Behind The Black – Robert Zimmerman

December 28, 2023 Quick space links

December 28, 2023 3:02 pm Robert Zimmerman

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

Shanghai produces first of more than 100 satellites in new production facility

The government there says it wants private companies to build up to 50 rockets and 600 satellites by 2025.

Chinese pseudo-company touts video of the first in-space firing of its krypton ion engine

The Exploration Company completes first technical review of its proposed Nyx cargo freighter

French-based, this company hopes to provide ferrying services to the private space stations being built by private consortiums, most of which are coming from U.S. companies.

Juno will make its closest flybys of Io on December 30th and February 3rd

At a distance of only 930 miles, these two approaches will be the closest in over 20 years, since Galileo orbited Jupiter.

Dragonfly team completes 25 subscale drop tests of aeroshell & main parachute system prototypes

It remains to be seen whether this mission will ever get to Saturn’s moon Titan, considering the serious budget issues at NASA.

Another storage tank arrives at Boca Chica

This is for storing prior to the launch of a Starship/Superheavy, either methane or oxygen, I’m not sure which. Jay wonders “when they will start producing their own fuel.”

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Today’s blacklisted American wins $185K settlement from college that fired him

December 28, 2023 1:45 pm Robert Zimmerman

St. Philip's College, home to blacklisting and censorship
St. Philip’s College, the poster child of academic
blacklisting and censorship

They’re coming for you next: Today’s blacklist story is a follow-up on a July 2023 essay about the oppressive atmosphere at St. Philip’s College in Texas, where two different professors were fired in 2023 for political reasons.

First, Dr. Johnson Varkey, was fired because in teaching human anatomy he had the audacity to mention that sex is determined by the X and Y chromosomes, a very basic fact of biology that any medical student has to know to become a competent doctor. Four students walked out on him for saying so, and when they complained to the administration it fired him without due process. He is presently suing the college.

Then, college officials fired professor Will Moravits because he insisted on allowing free and open debate in his classroom and one anonymous student complained, and while doing so made false accusations against Moravits. The school felt so threatened by the idea of freedom of speech that it had Moravits escorted off campus by police, never to return.

Moravits has now won a $185K settlement with St. Philip’s College.
» Read more

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Mapping the major lava flood events in Mars’ volcano country

December 28, 2023 12:10 pm Robert Zimmerman

Click for original map.

In a paper just released, scientists have used the orbital data from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) to map on Mars forty different past volcanic eruptions of extensive flood lava covering large regions, all within the region I dub “volcano country” because its entire surface seems mostly shaped by flows of lava.

The map above, figure 1 from the paper, shows the study area (within the white rectangle), with its global context and additional information added by me on the right. Most of the largest earthquakes detected by InSight ran from north-to-south down the center of the white box. The named features are all large flood lava events, with the youngest being Athabasca. Within the Cerburus Plains feature the researchers mapped many smaller events which brought the total up to forty. From the abstract:

An area almost as large as Europe was investigated. The study revealed the products of more than 40 volcanic events, with one of the largest flows infilling Athabasca Valles with a volume of 4,000 km3. The surface appearance and material properties suggest that Elysium Planitia is composed of basalt, the most common type of lava on Earth. The area also experienced several large floods of water, and there is evidence that lava and water interacted in the past. However, while there could be ice in the ground today, it likely occurs in small patches.

None of these flood lava events involved the gigantic volcanoes that surround this region. Instead, the lava erupted from vents within this region, and then flowed downgrade to flood large areas, sometimes covering over parts of earlier lava floods. All also flowed much faster than lava on Earth, flooding vast regions — comparable to entire countries — often in mere weeks.

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Juno’s closest image of Europa suggests recent surface activity

December 28, 2023 11:18 am Robert Zimmerman

Click for original image.

Analysis by scientists of the closest image of Europa taken during Juno’s close-fly on September 29, 2022 suggests that a particular strange feature, dubbed the “platypus” due to its shape, might be very young and indicate recent surface activity that could be related to underground liquid water.

