Pakistan creating a national space policy

Pakistan, as a signatory to the Outer Space Treaty, is finally creating a national space policy as the treaty requires.

That policy however is not yet finalized, nor has it been published. The only information at the link states this:

Under the policy, a National Space Agency would be established in the country and satellite service providers who intend to provide satellite services in the country would be required to register themselves and obtain a non-objection certificate (NOC), sources added.

Bottom line: The government of Pakistan will retain full control over any future industry proposal.

Americans might finally be noticing the depravity in academia that has existed for more than two decades

Rick, stating the truth in Casablanca
Has the bankrupt testimony of three college
presidents finally awakened ordinary Americans?

For more than two decades conservatives have been reporting the growing immoral and depraved culture on the campuses of America’s most prestigious colleges, all to no avail.

These colleges instituted bigoted and racist policies of hiring, admissions, and funding that favored some races over others, so much so that today there are so few conservatives on their campuses that debate is impossible. The right has documented this repeatedly. Nothing was done.

These colleges worked to censor and silence the few conservatives that remained or came to speak as a guest, sometimes even allowing riots by leftist students to make sure such speech was prevented. The right has documented this repeatedly. Nothing was done.

These colleges further acted to remove and fire anyone, whether they were conservatives or not, who dared criticize any of the above actions. Often the terminations were done with no due process, and in direct violation of law and the colleges’ own rules. The right has documented this repeatedly. Nothing was done.

These colleges have steadily reshaped their curriculums so as to indoctrinate students into Marxism, “safe spaces”, and close-mindedness, instead of teaching the values of Western Civilization, liberty, the rule of law, personal responsibility, and most important, the requirement that an educated adult must be able to think critically. Students now come out of these colleges hostile to any debate, their minds closed to thinking because such thinking makes them uncomfortable.

The right has documented this repeatedly. Nothing was done.

As was the case in the early years of World War II, before the attack of Pearl Harbor (which occurred 82 years ago today), Americans were asleep. Then, Americans didn’t want to face the evil that was growing in Europe and threatened to engulf the world in war, and inevitably did so. Now, Americans have done everything they could to avoid facing the evil that has been growing in their own backyard. The result is the chaos we see today, with a younger generation that ignorantly believes America is the root of all evil, and that the best policies for the future should be censorship, socialism, and racial discrimination.

The situation has gotten desperate, and threatens to engulf us in another world war, potentially far more deadly than World War II. Worse, that war will be fought here, in America, from the start, because the enemies of Western Civilization have been deeply impregnated in our society by these corrupt colleges.

And as happened on December 7, 1941 when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, it appears that something has finally happened that has at last maybe wakened Americans up. Our Pearl Harbor today might simply be the bankrupt clueless testimony of three college presidents in front of Congress on December 5, 2023.

First everyone must listen to the most revealing moments of that testimony. If you haven’t seen the video below, you need to watch it now. And if you have already seen it, watch it again. It is short, and quickly illustrates the moral depravity of the leadership at three of America’s most elite colleges, Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania.
» Read more

December 6, 2023 Quick space links

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

 

Another example of the inability of Democrats to condemn bigotry

House vote condemning anti-Semitism
Final totals of House vote condemning anti-Semitism.
Click for source.

This column today might sound familiar, as I have reported similar examples numerous times before (See previous essays here, here, here, here, and here). Yet, it is important to document the inability of the modern Democratic Party to unequivocally condemn bigotry, because so much of its base and membership are actually are in favor of such things.

Yesterday the House passed a resolution condemning the horrible rise of anti-Semitism seen nationwide and globally, mostly expressed during pro-Hamas demonstrations that have often descended into violence and calls for the murder of all Jews in Israel.

The resolution [pdf] is quite clear. After listing numerous examples of harrassment and violence against Jews in the U.S., Australia, Israel, and globally, it condemned such behavior, and made it clear that the term “anti-Zionism” is simply a euphemism for anti-Semitism.

The final vote totals are shown in the screen capture to the right, taken from C-SPAN. As you can see, except for one nay vote and four not voting at all, the entire Republican caucus voted in favor of this resolution.

The Democrats however were not so unanimous. While a little less than half of the Democrats in the House voted in support of this amazingly simple resolution, half voted “present”, following the instructions of Congressemen Jerry Nadler (D-New York), Dan Goldman (D-New York), and Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) (all members of the Democratic Party House leadership). These Congressmen opposed the resolution because it is…
» Read more

Iran and China complete orbital launches

Iran's launch December 6, 2023
Iran’s Salman rocket lifting off today.
The launch site itself was not disclosed.

According to the official state-run press of each country, both Iran and China yesterday completed successfully launches, both of which appeared to test new capabilities of some note.

