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Lucy team schedules attempt to complete solar panel deployment

3:21 pm

Lucy solar panel graphic
Artist’s impression of solar panel

After months of discussions, the engineering team of the Lucy asteroid probe have now scheduled the week of May 9th as when they will begin their attempt to complete the deployment of the spacecraft’ partly opened solar panel.

The team is now preparing to complete the solar array deployment in two steps. The first step, tentatively scheduled for the week of May 9, is intended to pull in most of the remaining lanyard and verify that flight results are consistent with ground testing. This step will also strengthen the array by bringing it closer to a fully tensioned state. Because this step is designed to be limited in duration, the array is not likely to latch at that point.

If this step goes as planned, the second step will continue the array deployment with the intent to fully latch. Information gleaned from the first part will help fine-tune the second. The second step is currently planned for a month after the initial one, giving engineers enough time to analyze the data seen in the first attempt.

When launched in October 2021 one of Lucy’s two large solar panels did not completely open and latch, as shown above. Though the spacecraft is presently getting 90% of its expected power, the scientists want to get the panel fully open and latched to insure it will function as planned once the spacecraft gets out to the asteroid belt, where sunlight is dimmer.

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Pushback: Baseball scout sues over COVID shot mandate that got him fired

12:26 pm

1964 Civil Rights Act arbitrarily voided by the Washington Nationals
1964 Civil Rights Act: Arbitrarily voided by the Washington Nationals

Don’t comply: Bernard “Benny” Gallo, a major league baseball scout for the Washington Nationals has sued the baseball team for firing him when he refused for religious reasons to get COVID shots.

Gallo is being represented by the Thomas More Society, which has taken on a number of these cases and won. From the press release:

Serving his employers faithfully through the first 18 months of the pandemic, Gallo was terminated in late August 2021 after being denied a religious exemption by the baseball club. Gallo is seeking to have his firing reversed, his employment reinstated, backpay awarded, and restitution for the malicious deprivation of his rights. When dismissed by the Nationals, Gallo not only lost his livelihood and his life’s passion of working as a baseball scout, but also his elected position as Vice President of the Southern California Scouts Association, a distinction awarded him by his industry peers.

Thomas More Society Special Counsel Charles LiMandri, partner at LiMandri & Jonna LLP, explained that the Nationals instituted a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy on August 12, 2021. The mandate required them to have undergone vaccination by August 26. LiMandri pointed out that the Nationals’ team baseball players were not subject to this policy. MLB union members were encouraged to obtain COVID-19 vaccination, but not subject to the mandate.

“The dismissal of Mr. Gallo and the denial of his request for a religious exemption is discriminatory and unlawful,” detailed LiMandri. “The Nationals continued to employ others – including another scout – who requested and received similar accommodations for medical reasons.”

» Read more

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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

Astronomers discover new type of stellar explosion

11:31 am

Using data from the orbiting TESS observatory and the ground-based Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, astronomers have detected evidence of a new type of stellar explosion they have dubbed a “micronova.”

The micronova appears to be a smaller version of a nova, which brightens the entire star for a month or so.

A white dwarf in a two-star system can steal material, mostly hydrogen, from its companion star if they are close enough together. As this gas falls onto the very hot surface of the white dwarf star, it triggers the hydrogen atoms to fuse into helium explosively. In novae, these thermonuclear explosions occur over the entire stellar surface. “Such detonations make the entire surface of the white dwarf burn and shine brightly for several weeks,” explains co-author Nathalie Degenaar, an astronomer at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Micronovae are similar explosions that are smaller in scale and faster, lasting just several hours. They occur on some white dwarfs with strong magnetic fields, which funnel material towards the star’s magnetic poles. “For the first time, we have now seen that hydrogen fusion can also happen in a localised way. The hydrogen fuel can be contained at the base of the magnetic poles of some white dwarfs, so that fusion only happens at these magnetic poles,” says Paul Groot, an astronomer at Radboud University in the Netherlands and co-author of the study.

