Canyons formed from the giant crack that splits Mars

2:45 pm

Canyons formed by the giant crack that splits Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 22, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a complex of north-south trending canyons, with easternmost cliff about 400 feet high (though the full drop to the large canyon on its east is closer to 800 feet).

These canyons however have nothing to do with ice or water flow. They were formed by underground tectonic forces that pushed the ground upward, forced it to split and form cracks. Those cracks in turn produced these canyons. In some cases, such as the depression on top of the central ridge, the formation process probably occurred because fissures formed below ground, causing the surface to sag.

As always, the hiker in me wants to walk up the nose of that ridge and then along its western edge, with the western canyon on my left and that smaller depression on my right.

The larger context of this location is in itself even more spectacular.
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SpaceX sues to have NLRB complaint dismissed

10:31 am

SpaceX yesterday filed a lawsuit in the federal courts to have the employee complaint filed by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) dismissed as a violation of the company’s fifth and seventh amendment rights as well as article II of the Constitution.

You can read SpaceX’s lawsuit here [pdf]. It specifically lists as defendants the board members of the NLRB, as well as the unnamed administrative judge who will run the NLRB’s case, once it begins.

The SpaceX lawsuit is interesting in that it challenges the very legal structure that has established the NLRB, stating that its actions are illegal because that structure forbids the President from having full control over its actions, as required by article II of the Constitution.

Whether this lawsuit succeeds is of course unknown, but its quick filing tells us that SpaceX was prepared for this NLRB action, even before it was filed. It also tells us that the company now recognizes the overall threat to it by the Biden administration, which appears to be trying to weaponize every agency in the federal government to destroy the company, and is prepared to fight long and hard against this abuse of power.

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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

Japan’s XRISM X-ray space telescope releases first data

10:17 am

Supernova remnant N132D, as seen in X-rays
Supernova remnant N132D, as seen in X-rays
Click for original image.

Japan’s XRISM X-ray space telescope, which launched in September, has now released first data and images.

One image showed the wide field view of the telescope’s Xtend imager, capable of viewing in X-rays an area of the sky 60% larger than the Moon. The second, shown to the right, provided a false color image of a supernova remnant in the Large Magellanic Cloud along with spectroscopy that data provided. According to the caption, “the spectrum reveals peaks associated with silicon, sulfur, argon, calcium, and iron.”

These pictures were produced during the telescope’s check-out period since launch. The mission, though Japanese-led, is being managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, which is now accepting observation proposals for a full science schedule of observations to begin in the summer of this year.

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Researchers propose method for removing toxic perchlorates from Martian water

9:55 am

Of the twelve research grants just awarded by NASA to develop a variety of new technologies for astronomy and future space exploration, one proposes a new method for removing the toxic perchlorates that are thought to exist in all Martian water.

What if we could make the perchlorates just vanish? This is the innovative solution we propose here, taking advantage of the reduction of chlorate and perchlorate to chloride and oxygen being thermodynamically favorable, if kinetically slow. This is the promise of our regenerative perchlorate reduction system, leveraging synthetic biology to take advantage of and improve upon natural perchlorate reducing bacteria.

These terrestrial microbes are not directly suitable for off-world use, but their key genes pcrAB and cld, which catalyze the reduction of perchlorates to chloride and oxygen, have been previously identified and well-studied. This proposed work exploits the prior work studying perchlorate-reducing bacteria by engineering this perchlorate reduction pathway into the spaceflight proven Bacillus subtilis strain 168, under the control of a robust, active promoter. This solution is highly sustainable and scalable, and unlike traditional water purification approaches, outright eliminates perchlorates rather than filtering them to dump somewhere nearby.

Essentially the researchers will try to engineer bacteria known to be able to survive space so that it carries genes from another microbe able of changing the perchlorate into chloride and oxygen.

This study as well as the other eleven are only in phase one of their contracts, with the award of later phases determined by their initial successes or failures.

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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 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.

Japan delays launch of Mars sample return mission due to problems with its H3 rocket

9:43 am

Japan’s space agency JAXA last week officially delayed the launch of its MMX Mars sample return mission, from later this year until the next Mars launch window in 2026.

A September 2024 launch would have seen MMX reach the Red Planet in August 2025 and return to Earth with around 0.35 oz (10 grams) of samples of the Mars moon Phobos in 2029. But the mission now must wait until the next Mars launch window opens in late 2026; its samples are slated to reach Earth in 2031.

The delay is because of JAXA’s ongoing problems getting its new H3 rocket off the ground. The first test launch last year failed, and though the next launch attempt is now scheduled for February, the agency decided it wanted more time to prove out the rocket before putting the Mars mission on it.

This decision once again highlights the overall failure of JAXA to produce for Japan a viable space effort. It is long past time for the Japanese government to take control from this agency, and allow the private sector to compete freely for business. Right now Japan’s continuing failures in space are downright embarrassing, compared to its Asian neighbors of China, India, and South Korea.

