Tag: politics

After a decade of development, ESA finally starts testing a part of its Callisto grasshopper

9:12 am

Callisto's basic design
Callisto’s basic design

My heart be still! First proposed in 2015 as Europe’s answer to SpaceX’s Falcon 9, the European Space Agency, in partnership with Japan, has finally begun acoustical testing of just one part of its Callisto grasshopper-type reusable test prototype, as shown on the right.

Callisto consists of five main sections: the Aft Bay, which includes the engine and landing legs, the LH2 Tank, the LOx Tank, the VEB, and the Fairing. The VEB houses much of the demonstrator’s electronics, including its onboard computer, avionics, and a reaction control system that uses H2O2 propellant. Its distinctive features include a pair of control fins.

In addition to confirming that the VEB had been transported to the CNES facilities in Toulouse, the 4 March Institute of Space Systems update also revealed that the acoustic test campaign for the key Callisto module had commenced last week. The acoustic test campaign simulates the intense sound vibrations the demonstrator will experience during flight to ensure structural integrity and component reliability.

The whole project has a budget of $100 million. The first test hop won’t occur until 2026, eleven years after the project began, and six years behind its original launch date. In that same time, SpaceX has completed several hundred commercial landings of its Falcon 9 first stage, reusing those stages up to two dozen times.

Nor is Callisto part of any program to develop a similar reusable rocket. It is a typical dead-end government project, with ESA having no clear goal to apply it commercially. The best Europe can hope for is that the engineering lessons from its tests will be given freely to the new European commercial rocket startups, so that they can use it someday.

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China launches classified communications test satellite

8:58 am

China yesterday successfully launched a classified communications satellite “to carry out multi-band and high-speed communication technology validation, its Long March 3B rocket lifting off from its Xichang spacesport in southwest China.

All we really know about this satellite is that it is part of series. Nor did China reveal where the core stage and four strap-on boosters of the rocket, which use very toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

26 SpaceX
10 China
3 Russia
2 Rocket Lab

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Space Force’s X-37B completes seventh flight, lasting 434 days

8:22 am

With landing on March 7, 2025 at Vandenberg in California, of one of the Space Force’s two X-37B reusable mini-shuttles, the military completed the seventh total flight, this one lasting over 434 days.

The mission achieved a number of important milestones. First, it was the first launched on SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket. Previously launches had used both ULA’s Atlas-5 as well as SpaceX’s Falcon 9.

Second, the spacecraft successfully demonstrated its ability to use aerobraking to adjust its orbit.

The Space Force also claimed other classified experiments on board “tested space domain awareness technology experiments that aim to improve the United States Space Force’s knowledge of the space environment.” That’s however all they told us.

Because the Space Force has stopped telling us which of the two X-37B’s is flying on each launch, it is not clear the Space Force even has a fleet of two any longer. It could be one has been retired.

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Intuitive Machines confirms Athena fell over at landing; ends mission

1:33 pm

Athena on its side on the Moon

Artist rendering of lander on Moon

Intuitive Machines today officially ended its Athena lunar lander mission after it released a picture taken from the top of the lander showing clearly that it had fallen over on its side after landing.

That picture, cropped, reduced, and brightened to post here, is to the right. You can clearly see two of the landing legs in the air, with the horizon in the background.

“With the direction of the sun, the orientation of the solar panels, and extreme cold temperatures in the crater, Intuitive Machines does not expect Athena to recharge,” the company stated. “The mission has concluded and teams are continuing to assess the data collected throughout the mission.”

This is the second Intuitive Machines lunar lander to tip over. More and more it does appear that the tall design of this lander is fundamentally flawed. The artist rendering to the right illustrates this. Most unmanned lunar landers are much wider than they are tall. Intuitive Machines’ Nova design has the lander’s height matching the spread of its legs. It creates a center of gravity high enough that the lander will tip over too easily if conditions are not perfect.

The company denies this, saying the center of gravity is much lower than this graphic makes it appear, but the proof is in the pudding. Their design has tried to land on the Moon twice, and both times the lander tipped over.

