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

The North Star has spots!

9:38 am

The spoted surface of Polaris
Click for original image.

Astronomers using an array of six ground-based telescopes have obtained best new data of Polaris, the North Star, including the first rough image of its surface, and discovered sunspots on its surface.

You can read the paper here [pdf]. The image to the right, taken from figure 4 of the paper, shows the surface as seen by the telescopes over two nights in April 2021. Polaris is what astronomers call a Cepheid variable star, which changes brightness on a very precise schedule as its diameter grows and shrinks. In the case of Polaris, that variation is four days long. The star’s brightness itself varies only slightly, and over the decades has even at times appeared to cease its variations.

As the true brightness of Cepheids is very predictable based on their pulse rate, these stars are one of the main tools astronomers use to determine distances to other galaxies. Knowing more about them thus has great importance to cosmological research.

The orbital motion showed that Polaris has a mass five times larger than that of the Sun. The images of Polaris showed that it has a diameter 46 times the size of the Sun.

The biggest surprise was the appearance of Polaris in close-up images. The CHARA observations provided the first glimpse of what the surface of a Cepheid variable looks like. “The CHARA images revealed large bright and dark spots on the surface of Polaris that changed over time,” said Gail Schaefer, director of the CHARA Array. The presence of spots and the rotation of the star might be linked to a 120-day variation in measured velocity.

The researchers plan to take regular images again of Polaris to better track the changes to its surface.

4 comments

NASA delays Starliner return decision to end of month

9:17 am

In a short FAQ posted by NASA today, the agency quietly revealed that the decision on whether to bring Starliner back with its astronauts on board has been delayed till the end of August.

NASA now plans to conduct two reviews – a Program Control Board and an Agency Flight Readiness Review – before deciding how it will safely return Wilmore and Williams from the station. NASA expects to decide on the path forward by the end of August.

It appears the agency has decided to bring more people into the decision-making process. In the briefing last week, it was then planning only one review, expected to be completed before the end of this week. It now sounds like a second review will occur after the first, pushing the decision back one more week.

All of NASA’s actions in the past three weeks have suggested an increasing involvement by upper management, possibly including White House officials. With an election coming up, the politicans who are supposed to be in charge have apparently inserted themselves into this process and are demanding greater review. I expect in the end the decision will fall to them, and might even be announced by NASA administrator Bill Nelson himself.

These actions have also suggested that upper management does not like the risks involved in returning the crew on Starliner. Politicians do not like to have bad things happen on their watch. We should therefore not be surprised if the decision is made to send Starliner home unmanned.

5 comments

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1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.


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Juice completes Earth fly-by, heads for Venus fly-by

9:07 am

Earth as seen by Juice
Earth as seen by Juice during fly-by.
Click for original image.

The European probe Juice yesterday successfully completed a close fly-by of the Earth and was thus successfully slingshoted on its way to its next fly-by, of Venus, on its way to Jupiter.

This fly-by was actually a double event. First Juice zipped past the Moon the day before, coming within 435 miles. Then, only one day later it passed the Earth at a distance of 4,230 miles, thus completing the first dual fly-by of the both the Earth and the Moon.

The flyby of the Moon increased Juice’s speed by 0.9 km/s relative to the Sun, guiding Juice towards Earth. The flyby of Earth reduced Juice’s speed by 4.8 km/s relative to the Sun, guiding Juice onto a new trajectory towards Venus. Overall, the lunar-Earth flyby deflected Juice by an angle of 100° compared to its pre-flyby path.

The inherently risky flyby required ultra-precise, real-time navigation, but is saving the mission around 100–150 kg of fuel. In the month before the flyby, spacecraft operators gave Juice slight nudges to put it on exactly the right approach trajectory. Then they tracked Juice 24/7 between 17–22 August.

The Venus fly-by will occur in August 2025, followed by additional Earth flys in September 2026 and January 2029. The spacecraft will finally arrive in Jupiter orbit in July 2031, where it is designed to study the large icy moons (Europa, Gandymede, and Calisto) of that gas giant.

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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.

August 20, 2024 Quick space links

3:35 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

 

3 comments

What the heck caused these cones to align on Mars?

2:48 pm

Another
Click for original image.

Time for another “What the heck?” cool image! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on May 23, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the science team labels as “longitudinally aligned cones”.