First Iran announced that it had used its Salman rocket to put a 500-kilogram capsule that it said was carrying biological samples, and was also “has the ability to carry a human,” though the mass of this capsule makes that highly unlikely. Little other information was provided. Nor has this orbital launch as yet been confirmed by the orbital monitoring services of the U.S. military. The image to the right is a screen capture from the launch video at the link, and appears to show that this rocket has only one stage, thus making an orbital launch impossible.

Assuming this orbital launch is confirmed, it was Iran’s second orbital launch in 2023 and will therefore not show up on the launch race leader board below. If further information is obtained I will update this post appropriately.

China in turn announced the successful launch today of a test satellite, using its new Smart Dragon-3 solid-fueled rocket lifting off from a barge in the South China Sea 1,300 nautical miles off the coast of Guangdong province, where Hong Kong is located. To arrive at this ocean launch location took five days. The launch thus tested the use of this mobile floating platform from remote ocean locations.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

89 SpaceX
56 China
16 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise still leads China in successful launches, 101 to 56, and the entire world combined 101 to 90. SpaceX by itself now trails the rest of the world (excluding other American companies) 89 to 90, though it has another launch planned for tonight, with the live stream here.

Pushback: Macy’s sued for its illegal discriminatory hiring policies

Banned at Macy's
Banned at Macy’s

Bring a gun to a knife fight: The pro-bono non-profit legal firm America’s First Legal (AFL) has filed a federal civil rights complaint against Macy’s for its blatantly illegal diversity and inclusion policies that required hiring quotas bases solely on race.

You can read the complaint here [pdf]. AFL’s letter to Macy’s announcing the complaint is here [pdf]. As noted in AFL’s press release:

In a 2019 press release entitled “Bold Vision To Advance Diversity and Inclusion and Ensure The Company Reflects The Diversity Of The Customers and Communities Served,” Macy’s details its five-point plan with specific directives focused on achieving greater diversity for all aspects of the company’s business model.

The plan explicitly instructs Macy’s management to “[a]chieve more ethnic diversity by 2025 at senior director level and above, with a goal of 30 percent,” as well as to initiate a “12-month program designed to strengthen leadership skills for a selected group of top-talent managers and directors of Black/African-American, Hispanic-Latinx, Native American and Asian descent.” Quotas such as these are patently illegal under the law.

The language of that release is quite appalling. » Read more

Stratolaunch completes first test captive carry flight with powered Talon hypersonic vehicle

Test engineering vehicle attached below Roc
Test engineering vehicle attached to Roc during
a flight in October 2022

Stratolaunch has successfully completed the first test captive carry flight with its prototype Talon hypersonic vehicle fueled and powered, carried by its giant Roc airplane.

The flight was the twelfth for the company’s launch platform Roc and the first in which the aircraft carried a Talon vehicle with live propellant as part of a buildup approach for Talon-A’s first powered flight.

The flight lasted a total of three hours and 22 minutes and represented a significant step forward in the company’s near-term goal of completing a powered flight with the Talon-A vehicle, TA-1. A primary objective was to evaluate Talon-A’s propulsion system and the Talon environments while carrying live propellant. A second objective was to verify Roc and TA-1’s telemetry systems, which provides the situational awareness to ensure all systems are ready for powered flight during the release sequence.

The company has two contracts to do hypersonic test flights using flightworthy Talon vehicles, one with the Air Force and the second with the Navy. It is not clear however when those flights will occur.

China launches two satellites

The Chinese pseudo-company Galactic Energy today successfully launched two satellites, its Ceres-1 rocket lifting off from China’s Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China.

China’s own state-run press illustrates how pseudo this company is by not even mentioning its name in its reporting. It mentions the launch was “commercial,” but that’s as far as it goes. China’s press knows the government runs and owns this company, and only allows it the superficial appearance of a private company to enhance competition within its space industry.

No word on where the rocket’s lower solid-fueled stages crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

89 SpaceX
55 China
16 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise still leads China in successful launches, 101 to 55, and the entire world combined 101 to 88. SpaceX by itself still maintains its lead over the entire world (excluding other American companies) 89 to 88.

Cowardice and fear from Western leaders; Courage and determination from Israel and its Arab allies

The model presently used by all leaders in the free world
The model presently used by today’s leaders
in the free world

If you wish to understand why the Middle East in general has had relatively few pro-Hama demonstrations — even in the Arab territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank — while the western nations have been largely engulfed by them — some of which have been violent and bluntly anti-Semitic by actually advocating the genocide of all Jews — you need only listen to the leaders of these countries, because those leaders reflect their populations and their overall attitude to the murder, rape, and beheading of innocent civilians, including children, by Hamas on October 7th.

In Israel Benjamin Netayahu made it once again very clear his country’s determination to eliminate Hamas and its terrorist cell in Gaza in a speech to his nation on December 2nd.

I state clearly and unequivocally: We will continue the war until we achieve all of its goals and it is impossible to achieve these goals without continuing the ground incursion. The ground incursion was essential in order to bring about the results up to now, and it is necessary to bring about future results.

