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SpaceX gets ESA contract to launch up to four of its Galileo GPS-type satellites

9:41 am

The European Space Agency (ESA) this week announced that it has awarded SpaceX a launch contract to put up to four of its Galileo GPS-type satellites into orbit. Though the deal is signed, approval must still be obtained by ESA’s members and executive commission.

This will be the first time SpaceX will launch any ESA satellites, and the first time in fifteen years that a Galileo satellite will launch outside of Arianespace operations. Previously the Russians had done a number of Galileo launches, using its Soyuz-2 rocket launching out of Arianespace’s French Guiana spaceport, but that partnership ended with Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine.

For the ESA the situation is even worse. It needs SpaceX to launch its satellites because at present it doesn’t have any of its own rockets to do it. The Ariane-5 is retired, and the new Ariane-6 (meant to replace it) is long delayed, and will not have its first test launch until next year, at the earliest. The Vega-C (too small for Galileo anyway) is also grounded due to design defects in the nozzle of its upper stage, while the Vega rocket it replaces has only one more launch before its own retirement.

Much like the Axiom-UK deal posted below, the American commercial space industry is once again making money from others, solely due to the capabilities developed in the past decade due to competition and freedom.

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Axiom signs deal with the United Kingdom to fly all British mission

9:30 am

The space agency of the United Kingdom today announced that it has signed a deal with Axiom to fly an manned mission in space, with four astronauts spending up to two weeks in space (likely in a SpaceX Dragon capsule).

The flight, estimated to cost around £200 million, is being organized in cooperation with the European Space Agency (ESA), though all the astronauts will be British. The announced commander, Tim Peake, spent six months on ISS in 2015, and has come out of retirement to do the flight.

It is also unclear at this moment whether it will fly to ISS, or simply remain in orbit. In fact, few specific details have yet been released.

The bottom line however is that the new American space industry is going to make money from Britain’s desire to be a space power. Seems like a good deal to me.

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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

No Starship/Superheavy launch likely until January?

9:13 am

No Starship test launch until 2024
SpaceX is ready but the federal government says “No!”

We’re from the government and we’re here to help! In describing the effort of Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to help SpaceX prod the federal bureaucracy into approving a new launch license for the company’s Starship/Superheavy rocket, space writer Mark Whittington included this significant but not previously mentioned tidbit that might help us predict when Fish & Wildlife (FWS) might finally give its okay for a launch:

The FWS has as long as 135 days to complete its review.

Let’s review the situation to understand what this tidbit means. At present it appears the FAA is ready to issue a launch licence, having closed its own investigation into the April Starship/Superheavy test flight on September 8, 2023.

At the time the FAA however was very clear: No launch license until Fish & Wildlife gave its environmental approval as well. Never before had this environmental agency had veto power over launches, but under the Biden administration it now has it.

Though Fish & Wildlife could have begun its own investigation in April, and met the 135-day deadline to give its approval for a launch the same time as the FAA, in September, it now appears that it did not start its clock ticking until after the FAA closed its work. If so, it appears Fish & Wildlife has until early January to complete its investigation.

Since FWS admitted in April, right after the failed test launch of Starship/Superheavy, that it caused no harm to wildlife, there appears no reason for this long delay.

The delay therefore can only be for two reasons, neither good. Either the people at Fish & Wildlife are utterly incompetent, and need eight months to write up the paperwork (even though in April they already knew that there was no reason to delay), or they are vindictive, power-hungry, and wish to exercise an animus against SpaceX in order to hurt the company.

Mostly likely we are seeing a combination of both: The bureaucrats at Fish & Wildlife are incompetent and hate SpaceX, and are using their newly gained power over issuing launch licenses to hurt it.

Either way, if Fish & Wildlife uses its entire 135-day window to issue its launch approval to SpaceX, no launch can occur this year. SpaceX will be stymied, and the development of this new heavy-lift reuseable rocket, possibly the most important new technology in rocketry ever, will be badly crushed. Not only will NASA’s Artemis program be damaged (it wants Starship as its manned lunar lander), SpaceX might face huge financial loses, as it needs Starship to launch and maintain its Starlink communications constellation.

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ULA sets Christmas Eve as launch date for first Vulcan rocket launch

8:35 am

In an interview for CNBC, ULA’s CEO revealed that the company has now scheduled the first orbital launch of its new Vulcan rocket for December 24, 2023, Christmas Eve, with a backup launch window in January.

