Tag: politics

Engineers lose contact with Japan’s Akatsuki Venus orbiter

9:11 am

According to a terse announcement by Japan’s space agency JAXA on May 29, 2024, engineers from its Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) have lost contact with Japan’s Akatsuki Venus orbiter.

ISAS has lost contact with Akatsuki after an operation in late April due to an extended period of low attitude stability control mode, and is currently making efforts to reestablish communication with the spacecraft.

Akatsuki has had a spotty and complex life. It was launched in 2010, but failed to enter Venus orbit as planned in two attempts in 2010 and 2011 because of a failure in its main engine. Engineers then improvised and — after orbiting the Sun for several years — were able to get it into Venus orbit in 2015 using only its attitude thrusters. Its primary mission ended in 2018, but it continued to study Venus’ atmosphere since.

Assuming Akatsuki is not recovered, as of now there are no operating orbiters at Venus. A mission by the private company Rocket Lab is expected to launch before the end of this year, followed by an orbiter from India in 2026. A NASA mission meanwhile is in limbo and will likely never fly, due to budget decisions at the agency, which took its funding and gave it to the troubled Mars Sample Return mission.

1 comment

Peru and Slovakia sign Artemis Accords

8:52 am

In separate press releases (here and here), NASA today announced that both Peru and Slovakia have signed the Artemis Accords, becoming the 41st and 42nd countries respectively to join the American space alliance.

The alliance now includes these nations: Angola, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Peru, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

As with all recent Artemis Accord signing announcements under the Biden administration, the focus of the accords is no longer promoting private property and capitalism in space (as they were conceived by the Trump administration). Instead, the focus appears to be a globalist’s dream, as noted as follows in both annoncements:

The United States and seven other nations were the first to sign the Artemis Accords in 2020, which identified an early set of principles promoting the beneficial use of space for all humanity. The accords are grounded in the Outer Space Treaty and other agreements including the Registration Convention, the Rescue and Return Agreement, as well as best practices and norms of responsible behavior that NASA and its partners have supported, including the public release of scientific data.

Rather than use this alliance as a wedge to overturn the Outer Space Treaty’s restrictions on private property in space, it now appears the alliance is working to strengthen those restrictions, led by the U.S. under the Biden administration.

4 comments

Starlab space station signs cargo contract with French startup

8:42 am

The French startup, The Exploration Company, on May 28, 2024 signed a contract with the consortium of American and European companies building the Starlab space station to fly three cargo missions using its proposed reusable Nyx unmanned freighter.

The Exploration Company is developing its reusable Nyx spacecraft, which will initially ferry cargo to and from low Earth orbit. The company also plans to offer versions of the spacecraft for crewed spaceflight in low Earth orbit and missions to the surface of the Moon. Earlier this month, The Exploration Company was awarded an initial €25 million European Space Agency (ESA) contract to perform a demonstration mission to ferry cargo to and from the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the agency’s LEO Cargo Return Services initiative.

Starlab, first proposed by the American company Voyager Space, has a development contract with NASA. Its partnership includes Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Airbus, Mitsubishi, and MDA Space. It has also signed a similar deal with India’s space agency ISRO to use its Gaganyaan manned capsule, as well as another deal with SpaceX’s Starship.

0 comments

Chinese pseudo-company launches five satelites

8:29 am

The Chinese pseudo-company Galactic Energy today successfully launched five satelites, its Ceres-1 rocket lifting off from the Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China.

This was Galactic Energy’s second launch in the past two days. China’s state-run press however made no mention of the company in its report, a lack that is now routine. Apparently the Chinese government recognizes these pseudo-companies might eventually pose a threat to its power, and doesn’t wish to give them any extra publicity.

The report also made no mention of where the rocket’s solid-fueled lower stages crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

57 SpaceX
26 China
8 Russia
6 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the world combined in successful launches, 65 to 40, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including other American companies, 57 to 48.

0 comments

Supreme Court votes 9-0 in favor of NRA’s 1st amendment rights

11:38 am

In a major decision today, the Supreme Court voted unanimously that the National Rifle Association (NRA) has the right to sue New York state officials for their campaign of intimidation by threatening private financial organizations if they did business with it.