What this discover really reveals is that as our astronomical observing technology improves, we can observe a greater variety of stellar phenomenon. Expect astronomers in future years to detect an even wider variety of stellar explosions, most of which have not be detectable up until now because we simply couldn’t see them.

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Conscious Choice cover

Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!

 

From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.

 
Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space, is a riveting page-turning story that documents how slavery slowly became pervasive in the southern British colonies of North America, colonies founded by a people and culture that not only did not allow slavery but in every way were hostile to the practice.  
Conscious Choice does more however. In telling the tragic history of the Virginia colony and the rise of slavery there, Zimmerman lays out the proper path for creating healthy societies in places like the Moon and Mars.

 

“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society.

 

All editions are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors, with the ebook priced at $5.99 before discount. All editions can also be purchased direct from the ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.

 

Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from the author (hardback $29.95; paperback $14.95; Shipping cost for either: $6.00). Just send an email to zimmerman @ nasw dot org.

Two space companies fight in the Ukraine war

10:31 am

Two stories yesterday illustrate how Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine has forced two different space companies, one American and the other Ukrainian, to adapt and change in order to help the Ukraine.

First, SpaceX once again demonstrated its ability to adapt, revise, and even redesign its products with lightning speed, based on unexpected facts on the ground.

After SpaceX sent Starlink terminals to Ukraine in February in an apparent effort to help Ukraine maintain its internet connection amid war with Russia, SpaceX founder Elon Musk claimed that Russia had jammed Starlink terminals in the country for hours at a time. After a software update, Starlink was operating normally, said Musk, who added on March 25 that the constellation had “resisted all hacking & jamming attempts” in Ukraine.

The speed in which SpaceX overcame Russia’s jamming was so fast that the American military was gob-smacked.

“From an EW technologist perspective, that is fantastic. That paradigm and how they did that is kind of eyewatering to me,” said Dave Tremper, director of electronic warfare for the Pentagon’s acquisition office. “The way that Starlink was able to upgrade when a threat showed up, we need to be able to have that ability. We have to be able to change our electromagnetic posture, to be able to change very dynamically what we’re trying to do without losing capability along the way.”

In other words, the Pentagon is incapable at present of doing the same thing, and now realizes it should be. The real lesson this government entity should take from this however is to stop trying to build anything at all. Hire the private sector. Let it do the work. Competing privately owned companies can always beat the government at this game. Always.

The second story involves the Ukrainian company Lunar Research Service, which until the war had used its 3D-printing technology to build components for a number of space missions, including lunar rovers. That changed immediately with the invasion.

The start-up was just about to ship its first batch of nanosatellites to their Kickstarter backers, but priorities changed within days, the company’s chief technology officer Dmytro Khmara told Space.com in an email. Instead of going to the customers, the nanosatellites were taken apart and the components handed over to the military.

Since then the company has reprogrammed its 3D printers to build parts for the Ukrainian military, including gun parts.

Though company officials say they hope to return to building components for space, circumstances might not allow it. As long as the war grinds on, the company’s profits will be found in helping the Ukriane’s military.

6 comments

ESA successfully tests controlling a robot on Earth from orbit

10:13 am

The European Space Agency (ESA) has successfully completed a test program, proving that an astronaut in orbit on ISS can control and operate a small robot on Earth.

Astronaut Luca Parmitano aboard the ISS [in 2019] operated the gripper-equipped ESA Interact rover in a mock lunar environment inside a hangar in Valkenburg, the Netherlands to survey rocks and collect samples. The two-hour space-to-ground test was a success, overcoming a two-way signal delay averaging more than 0.8 seconds and a data packet loss rate of 1% plus.

The value of this test is obvious. It shows that astronauts will be able to use small rovers and robots in remote operations, such as sending a probe down to the surface before landing themselves, or once on the planet sending that probe into dangerous terrain as a scout, while the astronaut stays back in safety.

At the same time, the robot used and the tasks it completed were all relatively simple. Moreover, the “mock lunar environment” was hardly realistic. A lot more work is needed before such a robot is functional in a real planetary environment.

