ESA – Page 18 – Behind The Black

ESA dithers, forming committee to study concept of building its own manned capsule

February 18, 2022 9:37 am Robert Zimmerman

My heart be still! The European Space Agency (ESA) has decided to create a committee to study the concept of building a European manned capsule so that it will no longer be dependent on either the U.S. or Russia to get its astronauts into space.

Aschbacher said a draft mandate for the new advisory group will be presented to ESA members at a March meeting of the ESA Council, with the goal for the group to start working immediately thereafter. The committee will prepare an interim report in time for the ministerial meeting in November, with a final report by next spring.

“It is clear that this group has to be independent and comprising mostly non-space experts,” he said, “because we really would like to look at various aspects of society from an economic point of view, a historical point of view, a geopolitical point of view.” That means including people such as artists and philosophers in the group to look at various aspects of exploration beyond science and technology. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted words illustrate the empty PR nature of this committee. It will not result in any European manned spacecraft at all. Instead, it will spend more than a year talking a lot about the wonders of space, and then produce a report repeating how wonderful space is and how Europe must be there.

The result? ESA will have wasted a year and not gotten itself one iota closer to having its own manned spacecraft.

If this hollow effort was the exception to the rule for Europe, there might be hope some political pressure could get the committee reformed and actually include engineers to develop a real design. That hope is in vain, however, because this is how Europe and ESA does everything. By the time ESA produces the first designs of this capsule, probably five to six years hence, it will be so out-of-date that building it would be a joke.

In a larger sense, this absurd committee and the top management at ESA and in the European Union that proposed it illustrate the overall bankruptcy of modern civilization’s entire management class. The people running governments worldwide are generally all do-nothing idiots, who talk a lot, waste a lot of money for their own aggrandizement, impose taxes and regulations on everyone else that makes the lives of ordinary people a misery, and fail in almost every project they undertake. We need only look at their panicked, dishonest, and failed global response to the Wuhan flu in the past two years for a prime example.

The official intellectual class that is running our governments worldwide are bankrupt. They need to be fired.

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ESA selects Ariane-6’s first payloads

February 11, 2022 9:05 am Robert Zimmerman

The European Space Agency (ESA), ArianeGroup, and Arianespace today announced the payloads that will fly on the first launch of its new Ariane-6 rocket.

The payloads are a variety of cubesats and science experiments, none heavier than 175 pounds with a total payload weight less than one ton. These secondary payloads will either be deployed from or kept attached to a dummy mass that will simulate a large primary satellite payload.

The press release makes no mention of a launch date, as has been the pattern in the last few Ariane-6 press releases. The last release to mention a launch date was in October 2020, which then predicted a launch in the second quarter of ’22. That this date is no longer being mentioned suggests the date has been pushed back, though for how long remains a mystery.

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Lockheed Martin wins NASA contract to build Mars rocket

February 8, 2022 9:11 am Robert Zimmerman

Capitalism in space: NASA yesterday awarded Lockheed Martin a $194 million contract to build the Mars rocket that will lift Perseverance’s samples into orbit for return to Earth.

Set to become the first rocket fired off another planet, the MAV [Mars Ascent Vehicle] is a crucial part of a campaign to retrieve samples collected by NASA’s Perseverance rover and deliver them to Earth for advanced study. NASA’s Sample Retrieval Lander, another important part of the campaign, would carry the MAV to Mars’ surface, landing near or in Jezero Crater to gather the samples cached by Perseverance. The samples would be returned to the lander, which would serve as the launch platform for the MAV. With the sample container secured, the MAV would then launch.

Once it reaches Mars orbit, the container would be captured by an ESA (European Space Agency) Earth Return Orbiter spacecraft outfitted with NASA’s Capture, Containment, and Return System payload. The spacecraft would bring the samples to Earth safely and securely in the early- to mid-2030s.

According to this project’s webpage, the European Space Agency (ESA) is building that they call a “fetch rover” which will be deployed from the rover to get the samples and bring them back to the MAV.