That picture, reduced and sharpened to post here, is to the right. It is figure 2 of the paper. The description of this photo from the abstract:

Intricate networks of cross-cutting ridges and lineated bands surround an intriguing 37 km (east-west) by 67 km (north-south) chaos feature with a concentric fracture system, depressed matrix margins, and low-albedo materials potentially associated with brine infiltration. The morphology and local relief of the chaos feature are consistent with formation in the collapse of ice overlying a salt-rich lens of subsurface water. Low-albedo deposits, similar to features previously associated with hypothesized cryovolcanic plume activity, flank nearby ridges. The SRU’s high-resolution view of many types of features in a single image allows us to explore their regional context and greatly improve the geologic mapping of this part of Europa’s surface. The image reveals several relatively youthful features in a potentially dynamic region, providing baselines for candidate locations that future missions can investigate for present day surface activity.

SRU is Juno’s Stellar Reference Unit camera, designed to take pictures using only the low light of Jupiter reflected onto nighttime surfaces of Jupiter’s moons. It took this photo when Juno was only 256 miles above the surface.

This feature will obviously become a prime target for Europa Clipper when it arrives into orbit around Jupiter in April 2030. From this vantage point — safer than continuous exposure to Jupiter’s magnetosphere while in orbit around Europa — the spacecraft will do 44 close-flys of the moon.

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Japan’s SLIM lunar lander releases its first pictures of Moon

December 28, 2023 9:50 am Robert Zimmerman

Oblique view of the Moon, as seen by SLIM.
Click for original image.

Japan’s space agency JAXA today released the first pictures taken of the Moon by its SLIM lunar lander after entering lunar orbit on December 25, 2023.

Three images were included in the tweet. The one to the right, reduced to post here, gives an oblique view of the Moon, including its horizon. None of the images are of great scientific value, but all are very significant in terms of SLIM’s engineering. They prove the spacecraft is operating as designed, able to orient itself precisely as well as point its camera correctly. These facts bode well for the precision landing attempt, which is SLIM’s main purpose, now targeting January 24, 2024. The primary goal is to demonstrate the ability for an unmanned spacecraft to land autonomously within a tiny landing zone only 300 feet across.

If SLIM succeeds, it will then hopefully operate for one lunar day, about two weeks. It is not expected to survive the lunar night that follows.

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The uncertainty of science as proven by the Webb Space Telescope

December 28, 2023 9:38 am Robert Zimmerman

A long detailed article was released today at Space.com, describing the many contradictions in the data coming back from the Webb Space Telescope that seriously challenge all the theories of cosmologists about the nature of the universe as well as its beginning in a single Big Bang.

The article is definitely worth reading, but be warned that it treats science as a certainty that should never have such contradictions, as illustrated first by its very headline: “After 2 years in space, the James Webb Space Telescope has broken cosmology. Can it be fixed?”

“Science” isn’t broken in the slightest. All Webb has done is provide new data that does not fit the theories. As physicist Richard Feynman once stated bluntly in teaching students the scientific method,

“It doesn’t make a difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn’t make a difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is. If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong.”

Cosmologists for decades have been guessing in proposing their theories about the Big Bang, the expansion of the universe, and dark matter, based on only a tiny amount of data that had been obtained with enormous assumptions and uncertainties. It is therefore not surprising (nor was it ever surprising) that Webb has blown holes in their theories.

For example, the article spends a lot of time discussing the Hubble constant, describing how observations using different instruments (including Webb) have come up with two conflicting numbers for it — either 67 or 74 kilometers per second per megaparsec. No one can resolve this contradiction. No theory explains it.

To me the irony is that back in the 1990s, when Hubble made its first good measurements of the Hubble constant, these same scientists were certain then that the number Hubble came up with, around 90 kilometers per second per megaparsec, was now correct.

They didn’t really understand reality then, and they don’t yet understand it now.

What cosmologists must do is back away from their theories and recognize the vast areas of ignorance that exist. Once that is done, they might have a chance to resolve the conflict between the data obtained and the theories proposed, and come up with new theories that might work (with great emphasis on the word “might”). Complaining about the paradoxes will accomplish nothing.