“Six decades ago, this Court held that a government entity’s ‘threat of invoking legal sanctions and other means of coercion’ against a third party ‘to achieve the suppression’ of disfavored speech violates the First Amendment,” Justice Sonja Sotomayor wrote in the unanimous opinion. “Today, the Court reaffirms what it said then: Government officials cannot attempt to coerce private parties in order to punish or suppress views that the government disfavors. Petitioner National Rifle Association (NRA) plausibly alleges that respondent Maria Vullo did just that. As superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services, Vullo allegedly pressured regulated entities to help her stifle the NRA’s pro-gun advocacy by threatening enforcement actions against those entities that refused to disassociate from the NRA and other gun-promotion advocacy groups. Those allegations, if true, state a First Amendment claim.” [emphasis mine]

The ruling allows the NRA lawsuit against Vullo to move forward.

I highlighted Sotomayor’s name because her position here, representing the entire court in favor of the NRA, proves that even the leftist justices at the court are increasingly tired of the abusive and illegal lawfare being waged by the Democratic Party against Republicans and conservatives. The court, from both the right and the left, is telling the Democrats they are exposing themselves to personal liability if they do not stop this misbehavior. The Supreme Court is not going to go along with it, and that includes the leftists on the bench.

This decision also provides us a strong indication of what the Supreme Court will do if and when the various lawfare cases against Donald Trump reach it. In those cases the abuse of the law has been even more clear. Partisan prosecutors like Fani Willis, Alvin Bragg, and Jack Smith, all of whom are misusing the law simply to get a political opponent, are likely not going to be treated nicely by the court.

10 comments

A second Indian rocket startup completes suborbital launch

9:34 am

Agnikul's first suborbital test launch
Yesterday’s launch. Click for original image.

The Indian rocket startup Agnikul Cosmos yesterday successfully completed a suborbital test launch, flying a prototype stage using a single 3-D printed engine that lifted off from India’s Sriharikota spaceport on its eastern coast. From the first link:

All the mission objectives of this controlled vertical ascent flight were met and performance was nominal. The vehicle was completely designed in-house and was powered by the world’s first single piece 3d printed engine and also happens to be India’s first flight with a semi cryo engine.

The company claims this launch took place at its privately built launchpad, but that pad is located south of ISRO’s Sriharikota spaceport. Did it shift the launch back to Sriharikota, or are the reports incorrect? It is not clear.

Another Indian rocket startup, Skyroot, completed a similar suborbital test launch in November 2022, and has since followed this up with static fire tests of the upper stage of its Vikram-1 rocket.

Both companies hope to complete their first orbital launches before the end of 2025.

1 comment

Launches by China and Russia

9:16 am

Earlier today both China and Russia successfully completed launches.

First, China launched a Chinese-built Pakistani communications satellite into orbit, its Long March 3B rocket lifting off from its Xichang spaceport from the southwest of China.

No real information was released about the satellite, or the fate of the rocket’s lower stages and four strap-on boosters, all of which use toxic hypergolic fuels and certainly crashed somewhere in China.

Next, Russia successfully launched a new Progress cargo ship to ISS, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from Baikonur in Kazakhstan. The freighter will dock with ISS tomorrow. I have embedded video of the launch below, cued to T-30 seconds.

The rocket’s flight path took it over Kazakstan, Russia, and China, with drop zones for the lower stages in the first two. No word on whether the lower stages and four strap-on boosters crashed near habitable areas.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

57 SpaceX
25 China
8 Russia
6 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the world combined in successful launches, 65 to 39, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including other American companies, 57 to 47.

» Read more

4 comments

Chang’e-6 to attempt landing on Moon’s far side on June 1st

9:42 am

Chang'e-6 landing zone

After spending almost a month in lunar orbit, the lander on China’s Chang’e-6 sample return mission will attempt a soft touchdown on Moon’s far side on June 1, 2024 at 8:00 pm (Eastern).

If successful, the lander will go through initial checks and setup. It will then begin drilling and scooping up materials from the surface. These samples, expected to weigh up to 2,000 grams, will be loaded into an ascent vehicle. The ascender will then launch the precious cargo back into lunar orbit for rendezvous and docking with the orbiter. Surface operations will last about 48 hours.

