Musk press conference on Starship/Superheavy launch

8:51 am

Yesterday Elon Musk held an hour-long audio press conference with a number of space reporters, broadcast over youtube. I have embedded that conference below, for those of my readers who wish to hear what Musk had to say, in his own words.

The key take-aways from Musk:

  • The launch was about what he expected
  • They will be ready to launch again in about two months
  • The debris “was really just basically sand and rock so it’s not toxic at all … it’s just like a sandstorm, essentially”
  • The biggest issue is making sure the flight termination system functions better.
  • The next flight will be a repeat, with the main goal getting to stage separation
  • He gives them an 80% chance of making orbit this year

When asked about obtaining the permit for that next flight, Musk side-stepped the question. It remains to my mind the largest obstacle for meeting his schedule.
» Read more

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Radar antenna on Europe’s JUICE probe to Jupiter stuck

8:27 am

European Space Agency officials revealed yesterday that the 52-foot radar antenna on its JUICE probe to Jupiter has failed to deploy as planned, and that they are attempting to shake what they think is a small pin free that is in the way.

Engineers suspect a tiny pin may be protruding. Flight controllers in Germany plan to fire the spacecraft’s engine in hopes of shaking the pin loose. If that doesn’t work, they said they have plenty of time to solve the problem.

Juice, short for Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, won’t reach the giant planet until 2031. It’s taking a roundabout path to get there, including gravity-assist flybys of Earth and our moon, and Venus.

The radar antenna is needed to peer beneath the icy crust of three Jupiter moons suspected of harboring underground oceans and possibly life, a major goal of the nearly $1.8 billion mission. Its targets include Callisto, Europa and Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system.

If this antenna cannot be freed, it will prevent JUICE from doing one of its prime missions.

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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

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 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 successfully launches Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral

5:39 pm

SpaceX today successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to put a SES communications satellite into orbit.

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

The company also attempted to complete a second launch just a little more than three hours later from Cape Canaveral, but the countdown of the Falcon Heavy rocket aborted just 59 seconds prior to liftoff. No word on what happened, though the company has another launch window beginning around 7:30 pm Eastern time tomorrow. If successful it would be the second Falcon Heavy launch in 2023, using two side boosters flying their eighth and third flights respectively. Because of the fuel needs of the payload, neither the side boosters or the core stage will be recovered.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

27 SpaceX
16 China
6 Russia
3 Rocket Lab
3 India

American private enterprise now leads China 30 to 16 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 30 to 28. SpaceX by itself trails the rest of the world, including other American companies, 27 to 31.

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April 28, 2023 Quick space links

3:22 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

 

  • Phantom signs deal with proposed spaceport in Australia

    • The spaceport, Arnhem Space Centre (ASC), is being developed by Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA), and hopes to attract international rocket companies. Phantom meanwhile hopes to complete its first launch first quarter of 2024.

 

 

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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

Pushback: FIRE sues school for banning students from wearing “Let’s Go Brandon” shirts

2:35 pm

The evil shirt Tri-County Area School officials banned
The evil shirt Tri-County school officials banned

Bring a gun to a knife fight: Because school officials at Tri-County Middle School in Michigan forbid two students from wearing sweatshirts that said “Let’s Go Brandon” on their fronts, even as they permitted other students to wear shirt promoting the queer agenda, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) has filed a lawsuit against the schools.

In Feb. 2022, two Tri County Middle School students wore sweatshirts to school with the phrase “Let’s Go Brandon,” a political slogan critical of President Biden with origins in a more profane chant. Even though the political slogan is widely used — multiple members of Congress used it during floor speeches — an assistant principal and a teacher ordered the boys to remove the sweatshirts. However, administrators allowed students to wear apparel with other political messages, including gay-pride-themed hoodies.

The incident is part of a pattern of political favoritism by the school district. When the school district relaxed the dress code for field day, a school administrator ordered a student to stop wearing a Trump flag as a cape, but permitted other students to wear gay pride flags in the same manner.

» Read more

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Glacier layers on the border of Hellas Basin

12:20 pm

Dipping glacial layers
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on February 21, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label as “dipping layers”, referring specifically to the mesas with the terraces on their western flanks.

The layers obviously signify past cycles of geological events on Mars. That the terraces are only on one side of the mesas suggests that they are tilted, with the downhill grade to the east.

These layers however pose several mysteries. First, why are they located so specifically in only certain places of this region? It appears that the layered terrain is only found in the lower hollows and valleys. Why?

