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Federal government continues to block the return of Varda’s commercial capsule, carrying drugs to treat HIV

9:47 am

Even as the FAA continues to block Varda from returning its capsule back to Earth, the Air Force has now joined in to block its landing at its Utah Test and Training Range, the same location NASA will use on September 24 to drop the return capsule from OSIRIS-REx, carrying material from an asteroid.

Varda originally planned to bring back a capsule containing crystals of ritonavir, a drug used to treat HIV, in mid-July. After announcing that had been delayed [due to the FAA’s refusal to issue a landing license in July], the company was looking at September 5 and 7, a source told TechCrunch. This information was confirmed by USAF.

The company declined to comment, but posted on X that the “spacecraft is healthy across all systems” and that they are continuing to collaborate with regulators to bring the capsule back to Earth. They added that the spacecraft can survive for up to a year on-orbit.

“Sept. 5 and 7 were their primary targets,” a spokesperson for the USAF said in an emailed statement. “The request to use the Utah Test and Training Range for the landing location was not granted at this time due to the overall safety, risk and impact analysis. In a separate process, the FAA has not granted a reentry license. All organizations continue working to explore recovery options.”

The spokesperson further said that Varda “is working on presenting alternate plans,” but would not elaborate further whether that meant seeking an alternate landing site. A spokesperson for the FAA told TechCrunch that Varda’s application was denied on September 6 because the company “did not demonstrate compliance with the regulatory requirements.”

“On September 8, Varda formally requested that the FAA reconsider its decision. The request for reconsideration is pending,” the spokesperson said.

The actions of these agencies is unconscionable and a outright abuse of power. There is no rational reason for the FAA to continue to deny Varda the right to bring its capsule back to Earth. Its claims of environmental impact are bogus, especially since capsules and spacecraft have been returning to Earth like this for more than three-quarters of a century. Nor is there any reason for the Air Force to have blocked the return now. Its claim of issues of “safety, risk, and impact” is utter garbage, especially since it is allowing a NASA capsule to land in this exact same facility in only days, and that capsule is carrying material from an asteroid.

One might question why Varda apparently flew its capsule prior to getting these landing approvals, but it did exactly the right thing, for two reasons. First, if it waited for approvals before flying, it would have no leverage on these power-hungry federal agencies and it likely would still be on the ground, going bankrupt (think of Virgin Orbit in the United Kingdom). This by the way is the same tactic used by SpaceX. You don’t wait on them, you put them under the gun by moving forward as fast as possible.

Second, this situation helps highlight the power grab by these agencies. While the FAA has some concerns relating to conflicts with airplane traffic, that should simply be a matter of coordination and involve no great delay. Similarly, landing on an Air Force base is merely scheduling. Since when did government agencies have the power to block a landing beyond those points? They don’t, not legally, morally, or practically.

Though I am sure most workers at the FAA and Air Force are likely trying to do their best to help
Varda, the structure of such regulatory agencies always encourages the power-hungry to grab power. The result has been endless mission creep, to the point where today no space activity can happen without some government agency sticking its nose in to demand control.

12 comments

India’s Aditya-L1 solar telescope initiates some science observations

9:18 am

According to India’s space agency ISRO, its Aditya-L1 solar telescope has begun science observations with one instrument, even as it continues its journey to its final position at L1, one million miles from the Earth.

The activation of STEPS occurred on September 10, 2023, at a distance exceeding 50,000 km from Earth. This distance equates to more than eight times the Earth’s radius, placing it significantly beyond the Earth’s radiation belt region. Following the successful completion of essential health checks for the instrument, the data collection process continued until the spacecraft had travelled beyond the 50,000 km mark from Earth.

All units of STEPS are currently operating within normal parameters. A graphical representation illustrates the measurements, showcasing fluctuations in the energetic particle environment within Earth’s magnetosphere, which were collected by one of the instrument’s units.

It is expected Aditya-L1 will reach L1 in January, where it will begin round-the-clock observations of the Sun, in parallel with NASA’s Soho telescope, which has been at L1 since the 1990s.

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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

Russian investigators pin down cause of Luna-25 failure

10:03 am

Though the investigation is not yet complete, reports out of Russia indicate that the cause of the failure of Luna-25 during an engine burn while in orbit around the Moon has been identified.

The article at the link provides the details, which involve problems with two “BIUS-L accelerometers” during the flight, which for reasons not yet understood were switching from the primary to the secondary randomly during the journey to the Moon, apparently because of some failure.

