Tag: engineering

Sunspot update: The Sun in January acted like solar maximum is here

11:11 am

In my monthly sunspot update at the start of January, I asked in the headline “Are we now in the next solar maximum?”

The Sun’s sunspot activity in January since then has apparently answered that question. NOAA this week posted its monthly update of its graph showing solar sunspot activity on the Sun’s Earth-facing hemisphere, and as I do every month since 2011, I have posted that graph below, with annotations to provide a larger context.
» Read more

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Collins Aerospace tests its new spacesuit on the Zero Gravity airplane

9:37 am

On January 30, 2024 Collins Aerospace, one of two companies that NASA has contracted to design and build new spacesuits for its future missions, successfully tested its new spacesuit on the Zero Gravity airplane, where it was able to have a person use the suit in short but weightless conditions.

Collins is designing its suit in collaboration with ILC Dover and Oceaneering. Former NASA astronauts, John “Danny” Olivas and Dan Burbank, each donned the suit and performed a series of test objectives while onboard a Zero Gravity plane that’s able to perform parabolic maneuvers to simulate microgravity for short bursts. They were surrounded by several support personnel who were gathering data about the suit performance.

In total, they performed 40 parabolas during the flight. Collins said the primary goals included “evaluation of the suit’s pressure garment system fit and functionality, use of International Space Station tools and interfaces, and reviewed performance of the new Extravehicular Mobility Unit, or EMU, against the current design.”

The two spacesuit contracts (the second is with Axiom) are costing NASA about $335 million total to get the suits designed, built, and certified for use in spacewalks and ground operations on the Moon. Both companies appear on schedule to deliver those suits in less than three years.

Previously, NASA had tried to build new spacesuits on its own, and had spent a billion dollars over fourteen years while building nothing. The contrast in this story between the government and private enterprise should be clarifying to everyone.

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One last engineering test planned for Ingenuity

9:23 am

Engineers plan to do one last engineering test with Ingenuity, slowly rotate its propellers while collecting imagery, likely from both the helicopter and Perseverance.

Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity Project Manager, said that NASA and JPL still aren’t sure what caused the damage to Ingenuity’s blades; it remains unclear whether the helicopter’s power dipped during landing, causing unwanted ground contact, or if it accidentally struck the ground to cause a “brownout.”

Tzanetos added that NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) will slowly rotate the helicopter’s blades and “wiggle” them, or adjust their angle, while collecting video in order to allow the team to determine the extent of Ingenuity’s damage. However, Tzanetos said that no matter what such imaging will show, the dual-rotor drone has flown its last flight and will soon end its mission.

This test will likely not occur until Perseverance gets into a position where it can film the test also. The helicopter’s cameras look downward, so all it will be able to photograph is the shadow of those blades as they move. Perseverance can look directly at it, and if it gets into a position slightly higher than Ingenuity it can get a good viewing angle down at the blades.

At the moment the rover is about a thousand feet to the east, though steadily working its way towards it.

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Japan’s lunar lander shuts down for long lunar night

9:15 am

SLIM's last image
Click for original image.

After two days of post landing operations, engineers for the Japanese lunar lander SLIM have shut it down now as the sun has set at its landing site on the Moon and its solar panel can no longer charge its batteries.

The picture to the right, reduced to post here, was the last image sent back by SLIM before shut down. It looks to the southeast across the width of 885-foot-wide Shioli Crater, the opposite rim the bright ridge in the upper right about a thousand feet away.

The engineers shut the spacecraft down prior to sunset in order to increase the chances that it will survive that very long harsh lunar night and reactivate when the Sun rises in two weeks. They recognized that the odds of this occurring are slim (no pun intended), because the lander was not designed to withstand the night’s cold temperatures, and more important, the solar panel will not get recharged until late in the lunar day, an additional week-plus past sunrise. That long period of inactivity will likely kill it.