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Japan’s space agency JAXA schedules next H3 rocket launch

December 28, 2023 9:11 am Robert Zimmerman

JAXA, Japan’s space agency, announced today that it has now scheduled the next test launch of its new H3 rocket for February 15, 2024.

This rocket, built by Mitsubishi for JAXA, is supposed to replace the H2A rocket, which completed its last launch in September 2023. The H3 was supposed to be flying years ago, but has experienced numerous engineering problems throughout its development. It was initially supposed to launch in 2020, but was first delayed to 2021 because of “engine issues,” which were later described as cracks and holes in the engine’s combustion chamber.

That launch date was never met. When JAXA was gearing up to launch in 2022 news sources revealed another yearlong delay until 2023 because of new engine problems, which appeared to require a complete engine redesign.

Then in February 2023 the rocket’s first launch attempt was aborted at T-0 when the two strap-on solid rocket boosters failed to ignite. A second launch attempt a month later failed when the second stage failed during launch.

Even if the rocket successfully launches in February, it still leaves Japan far behind the rest of the space-faring industry. The H3 is entirely expendable, and is far more expensive to launch than the new reuseable rockets in use or being developed by numerous private American companies or other nations. JAXA says it hopes to launch it six times a year, but I can’t imagine it getting even a third that number of customers.

What Japan’s government really needs to do is to get the launch business away from JAXA completely. Let other companies besides Mitsubishi build their own rockets and have JAXA buy their services, rather than try to design its own rockets. This system is working marvelously in the U.S., so much so that India is now aggressively trying to copy it, while communist China has made its own pseudo attempt, somewhat successfully, to do the same for the past five years.

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Elthin – Je vivroie liement

December 27, 2023 6:01 pm Robert Zimmerman

An evening pause: Written by Guillaume de Machaut in the 14th century. The title means “I should lead a happy life.” For a full translation go here. The players are clearly using instruments designed and built to match the traditional instruments used when this song was played.

Hat tip Alton Blevins.

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December 27, 2023 Quick space links

December 27, 2023 2:53 pm Robert Zimmerman

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

Engineers testing solar panel design for Roman Space Telescope

These are not the panels themselves, but engineering models for testing.

Chinese pseudo-company Orien says it will launch its Gravity-1 rocket within days

The image at the link shows a launch from a sea platform. The pseudo-company has raised considerable investment capital. It has also promised this launch by the end of 2023 for months. Not much time left.

Fifty-five years ago today Apollo 8 splashed down in the Pacific, completing humanity’s first journey to another world

After splashdown, as described in my book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8:

After about half an hour the sky had brightened enough for divers to hit the water and attach a flotation collar to the capsule. As everyone waited for the hatch to open, someone in a rescue helicopter radioed a question to these three first-time lunar explorers. “Hey, Apollo 8, is the moon made of green cheese?”

“No,” Bill Anders said instantly. “It’s made of American cheese.”

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All I feel is fury at the bankruptcy of academia decades ago

December 27, 2023 1:55 pm Robert Zimmerman

A modern Ivy League education: “But Brawndo’s got what plants crave.
It’s got electrolytes!”

Recently Bari Weiss, former New York Times journalist who it blacklisted because she refused to follow the leftist narrative when the facts said otherwise, wrote a heart-wrenching column about the fall of American academia. She began as follows:

Twenty years ago, when I was a college student, I started writing about a then-nameless, niche ideology that seemed to contradict everything I had been taught since I was a child.

…What I saw was a worldview that replaced basic ideas of good and evil with a new rubric: the powerless (good) and the powerful (bad). It replaced lots of things. Color blindness with race obsession. Ideas with identity. Debate with denunciation. Persuasion with public shaming. The rule of law with the fury of the mob.

People were to be given authority in this new order not in recognition of their gifts, hard work, accomplishments, or contributions to society, but in inverse proportion to the disadvantages their group had suffered, as defined by radical ideologues. According to them, as James Kirchick concisely put it: “Muslim > gay, black > female, and everybody > the Jews.”