Second, why are they tilted at all?
» Read more

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Maxar’s Worldview-3 satellite snaps in-orbit pictures of Landsat-8 satellite

10:13 am

Landsat-8 as seen by Maxar's Worldview-3
Click for original short movie.

Using its high resolution imaging capability, mostly designed to do Earth observations, Maxar engineers took a series of pictures of NASA’s Landsat-8 satellites when the two satellites happened to pass reasonably close to each other. One of those pictures, a screen capture from the short movie that Maxar created, is to the right.

Maxar Technologies’ Worldview-3 satellite has delivered images of NASA’s Landsat 8 spacecraft from ranges of between 56 miles (91.4 kilometers) and 80 miles (129.9 km), showing clear details of the powerful Earth-observation satellite. A still image reveals the 29.5-by-1.3 foot (9 by 0.4 meters) solar array powering Landsat 8, as well as distinct science payloads on the satellite’s 9.8-foot-long (3 m) bus, or main body.

Both satellites are in similar, near-polar orbits, with Worldview-3 circling around 381 miles (613 km) above Earth, while Landsat has a higher altitude of 437 miles (703 km).

Though very cool, this image was taken by Maxar to sell the company’s capabilities to future customers. The military wants the ability to do surveillance of foreign satellites, while satellite companies often need to get such imagery of their satellites to assess their condition. Maxar has now proven it can provide this service to both.

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Big space Raytheon shifts gears to compete in the new space market

9:55 am

Capitalism in space: Raytheon, a traditional big space contractor focused mostly on winning military contracts, has decided to shifts gears from what has in recent years been a failed effort to compete for major contracts direct from the military and instead offer its capabilities to other commercial space companies.

This decision was fueled largely by the approach of the military’s Space Development Agency (SDA) to commercial contracts.

SDA’s approach to buying satellites from multiple prime contractors under fixed-price contracts is “revolutionizing space acquisitions,” [Raytheon official David Broadbent] said. The agency has been a “huge disrupter,” he said.

“Let’s call it what it is,” Broadbent added. “Raytheon and many of our traditional defense primes were constructed around sole source classified cost-plus businesses, and five to seven-year acquisition cycles.” Those markets no longer exist, he said. “So we’ve had to take a very hard look at ourselves … and drive to a far more efficient model of producing capabilities.”

In other words, Raytheon has recognized that the government golden goose of unlimited cost-plus contracts is gone, and that the company’s over-priced habits under those contracts made it difficult for it to compete against new startups designed to be efficient, low-cost, and quick on their feet.

By marketing its available products directly to other satellite and rocket companies, Raytheon can avoid the long contract competitions of the government, and make sales more effectively. As it does this it will also have time to restructure the company itself, trimming it down and making it more efficient so that it can better compete for government contracts at a later time.

Raytheon’s change is the result of the SDA essentially accepting many of the recommendations put forth in my 2017 policy paper, Capitalism in Space (a free pdf download). Rather than have the military the designer and builder of a few big and expensive satellites (also very vulnerable to attack), it is now the customer buying constellations of many small and cheap satellites from many private companies. Such smallsat constellations are much more difficult to disable by hostile powers.

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April 27, 2023 Quick space links

4:59 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

 

 

 

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With the federal bureaucracy gleefully sharpening its knives to shut down Boca Chica, SpaceX should quickly shift Starship/Superheavy operations to Florida

1:12 pm

Superheavy still going strong, shortly after Max-Q
Superheavy still going strong, shortly after Max-Q

The results of the spectacular test launch last week of SpaceX’s Superheavy/Starship heavy lift rocket was predictable in almost all ways.

First, everyone knew that it was highly unlikely that the launch would do everything intended. This was the first time ever that SpaceX had fired all 33 Raptor-2 engines at the base of Superheavy, at full power. It was the first time ever that this firing took place with Starship stacked on top. It was the first time ever that the entire stack was fueled. It was the first time ever that this rocket — the world’s most powerful (twice as powerful as the Saturn-5 and about three times more powerful than SLS) — had every launched.

The number of unknowns were gigantic, which was exactly why SpaceX needed to do the launch. The company’s engineers needed to find out what they didn’t know about Superheavy in order to refine their engineering so that Superheavy will be more likely for success in its next launch. They also needed to find out what such a launch would do to their preliminary launchpad, in order to refine its engineering as well so that future launches could take place with little or no damage.