The map to the right indicates the landing zone by the red box, on the southern edge of Apollo Crater, indicated by the wavy white circle. The black circle marks the perimeter of South Aitken Basin, the largest impact basin on the Moon.

Once the ascender docks with the orbiter, the sample will be transferred into the sample return capsule, which will bring that sample back to Earth in late June.

1 comment

Botswana approves Starlink

9:32 am

After first denying SpaceX the right to sell Starlink in Botswana in February, government officials have now done a sudden about-face and approved Starlink.

During a business summit in the United States earlier in May, President Mokgweetsi Masisi met with Ben MacWilliams, the Director of Starlink’s Global Licensing and Activation, who expressed interest in obtaining a license to operate in Botswana. Following this meeting, President Masisi decided to approve Starlink’s licensing and instructed the regulator to expedite the application process within two weeks.

I could speculate on what caused the president to change his mind after this meeting, but I’ll leave that to my readers.

2 comments

SLIM goes dark

9:14 am

SLIM's landing zone
Map showing SLIM landing zone on the Moon.
Click for interactive map.

The Japanese lunar lander SLIM has failed to respond to ground commands sent soon after dawn, ending the lander’s fourth night on the Moon.

SLIM was never expected to survive the harsh conditions of even a single 14-day-long lunar night after landing on the Moon in January 2024. Its primary mission had been to test precision autonomous landings, which it did successfully (though it landed on its side when one nozzle fell off just before touchdown). Yet, it then survived three lunar nights, resuming communications at dawn.

Its failure now is therefore no surprise, and actually marks a magnificent engineering success. The spacecraft’s hardware was proven robust enough to survive the very cold temperatures during lunar night, and suggests that future Japanese lunar landers using SLIM designs will function as well.

1 comment

Avio completes static fire test of the upper stage of its grounded Vega-C rocket

9:03 am

The Italian company Avio yesterday completed a full static fire test of the solid-fueled upper stage of its grounded Vega-C rocket, proving that the second redesign of its nozzle now works.

The initial post-test review indicates that the new nozzle assembly performed as expected throughout the scheduled 94 seconds burning time of the test, simulating a nominal in-flight performance.

The Zefiro-40 is a 7.6 m tall rocket motor, loaded with over 36 tonnes of solid propellant. For this test the motor was installed on its horizontal test bench. Zefiro-40 is developed and manufactured by Avio in their Colleferro factory near Rome, Italy.

A second firing-test will be conducted after the summer to confirm the data collected today. Avio engineers will review the data from the first test to prepare for a second test in October that will then qualify the second stage Zefiro-40 solid rocket motor for a return-to-flight by end 2024 from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.

The nozzle — originally built in the Ukraine — had failed during a launch in December 2022. Then Avio’s first redesign failed in a ground test in July 2023.

With this launch, the Vega-C is poised to resume operations by the end of the year. Those operations will be different however in one major respect. While previously the rocket was built by Avio but owned and controlled by the European Space Agency’s commercial arm, Arianespace, its ownership has been transferred back to Avio. Arianespace is now merely a “launch service provider” according to the press release. I suspect this means that Arianespace handles the launch in French Guiana, something that will also soon be taken from it because control of that spaceport is also being returned to the French space agency CNES.

0 comments

China launches four satellites from sea platform

8:45 am

China's spaceports

The Chinese pseudo-company Galactic Energy today launched four satellites, its Ceres-1 rocket lifting off from its sea platform stationed off the coast of Shandong province, as shown on the map to the right.

As is usual now for China’s state-run press, the news report made no mention of the company, though unlike previous reports it did mention that the rocket was “commercial.” Since it does nothing without the full permission of the Chinese government, however, this is not a real independent company, with full ownership of its rocket. At any time the communists who run China can grab it for their own uses.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

57 SpaceX
24 China
7 Russia
6 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the world combined in successful launches, 65 to 37, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including other American companies, 57 to 45.

1 comment
1 … 126 127 128 129 130 … 988