To my eye the cones visibile in this picture seem more aligned latitudinally, to the east-west, instead of longitudinally, north-south, but the larger view in the inset on the overview map below shows that on a larger scale, the cones do appear aligned in a north-south direction.

Either way, this is one of those photos from Mars orbit that leaves me entirely baffled. The cones and the flow feature that cuts across the middle of the image might be either volcanic or glacial, but it is beyond my pay grade to explain what caused this patch of aligned cones.
» Read more

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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

Court: Cop who arrested an innocent citizen illegally has no immunity

2:06 pm

Still in effect
Still in effect

A federal three-judge panel has now ruled that a policeman who illegally arrested an innocent citizen simply because that person had a concealed carry permit cannot claim qualified immunity from suit or prosecution.

The actions of the policemen, Nicholas Andrzejewski, were incredibly inappropriate and abusive.

On November 12, 2018, Basel Soukaneh’s life was significantly disrupted. Soukaneh was looking for a house he was considering purchasing, but the GPS on his phone, held in a holder on the dash of his car, had frozen. He was unfamiliar with the area. Soukaneh pulled over to correct the problem, left the engine running, and had the interior lights on. A Waterbury police officer quickly knocked on his window and demanded to see his driver’s license. Soukaneh handed him the license and his legal concealed carry permit, then told the officer where his firearm was located in the vehicle.

The officer, Nicholas Andrzejewski, grabbed Soukaneh, dragged him from the car, and violently handcuffed him, causing significant pain. Andrzejewski then stuffed Soukaneh in the back of his police car and searched Soukaneh’s car, including the trunk. Several other officers came to the scene. One of them put Soukaneh in an upright, seated position instead of where Andrzejewski had stuffed him, with his head near the floor. After another half hour, he was released. It is not clear if he was charged with a traffic violation.

» Read more

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Juice completes fly-by of Moon

9:58 am

Juice's view of the Moon
Click for original image.

Europe’s Juice probe to Jupiter yesterday successfully completed its close fly-by of the Moon, shifting its path as it prepares for a close fly-by of the Earth today.

The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken during yesterday’s flyby. At its closest approach Juice was only 435 miles above the lunar surface. It will pass the Earth today at a distance of 4,230 miles.

If the Earth fly-by today is successful, Juice will then do flybys of Venus in August 2025, Earth in September 2026, and Earth again in January 2029, arriving in Jupiter orbit in July 2031, where it is designed to study the large icy moons (Europa, Gandymede, and Calisto) of that gas giant.

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SpaceX gets FCC okay for next Starship/Superheavy test flight

9:41 am

Superheavy being captured by the tower chopsticks at landing
Artist rendering of Superheavy being captured by
the tower chopsticks at landing. Click for video.

The FCC yesterday issued SpaceX a communications license for the fifth orbital test launch of its giant Starship/Superheavy rocket, with the license permitting Superheavy to “either return to the launch site or perform a controlled water landing.”

The license runs through February 15, 2025.

This does not mean a launch has been approved however. The FCC only gives approval for radio communications on such a flight. It is the FAA that must issue the actual launch license, and it as yet not done so.

SpaceX had announced on August 8, 2024 that it was ready to go. It is now almost two weks since then and the FAA has said nothing.

The only justifiable reason for this delay would be that SpaceX has requested permission to do the first chopstick landing of Superheavy at Boca Chica (as suggested by the FCC approval), and since this changes the already approved flight path from the previous four test launches, the FAA is reviewing it more closely, and taking its time to do so.

The simple fact is that it can’t learn anything by this review. It isn’t qualified to make any educated determination. Either it is willing to let SpaceX do that return, or not. If it is against it at this point, it should simply say so, demand SpaceX hold off a chopstick landing until later, and give it permission now to do another ocean landing. At least this way the company would have clarity and could proceed.

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Rocket Factory Augsburg’s rocket fails during 9-engine static fire test

9:21 am

Screen capture of test failure
Screen capture from video of test failure.
Note the flame shooting out sideways.

During a static test yesterday of Rocket Factory Augsburg’s RFA-1 rocket, the first using all nine first stage engines, the rocket experienced what the company called an “anomaly” early in the test, causing a major fire and explosion.