I tell our friends around the world, you share our goal of eliminating Hamas and releasing our hostages; therefore, I also emphasize to them that there is no way of achieving these goals except by victory, and there is no way to achieve victory except by continuing the ground incursion. The IDF and the security forces are doing this with determination, strength and while upholding international law.

The second paragraph above was very specifically but carefully aimed at the leaders of Israel’s allies in the west, who from day one of this conflict have repeatedly waffled in their support, constantly looking for a way to stop Israel’s effort, to appease Hamas, and to make believe that an early end to this fighting, with Hamas still intact and in control of Gaza, will somehow bring peace. French President Emmanuel Macron illustrated their weaselly cowardice quite well during a press conference that same day:
» Read more

Italian subcontractor for Arianespace misplaces two rocket tanks

This story is hard to believe but true: The Italian company Avio, one of the subcontractors for Arianespace that builds its smaller rockets Vega and Vega-C, apparently misplaced two rocket tanks that were to be used on the Vega rocket’s last launch, thus preventing that launch entirely.

The two propellant tanks that went missing were housed in an Avio production department in Colleferro that had undergone renovation work. At some point following the completion of the renovations, the two tanks were found to be missing.

According to the initial source, the tanks had not been entered into a company-wide asset management system that tracked the location of all vital Avio components. This ensured that the teams tasked with investigating the disappearance had very little to go on when beginning their search for the missing tanks.

Despite the futility of the search, the tanks were eventually found. This was, however, not the good news Avio had hoped for. The tanks are, unfortunately, not in a usable state. They had been crushed and were found alongside metal scraps in a landfill.

The tanks power Vega’s fourth stage that deploys satellites in orbit. They were to be used on the final flight of Vega, which has been delayed repeatedly for unexplained reasons. We now know the reason.

Because this was the final flight, however, the tanks cannot be replaced because the Vega production line has been shut down. The company is considering using two of the four qualification tanks first built more than a decade ago when Vega was first being tested, but those were test tanks and have been sitting unused for as long. It will be difficult to determine their reliability.

Europe’s government-run rocket program thus at present has no rocket capable of launching. Its Ariane-5 is retired. Its Vega cannot launch. Its Vega-C, which replaces the Vega, remains grounded due to a launch failure in December 2022, with the next launch expected no earlier than late in 2024. And its new Ariane-6 rocket won’t do its first launch until the summer of 2024, at the earliest.

South Korea successfully test launches a new solid-fueled rocket

South Korea today successfully launched a new solid-fueled rocket on its third test launch and first orbital flight.

The space launch vehicle was launched from a barge floating in waters about 4 kilometers south of Jeju Island at 2 p.m. and placed a small Earth observation satellite into orbit at an altitude of about 650 km, the ministry said.

The 100-kilogram synthetic aperture radar satellite, made by Hanwha Systems, succeeded in sending signals to a ground station at 3:45 p.m., which means it is operating normally, the company said. The rocket is designed to put a small satellite into a low Earth orbit for surveillance operations.

This four-stage rocket uses solid fuel for its first three stages and liquid fuel for the final stage. That it launched from a barge is as significant, as having this ability gives South Korea an added launch flexibility.

This was South Korea’s second launch in 2023, so the leader board for the 2023 launch race remains unchanged:

89 SpaceX
54 China
16 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise still leads China in successful launches, 101 to 54, and the entire world combined 101 to 87. SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world (excluding other American companies) 89 to 87.

China launches Egyptian Earth observation satellite

China successfully launched an Egyptian Earth observation satellite on December 4, 2023, its Long March 2C rocket lifting off from its Jiquan spaceport in northwestern China.

The satellite was built in Egypt with Chinese assistence, and is designed to study water and land resources for Egypt.

No word on where the rocket’s lower stages, which use toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed within China.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

89 SpaceX
54 China
16 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise still leads China in successful launches, 101 to 54, and the entire world combined 101 to 86. SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world (excluding other American companies) 89 to 86.

Boeing dropped from competition for Air Force “doomsday” plane

It appears that by mutual agreement the Air Force has eliminated Boeing in the competition to build a new replacement for the E-4B Nightwatch, what the military calls its “doomsday” airplane, designed to survive a nuclear war.

Sources told Reuters that Boeing – the incumbent manufacturer of the E-4B Nightwatch – could not agree with the USAF on data rights and contract terms for the replacement plane that began flying in the 1970s. In other words, the planemaker did not want to sign a fixed-price agreement.

…”Rest assured, we haven’t signed any fixed-price development contracts nor (do we) intend to,” Brian West, Boeing’s chief financial officer, told investors in October.

With Boeing out of the competition, Sierra Nevada (the parent company of Sierra Space) is left as the only bidder. It is also quite willing to operate under a fixed price contract.