However, ahead of the fateful lunar orbit correction on August 19, both accelerometers worked correctly, but once the maneuver started, one set failed again, while the flight control system never switched to data from the second set. As a result, onboard computers were not receiving data about critical parameters required for properly completing the orbit correction, such as orientation of the spacecraft in space, velocity and altitude.

If confirmed, this crash scenario would likely implicate deficiencies in the development or testing of the flight control system and its software rather than any mechanical problem of the propulsion system, which was implied in the initial statement about the incident. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted sentence says it all. The serious quality control problems that have hampered Russia’s space efforts remain, and in fact appear systemic throughout its entire aerospace industry. In fact, this failure of a planetary probe helps explain the many difficulties Russia has been having in its war in the Ukraine, attributable to these same issues.

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China launches military reconnaissance satellite

9:52 am

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

No word on where the rocket’s lower stages crashed in China. All the stages use hypergolic fuels, which are extremely toxic.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

65 SpaceX
43 China
13 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise still leads China in successful launches 76 to 43, and the entire world combined 76 to 69. SpaceX by itself now trails the rest of the world combined (excluding American companies) 65 to 69.

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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 launches another 22 Starlink satellites

9:22 am

SpaceX last night successfully launched another 22 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage completed its fifth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

65 SpaceX
42 China
13 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 76 to 42, and the entire world combined 76 to 68. SpaceX by itself now trails the rest of the world combined (excluding American companies) 65 to 68.

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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

Don Rickles, Ruth Buzzi, and Arte Johnson – bloopers from Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In

6:01 pm

An evening pause: This sequence shows the almost vain attempt to shoot a series of quick jokes using the running gag of Buzzi playing her character “Gladys” on a park bench being “accosted” by Arte Johnson, playing his character “Tyrone”. Rickles adds another element. It shows again that humor is at its heart silliness. If you can’t be silly you can’t be funny, and these three comedians certainly understood that.

Hat tip Cotour.

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September 15, 2023 Quick space links

5:01 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

 

 

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Virgin Galactic sets Oct 5th launch date for its fifth commercial suborbital flight in ’23

4:47 pm

Virgin Galactic today announced that the launch window for its fifth commercial suborbital flight this year and ninth overall will open on Oct 5th.

The flight will include three private passengers, two Americans and one Pakistani, and a crew of five Virgin Galactic employees.

At this point I don’t consider these suborbital flights to be very newsworthy. However, I decided to highlight this news release because of its stark contrast with Blue Origin. Even before last year’s mishap that grounded Blue Origin’s own suborbital spacecraft, New Shepard, it never flew this frequently. Virgin Galactic took far too long to begin flying (two decades), but it does appear that is now wasting no time trying to catch up.

Blue Origin meanwhile continues to drift along, accomplishing little and appearing to do even less with time.

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FAA confirms: No Starship/Superheavy launch license until Interior approves

4:00 pm

The Kafkaesque Interior Department strikcs again!
The Kafkaesque Interior Department
strikcs again!

They’re coming for you next: In an email today, the FAA confirmed what I had reported yesterday, that though it hopes to issue a launch license for the next orbital test flight of SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy rocket by the end of October, no license will be issued until Fish & Wildlife in the Interior Department agrees.

Before it is authorized to conduct a second Starship/Super Heavy launch, SpaceX must obtain a modified license from the FAA that addresses all safety, environmental, and other regulatory requirements. As part of that license application determination process, the FAA will review new environmental information, including changes related to the launch pad, as well as other proposed vehicle and flight modifications.

The FAA will complete a Written Reevaluation (WR) to the 2022 Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) evaluating the new environmental information, including Endangered Species Act consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. If the FAA determines through the WR process that the contents of the PEA do not remain valid in light of the changes proposed for Flight 2, additional environmental review will be required. Accordingly, the FAA has not authorized SpaceX’s proposed Flight 2. [emphasis mine]

Tragically, my April prediction is coming true. This launch is almost certainly not going to occur before November, and will almost certainly be delayed until next year.

Note again that until the Biden administration, SpaceX was not required to get a detailed environmental reassessement after every Boca Chica test launch. Fish & Wildlife was not involved, as it shouldn’t be. SpaceX made its engineering investigation, the FAA reviewed it quickly, and the company launched again, at a pace of almost one test launch a month, with almost every launch resulting in a crash landing or an explosion.

