Tag: Portal

Curiosity faces the mountains

11:48 am

A cropped section from Perseverance's 1st panorama
A cropped section from Perserverance’s 1st panorama.
Click for full image.

Though the present excitement over the spectacular images and sounds coming down from Perseverance is certainly warranted, what must be understood is that this rover is presently only at the beginning of its journey, and is thus sitting on relatively boring terrain, from a merely visual perspective. The scientists might be excited, but to the general public, all we really are seeing is a flat dusty desert with some scattered rocks on the floor. In the far distance can be seen some hills and mountains (Jezero Crater’s rim), but they are very far away.

Curiosity, which the press and the public has largely forgotten about, is actually just beginning what will likely be the most breath-taking part of its journey. As I noted in my last rover update last week, Curiosity is now at the very base of Mount Sharp, and is about to enter the mountain’s canyons and initial slopes. For its past eight-plus years of roving it has been on the flat floor of Gale Crater, followed by some weaving among the smallest foothills of Mount Sharp. The views have been intriguing and exciting from a research perspective, but hardly breath-taking from a picture-taking point of view.

That is now changing. The picture below, taken by Curiosity just this week, gives us a taste of what is to come.
» Read more

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Space Force awards launch contracts (two each) to ULA and SpaceX

10:08 am

Capitalism in space: On March 9th the Space Force announced that it has awarded four new launch contracts, two each to ULA and SpaceX, for a total cost of just under $400 million, all to launch in ’23.

Under the task orders issued March 9, ULA and SpaceX will each launch two missions. ULA was awarded $225 million to launch and integrate the USSF-112 and USSF-87 missions on its Vulcan Centaur rockets while SpaceX was awarded $160 million to launch and integrate USSF-36 and launch NROL-69 on its Falcon 9 rockets.

Based on these numbers it appears ULA is charging about $113 million per launch for its new Vulcan Centaur rocket, while SpaceX is charging about $80 million using its Falcon 9.

For ULA, that is less that what it would charge using its Atlas 5 rocket, but not by much. For SpaceX this price is high, probably because the military might be demanding the company use new boosters for its launches.

These high prices for both are to me a sign of how little our federal government cares about saving any money for the taxpayer. While the competition brought on by SpaceX’s arrival is saving the military money, the way these contract awards are structured, with both ULA and SpaceX guaranteed to win them, neither company has an incentive to reduce its prices. Instead, they can overcharge and the military can do nothing about it.

In a more sane world the military would use the competition in the launch market to get an ever better deal. Instead, our federal government sees its budget as a blank check, and they are using it.

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MEV-2 about to dock with communications satellite to extend its life

9:57 am

Capitalism in space: Northrop Grumman’s second Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV-2) is presently doing the last rendezvous maneuvers in the vicinity of one of Intelsat’s operating geosynchronous communications satellites in anticipation to its docking, when it will extend that satellite’s life by up to five years.

This is the second MEV to fly. The first successfully docked with a defunct 19-year-old satellite and brought it back into operation.

Meanwhile, in the Ukraine a new startup is proposing to use an upgrade of the automatic rendezvous and docking system once used by Progress and Soyuz capsules to create its own variation of MEV.

Kurs Orbital is raising $6.5 million in its first investment round this summer to start the demonstration vehicle that will rendezvous with an uncooperative object in low Earth orbit, he said. “I think that we will be on schedule for 2023 with a demonstration mission.”

The company plans to raise more money over the next few years to build a fleet of four vehicles to start offering de-orbiting services by 2025. Usov said de-orbiting is the low hanging fruit because it is a way to immediately help satellite operators make money.

Operators currently take geostationary satellites out of service to a graveyard orbit six to eight months before they are out of fuel. De-orbiting services would allow operators to keep the satellites in operation for several additional months and continue to generate revenues, Usov said. Those extra revenues would more than pay for the $10 million to $15 million de-orbiting service.

If successful, this company will be the third attempting to enter the robotic satellite serving business, with a number of others also aiming to make money removing space junk.

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NASA sets March 18th for next SLS static fire test

9:38 am

NASA has now scheduled the next static fire test of the core stage of its SLS rocket for March 18th.

The background:

NASA attempted the hot fire test on January 16, but computers terminated the test after 67 seconds instead of 485 seconds because of the conservative test parameters that were set. This is not a test vehicle, but the actual core stage that will be used for the first SLS launch. NASA needs to ensure the testing does not damage it.

NASA decided to redo the test and scheduled it for February 25, but a problem with a pre-valve forced another delay.