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NASA and one private company respond to Navaho nation’s demand to cancel lunar mission

9:32 am

Both NASA and one of the private companies involved in ULA’s first Vulcan rocket launch on January 8, 2023 that will carry the Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander to the Moon have now responded to the Navaho nation, which has stated its religion gives it the unlimited right to decide what can go there.

Navaho President Buu Nygren had claimed earlier this week that the “Moon is sacred to numerous Indigenous cultures” and the payloads of human ashes being sent to the Moon was “tantamount to desecration.” He demanded the mission be delayed or canceled.
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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

China’s Kuaizhou-1A solid-fueled rocket launches four weather satellites

9:09 am

China today successfully completed its first launch in 2024, its Kuaizhou-1A solid-fueled rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China carrying four weather satellites.

No information was released about where the rocket’s lower stages crashed inside China. Nor did China’s state run press provide any information on the payloads, other than to say they will most be “used to provide commercial meteorological data services.”

The 2024 launch race:

2 SpaceX
1 India
1 China

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Jara – Tiempo y Silencio

6:01 pm

An evening pause: In English the song is “Time and Silence.” Lyrics:

A house in the sky
A garden in the sea
A lark in your chest
a return of the begin

A wish of stars
A sparrow’s heartbeat
An island in your bed
A sunset

Time and silence
Screams and songs
Heaven and kisses
Voice and grief

To be born in your laugh
To grow in your weeping
To live on your shoulder
To die in your arms

Hat tip Judd Clark

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January 4, 2024 Quick space links

3:59 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

 

 

 

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Can the Democrats offend enough people to make even their aggressive election tampering impossible?

3:24 pm

Are Americans finally waking up and emulating their country's founders?

I normally pay little attention to polls, since for the last two decades they have not only been unreliable but generally weighted unfairly against Republicans. More often than not they have been used not to give us a sense of the state of the political campaign but to make us all believe a Democratic Party victory was inevitable.

However, a poll this week was so astonishing that I think it deserves some discussion. According to a national USA Today-Suffolk University poll published on January 2, 2023 by USA Today, large numbers of blacks, Hispanics, and young voters are now willing to abandon the Democratic Party, and do so in numbers that are shocking and unprecedented. As noted in this article about the poll,
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John Batchelor highlights Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8

1:19 pm

At 11 pm (Eastern) during the third hour of John Batchelor’s show tonight and tomorrow he will air a long two hour interview with me discussing my book Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8. After many years he finally decided his listeners deserved a full discussion of what is to many the most historically important Apollo mission to the Moon. It might not have landed on the Moon but what the astronauts accomplished and said changed the nation, and will likely be remembered forever.

Tune in if you are interested. Even better, consider reading the book. In fact, the best thing of all would be to give the book to any high school students in your family. They will learn more about American history and the Cold War by reading it than they get nowadays from their entire public school education.

I will also embed the podcasts here when they become available.

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The mining potential on Mars

11:01 am

The mining potential on Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on October 30, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Labeled simply as a “terrain sample,” it was probably taken not as part of any specific research project but to fill a gap in the schedule in order to properly maintain the camera’s temperature.

Nonetheless, the larger region where this photo is located is one of great interest to scientists as well as to future explorers. First note the colors. The wide variations between the bright orange of that peak (only a few tens of feet high) and the light orange and aqua-green of the bedrock to the north and south suggest a terrain with a lot of different materials within it.

The location is in the dry equatorial regions, so the swirls visible on the plateaus north and south of that small peak are not related to near surface ice. Instead, this is warped bedrock, with those swirls also suggesting material of a varied nature, exposed to the surface by erosion processes.
» Read more

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Hubble detects changes in atmosphere of exoplanet

10:16 am

Using data from collected in 2016, 2018, and 2019 combined with computer simulations, scientists now believe they have detected changes in the atmosphere of the exoplanet WASP-121b, also nicknamed Tylos.

The Jupiter-sized planet orbits a star about 880 light years away.

WASP-121 b is so close to its parent star that the orbital period is only 1.27 days. This close proximity means that the planet is tidally locked so that the same hemisphere always faces the star, in the same way that our Moon always has the same side pointed at Earth. Daytime temperatures approach 3,450 degrees Fahrenheit (2,150 degrees Kelvin) on the star-facing side of the planet.

The team used four sets of Hubble archival observations of WASP-121 b. The complete data-set included observations of WASP-121 b transiting in front of its star (taken in June 2016); WASP-121 b passing behind its star, also known as a secondary eclipse (taken in November 2016); and the brightness of WASP-121 b as a function of its phase angle to the star (the varying amount of light received at Earth from an exoplanet as it orbits its parent star, similar to our Moon’s phase-cycle). These data were taken in March 2018 and February 2019, respectively.