No matter. The spacecraft’s main goal was to prove the ability of its landing system to land softly within a small target zone. It did so, even if it had an engine issue that caused it to land upside down. This new engineering will make it possible to send unmanned and manned landers to places on other planets that previously were impossible.

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A soft but dim spiral

10:51 am

A soft but dim spiral
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope as part of a survey of nearby galaxies in which supernovae had previously been detected.

This softly luminous galaxy — lying in the constellation Hercules, about 110 million light-years from Earth — seems outshone by the sparkling foreground stars that surround it. The type II supernova which took place in this galaxy in 2019, while no longer visible in this image, definitely outshone the galaxy at the time!

What amazes me about this somewhat dim spiral galaxy is its beautiful structure, its two spiral arms coiling outward in perfect symmetry. And yet, we are looking at a object that is almost entirely empty space, hundreds of thousands of light years across. Somehow the almost infinitesimal force of gravity at those distances is still able to shape the arms, and the spirals.

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Another exoplanet found in habitable zone

9:55 am

Astronomers using both space- and ground-based telescopes have confirmed the existence of another rocky exoplanet inside the habitable zone of its star.

The star is a red dwarf 137 light years away. The exoplanet, dubbed TOI-175 b, is estimated to be larger than Earth, with a diameter 1.5 times that of our home planet. It orbits its star every nineteen days. Even more intriguing, the data suggests this star has a second exoplanet even better positioned in the habitable zone that would be the smallest habitable-zone exoplanet so far found, about the size of Earth.

The second planet however is not yet confirmed.

This discovery is no longer very unique. In the past few years astronomers have discovered a plethora of Earth-sized exoplanets, many in the habitable zone.

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Japan and India team up for unmanned lunar lander mission

9:42 am

Japan and India are now partnering to put a lander/rover on the Moon in 2025, dubbed LUPEX.

Set tentatively for 2025, LUPEX will be launched on JAXA’s H3 launcher, with a 350-kg rover developed by the Japanese agency. ISRO is developing the lander. The instruments will be on the lander and the rover. Initial feasibility studies and the lander’s configuration have been completed. The rover will sample the soil with a driller and the samples will be analysed using equipment on the rover,

Unlike the previously successful lunar landers from both countries (India’s Chandrayaan-3 and Japan’s SLIM), LUPEX is being designed to survive the 14-day-long lunar night, with a mission that is aiming to last three to six months.

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Update on Jared Isaacman’s upcoming Polaris Dawn manned mission

9:37 am

Link here. Bottom line is that they still hope to launch on a five day orbital mission in SpaceX’s Resilience Dragon capsule later this year, during which they will do the first privately funded non-government spacewalk.

Developing new spacworthy spacesuits remains the biggest task before the mission can fly.

In a series of social media updates on Friday and Saturday, Isaacman answered some questions from the public about the progression of the suit development and the mission overall. He stated that over the past week, they “spent a lot of time pressurized in the EVA suits working contingencies.”

Isaacman clarified as well that, unlike missions to the International Space Station chartered by either NASA or Axiom Space, the crew members of the Polaris Dawn mission won’t launch and land while wearing IVA suits. He said because they are limited with space on this flight, they will only have their EVA suits.

No launch date has yet been set.

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Voyager signs SpaceX’s Starship to launch its Starlab space station

3:23 pm

Voyager Space, one of three commercial space stations being built in partnership with NASA, has awarded SpaceX the launch contract for putting its Starlab space station into orbit, using that company’s Superheavy/Starship rocket.

The companies did not disclose terms of the agreement or a projected launch date, although a spokesperson for Starlab Space said the company was confident that Starlab would be launched before the decommissioning of the International Space Station, currently scheduled for 2030.

Voyager is building Starlab in a joint partnership with Airbus and Northrop Grumman. The design is relatively simple though large (one main module and a service module), which makes Starship an excellent method for getting it into orbit.

SpaceX now has deals to launch two different space stations using Starship. The second is with the private company Vast, which is building its station completely independent from NASA. Starship also has won launch contracts from two different private citizens, as well as NASA.

