Looking down into a Jupiter hurricane

11:25 am

Looking down into a Jupiter hurricane
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was created by citizen scientists Kevin Gill and Navaneeth Krishnan from a raw image taken by Juno during its 40th close fly-by of Jupiter in February 2022.

I don’t have a scale, but I would guess that this storm is at least a thousand miles across. The depth is harder to measure, but we looking down into a deep whirlpool for sure.

To bring out the details Gill and Krishnan enhanced the colors significantly. The original is quite bland in comparison, with this storm being the faint dark spot just below the center near the photo’s left edge.

10 comments

UAE wants to prioritize private enterprise for its space effort

10:17 am

Capitalism in space: According to officials of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) space agency, that nation is working to encourage the growth of a private space industry, funded initially using government money, in its effort to become a major world player in space.

“We’ve spent well over Dh1.5 billion ($408 million) on building capacity within the space industry over the last eight years and we’re more than doubling that over the next decade.”

Laws and regulations, including permits, which would allow interested companies to set up base in the UAE, are already available through a space law passed in 2019.

Companies would also have access to funding from a new initiative launched by the space agency, called Space Analytics and Solutions, which has a budget of Dh20 million. The programme aims to help start-ups build space-based applications that focus on food security, climate change, infrastructure and the oil and gas industry.

The space agency hopes that as these companies progress, they would become less reliant on government funding.

While the UAE’s Al-Amal Mars orbiter was mostly built and launched by foreign companies, it hopes its next major mission, to send an unmanned probe to seven asteroids, will be built almost entirely by companies run by UAE citizens, something they claim they have achieved with an upcoming smallsat Earth observation satellite.

The article also mentioned as an aside that the UAE has ended its 2019 agreement with Virgin Galactic to allow it to launch from the UAE. Instead, it is negotiating with Blue Origin “to set up spaceports.”

0 comments

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

More than 4,000 people apply to Japan’s JAXA space agency to become astronauts

10:05 am

In its first new recruitment effort in thirteen years, JASA has received more than 4,000 applications from people eager to become astronauts flying to ISS.

A record number of people applied as the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency for the first time dropped the requirement that candidates have a university education. The change was made in the hope of recruiting people with a wide range of experience.

However, applicants were required to have at least three years of work experience as of late March, with some academic qualifications being considered as meeting this requirement.

It is unfortunate that the Japanese people do not have more options to get into space. They must either buy a flight from foreign private companies, or depend on a government agency to approve them.

2 comments

Rogozin proposes Russia launch modules to China’s space station

9:54 am

Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos, yesterday proposed in an interview on China’s state-run press that Russia is eager to discuss the possibility of attaching its future space station modules to China’s Tiangong space station.

“As for the Chinese space station, we can discuss construction of some joint modules as well. In order to be friends in space, friendship must first be established back on Earth, and Russia and China are friends on Earth,” Rogozin said. He opined that Russia and China “can be together” in human spaceflights as well.

Whether China will agree is in some ways besides the point. The real question is whether Russia has the capability to do this. Though China and Russia already have a joint agreement to develop a permanent base on the Moon, China is carrying most of the load. Moreover, Russia’s new modules for ISS are decades behind schedule. Whether they will now even be launched to ISS is questionable. Adding these Russian modules to China’s space station will require some major engineering discussions, as neither Tiangong nor the modules were designed for such a thing.

I suspect the two countries will work out an agreement that they will announce with great fanfare. I also expect China will insist that at no time will it be dependent on Russian technology, so that if Russia is delayed or can’t get it done, China will not be hampered in any way. This is essentially their deal for building the lunar base.

0 comments

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.

Amazon announces launch agreements with Blue Origin, Arianespace, and ULA

9:42 am

Capitalism in space: Amazon today announced major multi-launch agreements with Blue Origin, Arianespace, and ULA to launch its 3,000+ Kuiper satellite constellation.

According to the press release, ULA won 38 launches using its new Vulcan-Centaur rocket (not yet flown), Arianespace won 18 launches using its new Ariane-6 rocket (not yet flown), and Blue Origin won 12 launches using its new New Glenn rocket (not yet flown), with an option for 15 more. The ULA deal is in addition to a previous launch contract of nine launches using the Atlas-5 rocket.

