumman, and Blue Origin last week to support development of their new rockets. And just as Blue Origin was forced to immediately delay its first New Glenn launch after obtaining this award, so has ULA.

In other words, gaining big development money from the Air Force forced both companies to delay their launch to meet the Air Force’s demands, something that SpaceX apparently decided not to do.

We shall see in the coming years which approach works best for making the most money. I favor SpaceX.

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SpaceX lands another Falcon Heavy contract; seeks big loan

9:20 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX has signed another Falcon Heavy launch contract, this time with the satellite company Viasat.

What is interesting here is that Viasat had previously had a Falcon Heavy contract, but switched to the Ariane 5 because of the long delays leading to the rocket’s first launch. That they have returned indicates that there is a strong need for a rocket that can lift this kind of large payload, even as a large part of the satellite industry is also miniaturizing.

In related news, SpaceX is reported to be negotiating for a half billion dollar loan.

Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX is seeking to borrow $500 million in the leveraged loan market, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is leading the talks with potential investors this week, said the people, who asked not to be identified because plan is private. Spokesmen for Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and Goldman Sachs declined to comment.

This is especially interesting, based on the company’s philosophy to avoid taking government development money. While Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman, and ULA recently accepted Air Force rocket development subsidies ranging from half a billion to a billion dollars for future military launches, SpaceX did not. Some reports suggested this meant the Air Force was going to exclude SpaceX in future contract bidding, a suggestion that I think is patently false.

This loan probably relates to development of the BFR, and will allow SpaceX to build it according to its desires, not the Air Force’s.

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Astronomers confirm Earth has satellite dust clouds

9:05 am

Astronomers have confirmed the existence of two satellite dust clouds at the Earth’s L4 and L5 Lagrange points 250 thousand miles away, first spotted back in the 1960s.

The images they obtained show polarised light reflected from dust, extending well outside the field of view of the camera lens. The observed pattern matches predictions made by the same group of researchers in an earlier paper and is consistent with the earliest observations of the Kordylewski clouds six decades ago. Horváth’s group were able to rule out optical artefacts and other effects, meaning that the presence of the dust cloud is confirmed.

Since these locations are potential space station locations, determining the existence and nature of these dust clouds is important.

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More successful image downloads for Curiosity

11:24 am

It increasingly looks like the computer download issues on the Mars rover Curiosity are being solved. For the first time in more than five weeks engineers were able to download numerous images from both of the rovers hazard avoidance cameras as well as both of its navigation cameras. More importantly, for the first time in five weeks they were able to do this two days in a row.

The Curiosity science team has as yet released no press update, but it appears that they are carefully testing the computer to make sure it is functioning properly. This computer was the rover’s original primary computer, but when it had problems several months after landing they had switched to the back-up computer. When that back-up computer had problems sending data back to Earth in September they decided to switch back to the original computer, which had been thought fixed.

Because of the original issues with the primary computer I suspect they are simply proceeding very slowly, so as not to have something fail in a manner that will not be recoverable. First they used it two weeks ago to upload a handful of small images from the hazard avoidance and navigation cameras. Then, after a week of analysis they uploaded a few more images from these cameras.

Then, after another week of analysis, they uploaded a full complement of images from all four cameras, and they did it two days in a row, suggesting that they are increasingly confident that the computer is operating correctly.

I expect a press release updating us on the specifics any time now.

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Hayabusa-2 completes third Ryugu touchdown rehearsal

9:34 am

Ryugu up close

Hayabusa-2 today completed its third Ryugu touchdown rehearsal.

According to their operation schedule, they were planning to descent to about 20 meters of the surface, about 65 feet. The image on the right is the closest image taken during the rehearsal. You can see the shadow of Hayabusa-2 in the middle of the frame.

They have not released any information about the rehearsal results. The key here is how accurately they were able to get Hayabusa-2 to approach the asteroid’s largest flat spot, a tiny 20 meter wide spot less than half the size of their original planned landing diameter. From the image, it is unclear how successful they were.

They will now spend the next two months analyzing the data from their landing rehearsals in preparation for a landing attempt in January. During this time observations will be reduced because the Sun will be between the Earth and the asteroid.

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Virgin Orbit reveals LauncherOne rocket attached to its 747 launch vehicle

9:21 am

Capitalism in space: Virgin Orbit has begun fit tests of its LauncherOne rocket attached to its 747 launch vehicle.

This suggests that they are getting close to the first taxi and flight tests of this smallsat rocket, originally promised for the summer that just ended.

I am increasingly confident that my 2016 prediction that Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne will reach space before Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo will be correct, even though the former has been in serious development only about four years compared to the latter’s now fifteen year history of no space flights.