Thus, it is not surprising that there were surprises. The most significant was the actual amount of success. Superheavy functioned far better than anyone could have dreamed, retaining flight control through max-q and then flying for almost three minutes before Starship failed to separate and the entire stack lost control and had to be destroyed. Most of its engines worked, though discovering the reasons for the handful that failed will be a prime question in the subsequent investigation.

The second unsurprising thing about this launch is the reaction of the federal bureaucracy, run by Democrats and the Biden administration. It has quickly moved in to squelch any further launches at Boca Chica, likely for a considerable time. The FAA immediately initiated its own investigation while grounding all further launches from Boca Chica. The Fish & Wildlife Service has now begun detailing, almost gleefully, the amount of ground damage the launch caused, including ripping out the concrete base below the rocket and flinging chunks of debris hundreds of feet away as well as depositing a cloud of sand dust on everything up to 6.5 miles from the launchpad.

This quote however is significant, and tells us the real truth:
» Read more

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If global warming doesn’t kill us the fog will!

11:01 am

Shipping routes
Illustration showing the distance and time saved by going north
through the Arctic Ocean

A new report published by the American Geophysical Union, and touted by it though a press release today, says that while the melting Arctic Ocean icecap — caused by human-caused global warming — will make shipping more convenient, that shipping will be hindered by increased fog — caused by human-caused warming.

Arctic sea ice has been shrinking for decades. That loss has opened shipping channels in the Northwest Passage and the Northern Sea Route, allowing even non-icebreaker vessels to skip the time-consuming Panama and Suez Canals farther south. But as the ice recedes, cold air is exposed to more warm water, and warm vapor condenses into fog in those new passages. Hidden chunks of ice already pose risks to vessels making their way through foggy, low-visibility routes.
» Read more

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Astronomers discover 25 more repeating fast radio bursts, doubling the number known

10:18 am

Using a ground-based radio telescope in Canada that scans the northern sky each night, astronomers have discovered another 25 repeating fast radio bursts (FRBs), doubling the number that was previously known.

One surprising aspect of this new research is the discovery that many repeating FRBs are surprisingly inactive, producing under one burst per week during CHIME’s observing time. Pleunis believes that this could be because these FRBS haven’t yet been observed long enough for a second burst to be spotted.

The cause of FRBs still remains unsolved. The knowledge of specific repeating FRBs however will go a long way to figuring out this mystery, because other telescopes will be able to better observe later bursts, knowing when they are expected to occur.

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SpaceX and Canadian phone company Rogers sign deal

10:04 am

SpaceX and the Canadian phone company Rogers Communications yesterday announced that they have signed an agreement to provide satellite-to-phone communications to customers throughout Canada.

Rogers and SpaceX will offer satellite-to-phone technology in Canada using SpaceX’s Starlink low earth orbit satellites and Rogers national wireless spectrum. The companies plan to start with satellite coverage for SMS text and will eventually provide voice and data across the country’s most remote wilderness, national parks and rural highways that are unconnected today.

This deal makes SpaceX now a direct competitor to OneWeb, as it is apparently structured comparable to how OneWeb operates. Up until now, SpaceX has been almost exclusively marketing to individuals, who connect up to Starlink directly. OneWeb meanwhile provides its service to large ground-based customers who then sell their network — enhanced by OneWeb capabilities — to individuals or small businesses. Because of this difference in approach, the two companies were selling their wares to different markets, making the competition less intense.

SpaceX with this deal is copying OneWeb’s approach almost exactly, which means the competition for satellite internet communications is now going to heat up considerably. For users of the internet, this is the best thing that could happen.

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Engineers extend Voyager-2’s life by tapping into reserve power supply

9:54 am

Engineers have begun using a backup power supply on the Voyager-2 spacecraft — launched in 1977 and presently traveling in interstellar space — in order to extend the life of one of its five instruments one additional year.

To help keep those instruments operating despite a diminishing power supply, the aging spacecraft has begun using a small reservoir of backup power set aside as part of an onboard safety mechanism. The move will enable the mission to postpone shutting down a science instrument until 2026, rather than this year.

The solution is only temporary, as the end of the mission is inevitable as its radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) was only designed to provide power for about a half century (!). As time passes its power supply slowly declines, forcing engineers in recent years to shut down other systems to allow the science instruments to operate. That all the other systems on both Voyager-1 and Voyager-2 remained operational until the end of their RTGs tells us how well these spacecraft were built by their 1970s creators.