I was an undergraduate back then, but you didn’t need a PhD to see where this could go. And so I watched, in horror, sounding alarms as loudly as I could.

I was told by most Jewish leaders that, yes, it wasn’t great, but not to be so hysterical. Campuses were always hotbeds of radicalism, they said. This ideology, they promised, would surely dissipate as young people made their way in the world.

It is essential to repeat her second paragraph again to understand the utter bankruptcy of this new “philosophy.” It was…

… a worldview that replaced basic ideas of good and evil with a new rubric: the powerless (good) and the powerful (bad). It replaced lots of things. Color blindness with race obsession. Ideas with identity. Debate with denunciation. Persuasion with public shaming. The rule of law with the fury of the mob.

» Read more

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China launches four more weather satellites

December 27, 2023 11:43 am Robert Zimmerman

Continuing its annual rush of launches at year’s end, China today used its solid-fueled Kuaizhou-1A rocket to place four weather satellites into orbit, lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in the northwest of China. This was the second launch of this rocket with four weather satellites in less than three days.

No word on where the rocket’s lower stages crashed in China, or whether they landed on anyone’s home, as did the core stage of yesterday’s Long March 3B rocket.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

94 SpaceX
65 China
19 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise still leads China in successful launches 108 to 65, and the entire world combined 108 to 102. SpaceX in turn trails the rest of the world (excluding other American companies) 94 to 102.

Hat tip to Jay, as I had missed this because I had mistakenly first thought it was the Kuaizhou-1A launch from two days ago, not a second launch.

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Isolated mesa on Mars

December 27, 2023 11:33 am Robert Zimmerman

Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on August 13, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The central butte is about 100 feet high. Not only are its flanks terraced, suggesting sedimentary layers, note the many black dots on its northern slopes. Those dots appear to be many boulders that appear to have rolled down the slopes to settle mostly near the mesa’s base.

The boxwork ridges to the west and south suggest the ground was fractured in some event to produce cracks, which were later filled with material that was erosion resistent. As the terrain was worn away by wind it left these ridges behind.

The prevailing winds in this region are believed to blow mostly to the south, which might explain the parallel ridges south of the mesa. Or not. On this I am guessing entirely.
» Read more

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Update on Ingenuity

December 27, 2023 9:56 am Robert Zimmerman

Click for interactive map.

The overview map above shows the travels of both the rover Perseverance and the helicopter Ingenuity on Mars through today, with the blue dot marking Perseverance’s present location and the green dot Ingenuity’s. Because of image downloads today from Perseverance — including a few more pictures taken by the helicopter during several of its recent flights — the helicopter’s engineering team has finally been able to add the flight paths for flights #68, #69, and #70 to this map, as well as provide more accurate information about what each accomplished..

Flight #68, which took place on December 15, 2023, a few days later than originally planned, as I reported on December 20, 2023 when the first preliminary data arrived. At the time it appeared the flight had ended prematurely by almost 1,500 feet. We now know the flight did end early, but by not that much. Instead of flying, as per its flightplan, to the northeast 2,716 feet for 147 seconds and then returning to its take-off point, it flew out and back 2,304 feet for 131 seconds. The engineering team has not explained why it turned around prematurely by about 200 feet.

Flight #69 on December 20, 2023 was supposed fly 2,304 feet total over 131 seconds, also going out and back, traveling to the east-northeast. It ended up flying 2,315 feet over 135 seconds on a flight path that was almost identical to flight #68. Like most previous flights, it appears it hovered over its landing spot for a few extra seconds before descending in order to make sure it would land safely.

The final numbers for flight #70 have not yet been added to the flight log, but the engineering team has apparently been able to figure out the path the helicopter took and where it landed from the images that have been downloaded in the past few days. The flight plan had called for a relatively short flight, 849 feet long, but taking almost as long as the previous two, 129 seconds, thus allowing Ingenuity to get better and more detailed scouting pictures of the terrain below it for scientists to review.