The rocket will carry Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander, targeting the western edge of the lunar mare dubbed Mare Imbrium. It will also carry human ashes to be buried in space, from the private company Celestis.

Vulcan was also originally supposed to carry Amazon’s first two test Kuiper satellites, but the delays in developing Vulcan forced ULA to use an Atlas-5 rocket instead, that launched on October 6th.

If the launch is successful, the company will try to quickly ramp up its launch pace to 24 times per year, in order to meet the contract for 47 launches it has with Amazon to launch Kuiper satellites, as well as its contract obligations to the Pentagon to launch military satellites.

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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.

October 24, 2023 Quick space links

3:18 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

 

 

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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

More Io images by Juno, enhanced by citizen scientists

1:27 pm

Io in natural and enhance colors
Click here for original of top image,
here for bottom.

Since Juno completed its 55th close swing past Jupiter on October 15, 2023, including the closest fly by of its volcano-covered moon Io since the 1990s, citizen scientists have been grabbing the spacecraft’s raw images of the moon and enhancing them to bring out the details.

Immediately after the fly-by I posted on October 17, 2023 the top image to the right, processed by Ted Stryk. This version attempted to capture the view of Juno is natural color. As I noted then, “The dark patches are lava flows, with the dimensions of mountains along the terminator line between night and day clearly distinguishable.”

The bottom picture to the right was first processed by citizen scientist Gerald Eichstädt, who like Stryk attempted to capture Io’s natural colors. Thomas Thomopoulos then took Eichstädt’s image and enhanced the colors as well as reduced the brightness, in order to bring out the details as much as possible.

I have rotated, cropped, and reduced this bottom image further to post it here.

In comparing this image with earlier pictures of Io, taken by both Juno and Galileo in the 1990s, there is evidence that some of the lava flows visible now have changed significantly in the intevening time. This is not a surprise, as volcanic eruptions take place on Io so frequently that it has not unusual to capture one in the rare times close up images are possible, going back to the discovery of volcanic activity by Voyager-1 in 1979.

It will take a bit of time for scientists, both professional and amateur, to pick out the specific changes. That work will be further aided by Juno’s next fly-by on December 30, 2023, where it will dip to less than 1,000 miles of the surface.

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At the moment our modern Nazi movement appears to be winning

12:25 pm

Chamberlain in 1938
In 1938 Chamberlain thought he could negotiate
with Hitler. Today American politicians think
they can negotiate with Hamas.

Now that we have clear evidence that the left is nothing more than a revised but reborn Nazi movement — allied with murderous Islamic groups like Hamas, it is imperative we track whether the good people in the world are willing to fight it, or appease it as was done so stupidly in the 1930s when Hitler first began his march for world domination and the extermination of the Jews.

In the past week, it seems more and more that appeasement is the watchword of the day.

First, Israel has repeatedly delayed its invasion into Gaza, mostly because of demands from western leaders, led by Democrat Joe Biden, to hold off so that negotiations can continue to get the hostages released. A news report today further reiterated that Israel has agreed to hold off, pending these negotiations.

The reasoning from Israel is the hope that Hamas will release a “big number” of hostages quickly, such as all women and children. Getting one or two hostages released on a weekly basis — which is what Hamas is presently doing — is not considered acceptable to Israel. At that pace it will take more than two years to get all released, and based on how the news cycle goes, after a few more months Israel will have lost its military initiative and Hamas will likely stop releasing any hostages.
» Read more

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Scientists: The solar cycle was only 8 years long during the Maunder Minimum in the 1600s

9:58 am

Using archival records gathered in Korea during the 1600s when the Sun was undergoing a long period of almost no sunspots — called the Maunder Minimum — scientists have discovered evidence that the solar cycle during that time was only 8 years long.

You can read their paper here. Since almost no sunspots were visible at that time, the scientists used reports of aurora in Korea to determine periods when the Sun was more active. From their abstract:

By analyzing the variations in solar activity-related equatorial auroras recorded in Korean historical books in the vicinity of a low-intensity paleo-West Pacific geomagnetic anomaly, we find clear evidence of an 8-year solar cycle rather than the normal 11-year cycle during the Maunder Minimum.

This 8-year cycle is shorter than the 9-year cycle that other researchers had estimated based on the few sunspots that did appear during this grand minimum. Both conclusions however challenge what is known of the Sun. Since the 11-year cycle resumed in the 1700s, short cycles have generally been associated with very active periods, the opposite of what has been found during Maunder.