The company’s statement also said the launchpad was “saved” and no one was injured.

I have embedded below a clip from a BBC video of the event. A company official had said only yesterday that it hoped to launch in a matter of weeks, though that official had given no word on whether the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) had issued a launch license. I suspect he hoped this test would be successful and the CAA would then issue the license. That won’t happen now.

The test took place at the new commercial Saxavord spaceport in the Shetland Islands, which has also struggled in the past two years to get full licensing from the CAA. It has obtained those licenses, but it would not be surprising if this failure will cause the CAA — which appears very risk adverse — to reconsider its approvals.

Until this failure, Rocket Factory appeared to be in the lead among the new European rocket startups to complete its first launch. That now changes. The Spanish startup PLD hopes to launch from French Guiana in 2025, and is presently building its launchpad there. The UK startup Orbex also hopes to launch in 2025, but it wants to launch from the Sutherland spaceport in Scotland, has faced significant regulatory delays over the past two years from the CAA, and will now likely face further delays because of this failure. Another German startup, Hyimpulse, has already completed a suborbital test launch from Australia, but has not set a date for an orbital test. It originally hoped to launch from Saxavord in 2025, but has been looking for alternatives recently. Finally, the German startup Isar Aerospace has a deal to launch from the Andoya spaceport in Norway, but has announced no launch date.
» Read more

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SpaceX launches 20 more Starlink satellites using a new first stage

8:50 am

SpaceX early this morning successfully launched another 20 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The first stage was new, having never flown before. It successfully landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic, and is now part of the company’s fleet of Falcon 9 first stages.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

83 SpaceX
34 China
10 Rocket Lab
9 Russia

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 98 to 52, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world combined, including American companies, 83 to 67.

5 comments

August 19, 2024 Quick space links

4:24 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

  • Rocket Factory Augsburg offical claims first orbital launch at Saxavord “only weeks away”

    • The claim is meaningless, in that neither he nor the article provide any update on the approval of a launch license by the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). The company might be ready, but so was Virgin Orbit, and it was made to wait so long (an extra six months) by the CAA that it ran out of money and went bankrupt. I am willing to bet that this first launch will not happen this year.

 

 

  • Juno’s next close fly-by of Io this coming weekend

    • It won’t get as close as previous fly-bys, with this close approch only getting to within 27,218 miles away. Since Juno’s camera is not particularly high resolutoin, it will only be able to see objects bigger than 18 miles across.

6 comments

Mining Mars

12:08 pm

Mining Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on May 22, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The picture’s focus of study is the bright strip running diagonally across the center, which the scientists label as a “linear feature exposure of infrared-bright material.”

This bright strip with all the swirls of alternating light and dark terrain is a fissure about 80 feet deep. What is interesting is that the parallel bright features to the north and south are actually ridges, not depressions, even though there appears to be some resemblance between them all. (Note that the patches of very thin parallel lines are likely ripple dunes sitting on top of the topography.)

So, what created this fissure? And why is its inner surface so strange? As is usually the case, a wider look provides some clues.
» Read more

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Threatened with a lawsuit, Colorado lifts its ban of clothing with political messages

10:20 am

Jeffrey Hunt in his evil sweatshirt
Jeffrey Hunt in his evil sweatshirt.
Photo courtesy of JeffreyGrounds Photography.

Pushback: Colorado has now been forced to lift its ban on visitors wearing clothing with political messages when they enter the gallery of the state legislature after it was threatened with a lawsuit for enforcing that ban arbitrarily and clearly favoring some political messages over others.

On March 31, 2023, Jeffrey Hunt came to that visiter gallery wearing a pro-life sweatshirt and was forced to leave by security, as described by the cease-and-desist letter sent to by Hunt’s lawyers.

Sergeant-At-Arms Ben Trujillo approached Hunt and instructed him to exit the gallery. Hunt complied. After leaving the gallery, Trujillo told Hunt that “Pro-Life U” was a “political statement” prohibited by a rule banning “pins or apparel expressing political statements”.

Yet, security had no problem with an entire group of demonstrators filling the gallery wear gun control shirts only two weeks earlier.

That letter, sent by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) on July 16, 2024, noted this unfair application of the rule. More importantly, it pointed out that the rule was a clear violation of the First Amendment. It demanded that the state cease enforcing this illegal law, or face a lawsuit.

