FAA issues launch license for the fourth test orbital launch of Starship/Superheavy

3:10 pm

FAA today issued [pdf] the launch license for SpaceX’s fourth test orbital launch of Starship/Superheavy, effective June 4, 2024, thus allowing the company to proceed with its planned June 6, 2024 launch date.

The two-hour launch window opens at 7 am (Central). SpaceX’s live stream will begin 30 minutes earlier. From SpaceX’s Starship website:

The fourth flight test turns our focus from achieving orbit to demonstrating the ability to return and reuse Starship and Super Heavy. The primary objectives will be executing a landing burn and soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico with the Super Heavy booster, and achieving a controlled entry of Starship.

To accomplish this, several software and hardware upgrades have been made to increase overall reliability and address lessons learned from Flight 3. The SpaceX team will also implement operational changes, including the jettison of the Super Heavy’s hot-stage following boostback to reduce booster mass for the final phase of flight.

Flight 4 will fly a similar trajectory as the previous flight test, with Starship targeted to splashdown in the Indian Ocean. This flight path does not require a deorbit burn for reentry, maximizing public safety while still providing the opportunity to meet our primary objective of a controlled Starship reentry.

This FAA approval is wonderful news, considering the red-tape delays the agency has previously caused to SpaceX’s efforts. It suggests that officials there are trying hard to speed up their paperwork. If so, the gap between this flight and fifth might be shorter than the three month gap seen between the third flight in March and this flight on June 6th.

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Research continues to find the COVID jab caused more deaths than it prevented

11:18 am

The rise in excess deaths after the jab arrived
This graph, from CDC research, shows that
the number of excess deaths began skyrocketing
in mid-2022, after the jab was rolled out

Two stories this week both add weight to the growing pile of evidence in the past two years that the COVID jab not only did little to prevent the spread of that flu-like virus, it caused more deaths than it prevented.

First, research from Oxford University in Great Britain that studied more one million children aged 5 to 11 found that only those who got the jab would develop myocarditis and pericarditis.

The study did note that this study recorded no deaths from these heart conditions, but one must wonder what the parents of those young children think about that. You used to have a healthy kid who after getting the jab now has a serious heart condition that certainly has the potential of shortening that child’s life.

While the study found the jab seemed to reduce COVID in adolescents, it made no different for younger children. “Vaccinated children … were not substantially different from unvaccinated children in terms of COVID-19 infection and hospitalization.”

In other words, the jab overall did more harm then good among young children. And the harm was significant.

Next, research in the Netherlands of the continuing rise of excess deaths worldwhile strongly suggests once again that it is the jab itself that might be causing it.
» Read more

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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

Today’s blacklisted American: Teacher sues his union because it bans whites from running for some leadership positions

10:45 am

Arbitrarily cancelled when it comes to whites
Arbitrarily cancelled when it comes to
white people in California

They’re coming for you next: Isaac Newman, a history teacher in California, has filed a civil rights lawsuit against his union because it bans whites from running for some leadership positions.

According to Newman’s lawsuit, obtained by Fox, “The Elk Grove Education Association (‘EGEA’ or the ‘Union), which represents teachers and other certificated employees of the Elk Grove Unified School District (‘District’) in Sacramento, California, recently created a position called the ‘BIPOC At-Large Director’ on its executive board (‘BIPOC Position’). This position comes with all the rights and privileges of being an EGEA board member, but under EGEA’s bylaws, only persons who ‘self-identify’ as ‘African American (Black), Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawai’ian, Pacific Islander, Latino (including Puerto Rican), Asian, Arab, and Middle Eastern,’ can run for the position.”

You can read the lawsuit here [pdf]. It calls this discriminatory policy a violation of both the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids discrimination against “any individual because of his race, color, religion, sex, or national origin” and California’s own Fair Employment and Housing Act.

Newman should win (though this is not certain in this bigoted anti-white nation that we now live). At the same time, expect his life to be hell within the Elk Grove school district. Do not be surprised if he soon quits, because he is almost certainly going to be treated like a pariah by school officials. He dared challange the new bigotry, and that can’t be countenanced in the new Jim Crow America.

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ESA requests information from European rocket startups

9:16 am

The European Space Agency (ESA) has released a request for information from European rocket startups to outline their capabilities and plans so that ESA can assess whether they qualify for future launch contracts.

