Behind The Black – Robert Zimmerman

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.

• A short commercial from Amazon touting its Amazon Leo constellation (formerly Kuiper)
  As Jay says, “These numbers are meaningless without birds in orbit.”

• Chinese researchers propose an explanation for the stickier regolith found by Chang’e-6
  The explanation is complex, and essentially relates to the different local make-up of the soil.

• Scientists release final data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope project
  The data, collected over almost two decades, confirm the conflict in the predicted number for the Hubble constant (the universe’s expansion rate), where two different methods of observations have produced two reliable but different numbers. At present no theory successfully explains the conflict.

• Chinese pseudo-company Sepoch claims its proposed copycat Falcon-9 rocket will be caught by tower chopsticks on a drone ship
  As Jay notes, “Talk, like CGI, is cheap.”

• Detailed article outlining the range issues at Cape Canaveral as launch rates rise
  The article is mostly focused on bashing SpaceX’s plans to launch Starship/Superheavy from Florida next year, noting the generally weak objections filed by ULA and Blue Origin. If you put that aside, it does provide a good overview of the issues involved.

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.

• New aerial views of the damaged Superheavy booster-18 from RGVAerial
  I can’t help it: That interior reminds me of Hans Giger’s art for the sci-fi movie Alien.

• The Long March-2F carrying Shenzhou-22 is now on the launchpad
  It will carry only cargo to provide a lifeboat for the astronauts on Tiangon-3. While many in the west are speculating it will launch on November 25th due to road closure notices, all China has said so far is that it is “scheduled for launch in the near future.”

• ULA has begun stacking its Atlas-5, the next rocket it will launch
  The targeted launch date is December 15, 2025, carrying another 27 Amazon LEO satellites.

• Luxembourg startup Space Cargo signs deal with French Dassault to fly its BentoBox service module on the latter’s proposed Vortex reusable space plane
  Vortex appears to be the orbital version of an ESA suborbital “demonstrator” that Dassault is building but whose funding at this moment is not finalized. If it gets built and the orbital version follows, the BentoBox will fly with it carrying commercial payloads.

• Webb discovers rapidly growing black hole in the very early universe
  As has become common for Webb’s observations close to the Big Bang, it is bigger than expected, making things difficult for the present theories of cosmology.

• On this day in 1960 the second weather satellite, TIROS 2, was launched
  It had problems with its wide-field camera, but its close-up camera produced good data, though of limited value for weather prediction.

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.

• Scientists think they have identified a new ancient population of Kuiper Belt objects at about 43 astronomical units from the Sun
  That’s about four billion miles. It is however not yet confirmed if the objects found at this distance really form a distinct ancient population

• Chinese pseudo-company Galactic Energy completes its investigation into its failed Ceres-1 launch on November 10th
  It appears the insulation on a cable melted from too much heat, causing a short circuit.

• Another Chinese pseudo-company, dubbed Fstspace
  Its copycat Falcon 9 will use 9 engines in the 1st stage, fueled by methane. There are a LOT of these Chinese rocket startups. Most will never see the light of day.

• On this day in 1998, the first module of ISS was launched from Baikonur
  Dubbed Zarya, it was built by Russia but paid for by the U.S., which still owns it. Though it is the oldest module on ISS, it is the Russian Zvezda module, launched two years later, that presently has the stress fractures in its hull from which the station’s atmosphere is leaking, and which threaten the station’s survival in the next four years.