In other words, we know better what happened, but have no understanding of why. Since the Maunder Minimum appears associated with the Little Ice Age of the 1600s, and fits other data that says the climate cools when the Sun produces few sunspots, gaining some understanding of this process is important for understanding past and future changes to the global climate.

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India releases on-board camera views during its Gaganyaan launch abort test

9:46 am

India’s space agency ISRO today released the on-board camera views taken during its Gaganyaan launch abort test on October 21, 2023.

The test was a complete success, and the footage shows each step clearly, from launch to stage separation to deployment of parachutes.

ISRO is still targeting 2024 for the first manned Gaganyaan mission, which will carry two to three astronauts into orbit for three to seven days. To meet that target however will require a lot of fast work, as the agency intends to fly three separate unmanned orbital missions of the Gaganyaan capsule prior to putting humans in it. More likely the manned mission will happen in 2025.

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Belarus joins China’s lunar base project

9:33 am

The former province of the Soviet Union Belarus has now signed an agreement to partner in China’s lunar base project, joining another former part of the U.S.S.R., Azerbaijan, as well as Russia, Pakistan, Venezuela, and South Africa.

Except for Russia, all the other partners in this project have little space capabilities, so don’t expect Belarus to contribute much. This deal is mainly for public relations purposes, to show that China has obtained some international partners.

In truth, the partnership more resembles the communist block run by the former Soviet Union — made up of failing communist states — except that communist China is now leads it.

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Lucy’s first asteroid fly-by coming on November 1st

9:25 am

Lucy's route through the solar system
Lucy’s route through the solar system

The asteroid probe Lucy is about to do its first asteroid fly-by on November 1, 2023, the first of a planned ten asteroids it will see close-up during its twelve year mission.

The half-mile-wide asteroid, Dinkinesh, is indicated on the graphic to the right by the white dot in the lower left of the main asteroid belt. It was a late addition to the spacecraft’s plan in order to provide a perfect testbed for doing a dress rehearsal of the many later fly-bys.

As this encounter is intended as a test of Lucy’s systems, scientific observations will be simpler than for the mission’s main targets. The spacecraft and the platform that holds the instruments will move into position two hours before the closest approach to Dinkinesh. Once in place, the spacecraft will begin collecting data with its high-resolution camera (L’LORRI) and its thermal-infrared camera (L’TES). One hour before closest approach, the spacecraft will begin tracking the asteroid with the terminal-tracking system. Only in the last eight minutes will Lucy be able to collect data with MVIC and LEISA, the color imager and infrared spectrometer that comprise the L’Ralph instrument. Lucy’s closest approach is expected to occur at 12:54 p.m. EDT, when the spacecraft will be within 270 miles (430 kilometers) of the asteroid. Lucy will perform continuous imaging and tracking of Dinkinesh for almost another hour. After that time, the spacecraft will reorient itself to resume communications with Earth but will continue to periodically image Dinkinesh with L’LORRI for the next four days.

After this close encounter the spacecraft will return to do a flyby of Earth in 2025 to slingshot it to the orbit of Jupiter, where it will do its main work exploring the Trojan asteroids there. On the way it will fly past a second main belt asteroid, dubbed Donaldjohanson.

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Varda signs deal with Australian private spaceport operator to land its capsules

9:13 am

Blocked from landing its American-built space capsules by the American government, the startup Varda has now completed negotiations and signed an agreement with Southern Launch, an Australian private spaceport operator, to land its capsules at the Koonibba Test Range northwest of Adelaide.

Varda’s business plan is to launch unmanned capsules in which pharmeceuticals and other products that can’t be made on Earth are manufactured, then return the capsule to earth where they are sold for a profit. This deal will allow Varda to land its next capsule there in 2024.

Meanwhile, Varda first capsule, presently in orbit after manufacturing pharmeceuticals for HIV, appears to be a total loss because the FAA and the Pentagon refused it permission to land in the U.S., for what appear to be purely bureaucratic reasons.

There was no single specific issue that held up the reentry, he said. “It was ultimately a coordination problem amongst three different groups that had not worked through this operation before.” He added that there were no safety concerns with Varda’s spacecraft or its ability to meet requirements for an FAA license. An additional challenge is that Varda is the first company to seek an FAA reentry license through a new set of regulations called Part 450. Those regulations are intended to streamline the process but, on the launch side, have been criticized by companies for being difficult.