Currently, ESA is working towards publishing a competitive tender in early 2025 for the award of contracts to allow European launch providers to demonstrate their ability to provide the capacity to serve institutional mission needs. To better define this competitive tender and align the challenge in the best possible way to incentivize providers, ESA has published a Request for Information call. “This Campaign will let economic operators express their views and expectations on the future of European access to space and actively participate in the definition of the European Launcher Challenge,” explains the call.

The call is limited to companies in Europe. The information the companies provide will then be used by ESA to shape the actual contract offers in 2025. The long term goal is for independent and competing European rocket companies to replace the Ariane-6, and provide a fleet of rockets of all types capable of launching European payloads faster and for much less money.

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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.

French startup captures Russian satellite maneuvering close to another geosynchronous satellite

9:09 am

The French startup Aldoria has released a short movie taken by its ground telescopes showing a Russian “inspector” satellite maneuvering close to another geosynchronous satellite.

In a recent operation, Aldoria detected a sudden close approach by the Russian Luch Olymp K-2 (Luch-2) to a satellite positioned in geostationary orbit (GEO). This manoeuvre occurred on April 12, around 35,780 km in altitude, highlighting the increasing complexity of space activities. Luch Olymp 2, known for its unusual manoeuvres was predicted, by Aldoria, to closely approach the satellite prior to the observed manoeuvre. The original Luch-1, launched in 2014, was known for similar abnormal behaviour, creating a heightened sense of vigilance within the space community. Luch-2, like its predecessor, has a history of unusual manoeuvring near other satellites in geostationary orbit, which has also generated suspicions regarding its mission.

You can see the video here.

In the past year it appears the entire aerospace industry in Europe has come alive, no longer captured by the European Space Agency’s government-owned commercial arm, Arianespace. Instead, there are companies popping up everywhere, doing the kinds of entrepreneurial work American companies have been known to do since the founding of the country.

The competition for business and the amount of innovation in space should get very brisk in the next few years.

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SpaceX now targeting June 6, 2024 for Starship/Superheavy launch

8:58 am

Over the weekend SpaceX announced on X that it has now delayed by one day its targeted date for the fourth orbital test flight of its Starship/Superheavy rocket, from June 5th to June 6th.

No reason was given for the delay, though the company notes on its webpage for the mission that it is still awaiting regulatory approval.

Musk underlined the company’s readiness to launch however with his own tweet on June 2, stating simply that “Starship is ready to fly.”

From the FAA however we still have silence.

2 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

Chang’e-6 ascender carrying lunar samples lifts off Moon

8:52 am

Chang'e-6's robot arm grabbing ground samples
Chang’e-6’s robot arm grabbing ground samples.
Image is a screen capture from mission control
main screen. Click for original.

Early today the ascender of China’s Chang’e-6 lunar probe lifted off the surface on the Moon’s far side, carrying the samples it had obtained both by drilling and the use of a robot arm.

The ascender took off at 7:38 a.m. (Beijing Time) from the moon’s far side. A 3,000-newton engine, after working for about six minutes, pushed the ascender to the preset lunar orbit, according to the CNSA.

The Chang’e-6 probe, comprising an orbiter, a lander, an ascender and a returner — like its predecessor Chang’e-5 — was launched on May 3. The lander-ascender combination, separated from the orbiter-returner combination on May 30, touched down at the designated landing area in the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) Basin on June 2.

The spacecraft finished its intelligent and rapid sampling work, and the samples were stowed in a container inside the ascender of the probe as planned, the CNSA said.

At some point, not yet specified, the ascender will dock with the orbiter-returner and transfer the samples to the returner, which after a period in orbit awaiting the right moment will then separate and head back to Earth.

2 comments

Haley Reinhart – I Put a Spell on You

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Performed live October 31, 2022.

Hat tip Judd Clark. I once again must ask for suggestions from my other readers. Judd Clark and Alton Blevins continue to send great stuff, but I really like to have as many people contributing as possible. If you have suggested before you know the rules. If not, state you have something you want to suggest in the comments below, but DON’T post a link to it.. I will email you to get it.

2 comments

June 3, 2024 Quick space links

3:33 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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Sunspot update: In May the Sun went boom!

12:43 pm

As I have done at the start of every month since I begun this webpage back in 2010, I am posting NOAA’smonthly update of its graph tracking the number of sunspots on the Sun’s Earth-facing hemisphere, adding to it several additional details to provide some larger context.