If this March test is successful, it will take a month to prep the core stage for shipment by barge to Florida, where it will take several months to prep it for launch linked to its two solid rocket boosters now stacked and ready for launch. If that schedule moves fast, NASA is still aiming for a late ’21 launch, though most industry experts expect that date to shift into early ’22.

If the March test has any problems however this schedule goes out the window. Worse, it increases the chance that the two boosters will have reached the end of their 12-month use-by date (approximately December ’21), and will have to be dissembled and inspected. If that happens the launch will certainly be delayed by many months.

There is another possibility. NASA might waive that 12-month use-by date requirement for the boosters. If the agency does this, however, it will be another example of the same management mistakes that caused both the Challenger and Columbia shuttle failures, a desire to put aside proper engineering to meet a schedule.

One more thought: That it takes about four months to assemble the solid rocket boosters for SLS illustrates well the cumbersome and inefficient nature of this rocket. Launches not only cannot happen within days, they really cannot happen for months. Depending on such a rocket with such a low launch cadence will make the exploration of the solar system practically impossible.

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SpaceX successfully launches 60 more Starlink satellites

8:59 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX last night successfully launched another sixty Starlink satellites, raising the total launched to 1,265, with more than a thousand operating.

The company also landed the Falcon 9’s first stage for the sixth time while reusing both fairings.

The 2021 launch race:

7 SpaceX
4 China
3 Russia
1 Rocket Lab
1 Virgin Orbit
1 Northrop Grumman
1 India

The U.S. now leads China 10 to 4 in the national rankings. In fact, SpaceX alone has as many launches as China and Russia combined.

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Strange ridge ripples on the windswept plateau above Mars’ biggest canyon

3:25 pm

Strange ridges on Mars
Click for full image.

Today’s cool image is once again another of what I dub a “what the heck?” photo. The picture to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on December 17, 2020 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and captures some very strange ridges on the plateau above Mars’ biggest canyon, Valles Marineris.

The image, labeled merely as a “terrain sample,” was taken not as part of any specific research project but scheduled by MRO’s science team in order to maintain the camera’s temperature. When they do this they try to take pictures covering something interesting, but often it is a potshot that sometimes shows little of interest.

In this case the photo shows something very strange. The ridges in the sample are packed into one area only, but if you look at the full image you will see that they are also scattered about randomly and sometimes isolated on the flat plains surrounding this spot.

Interestingly, these ridges resemble the first “What the heck?” image I ever posted in 2019. That photo was located at about the same elevation as these ridges, but due west in the volcanic plains near Mars’s giant volcanoes and just off the western edge of the overview map below.
» Read more

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Nicaragua forms space agency

2:30 pm

The new colonial movement? In what appears to be a complete surprise within its own scientific community, the government of Nicaragua today announced the formation of its own space agency.

[T]he National Assembly approved the creation of the agency for the “defence of supreme interests” in space. It will seek “to expand the country’s capacities in the educational, industrial, scientific and technological branches”, according to president Daniel Ortega´s proposal.

The article at the link provides little information about this government effort, and instead is mostly filled with commentary by other scientists expressing their opposition to it. Nor can I blame them. Unlike rich countries like the UAE, Nicaragua is one of the poorest in Latin America. It can’t afford to buy the educational resources of the United States, as the UAE did.

Moreover, it is ruled by a socialist/communist government whose ability to produce wealth is exceedingly limited. If anything, the nation’s poverty is because of that government’s top-down policies. Establishing a space agency is merely another aspect of this approach, and will likely only act to provide photo ops for its leaders and little benefit to its citizens.

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NASA forges deal with private company to put American on Russian Soyuz

9:57 am

Capitalism in space: It appears NASA used the private company Axiom as its go-between to obtain a seat for an American astronaut on the next Soyuz launch to ISS in April.

The deal is very complex.

Based on the initial partnership arrangement between the Russians and NASA, astronauts for both countries would fly in equal numbers on each other’s spacecraft in a barter arrangement that involved no exchange of funds. Russia however has been balking at flying its astronauts on Dragon, claiming it does not yet meet their standards for a manned spacecraft. Thus, they have been demanding that NASA pay them to fly an American on Soyuz.

NASA meanwhile doesn’t have the funds, but it still wants to make sure there is always an American on board ISS, and to do that requires a second ferry besides Dragon to provide redundancy. With Boeing’s Starliner delayed, they have been trying to get a seat on Soyuz as part of that barter deal, to no avail.