There are a lot of uncertainties in this scenario. It has been decades since Lockheed Martin built rockets. ESA has not yet built an operational Mars rover. It is also unclear who will build NASA’s lander and capture/return payload. Thus, do not expect this mission to launch “as early as ’26,” as the press release says. I predict it will launch at least five, maybe ever ten years, later.

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Webb telescope reaches launchpad on Ariane 5 + how to watch launch

December 24, 2021 9:14 am Robert Zimmerman

The James Webb Space Telescope, stacked on top of Arianespace’s Ariane 5 rocket, has finally reached its launchpad in French Guiana after twenty years of development costing 20 times its original budget.

The launch itself is now scheduled for December 25, 2021 at 7:20 am (Eastern). It will be live streamed by both NASA (in English) and Arianespace (with options in English, French, or Spanish).

I have embedded below NASA’s feed. As always, expect NASA to pump you with lots of propaganda during its live stream.

When all is said and done, Webb has the chance to show us things about the universe we’ve never seen before. Optimized for deep space cosmology, it will provide us a window into the earliest moments of the universe’s existence. And is infrared capabilities will allow it to peer into many nearer places obscured by dust with a resolution unmatched by previous telescopes.

Keep your fingers crossed all goes as planned.
» Read more

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ESA delays Webb launch one day due to weather

December 22, 2021 8:41 am Robert Zimmerman

The European Space Agency (ESA) announced late yesterday that, due to “adverse weather conditions” in French Guiana, it has delayed the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope on an Ariane 5 rocket one day to December 25th.

The announcement also stated that the final launch readiness review also approved the launch, though no update has yet been issued on the ground control communications problem that had caused a two day delay last week.

Meanwhile, this story and its headline encapsulates the terror I think many astronomers presently feel about this telescope:

Why Astronomers Are “Crying and Throwing Up Everywhere” Over the Upcoming Telescope Launch

The sense is one of helpless panic among astronomers who want to use Webb. They know it will do really cutting edge science, but they also know that many things can go wrong, and the history of the telescope (ten years late and 20x overbudget) will likely make replacing it impossible.

And many things can go wrong. Below is NASA’s video showing the telescope’s complex unfolding, step-by-step, after launch.
» Read more

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Webb launch confirmed for December 24, 2021

December 19, 2021 9:01 am Robert Zimmerman

Ten years late and twenty times over budget the European Space Agency (ESA) yesterday confirmed that the launch of NASA’s infrared James Webb Space Telescope is now scheduled for December 24, 2021.

The ESA announcement is only a couple of sentences long, and does not mention if engineers had solved the intermittent ground communications issue with the telescope. Further tweets from ESA and NASA also said nothing about the communication issue.

A final readiness review is set for December 21st where a final launch decision will be made.

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Scientists discover underground reservoir of hydrogen, likely ice, near Martian equator

December 16, 2021 8:58 am Robert Zimmerman

Click for full image.

In what could be a very significant discovery, scientists using Europe’s Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) have discovered a surprisingly large underground reservoir of hydrogen, likely ice, near Martian equator and inside the solar system’s largest known canyon, Valles Marineris.

The map to the right, reduced to post here, provides all the important data. From its caption:

The coloured scale at the bottom of the frame shows the amount of ‘water-equivalent hydrogen’ (WEH) by weight (wt%). As reflected on these scales, the purple contours in the centre of this figure show the most water-rich region. In the area marked with a ‘C’, up to 40% of the near-surface material appears to be composed of water (by weight). The area marked ‘C’ is about the size of the Netherlands and overlaps with the deep valleys of Candor Chaos, part of the canyon system considered promising in our hunt for water on Mars.