While April had showed only a small uptick in sunspot activity, in May the sunspot activity on the Sun went boom, setting a new high for sunspots during this solar maximum as well as the highest sunspot count since September 2002. The sunspot count of 171.7 smashed the previous high of 160 this cycle, set in June 2023. This new high underlined was by the large solar flare on May 9th that sent the most powerful geomagnetic storm to hit the Earth’s magnetic field in many decades, producing spectacular auroras in many low latitudes.
» Read more

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China releases movie taken by Chang’e-6 during its lunar descent

8:45 am

Chang'e-6 landing zone
Chang’e-6’s landing zone is indicated by the
red box, on the edge of Apollo Creater
(indicated by the wavy circle).

China’s state-run press yesterday released a short movie created from images taken by its Chang’e-6 lander during its descent to the lunar surface on the far side of the Moon this past weekend.

I have embedded that footage below. The final five frames however are very puzzling, in that they do not appear to show a smooth descent to a specific spot, but appear to jump about wildly. Moreover, the footage does not appear to show the actual landing itself, but appears to stop while the spacecraft is still above the ground.

It is possible that this footage is simply showing the spacecraft’s software searching for a good landing spot, combined with a decision in China not to release footage of the actual touchdown. It could also be that something has gone wrong, and they are stalling about saying so. This last possibility I think very unlikely, but it must be considered, based on the information available.
» Read more

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NASA confirms June 5th as new launch date for Starliner

8:33 am

NASA yesterday evening confirmed that the agency, ULA, and Boeing are now targeting June 5, 2024 at 10:52 am (Eastern) for the launch of the first manned launch of Boeing’s Starliner capsule carrying two astronauts to ISS for a two week checkout mission.

Technicians and engineers with ULA (United Launch Alliance) worked overnight and on Sunday to assess the ground support equipment at the launch pad that encountered issues during the countdown and scrubbed the June 1 launch attempt. The ULA team identified an issue with a single ground power supply within one of the three redundant chassis that provides power to a subset of computer cards controlling various system functions, including the card responsible for the stable replenishment topping valves for the Centaur upper stage. All three of these chassis are required to enter the terminal phase of the launch countdown to ensure crew safety.

On Sunday, the chassis containing the faulty ground power unit was removed, visually inspected, and replaced with a spare chassis. No signs of physical damage were observed. A full failure analysis of the power unit will be performed to better understand root cause. Meanwhile, ULA has completed functional checkouts of the new chassis and the cards, and all hardware is performing normally.

These kinds of technical issues happen too often on ULA launches. Company engineers always fix them, but it never appears they fix them permanently. Too often on launches they pop up again, causing more scrubs.

The goal should be to fix them so they never pop up again, and your launches can begin to launch reliably, on time. And we know it can be done, because SpaceX has done it.

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Chang’e-6’s lander successfully soft lands on far side of the Moon

8:47 pm

Chang'e-6 landing zone
Chang’e-6’s landing zone is indicated by the
red box, on the edge of Apollo Creater
(indicated by the wavy circle).

China today announced that today at 6:23 pm (Eastern) the lander of its Chang’e-6’s lunar orbiter successfully soft landed on far side of the Moon.

Teams will now begin initial checks of the lander’s systems and soon begin collecting samples. The lander will collect up to 2,000 grams of samples, using a scoop to grab surface regolith and a drill for subsurface material. Samples are expected to be sent into lunar orbit within around 48 hours. Chinese space authorities have yet to publish a timeline for the mission and its steps, however.

Once docked to the orbiter, the samples will get transferred to the return spacecraft, which will return to Earth and land in China, in the same manner as was done with its Chang’e-5 sample return mission in 2021. Unlike those earlier samples, which came from the Moon’s near side (where the Apollo and Soviet samples had come from), these new samples will be first obtained from the far side.

6 comments

Japanese billionaire cancels his “Dear Moon” Starship mission

10:35 am

The Japanese billionaire, Yusaku Maezawa, today announced he has canceled his “Dear Moon” Starship mission that was supposed to take him and a bunch of artists and writers on a fly-by mission to the Moon.

Maezawa suggested the cause of the cancellation was uncertainty over the project development, saying he signed the contract in 2018 based on the assumption the launch would come by the end of 2023. “It’s a developmental project so it is what it is, but it is still uncertain as to when Starship can launch,” Maezawa said. “I can’t plan my future in this situation, and I feel terrible making the crew members wait longer, hence the difficult decision to cancel at this point in time.”