It appears that Musk’s instincts were right on the money when he decided to build this rocket, even though when he proposed it there did not seem to be any customers for it.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay.

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Have these Martian dunes changed in sixteen years?

1:57 pm

Comparing two MRO images taken 16 years apart
Click here and here for the original images.

Overview map

Cool image time! The two pictures above, both rotated, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to match and to post here, were taken by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) sixteen years apart. The first, on the left, was taken on February 23, 2007, while the second, on the right, was taken on November 1, 2023.

What drew me to both images was the label for the second: “Dune Change in Arabia Region Crater.” To find out if this image had revealed any changes in the dunes I went back and found the earliest MRO picture of this location, and sized and enhanced the dunes in both to match.

Do you see any changes? I don’t. However, that really means nothing. These are not the highest resolution versions that MRO obtains, and a very careful comparison of those best images might detect more subtle changes than our eyes can perceive in the versions above. Also, there might be brightness changes that require careful software analysis.

The white dot on the overview map to the right marks the location, in Arabia Terra, the largest transition region on Mars between the northern lowland plains and the southern cratered highlands. The inset shows the half filled crater in which these dunes sit. The grayed area on the floor of the crater marks the entire dune field, extending eastward to the crater rim from this one spot, indicated by the black dot.

It is likely that the dust is blown into this crater and gets trapped there. Whether the dunes move or change is not clear, though if they do the changes are small, even after almost two decades. Instead, the two pictures suggest these dunes have hardened into a form of sandstone, that can be eroded over time by the wind, but only very very slowly.

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Scientists: No obvious ice in the permanently-shadowed interior of Shackleton Crater

10:59 am

Shadowcam-LRO mosaic
Click for original image.

Using the low-light image produced by the American Shadowcam instrument on South Korea’s lunar orbiter Danuri, scientists now belief that there are no thick obvious deposits of water ice in in the permanently-shadowed interior of Shackleton Crater at the Moon’s south pole.

The image to the right combines pictures taken by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) of the region around Shackleton with pictures produced by Shadowcam of its permanently-shadowed interior. From their paper’s conclusion:

The trailing (right) side of Shackleton’s interior is warmer owing to the secondary illumination asymmetry and floor topography. Illumination at the floor of Shackleton is patchy and possibly indicates a similar patchy (50 m scale) temperature distribution, which could mean a spatially irregular concentration of cold-trapped volatiles at the subsurface or mixed with regolith.

According to our Shackleton crater interior mapping from ShadowCam images, there is no observed evidence of thick ice deposits or surface ice that could be easily recognized by any relative brightness features observed in multiple illumination geometries. However, this analysis did not include the estimation of reflectance, nor did it involve reviewing all of the images of Shackleton in this preliminary study. Our hypothesis, in the context of water frost detections in Shackleton, is that if ice or frost is present in Shackleton’s interior, then the concentrations are either below the threshold that results in an observable signature in ShadowCam images, or might be mixed with the regolith at the detected areas. At other places where surface temperatures are below 110K, water frost could be hidden in subsurface layers.

The paper’s main purpose was to identify the dim lighting sources within the crater, all of which come from light bouncing off other surfaces. In the process the scientists obtained a better understanding of the surface itself.

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Pentagon in discussions with SpaceX about buying a Starship outright for military missions

9:49 am

The Pentagon is negotiating with SpaceX the idea that in certain cases where it deems it legally necessary it will buy outright full ownership of a SpaceX Starship/Superheavy launch rocket in order to fly some military missions.

The idea is similar to how the Air Force moves cargo. At times, the service contracts with private carriers to deliver cargo, but for certain critical missions it uses service “gray tail” aircraft. In this hypothetical case, the military could take a Starship off the line for a specific mission and return it to SpaceX after it is complete.

