Tom Jones & Helene Fischer – Sexbomb
An evening pause: Performed live 2020, probably early in the year before the Wuhan panic struck.
Hat tip Tom Wilson.
Tag: commercial
American Giants – Restoring a Paul Bunyan Giant
An evening pause: There are endless and wonderful ways to make a living. This is just another example.
Hat tip Cotour.
Hakuto-R sends first image back to Earth
Go here and here for original images.
The private Hakuto-R lunar lander, owned and built by the Japanese-based company Ispace, is operating as planned and has sent back its first images from two different cameras.
The larger image to the right was taken by a camera on one of Canada’s payloads. It shows the Earth two minutes after launch, with the rocket’s upper stage acting as a frame. The inset, reduced to insert here, was taken 19 hours after launch by the lander’s main camera, and shows the Earth at night. Both images demonstrate that the spacecraft is stable and functioning perfectly.
The goals of the mission remain mostly engineering. Its focus is demonstrating first that Ispace’s lander can do what it says so that future customers will be confident buying payload space. Similarly, the payloads, such as the UAE’s Rashid rover, are doing the same thing.
DiDuLa – Arabica
An evening pause: Performed live in St. Petersburg, 2004.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
Ariane 5 successfully launches three satellites
Arianespace’s Ariane 5 rocket successfully launched two communications satellites plus a weather satellite today, leaving that rocket only two more launches left before it is permanently retired.
As this was only the fifth successful launch this year by Arianespace (representing Europe), the leader board in the 2022 launch race remains unchanged:
58 China
56 SpaceX
21 Russia
9 Rocket Lab
8 ULA
The U.S. still leads China 80 to 58 in the national rankings, but now trails the entire world combined 90 to 80.
Another space station company, ThinkOrbital, enters the competition
Though it failed to win a NASA contract to build its manned space station concept, the company ThinkOrbital has instead won small two research grants from the Space Force.
Earlier this year ThinkOrbital — with partners Redwire, KMI and Arizona State University — won two research contracts worth $260,000 under the U.S. Space Force Orbital Prime program for in-space servicing, assembly and manufacturing. Rosen said the plan is to refine the design concept for a space structure that could be used for debris removal and recycling.
“We’re working on a hub and spoke concept where smaller satellites would go out and gather the debris, bring it back to a central location, process it and we could either turn them into fuel or deorbit them,” said Rosen. “We could process debris at that hub, for example, and turn aluminum into aluminum powder that could be used for spacecraft fuel.”
ThinkOrbital is hoping to be selected for the next phase of Orbital Prime which could be worth up to $1.5 million.
This new concept would not be manned, but would instead be used by unmanned robots as service depot.
Bezos and Blue Origin to star in animated kids show
If you can’t build anything, than draw it! Jeff Bezos and his space company Blue Origin are now set to star in a kids animated show called “Blue Origins Space Rangers”.
The children’s series will feature the voices of Bezos, who founded his space tourism business Blue Origin in 2000, as well as “Good Morning America” co-host Michael Strahan, who was a passenger in December 2021 on Blue Origin NS-19 on a 10-minute spaceflight. Bezos took his supersonic joy ride to space in July 2021.
Nor is this the only show that Blue Origin is part of. A feature film set to release in 2023 will feature Blue Origin’s proposed (but not yet built) Orbital Reef space station.
All of this is fun and good, but it once again raises a question of focus. Is Bezos and Blue Origin really focused on building rockets and space stations, or it is mostly a pr operation for Bezos to sell himself? The overall lack of progress on its real rockets and space stations suggests the latter.
Third Coast Percussion – Madeira River
An evening pause: This music by Philip Glass, seems quite appropriate for December.
Hat tip Doug Johnson.
New bill imposes new and odious regulation on private space stations and satellites
Congress and the FCC to private space: “Nice business you
got here. Shame if something happened to it.”
On December 8, 2022, two bills, sponsored by both a Democrat and a Republican, were introduced in the House to give the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) the power to regulate and even block the launch of commercial private space stations, while also giving that agency the power to require companies to meet its arbitrary regulations on de-orbiting defunct satellites and stations.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.) and the ranking member, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), said their legislation is needed to modernize the FCC for the rapidly changing space industry. Their two bills — the Satellite and Telecommunications Streamlining Act and Secure Space Act — seek to update regulations covering foreign ownership, space sustainability, license processing timelines, and satellite spectrum sharing.
The key language in the first bill [pdf] is this:
» Read more
SpaceX successfully launches Ispace’s Hakuto-R private mission to Moon
Hakuto-R’s planned landing site is in Atlas Crater.
Using its Falcon 9 rocket, SpaceX tonight successfully launched Ispace’s Hakuto-R lunar lander, the first private mission attempting to softly land on the Moon.
The Falcon 9 first stage completed its fifth flight, landing successfully at Cape Canaveral.
Hakuto-R, which is actually the first of two missions, carries seven payloads, including two small rovers, Rashid, which is the United Arab Emirates first lunar mission, and a smaller rover built by Ispace. Both will operate for about a week, one lunar day. Hakuto-R will land on the Moon in April, 2023.
A second payload is a cubesat from JPL, called Lunar Flashlight. It will go into lunar orbit, testing new fuel technologies while also attempting to identify water in the permanently shadowed craters at the lunar south pole.
The leaders in the 2022 launch race:
57 China
56 SpaceX
21 Russia
9 Rocket Lab
8 ULA
The U.S. now leads China 80 to 57 in the national rankings, but trails the entire world combined 87 to 80.
NASA extends Boeing’s contract to produce more SLS rockets
NASA yesterday announced that it will pay Boeing $3.2 billion for two more SLS rockets.
NASA has finalized its contract with Boeing of Huntsville, Alabama, for approximately $3.2 billion to continue manufacturing core and upper stages for future Space Launch System (SLS) rockets for Artemis missions to the Moon and beyond.
Under the SLS Stages Production and Evolution Contract action, Boeing will produce SLS core stages for Artemis III and IV, procure critical and long-lead material for the core stages for Artemis V and VI, provide the exploration upper stages (EUS) for Artemis V and VI, as well as tooling and related support and engineering services.
All this really means is that NASA is going depend on SLS and Orion to fly its astronauts to and from the Moon, and because of that its pace of flight will be — at best — slow and long-drawn out. For example, this new order extends the contract out to 2028. It will thus leave plenty of time for SpaceX and other nations to get there first.
I predict that the private Starship missions paid for by Yusaku Maezawa and Jared Isaacman will both fly before these two new Artemis missions. You heard it here first.