This decision really suggests to me that Maezawa’s whole project was simply a PR stunt. It seems strange to cancel now, when actual test launches of Superheavy/Starship are taking place and showing solid and speedy progress.

No matter. I have no doubt others will show up and buy flights. I also would not be shocked in the slightest if another billionaire shows up to and offers to fly the artists and writers who won seats on Maezawa’s proposed flight.

13 comments

SpaceX last night launched 23 more Starlink satellites

10:28 am

Go bunny! Last night SpaceX successfully launched another 23 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage completed its 14th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

58 SpaceX
26 China
8 Russia
6 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the world combined in successful launches, 66 to 40, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including other American companies, 58 to 48.

3 comments

Hubble once again in safe mode due to gyro problem

10:23 am

On May 24, 2024 the Hubble Space Telescope once again paused its science operations and entered in safe mode, apparently due to gyroscope problem.

The telescope automatically entered safe mode when one of its three gyroscopes gave faulty telemetry readings. Hubble’s gyros measure the telescope’s slew rates and are part of the system that determines and controls precisely the direction the telescope is pointed. NASA will provide more information early the first week of June.

It is not clear if this is the same gyroscope that caused the last two safe mode events.

With each such event the telescope gets closer and closer to having only two gyroscopes. At that point it will shift to one-gyro mode, using only one and holding the second in reserve. From then on it will no longer be able to take perfectly sharp pictures. Science will still be possible, but not like before.

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Boeing Starliner launch scrubbed at T-3:50

10:10 am

UPDATE: The launch is now scheduled for June 5, 2024 at 10:52 am (Eastern).

For reasons that appeared related to the ground system’s of ULA’s Atlas-5 rocket, the first manned launch of Boeing’s Starliner’s capsule was scrubbed today at T-3:50.

It appears they want to try again tomorrow at 12:03 pm (Eastern), assuming ULA can figure out what happened.

The repeated scrubs and delays that have so far prevented this launch are beginning to remind my of my childhood watching the early NASA launch attempts during the Mercury program. Then, they hadn’t done this before, and were being very careful about everything.

Now, it seems that NASA, ULA, and Boeing are acting the same way, and that is probably because they are very nervous about Starliner and don’t want anything to go wrong.

I had intended to embed the live stream, but slept late (it IS the weekend, y’know). Sorry.

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Jess Erskine – The Prisoner Intro, re-visited

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Those familiar with the original series, The Prisoner, will find this quite amusing. As the filmmaker notes on the youtube webpage, “And yes, this is cheesy as crap. I made it that way on purpose. Be seeing you!”

And if you aren’t familiar with the original, which was a truly unique and very surreal spy TV show of the 1960s, watch the original opening first. It is amazing how close this new version matches, in a ridiculous way, the shot angles and action of the actual opening sequence.

Hat tip Wayne DeVette.

10 comments

Beware the cornered rat!

1:14 pm

Trump is only in the way

The absurd guilty verdict against Donald Trump yesterday by a jury of twelve partisan New York Democrats confirms something that we should have recognized back in 2016. The Democratic Party and its partisan supporters will brook no opposition, and are willing to do anything — including throwing the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the entire legal system in the trash can — in order to maintain their control of the government.

In 2016 they were outraged that an outsider like Donald Trump could become president, and for the next four years exhibited that irrational outrage by pushing one fake and slanderous scandal against him after another, from idiotic claims that he deprived visitors of the same portions of ice cream as he got to the utterly false accusations that he won the election due to Russian help.

To defeat him in 2020 it appears the administrative state teamed up with many Democratic Party governors to create the panic over COVID as well as the outrage over the drug overdose death of an addict during his arrest in Minnesota. The former allowed those governors and state governments to corrupt the election system.

The latter outrage over George Floyd allowed the armed wing of the Democratic Party, its BLM and Antifa thugs, to loot and riot throughout the country, thus reinforcing the absurd lockdown rules imposed because of COVID.

It remains unclear whether the the election shenanigans that followed gave Biden the victory, but any objective review of the facts and the many vote tampering allegiations put forth by numerous election officials nationwide suggests it was very possible.