I suspect such situations involve very risky wartime missions that carry liabilities that a private company cannot accept. The military takes over ownership, relieving the company of risk, and then returns ownership afterward. Such a plan requires the company to agree to it, and the military to pay extra for these temporary rights. According to the article at the link, SpaceX is presently exploring its options.

That the Pentagon is discussing this with SpaceX at all tells us that it sees Starship/Superheavy as having a lot of value. It wants to buy its services, one way or the other.

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Tank explosion in Shanghai injured three

9:38 am

The supposed test-to-tank failure of a rocket tank being tested by the Chinese pseudo-company Landspace on January 29, 2024 apparently injured three workers, though officials also claimed everything worked as planned.

Three workers were injured and nearby residents reported that “a huge boom” shook their windows during testing of a LandSpace rocket fuel tank in Shanghai on Monday evening. The Chinese start-up – which last year beat its rivals, including US-based SpaceX, to launch Zhuque-2, the world’s first methane-fuelled rocket, into orbit – said there were no abnormalities during the test.

A LandSpace representative told local media on Tuesday that the test “left some glass damaged and three production personnel with minor scratches”. The company and the district government said no explosion occurred.

This explosion was reported on X by nearby residents earlier this week (see the quick links here and here), with no confirmation from the pseudo-company. Even now it is being very coy about what it is telling us. An anonymous source at the link says the test filled the tank with nitrogen, and was intended “to establish the tank’s limits.”

No one however should have gotten injured during such a test, if everything took place as planned.

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Private company in India aims to build its own manned capsule and astronaut training facility

9:27 am

A private company in India, Astroborne Aerospace, is now developing its own commercial manned capsule as well as a commercial astronaut training facility, targeting as customers Earth-based tourists as well as those hoping to fly in space.

The capsule, dubbed Airawat, will seat six, and will be designed for suborbital flights, similar to Blue Origin’s New Shepard capsule. The training facility will be on a four-acre site the company is presently negotiating either a lease or purchase from the local government.

The company says it has obtained investment capital, but also says that money will arrive next month.

Whether this deal is real or not is actually irrelevant. Its existence illustrates the underlying enthusiasm in India for private commercial space, now that the Modi government has ended the monopoly on all space activities by its space agency ISRO.

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China’s Chang’e-7 lunar mission will target the rim of Shackleton Crater

9:15 am

The Moon's south pole, with landers

China’s Chang’e-7 lunar mission, which will include an orbiter, lander, rover, and “mini-flying” probe, will land in 2026 on the rim of Shackleton Crater, one of the same candidate landing zones for NASA’s manned Artemis program.

The map to the right shows the lander’s approximate landing site, on the illuminated rim of thirteen-mile-wide Shackleton Crater at the Moon’s south pole. The candidate landing zone for NASA is also on this rim, but the location might not be precisely the same. From the abstract of the published paper [pdf] outlining the project’s science goals:

The lander will land on Shackleton crater’s illuminated rim near the lunar south pole, along with the rover and mini-flying probe. The relay satellite (named Queqiao-2) will be launched in February 2024 as an independent mission to support relay communication for ongoing scientific exploration of Chang’E-4 (CE-4), the upcoming Chang’E-6 (CE-6) in 2024, and subsequent lunar missions.

Though the abstract states the target is Shackleton’s rim, the paper is less specific, showing a map with a much wider “candidate landing region”. It is unclear if China as yet has the ability to land with the pinpoint accuracy necessary to hit the rim as stated. The paper is also devoid of any technical details about the lander, rover, or its mini-flyer. It lists the science instruments and their science goals, but describes nothing more specific. For example, will the flyer bounce or use small rockets to lift off? Or will it simply be released prior to landing with no capability of taking off again?

The big story here is the race to get to Shackleton first. NASA presently hopes its first Artemis manned mission to land on the Moon, Artemis-3, will arrive in September 2026, with its stated goal landing at or near the south pole. That schedule is certainly tentative, based on NASA’s recent track record. China is now targeting that same year, but its recent track record for its lunar program has been far more reliable.