The U.S. government is now the enemy of its citizens, so incompetent that it actually works to block them from achieving their goals.

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NASA issues update on repairs/fixes to Starliner

9:05 am

According to an update posted today by NASA, Boeing is moving forward on the repairs and fixes necessary to finally fly a manned mission with its capsule Starliner, now delayed several years and costing the company an additional $1.5 billion due to those repairs.

Boeing has completed P213 tape removal in the upper dome of the Starliner crew compartment and work is underway to remove or remediate the tape in the lower dome of the spacecraft. These hardware remediation efforts inside the Starliner production facility at NASA Kennedy are expected to be completed during the next several weeks. After the P213 tape remediation efforts conclude, engineers will conduct final assessments to ensure acceptable risk of any remaining tape.

A set of parachutes is on track to be delivered and installed on the CFT spacecraft by the end of this year to support the current target launch date. Separately, the team also is planning a drop test of Starliner’s updated drogue and main parachutes. The parachutes will incorporate a planned strengthening of main canopy suspension lines and the recent design of the drogue and main parachute soft-link joints, which will increase the safety factor for the system. The drop test is planned for early 2024 based on the current parachute delivery schedule.

The company is targeting having Starliner ready for launch in March ahead of its scheduled April 2024 launch.

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China launches classified satellite

8:59 am

China today successfully launched a classified reconnaissance satellite, its Long March 2D rocket lifting off from its Xichang spaceport in the south of China.

No word on where the first stage, which uses toxic hypogolic fuel, crashed in the interior of China.

The leaders in 2023 launch race:

76 SpaceX
47 China
13 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise still leads China in successful launches 88 to 47, and the entire world combined 88 to 75. SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world combined (excluding American companies) 76 to 75.

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October 23, 2023 Quick space links

5:47 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

 

  • NASA convenes team to reassess design of Mars sample return mission

    • Common sense would cause them to consider a major restructuring that even might include Starship. The track record of Washington suggests instead they will only make some superficial changes, claiming it saves money and addresses the problems outlined by the recent very critical independent review. And most important, they will ask for more money!

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“Formerly clandestine Nazis will continue protesting, sometimes violently”

1:37 pm

Enthusiatically and publicly cheering for another genocide
The left is now enthusiastically cheering for another
Jewish genocide in Israel

The headline sums up the situation. It is a quote from an article about the Israeli army’s green light to invade Gaza and take as long as necessary in order to utterly destroy Hamas. In its conclusion that article couldn’t help noting the expected and guaranteed enraged protests from all the usual suspects when that invasion begins.

The attempt by Israel to defend itself after a brutal terrorist attack by Hamas, torturing and killing what appears to be more than a thousand people, including many women, children, and babies, has accomplished one and only one good thing: It has caused the Nazis among us — almost all of which are on the left — to finally make clear their true feelings and goals: It’s all right to kill Israelis, especially if they are Jews. And it’s also all right to torture little children before you do it.

The examples of this are so many it is difficult to document them all. Over and over people from all walks of life but especially our elitist intellectual class enthusiatically called for the massacre of Jews while demanding Israel stand down and let Hamas do it. Here are only a few examples:
» Read more

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A low mid-latitude crater on Mars apparently filled to overflowing with ice

12:04 pm

ice filling a Martian crater to overflowing
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on June 18, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a steep 1,000-foot-high cliff with what appears to be extensive glacial material at its base.

The many layers all suggest past climate cycles, where snow was deposited and the glacier grew, followed by a period when no snow fell and the glacier either shrank or remained unchanged. The terraced nature of the layers near the base of the cliff suggest that with each active cycle less snow was deposited and the glacier grew less.

The latitude is 33 degrees south, which puts it just outside the dry equatorial regions of Mars and inside the mid-latitude region where many such glacial features are found. Its closeness to the tropics however is significant, because by this point we should be seeing a diminishment of such features. Instead, the wider view shows us that the near surface ice in this region is extensive and in fact appears to cover everything.
» Read more

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Ingenuity completes 63rd flight on Mars

10:07 am

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

On October 19, 2023 the Mars helicopter Ingenuity successfully completed its 63rd flight on Mars, traveling 1,901 feet (its third longest flight) for 142.6 seconds.

