Jumbled floor of ancient Martian channel

12:19 pm

Jumbled floor of ancient Martian channel
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on February 2, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

At first glance I thought I was looking at a variety of eroding glacial flows. I was completely wrong. This terrain is located on the floor of 900-mile-long Ares Vallis, thought to have been carved eons ago by some flow, either liquid catastrophic floods or glacial ice, but is now located in the very dry equatorial regions of Mars.

Then what caused these meandering ridges? The overview map below, plus the wider view of MRO’s context camera, provides us more data but little illumination. In fact, both leave us more questions and mysteries.
» Read more

Leave a comment

NASA’s Mars Sample Return project now overbudget

9:23 am

According to testimony by NASA’s administrator Bill Nelson to a Senate committee, its Mars Sample Return (MSR) project now needs a lot of additional funds in order to have any chance of staying on schedule.

Nelson told the Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee today that he just learned two weeks ago during a visit to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which is building MSR, that they need an additional $250 million this year and an additional $250 million above the request for FY2024 to stay on schedule for launch in 2028.

That FY2024 request warns that the projections for future MSR funding requirements are likely to grow and force NASA to descope the mission or reduce funding for other science projects. NASA just set up a second [independent review board] to take another look at the program.

The project is already beginning to suck money from other science missions, such as solar and astronomy and the Dragonfly mission to Saturn’s moon Titan. In addition, its method for getting the samples back to Earth remains somewhat uncertain due to ESA’s decision to not build a lander/rover for the mission, requiring JPL to propose the use of helicopters instead.

I predict Congress will fund everything, by simply printing more money as it nonchalantly continues to grow the national debt to levels unsustainable. Meanwhile, replacing the present very complex return concept — involving a lander, helicopters, an ascent rocket, and a return capsule (from Europe) — with a much cheaper and simpler option that is now on the horizon, Starship, does not seem to have occurred to any of the these government wonks.

15 comments

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

ILC Dover to provide spacesuits and “softgoods” for Sierra Space’s LIFE space station

9:08 am

Sierra Space yesterday announced that it has signed a partnership deal with ILC Dover for it to provide spacesuits and other “softgoods” for Sierra Space’s LIFE space station, including helping to build the station’s inflatable modules.

ILC Dover will be an exclusive partner with Sierra Space for softgoods used to support inflatable space habitat systems for low-Earth orbit (LEO), lunar and Mars transport and surface habitation, and use cases even farther into deep space.

The two companies have already been working together on the development and testing of Sierra Space’s first prototype inflatable modules.

Leave a comment

Axiom offers package space program deals for other countries

9:01 am

The private space station and human spaceflight company Axiom announced this week a set of package space program deals it is marketing to other countries.

In the base tier, Axiom provides countries with advice and insight, and gives those countries priority access on upcoming missions. The second tier enables research and development activities by counties. The third tier offers human spaceflight missions on a regular basis. A fourth tier offers countries the ability to co-develop parts of Axiom’s station.

The first country to join the program is Azerbaijan, which will work with Axiom on satellite solutions and inspiring students to pursue space research and development activities. New Zealand and Uzbekistan are also participating, as well as Rakia Mission, an Israeli space education and research organization involved with the Ax-1 private astronaut mission to the ISS a year ago. Italy is another nation working with Axiom through a partnership that dates back to 2018. An Italian astronaut is slated to fly on Axiom’s Ax-3 mission to the ISS, currently scheduled for late 2023. Two astronauts from Saudi Arabia are flying on the Ax-2 mission in May.

The company also notes that it has found its customers divide into three components, government, private citizens, and corporations. At present this is their order in terms of market share, though the company thinks that corporations will eventually become its biggest customer.

Leave a comment

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 21 second generation Starlink satellites

8:47 am

SpaceX this morning successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral to launch 21 second generation Starlink satellites into orbit.

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

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

25 SpaceX
16 China
6 Russia
3 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads China 28 to 16 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 28 to 27. SpaceX now trails the entire world, including American companies, 25 to 30.