The solution? Private enterprise! To get that Soyuz seat at no cost it appears NASA made a barter deal with the private space company Axiom. Axiom is apparently paying the Russians for a seat on next month’s Soyuz flight, which will be filled by a NASA astronaut, and gets in return from NASA a free spare seat on a later American capsule.

The result? NASA pays nothing to the Russians, and still gets its seat on Soyuz. Where Axiom is getting the financing for its purchase is unclear, but because it is getting an extra seat at no cost that it can sell later for a big profit, I suspect that financing was not difficult to obtain.

The details for Axiom’s deal with Roscosmos have not as yet been revealed, though I am sure the Russians charged Axiom plenty for the seat on Soyuz. I also suspect that amount was far less then what the Russians would have charged NASA directly.

Once Starliner finally becomes operational NASA will have enough redundancy for getting Americans to ISS it will no longer need the Russians. Hopefully that will happen by the end of this year. If so, such shenanigans will no longer be required.

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Starship #11 moves to launchpad

4:00 pm

Capitalism in space: Less than a week since the flight and destruction of Starship prototype #10 post flight, SpaceX has now moved Starship #11 to the launchpad.

There is no firm word on when they will attempt to fly this prototype, but based on past history, they will likely do at least one static fire test this week and schedule the flight for next week. All will depend of course on weather and on the results of the static fire test. For example, with #10 they found they needed to replace one engine after the first static fire test.

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China and Russia sign partnership agreement for lunar exploration

2:11 pm

The new colonial movement: China and Russia today signed an agreement outlining a partnership to jointly build a base and orbiting station on and around the Moon.

The International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) is described as a comprehensive scientific experiment base built on the lunar surface or on the lunar orbit that can carry out multi-disciplinary and multi-objective scientific research activities including exploration and utilization, lunar-based observation, basic scientific experiment and technical verification, and long-term autonomous operation. Statements from Roscosmos and CNSA underline that the project will be “open to all interested countries and international partners.”

Though not explicitly stated it is understood that the ILRS would be constructed at the lunar south pole.

Russia is slowly breaking off its partnership with the U.S. because the U.S. is insisting it sign the Artemis Accords, which require all signatories to honor property rights in space. Neither Russian nor China wish to do that, instead reserving those rights wholly to their own governments, their citizens be damned.

Thus, we have a deal for Russia and China to work together. China actually doesn’t need Russia, as it has clearly shown in the past five years that its space capabilities are quite sufficient and well funded. Russia however needs China, as its capabilities have been declining in recent years due to corruption within its aerospace industry as well as a shortage of funds caused by a poor economy and the drop in oil prices.

Working together however could help speed what they achieve while simultaneously fueling the growing international competition in space. In the end this will benefit everyone, as more will get done faster.

How we shall settle the disagreement over property rights and government power in space is a entirely different question, one that I address at great length in my next soon-to-be published book, entitled Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and into the future. Stay tuned!

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A iceberg of water ice floating on a Martian dry ice sea

12:19 pm

Ice mesa near Mars' south pole
Click for full image.

British biologist John Haldane once once wrote, “The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.”

Today’s cool image to the right, cropped to post here, is a fine example of Haldane’s words. It was taken on January 15, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter of a single lone mesalike feature sticking up in a flat expanse of Mars’ south polar dry ice/water ice cap.

I emailed Shane Byrne of the Lunar and Planetary Lab University of Arizona, who had requested the photo, to ask him what he thinks we are looking at. His response:

This region has a thick layer of CO2 ice sandwiched between water ice that’s above and below. CO2 ice is denser than water ice so I think a fragment of water ice of the underlying layer has risen up through the denser CO2 ice that covers this area (what geologists call a diapir).

Byrne also admits this remains merely “just a wild theory,” not yet confirmed.

Assuming this theory to be right, in a sense then this mesa is not really a mesa at all but an iceberg of water, floating not in a saltwater liquid ocean as on Earth but on a frozen sea of dry ice. Talk about queer! The wider shot below, taken by MRO’s context camera, illustrates how isolated this water iceberg is on that dry ice sea.
» Read more

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SpaceX requests FCC permission to expand Starlink service to trucks, ships, & planes

9:44 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX has submitted a request to the FCC to expand its Starlink customer base by providing the service not only to rural areas but to large moving vehicles, such as trucks, ships, & planes.

In its application to the FCC, filed on Friday, SpaceX said expanding Starlink availability to moving vehicles throughout the U.S. and to moving vessels and aircraft worldwide would serve the public interest. “The urgency to provide broadband service to unserved and underserved areas has never been clearer,” David Goldman, SpaceX’s director of satellite policy, said in the filing.

