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

SpaceX tonight successfully launches another 22 Starlink satellites

7:50 pm

SpaceX tonight successfully launched another 22 Starlink satellites, using its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage completed its fourth flight, landing softly on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The two fairing halves completed their 8th and 10th flights respectively. As of posting the satellites have not yet been deployed.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

53 SpaceX
31 China
9 Russia
6 Rocket Lab
6 India

American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 61 to 31, and the entire world combined 61 to 51, while SpaceX by itself leads the world (excluding American companies) 53 to 51.

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Chandrayaan-3 enters lunar orbit

9:38 am


Click for interactive map.

India’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft today successfully entered lunar orbit, where it will spend the next week or so slowly lowering its orbit in preparation for a landing attempt by its Vikram lander on August 23rd.

Chandrayaan-3 began a roughly 30-minute burn around 9:30 a.m. Eastern, seeing the spacecraft enter an elliptical lunar orbit, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) stated via social media. “MOX, ISTRAC, this is Chandrayaan-3. I am feeling lunar gravity,” ISRO Tweeted. “A retro-burning at the Perilune was commanded from the Mission Operations Complex (MOX), ISTRAC, Bengaluru.”

The spacecraft will gradually alter its orbit with a burn to reduce apolune Sunday, Aug. 6. It will settle into a 100-kilometer-altitude, circular polar orbit on Aug. 17. From here, the Vikram lander will separate from the mission’s propulsion module and enter a 35 x 100-km orbit in preparation for landing.

If the landing attempt is successful, the Pragyam rover will roll off Vikram to operate for about two weeks on the lunar surface in the high southern latitudes of the Moon.

Meanwhile, the Russian lander Luna-25 will launch on August 10th. Since the rocket that launches it and engines it carries are larger than that used by Chandrayaan-3, it will likely land in Boguslawsky crater, before Vikram touches down nearby.

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Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black., You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:


1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.


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Astra lays off 25% of workforce, mostly in its rocket departments

10:07 am

Astra revealed yesterday that it has laid off 25% of its workforce, with most of those jobs coming from those working of developing its rocket, in order to focus the company on its rocket engine business, the only area it at present has a chance of earning revenue.

The reallocation and layoffs are expected to delay testing of the under-development Rocket 4 and Launch System 2.0, Astra said. The affected employees worked in the company’s launch, sales and administration and “shared services” departments. Workforce reductions are expected to save the company more than $4 million per quarter beginning in the fourth quarter of this year.

Astra, which is facing dwindling cash reserves, is no doubt looking for a way to further reduce operating expenses while also bolstering its spacecraft engine business, the only business unit that currently has a near-term chance of generating revenue. The spacecraft engine technology is sourced from Astra’s acquisition of propulsion developer Apollo Fusion, which closed the day Astra went public in July 2021.

Indeed, Astra said that it had closed 278 committed orders of the Astra Spacecraft Engine product through the end of March, which totals around $77 million in contracts once the engines are delivered. A “substantial majority” of these orders will be delivered through the end of 2024, the company said.

What these actions mean is that Astra is no longer a rocket company. It might return eventually, but for now there is little chance it will resume launches for years.

It is interesting that this action was revealed only one day after a class-action lawsuit was dismissed by investors against the company for claiming that it would soon be launching 300 times per year.

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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.

Engineers regain full control over Voyager 2

3:29 pm

A longshot effort by engineers has succeeded in re-establishing full communications with Voyager 2, launched in 1977 and flying outward at the edge of the solar system.

“The Deep Space Network used the highest-power transmitter to send the command (the 100-kw S-band uplink from the Canberra site) and timed it to be sent during the best conditions during the antenna tracking pass in order to maximize possible receipt of the command by the spacecraft,” Voyager project manager Suzanne Dodd told AFP. This so-called “interstellar shout” required 18.5 hours traveling at light speed to reach Voyager, and it took 37 hours for mission controllers to learn whether the command worked, JPL said in a statement.

The probe began returning science and telemetry data at 12:29 am Eastern Time on August 4, “indicating it is operating normally and that it remains on its expected trajectory,” added JPL.

Based on a weak signal received earlier, engineers were confident that the spacecraft was functioning in good order despite the loss in communications, and would automatically re-orient itself properly when it did an automatic reset in October. This attempt however fixed things now.