It is not clear what the company can do to fix this. Expanding its diameter to lower its height is a major redesign. It also might make the lander too wide to fit inside most rocket fairings. A better solution might be to redesign the legs, making their spread wider, and even increasing their number.

Fortunately, NASA’s shift to capitalism in space has produced a number of different companies building lunar landers. Firefly’s Blue Ghost is clearly a success. In June Ispace will make its second attempt to soft land its private lander design on the Moon. And Astrobotic has a contract to try again after it had a fuel line leak after launch last year that prevented it from even attempting a landing.

And of course, Intuitive Machines is still in the game. It has a contract for one more landing mission, plus a mission to put two data relay satellites in lunar orbit.

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Once again the leftist propaganda press takes out its knives to stab SpaceX and Musk

11:18 am

Superheavy captured safely by the chopsticks, for the third time in four attempts
Superheavy captured safely yesterday by the chopsticks,
for the third time in four attempts

As should be expected, the destruction of Starship yesterday just before it made orbit on its eighth test flight was immediately used by partisan leftist media outlets to play “Let’s beat up on SpaceX and Elon Musk because he’s a friend of Trump!”

All these outlets decided to emphasize the falling debris and disruption to air traffic, but in doing so they all spun the story in a very dishonest way. First, both SpaceX and the FAA had been prepared for this possibility, and had used well-established procedures — in league with all other involved nations — to respond to the launch failure. The air space was cleared for only about fifteen minutes, as only this Florida Today article noted. Take-off delays at affected airports ranged from minutes to almost an hour, but hardly much different that normal delays seen every day.

Most important, no one was hurt, no planes were damaged, and there were no negative consequences. If anything, yesterday’s Starship flight illustrated the competence shown by SpaceX as it runs a very ambitious and radical development program of the most powerful rocket ever built. For example, why so little mention of the successful catch of Superheavy, something SpaceX has been able to do three times in the first four test flights? That achievement is truly mind-blowing.

The obviousness of these attacks is truly getting tedious. Moreover, why the hostility to one of the most spectacular efforts by an American company? Shouldn’t the American news outlets above be enthused by this effort? Have they become so hateful of their own country in all things, they want it to fail, always?

Sadly, I think we know the answer to that last question. The leftist indoctrination effort that now dominates almost all of America’s universities has produced a generation that does hate America, because they literally know nothing of its history except the distorted lies put forth by these Marxist colleges. They would rather destroy success than have America succeed.

It is both tragic and shameful, and a perfect example of someone cutting off their own nose to spite their face.

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French official lauds Ariane 6 launch; demands Europe have its own launch capability

10:08 am

Philippe Baptiste, France’s Minister for Higher Education and Research, yesterday loudly touted the second successful launch of Ariane 6 rocket, even though it occurred years late and costs far more than any other rocket on the market today.

Baptiste did so even as he insisted the Europe must continue to have its own launch capability so that it need not depend on rockets from other countries.

Europe must have sovereignty in space and “not yield to the temptation of preferring SpaceX or another competitor that may seem trendier, more reliable, or cheaper,” Baptiste [said]. “This first commercial launch of Ariane 6 is not just a technical and one-off success. It marks a new milestone, essential in the choice of European space independence and sovereignty. In the labyrinth of the global space race, Ariane 6 is the guiding thread of our strategic autonomy for the years to come.

“We must also collectively advance, as Europeans, on the governance of Europe’s space ambitions. We must ask ourselves all the questions, without taboos. For Europe in space, I am convinced that the European Union must fully assume its role as the political leader in this matter. The challenges are immense, no one knows this better than we do.”

Note Baptiste’s focus on having the European Union (EU) run things, with a focus on Ariane-6, despite its high cost. He was previously head of France’s space agency CNES, which for years has used the EU and the European Space Agency’s (ESA) partners help pay for France’s space program by requiring that all rocket launches be run by ESA’s commercial division, Arianespace.