Thus, Biden became president, and since then the Democrats have been on an aggressive blacklisting campaign to destroy anyone who opposed them. That campaign reached its summit yesterday with Trump’s conviction in what could be called the most ludicrous and disgusting legal case ever brought against any American. Not only can no one name the crime that Trump was supposed to have committed, the jury was given instructions that it could find him guilty even if they themselves couldn’t agree on that crime.

As expected, the public’s response to Trump’s conviction has been to increase his support. » Read more

76 comments

The recovered diary of Columbia’s Israeli astronaut now on loan to Israel’s national library

9:50 am

One page from Ilon Ramon's space diary
One page from Ilon Ramon’s space diary

According to a May 29, 2024 announcement by the National Libary of Israel, the recovered diary of astronaut Ilan Ramon — who died when the space shuttle Columba broke up on its return to Earth — has now been transferred from the Israel Museum to the National Library of Israel so that it can finally be put on display.

The diary, a personal and national treasure, should have disintegrated along with the shuttle and its crew, but a few weeks after the disaster, to the surprise of the search party, someone found the remains of the diary on a muddy patch of land in Texas.

How is it possible that it survived? It withstood the explosion, and then a journey of several kilometers till it hit the earth. No one knows for sure, but leading researchers in the field believe that due to the light weight of the pages, the diary didn’t fall directly to the ground but probably glided slowly downwards, carried on wind currents that eventually allowed for a soft landing. Most of the damage to its pages probably only happened after it reached the ground, resulting from the humid conditions in the marshy area where it landed.

Since then the Israel Museum has been carefully documenting its contents, which included daily accounts by Ramon of his experience in space. One example:
» Read more

6 comments

Watching the first manned launch of Boeing’s Starliner capsule

9:31 am

NASA has now announced the broadcast schedule for tomorrow’s 12:35 pm (Eastern) launch of Boeing’s Starliner capsule on its first manned mission to ISS.

NASA will provide live coverage of prelaunch and launch activities for the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test, which will carry NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to and from the International Space Station.

Launch of the ULA (United Launch Alliance) Atlas V rocket and Boeing Starliner spacecraft is targeted for 12:25 p.m. EDT Saturday, June 1, from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Starliner will dock to the forward-facing port of the station’s Harmony module at approximately 1:50 p.m., Sunday, June 2.

The live stream will begin on NASA TV at 8:15 am (Eastern). I will embed that live stream here tomorrow. As this start time is more than four hours before launch, expect there to be endless NASA propaganda for most of that time. My advice is to tune in at around noon.

Let us all pray that all goes well on this flight. Boeing’s recent track record has generally be horrible. We can only hope its engineers have gotten all of the kinks out of this capsule.

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SpaceX completes second Starship/Superheavy dress rehearsal countdown; no launch licence yet from FAA

9:22 am

Though SpaceX has now successfully completed a second Starship/Superheavy dress rehearsal countdown in preparation for its targeted June 5, 2024 launch date, the FAA has still not issued the company a launch licence.

The report at the link is very optimistic about the FAA issuing the license, though there as yet no indication that it will do so.

There are two ways to return to flight. Previously, all Starship mishaps were closed using Path One, which means the FAA accepts a SpaceX-led mishap investigation report, where the operator identifies corrective actions for the vehicle and implements them on future flights.

For this flight, SpaceX chose Path Two, which involves an FAA public safety determination. In this process, the FAA makes a safety determination based on all available information to see if the previous flight involved safety-critical system failures. If successful, a return to flight can be conducted even without the closure of the mishap report.

In a statement to [NASASpaceFlight], the FAA reported: “After a comprehensive review, the FAA determined no public safety issues were involved in the anomaly that occurred during the SpaceX Starship OFT-3 launch on March 14. This public safety determination means the Starship vehicle may return to flight operations while the overall investigation remains open, provided all other license requirements are met.

SpaceX has not yet received FAA license authorization for the next Starship launch.”

We shall see. I suspect the people at the FAA want to issue that license. I also suspect that the White House is demanding the full investigation be completed beforehand.

3 comments

Engineers lose contact with Japan’s Akatsuki Venus orbiter

9:11 am

According to a terse announcement by Japan’s space agency JAXA on May 29, 2024, engineers from its Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) have lost contact with Japan’s Akatsuki Venus orbiter.

ISAS has lost contact with Akatsuki after an operation in late April due to an extended period of low attitude stability control mode, and is currently making efforts to reestablish communication with the spacecraft.