Assuming this works, engineers will do the same thing on Voyager-1 sometime next year. In both cases, however, power from the RTGs will likely run out entire sometime in the next 5-10 years, ending the missions.

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Czech Republic to sign Artemis Accords

9:39 am

In a press release today describing the planned signing ceremony, NASA today revealed that the Czech Republic is going to sign the Artemis Accords on May 3, 2023, becoming the 24th nation to join this American-led alliance in space.

The full list of signatories so far: Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Canada, Columbia, Czech Republic, France, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, and the United States.

The accords, bi-lateral agreements between each nation and the U.S., were designed during the Trump administration to emphasize the rights of private investors in space and thus do an end-around of the Outer Space Treaty. Under the Biden administration it is no longer clear if that remains the goal. The existence of a signed alliance led by the U.S. and the capitalistic west however gives the U.S. the political force to protect those rights, assuming the American government is interested in the future in doing so.

It has also created a kind of bi-polar competition with the alliance of nations signing on to China’s projects in space. That alliance so far only includes China, Russia, and Venezuela, but we should expect several nations once part of the former Soviet Union, such as Kazakhstan, as well as other former communist block nations, such as North Korea, to sign up at some point. I would also expect Iran to join also.

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SpaceX successfully launched 46 upgraded Starlink satellites

9:15 am

SpaceX early this morning successfully launched 46 upgrades Starlink satellites, launching its Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage successfully completed its thirteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. The two fairings completed their sixth and seventh flights respectively.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

26 SpaceX (with a Falcon Heavy launch planned later today)
16 China
6 Russia
3 Rocket Lab
3 India

American private enterprise now leads China 29 to 16 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 29 to 28.

I have embedded the live stream of the Falcon Heavy launch below, for those that wish to view it. It is scheduled for a 7:29 pm (Eastern) launch from Cape Canaveral.
» Read more

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April 26, 2023 Quick space links

4:01 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Pushback: Student’s lawsuit against college officials for suppressing her First Amendment rights moves forward

2:10 pm

Maggie DeJong
Maggie DeJong, willing fight back hard.

Bring a gun to a knife fight: Though she had quickly forced her school to back down from trying to blacklist her, as described in a previous blacklist story in 2022, Maggie DeJong has now won a major court decision with a ruling on March 20, 2023 by the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Illinois that her lawsuit against three administrators at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) can go forward.

More important, the ruling stated [pdf] that these three administrators — Jamie Ball (director for Equal Opportunity, Access and Title IX Coordination), Randall Penbrook (school chancellor), and Megan Robb (her teacher) — do not qualify in almost all circumstances for qualified immunity. They are liable for their actions in violating DeJong’s constitutional rights, including her right to free speech.

This is what happened in 2022: 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.

You can read DeJong’s lawsuit complaint here [pdf]. Its most important aspect is that it is not suing Southern Illinois University but the actual individuals who committed the oppressive acts. » Read more

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Frozen waves of lava on Mars

12:19 pm

Frozen waves of lava on Mars

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on January 15, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows an area where the ground suddenly transitions from a crazy quilt of criss-crossing hollows and ridgelines to a very flat and smooth plain.

The location is at 21 degrees south latitude, so this is in the dry equatorial regions. Though it has a small resemblance to the chaos terrain that is found in many places on Mars, mostly in the mid-latitudes where glaciers are found, the scale here is too small and the ridges and canyons are not as sharply drawn. While chaos terrain usually forms sharply defined large flat-topped mesas with steep cliffs, here the ridges are small and the slopes to the peaked tops are somewhat gentle.
» Read more

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Experimental NASA high altitude balloon circles Antarctica in ten days

10:06 am

Overview map
Click for original image.

An experimental NASA high altitude balloon has successfully circled the continent of Antarctica in only ten days, flying at an average elevation of 107,000 feet.

The overview map to the right, annotated for posting here, shows its flight path so far.

“The balloon is performing exactly the way it was engineered to do, maintaining its shape and flying at a stable altitude despite the heating and cooling of the day-night cycle,” said Debbie Fairbrother, NASA’s Scientific Balloon Program chief. “As we continue to test, validate, and qualify this technology for future flights we’re also performing some cutting-edge science.”

The balloon is flying the Super Pressure Balloon Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT) payload, which has already returned brilliant research images from this flight.