As I noted in a comment thread after a reader first posted a link to this story,

Boeing is signing its own death warrant. The entire federal defense and space agencies are steadily switching to fixed-price, and will simply go to others if Boeing refuses to accept those terms.

In fact, those agencies will want to go to others, because Boeing is making it clear it can’t meet its contractual obligations.

This decision also tells us a great deal about Boeing as a company. Its inability to fulfill any contract under a fixed price means it no longer has the discipline to do anything right. It seems buying products from it at this point might be a very foolish proposition.

Angola signs Artemis Accords, becoming the 33rd nation to join the alliance

Angola today officially signed the Artemis Accords, becoming the 33rd nation to join this space alliance conceived during the Trump administration as a way to get around the limitations of the Outer Space Treaty.

The full list of signatories is as follows: Angola, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Columbia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Germany, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, and the United States.

The competing alliance of communist nations, led by China, includes only Russia, Venezuala, Pakistan, Belarus, Azerbaijan, and South Africa. That former deep Soviet bloc nations like Bulgaria and Romania, as well as previously very Marxist Angola, went with the west rather than China illustrates the international distrust of China and its authoritarian methods.

As bilateral agreements between the U.S. and each nation. the accords were designed to create for the U.S. a strong political alliance focused on protecting private property and capitalism in space, something the Outer Space Treaty essentially forbids. As I think it was conceived, the plan had been to use this alliance to eventually either force changes to the Outer Space Treaty, or abandon it entirely. Whether that plan will continue under Biden is unclear, and in fact there have been indications it will not.

These trends could all change should a different president take over after 2024.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay for cluing me in to this story.

GAO: First Artemis manned landing likely delayed to 2027

A new GAO report says that the first Artemis manned landing on the Moon is almost certainly not happen in 2025 as NASA presently wants, but will probably be delayed to 2027.

You can read the report here [pdf]. It clearly references the delays experienced by SpaceX due to regulatory roadblocks, but couches its language carefully so as to lay no blame on the government for those delays, placing the problem entirely on SpaceX instead.

In April 2023, after a 7-month delay, SpaceX achieved liftoff of the combined commercial Starship variant and Super Heavy booster during the Orbital Flight Test. But, according to SpaceX representatives, the flight test was not fully completed due to a fire inside the booster, which ultimately led to a loss of control of the vehicle. Following the launch, the Federal Aviation Administration—which issues commercial launch and reentry licenses—classified the commercial Starship launch as a mishap and required SpaceX to conduct a mishap investigation. The Federal Aviation Administration reviewed the August 2023 mishap report submitted by SpaceX and, as a result, cited 63 corrective actions for SpaceX to implement before a second test.

SpaceX had planned this demonstration as the first test flight of the booster stage, as well as the first test with the Starship riding on the booster and the whole system experiencing stage separation. However, SpaceX representatives said their Autonomous Flight Safety System initiated the vehicle self-destruct sequence and the vehicle began to break up about 4 minutes into the flight after the vehicle deviated from the expected trajectory, lost altitude, and began to tumble. HLS [Human Landing System] officials said that while the flight test was terminated early, it still provided data for several Starship technologies, including propellant loading, launch operations, avionics, and propulsion behavior.

GAO graphic

Note how this language makes it seem like the launch was a failure, when in fact SpaceX never expected it to reach orbit and instead intended to use the problems that occurred during this engineering test launch to find out what engineering designs needed to be reworked.

This language illustrates the fundamental dishonesties that routinely permeate government actions. The funniest and most absurd example of this intellectual dishonesty however has to be the graphic posted to the right, taken from the GAO report. The graphic gives the false impression that Orion and Lunar Gateway are far larger than Starship, when in fact, several of both could easily fit inside Starship’s planned cargo bay. In fact, when Starship finally docks with Lunar Gateway the size difference is going to make NASA’s effort here seem very picayune. Apparently, the GAO (or possibly NASA) decided it needed to hide this reality.

The real problem NASA’s Artemis program faces is red tape coming from the FAA and Fish & Wildlife. The GAO fails to note this fact, which makes its report far less helpful than it could have been.

Sutherland spaceport reconfigures design in effort to satisfy environmental concerns

Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea
Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea.

The Sutherland spaceport being built in the north of Scotland has announced plans to shrink its size in order to satisfy environmental concerns, likely raised by the many bureaucrats in the United Kingdom that have to approve its spaceport license.

Orbex is now consulting with the local community on proposed changes, including a smaller launch pad, to better protect the surrounding environment. There will also be smaller access roads, and the size of the integration facility, where rockets are assembled before launch, is to be reduced.

The company said: “These changes will make the building footprint smaller, leading to a reduction in peat disturbance and a lower impact on the groundwater ecosystem. The visual impact of the site will also be reduced, and there will be less disturbance to local watercourse crossings, with mammal migration paths widened to better preserve the natural environment.