Less than a month later, the state backed down, ending the rule.

Across the nation there have been numerous similar stories of security guard control freaks illegally censoring conservative speech. And in every case, when faced with legal action those venues have backed down every single time, proving the importance of fighting. See for example this story at the Smithsonian, or this story at the National Archives.

The news in space and science is very very slow today, so this short political news piece gets posted first, sent to me over the weekend by radio host Robert Pratt.

2 comments

Sierra Space in negotiations to buy ULA

10:26 pm

According to the Reuters news agency, Sierra Space is negotiating with the joint owners of ULA, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, to buy the rocket company.

The sources, which are all anonymous, said the sale price is in the range of $2 to $3 billion. Those same sources said no deal has yet been worked out, and might not happen at all.

For Sierra, the deal would give it its own launch vehicle, Vulcan, for placing its Dream Chaser mini-shuttles into orbit. It would also give it a profit stream from the many military and commercial launch contracts already on ULA’s manifest. The combined cababilities of ULA and Sierra will create a formidable new player in the aerospace launch market.

For Boeing, it would provide it some much needed cash that it will be able to use to both restructure and revitalize its presently questionable operations.

It is unclear what Lockheed Martin will gain from the sale, other than the cash and the removal of this Frankenstein-like partnership with Boeing, which in the long run has probably not done it a lot of good.

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Rocket Lab ships its two Mars Escapade orbiters to Cape Canaveral

10:16 pm

Rocket Lab has now shipped the two identical Mars Escapade orbiters to Cape Canaveral for launch in late September on the very first flight of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket.

The spacecraft, known as Blue and Gold, recently completed comprehensive assembly, integration, and test at Rocket Lab’s Spacecraft Production Complex and headquarters in Long Beach, California. Following this milestone, the Rocket Lab team conducted final closeout activities, including the installation of spacecraft solar arrays and multi-layer insulation (MLI) blankets, before they were packaged and shipped to Florida for launch.

Once in orbit around Mars, the two spacecraft over eleven months will study the interaction of the Martian atmosphere and its weak magnetoshere with the solar wind and solar storms, providing two different data points for a better geographic perspective.

8 comments

August 16, 2024 Quick space links

3:12 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

 

4 comments

SpaceX launches 116 payloads on its eleventh smallsat Transporter mission

12:20 pm

SpaceX today successfully launched 116 payloads, including 108 satellites, on its eleventh smallsat Transporter mission, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The first stage completed its twelfth flight, landing back at Vandenberg. As of posting the satellites had not deployed.

The payloads included a wide variety of satellites and demonstration missions, including one orbital tug from the European tug company D-Orbit, its Ion tug deploying five satellites. In addition, five different companies will be using their own deployment equipment to release about fifty of the satellites from the Falcon 9.

These SpaceX Transporter smallsat launches demonstrate the value of lowering the cost to launch. Almost none of these satellites could have obtained investment capital when the cost high. Now that SpaceX has lowered that cost, a plethora of new satellite companies of all kinds can get that capital and build and launch their projects. And that burst of new companies is more than enough to provide business not only to SpaceX but to a lot of other new rocket startups.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

82 SpaceX
34 China
10 Rocket Lab
9 Russia

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 97 to 52, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world combined, including American companies, 82 to 67.

14 comments

Martian gullies flowing down to a Martian river of ice

11:30 am

Gullies on cliff wall
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on May 16, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The scientists label this as “gullies previously identified in the walls of Harmakhis Vallis.” The gullies are obvious, the series of erosion features on the cliff wall. The cliff itself drops about 2,800 feet from the rim to the floor, and also appears to have internal horizontal layers that the gullies cut through.

What causes the gullies? Planetary scientists have a number of theories, none of which appear to explain the gullies everywhere on the Martian surface. They all appear in the mid-latitudes, where the most glaciers on Mars are found, and appear to be related to ice or frost freeze-thaw processes, with some gullies actually very ancient and formed when the planet’s rotational tilt was significantly different.
» Read more

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New data continues to refine the margin of error for the Hubble constant

9:45 am

The uncertainty of science: New data using the Webb Space Telescope’s spectroscopic capabilities has provided a more refined measure of the expansion rate of the universe, dubbed the Hubble constant.