One more detail: It appears that the Perseverance science team has decided to use Ingenuity data to guide its route. Rather than follow the planned course, as indicated by the red dotted line, the rover has been following the ground scouted by Ingenuity on its 63rd flight on October 19, 2023. This has taken Perseverance deeper into the rough fractured terrain to the south, where it likely can obtain better geological data.

It also suggests that Ingenuity’s more recent flight paths are giving us a hint as to Perseverance’s future travels.

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Russia launches military satellite

December 27, 2023 8:49 am Robert Zimmerman

Russia today successfully placed a classified military satellite into orbit, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from its Plesetsk spaceport in the north of Russia.

No other information was released, including where the rocket’s strap-on boosters and core stage crashed inside Russia.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

94 SpaceX
64 China
19 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise still leads China in successful launches 108 to 64, and the entire world combined 108 to 101. SpaceX in turn trails the rest of the world (excluding other American companies) 94 to 101.

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Jóhann Jóhannsson – A Sparrow Alighted Upon Our Shoulder

December 26, 2023 6:01 pm Robert Zimmerman

An evening pause: Seems appropriately contemplative following the holiday season.

Hat tip Ferris.

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December 26, 2023 Quick space links

December 26, 2023 3:35 pm Robert Zimmerman

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

China and Russia claim their partnership to build a lunar base remains strong

They might be good buddies, but the Russian half is likely not going to contribute much to this partnership. And China knows it.

Head of India’s space agency says they are targeting a 2028 launch for the first module of their space station

That first module will be only eight tons, less than half the mass of most station modules, because India doesn’t yet have a rocket capable of putting up more tonnage. The plan is to develop that rocket for later modules, using the first as a test bed.

Yesterday was the thirtieth anniversary of the completion of the first repair mission to Hubble

The telescope was expected to operate for fifteen years, but instead is now in its 33rd year of operation.

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Record-setting Falcon 9 1st stage booster lost after landing

December 26, 2023 3:27 pm Robert Zimmerman

The SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage booster that launched on December 23, 2023 for a record-setting nineteenth time was damaged beyond repair when, after landing on its drone ship successfully, experienced rough seas that caused it to fall over.

The picture at the link shows the crushed booster on its side on the drone ship. SpaceX noted the spectacular history of this booster in a separate tweet:

This one reusable rocket booster alone launched to orbit 2 astronauts and more than 860 satellites — totaling 260+ metric tons — in ~3.5 years.

In a sense, it actually put more mass into orbit that a Saturn 5 rocket, for significant less money though over a much longer period of time.

For SpaceX the loss of this booster is hardly a set back, because it has several other boosters with only a few less total launches in its fleet. Expect one to exceed twenty launches in the near future.

Hat tip to out stringer Jay as well as several readers.

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The violent animals on the left who support Hamas

December 26, 2023 12:20 pm Robert Zimmerman

Hamas protesters threaten blind children

I am in no mood this day to be polite or diplomatic. The ugliness exhibited in the past week by pro-Hamas demonstrators — using the violent techniques of Antifa and BLM and copying Nazi storm-trooper tactics — deserve no politeness. They are no longer acting like civilized rational human beings, but mere animals eager to kill and only held back from that goal by the last few shreds remaining of civilization’s rule of law.

Thus, at this moment they only attack innocent people in ugly ways, not intending to kill but clearly hoping to intimidate and strike fear into the hearts of everyone else. Some examples from the past three days:

The last story in this list is especially egregious. The screen capture above shows two demonstrators on stage. In the video at the link they are screaming and yelling, with the one on the right charging at the children in a threatening manner. Remember, this is a fund-raiser for blind children. Those kids cannot see, so all they know is that someone unexpected has appeared on the stage and is screaming at them, and their helpers are desperately trying to get them to safety.