What the caption does not note is the latitude of this hydrogen, about 3 to 10 degrees south latitude. Assuming the hydrogen represents underground ice, this would be the first detection on Mars below 30 degrees latitude, and the very first in the equatorial regions. Data from orbit has suggested that Mars has a lot of water ice, found near the surface more and more as you move into higher latitudes above 30 degrees and making Mars much like Antarctica. Almost no ice however had until now been detected below 30 degrees latitude. As the European Space Agency’s press release noted,
» Read more

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Arianespace launches two Galileo GPS-type satellites

December 4, 2021 8:14 pm Robert Zimmerman

Capitalism in space: Using a Russian Soyuz-2 rocket, Arianespace successfully launched two Galileo GPS-type satellites from its spaceport in French Guiana tonight.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

45 China
27 SpaceX
20 Russia
6 Europe (Arianespace)

China still leads the U.S. 45 to 42 in the national rankings. This launch tonight was 116th successful launch in 2021, which is the most launches completed in a year since 1988. Based on the number of planned launched over the next three weeks, there is an outside chance that the global total will top 127, making this the second most active year ever in the history of space. Even if the numbers end up in the mid-120s, 2021 will be among the top eight years ever.

And I expect next year to easily top this year.

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Mars Express successfully relays data from Zhurong to Earth

December 2, 2021 10:21 am Robert Zimmerman

The European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter has successfully been used to relay data from China’s Zhurong Mars rover to Earth and then to China.

In November, ESA’s Mars Express and CNSA’s Zhurong teams carried out a series of experimental communication tests in which Mars Express used this ‘in the blind’ mode to listen for signals sent to it by the Zhurong Rover.

The experiments culminated in a successful test on 20 November. “Mars Express successfully received the signals sent by the rover, and our colleagues in the Zhurong team confirmed that all the data arrived on Earth in very good quality.” says ESA’s Gerhard Billig.

Apparently, normal communications would first involve “handshake” communications between the two, but that requires communications frequencies Zhurong does not use. Mars Express instead had to grab the data on the blind. The test was a success, which means the ESA will likely act as another communications relay for Zhurong, in addition to China’s Tianwen-1 orbiter, as the rover’s mission on Mars continues.

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Engineers: Webb undamaged by “incident”, ready for December 22nd launch

November 25, 2021 9:46 am Robert Zimmerman

Arianespace engineers have confirmed after testing that the James Webb Space Telescope was undamaged by “incident” that occurred during stacking, and have okayed the resumption of the telescope’s preparation for launch.

On Wednesday, Nov. 24, engineering teams completed these tests, and a NASA-led anomaly review board concluded no observatory components were damaged in the incident. A “consent to fuel” review was held, and NASA gave approval to begin fueling the observatory. Fueling operations will begin Thursday, Nov. 25, and will take about 10 days.

The launch is now set for December 22nd.

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Europe’s Solar Orbiter to make last flyby of Earth

November 18, 2021 8:51 am Robert Zimmerman

Solar Orbiter, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) probe to work in tandem with NASA Parker Solar Probe in studying the inner regions surrounding the Sun, will make last flyby of Earth on November 27, 2021, thus putting it into its planned science orbit.

While the press release gives a good overview of the mission, it focuses on the risk during that fly-by of the spacecraft hitting something during its close approach.

Solar Orbiter’s Earth flyby takes place on 27 November. At 04:30 GMT (05:30 CET) on that day, the spacecraft will be at its closest approach, just 460 km above North Africa and the Canary Islands. This is almost as close as the orbit of the International Space Station.

The manoeuvre is essential to decrease the energy of the spacecraft and line it up for its next close pass of the Sun but it comes with a risk. The spacecraft must pass through two orbital regions, each of which is populated with space debris.

The first is the geostationary ring of satellites at 36 000 km, and the second is the collection of low Earth orbits at around 400 km. As a result, there is a small risk of a collision. Solar Orbiter’s operations team are monitoring the situation very closely and will alter the spacecraft’s trajectory if it appears to be in any danger.

While there is a risk, it seems to me that ESA is taking advantage of the recent news outburst in connection with the Russian anti-sat test and the space junk it created to sell this mission. The risk of impact during this fly-by is very low, especially in the geostationary ring.

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