NASA awards more money to two private space station proposals

10:34 am

Because Northrop Grumman has dropped its plans to build its own private space station, joining instead the Starlab station consortium led by Voyager Space, NASA has been able to shift the funding planned for Northrop Grumman’s station to two other two private space station projects.

Voyager Space’s Starlab station development will receive an additional $57.5 million from NASA, which brings NASA’s total funding for Starlab so far to $217.5 million, the space agency said.

…The Orbital Reef space station of Blue Origin and Sierra Space is receiving an additional $42 million, bringing that project’s total NASA funding so far to $172 million.

NASA says the extra money will help both consortiums meet their schedules.

A third private station, Axiom, also under development in partnership with NASA, plans to dock its initial modules to ISS, and then undock when completed to fly free.

A fourth American private space station is also being built, but independent of NASA entirely. The company, VAST, has teamed up with SpaceX to launch its first modules on Starship/Superheavy, followed by at least two manned missions.

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Private spaceport proposed on coast of Oman

10:25 am

Middle East, showing Oman's proposed spaceport

A private commercial company has proposed building a new spaceport on the coast of Oman near the town of Duqm, as shown on the map to the right.

The commercial spaceport, called Etlaq, is designed to host all sizes of launch vehicles in the port town of Duqm, and would meet US Federal Aviation Administration standards to attract international launch companies.

The National Aerospace Services Company (Nascom), which is overseeing the spaceport, unveiled its plans at the Middle East Space Conference in Muscat, more than a year after initially announcing the project. Nascom chairman Azzan Al Said told The National that the Etlaq Space Launch Complex was in the planning phase and development would start by 2025, with the spaceport set to become fully operational by 2030.

Nascom is apparently Oman’s space agency, and appears tasked to remove barriers to this private project. It is trying to ease the State Department ITAR restrictions that make it impossible for American rocket companies to launch from countries such as Oman. It has also contracted with a UK company that speciallizes in building spaceports.

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Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon, any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

Peregrine only has hours left, its fuel leaking away

10:02 am

According to a number of recent updates by Astrobotic, its Peregrine lunar lander only only a few more hours of life left, its fuel leaking away due to the failure of a valve to close inside its oxygen tank.

Astrobotic’s current hypothesis about the Peregrine spacecraft’s propulsion anomaly is that a valve between the helium pressurant and the oxidizer failed to reseal after actuation during initialization. This led to a rush of high pressure helium that spiked the pressure in the oxidizer tank beyond its operating limit and subsequently ruptured the tank.

The company also noted that the Vulcan rocket did no harm to the spacecraft during launch, placing it in the correct orbit. The tank rupture however means it will not land on the Moon, and in fact is likely not going to escape Earth orbit. Sometime in the next day or so the spacecraft will run out of fuel, and at that point it will be fly out of control, its batteries draining because the solar panels will no longer point to the Sun.

How this failure will impact Astrobotic’s next and larger lander, Griffin, remains unknown. It is presently scheduled to land on the Moon in November 2024.

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Another giant star undergoes dimming

9:51 am

The changes seen in RW Cephei
Click for original image.

Astronomers have detected another giant star dimming in a manner similar to the dimming that Betelgeuse experienced around 2019.

Old stars display light variations that are related to changes in their outer layers. The changes are usually small, so scientists were amazed when astronomers Wolfgang Vollmann and Costantino Sigismondi announced in 2022 that RW Cephei had faded dramatically over the previous few years. By December 2022, RW Cephei had faded to about one third of its normal brightness, an unprecedented drop.

You can read the published paper here. The researchers believe the dimming was caused by the release of dust from the star, blocking its light, much as what is believed happened with Betelgeuse.

RW Cephei, like Betelgeuse, is like a giant gas bag that fluctuates in shape like blob of water in weightlessness. This blob however so big that if placed where the Sun is its surface would be about the orbit of Jupiter. As shown in the two pictures to the right taken by this research team, the shape changed during this dimming.