3 comments

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

April 18, 2023 Quick space links

5:19 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

 

One comment

Modern bigotry in Canada: Simon Fraser University declares math “racist”

1:52 pm

One of many such workshops at Simon Fraser U
One of many such workshops at Simon Fraser University

The modern dark age: Simon Fraser University in Canada (SFU) has an Equity, Diversity and Inclusion learning group in its math office, and it appears that this office is today running a seminar, in partnership with the Simon Fraser Public Interest Group (SFPIRG), asking the important question, “How can math be racist?”, led by two modern “scholars” with no training in math at all.

Those set to speak at the seminar are Hannah Ghaderi, Co-Directory of Research & Education of the interest group, and Chantelle Spicer, currently the Director of Engagement [of SFU’s math Equity, Diversity and Inclusion learning group]. Neither of these individuals appear to have any professional background in math. Mathematician James Lindsay told Human Events that it is likely better that these two DEI professionals did not have a math background.

Lindsay said: “They don’t need mathematics backgrounds. They have critical consciousness, which means they know how racism and transphobia are hidden in everything, even things they don’t know anything about.”

No, actual math has nothing to do with this seminar. SFPIRG makes a big deal on its website about how it isn’t partisan, but yet its mission is “to engage students in social and environmental justice.” Or as it states in great length one paragraph later:
» Read more

17 comments

The peeling floor of a crater in the southern cratered highlands

12:00 pm

Overview map
From Argyre Basin to Hellas Basin is about 7,000 miles.

The peeling floor of a crater in the southern cratered highlands of Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on February 25, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The scientists labeled this image “Crater fill”, but that hardly suffices. First, the fill appears at first glance to resemble peeling paint. At closer inspection, rather than peeling paint we have instead a collection of ridges vaguely resembling cave rimstone dams that either enclose a blob-shaped region or simply meander about until they reach the crater’s interior rim.

The crater interior itself appears largely filled with material so that its rims are subdued. The location, as indicated by that black dot near the center of the overview map above, marks the location at 49 degrees south latitude, in the middle of the cratered southern highlands of Mars where many craters have strangely eroded interiors.

What makes this crater however more puzzling is that none of the surrounding nearby craters look like this. A context camera image taken March 23, 2019 shows that while some of the nearby craters have what appears to be glacial material in their interiors, none exhibit these meandering ridges. This crater stands unique, for reasons that are utterly unknown.

Are these ridges a manifestation of the glacial material filling the crater? Or are they bedrock sticking up through that glacial debris? Your guess is as good as mine.

3 comments

Ingenuity in close-up after two years on Mars

9:48 am

Ingenuity in close-up after two years on Mars
Click for original image, with more information about it here.

With the Mars rover Perseverance now only about seventy-five feet away from the helicopter Ingenuity, the closest the two robots have been on Mars since Ingenuity was deployed in April 2021, the science team used Perseverance’s high resolution camera to take a new close up of the helicopter.

That picture, reduced and sharpened to post here, is to the right. From the caption:

Small diodes (visible more clearly in this image of helicopter) appear as small protrusions on the top of the helicopter’s solar panel. The panel and the two 4-foot (1.2-meter) counter-rotating rotors have accumulated a fine coating of dust. The metalized insulating film covering the exterior of the helicopter’s fuselage appears to be intact. Ingenuity’s color, 13-megapixel, horizon-facing terrain camera can be seen at the center-bottom of the fuselage.

This close-up is important to determine the overall state of the helicopter after two years on Mars. The engineering team that operates it does not know how much longer Ingenuity can last, so any data on its condition is extremely helpful.

That fine coat of dust on the panel and the rotors tells us that even flight and fast-rotating motion is not enough to keep such things clean on Mars. Thus we learn that there is likely no quick solution to the accumulation of dust on solar panels on Mars.

5 comments

Rocket Lab introduces a suborbital version of its Electron rocket for hypersonic flight testing

9:24 am

Rocket Lab today announced the availability of a suborbital version of its Electron rocket, dubbed HASTE, designed to do frequent hypersonic flight tests, with its first commercial flight scheduled in the first half of this year.

HASTE is evolved from Rocket Lab’s flagship Electron launch vehicle, which has been providing reliable access to orbit since 2018 and has successfully deployed satellites for NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), the NRO (National Reconnaissance Office), DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and the U.S. Space Force. HASTE employs the same innovative carbon composite structure and 3D printed Rutherford engines as Electron but has a modified Kick Stage for hypersonic payload deployment, a larger payload capacity of up to 700 kg / 1,540 lbs, and options for tailored fairings to accommodate larger payloads.