Goldman said SpaceX’s “Earth Stations in Motion,” or ESIMs, would be “electrically identical” versions of the $499 antenna systems that are already being sold to beta customers. He suggested that they’d be counted among the million end-user stations that have already been authorized by the FCC.

…SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said in a tweet that Starlink’s ESIM terminals would be “much too big” to mount on cars — such as the electric cars that are made by Tesla, the other company that Musk heads — but would be suitable for large trucks and RVs.

The article at the link notes in detail how this request poses a serious competitive threat to two of SpaceX’s biggest rivals, Klymeta and Amazon’s Kuiper constellation. This is true, but it is so mostly because SpaceX has already launched more than a thousand satellites in its constellation, and is simply taking advantage of its advanced position to undercut its rivals.

For example, though Klymeta might be using already orbiting satellites put up by different companies, it is also charging twice what SpaceX wants to charge for its antenna system, making Starlink a more attractive product. Amazon meanwhile appears years away from launching its first satellite. It might have a better design, but such things are worthless if they aren’t built and operational.

These companies have no one to blame but themselves if Starlink grabs their hope-for market share. And the FCC should not block SpaceX just to protect them.

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Russian astronauts begin work to seal 2nd Zvezda leak on ISS

9:27 am

After successfully sealing the largest crack on the twenty-year-old Zvezda module on ISS, Russian astronauts have now begun work on sealing a second such crack.

The report, from Russia’s state-run news service TASS, is not very informative. It does not report the size of the leaks, their nature, and any other important conclusions the Russians have gathered about Zvezda’s overall condition and future, based on these cracks.

Nor has state-run NASA been very transparent on this subject, releasing little further information. The silence from these government entities about the cracks is very worrisome, as it suggests these fixes are merely bandaids on a more serious issue with Zvezda’s structure, and our dishonest and bureaucratic governments do not wish to reveal this fact to the public.

I hope I am wrong, but suspect I am not. If Russia follows its pattern for the past half century, they will provide a more detailed report only after the problem has been completely solved. If these patches are merely temporary fixes over a more serious problem, don’t expect that detailed report for some time.

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Meteorite recovered in driveway in UK only days after landing

9:18 am

Meteorite hunters successfully recovered a meteorite only days after it plowed through the atmosphere and landed in a driveway in Gloucestershire in the United Kingdom on February 28th.

The fragment, weighing nearly 300 grams, and other pieces of the space rock were located after scientists reconstructed the flight path of the fireball that unleashed a sonic boom as it tore across the sky shortly before 10pm UK time on Sunday 28 February. The black chunk of rock, a carbonaceous chondrite never seen before in the UK, thumped on to a driveway in the Cotswolds town of Winchcombe, scientists at the Natural History Museum in London said, adding that further fragments were retrieved nearby.

Ashley Green, a scientist at the museum, said it was “a dream come true” to be one of the first people to see and study a meteorite that had been recovered almost immediately after coming down.

Footage of the bright streak captured by the public, and a camera network operated by the Natural History Museum’s UK Fireball Alliance, helped researchers calculate that the meteor had spent most of its orbit between Mars and Jupiter before it ploughed into Earth’s atmosphere.

I seriously doubt that no carbonaceous chondrite asteroids have never been found in Great Britain before. Instead, what the reporter misunderstood was that this was the first such asteroid in the UK recovered immediately after its arrival. Carbonaceous chondrites are very fragile. Much of their material will quickly erode and disappear, preventing researchers from obtaining a complete census of their entire make-up. Grabbing this thing mere days after landing means they will have a sample more closely resembling these kinds of asteroids in space.

In this way this rock is not much different than the samples being brought back from Hayabusa-2 and OSIRIS-REx. It isn’t as pristine, but it certainly carries far more information that meteorites recovered decades or even centuries after landing.

Similar quick recoveries in the past few years have forced some major rethinking about the make-up of the asteroid population. This meteorite will likely add to that revolution.

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Mars: Planet of many glaciers

12:08 pm

Moraines on Mars
Click for full image.

Today’s cool image more than simply cool, it reveals a wider picture of Mars that should be quite exciting to future colonists. The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on January 30, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). What drew my attention to it was the title given to this uncaptioned photo: “Moraine-Like Ridges in Nereidum Montes.”