The Outer Space Treaty forbids both countries from claiming any territory, but possession is always nine-tenths of reality. Expect China to touch down first, and hold what it touches.

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Rocket Lab launches four commercial satellites

12:15 am

Electron 1st stage floating in the water

Rocket Lab today successuflly launched four satellites as part of a commercial constellation designed to track all objects in orbit, its Electron rocket lifting off from one of its two New Zealand launchpads.

The company also successfully recovered the first stage using a parachute system to slow it down for a soft splashdown in the Pacific where a ship picked it up. The image to the right is a screen capture shortly after the recovery ship reached the stage, which can be seen floating in the water on the left. As of posting the ship was in the process of pulling the stage from the water. Once completed, the stage will be returned to Rocket Lab’s rocket factory for refurbishment and tests to see if it can fly again.

The 2024 launch race:

10 SpaceX
6 China
2 Iran
1 India
1 ULA
1 Japan
1 Rocket Lab

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A plateau of friable rock on Mars

2:11 pm

A plateau of friable rock on Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 13, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The science team labels this “Friable Outcrops in Aeolis Dorsa.” What we are looking at is the northeasternmost tip of a 30-mile long plateau that marks the northern edge of Mars southern cratered highlands. For most of its length the top of that plateau is relatively smooth, broken by some vague surface features and a few scattered craters (suggesting it is relatively young). However, as you approach the plateau’s edges and especially that northeastern tip the surface begins to break up into the rough terrain shown to the right. It appears that the prevailing winds from the north are scouring the soft topsoil here and causing it to wear away, leaving behind those innumerable small ridges, almost all of which are oriented from north-to-south.

But why is the topsoil here soft and so easily scoured?
» Read more

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SpaceX launches Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus capsule to ISS

10:22 am

SpaceX today for the first time launched a Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo freighter to ISS, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage completed its 10th flight, landing back at Cape Canaveral. Cygnus will rendezvous with ISS in two days, where it will be berthed to the station using a robot arm. It will then stay docked for six months as astronauts unload about 8,200 pounds of cargo.

SpaceX was used as a launch provider because Northrop Grumman’s own rocket Antares is presently unavailable because the engines for the first stage as well as the stage itself were previously built by Russia and the Ukraine respectively, both of which the company cannot no longer buy due to the Ukraine War. SpaceX has a contract for three flights, with today’s launch the first. Firefly has a contract from Northrop Grumman to built a new first stage for Antares, with a first launch targeting mid-2025.

The launch was SpaceX’s 10th in January. With a goal of 150 launches in 2024, this puts the company slightly behind the pace required to meet that goal.

The 2024 launch race:

10 SpaceX
6 China
2 Iran
1 India
1 ULA
1 Japan

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India and France sign deal to partner selling flights on their rockets

9:21 am

India and France have apparently signed a deal to not compete in selling flights on their biggest rockets, but instead work together to keep prices under their control.

Under the terms of the MoU [memorandum of understanding], NSIL’s [the commercial space division of India’s government] heavy-lift launch vehicle, LVM-3, and Arianespace’s Ariane-6 will be at the forefront of this joint endeavor.

The article at the link provides no information at all about the specifics of this deal. I am simply guessing that is it designed to control prices, especially because France by itself does not own the Ariane-6 and thus can not award launch contracts for it. All it can do is convince India to not charge less for its comparable LVM rocket (a variation of its GSLV rocket). If so, it is a bad deal for India, which can easily undercut any price that Arianespace can charge for the expensive Ariane-6. It will drive business from India, since other companies (such as SpaceX, ULA, and hopefully Blue Origin in the near future) will be under no obligation to match Ariane-6’s high cost.

It is also possible that the deal is simply an empty political gesture, timed during the visit to India by France’s President Emmanuel Macron. Its vague language suggests this. It gives Macron a photo op, but as an MOU it leaves India under no long term obligation.