It appears that Rocket Lab is attempting to grab market share from Stratolaunch’s Roc/Talon hypersonic testbed, which is gearing up to do its own first hypersonic test flights this year.

3 comments

Lockheed Martin tests in-orbit cubesat rendezvous

9:16 am

Using two cubesats released separately after launch, Lockheed Martin has successfully tested maneuvering and rendezvous in space.

The two cubesats, each the size of a toaster, were deployed 300 kilometers above geostationary orbit from a ring-shaped secondary payload that carried multiple smallsats. They were released three days apart about 750 kilometers away from each other and a month later they were navigating within 400 meters of each other, Karla Brown, Linuss program manager, told reporters during a news conference at Lockheed Martin’s technology center at the Catalyst Campus.

One of the cubesats performed the role of servicing vehicle and the other was the resident space object. She said she expects the satellites to come even closer, to about 200 meters as the experiment continues. The more significant goal that was accomplished was proving AI algorithms that would be needed to perform a space servicing mission, Brown said.

Maybe the most interesting aspect of this project however is how it is funded. This is old-fashioned R&D (research & development), funded not by the government but by Lockheed Martin as part of a a suite of related in-space servicing projects. Before the arrival of the military-industrial complex post World War II, such work was always paid for in house by the private sector. This commercial R&D was often given great freedom to experiment, in the hope that it would result in new products producing profits.

With the arrival of lots of government money in the 1950s and 1960s, that private R&D money dried up. Big space companies would instead only do the research and development that was funded by the government, either by NASA or the Pentagon. As a result, innovation dried up as well.

The return of private R&D likely means we shall once again see more innovation, since it will once again be done to search out new innovative ways to do things.

9 comments

Orbit Fab raises $28.5 million in private investment capital

9:03 am

The satellite servicing company Orbit Fab has raised $28.5 million in private investment capital, adding to the $21 million it had already obtained from contracts with the U.S. military.

Orbit Fab’s goal is very specific, to provide refueling services for satellites of all types. To encourage companies to sign on to its service, it markets its own refueling port that satellite companies can add to their satellites.

The company hopes to fly its first of three test refueling missions for the military next year.

Leave a comment

Watching the second attempt to launch Starship/Superheavy to orbit

5:37 pm

Starship/Superheavy flight plan for first orbital flight
Click for original image.

SpaceX’s second attempt of an inaugural orbital test launch of SpaceX’s massive Superheavy first stage with its orbital Starship spacecraft stacked on top has now been rescheduled for Thursday, April 20, 2023, with a 62-minute launch window opening at 8:28 am Central.

I have embedded SpaceX’s live stream of that launch below, which will begin around 7:15 am (Central). You can also see an independent 24/7 live stream from LabPadre, showing the launchpad from many different angles and available here. NasaSpaceFlight.com also has a 24/7 live stream showing multiple angles here. For both, to see links to their many camera angles click on “more” in the text.

Though both of these independent live streams provide alternative view angles of the launch, both will rely on SpaceX’s main live stream, embedded below, for actual updates on the countdown status.

The flight plan is shown in the graphic above. Assuming all goes as planned, most of the action will occur in the first ten minutes, at which time Starship will cut off its engines and be in orbit. It will then coast for a little over an hour when it will re-enter the atmosphere to splashdown in the Pacific north of the Hawaiian Islands.

As I have noted many times, the historical significance of this rocket cannot be overstated. It is twice as powerful as NASA’s Saturn-5 rocket and almost three-times as powerful as NASA’s new SLS rocket, and went from concept to launch in about seven years. Its development was funded entirely by private investment capital, at a fraction of the cost of either of the government’s rockets. And it will be completely reusable once operational, reducing the cost exponentially of getting large 100-ton payloads into orbit.

And most important, it was developed by free Americans, following their own personal dreams.
» Read more

10 comments

The developing trench war in Ukraine

4:55 pm

The developing trench war in Ukraine
For the original maps, go here (November 16, 2022) and here (April 16, 2023)

In my last update on the Ukraine War on November 16, 2022, I concluded that the stream of territorial gains by the Ukraine in the previous two months suggested that it was on the march and that in the coming months it would slowly and steadily regain territory from the Russians.