That situation is now changing, with other ESA nations (Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom) all breaking free from Arianespace and instead encouraging the development of competing private rocket startups independent of ESA or Arianespace. Moreover, these ESA partners have aggressive reduced Arianespace’s areas of control. It no longer runs the French Guiana spaceport. Its management of the Vega-C rocket has been transferred back to the Italian company Avio, which builds it. All it now has is Ariane-6, which has limited value because it is so expensive.

So while Baptiste desire for European autonomy matches the efforts of these European countries, his apparent desire to keep all control within the continent’s centralized government authority has been rejected. Europe has a chance to compete, but only because it is freeing its rocket startups from government control.

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SpaceX’s eighth orbital test flight of Starship/Superheavy ends like the seventh flight

4:54 pm

Starship just before loss of signal
Starship just before loss of signal

Today’s eighth orbital test flight of SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy giant rocket has turned out to be almost identical to the seventh flight, with Superheavy completing its mission with a perfect chopstick catch at the launch tower in Boca Chica and Starship failing just before engine shutdown that would have put it into its orbit.

The screen capture to the right shows that moment. Note that graphic on the far lower right. It indicates that only two of the outside engines are firing, in an asymmetrical configuration. As a result Starship began tumbling, as shown by the fact that the Earth is not visible in the background. Shortly thereafter contact was lost, and I expect the flight termination system took over to destroy the ship. Expect videos from the Caribbean of it burning up overhead in the next day or so.

Superheavy however completed the third ever capture by the launch tower chopsticks. Musk has indicated that the company is pushing to reuse a Superheavy booster as soon as possible. The lose of Starship and the fact that two Superheavy engines shut down prematurely during the boost-back burn after stage separation likely delays that reuse at least one or two test flights. First, this Superheavy had issues, that might be solvable but they nonetheless exist.

More important, the loss of Starship just before its orbital coast once again means SpaceX was unable to do any of its orbital and return test program. It will not make sense to risk the next Starship flight with a used Superheavy when testing Starship has now been delayed twice.

Nor does it matter much. It will take many more launches before this rocket is reliably reusable. The first priority now is to make it more reliable on its first launches. Expect SpaceX to target the next test flight for sometime in mid- to-late April.

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Athena sits at an unknown angle on the Moon, hampering operations

2:25 pm

Athena's landing site 100 miles from the Moon's south pole
Yellow cross indicates Athena’s targeted landing site

According to the CEO of Intuitive Machines, Athena is sitting an an unknown angle on the Moon, impacting the possibility of all surface science operations.

The tilt is hampering their ability to use the high gain antenna which they need use to download most of their data. They do not know the angle, or the cause of this issue. It could simply be that the ground slope is too severe. It is also possible the spacecraft, which has a relatively high center of gravity, fell over on its side because of that slope. Moreover, they do not know at the moment exactly where the spacecraft landed, though they know it landed on Mons Mouton as planned. They need to download pictures from the spacecraft, as well as from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) in orbit to determine precisely the location and the situation.

It is also unclear what payloads will be impacted by this situation. It could be that most if all could be utilized, but that question cannot be answered until they learn more. I suspect both the mini-rover and the Grace hopper will be affected the most, as the tilt might make it impossible to deploy either.

For Intuitive Machines this situation is very unfortunate. It has sent two unmanned lunar landers, and both have had issues at landing, though it must be emphasized that the issue on today’s second landing might have nothing to do with the company’s engineering at all.

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Ariane-6 successfully launches for the second time

9:47 am

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) commercial arm, Arianespace, today successfully launched from French Guiana its new Ariane-6 rocket for the second time, this time placing its first commercial payload, a military Earth imaging satellite, into orbit.

As of posting the satellite has not yet been deployed by the upper stage, as several additional engine burns are required over then hour or so to place it in the right orbit. As there were some issues with this upper stage on the rocket’s first launch, the successful completion of these burns is critical for the rocket’s future. So far the first major burn has been completed as planned. UPDATE: The payload has been successfully deployed in the proper orbit.