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The Pentagon picks Northrop Grumman’s orbital refueling port as its standard

9:05 am

Having reviewed the designs of several orbital refueling ports, the Space Force has chosen Northrop Grumman’s port as the standard it wishes future military satellites to use.

In a move that could shape the in-orbit satellite servicing market, the U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command designated Northrop Grumman’s Passive Refueling Module (PRM) as a favored interface to enable future in-space refueling of military satellites. The PRM has a docking mechanism to allow a refueling vehicle in orbit to transfer propellant to another satellite to extend its useful life.

Northrop Grumman said the Space Systems Command, which oversees in-space logistics and services programs, also will support the company’s development of an orbital fuel tanker for geosynchronous orbit missions that would carry up to 1,000 kilograms of hydrazine fuel and deliver it to client satellites on demand.

Lauren Smith, program manager for in-space refueling at Northrop Grumman, said the selection of the PRM was based on the maturity and technical viability of the design, as well as the company’s experience servicing satellites in orbit. Northrop Grumman’s SpaceLogistics subsidiary remains the only commercial firm to have successfully serviced satellites in geostationary orbit, having docked twice with client Intelsat satellites some 22,000 miles above Earth to extend spacecraft life.

Note that even though Northrop Grumman’s MEV spacecraft has twice docked with defunct Intelsat satellites to return them to service, the spacecraft did no refueling. Instead, it brought its own fuel and engine, and used that to control the satellite.

Other companies developing refueling services with ports they had hoped would become the standard include Astroscale and Orbit Fab. Both have launched demo missions, but neither has yet completed a refueling mission as well. Though this Space Force decision is not exclusive, and leaves open the possibility of further awards to these other commercial refueling port designs, it will likely force everyone to move towards the Northrop Grumman design.

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The internal structure of 19 galaxies, as seen in the infrared by Webb

9:48 am

The internal structure of 19 galaxies, as seen by Webb
Click for original image.

Scientists using the Webb Space Telescope today released false color infrared images of nineteen different spiral galaxies, each showing the complex internal structure that traces of spiral arms, but not always.

A compliation of those infrared images is to the right, reduced and sharpened to post here.

[Webb]’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) captured millions of stars in these images, which sparkle in blue tones. Some stars are spread throughout the spiral arms, but others are clumped tightly together in star clusters.

The telescope’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) data highlights glowing dust, showing us where it exists behind, around, and between stars. It also spotlights stars that have not yet fully formed – they are still encased in the gas and dust that feed their growth, like bright red seeds at the tips of dusty peaks. “These are where we can find the newest, most massive stars in the galaxies,” said Erik Rosolowsky, a professor of physics at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.

The data suggests, not unexpectedly, that the central parts of each galaxy are older, formed first, with starbirth occurring later in the outer regions. A lot of further analysis however will be required to understand all the patterns exhibited in these images and their larger significance in connection with galaxy formation.

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Communications with SLIM lunar lander re-established

9:29 am

According to Japan’s space agency JAXA, engineers last night successfully re-established communications with its SLIM lunar lander sitting up-side down on the Moon, the Sun finally shifting to the western sky so that its westward-facing solar panel could get light and provide power.

Communication with SLIM was successfully established last night, and operations resumed! Science observations were immediately started with the MBC, and we obtained first light for the 10-band observation.

One image was immediately downloaded. Engineers will attempt to initiate as many operations as possible in the next few days, before the Sun sets at the end of the month and the spacecraft shuts down again, likely forever.

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SpaceX completes two launches on Sunday

9:20 am

SpaceX yesterday successfully completed two Starlink satellite launches, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from opposite coasts.

First the company launched 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral in Florida, using a first stage flying its eighteenth time. That first stage landed successfully on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

Next less than five hours later the company launched another 22 Starlink satellites from Vandenberg in California, using a first first stage flying its ninth time. That first stage landed successfully on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The 2024 launch race:

9 SpaceX
6 China
2 Iran
1 India
1 ULA
1 Japan

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Another Chinese pseudo-company vertically lands a prototype 1st stage

11:52 am

According to China’s state-run press, the Chinese pseudo-company Expace yesterday successfully completed a short hop, with a methane-fueled prototype first stage of its next generation Kuaizhou rocket taking off and landing vertically.