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Blue Origin’s ship for its 1st stage landings arrives in Florida

8:57 am

Capitalism in space: The ship that Blue Origin plans to restructure into a landing platform for the first stages of its New Glenn orbital rocket has docked in a Florida port.

The 600-foot cargo ship the Stena Freighter arrived in the Port of Pensacola on Thursday after making a transatlantic voyage from Portugal.

Blue Origin, the private rocket company started by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, will be using the ship as a landing platform for the company’s New Glenn rocket design expected to lift off in 2020 for its first test flight.

Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith confirmed during the Aerospace Futures Alliance Summit on Oct. 10 that the Stena Freight would be used to land rockets, according to a report from the technology news website GeekWire.

The article does not provide much more information, other than a much bigger public announcement is planned about this in about a week.

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Parker looks back at Earth

8:51 am

Earth and Moon, taken by the Parker Solar Probe

The Parker Solar Probe, flying inward towards its first close fly-by of the Sun, has looked back at the Earth and snapped its picture.

The image was captured by the WISPR (Wide-field Imager for Solar Probe) instrument, which is the only imaging instrument on board Parker Solar Probe. During science phases, WISPR sees structures within the Sun’s atmosphere, the corona, before they pass over the spacecraft.

…Zooming in on Earth reveals a slight bulge on the right side: that is the Moon, just peeking out from behind Earth. At the time the image was taken, Parker Solar Probe was about 27 million miles from Earth.

The importance of this image is that it demonstrates that the spacecraft’s camera is working properly, and that the spacecraft itself can point accurately.

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Russian Soyuz rocket launches military satellite

8:39 am

Only two weeks since a Soyuz rocket failure during a manned launch the Russians have resumed Soyuz launches with the lift-off today of a military reconnaissance satellite from their Plesetsk spaceport.

The article provides this extra piece of information about the failure two weeks ago:

While investigations into the failure have not yet concluded, initial reports have suggested that one of the four boosters that comprise the first stage of Soyuz failed to separate cleanly. This is believed to have made contact with the second stage, puncturing one of its propellant tanks and throwing the rocket out of control.

This resulted in thrust termination – the rocket’s engines being shut down as a safety measure – and triggered the spacecraft’s automated abort mechanism.

No root cause has been announced. However, speculation initially pointed at a failure of a valve to open that would have vented residual oxidizer from the booster, pushing it away from the vehicle.

Later reports have suggested that the booster was installed incorrectly when the rocket was assembled – having been forced into a mounting lug that was bent out of shape in the process. A similar anomaly reportedly occurred during an unmanned launch in March 1986. The Russian State Commission into the MS-10 failure is expected to deliver its report at the end of the month. [emphasis mine]

The launch does bode well for resuming manned launches in December, as originally planned. That it is possible that this problem has occurred previously and has reoccurred is not good. One would have thought they would have instituted engineering design changes to prevent a repeat.

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Suspicious packages mailed to Democrats

3:23 pm

The hate grows: Several suspicious packages, mailed to important Democrats, have been intercepted and are now being investigated by FBI.

The packages were mailed in manila envelopes with bubble wrap interior. The packages were affixed with computer-printed address labels and six Forever stamps. All packages had a return address of “DEBBIE WASSERMAN SHULTZ” [sic] in Florida. Packages identified to date were addressed to:

  • George Soros
  • Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
  • Former President Barack Obama
  • Former CIA Director John Brennan, care of CNN
  • Former Attorney General Eric Holder

The package addressed to former Attorney General Holder did not reach its intended destination, but was rerouted to the return address in Florida.

The FBI also notes that additional packages may have been mailed as well.

Now that Democrats are being threatened with violence, the press — and the Democrats — are going to go nuts about the lack of civility in our society, having ignored and sometimes even encouraged the same kind of incivility and violence against conservatives for the past two years. No matter. Actions like this against anyone are vile and criminal, and should be condemned and stopped at every opportunity. One cannot have a civilized society where people are threatened with violence merely for expressing dissenting views.

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Stripes on Dione

2:55 pm

Using data produced by Cassini while orbiting Saturn scientists have discovered long narrow stripes on the moon Dione.

Dione’s linear virgae are generally long (10 to 100s of kilometers), narrow (less than 5 kilometers) and brighter than the surrounding terrains. The stripes are parallel, appear to overlie other features and are unaffected by topography, suggesting they are among the youngest surfaces on Dione.

“Their orientation, parallel to the equator, and linearity are unlike anything else we’ve seen in the Solar System,” Patthoff said. “If they are caused by an exogenic source, that could be another means to bring new material to Dione. That material could have implications for the biological potential of Dione’s subsurface ocean.”

