For the second time in two days China has scrubbed the launch of the first unmanned Tianzhou cargo freighter to the core module of its space station,
As before, the Chinese only said that the scrub was due to unstated “technical issues.”
They will likely try again tomorrow, but that is pure speculation. Without a more detailed report from China, we really have no idea what is happening.
Capitalism in space: The announcement yesterday by Firefly that it has awarded SpaceX the launch contract for its Blue Ghost lunar lander mission (scheduled for launch in ’23) is significant because it continues a remarkable pattern of dominance by SpaceX of the lunar launch market.
Right now, of the seven scheduled robot missions to the Moon, SpaceX will launch all but one. The full list, in no particular order:
In addition, SpaceX launched Israel’s Beresheet lander in 2019 on a Falcon 9.
Furthermore, SpaceX has won the contract from NASA for the agency’s first manned lunar lander, using Starship. It has also won the contract to launch the initial components of NASA’s Lunar Gateway space station on a Falcon Heavy.
There are other lunar missions in the works (by Russia, China, and others), but these are all the launches awarded as commercial contracts to private rocket companies in recent years. Thus, of these ten lunar missions, SpaceX has launched or is launching nine. That’s a 90% market share!
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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.
"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
An evening pause: Hat tip Jim Mallamace, who notes,
Talk about an eclectic Evening Pause. “Csardas” was written by Italian, Vittorio Monti, in the early 20th century. “Gypsy Airs” was composed by Spaniard, Pablo de Sarasate, in the late 19th century. Both compositions are inspired by Hungarian music. And the orchestra is North Korean.
The band was organized by North Korea’s Supreme Leader, Kim Jong Un. This performance was from 2012. From the link this interesting tidbit:
In December 2015, Kim Jong-un sent the band to perform in a series of shows in Beijing to improve relations between China and North Korea; these would have been the band’s first performances outside of North Korea. However, the band left Beijing on a scheduled flight to Pyongyang only a few hours before their performance was scheduled. China’s Xinhua news agency stated that all of the band’s performances had been cancelled due to “communication issues at the working level.” The Korea Herald reported that North Korea had cancelled the tour because China had requested that North Korea’s missiles should not be shown during performances.
Today’s cool image starts from afar and zooms inward. The elevation map to the right shows Olympus Mons, the largest volcano on Mars and in fact the entire solar system. About 600 miles across, from the edge to its peak this volcano rises about 54,000 feet, with an actual height relative to Mars’ “sea level” of just under 70,000 feet, more than twice as high as Mount Everest on Earth.
The cross-section of this volcano is so large it would cover almost all of France if placed on Earth. As a shield volcano, it was formed by many many volcano flows that laid down many layers of lava, with some in its northwest quadrant thought to be as recent as 2 to 115 million years ago.
Our cool image today is located at the white rectangle at the southeast edge of this volcano, and illustrates how those many lava flows could create such a large shield volcano with such a large cross section.
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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.
“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.
The first launch of a Tianzhou freighter to China’s first module, dubbed Tianhe, of its planned Chinese Space Station (CSS), was scrubbed early this morning for unstated “technical reasons.”
Not only has China’s state-run press or its space agency not revealed what caused the scrub, they have said nothing about a new launch date. This cargo freighter however apparently needs to be in place before the arrival of the station’s first crew, now roughly scheduled for sometime in June.
Capitalism in space: It appears that the third Superheavy prototype, BN3 (Booster #3), is now being stacked and prepared for the first near-orbital flight of Starship, which SpaceX is still hoping to launch before the end of this year.
SpaceX has at least six BN3 sections – amounting to 22 rings and two of three tank domes – either completed or awaiting integration. The process of stacking BN3 began sometime in the last 7-10 days when SpaceX joined two four-ring sections – including the booster’s common dome, likely pictured above.
SpaceX has mostly completed BN3’s engine section, including a thrust dome with plumbing cutouts for a full 28 Raptor engines. Most recently, what looks like a Super Heavy fuel manifold appeared in Boca Chica. That manifold will attach to the end of a supersized Super Heavy transfer tube – also spotted in work – used to route methane through the liquid oxygen tank to fuel its Raptor engines. Fueling 28 large, high-performance Raptors is no mean feat and requires a rat’s nest of plumbing to feed them more than 15 metric tons (~30,000 lb) of propellant every second at full throttle.
Put simply, a majority of Super Heavy booster BN3’s hardware appears to be ready or almost ready for integration. The eight rings now stacked represent approximately 20% of the rocket’s full height, leaving another 30 or so rings – 54m (~180 ft) – to go.
That flight, the flight plan of which has already been submitted to the FCC, would take off from Boca Chica, circle about three-quarters of the globe, and land in the Pacific to the northwest of Hawaii. While not a full orbit, this flight would demonstrate an orbital capability while allowing for a controlled safe re-entry at a planned location, a wise approach for that first orbital attempt.