Regardless, the spacecraft probably only has a few more more years of operations before its nuclear powered source finally runs out sometime after 2025.

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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

August 4, 2023 Quick space links

3:10 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

 

 

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Today’s blacklisted American: Pediatrician fired for raising questions about COVID jab at public meeting

2:26 pm

Renata Moon, testifying on December 7, 2022
Renata Moon, testifying on December 7, 2022.
Click to hear her testimony.

They’re coming for you next: After pediatrician Renata Moon testified at a December 7, 2022 public Capitol Hill event organized by Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin), where she raised serious and very legitimate questions about the COVID jab and the risks it might carry, she was fired as a teacher by Washington State University for daring to express such thoughts out loud.

So, what horrible things did she say at that December 2022 event?

Dr. Moon testified that she had only seen two or three cases of myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation, while practicing for more than 20 years. But after the COVID-19 vaccines were rolled out, she said, she has been seeing more cases, and heard about others from fellow doctors. “There’s clearly been a massive increase,” Dr. Moon said.

Dr. Moon also pulled out the package insert for the vaccines, or a piece of paper that typically outlines warnings, ingredients, and other information for a vaccine. The insert for the COVID-19 vaccines has no information and says, “intentionally blank,” the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has acknowledged. “How am I to give informed consent to parents when this is what I have?” Dr. Moon said.

All she did was note the obvious increase in myocarditis after the rollout of the jab, something that has now been documented repeatedly by studies (see just a few examples here, here, here, and here), while adding that though by law she as a doctor is required to provide patients with all information about the risks of a treatment, the government had intentionally denied her that information.

For this, Washington State University officials immediately reported her to the Washington Medical Commission (WMC), which at that time (and maybe even now) considers any statement expressing any skepticism about the efficacy of the COVID jab by any doctor to be “misinformation” that justifies the revocation of his or her medical license. In the university’s letter [pdf] informing her of its actions as well as warning her that it was considering firing her, it clearly indicated that it considered her testimony as her fundamental crime.
» Read more

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A hiking paradise on Mars!

12:51 pm

A hiking paradise on Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, sharpened, and annotated to post here, was taken on May 21, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows one of Mars’ more impressive mountains with the Sun somewhat low in the western sky, resulting in the long dark shadows on the eastern slopes.

The line is my quick attempt to mark the obvious route that would be taken along that ridge line to get from the bottom to the top. This could be a hiking trail, or a road. In either case, the elevation gain from the bottom of the ridge to the plateau on top would be about 3,900 feet in about a mile and a half, very steep for Earth — at approximately a 26 degree grade — but probably quite doable in the one-third Martian gravity.

The lower end of my proposed route however is hardly the bottom of the mountain. The slope, now alluvial fill made up of dust and debris from above, continues downhill for another 5,400 feet. All told, from top to bottom the elevation gain is about 9,300 feet over 8.5 miles.
» Read more

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Proposed exclusion zone restrictions revealed for new Sutherland spaceport in Scotland

10:35 am

A map of the proposed 50-square-kilometer exclusion zone that will be required for launches at the new Sutherland spaceport in Scotland has now been obtained by the Northern Times, which appears to be a local newspaper.

The zone would cover much of Melness Crofters’ Estate, and ironically it would also include a significant part of the neighbouring Eriboll Estate, owned by Danish entrepreneur Anders Holch Polvsen, who launched a failed legal challenge against the spaceport. Highland Council is in the process of finalising the details of the proposed restrictions which will then be put out for a 12-week public consultation and go before Highland councillors for final approval.

Ramblers Scotland, which promotes access to the outdoors, has said it will “carefully study” the final proposals.

Only during the launches does it appear the zone would be this large. Between launches the zone would be limited to a radius of 1.8 kilometers around the launchpads.

With twelve launches planned per year, this zone could seriously impact local activities, though how much is not clear. Not many people live in the area, and the land inside the zone is mostly used as grazing land or for recreational activities, many apparently organized by Ramblers Scotland. We should therefore expect some opposition to this plan when this zone is discussed during that 12-week public consultation time period.

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Scientists release infrared image of the Ring nebula, taken by Webb

10:23 am

The Ring Nebula, in false color by Webb
Click for original image.