Orbex has signed a 50-year lease to use this spaceport, and has been building its Prime rocket in a facility nearby. It had hoped to complete a first launch in 2023, but that is clearly not going to happen. It had applied for a launch license in February 2022, but apparently the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) in the United Kingdom has still not issued it, almost two years later.

Much of the environmental opposition to the Sutherland spaceport was initially instigated by a billionaire who had invested in the competing Saxavord spaceport on the Shetland Islands. Though his lawsuit was dismissed in August 2021, this does not mean that the opposition by him and others has ceased.

Overall, it appears that like at Saxavord in Shetland, work at Sutherland has significantly slowed in recent months. It appears both are being blocked for regulatory reasons, delays that once again provide an opportunity for the spaceports being developed in Norway and Sweden.

Intelsat partnering with both Starlink and OneWeb

The satellite communications company Intelsat has begun partnering with both Starlink and OneWeb to provide service to its customers using satellites from its own constellation as well as the constellations of these competiting companies.

Intelsat is producing a new flat panel antenna that enables moving vehicles to use broadband services from the company’s geostationary satellites and from SpaceX’s Starlink network in low Earth orbit. The phased array electronically steered antenna was installed on the roof of a sports utility vehicle for demonstrations at an Intelsat investor day event Nov. 30.

This antenna is designed to be rugged enough for military use, thus targeting the prime customer Intelsat is aiming at. It also hopes to make a deal to use Amazon’s Kuiper constellation in the same way, once that constellation is launched.

The company also has a deal with OneWeb to use a combination of their satellites to provide broadband services during commercial airline flights.

Ursa Major raises $138 million in private investment capital

The rocket engine startup Ursa Major has successfully raised an additional $138 million in private investment capital in an extended round of fund-raising.

Rocket propulsion startup Ursa Major announced Nov. 30 it has raised $138 million in Series D and D-1 funding rounds. Investors include Explorer 1 Fund and Eclipse, RTX Ventures, funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, Exor Ventures, Mack & Co., XN and other institutional shareholders.

Based in Berthoud, Colorado, Ursa Major manufactures liquid engines for small space launchers and hypersonic vehicles, and recently announced plans to expand into solid rocket motors. An initial Series D round was completed earlier this year. But Ursa Major said it extended fundraising to include a Series D-1 round “due to strong interest in accelerating development on several future programs.”

The company’s decision to enter the solid rocket motor market was apparently greeted with enthusiasm by investors. The biggest user of these motors is the U.S. military, and it desperately needs more provides to refresh its stockpile, since so much of that stockpile has been shipped to the Ukraine.

Russia launches Progress to ISS

Russia early this morning successfully launched a Progress freighter to ISS, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from Baikonur in Kazakhstan.

The rocket’s core stage, strap-on boosters, and second stage crashed in the standard drop zones the Russians have used since the launch of Sputnik in 1957. It is unclear how close to inhabited areas any of these are.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

87 SpaceX
53 China
16 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise still leads China in successful launches, 99 to 53, and the entire world combined 99 to 85. SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world (excluding other American companies) 87 to 85.

SpaceX however has two launches scheduled for today, one at Vandenberg at 10:04 am (Pacific) and the second at Cape Canaveral at 11 pm (Eastern). The links go to the live streams.

ESA admits Ariane-6 will not fly until the summer of 2024

The European Space Agency today announced that the first launch of its new Ariane-6 rocket will not take place in the first quarter of 2024 and is now targeting a summer launch instead.

At a Nov. 30 briefing, ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher announced a launch period for the inaugural Ariane 6 flight of June 15 through July 31. A more precise launch date will be provided after qualification reviews in the spring of 2024. The announcement comes after a Nov. 23 long-duration test firing of a model of the core stage of the Ariane 6. That test, conducted on the launch pad at Kourou, French Guiana, was intended to simulate a full burn by the core stage.

The delay is not significant by itself, but in the large scheme of things it continues for another few months Europe’s lack of any large rockets to launch any payloads. The original plan when the Ariane-6 project was announced in the mid-2010s was for it to begin flights in 2020 with a several year overlap as the Ariane-5 was retired around 2023. As planned, the last launch of Ariane-5 occurred this summer, but Ariane-6 is now four years behind schedule.

At the moment the rocket has one more major test required, an upper stage static fire test scheduled for December. That test must go well for this new schedule to go forward, which will include a second Ariane-6 launch in 2024 followed by “as many flights as possible” in 2025. ESA hopes to do 9 to 10 Ariane-6 launches per year, most to fulfill the contract of 18 launches with Amazon to put some of its Kuiper satellite constellation into orbit.

House committee passes its new commercial space act on partisan vote

By a party-line vote of 21-17, the Republicans on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee yesterday passed the proposed new commercial space act that had been earlier formulated with industry input and approval, rejecting the alternative proposal that the White House had suddenly dropped on them two weeks ago.