Under the Biden administration the rules suddenly changed. Now, all launches are environmental concerns, even though we have empirical data for more than seventy years at Cape Canaveral that rocket launches not only do no harm to wildlife, they allow it to thrive because the spaceport creates large zones where nothing can be developed.

In other words, the Biden administration is playing a raw and cruel political game, designed to kill Starship/Superheavy. And it is succeeding, because it will be impossible to develop this rocket on time for its investors and NASA at a pace of only one test launch per year.

50 comments

Today’s blacklisted American finally wins his four-decade-long fight against the federal government

1:52 pm

So Kafkaesque even Kafka would be astonished
So Kafkaesque even Kafka would be astonished

Bring a gun to a knife fight: In 1982 Sidney Longwell bought a federal oil and gas lease from the Interior Department, with the intention of making money from the oil he extracted from Montana’s Lewis and Clark National Forest. Such leases were not unusual up until then, and in this case was obtained in a perfectly legal manner.

It was not to be, at least for the next four decades, as the Interior Department under five different Presidents repeatedly changed the rules and made arbitary decisions in an effort to somehow illegally cancel that lease. The story, as described by his non-profit law firm, Mountain States Legal Foundation, is quite ugly.

Sidney Longwell first bought his federal oil and gas lease in 1982. But after years of back-and-forth, the Clinton Administration suspended his lease indefinitely in 1993, placing it in regulatory limbo. A decade of fruitless bureaucratic review followed. Finally, in 2013, and with help from Mountain States Legal Foundation, he took the DOI to court, where the agency was forced to address Sidney’s lease. When pressed in 2016 for a decision, the DOI canceled the lease! So, Mountain States and Sidney sued them again.
» Read more

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A triangular Martian hill

12:35 pm

A triangular Martian hill
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on May 29, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the science team labels an “unusual shaped hill” that is estimated to be about 20 to 40 feet high.

What makes it unusual? First, it sticks up out of the endless northern lowland plains for no obvious reason, though its shape suggests the existence of bedrock topography that is now buried by the dust and debris that coats the surface of those plains.

Second, the hill itself suggests that it formed after it was covered with debris. Note the crater near its northeast cliff. It appears that the cliff chopped off part of the crater, suggesting that the hill was once level with the surrounding terrain. Some later underground pressure pushed it upward, with its angled sides determined by existing faults.

Why those forces tilted the hill upward as it did, with only its eastern fringes raised, is a question a wide view might answer.
» Read more

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New analysis of Chandrayaan-1’s lunar orbital data might explain its detection of widespread surface hydrogen on the Moon

9:52 am

The Earth's magnetic field, shaped by the solar wind
The Earth’s magnetic field, shaped by the solar wind

One of the significant finds coming from India’s first lunar orbiter, Chandrayaan-1, was the detection of hydrogen in many places across the entire lunar surface, in places where it seemed impossible for hydrogen to be there, even if it was locked in a molecule like water.

Researchers in Hawaii now think they have found an explanation by linking that data to the Earth’s long magnetotail, formed by the solar wind pushing against the Earth’s magnetic field. The graphic to the right illustrates that process. The scientists focused on the kind of weathering processes that occurred both when the Moon was inside that tail, and when it was not.

Li and co-authors analyzed the remote sensing data that were collected by the Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument onboard India’s Chandrayaan 1 mission between 2008 and 2009. Specifically, they assessed the changes in water formation as the Moon traversed through Earth’s magnetotail, which includes the plasma sheet.

“To my surprise, the remote sensing observations showed that the water formation in Earth’s magnetotail is almost identical to the time when the Moon was outside of the Earth’s magnetotail,” said Li. “This indicates that, in the magnetotail, there may be additional formation processes or new sources of water not directly associated with the implantation of solar wind protons. In particular, radiation by high energy electrons exhibits similar effects as the solar wind protons.”

In other words, the evidence suggests that the hydrogen signal seen by Chandrayaan-1 might have been a very temporary implacement of that hydrogen by the solar wind, which ceases during the Moon’s periodic passages through the magnetotail. The Moon’s harsh environment then causes that hydrogen to vanish, only to reappear when it is once again exposed to the solar wind.

None of this is confirmed, so some skepticism is required. If true, however, it would provide further evidence that the hydrogen signal seen at the lunar poles that scientists hope is evidence of ice in the permanently shadowed craters might be nothing of the sort, and we shall find little ice there.