Scientists yesterday released the first false-color infrared image of the Ring nebula taken by the Webb Telescope. That image, cropped to post here, is to the right. From the press release, which is heavy with platitudes but little information:

Approximately 2,600 lightyears away from Earth, the nebula was born from a dying star that expelled its outer layers into space. What makes these nebulae truly breath-taking is their variety of shapes and patterns, that often include delicate, glowing rings, expanding bubbles or intricate, wispy clouds. These patterns are the consequence of the complex interplay of different physical processes that are not well understood yet. Light from the hot central star now illuminates these layers.

Just like fireworks, different chemical elements in the nebula emit light of specific colours. This then results in exquisite and colourful objects, and furthermore allows astronomers to study the chemical evolution of these objects in detail.

It appears this image was produced using Webb’s near infrared instrument. Further data from its mid-infrared instrument has not yet been released. For a Hubble image of the Ring Nebula, in optical light that the human eye sees, go here.

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NASA agrees to let Axiom fly a fourth private manned mission to ISS

10:10 am

NASA and Axiom have now signed a new agreement allowing Axiom to fly a fourth private manned mission to ISS, tentatively scheduled for no earlier than August 2024.

Through the mission-specific order, Axiom Space is obtaining from NASA crew supplies, cargo delivery to space, storage, and in-orbit resources for daily use. The order also accommodates up to seven contingency days aboard the space station. This mission is subject to NASA’s pricing policy for the services that are above space station baseline capabilities.

The order also identifies capabilities NASA may obtain from Axiom Space, including the return of scientific samples that must be kept cold and other cargo, and the capability to use the private astronaut mission commander’s time to complete NASA science or perform tasks for the agency.

The company has already hired SpaceX to provide the transportation to and from ISS, using its Falcon 9 rocket and one of its fleet of four manned Dragon capsules.

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Despite good first images from Euclid, the orbiting telescope has a problem

10:05 am

Even though the first light images from Euclid have been sharp and exactly what astronomers want, the orbiting telescope designed to make a 3D map of billions of galaxies has an issue that will likely put some limits to that map.

When the telescope started booting up, ESA observers were concerned by the appearance of light markings on the first images relayed to Earth. This, it confirmed, was due to sunlight filtering into the telescope, “probably through a tiny gap”.

A correction to Euclid’s position was able to offset this issue. It means that while the ESA is confident Euclid will be fine to proceed with its mapping mission, particular orientations for the telescope may not be possible.

A limitation like this means that the telescope will not being able to look in some directions and get mapping images. Thus, the overall map will have gaps, though it appears at this moment that the scientists think those gaps will not seriously impact the telescope’s overall work. We shall see.

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Update on the technical progress at Boca Chica, preparing for the next Starship/Superheavy orbital test

9:59 am

Link here. Lots of progress had been made in getting the pad and the rocket ready for that next orbital test flight, with the first static fires tests of Superheavy using the launchpad’s new water deluge system are now expected in the coming week.

The company is also preparing additional prototypes of Superheavy and Starship for later orbital tests. even as it upgrades the assembly facilities, replacing temporary tents with actual buildings. More details, including videos, at the link.

Meanwhile, the only word from the FAA about SpaceX’s application for a launch permit has been a warning that it will not issue that permit until it is good and ready, suggesting the company should not expect to launch in August, as I have been predicting for months.

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August 3, 2023 Quick space links

3:47 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

  • Northrop Grumman to upgrade Cygnus freighter

    • The changes will increase its payload capacity, allow it to dock directly to a port rather than being berthed by a robot arm, and — most importantly — refine is ability to raise ISS’s orbit using its engines. This last capability replaces the Russians, and will be a need that future commercial stations will require.

 

 

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Pushback: Student wins against school officials who tried to suppress her first amendment rights

12:39 pm

Maggie DeJong
Maggie DeJong, fighting back hard and winning

Bring a gun to a knife fight: In April Maggie DeJong, a student at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE), sued [pdf] three of the college’s faculty members for attempting in 2022 to both punish her and well as silence her from her first amendment right to speak, simply because some other leftist students complained they did not like her opinions. As I wrote in April when I first reported this story:

These officials issued three “no contact” orders against DeJong, forbidding her to have any contact with three co-students in her program, simply because she had religious and political opinions they disagreed with and did not wish to hear. This orders essentially blacklisted her from the program, because of its small nature, and were literally a priori gag orders on her right to freely express her opinions. The officials also admitted that DeJong had violated no school policy, nor did they provide her any due process before issuing the orders. When challenged by DeJong’s lawyers, the university quickly realized the utter illegality of these orders, and cancelled them.