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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

Astrobotics unveils nearly complete Peregrine lunar lander

10:04 am

Capitalism in space: Astrobotics yesterday unveiled its nearly complete Peregrine lunar lander, scheduled for launch later this year on the first launch of ULA’s new Vulcan rocket.

The lander is still being assembled, said John Thornton, chief executive of Astrobotic. Remaining work includes installation of its solar panels, two fuel tanks and decks holding payloads. The engines are “just about done,” he said, and will soon be installed.

He was optimistic that remaining work will be done quickly. “In just a couple months’ time, this will be heading out to environmental testing,” he said, followed by shipment to the launch site late this year.

This announcement now strongly suggests that Peregrine would not have been ready for Vulcan’s original launch date in late 2021. Since then the delays by Blue Origin in developing Vulcan’s first stage BE-4 engine has pushed the rocket’s first launch back by more than a year, time that apparently Astrobotics needed to finish Peregrine.

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NASA awards contracts to six companies for its future orbital communications

9:56 am

Capitalism in space: NASA has awarded development contracts to six different companies to test the technology for providing the agency orbital communications for its manned missions, replacing the NASA-built TDRS satellite constellation.

In addition to SpaceX and Project Kuiper, the contractors include U.S.-based ventures representing Inmarsat, SES, Telesat and Viasat. Each venture will be required to complete technology development and in-space demonstrations by 2025 to prove that its system can deliver robust, reliable and cost-effective services — including the ability for new high-rate and high-capacity two-way links.

NASA would follow up by negotiating long-term contracts with multiple vendors to acquire services for near-Earth operations by 2030, while phasing out satellite communications systems owned and operated by the space agency.

Because NASA’s own station will likely be gone when these new in-space communications constellations become operational, their likely customers will not be NASA but the private space stations now under development. NASA is thus accepting responsibility for paying the cost for getting this communications need developed, for all the private companies. While the private space stations should eventually pay for using and building these constellations, it makes sense for NASA to get this started. No one company could likely afford or even be willing to pay the entire cost, and getting them all to work out an arrangement now would be difficult. NASA in turn can get it done now, and then later negotiate contracts with the private stations to pay for its construction and use.

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South Korea raises its space budget by 19%

9:44 am

The new colonial movement: The South Korean government has decided to further raise its space budget for ’22, increasing the planned budget from what was spent in ’21 by 19%.

About a third of this $619 million budget will be used to develop the country’s home-built rocket. Slightly more than half will finance several different satellite projects. Much of the rest is budgeted for the nation’s planned unmanned probes to the Moon and to the asteroid Apophis.

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OneWeb signs deal to launch additional satellites using India’s GSLV rocket

9:32 am

Capitalism in space: OneWeb yesterday announced that it has signed a contract with New Space India, the commercial arm of India’s space agency, to launch additional satellites using that nation’s GSLV rocket.

From the company’s press release:

The first launch with New Space India is anticipated in 2022 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota. The launches will add to OneWeb’s total in-orbit constellation of 428 satellites, 66 per cent of the planned total fleet, to build a global network that will deliver high-speed, low-latency connectivity.

The company refused to release any additional details. The deal however clearly indicates two things. First, OneWeb wants an alternative to using SpaceX for launching the satellites that the Russians had been previously contracted to put in space. This gives it flexibility should one or another company have issues. For example, SpaceX simply might not have the immediate capacity to launch all these satellites as quickly as OneWeb wants. This second deal distributes that capacity across two launch vendors.

Second, it is likely in the long run that India is going to get a lot of business from OneWeb. This gain for India is Russia’s total loss. The deal will also help get India out of its extended panic over the Wuhan flu. Since the arrival of COVID India’s space industry has ground to a halt, completing few launches. The OneWeb deal might force it to come back to life.

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New schedule announced for landing of AX-1 crew and launch of NASA crew

9:17 am

Because of poor weather at the splashdown points on Earth, SpaceX and NASA have worked out a new schedule for both the landing of Axiom’s first passenger flight to ISS as well as NASA’s next launch of astronauts.