Akatsuki has had a spotty and complex life. It was launched in 2010, but failed to enter Venus orbit as planned in two attempts in 2010 and 2011 because of a failure in its main engine. Engineers then improvised and — after orbiting the Sun for several years — were able to get it into Venus orbit in 2015 using only its attitude thrusters. Its primary mission ended in 2018, but it continued to study Venus’ atmosphere since.

Assuming Akatsuki is not recovered, as of now there are no operating orbiters at Venus. A mission by the private company Rocket Lab is expected to launch before the end of this year, followed by an orbiter from India in 2026. A NASA mission meanwhile is in limbo and will likely never fly, due to budget decisions at the agency, which took its funding and gave it to the troubled Mars Sample Return mission.

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Peru and Slovakia sign Artemis Accords

8:52 am

In separate press releases (here and here), NASA today announced that both Peru and Slovakia have signed the Artemis Accords, becoming the 41st and 42nd countries respectively to join the American space alliance.

The alliance now includes these nations: Angola, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, 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.

As with all recent Artemis Accord signing announcements under the Biden administration, the focus of the accords is no longer promoting private property and capitalism in space (as they were conceived by the Trump administration). Instead, the focus appears to be a globalist’s dream, as noted as follows in both annoncements:

The United States and seven other nations were the first to sign the Artemis Accords in 2020, which identified an early set of principles promoting the beneficial use of space for all humanity. The accords are grounded in the Outer Space Treaty and other agreements including the Registration Convention, the Rescue and Return Agreement, as well as best practices and norms of responsible behavior that NASA and its partners have supported, including the public release of scientific data.

Rather than use this alliance as a wedge to overturn the Outer Space Treaty’s restrictions on private property in space, it now appears the alliance is working to strengthen those restrictions, led by the U.S. under the Biden administration.

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Starlab space station signs cargo contract with French startup

8:42 am

The French startup, The Exploration Company, on May 28, 2024 signed a contract with the consortium of American and European companies building the Starlab space station to fly three cargo missions using its proposed reusable Nyx unmanned freighter.

The Exploration Company is developing its reusable Nyx spacecraft, which will initially ferry cargo to and from low Earth orbit. The company also plans to offer versions of the spacecraft for crewed spaceflight in low Earth orbit and missions to the surface of the Moon. Earlier this month, The Exploration Company was awarded an initial €25 million European Space Agency (ESA) contract to perform a demonstration mission to ferry cargo to and from the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the agency’s LEO Cargo Return Services initiative.

Starlab, first proposed by the American company Voyager Space, has a development contract with NASA. Its partnership includes Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Airbus, Mitsubishi, and MDA Space. It has also signed a similar deal with India’s space agency ISRO to use its Gaganyaan manned capsule, as well as another deal with SpaceX’s Starship.

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Chinese pseudo-company launches five satelites

8:29 am

The Chinese pseudo-company Galactic Energy today successfully launched five satelites, its Ceres-1 rocket lifting off from the Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China.

This was Galactic Energy’s second launch in the past two days. China’s state-run press however made no mention of the company in its report, a lack that is now routine. Apparently the Chinese government recognizes these pseudo-companies might eventually pose a threat to its power, and doesn’t wish to give them any extra publicity.

The report also made no mention of where the rocket’s solid-fueled lower stages crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

57 SpaceX
26 China
8 Russia
6 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the world combined in successful launches, 65 to 40, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including other American companies, 57 to 48.

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Gully erosion in a Martian dune field

2:26 pm

Overview map

Gully erosion in a Martian dune field
Click for original image.

Today’s cool image is another example of how little we really understand the geology of Mars. The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on February 22, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The focus of the image is the eastern end of a large and very distinct dune field inside 31-mile-wide Matera Crater, as shown by the white rectangle in the overview map above. The field fills an area 10 by 11 miles inside the floor of the crater. On that eastern end is a very pronounced drainage gully dropping downhill about 2,000 feet to the east.

Gullies on Martian slopes, especially on the interior rims of craters, are not unusual. Though their true cause is not yet confirmed, the theories behind their existence all relate to some form of water/ice process, mostly relating to the seasonal freeze-thaw cycle.

This picture was taken in the spring, exactly when seasonal changes might be spotted. In fact, scientists have been taking regular MRO images of this gully since 2007, when it was featured image. From that 2007 caption:
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