On the overview map above the two dots and the green line mark the flight path, to the southwest and landing about 2,000 feet to the west of where the rover Perseverance presently sits (indicated by the blue dot).

Both the flight time and distance were slightly longer than the flight plan, likely caused by the helicopter making sure it had a safe landing spot before lowering itself to the ground.

Ingenuity is no longer simply an engineering test of whether flight is possible on Mars. It is now serving wholly as a scout for Perseverance, either moving ahead of its planned route (the red dotted line) in order to provide pictures of the ground so that the rover’s science team can better plan their future travels, or going into territory that the rover is not intended to travel in order to gather data that would previously been unavailable.

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Near collision of Australian satellite with Chinese military satellite

9:31 am

According to one Australian military official, a Chinese military satellite earlier this month came within a kilometer of a Australian satellite.

Analysis conducted after the event by the company LeoLabs shows both satellites were predicted to have an “miss” distance of just 100 metres 24 hours before the anticipated “conjunction”.

According to the data, the Yaogan 37 satellite manoeuvred 16 hours prior to the conjunction, increasing the miss distance to 978 metres at the closest approach.

The official’s presentation emphasized the increasing threat of collisions from the high number of satellites being launched, but this incident instead suggests to me that the problem is actually under some control by satellite operators. It continues the pattern seen repeatedly, whereby satellite operators detect a potential collision before it happens, and take preventive measures to avoid it.

The real problem has to do with defunct equipment in orbit that no one is in contact with or can control. Such objects pose are a bigger threat, because they cannot be maneuvered.

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Space Perspective unveils restroom for its high altitude tourist balloon

9:14 am

Neptune's restroom
Click for original image.

The Florida company Space Perspective yesterday unveiled the restroom for its high altitude tourist balloon, Neptune, that intends to take passengers on six to eight hour flights to nineteen miles elevation.

The goal was to provide an environment closer to a spa than to a typical aircraft setting, said Dan Window, who oversees all aspects of design at Space Perspective alongside Isabella Trani. “Overall, we embraced softness and optimistic color tones in the Space Spa, which play nicely with the contrasting colors you will see through its two windows,” Window said in the same statement. “We’re also using light washes, for example, to create ambience and allow for customization of the environment as well as discourage reflections in the windows. Soothing soundscapes will be unique to what you experience in the Space Lounge, and we brought in plants as a callback to the experience that Space Perspective’s founders had in Biosphere 2.

Based on the artist’s renderning to the right, the restroom is still a very small space, smaller than the smallest bathroom in most homes.

Space Perspective says it has received deposits for more than 1,600 flight tickets at 125K each, representing $200 million in potential income. It hopes to complete its first test flight next year.

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Scientists: The activity at the few known fast radio bursts suggests they resemble earthquakes

8:57 am

By analyzing 7,000 fast radio bursts (FRBs) detected from the three known FRBs, two scientists have found that the behavior appears to resemble the main quake and aftershocks seen in earthquakes.

The duo found that the arrival times of bursts from FRB20121102A showed a high degree of correlation, with many more bursts arriving within a second of each other than would be expected if the generation of bursts were completely random. This correlation faded away at longer timescales, with bursts separated by over a second arriving completely at random.

They drew similarities with this behaviour to how earthquakes produce secondary aftershocks in the hours or days following a tremor, but then become completely unpredictable once an episode of aftershocks passes. Moreover, they found that the rate of these FRB “aftershocks” follows the same Omori-Utsu law that characterises the occurrence of earthquake aftershocks on Earth. The law states that shortly after a large earthquake, the rate of aftershocks remains constant over a brief period of minutes to hours, after which the aftershock rate drops, decaying as roughly the inverse of the time since the main shock.

As always there is uncertainty about this conclusion. The magnitudes of the main quake and the pre- and after-shocks do not follow the curve pattern of earthquakes. Instead pre- and after-shocks can be as powerful.

The present theory is that FRBs are quakes in the crust of neutron stars, though this remains unconfirmed.

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SpaceX successfully completes two Starlink satellite launches today

8:29 pm

SpaceX today successfully completed two Starlink satellite launches, first putting 21 satellites in orbit from Vandenberg in the early morning hours and then launching another 23 satellites from Cape Canaveral in the evening.

Both first stages successfully landed on their drone ships, respectively in the Pacific and Atlantic. The first completed its sixteenth flight, the second its fourth flight.