The integrated NASA, Axiom Space, and SpaceX teams have agreed on a plan for the Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1) crew to undock from the International Space Station at 8:35 p.m. EDT Saturday, April 23, for a splashdown off the coast of Florida about 1:46 p.m. Sunday, April 24. The decision was made based on the best weather for splashdown of the first private astronaut mission to visit the International Space Station and the return trajectory required to bring the crew and the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft back to Earth safely.

…The departure of Dragon Endeavour from the space station will clear the docking port for the arrival of Dragon Freedom and NASA’s SpaceX Crew-4 astronauts. The earliest potential launch opportunity for the Crew-4 mission is 4:15 a.m. Tuesday, April 26, with additional opportunities Wednesday, April 27, and Thursday, April 28. These launch opportunities are undergoing a more detailed program review to ensure they align with integrated operational timelines. The teams want to provide a two-day gap after Ax-1 return for data reviews from splashdown and to prepare for the Crew-4 launch, including the staging of recovery assets.

If the landing occurs on April 23rd as now planned, the Axiom passengers will have spent fifteen days in space, about four more than originally planned.

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Perseverance captures solar eclipse by Phobos

1:40 pm

Phobos eclipse the Sun
Click for full image.

Cool movie time! The photo to the right, cropped to post here, shows the Sun partly blocked by the Mars’ moon Phobos, taken by the high resolution camera on Perseverance on the surface of Mars. Below I have embedded the full movie compiled from the images taken as Phobos moved across the Sun’s face. From the caption:

It’s long been known that Phobos is drifting toward the Martian surface year by year; tens of millions of years from now, it is expected to crash into the planet or fragment into chunks that will impact the planet. Studying Phobos’ orbit also allows scientists to refine predictions of when the doomed moon will crash into Mars.

Unfortunately, the website does not say when this solar eclipse occurred. The spots on the lower left of the Sun’s face are sunspots.
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Assistant principal harassed and forced to resign for rejecting school’s insistence that all whites are racists

12:28 pm

A view slide from the school's bigoted training
A view slide from the school’s bigoted training, annotated to
illustrate the program’s goals.

“Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” When Emily Mais, assistant principal at Agnor-Hurt Elementary School in Virginia strongly objected to training materials being used by the Albemarle County school district that preached that only whites could be racists, and in fact all were, she found herself endlessly harassed, forced to make numerous public apologies, and eventually was forced to resign in the face of numerous insults and threats against her.

She has now enlisted the Alliance Defending Freedom to sue the Albemarle County School Board. From the first link above:
» Read more

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Planetary scientists propose next NASA boondoggle

11:28 am

The decadal survey's fantasy about future budget allocations
Figure 22.2 from the decadal survey, outlining its fantasy about future
budget allocations.

Let me admit right off the bat that my headline above is a bit too cynical as well as a bit unfair. In releasing yesterday their decadal survey, outlining what they hope planetary missions NASA will do in the next decade, the planetary science community was mostly interested in recommending the planetary missions in the coming decade it thought would provide the best actual science.

The problem is that in recent decades, these decadal surveys, from both the astronomers and the planetary scientists, have evolved into documents designed to encourage a few big expensive missions, rather than a suite of many smaller probes to many different places. For examples, consider this quote from the article in Science describing yesterday’s announcement:
» Read more

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Spinlaunch releases video of its 7th test launch

9:41 am

Capitalism in space: Spinlaunch on April 18th released a video providing what it calls “an inside look” at the company’s procedures during its 7th test launch on March 22, 2022.

I have embedded the video below. Note that on this test launch, the projectile was lifted to only about 30,000 feet, which does not qualify it as a suborbital space flight. Still, the video also indicates that their test projectile not only survived the launch’s extremely high accelerations, reaching a speed of 1,200 miles per hour in mere seconds, but once it hit the ground it was in good enough shape to reuse.