The head of the committee, Frank Lucas (R-Oklahoma), outlined the problems with the White House proposal.

For Lucas, the Space Council’s proposal is a “needless expansion of government authority.” Instead of consolidating new regulatory authority at the Department of Commerce as proposed in H.R. 6131, the White House would assign some activities there and others to the FAA. “Whereas our bill creates a one-stop shop to the extent possible, under this proposal, organizations would be forced to get multiple licenses from multiple cabinet-level departments.” Along with other objectionable provisions, he concluded that “instead of streamlining already convoluted processes, the Space Council is adding to bureaucracy and stifling innovation.”

That White House proposal was also opposed by the industry, which saw it as a power grab that would stifle the industry.

Whether this bill will become law remains to be seen. The full House still has to vote on it, and then the Senate, and then Joe Biden has to be wheeled into his office, a pen handed to him, and someone must guide that hand to sign the bill. Considering that the White House staff opposes the bill, it might refuse to do this latter guiding. Similarly, the Democratic Party’s eagerness to expand regulation and the power of the federal government means that in the Senate it will likely oppose this bill as well.

Hubble in safe mode due to gyroscope problem

One of the three working gyroscopes (three have already failed0 on the Hubble Space Telescope experienced repeated problems in mid-November, and has now put the telescope in safe mode while engineers trouble-shoot the problem.

Hubble first went into safe mode Nov. 19. Although the operations team successfully recovered the spacecraft to resume observations the following day, the unstable gyro caused the observatory to suspend science operations once again Nov. 21. Following a successful recovery, Hubble entered safe mode again Nov. 23.

The team is now running tests to characterize the issue and develop solutions. If necessary, the spacecraft can be re-configured to operate with only one gyro. The spacecraft had six new gyros installed during the fifth and final space shuttle servicing mission in 2009. To date, three of those gyros remain operational, including the gyro currently experiencing fluctuations. Hubble uses three gyros to maximize efficiency, but could continue to make science observations with only one gyro if required.

The long term plan when the telescope only has two working gyros, assuming no improvised maintenance mission is flown to Hubble to give it new gyroscopes, is to work with only one (treating the second as a back-up) in order to extend the telescope’s life as long as possible.

And though it is true that Hubble could continue to do science with only one gyro, images from that point will likely not be as sharp, and thus will end more than three decades of imagery that changed our perception of the universe.

The Chinese 2-meter Xuntian optical space telescope, now scheduled for launch in 2025, will likely then replace Hubble as the world’s top optical telescope. American astronomers better start learning Chinese, assuming China even allows them access. They will not have a right to complain, however, as it was their decision to not build a Hubble replacement, in their 2000, 2010, and 2020 decadal reports.

Blacklisting is no longer enough, now the goal is justifying mass murder

Rick, stating the truth in Casablanca
When will Americans finally wake up?

It seems the rising effort of many — mostly on the left but not entirely — to blackball and censor their opponents in the past decade is no longer satisfied with these ugly goals.

Now it seems the goal is to justify mass murder and the rape and torture of women and children. We can see this by what happened during a city council event in Oakland, California yesterday. When one Jewish council member, Dan Kalb, attempted to add language condemning Hamas to a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, he was greeted by boos and an unrelenting stream of locals not only opposing his amendment but denying that the mass murder by Hamas had even occurred, that it was instead committed by Israeli troops, and that anyone who dared disagree with them was a “white supremacist.”

The video below provides a quick selection of this hate and ignorance:
» Read more

Japan’s space agency JAXA was hacked this summer

According to officials of Japan’s space agency JAXA, its computer system was hacked this summer but only learned of that break-in recently.

The illegal access is believed to have occurred around summer, but JAXA was unaware of the attack until the police contacted the agency, according to the sources. A full investigation was launched after JAXA reported the cyber-attack to the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry, which has jurisdiction over the agency.

Although no large-scale information leakage has been confirmed at this stage, an official related to JAXA said: “As long as the AD server was hacked, it was very likely that most of the information was visible. This is a very serious situation.”

Earlier hacks to JAXA’s systems have also occurred in 2016 and 2017, with the culprits identified as working under the direction of the Chinese military. It is very likely that China is involved this time as well. China has previously been identified as the perpetrator of hacks of JPL from 2009 to 2019, during which much of JPL’s files on its planetary missions was stolen. It was thus no surprise when later Chinese planetary missions looked like upgraded copycats of those missions.

Why China is attempting to steal anything from Japan’s space program is puzzling however, considering its recent failures. If anything, China’s space program is presently far more advanced than Japan’s, and it should be Japan trying to steal from China.

NASA to fly Indian astronaut to ISS next year

During meetings in India between NASA and ISRO officials, instigated by administrator Bill Nelson’s visit this week, the mission details for the flight of an Indian astronaut to ISS in 2024 are now being worked out.