Unlike most recent cases of blacklisting, DeJong did not sue the university but the individuals involved, making them personally liable. » Read more

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The dry and mountainous terrain west of Jezero Crater

12:00 pm

The dry and mountainous terrain west of Jezero Crater
Click for original image.

Since my earlier update today about Perseverance and Ingenuity mentioned the very diverse and strange geology known to exist west of Jezero Crater and where the rover is eventually headed, I thought it worthwhile to post another cool image of that terrain.

The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced and sharpened to post here, was taken on May 22, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Labeled a “terrain sample” image, the location was likely chosen by the camera team in order to fill a gap in the camera’s schedule so that they can maintain its proper temperature. Having a gap that put the spacecraft over this region to the west of Jezero was however a great opportunity to get another look at this rocky, mountainous, and very parched terrain, located in Mars’ very dry equatorial regions.
» Read more

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A grateful thank you to all who contributed during July’s fund-raising campaign

11:00 am

My annual July fund-raising campaign for Behind the Black, celebrating the thirteenth anniversary of my first posts back in 2010, has now ended.

This was the second most successful monthly fund-raising campaign ever. Thank you again to everyone who has who donated or subscribed. I would like to email thanks to you all, but there are too many. Please accept this general thank you instead. It is difficult to explain what your support means to me, as it has raised the earnings so far this year to almost match last year’s numbers.

This thank you notice will remain at the top of the page for the next few days. Scroll down for new stories.

From the original post:
——————————
I sincerely dislike begging for donations and subscriptions, which is why I shortened my February campaign from its normal four weeks to only two. I wanted to spare both my readers and myself some of this pleading.

Sadly, that decision resulted in a total drop in donations, so that at this point in 2023 the website’s income is down 25% from last year, even though my traffic continues to be robust, in the range of four to five million hits per month. I am therefore forced to run this July campaign for the full four weeks, unless the donations and new subscriptions in the next few weeks make up this difference.

Please consider supporting my work, by using one of four methods (Zelle, Patreon, Paypal, or check) described in the tip jar elsewhere on this page. I take no advertisements nor accept any sponsors in order to keep the website clean, easy to read, and to avoid any accusations of conflict of interest. Your support leaves me entirely independent, able to say whatever I think while being free from censorship or reprisals.

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Perseverance snaps new close-up of Ingenuity

10:28 am

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Ingenuity as seen by Perseverance on August 2, 2023
Ingenuity as seen by Perseverance on August 2, 2023.
Click for original image.

Cool image time! With Perseverance and Ingenuity in the past week getting close together for the first time in months, the Perseverance team naturally turned its high resolution mast cameras at the helicopter. The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on August 2, 2023 by the rover’s left mast camera, showing Ingenuity only about two hundred feet away.

The blue dot on the overview map above shows Perseverance’s present location, with the green dot marking Ingenuity’s. The picture to the right is therefore looking almost due south. The red dotted line indicates the rover’s planned route, moving towards Neretva Vallis, the gap in the rim of Jezero Crater from which the delta had flowed, eons ago. The rover’s goal is to eventually enter that gap and explore the very diverse and strange geology known to exist outside the crater to the west.

We should also expect even better images of Ingenuity in the next week. Its 54th flight is scheduled for today, in which the engineering team wants to send the helicopter on a simple straight up and down hop of sixteen feet in order to better “localize” the helicopter. With Perseverance less than two hundred feet away, its cameras should be able to assemble a great movie of that flight.

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New software detects its first potentially dangerous asteroid

9:32 am

New software designed to detect asteroids, developed for use with the Rubin Observatory presently being built in Chile, has successfully discovered its first potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA) using data from another smaller operational ground-based telescope.

The discovered asteroid is 600 feet long, large enough to pose a real threat should it ever hit the Earth. Fortunately, the data says that though its orbit can take it as close as 140,000 miles there is no impact likely in the foreseeable future.