This behavior illustrates perfectly the hatred and viciousness of all these pro-Hamas demonstrators. » Read more

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Galaxies galore, near and far

December 26, 2023 9:08 am Robert Zimmerman

Cool image for the day after Christmas! The picture to the right, reduced and sharpened to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, and shows a cluster of galaxies that all seem near each other. However, as the caption notes,

[W]hilst NGC 1356 [the largest spiral] and LEDA 95415 [close by its left] appear to be so close that they must surely be interacting, the former is about 550 million light-years from Earth and the latter is roughly 840 million light-years away, so there is nearly a whopping 300 million light-year separation between them. That also means that LEDA 95415 is likely nowhere near as [small] as it appears to be.

On the other hand, whilst NGC 1356 and IC 1947 [farthest to the left] seem to be separated by a relative gulf in this image, IC 1947 is only about 500 million light-years from Earth. The angular distance apparent between them in this image only works out to less than four hundred thousand light-years, so they are actually much much closer neighbours in three-dimensional space than NGC 1356 and LEDA 95415!

The two galaxies farthest apart in this image are actually close enough together to interact significantly. Though this picture doesn’t have the resolution to see it, there is likely a stream of stars between the two.

Note also the numerous tiny other galaxies scatterered throughout the picture. In fact, except for three stars (the objects with the north-south-east-west spikes), every object is a galaxy holding stars too numerous to count.

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China launches two GPS-type satellites

December 26, 2023 8:39 am Robert Zimmerman

China today successfully placed two more of its BeiDou GPS-type satellites into orbit, its Long March 3B rocket lifting off from its Xichang spaceport in the southwest of China.

This footage shows that the rocket’s core stage crashed near homes in China. No word on where the four strap-on boosters and second stage crashed. All use very toxic hypergolic fuels.

This launch continues China’s annual rush of launches at the end of the year. Since everything is owned and run by the Chinese government, one wonders if this pattern is because of the typical government mentality that requires agencies to rush to spend a lot at the end of each year so as to make sure their budgets are not cut.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

94 SpaceX
64 China
18 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise still leads China in successful launches 108 to 64, and the entire world combined 108 to 100. SpaceX in turn trails the rest of the world (excluding other American companies) 94 to 100.

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Core stage of China’s Long March 5 launched on December 15th about to hit the Earth

December 25, 2023 10:41 pm Robert Zimmerman

According to the Chinese government, the core stage of Long March 5 that China launched on December 15th will hit the Earth tomorrow, somewhere in the South China Sea.

China warned that remnants of a rocket would hit an area in the South China Sea on Tuesday, following the sixth deployment of its most powerful launch vehicle eleven days ago.

Rocket debris, which generally burns up in the atmosphere on re-entry, is expected to fall off the coast of China’s island province of Hainan between 11:00 a.m. (0300 GMT) and noon (0400 GMT), said the China Maritime Safety Administration.

I have not been able to find out any further information about this rocket body from sources like the Aerospace Corporation that normally track such things. However, that China is predicting a landing spot suggests they have upgraded the engines on the Long March 5’s core stage so that they can be restarted and used to control the stage’s descent over the ocean. If so, this is excellent news, as China has stated that it intends to ramp up launches of this rocket as well as its Long March 5B variation. Prevous launches produced the threat of impacts anywhere on Earth, with one launch in 2020 missing the New York metropolitan area by only a few minutes.

That China wants to bring this down so close to China suggests it also wants to salvage the material.

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China launches three classified satellites into orbit

December 25, 2023 10:31 pm Robert Zimmerman

China today successfully launched three classified satellites into orbit, its Long March 11 rocket lifting off from a barge off the coast of China in the South China Sea.

No information at all was released about the three satellites, other than they were “experimental.”

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

94 SpaceX
63 China
18 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise still leads China in successful launches 108 to 63, and the entire world combined 108 to 99. SpaceX in turn trails the rest of the world (excluding other American companies) 94 to 99.

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December 19, 2023 Zimmerman/Space Show podcast

December 25, 2023 9:07 pm Robert Zimmerman

Last week, on December 19, 2023, I appeared on the Space Show with David Livingston. You can listen or download it here. I am posting the link to the podcast now, almost a week later, because both of us forgot to do so, David to send me the link and I to ask him for it.