The video also reveals one other interesting fact. Their mission control consisted of only two people, significantly less than the mission control staffs used by the commercial rocket companies, which are themselves significantly less that the mission control teams that NASA has used.
» Read more

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Delta testing Starlink use on its airplanes

9:25 am

Capitalism in space: The CEO of Delta has revealed that the airline company is testing Starlink as a method for providing its passengers internet access during flights.

Starlink officials have said they are also discussing this possibility with several airlines. It has also sought regulatory approval from the FCC, and will also need it from the FAA before officially proceeding.

The request to the FCC was made in March 2021, more than a year ago, and appears to have not yet been approved. Moreover, there have been signs that the FCC has been slow-walking other Starlink license requests. These facts, combined with the delays forced on SpaceX by the FAA, provides further circumstantial evidence that the federal bureaucracy under the Biden administration is working to block the success of Elon Musk’s space companies.

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Axiom again cancels return of manned mission due to weather

9:12 am

Capitalism in space: Because of continuing poor weather on Earth, SpaceX & Axiom once again canceled the planned return of manned mission yesterday.

At the moment there is no word on when SpaceX’s Endeavour capsule will undock and bring its passengers home. Since a NASA crew is preparing for launch on Saturday, April 23rd, we should expect that return to occur beforehand.

This article from Israel about the delay, which also focuses on the flight of Israeli businessman Eytan Stibbe, had this interesting tidbit:

Businessmen Stibbe, American Larry Connor of Ohio, and Canadian Mark Pathy have paid $55 million apiece for the rocket ride. The visitors’ tickets include access to all but the Russian portion of the space station. [emphasis mine]

When the Russians launched Dennis Tito and other tourists in 2000s, I am unsure if those tourists were allowed in the American portion of the station. My guess would be yes, but that would be a guess, and very easily wrong. During the two tourist flights to ISS in October and December it is also unclear if those passengers had access to the American half. Considering the competition for tourist flights that now exists, I would suspect no.

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Hubble looks at a tight cluster of five galaxies

1:33 pm

Hickson Compact Group 40
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope to celebrate the telescope’s 32nd year in orbit. This cluster of five galaxies is dubbed Hickson Compact Group 40.

This menagerie includes three spiral-shaped galaxies, an elliptical galaxy, and a lenticular (lens-like) galaxy. Somehow, these different galaxies crossed paths in their evolution to create an exceptionally crowded and eclectic galaxy sampler.

Caught in a leisurely gravitational dance, the whole group is so crowded that it could fit within a region of space that is less than twice the diameter of our Milky Way’s stellar disk.

Though such cozy galaxy groupings can be found in the heart of huge galaxy clusters, these galaxies are notably isolated in their own small patch of the universe, in the direction of the constellation Hydra.

The red streaks in three galaxies is thought to be dust, suggesting that stars are still forming in these galaxies. The vertical galaxy on the right is seen edge on. Note too the tilted ring that appears to surround the galaxy on the left.

As for Hubble’s anniversary, the press release notes that since launch in 1990 the space telescope has made 1.5 million observations covering 50,000 heavenly objects, an archive of data available to anyone to access.

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Pushback: College that demanded professor use fake pronouns loses lawsuit, must pay him $400K

1:14 pm

A victory for free speech
A victory for free speech

Don’t comply: When in 2018 the public college Shawnee State University in Ohio tried to force philosophy professor Nicholas Meriwether to use a student’s preferred female pronouns, even though the student was a biological male, Meriwether refused.

The school then performed “a formal investigation” which declared that Meriwether was creating “a hostile environment” for the student, simply because Meriwether refused to let that student force him to say things he disagreed with.

Shawnee State officials then placed a written warning in the professor’s file, demanding he change the way he addresses transgender students to avoid being fired or suspended without pay.