The flight time lasted 22 seconds, and the rocket hovered in the air for nine seconds, with a height accuracy of 0.15 meter. The landing posture of the test rocket was stable, the landing position accurate and the rocket body in good condition, signifying the success of the experiment, according to the company.

Several things. First, this “company” is directly affliated with one of China’s government space agency. Its presently operating Kuaizhou rocket uses solid-fueled stages, adapted directly from missile technology that could only be obtained with full permission of that government. Second, there appears to be a plethora of these Chinese rocket “startups” now flying and testing methane-fueled engines. Want to bet the Chinese government told them all to share design information?

Third, there is also a plethora of Chinese pseudo-companies testing vertical take-off and landing for their first stages. Want to bet the Chinese government also told them to share design information?

Without question China’s space industry is moving fast, and will definitely be a competitive threat in the coming years — assuming outside events, such as war or economic collapse, don’t overwhelm things. However, it is a big mistake to see its industry as made up of independent, privately owned, and competing companies. They raise investment capital, compete for contracts from the government and other Chinese commercial entities, but in the end, everything they do is coordinated from above, by the Chinese communists.

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The future of astronomy, as seen by PBS News in 1991

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Today is the 75th anniversary of the moment astonomers took the lens cap off the Hale Telescope at Palomar, what astronomers call “first light.” In honor of this anniversary, tonight’s evening pause is a somewhat well-done news piece produced by PBS in 1991, describing the state of ground-based astronomy at that time, which was actually another key moment in the history of astronomy. After decades of no advancement following the Hale telescope, the field was about to burst out with a whole new set of telescopes exceeding it significantly, based on new technologies. We today have become accustomed to those new telescopes, but in 1991 they were still incomplete or on the drawing board.

This was also after the launch of Hubble but before it was fixed, so this moment was also a somewhat dark time for astronomy in general. Watching this news piece gives you a sense of history, as seen by those living at that time. It also lets you see some good examples of the standard tropes of reporters as well as some astronomers. They always say this new telescope (whatever and whenever it is) is going to allow us to discover the entire history of the universe, even though it never can, and never will.

Hat tip Mike Nelson.

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Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter photographs SLIM on the Moon

1:16 pm

LRO images showing before and after SLIM's landing
Click for blink animation.

Scientists using Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) were able on January 24, 2024 to obtain a photograph of the SLIM landing site on the Moon, and produce a before and after blink animation showing the lander on the ground.

The two pictures to the right, before and after, were taken from that animation. The bright speck in the after image is SLIM, sitting upside down on the surface. The faint streak of light material going from right to left lower in the photo comes from the fresh ejecta material thrown out from the nearby 1,425-foot-wide Shioli Crater to the west.

This picture confirms once again that SLIM achieved its main goal, landing precisely within a tiny landing zone only 300 feet across.

The landing occurred in the morning on the Moon, so the Sun was in the east. Because SLIM got flipped upside down just before touchdown, its one solar panel ended up facing west, where no sunlight could touch it. Based on the shadows in this picture, east is to the left, and west to the right. The solar panel is sitting in the shadow on SLIM’s right side.

In about a week the Sun will begin setting to the west, illuminating that panel. Engineers in Japan hope that at that time the panel will begin to recharge the spacecraft’s batteries, and it will then begin to operate again, if only a short while before the Sun sets and the very cold and hostile lunar night begins. There is little expectation of SLIM surviving that long two-week lunar night, even if it gets its batteries fully charged.

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Ingenuity’s final resting site on Mars

1:00 pm

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Ingenuity's damaged propeller
Click for orignal image.