Moraines are the debris pile pushed ahead of any glacier. The picture shows what appear to be a series of moraines, likely caused by different periods of glacier activity when the glacier was growing. It also suggests that past active periods were more active than later ones, as with each active period the moraine did not get pushed out quite as far.

The location, Nereidum Montes, intrigued me, as I am not that familiar with it. I emailed the scientist who requested the image, Dan Berman, senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona, and asked him for more information. He suggested I read a very recent paper he co-wrote entitled “Ice-rich landforms of the southern mid-latitudes of Mars: A case study in Nereidum Montes.” From that paper I was able to produce the map of Mars below that shows the regions on the planet where scientists now think hold the greatest concentrations of glaciers.
» Read more

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OSIRIS-REx begins last approach of Bennu

9:12 am

Approaching Bennu for the last time
Click for full image.

The science team for OSIRIS-REx released today the first picture taken as the spacecraft begins its last approach of the asteroid Bennu. To the right is that picture, cropped and expanded to post here. From the caption:

This image shows a top-down view of asteroid Bennu, with a portion of the asteroid’s equatorial ridge and northern hemisphere illuminated. It was taken by the PolyCam camera on NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on March 4, from a distance of about 186 miles (300 km). The spacecraft’s cameras are pointed directly at Bennu’s north pole. Two large equatorial craters are visible on the asteroid’s edge (center and center left).

If all goes well, the probe will fly past the asteroid on April 7th, obtaining high resolution images of its entire surface as it rotates below, including very close-up images of the Nightingale sample grab location during its closest approach.

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Yutu-2 and Chang’e-4 reactivated for 28th lunar day on Moon

9:01 am

The new colonial movement: Engineers have reactivated both Yutu-2 and Chang’e-4 to begin their 28th lunar day on the far side of the Moon.

The article, from China’s state-run press, provides only one real tidbit of information, that Yutu-2 has now traveled 429 meters (1,378 feet) from the landing site. They still have about a mile to go to reach their next big geological target, which should take years at the pace the rover is setting.

Both spacecraft though have been unmitigated successes. Their nominal mission had been to survive three lunar day-night cycles, about 90 Earth days. They have survived 28, or more than two years since landing in January 2019.

This success suggests that China’s Mars rover has a good chance of doing as well. Its planned mission length is also 90 days, similar to the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, both of which lasted many years.

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Perseverance begins journey with 1st test drive

9:22 pm

Perseverance's future planned route
Click for full image.

On March 4th the engineers on the Perseverance science team successfully completed the rover’s first test drive.

Ground teams commanded the rover to drive forward, turn in place, and then back up. The first 33-minute test drive covered just 21 feet, or 6.5 meters,but Perseverance will soon travel much farther. “Our first drive went incredibly well,” said Anais Zarifian, a Perseverance mobility test engineer at JPL.

Perseverance has six aluminum wheels, each with titanium spokes for support, and a suspension capable of traveling over rocks as big as the wheels themselves. The one-ton rover is based on the design of NASA’s Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars in 2012, but with some improvements.

The wheels on Perseverance are sightly narrower, have a larger diameter, and are made of thicker materials, Zarifian said. Engineers also changed the tread pattern on the wheels to reduce the risk of damage from sharp rocks, which created dings and cuts in Curiosity’s wheels.

The map above shows the route the science team has presently chosen for Perseverance, a revision from earlier routes created prior to landing. The white dot on the right is the rover’s present position, the blue and purple lines are two alternative routes they are considering for their route to the delta coming out of Neretva Vallis. The yellow route up the delta is especially exciting in that it gets them onto it much sooner than previous plans.

Which route they choose for the initial journey I think will partly depend on which provides the best location to test fly Ingenuity, the experimental helicopter on the rover. Scientists and engineers I am sure are presently poring over high resolution images from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) in order to make that choice. At this link, centered on Perseverance’s present location, you can take a look at all those images by MRO by selecting the arrow icon at the top and then clicking on any red box. Because so many photos have been taken there is a lot of overlap, so each click will give you many pictures to look at.

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Ice-filled Martian sinkhole

2:19 pm

Ice-filled pit on Mars
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The pit shown in the high resolution photo to the right (image rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here) was taken on January 25, 2021 and labeled by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) “Collapse Pit in Graben with Ice Fill.”

There is a lot of information in that title. First, a graben is a geological feature where a section of terrain drops relative to the surrounding terrain, producing a depression. Second, it appears the graben in this region is mostly filled with debris, probably wind-blown dust or sand or volcanic ash.

Third, at this particular spot the filling material sank, like a sinkhole on Earth, creating the pit.