That they cut across the topography implies strongly that they were laid down from above, after the surface irregularities were created.

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Pluto orbiter mission could also explore Kuiper belt

1:16 pm

An analysis by scientists of the orbital mechanics surrounding Pluto and Charon, combined with the use of an ion engine similar to that used by the asteroid probe Dawn, suggests that an orbiter sent to Pluto could also break from from that planet to travel out into the Kuiper Belt and explore additional objects there.

The team first discovered how numerous key scientific objectives can be met using gravity assists from Pluto’s giant satellite, Charon, rather than propellant, allowing the orbiter to change its orbit repeatedly to investigate various aspects of Pluto, its atmosphere, its five moons, and its solar wind interactions for up to several years. The second achievement demonstrates that, upon completing its science objectives at Pluto, the orbiter can then use Charon’s gravity to escape the system without using fuel, slinging the spacecraft into the Kuiper Belt to use the same electric propulsion system it used to enter Pluto orbit to then explore other dwarf planets and smaller Kuiper Belt bodies.

“This is groundbreaking,” said Stern. “Previously, NASA and the planetary science community thought the next step in Kuiper Belt exploration would be to choose between ‘going deep’ in the study of Pluto and its moons or ‘going broad’ by examining smaller Kuiper Belt objects and another dwarf planet for comparison to Pluto. The planetary science community debated which was the right next step. Our studies show you can do both in a single mission: it’s a game changer.”

The key here is a willingness to make increased use of the ion-type engine used by Dawn in its journey from the asteroids Vesta and Ceres. Such a probe could spend decades traveling from one Kuiper Belt object to the next.

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Active signaling to Opportunity to end

6:40 am

While NASA will continue to listen for activity from Opportunity for many more months, its active effort to signal the Mars rover is about to end.

After more than a month, Opportunity has not responded to those commands, and that active listening effort will soon end. “We intend to keep pinging Opportunity on a daily basis for at least another week or two,” said Lori Glaze, acting director of NASA’s planetary science division, during a presentation Oct. 22 at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences here.

Glaze said that a factor in ending the active listening campaign is to prepare for the landing of the InSight spacecraft on Mars Nov. 26. “We want to wind that down before InSight gets to Mars and make sure all our orbital assets are focused on a successful landing of InSight,” she said.

That schedule is consistent with previous plans for attempting to restore contact with Opportunity. NASA said Aug. 30 that, once skies cleared sufficiently, it would attempt active listening for 45 days. “If we do not hear back after 45 days, the team will be forced to conclude that the sun-blocking dust and the Martian cold have conspired to cause some type of fault from which the rover will more than likely not recover,” John Callas, Opportunity project manager, said in a statement outlining those plans.

I would not be surprised if they do try to signal the rover a few more times, in January after the busy fall period when there are a lot of planetary probes needing access to the Deep Space Network. Even so, it appears the rover’s life is finally at an end, fourteen years past its originally planned lifespan of only 90 days.

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Trump moves forward on Space Force; commercial space reorganization

6:33 am

In a speech by Mike Pence yesterday the Trump administration outlined its continuing plans to moves forward with a new military branch focused on space as well as a reorganization of the bureaucracies that regulate commercial space into a single Commerce Department agency.

Pence said the National Space Council and National Security Council will review space operational authorities “to ensure that our warfighters have the freedom and flexibility they need to deter and defeat any threat to our security in the rapidly evolving battlefield of space.” A lack of centralized leadership and accountability threatened U.S. ability to “advance our national security in space,” Pence said. “The time has come to stop studying the problem and start fixing it.”

The Trump administration in August announced an ambitious plan to usher in a new “Space Force” as the sixth branch of the military by 2020. Such a change, which the Defense Department has estimated would cost $13 billion in the first five years, must first be approved by Congress. Pence said at an earlier Washington Post forum that China and Russia have established similar space forces. “This is what our competitors are already doing. And the president is determined to make sure that America leads in space, as well, from a military standpoint,” he said.

…The proposed bill would also create the Bureau of Space Commerce under the U.S. Department of Commerce to liaise with industry representatives and organizations, according to a copy provided to Reuters. It also calls for $10 million per year for five years starting in 2020 to fund the commerce arm.

I am traveling up to Phoenix as I write this to be a talking head on a Science channel television show, so I haven’t yet reviewed carefully this proposal. Based on the quote above, the cost for the Space Force is absurd. This is an office, not a military force. At $13 billion it looks more like gold-plated pork.

Meanwhile, the proposed Commerce agency makes sense only if it truly replaces other bureaucracies. I am not yet sure that will happen.

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