In addition, Amazon hopes to launch two prototype satellites later this year using ABL’s smallsat RS1 rocket (not yet flown).

Overall, this Amazon launch announcement might be the largest launch contract deal ever. However, the company’s reliance on unproven rockets means it will also likely face some delays and failures in its early stages. That the press release makes no mention of any schedule for launches illustrates this fact starkly. All four rockets have already seen major delays. with the three biggest (Vulcan-Centaur, New Glenn, Ariane 6) now more than two years behind schedule, and the likelihood of their first launch occurring in 2022 increasingly unlikely.

14 comments

SLS dress rehearsal countdown scrubbed an hour before T-0

9:22 am

Yesterday’s first dress rehearsal countdown for NASA’s SLS rocket managed to get within an hour of T-0 with its oxygen tanks half full when mission control scrubbed the countdown.

During chilldown of the lines in preparation for loading the liquid hydrogen, the teams encountered an issue with a panel on the mobile launcher that controls the core stage vent valve. The purpose of the vent valve is to relieve pressure from the core stage during tanking. Given the time to resolve the issue as teams were nearing the end of their shifts, the launch director made the call to stop the test for the day. A crew will investigate the issue at the pad, and the team will review range availability and the time needed to turn systems around before making a determination on the path forward.

No word as yet when they will attempt the next full dress rehearsal. The delays with SLS have so far caused several further delays for Axiom’s private mission to ISS, since NASA has given SLS priority over the range. It has now been pushed back to April 8th.

Note that none of these problems should be a surprise. This is the first time the rocket and mobile launcher have been placed under flight conditions, so minor issues should be expected. At the same time, dealing with these issues now, just before actual launch, rather than earlier in development, illustrates the backwards way NASA’s management has run this program. You can never design anything new perfectly. You need to test and fail and fix along the way. NASA avoids testing because it can’t build anything at a reasonable cost. The result is that when it comes time to launch, lots of previously unidentified minor issues pop up that need fixing.

7 comments

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

Astronomers directly image the orbital motion of Jupiter protoplanet 531 light years away

1:41 pm

AB Aurigae B's motion over thirteen years
Click for original image.

Astronomers, using a number of ground- and space-based telescopes, have now directly photographed the orbital motion of a Jupiter protoplanet orbiting a star 531 light years away over a thirteen year time span.

The image to the right, cropped to post here, shows images produced by two Hubble instruments. The caption:

Researchers were able to directly image newly forming exoplanet AB Aurigae b over a 13-year span using Hubble’s Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) and its Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrograph (NICMOS). In the top right, Hubble’s NICMOS image captured in 2007 shows AB Aurigae b in a due south position compared to its host star, which is covered by the instrument’s coronagraph. The image captured in 2021 by STIS shows the protoplanet has moved in a counterclockwise motion over time.

From the paper’s abstract:

Using the Subaru Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope, we find evidence for a Jovian protoplanet around AB Aurigae orbiting at a wide projected separation (~93 au), probably responsible for multiple planet-induced features in the disk. Its emission is reproducible as reprocessed radiation from an embedded protoplanet.

The accretion disk around AB Aurigae happens to lie face on to our line of sight, which facilitates these observations. The data also shows two additional potential proto-planets farther from the star.

0 comments

Pushback: Musk — offended by Twitter censorship — becomes its biggest shareholder

1:19 pm

Twitter's censorship a target of Elon Musk
Twitter’s censorship a target of Elon Musk

Defeating the censors: On March 25th Elon Musk — opposed to the censorship of conservatives on the social media outlet Twitter — had conducted a poll on Twitter that asked:

Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy. Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?

The poll results were unequivocal: by 70.4% to 29.6% the respondents declared that the present management at Twitter is hostile to free speech.

In the next two days Musk then tweeted “Is a new platform needed?” followed by “Seize the memes of production!” The rumors all suggested that Musk would start his own competing social media platform.

Musk fooled everyone. Instead, as revealed today he proceeded to buy 9.2% of Twitter’s shares, making him the company’s largest individual shareholder.