And fourth, and maybe most intriguing, the scientists think that this pit is now filled with ice. At 47 degrees north latitude, the location is prime for such ice, and the interior material resembles similar glacial features seen in many other mid-latitude craters.
» Read more

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Rover update: Panorama from Curiosity; Perseverance unwinds

10:25 am

Summary: Curiosity has crept to the foot of Mt Sharp at last, while Perseverance checks out its equipment.

Curiosity

Curiosity panorama Sol 3049
Click for full resolution.

Overview map

This rover update will be short but very sweet. While the press and public has been oo’ing and ah’ing over the first panorama from Perseverance, Curiosity yesterday produced its own panorama above showing the looming cliffs of Mt. Sharp, now only a short distance away. The original images can be found here, here, here, and here.

The overview map to the right, from the “Where is Curiosity?” webpage, shows the rover’s location, with the yellow lines roughly indicating the view afforded by the panorama above. If you compare this panorama with the one I posted in my previous rover update on February 12, 2021, you can get a sense of how far the rover has traveled in just the past two weeks. It now sits near the end of the red dotted line pointing at the mountain, right next to what had been a distant cliff and now is only a short distance to the rover’s right.

Somewhere on the mountain slopes ahead scientists have spotted in orbiter images recurring slope lineae, seasonal streaks on slopes that appear in the spring and fade as they year passes. As Curiosity arrives at the next geological layer a short distance ahead at the base of these cliffs (dubbed the sulfate unit), it will spend probably several months studying both that sulfate unit as well as those lineae. Expect the rover to drill a few holes for samples as it watches to see any changes that might occur on that lineae.

Now, on to Perseverance!
» Read more

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NASA increases ISS prices to commercial customers by 700%

9:03 am

On February 25th NASA quietly announced that it was increasing the prices it charges for private commercial payloads to ISS sevenfold, immediately putting some customers out of business.

In the statement, published with little fanfare on the agency’s website, NASA said it was updating that price list “to reflect full reimbursement for the value of NASA resources.” The decision to do so, NASA said, was based on “discussions with stakeholders, the current market growth, and in anticipation of future commercial entities capable of providing similar services.”

By removing the subsidy, the prices of those services went up significantly. The cost to transport one kilogram of cargo up to the station, known as “upmass,” went from $3,000 to $20,000. The cost to bring that one kilogram back down from the station, “downmass,” went from $6,000 to $40,000. One hour of crew member time, previously $17,500, is now $130,000.

The sudden change in prices, which took effect immediately, took some ISS users by surprise. An executive with one company, who spoke on background because that company is still evaluating the impacts of the pricing change, was not aware of NASA’s decision to raise prices until contacted by SpaceNews.

“NASA has not done a good job communicating with the stakeholders,” said Jeffrey Manber, chief executive of Nanoracks. “We are in discussions with customers and suddenly we are being notified of a major increase.” That sudden increase in prices, he said, forced Nanoracks to suspend discussions with two potential customers, who he said were “priced out of their budget” by the increase.

Note that NASA’s statement apparently contained a lie. It claimed the agency talked with “stakeholders,” but apparently those stakeholders knew nothing about it until it happened.

I strongly suspect this is a Biden administration decision, not one from NASA. Democratic Party politicians don’t see government as a servant of the people, but as a tool to rule them. A private industry is beginning to sprout using government resources in space, and rather than encourage its growth they instead want to squeeze as much cash from it as possible.

Moreover, why is NASA charging anything for bringing cargo to ISS? They don’t provide the transportation, launch companies like SpaceX and ULA do. The only appropriate charge NASA should be charging is rental at the station.

If this was a NASA decision solely and Trump was in power, I would expect it to be soon canceled. Under Biden there is no chance. More likely that administration either endorsed it or imposed it.

What this means is that future commercial flights will soon shift away from ISS. I expect Axiom to work hard to get its station modules launched and separated from ISS as quickly as possible. I also expect to see more independent Dragon manned tourist missions, like the one planned for this fall, that do not dock with the station.

In fact, here is a thought that I think has already entered Elon Musk’s brain. In the next year SpaceX is likely going to do its first Starship orbital test flight. Why not put a test habitable module on board that can be used by tourists at a reasonable price? There is money to be made here, especially because NASA is gouging its customers and there is plenty of margin to undercut the agency’s absurd prices.

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Virgin Galactic’s chairman sells all of his stock in the company

8:43 am

Getting out when the getting is good: The chairman of Virgin Galactic who was part of the deal that allowed the company to go public has now sold all of his stock in the company.