The star however is much farther away, 16,000 light years compared to Betelgeuse’s 550 light years. Because of Betelgeuse’s size and nearness, until recently it was the only star outside of the Sun whose actual disk had been imaged. That astronomers can now get images of a star as far away as RW Cephei illustrates the incredible improvement in astronomical technology in the past three decades.

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Conscious Choice cover

Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!

 

From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.

 
Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space, is a riveting page-turning story that documents how slavery slowly became pervasive in the southern British colonies of North America, colonies founded by a people and culture that not only did not allow slavery but in every way were hostile to the practice.  
Conscious Choice does more however. In telling the tragic history of the Virginia colony and the rise of slavery there, Zimmerman lays out the proper path for creating healthy societies in places like the Moon and Mars.

 

“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society.

 

All editions are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors, with the ebook priced at $5.99 before discount. All editions can also be purchased direct from the ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.

 

Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from the author (hardback $29.95; paperback $14.95; Shipping cost for either: $6.00). Just send an email to zimmerman @ nasw dot org.

SpaceX: Ready to launch Starship/Superheavy by end of January but it won’t

9:28 am

Surprise! During the NASA press update yesterday making official the new delays in its entire Artemis lunar program, a SpaceX official revealed that the company will be ready to launch the third orbital test flight of its Starship/Superheavy rocket by end of January, but it also does not expect to get a launch approval from the FAA for at least another month.

Speaking during the press conference, SpaceX Vice President of Customer Operations & Integration Jensen said Starship hopes to be ready to test Starship once more by the end of January and to receive the necessary license from federal authorities to do so by the end of February.

During the conference Jensen made it repeatedly clear that it will require numerous further launch tests to get ready ready for its lunar landing mission for NASA — about ten — and that the company hopes to have this task completed by 2025 so that the agency’s new delayed schedule can go forward as now planned.

Yet how will SpaceX do this if the FAA is going to delay each launch because of red-tape by at least one month? SpaceX might be confident the FAA will give the okay for a launch in late February, but no one should be sanguine about this belief. Bureaucrats when required to dot every “i” and cross every “t”, as it appears the Biden administration is demanding, can be infuriatingly slow in doing so, even if they wish to hurry.

This news confirms my prediction from November that the launch will happen in the February to April time frame. It also leaves me entirely confident that my refined December prediction of a launch no earlier than March will be right.

SpaceX wants to do about six test launches per year. I don’t know how it can do so with the FAA holding it back.

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NASA makes it official: The entire Artemis schedule is delayed

9:17 am

Surprise! NASA yesterday officially confirmed the rumors reported earlier about delays in its Artemis Moon program, outlining a new schedule that pushes all the launches back from months to more than a year.

NASA will now target September 2025 for Artemis II, the first crewed Artemis mission around the Moon, and September 2026 for Artemis III, which is planned to land the first astronauts near the lunar South Pole. Artemis IV, the first mission to the Gateway lunar space station, remains on track for 2028.

The agency cited issues with its Orion capsule that need fixing, including unexpected damage to its heat shield during the first test flight in 2022, battery problems found during ground testing, and new issues discovered with the as-yet unflown environmental systems designed to keep the astronauts alive.

One rumor that did not turn out to be true was the suggestion that first manned lunar landing would be shifted from Artemis 3 to Artemis 4, to give NASA more time to test things.

More details about the press briefing can be found here.

No one should take any of these dates seriously. NASA technique for announcing delays in this moon program have consistently been wrong. It announces small delays incrementally, to hide the fact that it knows the actual launch will be delayed far more that politics allows. The program was first proposed in 2004 with a planned landing in 2015. Since then NASA has announced numerous delays numerous times, always in small amounts. Yet by 2015 it was clear the first landing wouldn’t happen for at least a decade (after a decade of work), because of Obama’s unilateral cancellation of the initial program and Congress’s demand that it be re-established in a different form. By 2022 it was clear that the first manned landing mission was at least five years away.

Thus these new dates will certainly slip. You can bet on it. As I noted yesterday, NASA will be lucky to make that first manned lunar landing by 2030.