That analysis was wrong, at least in the short run. First, I failed to recognize that the Ukraine would need time to consolidate its large gains in September and October. Continuing the push apparently was beyond its capabilities without significant restocking of its troops and their equipment.

Second, by mid-November the Russians managed to halt the panicked retreat of its army, and forced it to re-establish reasonable lines of defense. It soon announced plans for a winter offensive, with the goal of capturing, at a minimum, the remaining territory of both the Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts that either had never been taken or had been lost during the Ukraine’s successful fall offensive.

In the subsequent five months, the Russians have pushed hard, and gotten little for their effort. The map above, clipped from detailed maps produced daily by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), compares the frontlines on November 16, 2022 with the present lines on April 16, 2022. Russian-held territory is indicated in pink, Ukrainian territory is either white or blue, blue indicating territory recaptured from Russia. The striped region is territory Russia grabbed in 2014.

Except for some gains in the south, the Russians have moved that frontline almost not at all.
» Read more

41 comments

April 17, 2023 Quick space links

2:11 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stinger Jay.

  • Blue Origin expects to return its New Shepard rocket to flight by the end of 2023

    • In the article a Blue Origin official claims the delay in the investigation is because of the FAA’s involvement, but she also says she isn’t allowed to provide details, a claim that FAA officials immediately deny when asked. While we certainly should expect the involvement of a government agency to slow things down, this person’s duplicity suggests that the blame comes as much from Blue Origin.

 

Leave a comment

China launches weather satellite, dumps debris near Taiwan

11:19 am

China's spaceports
China’s spaceports

China today successfully used its Long March 4D rocket to put a weather satellite into orbit, launching from its Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China.

A short clip of the launch is available here [Hat tip Jay]. The material falling from the rocket are insulation panels that are intended to fall off in this manner.

Apparently, the flight path took it over Taiwan.

For six hours, air and maritime traffic was disrupted north of Taiwan. The maritime safety administration of Fujian, the Chinese province located opposite Taiwan, warned of a “possible fall of debris from a launcher.”

Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said it monitored what it described as a military launch and confirmed having “detected some debris falling into the northern waters of Taiwan.” 33 flights were affected, Taiwan’s Civil Aeronautics Administration said, quoted by Reuters.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

24 SpaceX
16 China
6 Russia
3 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads China 27 to 16 in the national rankings, though it is now tied with the rest of the world combined at 27.

4 comments

A classic spiral galaxy

11:06 am

A classic spiral galaxy
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and released today as the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Hubble picture of the week.

A large spiral galaxy. It has many narrow arms that are tightly-twisted in the centre, but at the ends they point out in different directions. The galaxy’s core glows brightly, while its disc is mostly faint, but with bright blue spots throughout the arms. A few smaller spiral galaxies at varying angles are visible in front, and it is surrounded by other tiny stars and galaxies, on a black background.

This galaxy is believed to be 260 million light years away, and was home to a supernova in 2020. This image was taken as a follow-up to that explosion.

Leave a comment

Perseverance catches up with Ingenuity

10:57 am

Ingenuity as seen by Perseverance
Click for original image.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

The photo above, cropped, enhanced, and annotated to post here, was taken on April 16, 2023 by the left navigation camera on the Mars rover Perseverance, and looks almost due west at the rim of Jezero Crater and the gap in that rim where the delta on which the rover presently travels poured through sometime in the distant past.

Near the center of the picture can be seen the helicopter Ingenuity, sitting where it landed after its fiftieth flight.

The overview map to the right provides the context. Ingenuity is the green dot, Perseverance the blue dot. The yellow lines indicate the approximate area covered by the picture. The red dotted line marks the planned route for Perseverance. Note how the rover has followed Ingenuity’s recent flight path almost precisely, moving to the north away from that red dotted line.

Ingenuity’s 51st flight is presently scheduled for tomorrow. The plan is to go about 600 feet to the west, landing approximately at the black dot.

Leave a comment

Starship/Superheavy launch scrubbed

6:22 am

Because of “a pressurization issue”, SpaceX engineers decided to scrub today’s first test launch of Starship/Superheavy. The launch team then made this launch attempt a wet dress countdown rehearsal, ending at T-40 seconds.

Because of the amount of fuel and oxygen involved, turn-around will take 48 hours, meaning the next launch attempt will likely occur on Wednesday, April 19, 2023, probably at the same approximate time in the morning.