The leaders in 2023 launch race:

76 SpaceX
46 China
13 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise now leads China in successfully launches 88 to 46, and the entire world combined 88 to 74. SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world combined (excluding American companies) 76 to 74.

12 comments

First Bennu asteroid samples recovered from OSIRIS-REx return capsule

10:26 am

Scientists have successfully removed the asteroid samples from the OSIRIS-REx return capsule that the spacecraft obtained from the asteroid Bennu in 2020.

What is more exciting is that though they now have slightly more material than the mission hoped to bring back, they haven’t even opened the capsule’s sample compartment.

The curation team processing NASA’s asteroid Bennu sample has removed and collected 2.48 ounces (70.3 grams) of rocks and dust from the sampler hardware – surpassing the agency’s goal of bringing at least 60 grams to Earth.

And the good news is, there’s still more of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security–Regolith Explorer) sample to collect.

The sample processed so far includes the rocks and dust found on the outside of the sampler head, as well as a portion of the bulk sample from inside the head, which was accessed through the head’s mylar flap. Additional material remaining inside the sampler head, called the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism, or TAGSAM, is set for removal later, adding to the mass total.

The large amount of material means there will be plenty to distribute to many scientists for study.

The reason the recovery process is going so slowly is to ensure the samples do not get contaminated by the Earth’s atmosphere. The capsule is inside a glovebox filled with nitrogen. The only way any work can be done is by inserting hands inside gloves that extend into the box. This keeps the samples protected but prevents any direct contact, which makes work slow and difficult.

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The reshuffling of Blue Origin’s management continues

10:20 am

With the announcement yesterday that another high level executive was leaving the company — the third in less than a month — Blue Origin does appear to be making major changes in its management as well as its entire organizational structure.

Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith told employees in an email on Friday that Mike Eilola, the company’s senior vice president of operations since 2021, “is leaving the company for personal reasons” on Nov. 3 and will have his unit split into two new organizations.

Eilola’s departure follows plans announced last month by Bezos to replace Smith, who has been Blue Origin’s CEO since 2017, with longtime Amazon executive Dave Limp by the end of the year. And Brent Sherwood, the head of what had been the company’s research and development unit, will depart next month, Reuters has reported.

This is not the only management restructuring. It has also shifted its lunar lander project into its own division, as well as created a new separate division for developing in-space robotic servicing and orbital tug products.

It finally appears that Jeff Bezos is taking action to get his company working again, after more than a half decade of non-achievement since Bob Smith took over in 2017. Hopefully these changes finally will produce results.

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Gaganyaan abort test flight flies successfully after short delay

10:13 am

When I went to bed last night India’s Gaganyaan abort test flight had been cancelled due to a launch abort at T-0, with the live stream ending and an expectation that engineers would need at least another day to fly.

When I woke up it turned out that ISRO behaved more like SpaceX than a government agency. It quickly figured out what was wrong, recycled the countdown, and two hours later successfully flew the test of its launch abort rescue system for its manned Gaganyaan capsule.

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully executed the Test Flight Abort Mission, for the Gaganyaan mission on Saturday after the first test flight was aborted at 8:45 am due to a problem in the engine ignition. ISRO Chief S Somanth said the planned lift off the TV-D1 rocket could not happen following an anomaly that will be analysed. He said that the engine ignition of the TV-D1 rocket did not happen over time.

The space agency then said that the errors have been identified and corrected and the second launch was scheduled for 10:00 Hrs today.

And at 10 am, ISRO successfully launched the test vehicle from Sriharikota today. Chairman Somanath expressed happiness and said, “I am very happy to announce the successful accomplishment of Gaganyaan TV-D1 mission”.

The test rocket launched, the abort system separated from the rocket as planned, the capsule was released from the abort system, its parachutes then opened, and the capsule then safely splashed down in the Bay of Bengal about ten miles off the coast, where it was recovered successfully.

ISRO plans a second launch abort test prior to flying the actual manned mission, but at this moment it appears very close to being ready for a manned mission in 2024, its present goal.

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India’s Gaganyaan launch abort test aborts at T-0

8:21 pm

India’s attempt today to test the launch abort system to be used to safely propel its manned Gaganyaan capsule away from a failing rocket aborted at T-0.

They need to take the spacecraft back to the assembly building in order to figure out what went wrong, so the next attempt will likely be delayed at mininum several weeks. UPDATE: That’s what the head of ISRO said at the end of this live stream, but that is not what happened. See new post above.

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