A Nasa delegation led by Nelson held a meeting with minister of state for science & technology Jitendra Singh on Tuesday. “I had a discussion with the minister on what the Indian astronaut would do on the space station. And the two of us talked about the fact that things that are important to India in scientific research, the Indian astronaut ought to have that as a choice to do. If there is a particular part of research that he or she would be interested in, then I want to encourage that,” Nelson later said at a media interaction. “Nasa will help train the Indian astronaut to fly to ISS by end of 2024. Those details are being worked out. Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) will announce that,” Nelson said.

Though this plan for NASA to fly Indian astronaut to ISS next year was first announced in June, it was overshadowed by India’s decision at that time to sign the Artemis Accords.

It is also important to recognize that the real arrangements are all being done by others, that Nelson and the India government officials are merely there to get their faces on television.

If this flight happens as planned, next year could be very exciting for India’s manned space program, since it also hopes to fly its own manned mission at that time.

Dragonfly mission to Titan delayed by a year because of budget shortfalls

Even as NASA gave engineers approval to move forward on building the helicopter set to fly on the Dragonfly mission to the Saturn moon Titan, it also revealed that the mission’s launch has been delayed by at least one year because of budget shortfalls.

In a presentation at a Nov. 28 meeting of NASA’s Outer Planets Assessment Group (OPAG), Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s planetary science division, said agency leadership decided to postpone formal confirmation of the mission earlier this month, a milestone where the agency sets an official cost and schedule for the mission.

The delay in confirmation by NASA’s Agency Program Management Council (APMC), she said, is based on uncertainty about how much money will be available for the mission and other parts of NASA’s planetary science portfolio given broader budget pressures on the agency. “Because of these incredibly large uncertainties in FY ’24 and FY ’25 funding and budgets, the decision was made at that APMC to postpone the official confirmation,” she said.

The launch had been scheduled for 2027. When it will launch now is unclear.

Apparently (and not surprising since this is a NASA project) the mission is beginning to cost more than originally predicted. Furthermore, this shortfall is enhanced by the cost overruns from the Mars Sample Return mission. In fact, it appears that these cost overruns are impacting NASA’s entire planetary program, causing delays on many smaller missions in order to fund Mars Sample Return and the Europa Clipper mission (set to launch next year). Just as Webb wiped out most of NASA’s astrophysics missions in the 2000s and 2010s, this handful of big planetary missions is wiping out most of NASA’s planetary program.

The announced delay is also a typical NASA’s negotiating tactic with Congress, trying to pressure elected officials to cough up more money. For decades NASA would announce the need for crippling cuts to major and popular science projects unless Congress allocates it more cash for its most expensive projects, and for decades Congress has gladly done so. No one ever asks whether those expensive projects might be better off redesigned, or cancelled.

Space industry expresses opposition to White House regulatory proposal

Not surprisingly, the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF), the industry group that represents pretty much the entire new commercial space business, has sent a letter to both the House and Senate expressing strong opposition to the November 15th White House regulatory proposal that would impose heavy regulation on both launches and the construction of any private facility in space.

“We oppose the recently released National Space Council (NSPC) proposal on the topic in its current form, which fails to consider the points that CSF and many other stakeholders raised during the NSPC listening sessions last year,” CSF said in its letter to Congress.

The organization raised several concerns, including how responsibilities would be split between the two departments and the potential for “duplicative and conflicting” requirements between Commerce and Transportation. “For some operations, it is unclear which agency would hold the authority to issue a relevant license, or if multiple licenses would be needed,” it stated.

The group is concerned about giving additional responsibilities to the FAA’s commercial space transportation office without also significantly increasing its budget, noting that the office is struggling to keep up with its current launch and reentry licensing. At an October hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee, industry officials recommended increasing that office’s budget to handle launch licensing work, without any discussion of it taking on additional responsibilities.

CSF was also worried that the proposed mission authorization system could disrupt plans by NASA to shift from the International Space Station to commercial stations by the end of the decade. “Introducing a bifurcated and unclear regulatory regime for commercial space stations,” the letter stated, “could risk U.S. leadership in low-Earth orbit.”

Apparently the entire space industry came to the same conclusion I did after reading the White House proposal after its release:

Essentially, these new rules — purposely written to be vague — will allow the government to forbid any activity in space by private citizens it chooses to forbid. No private space station could launch without government approval, which will also include the government’s own determination that the station will be operatied safely. Once launched, the vagueness of these regulations will soon allow mission creep so that every new activity in space will soon fall under its review.

Since no one in the government is qualified to supervise things like this, in the end politics and the abuse of power will be the rule.

It must be noted that the entire Democratic Party caucus in the House apparently approves of this power grab, because they immediately abandoned all support of the previously negotiated proposal that the industry and Congress had worked out and a House committee was about to pass. Their opposition forced that committee vote to be canceled. According to that committee, it will resume its consideration of that bill today. We shall see if this industry opposition changes any of their minds.