Twas a good show. For me the highlight was the conversation with Charles Lurio of the Lurio Report, who admitted he had finally come around to my way of thinking in connection with delays to SpaceX caused by the abuse of power by the FAA, Fish & Wildlife, and likely the White House. He like too many journalists covering the space industry had thought I was being paranoid. Charles however kept an open mind. He watched what was happening rather than look the other way, and now recognizes that politics and mindless bureaucracy is certainly playing a part in these delays. It must not be ignored.

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Stonebriar Orchestra and Choir – O Come O Come Emmanuel

December 25, 2023 6:01 pm Robert Zimmerman

An evening pause: We started the Christmas holiday season with this carol. We shall now end with it. As always, all the best to our Christian brethren on this day, one of their most sacred holidays.

Hat tip Judd Clark.

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Japan & NASA negotiating plan to put Japanese astronaut on later Moon landing mission

December 25, 2023 3:15 pm Robert Zimmerman

According to the Japanese press, Japanese and American government officials are negotiating a plan to include a Japanese astronaut on one of the later Artemis Moon landing missions, presently hoping to fly in the late 2020s.

Japan has been negotiating with the United States, aiming for its first landing on the moon in the late 2020s. Tokyo and Washington will establish and sign an agreement on the activities of Japanese astronauts on the moon as early as next month, according to several government sources.

These stories are likely linked to the blather from Vice President Harris last week saying the U.S. will fly an international astronaut to the Moon before the end of the decade. At the time NASA officials would not confirm her statement, other than to say that NASA had agreed to fly European, Canadian, and Japanese astronauts to its Lunar Gateway station as part of its Artemis lunar program.

Several important details must be noted. First, the schedule for Artemis, as designed by NASA using SLS, Orion, Lunar Gateway, and Starship, is incredibly optimistic. The first manned mission is presently scheduled for 2025, but no one believes that date, including many at NASA. It will likely slip to 2026 or even 2027.

Second, the program is very fluid, and could undergo major changes with a new administration, especially because of the high cost of SLS. Once Starship/Superheavy is flying, at a cost expected to less than 1% of SLS, with an ability to fly frequently instead of once every two or three years, a new government might scrap the entire Artemis program as designed. A shift from SLS to Starship entirely might actually increase the number of astronauts going to the Moon, both from the U.S. and the entire Artemis Accords alliance.

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Japan’s SLIM lunar lander enters orbit around Moon

December 25, 2023 3:01 pm Robert Zimmerman

Map showing SLIM landing zone on the Moon.
Click for interactive map.

After almost four months of orbital maneuvers since its launch on September 7, 2023, Japan’s SLIM lunar lander entered lunar orbit today, with a targeted landing date of January 20, 2024.

The landing site is indicated by the map to the right near Shioli Crater. SLIM is mostly an engineering test mission, with its primary goal to test an autonomous unmanned landing system capable of putting a lander down within a small target zone of less than 300 feet across. It has some science instruments on board, but any data obtained from them will be an added bonus, since the lander is only designed to operate for about two weeks, during the first lunar day. It is not expected to survive the two-week long lunar night to follow.

Because of launch delays for both of the American landers, Intuitive Machine’s Nova-C and Astrobotic’s Peregrine, SLIM will make its attempt first.

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Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol

December 25, 2023 8:47 am Robert Zimmerman

A Christmas pause: As I have done now for several years on Christmas day, I bring you the classic 1951 version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, starring Alastair Sim. Still by far the best adaption of the book and a truly wonderful movie.

And as I noted in a previous year:

Dickens did not demand the modern version of charity, where it is imposed by governmental force on everyone. Instead, he was advocating the older wiser concept of western civilization, that charity begins at home, that we as individuals are obliged as humans to exercise good will and generosity to others, by choice.

It is always a matter of choice. And when we take that choice away from people, we destroy the good will that makes true charity possible.

It is also most important that we all heed the words of Christmas Present: ‘This boy is ignorance, this girl is want. Beware them both, but most of all beware this boy.’”