The photo to the right was downloaded from Ingenuity today, and looks downward at the ground below the helicopter, showing the shadow of one of its propellers, with the damage at its tip indicated by the arrow.

It is this damage that forced NASA management to retire the helicopter yesterday. With the tip of one of Ingenuity’s two propellers damaged, the helicopter simply can no longer fly reliably, or at all.

The green dot on the map above shows Ingenuity’s final resting spot. The blue dot shows Perseverance’s present position. Perseverance will surely at some point approach Ingenuity closely to get better pictures of the damage to help engineers better figure out what happened and why. For example, did the propellor simply break during flight? And if so, why?

I freely admit that my optimistic speculations last week were wrong, that Ingenuity was merely having communications issues with Perseverance. I also suspect the Ingenuity engineers were hoping the same thing, and were far more disappointed than I to discover otherwise.

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Lucy’s upcoming travels leading to its exploration of the Trojan asteroids

10:16 am

Lucy's future route through the solar system
Click for original image.

The Lucy engineering team today issued an update, outlining the spacecraft’s upcoming fly-bys in 2024 that will carry it to its next asteroid rendezvouses, first with an asteroid in the main belt, and then with four Trojan asteroids orbiting in Jupiter’s orbit but 60 degress ahead.

The map to the right shows this route. The solid red/white line indicates Lucy’s travels in 2024.

In late January, Lucy will begin the series of two deep space maneuvers. On January 31, the spacecraft will briefly operate its main engines for the first time in space. After analyzing the spacecraft’s performance during that brief burn, the team will command the spacecraft to carry out a larger maneuver, nominally on February 3. Combined, these two maneuvers are designed to change the velocity of the spacecraft by around 2,000 mph (approximately 900 meters per second) and will consume roughly half of the spacecraft’s onboard fuel.

That first brief burn will not only test the engines, it will also tell engineers whether one of Lucy’s solar panels — still not fully deployed and latched properly — will not be disturbed by it. If not, they will proceed with the second burn.

After this it will zip past the Earth, which will slingshot it out to Jupiter orbit, passing one main belt asteroid along the way.

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Northrop Grumman writes off $100 million on its fixed-price Lunar Gateway contract

10:00 am

Northrop Grumman announced on January 25, 2024 that it has written off another $42 million on its fixed-price contract with NASA to build the main habitable module for its Lunar Gateway space station, bringing the total losses so far to $100 million.

The company blamed the latest charge primarily on “cost growth stemming from evolving Lunar Gateway architecture and mission requirements combined with macroeconomic challenges.” The company offered the same explanation when it reported the charge in the second quarter.

Northrop received a $935 million fixed-price contract from NASA in July 2021 to build the module, which is based on the company’s Cygnus cargo spacecraft. HALO will provide initial living accommodations on the Gateway and includes several docking ports for visiting Orion spacecraft and lunar landers as well as additional modules provided by international partners. It will launch together with the Maxar-built Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) on a Falcon Heavy.

In a fixed price contract NASA is not suppose to issue change orders. What must be happening is that either the company or NASA are recognizing there are some issues with the initial and then revised designs, forcing Northrop Grumman to issue its own change orders, delaying development and adding costs.

That the company is having problems however is a bit baffling. First, space station module design is not new. There is a history going back decades on how to do this. Second, Northrop is basing this module design on its already launched Cygnus freighters. Though unmanned, these freighters still have to be habitable after docking with ISS. It should not be so difficult to upgrade them.

Regardless, the company has now become hostile to bidding on any future fixed price contracts, or if it does, it will bid much higher (a decision that caused it to lose in another recent bidding contest). Hopefully this decision on fixed price contracts, similar to Boeing’s own decision, will not cause NASA to abandon such contracts. Just because these big, old-space companies can’t work efficiently doesn’t mean others can’t. Fixed-price is how every business in the real world must function. For most NASA projects such a deal is realistic. If these old companies can’t function practically let new companies bid instead. This will be better for NASA and the entire American space industry.

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