A computer model was then used to fill in the gaps and provide a simulation of the hot temperatures of that exoplanet’s atmosphere over time. Two videos of that simulation are available at the link.

There of course is a lot of uncertainty in this result, though the fundamental discovery of changes is important. This data proves there is weather on such alien planets, even if that weather is so alien we really don’t understand it in the slightest based on the available data on hand.

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National Labor Relations Board files complaint against SpaceX

9:51 am

Elon Musk, a target for destruction by Joe Biden
Elon Musk, a target for destruction
by Joe Biden

The Biden administration’s continuing legal harassment of SpaceX and Elon Musk was escalated yesterday when the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) filed a new complaint against the company, accusing it of firing eight employees illegally for writing a public letter criticizing the company in 2022.

The letter, circulated in 2022, criticized Musk’s actions and the allegations of sexual harassment against him, claiming they were negatively contributing to the company’s reputation. The letter also said the company was failing to live up to its “No Asshole” policy and its policy against sexual harassment.

The letter, whose authorship was not known at the time it was first reported, called on SpaceX to “publicly address and condemn Elon’s harmful Twitter behavior,” to “hold all leadership equally accountable” for bad behavior, and to “clearly define what exactly is intended by SpaceX’s ‘no-asshole’ and ‘zero tolerance’ policies and enforce them consistently.”

According to the NLRB, one SpaceX employer held interviews to determine the writers of the letter, after which they were fired. The case will go before the NLRB in March.

Is this another case of blacklisting, similar to the numerous stories I’ve reported for the last four years where someone was fired for having political opinions? I don’t think so, though some could argue otherwise. In those many other cases, the opinions expressed were generally political in nature and unrelated to the work environment itself. If a company is demanding you bow to critical race theory and admit you are racist simply because you are white and fires you when you refuse, that is not the same as writing a letter accusing your employer of sexual harassment and creating a hostile work environment, and then soliciting signatures from the entire workforce before releasing it publicly. The first case is a direct slander against the employee and is an unreasonable demand. The second is a concerted effort to foster a workplace mutiny, something unacceptable to all employers. It seems the company would have the right to remove such malcontents from its place of business.

Gywnne Shotwell, SpaceX’s CEO, made these facts very clear at the time the letter was published.
» Read more

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SpaceX launches commercial communications satellite

9:27 pm

SpaceX today successfully launched a commercial geosynchronous communications satellite, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage successfully completed its tenth flight, landing back at Cape Canaveral. The fairings completed their ninth and fourteenth flights respectively.

The 2024 launch race:

2 SpaceX
1 India

No one else has launched as yet, though many launches are scheduled through the first ten days of January.

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Carly Simon – That’s The Way I Always Heard It Should Be

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Performed live in Central Park, New York, 1971. Wonderful song, but her cynicism about marriage in this song sadly predicts the disaster we are in today, living in a society of children raised in broken homes, created by the 60s Baby Boom generation (mine) that decided to reject the fundamentals of its parents. It was foolish and sad, but most of all it was cruel to the innocent children born of that irresponsibility. Those children are now mindlessly wrecking their revenge.

Hat tip Doug Johnson.

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January 3, 2024 Quick space links

3:39 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. I am probably taking most of the rest of the day off, having just gotten back from cataract surgery on one eye. No problems, but I don’t have a lot of energy right now. If I perk up something might happen, but I can’t say if that will be the case.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Sunspot update: Are we now in the next solar maximum?

9:57 am

Time for my monthly update on the Sun’s sunspot activity has it proceeds through its eleven-year sunspot cycle. NOAA has released its update of its monthly graph showing the number of sunspots on the Sun’s Earth-facing hemisphere, and I have posted it below, annotated with further details to provide a larger context.

In December sunspot activity increased slightly for the second month in a row, but only by a little bit. The number of sunspots for the month was still significantly below the highs seen in the summer, and continue to suggest that the Sun has already entered solar maximum (two years early), and like the previous two solar maximums in 2001 and 2013, will be double peaked.
» Read more

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SpaceX launches six next generation Starlink satellites

9:09 pm

SpaceX tonight completed its first launch in 2024, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California and putting six next generation Starlink satellites into orbit.

The first stage completed its first flight, successfully landing on the drone ship in the Pacific. The fairings successfully completed their eleventh and ninth flights, respectively. This was the first new stage introduced since August 2023, and continues SpaceX’s pattern of adding about two new first stage boosters per year.

The six Starlink satellites are designed to work directly with the cell phones that people already use, thus increasing the customer base available for the product. As the first generation of this design, it is expected that there will be upgrades with later launches.

At this moment India and SpaceX are the only two entities to launch in 2024, each once.