According to previous research, that rate could be anywhere from 67.4 to 73.2 kilometers per second per megaparsecs, depending on whether you rely on data from the Planck orbiter or that of the Hubble Space Telescope. Though this difference appears reasonable considering the uncertainties and assumptions that go into research that determines both numbers, astronomers have been unhappy with the difference. The numbers should match and they don’t.

Now new data from Webb suggests this difference really is nothing more than the margin of error caused by the many uncertainties and assumptions involved. That new Webb data measured the Hubble constant using three different methods, all similar to that used by Hubble, and came up with 67.85, 67.96, and 72.04, all in the middle of the previous two numbers from Hubble and Planck.

In other words, all the data is beginning to fall within this margin of error.

Astronomers are without doubt still going to argue about this, but it does appear that the research is beginning to coalesce around an approximate number. More important, in terms of cosmology these results confirm the theory that the expansion of the universe is accelerating (dubbed “dark energy” simply because it needs a name), since they confirm the method used to measure that expansion rate in the very distant universe.

Keep your minds open however. There remain many questions and uncertainties with all these conclusions. Nothing is settled, nor will it be likely for decades if not centuries.

3 comments

Was the Chicxulub bolide 65 million years ago an asteroid from beyond Jupiter?

9:21 am

According to a new study, the Chicxulub bolide that impacted the Yucatan 65 million years ago and is thought to have been a major cause of the extinction of the dinosaurs was likely a carbonaceous-type asteroid from beyond Jupiter.

The researchers attempted to pinpoint the nature of that bolide by analyzing the isotope samples from the thin layer of materials found worldwide that corresponds to the impact (dubbed the K-Pg boundary) as well number of different impact samples from different layers.

To address these questions, Mario Fischer-Gödde and colleagues evaluated ruthenium (Ru) isotopes in samples taken from the K-Pg boundary. For comparison, they also analyzed samples from five other asteroid impacts from the last 541 million years, samples from ancient Archaean-age (3.5 – 3.2 billion-years-old) impact-related spherule layers, and samples from two carbonaceous meteorites.

Ficher-Gödde et al. found that the Ru isotope signatures in samples from the K-Pg boundary were uniform and closely matched those of carbonaceous chondrites (CCs), not Earth or other meteorite types, suggesting that the Chicxulub impactor likely came from a C-type asteroid that formed in the outer Solar System. They also rule out a comet as the impactor. Ancient Archean samples also suggest impactors with a CC-like composition, indicating a similar outer Solar System origin and perhaps representing material that impacted during Earth’s final stages of accretion. In contrast, other impact sites from different periods showed Ru isotope compositions consistent with S-type (salicaceous) asteroids from the inner Solar System.

My headline poses this result as a question because these results are unconfirmed, and based on a very small sample of data. Nonetheless, this research not only gives us a better idea of the nature of the Chicxulub impactor, it does the same for a number of other important past impacts. That data in turn will help theorists refine their theories describing the early formation history of the solar system.

Sidebar: As always, there are numerous stories today in the mainstream press going ga-ga over this paper and declaring with certainty the utter truth of its conclusions. This of course is junk reporting, as there is no utter truth here, only some educated speculation based on some new data.

2 comments

China launches new set of classified remote-sensing satellites

9:06 am

China today launched a new set of classified remote-sensing satellites supposedly designed to test “new technologies of low-orbit constellations, using its Long March 4B rocket lifting off from its Xichang spaceport in the southwest of China.

Almost no information was released about the satellites. Nor did China’s state-run press reveal where the rocket’s lower stages, carrying toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed within China.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

81 SpaceX
34 China
10 Rocket Lab
9 Russia

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 96 to 52, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world combined, including American companies, 81 to 67.

These numbers will likely change in only a few hours, as SpaceX has another launch today, scheduled for 11:20 am (Pacific).

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NASA reconsiders cancellation of overbudget and behind schedule robotic refueling mission

8:59 am

Due to some pressure from Congress (which wants the 450 jobs the project employs), NASA is now reconsidering its cancellation of the On-Orbit Servicing, Assembly and Manufacturing (OSAM) 1 mission, designed in the late 2000s to demonstrate the robotic refueling of a dead satellite but is so overbudget and behind schedule that in the interim private enterprise accomplished the same goal now repeatedly for a fraction of the cost.