Stay tuned for more details.

11 comments

Watching the launch of Starship/Superheavy

10:08 pm

Starship/Superheavy flight plan for first orbital flight
Click for original image.

UPDATE: Launch scrubbed. To get to new links for watching the live stream in the second launch attempt, now scheduled for April 20, 2023, go here.

Original post:
————-
The first orbital test launch of SpaceX’s massive Superheavy first stage with its orbital Starship spacecraft stacked on top is now scheduled for a launch in a two-and-a-half hour long launch window beginning at 8 am (Central) on Monday, April 17, 2023.

I have embedded SpaceX’s live stream of that launch below, which will begin around 7 am (Central). You can also see an independent 24/7 live stream from LabPadre, showing the launchpad from many different angles and available here. NasaSpaceFlight.com also has a 24/7 live stream showing multiple angles here. Though both of these independent live streams provide alternative view angles of the launch, both will rely on SpaceX’s main live stream, embedded below, for actual updates on the countdown status.

If the launch is scrubbed on April 17th, SpacX has backup dates on April 18th and 19th. The flight plan and time line is shown in the graphic above.

The monumental significance of this rocket cannot be overstated. It is the most powerful rocket ever built, capable of putting more mass into orbit than either the Saturn-5 or NASA’s new SLS rocket.

It took less than seven years from concept to launch. Compare that to SLS, which was proposed in 2004 and only launched last year, two decades later.

It has been been entirely developed with private funds. Though SpaceX does have a NASA contract for building a Starship lunar lander, little of that contract’s funds have yet been distributed to the company. From private funds SpaceX has raised about $10 billion, most of which has been channeled into this rocket’s development, with a small unknown amount used to develop Starlink. Compare that once again to SLS, which has cost about $60 billion to build.

Finally, it is being designed to be completely reusable, thus reducing the cost exponentially for putting large 100-ton payloads into orbit. If successful, Starship/Superheavy will very quickly make the human exploration and colonization of the solar system possible.

And it will do so not as a government project that is part of a government program, but as a private sector product, conceived by individual Americans freely following their dreams, and developed for profit, quickly and efficiently.

Let freedom ring!
» Read more

26 comments

SpaceX successfully launches 51 payloads using Falcon 9

11:57 pm

SpaceX tonight successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to launch 51 payloads into orbit, including a whole range of microsats, cubesats, and orbital tugs.

The first stage completed its tenth flight, landing at Vandenberg Space Force Base. The fairings completed their second and fifth flights respectively. As of posting the satellites have not yet deployed.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

24 SpaceX
15 China
6 Russia
3 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads China 27 to 15, and the entire world combined 27 to 26. SpaceX by itself trails the entire world, including American companies, 24 to 29.

16 comments

FAA issues Starship launch license; SpaceX schedules launch for April 17th

4:53 pm

Starship stacked on top of Superheavy
Starship prototype #24 stacked on top of Superheavy prototype #7

FAA just sent out an email notice announcing that it has issued SpaceX the launch license for the first orbital test launch of Superheavy/Starship.

After completing an evaluation of all applicable Vehicle Operator License requirements, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a commercial Vehicle Operator License to SpaceX for launches of the Starship/Super Heavy Launch Vehicle Program in Cameron County, TX.

The affected environment and environmental impacts of Starship/Super Heavy operations at the Boca Chica Launch Site had been analyzed in the 2022 Final Programmatic Environmental Assessment for the SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy Launch Vehicle Program at the SpaceX Boca Chica Launch Site in Cameron County, Texas. Since the 2022 Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA), SpaceX provided the FAA with additional information regarding Starship’s planned landing, Super Heavy’s planned soft water landing, and the Launch Pad Detonation Suppression System. In accordance with FAA Order 1050.1F, Environmental Impacts: Policies and Procedures, the FAA prepared the Written Re-evaluation of the 2022 Final Programmatic Environmental Assessment for the SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy Launch Vehicle Program at the Boca Chica Launch Site in Cameron County, Texas to describe and evaluate this additional information.

Based on the Written Re-Evaluation, the FAA concluded that the issuance of a vehicle operator license for Starship/Super Heavy operations conforms to the prior environmental documentation, that the data contained in the 2022 PEA remains substantially valid, that there are no significant environmental changes, and all pertinent conditions and requirements of the prior approval have been met or will be met in the current action. Therefore, preparation of a supplemental or new environmental document is not necessary to support the Proposed Action.