Rather than bow, Meriwether contacted the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a free speech law firm focused on protecting the first amendment rights of Americans. They sued, and have now won a big victory for freedom of speech.
» Read more

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Perseverance spots its parachute

11:50 am

Perseverance spots its parachute
Click for full resolution. Original images found here and here.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Cool image time! Today the Perseverance science team released two photos taken on April 6th that captured the parachute that the rover had used to land on Mars on February 18, 2021. The enhanced panorama above is from those images. The white feature near the center is the parachute. The mountains in the distance are the southern rim of Jezero Crater, about 40 miles away.

The overview map to the right gives the context. The red dot is Perserverance’s location as of yesterday, on sol 413. The black dot marks its location on April 6th, when it took the pictures. The green dot marks Ingenuity’s present position. The yellow lines indicate the approximate area covered by the panorama.

Ingenuity had not completed its 25th flight until April 8th, two days after these photos were taken, so it isn’t actually just off the edge of these photos, it is beyond the near ridgeline out of sight.

One comment

Biden administration vows to cease anti-satellite tests

9:35 am

The Biden administration yesterday announced that it is prohibiting the military from conducting any further anti-satellite tests that would result in the destruction of an orbiting target satellite.

The ban is focused entirely on preventing further space junk produced by such tests.

It … is extremely limited in scope to testing of direct ascent destructive ASAT missiles — a formulation that leaves open the possibility of using such ASATs in conflict, not to mention testing and use of a host of other types of both destructive (think directed energy) weapons and those such as jammers that create temporary disruptions to functionality.

The goal appears to be to encourage other nations, such as China and Russia, to agree to their own bans. Considering the present state of world tensions, I think that is a pie-in-the-sky expectation. Both Russia and China have made it clear they are pursuing this space military capability aggressively. Neither has indicated the slightest interest in backing off.

The result? The U.S. under our bankrupt establishment leadership has once again unilaterally weakened its capabilities to protect itself, even as other hostile powers work to become stronger. And I say “once again” because this has been the pattern from Washington and Europe now for five decades. Except for outsider Trump, all western leaders have repeatedly acted as if they lived in a fantasy world of unicorns and rainbows. Consider for example Europe’s decision in the past decade to rely on Russia energy. They now find themselves at Russia’s aggressive mercy.

This decision is another example of this pie-in-the-sky approach. Since every previous American anti-satellite test had aimed at satellites already about to burn up in the atmosphere, those tests produced no space junk. Thus, banning the military’s ability to conduct such tests has done nothing to reduce future junk. All it has done is tied the U.S.’s hands, under a fantasy that acting nice will somehow get the Russians and Chinese to do the same.

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SLS launch now definitely delayed until July, at the earliest

9:05 am

NASA yesterday admitted that with the decision to return SLS to the vehicle assembly building (VAB) before completing its dress rehearsal countdown, it is now impossible to launch SLS in the June launch window as planned, and that the earliest the rocket could launch would be July.

This summary of the issues that dogged the rocket during the three attempts to complete that dress rehearsal illustrates the likelihood that SLS has many engineering loose ends still unresolved:

On April 3 it was malfunctioning fans on the Mobile Launcher needed to clear hazardous fumes. On April 4, it was a defective helium check valve on the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage, ICPS, the Space Launch System’s second stage. On April 14, it was a hydrogen leak on the SLS first stage, or Core Stage.

Once again, having such problems during the first countdown of a new rocket is not unusual. What is questionable is only finding them now, at the very end of the rocket’s development.

I predict the launch will be further delayed until the fall, at which time NASA might face a much more serious issue regarding SLS’s two strap-on solid rocket boosters. During the shuttle era NASA had always placed a one year limit on their use once they were stacked, because it was believed that standing in a vertical position for too long could warp and distort the solid rocket fuel, thus causing it to burn improperly during launch.

These boosters were first stacked near the end of 2020, so their use-by date should have been January 2022, at the latest. Not launching until the fall will place them nine to eleven months past that date. And since these boosters are taller than the one’s used by the shuttle, they are heavier which makes extending that lifespan even riskier.

Thus, if NASA decides it must replace the boosters, that will likely delay the launch another three to six months, pushing it into ’23 at the earliest. If NASA decides to go with these boosters, it poses a real risk of failure during launch, a failure that will certainly destroy the rocket.