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January 2, 2023 Quick space links

3:05 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

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Dunes on the floor of Valles Marineris

2:17 pm

Overview map

Dunes on the floor of Valles Marineris
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 26, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a field of scattered elongated dunes on a flat older surface with craters and what appear to be smaller ripple dunes (in the lower left). The large elongated dunes tend to be oriented in an east-west manner, while the older tiny ripple dunes appear to have a north-south orientation.

Very clearly the larger dunes appear to be traveling across that flat older surface, though whether there is any documented movement is unknown. Generally (though there are exceptions) scientists have found most of the dunes on Mars to be either inactive, or if they are moving because of the wind that movement is very tiny per year. In this case there is one dark spot on the dunes, near the center of the picture, where it appears a collapse might have occurred, suggesting recent change.

On the center right of the picture is the end point of a long ridgeline extending 10 to 12 miles to the east and rising about 7,300 feet, as shown in the overview map above. The small rectangle in the inset shows the area covered by the photograph.

At the base of that ridgeline can be seen a series of terraces descending to the west, suggesting that this hill might be volcanic in nature, with each terrace indicating a separate lava flow. The location is in the dry equatorial regions, so near-surface ice is likely not an explanation.

In the inset the mountain wall to the north is the large mountain chain that bisects this part of Valles Marineris. It overwhelms this small 7,300-foot-high ridge, rising more than 22,000 feet from these dunes with its high point still one or two thousand feet below the rim of Valles Marineris itself.

Once again, the grand scenery of Mars amazes. Imaging hiking a trail along that ridgeline, with the mountains rising far above you to the north and south.

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The global launch industry in 2023: A record third year in a row of growth, with dark clouds lurking

10:37 am

In 2023 the world saw a continuing rise in the global launch industry. As happened in 2021 and 2022, the record for the most launches in a single year was smashed. In 2023 nations and companies managed to complete more than 200 launches for the first time ever, with the number of launch failures so small you could count them on one hand.

Furthermore, if the predictions by several companies and nations come true, 2024 will be an even greater success. These predictions however all depend on everything continuing as it has, and there are many signs this is not going to be the case. More and more it appears the political world will act to interfere with free world of private enterprise, in some cases intentionally, in others indirectly.

Let us begin by taking a look at 2023.
» Read more

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Don McLean – Vincent

6:01 pm

An evening pause: I’ve posted McLean singing this song previously, but it is worth watching again. A beautiful song to begin the year. The words that matter:

Now I think I know
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free

They would not listen, they’re not listening still
Perhaps they never will

Hat tip Judd Clark.

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First Juno images of Io from December 30th fly-by

9:51 am

Io as seen by Juno on December 30, 2023
For original global image go here. For original of inset go here.

The first raw Juno images taken of the Jupiter moon Io during its close fly-by on December 30, 2023, the closest in more than twenty years, have been released by the science team and citizen scientists have begun processing them.

The global picture to the right, rotated and reduced to post here, was processed by Kevin Gill. The inset of the volcanic mountains near the terminator was processed by Thomas Thomopoulos. As he notes, to obtain better detail he enhanced the colors and image and then zoomed in.

In the inset, note the northeast flows coming off the two mountains near the center. With the lower mountain, this flow appears to lie on top of a larger flow that extended out almost to the mountain to the right.

Io is a planet of continuous volcanic activity. For example, when the global image above was taken, the plume of a volcano eruption was visible on the right horizon, as shown in this version, its exposure adjusted by Ted Stryk. Catching such eruptions on Io is not unusual, considering its continuous volcanic activity generated by the tidal forces the planet undergoes from its orbit around Jupiter. In fact, the very first plume was imaged in 1979 by Voyager 1 during its short fly-by, and proved a hypothesis of such activity that scientists had only published one week earlier.

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India completes first launch of 2024

8:50 am

India’s space agency ISRO early today completed the first launch of 2024, its PSLV rocket placing an X-ray telescope into orbit along with ten payloads on its fourth stage, which is functioning as an orbital tug. Most appear [pdf] to be experiments that will remain on board, but one is an amateur radio smallsat that might be released.

As this is the only launch so far in 2024, India leads the race. It will certainly not remain the leader.

My annual global launch report for 2023 will be published tomorrow, after the holiday.

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China launches “test satellite for satellite internet technologies”

8:34 pm

China today launched what it described as “a test satellite for satellite internet technologies,” its Long March 2C rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in the northwest of China.

No word on where the lower stages crashed, both of which use very toxic hypergolic fuels. Nor was there any additional information about the satellite, though the description suggests this is a prototype satellite for a Starlink-type constellation, several of which China’s government has proposed building.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

96 SpaceX
66 China
19 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise still leads China in successful launches 110 to 66, and the entire world combined 110 to 103. SpaceX in turn trails the rest of the world (excluding other American companies) 96 to 103.

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December 29, 2023 Quick space links

3:01 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

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