Weather permitting, the balloon can be seen from the ground, especially at sunrise and sunset, as it continues on its globetrotting journey. People can track the real-time location of NASA’s super pressure balloon at this website: https://www.csbf.nasa.gov/map/balloon10/flight728NT.htm

The images have so far been of astronomical objects, such as the Antennae galaxy and the Tarantula nebula. Being so high above the atmosphere, the pictures are sharper than ground-based telescopes and have a much wider field of view.

The press release did not state how long this flight will last, but it did mention a second balloon mission is planned, flying a European cosmic-ray detector.

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NASA announces winners in its annual school manned rover design competition

9:48 am

NASA today announced the winning teams in its annual competition for high schools and colleges to come up with the best new designs for manned rovers capable of operating on other worlds.

The annual engineering competition – one of NASA’s longest standing challenges – held its concluding event Friday, April 21 to Saturday, April 22, at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, near NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.

More than 500 students from around the world participated during HERC’s 29th anniversary competition. Student teams represented 16 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, as well as the countries of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, India, Mexico, Peru, and Singapore. Teams were awarded points based on navigating a half-mile obstacle course, conducting mission-specific task challenges, and completing multiple safety and design reviews with NASA engineers.

The first place winners were teams from Escambia High School from Florida and the University of Alabama. NASA also listed winners in a whole range of other categories (“crash and burn”, “pit crew”, “social media”), many of which appear designed simply to make sure everyone got a participation award.

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The inexplicable tail of the asteroid Phaethon is from sodium, not dust

9:39 am

For years astronomers have puzzled over the strange behavior of the asteroid Phaethon, which though rocky would still produce a tail like a comet whenever its orbit took it close to the Sun.

New research by astronomers using several space telescopes designed to study the Sun has determined that this tail is made of sodium, not dust as previously believed, which also suggests that many of the other “comets” these solar telescopes have detected close to the Sun might instead be asteroids like Phaeton.

Hoping to find out what the tail is really made of, Zhang looked for it again during Phaethon’s latest perihelion in 2022. He used the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft — a joint mission between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) – which has color filters that can detect sodium and dust. Zhang’s team also searched archival images from STEREO and SOHO, finding the tail during 18 of Phaethon’s close solar approaches between 1997 and 2022.

In SOHO’s observations, the asteroid’s tail appeared bright in the filter that detects sodium, but it did not appear in the filter that detects dust. In addition, the shape of the tail and the way it brightened as Phaethon passed the Sun matched exactly what scientists would expect if it were made of sodium, but not if it were made of dust.

Knowing these new facts, it might make it possible to map the asteroids that orbit very close to the Sun but are hard to detect optically using standard telescopes because of the Sun’s brightness. Instead, astronomers might be able to map them using these solar telescopes.

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NASA awards 12 companies small development contracts with total value $14.5 million

9:28 am

NASA today announced it has awarded twelve different space companies small development contracts, total value $14.5 million, for developing new technologies ranging from new welding techniques to new thermal protection systems to better lunar rover tires.

The companies are also a wide mix, from large well-established giants like Lockheed Martin and Boeing to new startups like Blue Origin and Sierra Space.

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SpaceX leases second launchpad at Vandenberg

9:22 am

SpaceX announced yesterday that it has leased a second launchpad at Vandenberg, taking over the pad that ULA previously leased for use by its Delta family of rockets, now being phased out.

The site will be used to launch “Falcon rockets”, which suggests both the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy. All told, SpaceX now has six launchsites, three at Cape Canaveral, two at Vandenberg, and one at Boca Chica, with the Starship/Superheavy site at Kennedy presently under construction.

The launchpad at Vandenberg, dubbed SLC-6 (pronounced “slick-6”), was originally built to launch the space shuttle, something that never happened. When I got a tour of Vandenberg in 2015 I took some good pictures of it.

It is very likely SpaceX will make major changes, as it did to the shuttle launchsite it took over at Kennedy.

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Rocket engine company Ursa Major raises $100 million in private investment capital

9:06 am

The American rocket engine company Ursa Major recently raised an additional $100 million in private investment capital, on top of the $85 million it raised last year.

All told, the company has raised $234 million. Its Hadley engine presently has contracts with rocket startups Astra and Phantom, the hypersonic missile testing company Stratolaunch, and the Air Force. It is also developing two larger engines, the Ripley and the Arroway, the latter designed to replace Russian engines previously used by American companies.

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