In plain English, the FAA (and other federal agencies) have finally agreed that this launch will do nothing to change the conclusions of the environmental reassessment report that was approved in June 2022. That these agencies decided apparently decided to rehash that approved environmental reassessment for a launch that was also approved in that reassessment suggests that there are individuals in these agencies salivating for an opportunity to squelch SpaceX.

SpaceX has now set April 17, 2023 as the launch date, with its live stream going live in two days. I will embed that live stream late on April 16, 2023, for those who wish to watch it here.

18 comments

April 14, 2023 Quick space links

4:21 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

  • Video of the explosion during a recent Centaur stage test

    • According to the tweet by ULA CEO Tory Bruno, “Hydrogen leak. H2 accumulated inside the rig. Found an ignition source. Burned fast. Over pressure caved in our forward dome and damaged the rig.” They still need to locate the source of the leak.

 

 

 

 

 

  • Russian movie, The Challenge, shot on ISS, to be released in 20 countries

    • The list kind of indicates the allies (or potential allies if the U.S. continues to screw up) for the new Chinese/Russia axis: “China, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia and North Macedonia, Palestine, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the UAE, Iran and Sudan.”

7 comments

The very icy high northern latitudes of Mars

2:04 pm

Pedestal crater on Mars
Click for full image.

Today’s cool image to me illustrates how the presence of near surface ice in the high latitudes of the northern lowland plains of Mars helps to produce a very strange and alien terrain.

The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on January 31, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a typical example of what the scientists have dubbed a “pedestal crater,” where the crater ends up higher than the surrounding terrain because the impact had packed the ground and made it more resistant to erosion.

This theory however does not explain entirely what we see here. That apron mesa surrounding the crater also resembles the kind of splash field that is created when an impact occurs in less dense ice-rich ground. Note too the soft stippled nature of the ground. Wind erosion is not the sole cause of change here.
» Read more

Leave a comment

Today’s blacklisted American: Licensing authorities use power to deny doctors freedom of speech

1:31 pm

Doctors Eric Hensen and John Littell
Blacklisted doctors Eric Hensen (l) and John Littell

They’re coming for you next: Two stories today illustrate how government medical licensing authorities have used their power inappropriately and very oppressively in the past three years to silence any dissent in the medical community.

If a doctor dared to question the now very clearly misguided medical policies of government during the Wuhan panic, state medical boards were quite willing to take away their license to practice.

Our first story began when Texas’s Republican governor Greg Abbot imposed a mask mandate in 2020. Dr. Eric Hensen refused to comply, recognizing that masks do nothing to prevent transmission and actually carry health risks in themselves.
» Read more

2 comments

Ingenuity completes its 50th flight on Mars

10:28 am

Present location of Perseverance and Ingenuity on Mars
Click for interactive map.

The Ingenuity team yesterday announced that the Mars helicopter has successfully completed its 50th flight on Mars on April 13, 2023, flying 1,057.09 feet (322.2 meters) in 145.7 seconds, while setting a new altitude record of 59 feet. The green dot marks its new location on the overview map to the right, with the blue dot marking Perseverance.

Built with many off-the-shelf components, such as smartphone processors and cameras, Ingenuity is now 23 Earth months and 45 flights beyond its expected lifetime. The rotorcraft has flown for over 89 minutes and more than 7.1 miles (11.6 kilometers). “When we first flew, we thought we would be incredibly lucky to eke out five flights,” said Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity team lead at JPL. “We have exceeded our expected cumulative flight time since our technology demonstration wrapped by 1,250% and expected distance flown by 2,214%.”

The helicopter is beginning to show signs of age, with its engineering team recognizing that its life could end at any time, especially because it now has to fly more often to keep ahead of Perseverance, while also keeping within communications range.

The helicopter however is now giving us clues as to where the Perseverance science team wants to send the rover. Notice how its path has shifted north away from its planned route (along the red dotted line) to travel just below the rim of Belva Crater, following Ingenuity. The helicopter team is thus providing the rover team some specific additional information about the ground ahead, aiding in planning travel.

3 comments
1 … 167 168 169 170 171 … 1,106