Billionaire investor Chamath Palihapitiya sold his entire personal stake in Virgin Galactic this week, a regulatory filing revealed on Friday.

The space-tourism company’s chairman cashed out his 6.2 million shares at an average price of $35, netting him around $211 million. Palihapitiya, along with his business partner Ian Osborne, still indirectly own 15.8 million shares via SCH Sponsor Corp, their investment vehicle.

Palihapitiya previously sold 3.8 million Virgin Galactic shares in December, tweeting that he needed to free up cash to fund several new projects this year.

Like Branson, this guy took the company public, made some absurd claims about its future, got several Wall Street analysts to rave about his plans, and then when the stock was high because of these fake promises, got out. He knows, as did Branson, that Virgin Galactic has practically a zero chance of making a dime in the future. He just worked a con to use it to make him some cash on the backs of a lot of other stock buyers who should have known better.

This company might fly a few paying customers on some suborbital flights, but its long term future is very bleak.

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Dao Vallis: A giant river of ice on Mars

1:38 pm

The glacier in Dao Vallis
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on December 26, 2020 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows an apparent glacial flow in a canyon heading downhill to the southwest, with evidence of a gully on its western wall whose collapse apparently squeezed into that glacial flow, pushing it to the east.

What makes this particular image interesting is not its uniqueness but just the opposite. Almost every high resolution picture along the length of this 750 mile long canyon, dubbed Dao Vallis, shows the same thing, an ice-filled ravine with that ice flowing like a river downhill.

The overview map below provides some spectacular context.
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China releases first Tianwen-1 images of rover landing site

9:32 am

The rover landing site for Tianwen-1's rover

The new colonial movement: China yesterday released the first two images taken by its Mars orbiter Tianwen-1 of its planned rover landing site in the northern lowland plains of Mars.

The image to the right is a mosaic of two wide angle photos from the context camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The white cross is the spot of the latitude and longitude that had previously been leaked to the Chinese press as the landing site. The white box shows the area covered by the only high resolution MRO photo, as of October 2020. Since then MRO has taken a number of additional high resolution images of this area.

The red boxes mark the areas covered by Tianwen-1’s two new images. Below is a reduced version of the larger of these two photos.
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SpaceX launches 60 more Starlink satellites

8:48 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX last night successfully launched sixty more Starlink satellites, while also recovering the first stage during its eighth flight.

This is the second booster that has successfully completed eight flights. Its flight back to the drone ship appeared entirely routine, though SpaceX provided no footage of that return.

The 2021 launch race:

6 SpaceX
4 China
3 Russia
1 Rocket Lab
1 Virgin Orbit
1 Northrop Grumman
1 India

The U.S. now leads China 9 to 4 in the national rankings.

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The Starship has landed!

4:30 pm

Starship #10 on the ground safely after its flight
After the flight.

Capitalism in space: SpaceX today successfully completed the first test flight of Starship prototype #10, not only completing the launch and descent manuevers but also successfully landing the prototype vertically on the landing pad.

The flight was similar to the previous two in that the spacecraft rose very slowly, hovered at about 6 miles, and then did a flip to place itself horizontal for its descent. Then as it approached the ground it righted itself as it fired up three engines (to make sure at least one worked), and then shut down two so that one engine brought the spacecraft down smoothly.

Next comes prototype #11. Its flight should occur with only a matter of weeks.

Starship #10 exploding
Starship #10 on its way down after exploding.

UPDATE: A few minutes after landing the prototype exploded, flinging itself off the launchpad. No word yet on why this happened, but I wonder if maybe this was a planned self-destruction. They don’t plan to fly this bird again, and it takes up a lot of storage space. Blowing it up saves space, though it does destroy material that could be salvaged for other uses.

To the right is a screen capture from one of LabPadre’s live streams, shortly after the ship launched itself from the pad and was on its way down. It only went up about two hundred feet.

If this wasn’t planned, SpaceX needs to figure out why this happened. Either way, we shall certainly find out in the coming days.

Below is SpaceX’s video of the entire flight. Enjoy!

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Mining country on Mars?

1:02 pm

The southern end of Nili Fossae

Today’s cool image might very well be giving us a glimpse of one of the most promising regions on Mars for future mining. The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced, is made up of two context camera images from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), found here and here. I chose to begin with this wider context camera mosaic because this is one of the rare times the context camera is more exciting an image than the close-up high resolution photo.

