SpaceX launches reconnaissance satellite for NRO

8:41 pm

SpaceX earlier today successfully launched a reconnaissance satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The first stage completed its 21st flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

104 SpaceX
48 China
11 Russia
11 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 121 to 71, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including American companies, 104 to 88.

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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 or any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from 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

October 24, 2024 Quick space links

3:20 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.

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But will loyal Democrats actually abandon their beloved party? History says no

2:57 pm

The Democratic Party: Given decades of blind loyalty by its supporters
The Democratic Party: Decades of blind loyalty
by its supporters

This week the publication Issues and Insights had a poll taken of registered Democrats to garner some idea of their overall opinion of the Democratic Party’s sudden back-room deal to dump Joe Biden as presidential candidate and replace him with Kamala Harris. The poll asked whether those polled agreed or disagreed with these three statements:

  • The process the Democratic Party used to select its nominee for President did not yield the strongest candidate.
  • The process the Democratic Party used to select Kamala Harris as its nominee was undemocratic.
  • I lost significant faith in the Democratic Party because it did not disclose Biden’s health issues during the primary process.

For Democratic Party politicians, the results should be disheartening at best. A significant majority of the 1,240 registered Democrats polled agreed with all three statements, with 58% agreeing strongly or somewhat with the first statement, 52% agreeing strongly or somewhat with the second statement, and 54% agreeing strongly or somewhat with the third statement. As noted by Scott Pinsker of PJMedia in analyzing the results:
» Read more

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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.

SpaceX rolls out the next Superheavy for sixth test orbital launch

9:59 am

SpaceX in a tweet on October 22, 2024 announced the roll out to the launch tower of the next Superheavy to be used in the sixth orbital test flight, only nine days after that launch tower had successfully caught a Superheavy at the end of the fifth orbital test flight.

Though no launch date has been announced, the company is clearly wants to do it soon. Though its present launch license allows it go when ready, it remains unclear whether it will get that approval from the FAA when requested. FAA upper management has repeatedly indicated a desire to delay its approvals to SpaceX, and until there is a change in the White House — thus forcing a change in that FAA upper management — there is no reason to expect the agency to change its behavior.

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Spaceport startup SUAS Aerospace signs deal to launch small suborbital rocket from west coast of Ireland

9:49 am

SUAS's proposed spaceport plan
Click for original image.

The Irish spaceport startup SUAS Aerospace has now signed a partnership deal with the Netherlands rocket startup T-Minus Engineering to launch a small suborbital rocket from west coast of Ireland in order to demonstrate the viability of Ireland as a potential spaceport location.

According to this report, “T-Minus will provide its Dart rocket for the launch. Dart stands at 3.5 metres and is capable of carrying payloads of up to 3.5 kilograms to a maximum altitude of 200 kilometres.”

Though SUAS has raised €5 million in private investment capital to push its project to build two launch sites within Ireland, it has not made it clear the exact locations of these sites, other than indicating it wants to place them at two locations on Ireland’s west coast, as shown by the company graphic to the right. I suspect it does not yet have rights to the land, and its lobbying effort is largely focused on getting government help to obtain those rights, either on public or private land.

For example, its press release does not provide any details on where this suborbital launch will occur. I am not even sure the company knows. It might simply arrange some coastal location, simply to make possible this demonstration launch, even if that place is not the actual location of its proposed spaceport.

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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

JPL unveils website for viewing all high resolution imagery so far taken of Europa

9:29 am

In anticipation of the eventual arrival of Europa Clipper in orbit around Jupiter to begin its close investigation of that planet’s moon Europa, JPL yesterday unveiled a website that allows a view to quickly find and review all the high resolution imagery so far taken of Europa by the Jupiter orbiters, Voyager, Galileo, and Juno.

You can visit the Europa Trek portal website here.

The announcement touts the webpage’s ability to take viewers on “fly-overs” of the terrain, but that’s just a bell and whistle claim of little importance. More significant is the easy access this webpage provides to all that imagery, organized in context with a global map of the planet. Not only can anyone quick find interesting features, you can do so within the global context of the whole planet. In addition, the page provides detailed commentary about each image.

When Europa Clipper arrives this portal will be invaluable in deciphering the significance of every new image and datapoint.

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Boeing forced to take another $250 million charge on Starliner

9:19 am

Because of the continuing problems getting its Starliner manned capsule operational, Boeing has now taken another $250 million charge on the project, raising the total spent of its own money to $1.85 billion.

The company’s original fixed-price contract with NASA to deliver the capsule was $4.2 billion. The bulk of that won’t be paid until Starliner begins flying astronauts commercially, and NASA has now delayed that until 2026 at the earliest. The company’s new CEO, Kelly Ortberg, has now made it clear that he is focused on imposing changes to fix the bankrupt engineering management culture that has caused it so many failures in so many of its recent projects, not just Starlner. In his remarks announcing the company’s third quarter results, he said this:

The trust in our company has eroded. We’re saddled with too much debt. We’ve had serious lapses in our performance across the company which have disappointed many of our customers.

In addressing these issues Ortberg listed a whole range of changes, many of which focused on getting managers more closely involved in design and construction, or as he said, management needs “to be on the factory floors, in the back shops and in our engineering labs.”

Whether he will succeed is unknown. Its factory workers today rejected a new contract offer, continuing their now six-week strike that has halted work on company’s airplane business. In addition, Boeing reported a loss of $6 billion in that third quarter report.

One thing Ortbeg did make clear this week however: Boeing is not walking away from its Starliner contract with NASA. At a minimum it will complete that initial fixed price contract. Whether it will go on to fly more Starliner missions however Ortberg left open. I suspect he remains in negotiation with NASA over this issue.

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Cyprus signs Artemis Accords

8:57 am

Cyprus today officially became the 46th nation to sign the Artemis Accords, its signing coming one day before the already announced planned signing by Chile tomorrow.

Adding both nations to the list, the American-led Artemis Accords alliance now includes the following 47 nations: Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Peru, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

Should Donald Trump return to the White House it will be very interesting to watch how this alliance evolves in the coming years. The original goal for the accords when started by the Trump administration was to build an alliance with enough clout to overcome the limitations on private property contained by the Outer Space Treaty. Though this alliance is surely now large enough to force those changes, that goal has been mostly pushed aside by the Biden administration. I suspect a new Trump administration will be able to bring it back to life, with added force due to this alliance’s size.

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Dragon Endeavour undocks from ISS to bring 4 astronauts home

8:48 am

After more than a month delay resulting first from the issues with Starliner and then by poor weather in the splashdown zones, SpaceX’s Endeavour capsule today finally undocked from ISS, with a planned splashdown on October 25, 2024 at approximately 3:29 am (Eastern) off the coast of Florida. I have embedded the live stream of that splashdown below.

The capsules brings home three Americans and one Russian after a seven-month-long mission.
» Read more

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Review of the four private space stations presently under construction

8:41 am

Link here. The review provides a nice summary of the status of all four stations, being built by Axiom, Vast, and consortiums led by Blue Origin (Orbital Reef) and Voyager Space (Starlab).

The article included one piece of new news, based on recent stories suggesting major financial issues at Axiom:

As a result of these issues, the Axiom Station is believed to have been downsized to two modules from the originally planned four. There will be a reduced research capability from this arrangement compared to what was expected. However, it remains to be seen if additional capability can be added after the station becomes operational.

The original plan had been to separate the station from ISS once all four modules were launched. Whether it will be able to do so, flying independent of ISS’s systems with only two modules is unclear.

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