7 comments

Germany signs Artemis Accords

9:26 am

Germany today finally signed the Artemis Accords, becoming the 29th nation to do so. More important, its signing puts most of Europe within the accords, as well as all of the major players in space except for China and Russia.

The full list of signatories to the Artemis Accords is now as follows: Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Canada, Columbia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, and the United States.

We now can essentially see the alliance that will compete with China, Russia, and the handful of third world leftist nations such as Venezuela and South Africa. Though there are some nations on this list that have not flown in space and have a very weak infrastructure for space (Nigeria, Romania, and Ecuador for example), most of the signatories have major aerospace industries with a strong space component. More important, while the Biden administration has been deemphasizing the original conception of the accords, aimed at strengthening property rights in space, the members of the alliance are still mostly capitalist countries, with legal systems that support individual rights.

On the other side are nations that have traditionally or are now pushing for communism and strong authoritarian rule.

Thus, we can now see the rough outline of the political competition that will exist as the solar system is explored and colonized in the coming centuries.

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Russia launches 3 astronauts to ISS

9:02 am

Russia today used its Soyuz-2 rocket to launch three astronauts to ISS, one American and two Russians, lifting off from Baikonur in Kazakhstan.

At posting the Soyuz capsule had still not docked with ISS, but should do so shortly.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

64 SpaceX
42 China
13 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise still leads China in successful launches 75 to 42, and the entire world combined 75 to 68. SpaceX by itself still trails the rest of the world combined (excluding American companies) 64 to 68.

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Firefly completes second orbital launch

12:35 am

The launch startup Firefly tonight successfully completed its second orbital launch, and the first that reached its intended orbit, its Alpha rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California and placing a Space Force payload on a mission to prove the satellite could be shipped to the launchpad, stacked on the rocket, and launched within sixty hours.

As this was Firefly’s first launch in 2023, the company does not enter the leader board for the 2023 launch race:

64 SpaceX
42 China
12 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 75 to 42, and the entire world combined 75 to 67. SpaceX by itself still trails the rest of the world combined (excluding American companies) 64 to 67.

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September 14, 2023 Quick space links

3:25 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

 

 

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One of two major law firms sued for running segregated training programs backs down

2:05 pm

Gadsden Flag - a symbol of unbowing defiance to oppression
Gadsden Flag – a symbol of unbowing defiance to oppression

Bring a gun to a knife fight: Shortly after the Supreme Court ruled in June that racial quotas and affirmative action in college admissions was unconstitutional, the non-profit legal firm the American Alliance for Equal Rights (AAFER) sued two different major law firms, Perkins Coie in Dallas and Morrison & Foerster in Miami, accusing both of illegal discrimination in their segregrated Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training programs that specifically excluded whites and asians.

Perkins Coie, founded in Seattle, offers “diversity fellowships” that provide stipends of $15,000 to $25,000 and paid positions as summer associates, a position that at major law firms can lead to full-time jobs with six-figure salaries. Applicants must belong to “a group historically underrepresented in the legal profession, including students of color, students who identify as LGBTQ+, and students with disabilities,” according to Perkins Coie, which employs more than 1,200 lawyers in the United States and Asia.

Morrison & Foerster, a corporate law firm founded in San Francisco that has more than 1,000 lawyers worldwide, has a similar program that is open to applicants who are Black, Hispanic, Native American or members of the LGBT community. The fellowship consists of a paid summer-associate position and a $50,000 stipend.

Now, only eight days after the lawsuit was filed, one of these law firms, Morrison & Foerster, has backed down, at least superficially, by eliminating in its applications any mention of race or sexual orientation.
» Read more

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Polygons and scallops in the high mid-latitudes of the Martian lowland plains

12:46 pm

Polygons and scallops in the high mid-latitudes of Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! Only yesterday I posted an image of polygons in the dry equatorial regions of Mars, where little evidence of near-surface ice is found and are thought to be the remnants from a long-dried lakebed.

Today we take a look at some polygons in the mid-latitudes of the icy northern lowland plains, where near-surface ice appears ubiquitous and as it sublimates away with the changing seasons causes all kinds of strange formations, including polygons.

The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, is a good example, centered on a 0.6-mile-wide bright crater that appears to be filled with glacial ice. The image was taken on June 22, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and is located at 44 degrees north latitude on the western edge of Utopia Basin. As noted by the MRO science team in 2006 for a different MRO picture with similar features:
» Read more

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Webb captures new infrared image of bi-polar jets shooting from baby star

10:54 am

HH 211 as seen by Webb
Click for original image.