When the Rubin telescope begins its planned ten year survey of the entire night sky in 2025, this software is expected to almost triple the number of known potentially-hazardous-asteroids, from 2,350 to almost 6,000.

Funded primarily by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy, Rubin’s observations will dramatically increase the discovery rate of PHAs. Rubin will scan the sky unprecedentedly quickly with its 8.4-meter mirror and massive 3,200-megapixel camera, visiting spots on the sky twice per night rather than the four times needed by present telescopes. But with this novel observing “cadence,” researchers need a new type of discovery algorithm to reliably spot space rocks.

Thus, the development of this new software.

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China’s Long March 4C launches weather satellite; SpaceX launches communications satellite

10:09 pm

Two launches this evening. First China used its Long March 4C rocket to put a weather satellite into orbit, lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China. No word on where the lower stages crashed within China.

SpaceX then used its Falcon 9 rocket to put an Intelsat commercial communications satellite into orbit, lifting off from Cape Canaveral. The first stage successfully completed its sixth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The two fairing halves completed their eighth and tenth flights respectively.

As of posting the satellites from both launches had not deployed.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

52 SpaceX
31 China
9 Russia
6 Rocket Lab
6 India

American private enterprise still leads China in successful launches 60 to 31, and the entire world combined 60 to 51, while SpaceX by itself leads the world (excluding American companies) 52 to 51.

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Rosie Hodgson & Rowan Piggott – Dancing At Whitsun

6:01 pm

An evening pause: I was listening to a different recording of this song by Gordon Bok, Ann Muir, and Ed Trickett from 1978 and thought it gives us a window into a gentle culture that is now dead. As the youtube webpage for the performance below states, the song was written as “a tribute to the women who took up morris dancing during the First World War, when the male mortality rate in some English towns and villages approached seventy percent.”

It is the gentle quality of this song, its words and its sound, that is generally dead in today’s culture. Almost all modern music must be loud — shouted more than sung — with a rock beat that while energetic and enthusiastic is also somewhat harsh. Curse words are normal. It is rare to hear new popular music dedicated to expressing gentle soft love.

I post this as a memorial to that lost civilization.

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August 2, 2023 Quick space links

4:26 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

 

 

  • Luna-25’s mission profile

    • Based on this profile, the spacecraft will head to the Moon on its first orbit after launch, and get there only a few days later. This means it will be attempting its landing only days before India’s already launched Chandrayaan-3, which is targeting an August 23rd landing date.

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Unless Congress acts soon, the unelected administrative state will rule unopposed

1:53 pm

A dying document
A dying document

While much of the conservative press has been focusing on the illegal abuse of power by security agencies like the FBI, the CIA, and the Department of Justice, in the past week a whole slew of stories having nothing to do with election politics or Donald Trump have even more starkly illustrated the growing power of the many alphabet agencies of the federal government’s executive branch, power that is cancelling the real constitutional power of Congress — even as Congress looks on impotently.

Unlike abusive and illegal indictments of Trump, or evidence that the Justice Department and FBI are acting to protect Joe Biden and his son Hunter, however, these others stories have generally gone unnoticed, except by your intrepid reporter here at Behind the Black.

First, on July 26th we had the Space Force proposing new regulations that would allow it to literally take control over all private space assets in any declared international emergency, without any need to compensate the owners.

The Space Force’s draft framework for how commercial satellite services could be called up in times of crisis or conflict to support military missions would allow the Defense Department to deny participating companies the right to sell their wares to any other client in times of “war, major conflict, national or international emergency.” [emphasis mine]

What is the point of owning anything if the U.S. military has the power to simply steal it from you, without paying you for it, anytime any president or Congress on a whim decides to declare an international emergency? Such declarations were once rare, but now they happen routinely, with dire consequences for private citizens, as we all learned during the COVID panic.

On that same day we also learned that the FAA has refused to allow the private company Varda from bringing back to Earth a capsule it had launched to space several months ago, with the express intent to manufacture needed pharmaceuticals in weightlessness that can’t be made on Earth.
» Read more

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Voyager Space partners with Airbus to build its Starlab space station

12:00 pm

Voyager Space, one of the three companies with a contract from NASA to develop a commercial private space station, has now signed a partnership agreement with the European aerospace company Airbus to work together to build its Starlab space station.