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Leaving Earth cover

Leaving Earth: Space Stations, Rival Superpowers, and the Quest for Interplanetary Travel, can be purchased as an ebook everywhere for only $3.99 (before discount) at amazon, Barnes & Noble, all ebook vendors, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.

 

If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big oppressive tech companies and I get a bigger cut much sooner.

 

Winner of the 2003 Eugene M. Emme Award of the American Astronautical Society.

 
"Leaving Earth is one of the best and certainly the most comprehensive summary of our drive into space that I have ever read. It will be invaluable to future scholars because it will tell them how the next chapter of human history opened." -- Arthur C. Clarke

The Surt volcano on Io

1:19 pm

The Surt volcano on Io in close-up
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken by Juno during its 57th close-fly of Jupiter on December 30, 2023. It shows of one of the many volcanoes that cover and continually recoat the surface of the Jupiter moon Io.

The picture was initially processed by citizen scientist Gerald Eichstädt. Thomas Thomopoulos then zoomed in and added additional enhancements to this particular area. (I thank Thomas for his additional help in making this post happen.)

The location is an active volcano named Surt, which has been observed to erupt several times since the 1970s, with its February 2001 eruption the most powerful yet observed on Io, though the pictures by the Jupiter orbiter Galileo taken before and after revealed few significant surface changes.

The picture itself shows a region where major changes have definitely occurred. The large arc of mountains across the photo’s center suggests the remaining half of a large caldera, its northern half now either buried or destroyed. The deep obvious hole inside that crescent appears to be the main vent from which the recent eruptions have spewed, as indicated by the light-colored apron surrounding it.

In the southwest section of that large mountain arc is a distinct ridgeline with a small circular curve in its middle that suggests a former volcanic cone, its northern half now gone.

To put it mildly, Io appears a very alien place, shaped entirely and continuously by endlessly volcanic eruptions that spread lava across its entire surface repeatedly.

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Proposed removal of William Penn statue proves the Democrats really are anti-American

12:33 pm

The William Penn statue in Welcome Park
The William Penn statue in the center of
Welcome Park. Note the panels on the wall
behind, describing the achievements of his life.
The park service was also planning to “rehabilitate”
this as well.

Though the Biden administration and the National Park Service immediately backed down from its proposal to remove the statue of William Penn from the Pennsylvania park dedicated in 1982 to honor his memory, the very proposal proved without doubt how much the Democrats who dominate our government truly hate America, its founding, and everything it stands for.

First, let’s review the proposal that has now been dumped. According to the National Park Service press release issued on January 5th,

The proposed rehabilitation of Welcome Park includes expanded interpretation of the Native American history of Philadelphia and was developed in consultation with representatives of the indigenous nations of the Haudenosaunee, the Delaware Nation, Delaware Tribe of Indians, the Shawnee Tribe, and the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma. The reimagined Welcome Park maintains certain aspects of the original design such as the street grid, the rivers and the east wall while adding a new planted buffer on three sides, and a ceremonial gathering space with circular benches. The Penn statue and Slate Roof house model will be removed and not reinstalled. [emphasis mine]

In other words, a park built at the site of William Penn’s pioneer home and designed expressly to honor his achievements as the founder of Pennsylvania as a religious haven for all people was to be redesigned instead as a memorial to the primitive stone-age Indian tribes that once lived there, focusing instead on how Penn and the Quakers oppressed them by coming to America. And to rub salt in the wound, this change was to be done in connection with the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 2026.

As I said, the Democrats who dominate our federal bureaucracy as well as academia are our enemies. They truly intend to wipe any positive mention of America from every history book or place, and replace it with Marxist icons and false anti-American propaganda.

Very quickly there was an uproar against this plan. » Read more

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UK spaceports to UK government: There’s too much red-tape!

9:58 am

Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea
Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea.

At a hearing this week before the Scottish Affairs Committee of the United Kingdom’s parliement, the heads of the two spaceports being built in Scotland demanded that a single senior minister be assigned to handle all regulation for space launches, because the present system involves too many different agencies from too many different UK governments.