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.
"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
Does not exist at Google or YouTube.
They’re coming for you next: Along with all other former Trump officials being blackballed by today’s dominant leftist culture, former Trump deputy assistant Sebastian Gorka has found himself banished, first from Fox News, and then from Google’s YouTube.
While Gorka’s problems at YouTube were in the past related to copyright disputes, the final ban last month was simply part of that site’s effort to censor any legitimate discussion of election fraud during the November 2020 election. From their own spokesman:
“In accordance with our long standing strikes system, we terminated the channel America First with Sebastian Gorka, for repeated violations of our presidential election integrity policy,” Ivy Choi, a YouTube spokesperson, wrote in an email to The Hill. … “As we’ve publicly shared, our presidential election integrity policy prohibits content uploaded after last year’s safe harbor deadline that alleges widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S. presidential election,” Choi wrote. “Any channel that violates this policy will receive a strike and channels that receive three strikes in the same 90-day period are permanently removed from YouTube, as in the case of America First with Sebastian Gorka.”
On May 15th the Parker Solar Probe made the first of three small adjustments to its orbital path in order to refine its path during an October 16th fly-by of Venus, which in turn will make more precise its next three Venus fly-bys and thus bring it closer and closer to the Sun.
[The] Parker Solar Probe just completed its eighth close approach to the Sun, coming within a record 6.5 million miles (10.4 million kilometers) of the Sun’s surface on April 29. It’ll pass the Sun from about the same distance again on Aug. 9, before using Venus’ gravity on Oct. 16 to swing it even closer to the surface — about 5.6 million miles (9 million kilometers) — on Nov. 21. Assisted by the remaining three Venus flybys, Parker Solar Probe will eventually come within 4 million miles (6.4 million kilometers) of the solar surface.
The spacecraft remains healthy and continues to gather data with each fly-by of the both the Sun and Venus.
The Ingenuity engineering team announced today that the Mars helicopter will make its sixth flight next week, flying to a new landing spot while taking images for the Perseverance science team.
Ingenuity’s flight plan begins with the helicopter ascending to 33 feet (10 meters), then heading southwest for about 492 feet (150 meters). When it achieves that distance, the rotorcraft will begin acquiring color imagery of an area of interest as it translates to the south about 50-66 feet (15-20 meters). Stereo imagery of the sand ripples and outcrops of bright rocks at the site will help demonstrate the value of an aerial perspective for future missions. After completing its image collection, Ingenuity will fly about 164 feet (50 meters) northeast where it will touch down at its new base of operations (known as “Field C”).
The flight will attempt a new speed record of 9 mph, and will also land for the first time in a spot that the helicopter has not scouted beforehand. It will instead be using data from high resolution images from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) combined with its own hazard avoidance system.
Ingenuity will essentially place itself over and in an area where Perseverance plans to go, leapfrogging ahead flight by flight, as shown by the map above (annotated by me from the map available here). The green dot numbered 5 shows the helicopter’s present position, while #6 shows its approximate landing spot after its sixth flight. Perseverance, whose present location is indicated by the blue marker, is generally heading south within the area outlined by the red line, as described during the science team’s an April 30th press conference. The goal in exploring this region is to gain a very robust geological baseline of the floor of Jezero Crater, which scientists believe will be the oldest material the rover should see in its travels.
Capitalism in space: The first phase in Blue Origin’s auction for the purchase of the first seat on its New Shepard suborbital spacecraft in July has closed, with the high bid now $2.8 million.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture has begun unsealing the bids for an open seat on its New Shepard suborbital spaceship, and the high bid hit the $2.8 million mark with more than three weeks to go in the online auction.
Blue Origin says the auction has drawn out more than 5,200 bidders from 136 countries. … Bidding started on May 5 and will conclude with a live auction on June 12. Proceeds from the sale will be donated to Blue Origin’s educational foundation, the Club for the Future.
The first phrase involved sealed secret bids, and ended with the high bid at $1.4 million. The second phase, on-going now with bidding quite brisk, makes the high bid visible to all bidders.
The $2.8 million bid is far higher than the estimated price point predicted for this suborbital flight, which had been in the range of several hundred thousand dollars. The high price is likely because this will be the first flight, and people with cash are willing to spend it to get bragging rights to that seat. At the same time, the high bidding suggests that the previous estimated ticket price might have been low, at least for the first flights.
With three weeks left before the final live auction on June 12th, there is a chance the winning bid could get even higher.
Embedded below the fold in two parts. The second segment was taped before the Chinese finally released images from Zhurong.
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An evening pause: Performed live 2014.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
