April 19, 2024 Quick space links
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.
- Five engines integrated into Rocket Factory Augsburg’s RFA-1 first stage
Testing will take place at the Saxavord spaceport in the Shetland Islands
- Russians jam two commercial satellites for six days, disrupting 39 Ukrainian television channels
The jamming was from March 13th to March 19th, and involved SES’s Astra-4 and Eutelsat’s Hotbird 13E satellites. This suggests Russia (and China) could do the same to other commercial sateliltes.
- Virgin Galactic proposes reverse stock split
Such reverse splits raises the value of each share in a superficial manner, and are usually done to prevent the stock from being delisted for having too low a value.
- Anonymous sources say NASA is considering restructuring the entire Artemis lunar program
One idea is to insert an extra mission before the lunar landing flight, during which Orion and Starship would dock in Earth orbit to test out their systems prior to going to the Moon. Since the whole Artemis program has always been haphazardly planned, this change makes sense, as it should have been considered from the beginning. In fact, it should be flown before the second Artemis flight, which presently intends to take astronauts around the Moon, on the first flight using Orion’s environmental systems.
- JPL releases short video showing all of Ingenuity’s flights, on a map
Since yesterday NASA took down the interactive maps that show where the rovers and Ingenuity have been and are going, this video is kind a slap in the face. Unless the agency restores those maps, the public will no longer be able to travel along with the rovers.
- China reorganizes its space bureaucracy, claiming that because of the change “current launch sites may get more freedom with commercial activities”
More likely this change will give the ChiComs more control over those activities.
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.
- Five engines integrated into Rocket Factory Augsburg’s RFA-1 first stage
Testing will take place at the Saxavord spaceport in the Shetland Islands
- Russians jam two commercial satellites for six days, disrupting 39 Ukrainian television channels
The jamming was from March 13th to March 19th, and involved SES’s Astra-4 and Eutelsat’s Hotbird 13E satellites. This suggests Russia (and China) could do the same to other commercial sateliltes.
- Virgin Galactic proposes reverse stock split
Such reverse splits raises the value of each share in a superficial manner, and are usually done to prevent the stock from being delisted for having too low a value.
- Anonymous sources say NASA is considering restructuring the entire Artemis lunar program
One idea is to insert an extra mission before the lunar landing flight, during which Orion and Starship would dock in Earth orbit to test out their systems prior to going to the Moon. Since the whole Artemis program has always been haphazardly planned, this change makes sense, as it should have been considered from the beginning. In fact, it should be flown before the second Artemis flight, which presently intends to take astronauts around the Moon, on the first flight using Orion’s environmental systems.
- JPL releases short video showing all of Ingenuity’s flights, on a map
Since yesterday NASA took down the interactive maps that show where the rovers and Ingenuity have been and are going, this video is kind a slap in the face. Unless the agency restores those maps, the public will no longer be able to travel along with the rovers.
- China reorganizes its space bureaucracy, claiming that because of the change “current launch sites may get more freedom with commercial activities”
More likely this change will give the ChiComs more control over those activities.