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Return of first Axiom commercial crew from ISS delayed

8:55 am

Capitalism in space: Because of iffy weather at their planned splashdown point, SpaceX and Axiom have delayed the return of Axiom’s first commercial crew at ISS so that they will splashdown tomorrow.

Weather permitting, the four-member private astronaut crew now is targeted to undock at about 10 p.m. Tuesday, April 19, to begin the journey home with splashdown off the coast of Florida no earlier than approximately 3:24 p.m. EDT Wednesday, April 20.

If weather remains an issue, the return to Earth of Endeavour could be delayed further.

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Dawn on the Moon

5:34 pm

Dawn on the Moon's far side
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, reduced to post here, was taken on August 25, 2019 by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). It shows an oblique view looking west just after lunar dawn of an unnamed 13-mile-wide crater in Mare Moscoviense on the far side of the Moon. From the caption:

Mare Moscoviense is one of the few volcanic plains on the farside, which is largely comprised of ancient cratered highland terrain. The fact that the farside was strikingly different from the familiar nearside was a surprise when the Soviet Luna 3 spacecraft returned the first farside images in 1959. The highland crust is thicker on the farside than on the nearside, which is thought to have inhibited magmas from reaching the surface as frequently as they once did on the nearside.

As seen in the image above, Mare Moscoviense lies within a large impact basin, the formation of which thinned the local crust, perhaps making it easier for lavas to erupt that would have otherwise stalled below the surface. But why does this global asymmetry in crustal thickness exist? This is still a mystery, like the origins of the large-scale asymmetries observed on Mars and Mercury, though ideas like a giant impact event that stripped off a portion of the crust or asymmetric overturn of the mantle have been proposed.

Note the dark shadow obscuring the foreground on the left. It appears from the topography in the overhead map at the link that the ridgeline that marks the eastern border of Mare Moscoviense is just high enough at dawn to keep the mare in shadow while allowing the sun’s dawn light to peek over and illuminate the crater’s rim. That ridgeline however only extends so far to the north, thus allowing sunlight to hit the plains on the right sooner.

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Pushback: Threatened with blacklisting, a conservative student fought back so hard she is now in charge

12:20 pm

Olivia Gallegos
Gallegos is also participating in Wichita State’s
first Collegiate Leadership Competition

Don’t comply! In February I wrote a pushback story about Olivia Gallegos, an Hispanic conservative at Wichita State University who, when denied nomination as a candidate for the student government for daring to nominate a conservative for recognition, not only refused to take a racial sensitivity class, put together a write-in campaign and won election to the student government anyway.

Her victory also included getting the Wichita student supreme court to overturn the decision of the student government to deny her conservative student club from getting official status at the college.

It appears Gallegos did not take even these victories lying down. She followed them up by running for president of that student government, and then winning that election on April 6th. The election also saw the defeat of one of the main accusers against Gallegos who had led the charge to block the conservative student club.

As a result, Gallegos is now the leader of the student government that only six months earlier had been dedicated to censoring and blacklisting conservatives.

Gallegos did not campaign and win as a conservative, however, but as someone dedicated to “a four-point platform of transparency, financial literacy, mental health and safety.” As she said during a public town hall meeting during the campaign:
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White sediment in Martian slot canyon

9:43 am

White sediment in Martian slot canyon
Click for full image.

Yesterday’s Picture of the Day from the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) revisited a captioned image first posted in February 2014 by the science team. That picture, cropped and enhanced, is to the right. From the 2014 caption:

There is a large channel system that flows into the basin, called Ladon Valles, and scientists think that the basin may have once filled with water before another channel to the north formed and drained it. These exposures of light-toned layered sediments provide clues about the environment that existed within Ladon Basin when water may have ponded and deposited these sediments.

Later research has generally concluded that these white sediments are iron and magnesium smectites, often appearing as white tuff material whose deposition is generally associated with precipitation of water or snow and its subsequent evaporation or sublimation.
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