What Musk will do with this new power is of course not yet known. » Read more

29 comments

The most valuable real estate on the Moon

10:09 am

The most valuable real estate on the Moon
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, reduced and annotated to post here, is an oblique view of the terrain near Shackelton Crater and the Moon’s south pole, taken by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and released today.

Shackleton-de Gerlache ridge, about 9 miles long, is considered one of the prime landing sites for both a manned Artemis mission as well as the unmanned Nova-C lander from the commercial company Intuitive Machines. To facilitate planning, scientists have created a very detailed geomorphic map [pdf] of this region. As explained at the first link above,

Going back to time-proven traditions of the Apollo missions, geomorphic maps at a very large scale are needed to effectively guide and inform landing site selection, traverse planning, and in-situ landscape interpretation by rovers and astronauts. We assembled a geomorphic map covering a candidate landing site on the Shackleton-de Gerlache-ridge and the adjacent rim of Shackleton crater. The map was derived from one meter per pixel NAC image mosaics and five meters per pixel digital elevation models (DEM) from Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) ranging measurements.

Such geology maps guide planning and exploration, but actual images tell us what the first explorers will see. Below is a close-up overhead view of small area at the intersection of the ridge and the rim of Shackleton.
» Read more

5 comments

Upcoming Event: The impact of the Ukraine War on the global space industry

9:23 am

LAST CALL: If you wish to watch this event via Zoom or in person you need to comment below. I will then email you the log in information or the location details in Tucson of the event.

Original post:
——————————
On the evening of Tuesday, April 5, 2022, I will be one of three panelists discussing the overall global impact of the Ukraine War on the world’s space industry at another Arizona Space Business Roundtable event in Tucson.

The panelists will be, in speaking order:

Robert Zimmerman: The impact on Russia and the Ukraine space industries
Alex Rodriguez: The impact on the world’s space-related defense and military industries
Stephen Fleming [moderator]: The impact on the rest of the world’s commercial space industries

My readers know who I am.

Alex Rodriguez has worked for Vector and now with Freefall 5G. In the late 1990s, as an Action Officer inside the Pentagon’s J-5 Directorate for Strategic Plans and Policy of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Alex worked directly on the first round of NATO enlargement in both the Executive Branch and as subsequent detailee on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee that authorized the ratification of NATO enlargement.

Stephen Fleming, who founded the Arizona Space Business Roundtable, made seed or early-stage investments in over a dozen aerospace companies, including XCOR Aerospace, ICON Aircraft, Nanoracks, RBC Signals, Vector, Freefall, and Phantom Launch. He was also one of the founding investors in the Space Angels Network.

After we each describe the ramifications of the war in these three areas, the room will be opened to Q&A from the audience.

The event will begin at 5:20 pm (Pacific), and likely last until 6:30 pm, though if the discussion is lively we will certainly go on longer.

This is a public event in Tucson, being held jointly by the Arizona Space Business Roundtable and the Arizona Technology Council. It will also be broadcast online.

If you want to attend via Zoom, you will need to express your interest as a comment below, and I will then email you the Zoom url and password. We are not publishing this information publicly to avoid a hacking during the event.

If you wish to come in person please comment below as well and I will then forward you the location. The event is open to the public but I wish to do it this way so that the organizers will have a reasonably accurate estimate of the number of attendees, for planning purposes.

Note that I have written these essays previously about other Arizona Space Business Roundtable events:

17 comments

NASA aborts fueling in SLS dress rehearsal countdown

9:05 am

UPDATE: Dress rehearsal countdown to resume, now aiming for a 2:40 pm (Eastern) T-0 tomorrow, April 4th.

NASA announced this morning that it has aborted fueling in SLS dress rehearsal countdown because of a problem with the rocket’s mobile launcher.

Teams have decided to scrub tanking operations for the wet dress rehearsal due to loss of ability to pressurize the mobile launcher. The fans are needed to provide positive pressure to the enclosed areas within the mobile launcher and keep out hazardous gases. Technicians are unable to safely proceed with loading the propellants into the rocket’s core stage and interim cryogenic propulsion stage without this capability.

It appears engineers are assessing the issue and hope to resume the countdown so as to proceed with rocket fueling tomorrow.

12 comments
1 … 787 788 789 790 791 … 2,928