The result has been endless delays, and no launches.

“For me, there’s almost too many cooks involved,” [according to Scott Hammond, deputy CEO of SaxaVord Spaceport.] “I think what we need to look at is having a senior politician directly responsible for space and space launch and I would suggest that at cabinet level.” Despite the UK Government space portfolio, he said it is still “difficult to know who’s actually running launch in the UK”.

He gave the example of seeking permissions from Scottish Government’s marine directorate, something he said was taking six months rather than 14 weeks as promised.

The CEO of the company Orbex, which has a fifty-year lease to launch from the other spaceport in Sutherland, admitted that the spaceport “had appeared to be in a ‘better place’ in 2018 but acknowledged circumstances had changed since then.” In other words, regulation was now threatening the company’s operations at Sutherland, and it is beginning to look elsewhere for future launches.

Saxavord had hoped to do its first launch this year, but now is looking to the summer, all because of the long delays experienced in getting government approvals.

The map shows other space ports being developed in Europe. These, as well as new spaceports elsewhere, might end up getting all of this UK business because of the continuing red tape issues in Great Britain.

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JPL lays off 100 contractors due to expected budget cuts

9:45 am

JPL last week laid off 100 contractors due to expected budget cuts in its troubled Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission.

A JPL spokesperson confirmed Jan. 7 that the center laid off the contractors and took other measures, such as across-the-board spending cuts and pausing work on one aspect of MSR, because of the “uncertain federal budget” in fiscal year 2024. The Los Angeles Times first reported the layoffs.

NASA announced in November that it would slow down work on MSR because of sharp differences in proposed funding for the effort in separate House and Senate bills. A House appropriations bill would provide the agency’s full request of $949.3 million while the Senate version allocated only $300 million.

Since the final budget has not been determined, nor has NASA made any decisions on what will happen to the sample return mission, these cuts (as well as NASA’s slowdown in November) are as much a political act as anything. JPL and NASA are trying to pressure Congress to fully fund everything, and by imposing cuts now the agencies generate news that elected officials don’t like. Routinely the legislators then back off of any budget cuts.

We shall see. Congress remains bankrupt, treating its budget as a blank check with money that grows on trees. Yet the sample return mission as presently designed is a mess. It needs a major reshaping in every way.

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Rocket Lab gets contract to build 18-satellite constellation for U.S. military

9:36 am

Rocket Lab was yesterday awarded a half billion dollar contract to build the next set of eighteen satellites of the U.S. military’s Tranche communications satellite constellation.

Rocket Lab will act as prime contractor for the $515 million USD firm-fixed price agreement, leading the design, development, production, test, and operations of the satellites, including procurement and integration of the payload subsystems. The contract establishes Rocket Lab’s position as a leading satellite prime contractor, providing supply chain diversity to the Department of Defense (DoD) through vertical integration. The contract comprises $489 million base plus $26 million of incentives and options and will be carried out by Rocket Lab National Security (RLNS), the Company’s wholly owned subsidiary created to serve the unique needs of the U.S. defense and intelligence community and its allies.

The plan is for these satellites to launch in 2027. It does not appear that the contract includes the launches itself. Rocket Lab can do some, but it is likely the military will award some to SpaceX and others.

This deal continues the military’s shift from designing and building its own satellites that usually cost too much and are years behind schedule to buying the product from the private sector. It also continues the shift from large unwieldly and very exposed single satellites to constellations of many small satellites that are difficult to destroy..

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China launches X-ray space telescope

9:25 am

China early today successfully used its Long March 2C rocket to launch its new Einstein X-ray space telescope, built in partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA). The rocket lifted off from the Xichang spaceport in the southwest of China.

Astronomers will use the telescope to study the high energy released by during supernovae. It will also be used to study black holes and other high energy deep space phenomenon.

Meanwhile, the lower stages of the rocket, which use toxic hypergolic fuels, fell somewhere in China. No word if they landed anywhere near habitable areas.