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China launches four weather satellites

December 25, 2023 12:08 am Robert Zimmerman

China late today used its Kuaizhou-1A solid-fueled rocket to place four weather satellites into orbit, lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in the northwest of China.

No word on where the rocket’s lower stages crashed within China. This launch is the first of four Chinese launches known to be scheduled in the next few days, part of China’s typical rush of launches that seems to happen at the end of every year.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

94 SpaceX
62 China
18 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise still leads China in successful launches 108 to 62, and the entire world combined 108 to 98. SpaceX in turn trails the rest of the world (excluding other American companies) 94 to 98.

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Repost: The real meaning of the Apollo 8 Earthrise image

December 24, 2023 11:19 am Robert Zimmerman

I wrote this essay in 2018, to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 8 mission to the Moon. I think it worth reposting again, especially because stories about Apollo 8 still refuse to show the Earthrise image as Bill Anders took it.
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Earthrise, as seen by a space-farer

Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the moment when the three astronauts on Apollo 8 witnessed their first Earthrise while in orbit around the Moon, and Bill Anders snapped the picture of that Earthrise that has been been called “the most influential environmental picture ever taken.”

The last few days have seen numerous articles celebrating this iconic image. While all have captured in varying degrees the significance and influence of that picture on human society on Earth, all have failed to depict this image as Bill Anders, the photographer, took it. He did not frame the shot, in his mind, with the horizon on the bottom of the frame, as it has been depicted repeatedly in practically every article about this image, since the day it was published back in 1968.

Instead, Anders saw himself as an spaceman in a capsule orbiting the waist of the Moon. He also saw the Earth as merely another space object, now appearing from behind the waist of that Moon. As a result, he framed the shot with the horizon to the right, with the Earth moving from right to left as it moved out from behind the Moon, as shown on the right.

His perspective was that of a spacefarer, an explorer of the universe that sees the planets around him as objects within that universe in which he floats.

When we here are on Earth frame the image with the horizon on the bottom, we immediately reveal our limited planet-bound perspective. We automatically see ourselves on a planet’s surface, watching another planet rise above the distant horizon line.

This difference in perspective is to me the real meaning of this picture. On one hand we see the perspective of the past. On the other we see the perspective the future, for as long humanity can remain alive.

I prefer the future perspective, which is why I framed this image on the cover of Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 the way Bill Anders took it. I prefer to align myself with that space-faring future.

And it was that space-faring future that spoke when they read from Genesis that evening. They had made the first human leap to another world, and they wished to describe and capture the majesty of that leap to the world. They succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

Yet, they were also still mostly Earth-bound in mind, which is why Frank Borman’s concluding words during that Christmas eve telecast were so heartfelt. He was a spaceman in a delicate vehicle talking to his home of Earth, 240,000 miles away. “And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you — all of you on the good Earth.” They longed deeply to return, a wish that at that moment, in that vehicle, was quite reasonable.

Someday that desire to return to Earth will be gone. People will live and work and grow up in space, and see the Earth as Bill Anders saw it in his photograph fifty years ago.

And it is for that time that I long. It will be a future of majesty we can only imagine.

Merry Christmas to all, all of us still pinned down here on “the good Earth.”

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SpaceX launches two German military radar satellites

December 24, 2023 10:39 am Robert Zimmerman

SpaceX today successfully launched two German military radar surveillance satellites, completing a planned three-satellite constellation, with its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage completed its eighth flight, landing back at Vandenberg.

This launch almost certainly in the past would have launched on a Arianespace rocket, but Arianespace presently has no operational rocket, its Ariane-5 rocket retired and its Ariane-6 rocket not yet operational. Furthermore, its Vega and Vega-C rockets are grounded due to launch failures, and its partnership with Russia ended with Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine. Thus, SpaceX gets the business, being less expensive than ULA (which also has no rockets available right now to handle this launch) and there being no other company capable of launching such a payload.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

94 SpaceX
61 China
18 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 108 to 61, and the entire world combined 108 to 97. SpaceX now trails the rest of the world (excluding other American companies) 94 to 97.

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