Using the Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have taken a new infrared image of the baby star Herbig-Haro 211 (HH 211), known best for the bi-polar jets that shoot out in opposite directions at very great speeds.

That picture is to the right, reduced and sharpened to post here, and has about 5 to 10 times the resolution of previous infrared images.

The image showcases a series of bow shocks to the southeast (lower-left) and northwest (upper-right) as well as the narrow bipolar jet that powers them. …. The inner jet is seen to “wiggle” with mirror symmetry on either side of the central protostar. This is in agreement with observations on smaller scales and suggests that the protostar may in fact be an unresolved binary star.

Earlier observations of HH 211 with ground-based telescopes revealed giant bow shocks moving away from us (northwest) and moving towards us (southeast) and cavity-like structures in shocked hydrogen and carbon monoxide respectively, as well as a knotty and wiggling bipolar jet in silicon monoxide. Researchers have used Webb’s new observations to determine that the object’s outflow is relatively slow in comparison to more evolved protostars with similar types of outflows.

The team measured the velocities of the innermost outflow structures to be roughly 48-60 miles per second (80 to 100 kilometers per second). However, the difference in velocity between these sections of the outflow and the leading material they’re colliding with — the shock wave — is much smaller. The researchers concluded that outflows from the youngest stars, like that in the center of HH 211, are mostly made up of molecules, because the comparatively low shock wave velocities are not energetic enough to break the molecules apart into simpler atoms and ions.

The baby star at the center of these jets, about a 1,000 light years away, is estimated to be only a few ten thousand years old, and presently has a mass less than a tenth of the Sun. With time it will accrete more matter and become a full-sized star.

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23 Indian companies bid for ownership of ISRO’s SSLV rocket

10:39 am

In the Modi government’s push to transition its aerospace industry from one controlled by its space agency ISRO to one that is controlled by no one and is instead a competitive commercial market owned by private companies, it had recently proposed transferring ownership of ISRO’s SSLV rocket to a private company, and requested applications from private companies interested in doing so.

It now appears that twenty-three Indian companies have entered their names in the hat.

Chairman of Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) Pawan K Goenka said that they are keen to see how the private sector uses the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) technology. “There has been a tremendous response, 23 companies have (so far) shown interest in applying for this technology. Of course only one of them will get it,” he said.

IN-SPACe, an autonomous nodal agency under the Department of Space (DOS), formed in 2020 to promote, enable, authorise and supervise non-government entities (NGEs) to undertake space activities, had in July floated an Expression of Interest (EoI) for transfer of technology (ToT) of SSLV with the last date to respond to it being September 25.

“Technology transfer is something we are working on very aggressively, because we really want to see how ISRO’s technology is leveraged by private sector. A lot is happening in that area and the biggest one is of course SSLV technology transfer, where we are transferring the launch vehicle lock, stock, and barrel completely to the private sector,” Goenka said.

As there is still several weeks left before the deadline, it is possible other companies will submit offers. Whichever company gets the rocket will immediately become a significant player in the global launch market, able to offer a very cost effective rocket for commercial launches. It will certainly be able to match Rocket Lab right off the bat.

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German govenment blocks Chinese takeover of startup satellite company

10:29 am

The German govenment today blocked the completion of a stock deal that would have transferred almost complete ownership of the startup satellite company KLEO Connect to a Chinese firm.

The cabinet agreed a decision by the economy ministry not to let Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology, which already has 53% of the company, acquire the 45% minority stake of German company EightyLeo, according to the sources.

KLEO Connect wants to establish a network of more than 300 small, low earth orbit satellites to be fully operational by 2028 along with the ground infrastructure to provide global communications services – similar to SpaceX with its project Starlink. [emphasis mine]

It appears this decision might be a bit late, considering that this Chinese pseudo-company, undoubtably working under the supervision of the Chinese communists, already owns a majority stake. That lateness however appears to be part of the German government’s decision in the last year to toughen its stance on China.

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Starship/Superheavy 2nd test launch likely delayed until next year by federal bureaucracy and White House

9:52 am

Starship stacked on Superheavy, September 5, 2023
Starship stacked on Superheavy, September 5, 2023,
when Elon Musk said it was ready for launch

They’re coming for you next: While answering questions from reporters at a conference yesterday on when SpaceX might get its next Starship/Superheavy launch license, FAA acting chief Polly Trottenberg said she hoped that license will be awarded by October, but then slipped in one minor additional detail that had not previously mentioned or required:

SpaceX would still need a separate environmental approval from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service before a launch. Trottenberg did not say how long that might take.