The 2023 launch race:

3 SpaceX
2 China
1 India
1 ULA

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Artemis lunar program likely to be delayed further

9:14 am

Surprise! According to two different news outlets today (Reuters and CNN) citing anonymous sources, NASA is about to announce further delays in its manned Artemis program to put humans back on the Moon.

Both reports state that the second Artemis mission, the first with humans on board, will not take place this year as NASA has been saying, but will be delayed until 2025. The third mission, the intended manned landing on the Moon, will be further delayed until 2026. Furthermore, Reuters reports that the actual landing might be delayed until the fourth mission, “giving SpaceX and other contractors more practice before making the first such landing in half a century.”

None of these dates will be met. I predict that further delays will be announced next year and the year after that, pushing all these missions back again, in small increments, even though it is obvious now that the entire program is years from making those first manned flights.

There are numerable problems. First the SLS rocket is so cumbersome it takes many months to assembly for launch. Any issues along the way cause delays. Second, battery problems were detected during testing of the Orion capsule to fly, requiring their replacement.

Third, and most important, the lunar landing requires NASA’s Lunar Gateway and SpaceX’s Starship. Gateway is nowhere near ready. All of its multiple components are still being built, with none yet launched.

SpaceX’s Starship is undergoing testing, but those test flights are being hampered by red tape at the FAA and elsewhere in the federal government. SpaceX had planned to do as many as six test flights per year. Right now the federal bureaucracy is slowing that plan to only one to two test flights per year. Under that restriction, the Starship lunar lander won’t be ready for years.

Pushing the manned lunar landing back one mission makes some sense, but the entire program remains fraught with great risks. Because SLS is so expensive and difficult to fly, NASA can’t afford to do the correct number of unmanned test missions before sending humans on it. For example, the first manned flight will be the first using the environmental system in Orion designed to keep people alive. Yet, that mission intends to circle the Moon with people on board.

For context, note that this program was first announced by George Bush Jr in 2004, with a goal of putting humans on the Moon by 2015. NASA did not even fly the first unmanned SLS/Orion mission until 2022.

Right now, if NASA gets a human on the Moon before 2030 it will be doing well.

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Layered volcanic vent on Mars

3:53 pm

Layered volcanic vent on Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on August 31, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and shows what the science team labels as a “vent near Olympica Fossae.”

The grade within the fissure is downhill to its center. Outside the vent the grade is downhill to the north and south, with the overall grade sloping to the west as well. Note the layers on each side of the depression. Each indicates another volcanic flood event that laid down another layer of lava. At some point this vent either blew up through those layers, or it had remained opened during all those many events, the lava flowing out and acting like water to erode the layers on the north and the south.

As always, the scale of Martian geology is daunting, as shown by the overview map below.
» Read more

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Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander suffers major failure

12:10 pm

According to updates by the engineering team running Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander, launched early today by ULA’s Vulcan rocket, the lander’s propulsion system suffered a major failure shortly after activation.

After successfully separating from United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket, Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander began receiving telemetry via the NASA Deep Space Network. Astrobotic-built avionics systems, including the primary command and data handling unit, as well as the thermal, propulsion, and power controllers, all powered on and performed as expected. After successful propulsion systems activation, Peregrine entered a safe operational state. Unfortunately, an anomaly then occurred, which prevented Astrobotic from achieving a stable sun-pointing orientation.

The company later released an update, stating that the failure caused “a critical loss of propellant” that will make the mission impossible as planned. They are reassessing to see if they can come up with an alternate plan, but without sufficient fuel no lunar landing will be possible under any mission profile.

Peregrine is a smaller test version of Astrobotic’s larger Griffin lunar lander, which has contracts with NASA and ESA for later missions. This failure will likely impact those missions, forcing either delays or redesigns.

This mission was always an engineering test mission designed to prove out Astrobotic’s landing design, so experiencing a failure was not a surprise. The problem is that this failure occurred so soon after launch that it prevents the company from testing that landing design, at all.