This photo covers the southern end of the one of the two curved fissures dubbed Nili Fossae and are thought to be left over evidence of the giant impact that created Isidis Basin to the southeast. These two fissures are about 300 miles long, and can be as much as 1,600 feet deep in places. At this southern end, we can see what look like at least two different drainage channels feeding into the fissure.

The overview map below provides the context of this location on Mars, including its relationship to Jezero Crater where Perseverance now sits.
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Sunspot update: February activity declines to predicted values

3:51 pm

Time to do another sunspot update. Below is NOAA’s March 1, 2021 monthly graph, showing the Sun’s monthly sunspot activity. It is annotated by me as always to show the previous solar cycle predictions.

February continued the decline of sunspot activity seen in January after a very unusually active November and December. Though the actual sunspot number was more than the prediction, the difference in February was trivial.
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Cave boxwork on the Martian surface

12:50 pm

Boxwork in Wind Cave on Earth
Boxwork inside Wind Cave, South Dakota, mere inches across.

Anyone who has ever visited either Wind or Jewel caves in South Dakota has likely seen some wonderful examples of the cave formation boxwork, formed when the material in cracks is more resistant to erosion that the surrounding bedrock, which once eroded away leaves behind the criss-crossing ridges seen in the picture to the right.

Today’s cool image provides us what appears to be an example of boxwork on Mars. However, unlike on Earth it is not in a cave but on the surface. It is also much larger. Instead of the ridges being almost paper thin and stretching for inches or feet, this Martian boxwork is feet wide with ridges extending hundreds of feet in size, as shown by today’s cool image below.
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What is wrong at Blue Origin?

9:24 am

Link here. The article by Eric Berger depends on many anonymous sources at Blue Origin, and suggests that the central reason the first launch of the company’s orbital New Glenn rocket has been delayed until 2022 at the earliest is because Jeff Bezos decided to have them build its biggest iteration first, rather than take smaller steps upward to that version.

[I]nstead of offering a waypoint between New Shepard and a massive orbital rocket, Bezos ultimately opted to jump right to the massive, 313-foot-tall version. “It’s like if NASA had gone straight from Alan Shepard to the Saturn V rocket, but then also had to make the Saturn V reusable,” one former Blue Origin employee said.

Instead of crawl-walk-run, Bezos asked his engineering team to begin sprinting toward the launch pad. The engineering challenges of building such a large rocket are big enough. But because New Glenn is so expensive to build, the company needs to recover it from the outset. SpaceX enjoyed a learning curve with the Falcon 9, only successfully recovering the first stage on the rocket’s 20th launch. Blue Origin engineers will be expected to bring New Glenn back safely on its very first mission.

The decision to skip the “walk” part of the company’s development has cost Blue Origin dearly, sources say. The company’s engineering teams, composed of smart and talented people, are struggling with mighty technical challenges. And there are only so many lessons that can be learned from New Shepard—the smaller rocket has 110,000 pounds of thrust, and New Glenn will have very nearly 4 million.

While I am certain there is some truth to this, the article also appears to me to be a sales job for Bob Smith, the CEO that Bezos hired in 2017 to run Blue Origin. There have been many rumors that he takes a more traditional approach to rocket development, which means no failures can be allowed and must be designed out from the beginning. In fact, the article hints at this, but then spins it to Smith’s favor.

Since Smith arrived in the fall of 2017, some employees have struggled with his leadership style and complained that he has acted too slowly, pushing Blue Origin to become more like a traditional aerospace company than a nimble new-space startup. But from Smith’s perspective, he’s trying to implement a culture transformation, from a hobby-shop atmosphere to that of a major aerospace contractor that can go out and win major NASA and Defense Department contracts.

The history of the past five years confirms the employees’ perspective, not Smith’s. Before he arrived Blue Origin was getting things built and launched, at a fast pace. After he took over that pace slowed to crawl, in all its projects.

In fact, I would say that Blue Origin’s problems really come as much from Smith as Bezos. When Bezos might have pushed to go big with New Glenn, Smith should have pushed back, and insisted they build the smaller version first. Instead, he went ahead, while also apparently changing the company so that it functioned more like the older big space contractors (Boeing, Lockheed Martin) that can’t get anything built quickly for a reasonable cost.

None of this bodes well for Blue Origin or New Glenn. Unless a massive management change is instituted, the company’s future does not look as bright as it should, considering the amount of money (billions) that Bezos is committing to it. All the money in the world will do you nothing if what you want to do is poorly planned and badly executed.

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