Postwar in Gaza: some educated guesses

The first child hostage, 9-year-old Ohad Mundar, being released by Hamas
The first child hostage, 9-year-old Ohad Mundar,
being released by Hamas. Click for video.

The ongoing pause in fighting in Gaza in order to get some of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas out of the war zone — most especially the children — has resulted in a lot of hand-wringing about whether Israel will allow this pause to short-circuit is effort to destroy Hamas.

It will not, though the post-war situation will remain complex and difficult, as is always the case in the Middle East.

First, we must recognize that Israel is not leaving Gaza at any time in the near or even distant future, no matter what Joe Biden and the United Nations demands. Its army has now captured and controls the northern half of the strip, and it fully intends to take full control of the southern half as well, once this hostage exchange agreement concludes. It made this intention very clear just before the hostage pause was announced, when it dropped leaflets in south Gaza, warning citizens to leave. That southern campaign has not yet happened, but only because of the ongoing hostage release operation.

Nor will it matter if that exchange agreement gets extended for weeks, day by day as Hamas releases ten hostages at a time. At some point Hamas will either run out of hostages, or decide it needs to keep the hostages it has left as later bargaining chips. At that moment Israel will resume its offensive with full force. And it will do so with even more force, as there will no longer be child hostages held in Hamas control.

The political situation in Israel demands this. The Israeli public wants nothing less. Politicians and pundits in the west might whine and demand appeasement from Israel, but Israel is no longer interested in appeasing Hamas. It will no longer tolerate a terrorist base on its southeastern border, and it fully intends to re-occupy all of Gaza and make sure its leadership there is completely cleansed of the Hamas gang.

The eventual result will be a Gaza strip controlled entirely by Israeli security forces. » Read more

Pentagon is now all-in on capitalism in space

Capitalism in space: Based on recent remarks from officials as well as a number of newly issued contracts, the U.S. military has now decided to completely shift from designing and building its own space hardware — which it has increasingly done badly at great cost — to simply becoming a customer buying products from the private sector.

First we have remarks and press announcements from top Pentagon officials, stating this policy change.

Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, who has spearheaded Pentagon efforts to bring cutting-edge technology into defense programs, is overseeing the military’s first commercial space integration strategy.

The new strategy comes as the Pentagon seeks to tap into advancements in commercial space technology to maintain an advantage over China, now seen as America’s top military competitor. “At Deputy Secretary Hicks’ direction, the Department is currently developing our first DoD Commercial Space Integration Strategy in order to drive integration and ensure the availability of commercial space solutions during competition, crisis and conflict,” Pentagon Spokesman Eric Pahon said Nov. 27 in a statement to SpaceNews.

Nor are these merely words. On November 22, 2023 the military announced a request for proposals from twenty different commercial space companies to provide all of its military needs in orbit, with potential contracts worth up to $900 million.

The Proliferated Low Earth Orbit (PLEO) Satellite-Based Services contract, first announced in July, is run by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) on behalf of the Space Force’s Commercial Satellite Communications Office (CSCO), a central marketplace for satellite services operated by the Space Systems Command.

…The PLEO contract “supports the Department of Defense’s requirement to provide worldwide, low-latency PLEO services,” said DISA. The IDIQ contracting method allows the Department of Defense, other federal agencies and international allies “to procure fully managed satellite-based services and capabilities for all domains (space, air, land, maritime and cyber) with a consistent, quality-backed, low-latency offering.”

This shift is excellent news, not only for the commercial space industry but for the American military itself. The former is guaranteed to grow and innovate as these companies compete for military business, while the latter will get what it needs more quickly and at much lower cost.

Ariane-6’s core stage completes full 7 minute engine test

Engineers yesterday successfully completed a two-hour dress rehearsal countdown and fueling of an Ariane-6 first stage followed by a full seven minute engine burn, simulating what that stage would do during a launch.

The test took place on Ariane-6’s launchpad in French Guiana.

The November 23 test sequence was run the same way as the previous ones, with a launch sequence and final countdown representative of a launch, including removal of the mobile gantry and filling the launcher’s upper and core stage tanks with liquid hydrogen (-253° Celsius) and liquid oxygen (-183° Celsius). The test ended with the ignition of the core stage Vulcain 2.1 engine, followed by more than 7 minutes of stabilized operation covering the entire core stage flight phase. All functional aspects of Ariane 6’s core stage during the flight phase were tested.

According to the European Space Agency, only one more engine test of the Ariane-6’s upper stage remains before the spring launch can be attempted, and that engine test is planned for next month in Germany.

With the retirement of the Ariane-5 rocket in July, Europe has had no large rocket to launch payloads. Originally Ariane-6’s first launches were supposed to be in parallel with Ariane-5’s last launches, but its development is four years behind schedule.

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