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Americans push back against government overreach with some real defiance

11:54 am

Are Americans finally waking up and emulating their country's founders?

Bring a gun to a knife fight: For the first time since 2020, when state and federal governments nationwide decided the Constitution and Bill of Rights no longer applied to them and began imposing a whole range of abusive illegal regulations and lockdowns and mandates and blacklisting on Americans everywhere, we are now finally beginning to see some real push back from ordinary people, in ways that leave these tinpot dictators no choice but to back down.

Two examples in the past week. First in St. Louis the city government (controlled by radical leftist Democrats) decided it was time to institute a new panic over COVID, likely to give them the ability to once again easily manipulate voting in 2024, by instituting a new city mask mandate. Though it only recommended strongly that everyone wear masks everywhere, its director of health Matifadza Hlatshwayo Davis said that masks were required of government employees if they were indoors or in a car with another person.

Davis’s problem was that, unlike 2020, almost no one obeyed her demands.
» Read more

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One spiral galaxy eating another

9:51 am

One spiral galaxy eating another
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope as part of an on-going survey of known pecular-looking galaxies. This pair is believed to be 570 million light years away. From the caption:

Galaxies are composed of stars and their solar systems, dust and gas. In galactic collisions, therefore, these constituent components may experience enormous changes in the gravitational forces acting on them. In time, this completely changes the structure of the two (or more) colliding galaxies, and sometimes ultimately results in a single, merged galaxy. That may well be what results from the collision pictured in this image. Galaxies that result from mergers are thought to have a regular or elliptical structure, as the merging process disrupts more complex structures (such as those observed in spiral galaxies). It would be fascinating to know what Arp 122 will look like once this collision is complete . . . but that will not happen for a long, long time.

From our viewpoint, the spiral galaxy at the top appears warped by the gravitational pull of the face-on spiral at the bottom, as if it is being sucked into the bottom galaxy. In truth, both galaxies are pulling on each other. If we could circle around and see them in three dimensions we would almost certainly see distortions in the bottom spiral as well.

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Scientists: Suspended iron minerals floating in Venus’s atmosphere explain dark UV streaks

9:37 am

Venus as seen in ultraviolet by Mariner 10, February 5, 1974
Venus as seen in ultraviolet by Mariner 10,
February 5, 1974

The uncertainty of science: Since the mid-1970s scientists have been trying to figure out the cause of the dark streaks seen in the atmosphere of Venus when photographed in ultraviolet. The image to the right was the first such UV image, taken by Mariner 10 during its fly-by on its way to Mercury. These streaks are caused by some unknown material that absorbs the UV light.

Researchers have now proposed that two different iron-bearing minerals, floating in Venus’s atmosphere, are what cause these dark UV streaks. From the absract:

Our results demonstrate that ferric iron can react with sulfuric acid to form two mineral phases: rhomboclase [(H5O2)Fe(SO4)2·3H2O] and acid ferric sulfate [(H3O)Fe(SO4)2]. A combination of these two mineral phases and dissolved Fe3+ in varying concentrations of sulfuric acid are shown to be good candidates for explaining the 200- to 300-nm and 300- to 500-nm features of the reported unknown UV absorber.

Iron has been detected in the atmosphere previously, and is theorized could come from volcanic eruptions on the planet’s million-plus volcanoes.

This new hypothesis explaining the dark UV absorber however remains unconfirmed, and joins a list of other candidates for that absorber, many of which propose either iron or sulfur in different combinations. Because so little data really exists about the atmosphere of Venus, with what is known also uncertain, it is presently impossible to solve this mystery with confidence. The problem is made even more difficult in that scientists understand almost nothing about the chemistry of materials under the conditions seen in Venus’s atmosphere, which is extremely hot (800 degrees Fahrenheit) and very thick and dense (100 times that of Earth).

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ULA’s Vulcan rocket successfully places payload in orbit on first launch

1:10 am

Vulcan at liftoff.
Vulcan at liftoff.