Not surprisingly, the story from Reuters buries this detail, spinning the story to make it seem that the FAA is eager to help SpaceX launch. Similarly, this NasaSpaceFlight.com story (a space news outlet which has also tried to spin things to make the delays appear the fault of SpaceX) fails to even mention this detail.

SpaceX is now destacking Starship from Superheavy (live stream here).

I predicted in the spring that intransigence from the federal bureaucracy, controlled by the Biden administration, would likely delay this launch well past August, and likely into next year. I also said I would be thrilled if my cynical prediction turned out to be wrong.

Sadly, it looks like that prediction will be correct, and in fact might have actually been conservative. » Read more

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September 13, 2023 Quick space links

2:18 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

 

 

 

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Moon’s south pole permanently shadowed regions are younger than expected

1:26 pm

Map of Moon's south pole, with permanently shadowed regions indicated
Click for original image.

A new long range model of the Moon’s orbit and rotational tilt now suggests that the permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) in its south polar regions are much younger than previous predicted, which reduces the likely amount of ice that has been preserved there.

The map of the south pole region to the right, reduced, sharpened, and annotated to post here, shows the locations of those shadowed regions, with their predicted ages indicated by the colors (Gyr = billion years). Note that the Nova-C lander, planned for launch in mid-November, will land somewhat near some relatively young PSRs, as indicated by the red cross. From the press release:

“We calculated the lunar spin axis orientation and the extent of PSRs based on recent advances for the time evolution of the Earth-Moon distance,” he said. Early in its history, the Moon (which is 4.5 billion years old) was bombarded by comets and volcanism released water vapor from its interior, but continuously shadowed areas started to appear only 3.4 billion years ago. By that time these processes had started to die down, so most of the water that was delivered to the Moon or outgassed from its interior could not have been trapped in the polar regions. Any ice in the polar regions today must have a more recent origin.

“We have been able to quantify how young the lunar PSRs really are,” Schorghofer said. “The average age of PSRs is 1.8 billion years, at most. There are no ancient reservoirs of water ice on the Moon.”

Since other data suggests the presence of ice, it is possible that these reserves are regularly renewed by the arrival of impacts. It also suggests however that there might be less ice available than hoped. Above all, the red colored regions appear to be the most valuable real estate to explore first.

Note: The landing sites for both India’s Vikram lander and Russia’s Luna-25 lander were well beyond the map’s upper right edge, far outside the region where any permanently shadowed craters are located. The news outlets that talked about finding water or ice on either mission were simply illustrating their ignorance and sloppy reporting.

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Pushback: The momentum builds against the Marxist American Library Association

12:20 pm

Emily Drabinski, now president of the ALA, proudly Marxist and queer
Emily Drabinski, president of the ALA and proudly
Marxist and queer

Bring a gun to a knife fight: Back in July I reported how the library commission of Montana had decided to withdraw its support from and membership in the American Library Association (ALA), not only because of the Marxist agenda being pushed by its new president, Emily Drabinski, but because of the ALA’s aggressive effort to insert pornography in school libraries.

At the time I wrote this:

[I]f more local library organizations followed through as Montana has, the ALA might finally feel the pinch and rethink its policies. Or if it didn’t, it would justify these libraries leaving its fold, as it does not represent them.

Since then there has been a rising flood of other states moving to break free from the ALA. In July, almost immediately after the decision in Montana, the secretary of state of Missouri, who oversees the Missouri State library, withdrew from the ALA, citing the organization’s public effort — pushed under Drabinski’s leadership — to block a “faith-based publisher from holding story hours in libraries.”
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The drying out of Mars’ tropics

11:45 am

The drying out of Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on June 26, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The science team calls the features surrounding these small 20 to 60 foot high hills “polygon features,” an apt description and a geological feature that is seen in many places on Mars.

When these features are found in the icy higher latitudes, it is believed they are formed in connection to the freeze-thaw cycle that causes cracks in the near surface ice. When found in the dry equatorial regions, where these polygons are located, they are usually thought to be ancient evidence of past standing water that left behind these cracks, much like the cracks seen in mud after the water has evaporated away on Earth.

The formation of these tiny hills is a bit more complex.
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