This was Europe’s first launch in 2025, so there is no change in leader board for the 2025 launch race:

26 SpaceX
9 China
3 Russia
2 Rocket Lab

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India’s space agency ISRO begins construction of second spaceport

9:38 am

India's spaceports
India’s spaceports

After several years getting the real estate as well as the necessary regulatory approvals, India’s space agency, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), has now begun construction of it second spaceport, dubbed Kulasekaranpattinam, near the southern tip of India.

The map to the right shows the location. The Sriharikota spaceport has been used by the agency for decades. The Agnikul site was used once by one of India’s rocket startups for a suborbital launch, but it is unclear if it will be upgraded to a full launch site in the future.

Kulasekarapattinam was one of the areas recommended for the launchpad even before the rocket launchpad was set up in Sriharikota due to its strategic geographical location near the equator. It is located on the east coast and there is no land to the south of it, allowing for direct southward launches over the Indian Ocean. This will minimize fuel consumption and maximize payload capacity for small satellite launch vehicles (SSLVs), particularly beneficial for cost-effective commercial satellite launches.

The site also avoids the need for complex “dogleg” manoeuvres around Sri Lanka. The manoeuvre involves a sharp turn or bend in a launch trajectory to avoid collisions or falling debris into populated areas, which would require additional fuel.

As part of the breaking ground ceremonies, ISRO scientists also completed a small suborbital rocket launch from this new site, reaching an altitude of 46 miles before falling back into the Indian Ocean.

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Engineers turn off one more instrument on each Voyager spacecraft

3:57 pm

The Voyager missions
The routes the Voyager spacecraft have
taken since launch. Not to scale.

Due to continuing reductions in the power generated by their nuclear energy sources (after a half century of operation) engineers have now turned off one more science instrument on each Voyager spacecraft in order to extend the spacecrafts’ life as long as possible.

Mission engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California turned off the cosmic ray subsystem experiment aboard Voyager 1 on Feb. 25 and will shut off Voyager 2’s low-energy charged particle instrument on March 24. Three science instruments will continue to operate on each spacecraft. The moves are part of an ongoing effort to manage the gradually diminishing power supply of the twin probes.

Even with this action, the future lifespan of both spacecraft is very limited. It is expected the savings in power will allow both to last about a year longer, well into 2026. In order to keep the Voyagers operating as long as into the 2030s mission engineers are now working up a timeline for shutting down the remaining instruments in a step-by-step manner. In that long run the goal won’t be science gathering but engineering. Can humans keep a spacecraft operating for more than a half century at distances billions of miles away?

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Democrats: A party so filled with hate it can’t even cheer a child because Trump introduced him

1:32 pm

In the next day or so you will hear a lot of analysis of Trump’s speech yesterday to Congress, both good and bad. The bulk of that commentary will focus on what Trump has or has not accomplished, for good and ill. Some will talk about the overall foolish behavior of many Democrats, who refused to applaud anything Trump said (something Trump predicted would happen near the start of the speech), with one Democrat getting ejected from the building for heckling the president and refusing to stop.

During such speeches presidents usually tout their past achievements and future goals. With each proclamation, the members of that president’s party will repeatedly give him a short standing ovation, with the opposition party usually sitting quietly. This fake theater is one reason I generally don’t watch such events, relying on reviewing them after the fact to save a LOT of time.

Another tradition during these speeches is for the president to invite several ordinary citizens to attend in order to honor them in some way. At these moments, when the president introduces the citizen, the entire room would routinely stand and cheer, because these individuals are generally not party partisans, and the ruling president and his party usually have nothing to do with that person’s particular achievement.

Last night however was starkly different, and the screen capture below captures the one moment that demonstrates so fully the utterly bankrupt nature of the Democratic Party. One of the private citizens Trump invited to honor was a 13-year-old boy, DJ Daniel, who five years ago was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and given only six months to live. Five years later he is still alive and healthy, and proudly wears a police uniform frequently in public because of his dream to be a cop someday.
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