Language in the final fiscal year 2024 appropriations bill, released just days after NASA’s cancelation announcement, which fully funded OSAM-1 at $227 million, directed NASA to adjust the mission to launch in 2026 within the spending profile NASA included in its 2024 budget request. That could be done, the report accompanying the bill suggested, through “potential de-scoping of some non-essential capabilities,” adding that if it is not possible, NASA should conduct another continuation review in September.

In other words, Congress wants NASA to keep this project, even if it means cutting the budget of other more useful and valuable missions.

OSAM has cost a billion dollars so far, and after almost fifteen years has not yet flown. Meanwhile, Northrop Grumman’s MEV servicing robot has already provided fuel to several dead satellites, while orbital tug startups are flying missions and developing the same refueling capabilities for far less. The industry doesn’t need this demonstration mission anymore. It has already demonstrated it, and done so better.

Moreover, why the heck does OSAM require 450 people? That number is absurd, and likely exceeds the payrolls of all the orbital tug companies plus Northrop’s robotic servicing division combined.

There is hope for the American taxpayer. The legislative recommendations above come solely from the Senate. The House appears less interested in spending this money. And NASA has not yet decided what it will do.

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India completes third and last test launch of its SSLV rocket

8:57 pm

India today successfully completed the third and last test launch of its Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV), lifting off from its Sriharikota spaceport and carrying an experimental satellite designed to test a number of new technologies.

This launch is three-plus years late. It was originally to take place no later than 2021, but India’s space agency ISRO shut down entirely during the COVID panic, putting a halt on the rocket’s development. This delay also badly damaged ISRO’s attempt to grab the smallsat launch market. While it hid in basements in fear of a virus comparable to the flu, companies on the U.S. pushed to grab that market. Whether it can now grab its own market share is unclear, but the increased regulatory burdens that have appeared in the U.S. in the last three years gives it an opportunity.

This was India’s third launch in 2024, so the leader board in the 2024 launch race remains unchanged:

81 SpaceX
33 China
10 Rocket Lab
9 Russia

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 96 to 51, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world combined, including American companies, 81 to 66.

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Lockheed Martin to purchase satellite builder Terran Orbital

1:48 pm

Lockheed Martin today announced that it intends to purchase the satellite company Terran Orbital, of which it already owns one third of its stock.

Lockheed said Aug. 15 it would buy Terran Orbital for $0.25 per share in cash and retire the company’s existing debt. The deal, expected to close in the fourth quarter, has an enterprise value of $450 million. Shares in Terran Orbital closed Aug. 14 at $0.40.

Lockheed had six months ago offered to buy the company for $1 per share, but then withdrew the offer. It appears this new offer is intended to save the company, as Lockheed needs it. Right now 90% of Terran Orbital’s contracts are with Lockheed, and if the company goes under so do those deals.

This situation appears related to funding problems being experienced by the Rivada 300-satellite constellation. It had signed a $2.4 billion contract with Terran to build those satellites, but Terran removed that contract from its listed deals this week, suggesting that it no longer expected it to happen.

Lockheed Martin has made a strong effort in the past decade to remake itself to meet the challenges of the new space market, including entering the smallsat satellite manufacturing market. Thus it should be able to absorb Terran Orbital’s operations with little major harm to both, and much benefit.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay.

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A tour of Blue Origin’s New Glenn factory

1:33 pm

Tim Dodd of Everyday Astronaut on May 30, 2024 was given a detailed tour by founder/owner Jeff Bezos of Blue Origin’s New Glenn factory at Cape Canaveral.

It is incredible to watch, because for the very first time, Bezos shows us what the company is finally doing to prepare for the first New Glenn launch, targeting no earlier than the end of September. Unlike every other visual shown of this facility in the past, this tour actually shows a factory floor where work is going on.

Much of the backgrounds inside the stages have apparently been put out of focus to protect Blue Origin’s proprietary rights. No matter.

As for the state of the manufacture of the BE-4 engines, Bezos stated that he expects next year to be building one engine every three days. Cross your fingers that he is right.

I have embedded the video of the tour below. Enjoy, and get excited by the competition and capability this rocket will create when it finally starts flying.
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