After four years of delay, mostly caused by delays at Blue Origin in delivering the two BE-4 engines used in the first stage, ULA’s Vulcan rocket finally completed its first launch early on January 8, 2024, lifting off from Cape Canaveral and successfully placing Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander into orbit.

As of posting the upper stage had just deployed Peregrine, which will leave Earth orbit in about four days using its own engines. The upper stage has one more burn to send it into solar orbit, carrying the ashes of numerous people for the company Celestis.

The 2024 launch race:

3 SpaceX
1 India
1 China
1 ULA

For ULA, this launch is a very big deal. It is the first of two required in order for the Space Force to certify the rocket for future military launches. It also positions the company to begin the many launches that Amazon has awarded it to place into orbit a large percentage of that company’s Kuiper internet satellite constellation, assuming of course Blue Origin can deliver on schedule the many BE-4 engines that ULA will require.

This launch will also likely lead to the sale of ULA. » Read more

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NASA: UAE to build airlock module for lunar station plus have astronaut fly there

9:20 am

According to a press release from NASA today, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will build the airlock module for the Lunar Gateway space station plus have one astronaut fly a mission to the station after it is built.

Under a new implementing arrangement expanding their human spaceflight collaboration with NASA through Gateway, MBRSC will provide Gateway’s Crew and Science Airlock module, as well as a UAE astronaut to fly to the lunar space station on a future Artemis mission.

I strongly suspect that the UAE will mostly pay for this module to be built, hiring outside contractors from either the U.S. or Europe to do the work.

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January 5, 2023 Quick space links

3:10 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

 

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Canyons formed from the giant crack that splits Mars

2:45 pm

Canyons formed by the giant crack that splits Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 22, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a complex of north-south trending canyons, with easternmost cliff about 400 feet high (though the full drop to the large canyon on its east is closer to 800 feet).

These canyons however have nothing to do with ice or water flow. They were formed by underground tectonic forces that pushed the ground upward, forced it to split and form cracks. Those cracks in turn produced these canyons. In some cases, such as the depression on top of the central ridge, the formation process probably occurred because fissures formed below ground, causing the surface to sag.

As always, the hiker in me wants to walk up the nose of that ridge and then along its western edge, with the western canyon on my left and that smaller depression on my right.

The larger context of this location is in itself even more spectacular.
» Read more

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SpaceX sues to have NLRB complaint dismissed

10:31 am

SpaceX yesterday filed a lawsuit in the federal courts to have the employee complaint filed by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) dismissed as a violation of the company’s fifth and seventh amendment rights as well as article II of the Constitution.

You can read SpaceX’s lawsuit here [pdf]. It specifically lists as defendants the board members of the NLRB, as well as the unnamed administrative judge who will run the NLRB’s case, once it begins.

The SpaceX lawsuit is interesting in that it challenges the very legal structure that has established the NLRB, stating that its actions are illegal because that structure forbids the President from having full control over its actions, as required by article II of the Constitution.

Whether this lawsuit succeeds is of course unknown, but its quick filing tells us that SpaceX was prepared for this NLRB action, even before it was filed. It also tells us that the company now recognizes the overall threat to it by the Biden administration, which appears to be trying to weaponize every agency in the federal government to destroy the company, and is prepared to fight long and hard against this abuse of power.

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Japan’s XRISM X-ray space telescope releases first data

10:17 am

Supernova remnant N132D, as seen in X-rays
Supernova remnant N132D, as seen in X-rays
Click for original image.

Japan’s XRISM X-ray space telescope, which launched in September, has now released first data and images.

One image showed the wide field view of the telescope’s Xtend imager, capable of viewing in X-rays an area of the sky 60% larger than the Moon. The second, shown to the right, provided a false color image of a supernova remnant in the Large Magellanic Cloud along with spectroscopy that data provided. According to the caption, “the spectrum reveals peaks associated with silicon, sulfur, argon, calcium, and iron.”

These pictures were produced during the telescope’s check-out period since launch. The mission, though Japanese-led, is being managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, which is now accepting observation proposals for a full science schedule of observations to begin in the summer of this year.

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