The companies announced Aug. 2 the creation of a joint venture, also called Starlab, that will be responsible for the development and operation of the station. The joint venture builds upon an agreement announced in January where Voyager selected Airbus to provide technical support for the proposed station.

“This transatlantic venture with footprints on both sides of the ocean aligns the interests of both ourselves and Voyager and our respective space agencies,” said Jean-Marc Nasr, head of space systems at Airbus, in a statement. “Together our teams are focused on creating an unmatched space destination both technologically and as a business operation.”

Though no specifics of the deal were released, Voyager will continue to retain 51% control. It appears that Voyager’s goal with this deal is to get its foot in the door of Europe. With ESA no longer considering doing any work on the space stations of either China or Russia, it needs a place to go after ISS is retired. By signing up Airbus as a partner Voyager makes Starlab the most likely go-to station for these European companies and governments.

Isn’t private enterprise and freedom wonderful? Without even trying Europe is going to get a space station of its own, and it will do it by hiring this private consortium of American and European companies.

Hat tip to Jay, BtB’s stringer.

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The first glacial evidence found on Mars back in 2007

11:36 am

Glaciers on Mars?
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, sharpened, and annotated to post here, was taken on January 3, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows the eastern wall of what the scientists call a graben, a large depression caused when the ground inside the depression suddenly shifted downward.

The elevation difference between the high and low points is about 3,500 feet. The streaks on the lower half of the cliff wall are slope streaks, a phenomenon unique to Mars that remains at this moment unexplained. Though the streaks resemble avalanches, they do not change the topography in any way, have no debris pile at their base, and appear instead to be a stain that appears at random times of the year that fades with time.

What is intriguing about this picture however is the wavelike floor on its western half. At first glance these waves suggest some form of dust dunes or lava flows, but neither conclusion appears correct. Instead, we are looking at what was one of the first discoveries on Mars of what scientists have determined to be glacial features.
» Read more

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Senate committee gives NASA and Commerce responsibility for removing space junk

9:10 am

The Senate Commerce committee has now okayed a bill that would require NASA to develop several space junk removal projects while giving the Commerce department the responsibility of identifying what space junk needs to be removed.

The core of the bill would direct NASA to establish an active debris removal program. That would include funding research and development activities “with the intent to close commercial capability gaps and enable potential future remediation missions for such orbital debris,” the bill states. NASA would also fund a demonstration mission for debris removal and allow it and other agencies to procure debris removal services.

The version of the ORBITS Act approved by the committee is different from the version introduced earlier this year. Among the changes is in a section that originally called on NASA to develop a prioritized list of orbital debris to remove. In the new version, that responsibility is given instead to the Commerce Department. The Commerce Department, through its Office of Space Commerce, is developing a space traffic coordination system called the Traffic Coordination System for Space (TraCSS) that will take over civil space traffic management roles currently handled by the Defense Department. That involves taking in data from Defense Department and other sources and using it to provide warnings of potential close approaches to satellite operators.

Though unstated, this bill appears to be a direct slap at the FCC’s effort under the Biden administration to claim the power to regulate space junk, despite its lack of statutory authority to do so.

The bill is of course not yet law, as it still needs to be approved by both the House and Senate. However, some version that stops the FCC now seems very likely, as the House itself has already rejected a bill that would have approved the FCC power grab.

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Satellite startup Planet lays off 10% of its workforce, most located in San Francisco

9:00 am

According to a filing to the SEC yesterday, the smallsat startup Planet has laid off 10% of its workforce, 117 employees of which 85 are located in San Francisco, in order “to prioritize our attention on the highest ROI [return on investment] opportunities for our business and mission,” as expressed by the company’s CEO to his employees.

The company presently operates a constellation of more than 200 small satellites designed to provide high resolution imagery of the Earth. In late 2021 it went public through a merger with a SPAC (special purpose acquisition company), and has since seen its stock price drop from $11.35 to $3.75 yesterday.

The layoffs this week are likely simply the company recognizing that its main office in San Francisco had become bloated and it needed to economize. It is even possible the company is now considering a move from San Fran and California, though this is not mentioned in any of its announcements.

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