Tag: spaceflight

InSight’s low power levels holding steady

10:11 am

InSight's power levels as of November 29, 2022

The science team for the Mars’ lander InSight today (December 6th) released a new update (dated November 29th) of the power levels being produced by its dust-covered solar panels.

As of Nov. 29, 2022, InSight is generating an average between 290 watt-hours of energy per Martian day, or sol. The tau, or level of dust cover in the atmosphere, was estimated at .95 (typical tau levels outside of dust season range from 0.6-0.7).

I have added this new data unto the graph to the right, though I am puzzled by the date given to the update. Why post this today, when this update covers data only two days after the previous update (November 27th), and is more than a week out of date? This is especially puzzling because the numbers did not change at all.

Nonetheless, the lander is still alive, but barely. One wonders however what happened in the past week, since today’s update does not bring us up to date.

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NOAA gives Maxar permission to photograph things in space

1:39 pm

We’re here to help you! According to a Maxar press release today, it has obtained permission from the federal agency NOAA (initially created to study the weather) to use the company’s satellites to not only photograph things on Earth but things in space as well.

Maxar Technologies (NYSE:MAXR) (TSX:MAXR), provider of comprehensive space solutions and secure, precise, geospatial intelligence, today announced that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has modified Maxar’s remote sensing license to enable the non-Earth imaging (NEI) capability for its current constellation on orbit as well as its next-generation WorldView Legion satellites.

Through this new license authority, Maxar can collect and distribute images of space objects across the Low Earth Orbit (LEO)—the area ranging from 200 kilometers up to 1,000 kilometers in altitude—to both government and commercial customers. Maxar’s constellation is capable of imaging objects at less than 6 inch resolution at these altitudes, and it can also support tracking of objects across a much wider volume of space.

This new permit apparently will allow Maxar’s satellites to not only look down at the Earth, but look around and image other orbiting objects, for both the military and commercial customers.

My question however is this: By what legal authority does NOAA claim the right to regulate such activity? I can see none at all, yet like other regulatory agencies (such as the FCC) during this Biden administration, NOAA is grasping this illegal power, and companies like Maxar have decided it is better to go along to get along.

During the Trump administration NOAA tried to claim, without any legal authority, that it had the right to regulate all photography in space, and thus actually forced SpaceX during one Falcon 9 launch to cease public release of the imagery from its rocket.

Within three weeks Trump’s Commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, stepped in bluntly to block NOAA’s power grab. As he said publicly, “This is silly and it will stop,”

Trump is gone however and the Biden administration is all in with letting government agencies expand their power. Though NOAA might have a some regulatory responsibility related to remote sensing in space, under no conditions can I see that responsibility giving it the right to tell any private American citizen or company what they can or cannot photograph.

I am of course assuming the first amendment to the Constitution is still in force. In today’s America it might not be.

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Martian dunes, as far as the eye can see

11:21 am

Martian dunes
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on July 14, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows the dune filled floor of an unnamed 25-mile-wide ancient and very eroded Martian crater.

These endless dunes — which extend far beyond this photo to cover the entire floor of this crater as well as an overlapping crater to the north that is only slightly smaller — reveal something fundamental about this location: The winds prevail from one direction consistently, from either the north or the south. Closer inspection would likely resolve which way, but I don’t have the knowledge or access to the data to do so.

The overview map below, provides context, and also further information about why these dunes are here.
» Read more

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The Middle East in Space

9:21 am

A space conference taking place this week in the United Arab Emirates has produced a number of somewhat intriguing stories, some indicating the growing the new colonial movement in space, and some marking the significant changes produced by the Abraham Accords, peace treaties negotiated and signed during the Trump administration between Israel and a number of Arab nations.

For example, Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, was invited to the conference to give a keynote speech, and he did so as part of a tour of several Arab countries, all of whom were Israel’s sworn enemies prior to the Abraham Accords.

In his address, Herzog touted Israel’s warming ties with Bahrain and the Emirates since the signing of the Abraham Accords in 2020, and predicted a leap forward in space exploration. “I am very happy to be here and take part in this timely debate, under the auspices of my dear friend, President Mohammed bin Zayed. I have just arrived from Bahrain with my wife, Michal, where we conducted the first State Visit of an Israeli president in the Kingdom of Bahrain, and I am extremely grateful to His Majesty the King of Bahrain, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.”

It appears that, even though the Biden administration has done little to promote further Abraham Accord agreements, many powerful Arab nations of the Middle East are embracing these deals regardless, and thus the tensions in that war-torn region have been largely reduced as a result. Israel still has enemies there, but it now appears to have, at a minimum, neutral partners willing to peacefully work with it.

The conference has also produced additional space news from other Middle East countries.
» Read more

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Ukrainian rocket startup targets ’23 for first launch

8:57 am

The new colonial movement: A Ukrainian rocket startup, Promin Aerospace, now expects to complete the first suborbital launch of a test rocket in 2023, despite the Russian invasion and its regular bombing the city of Dnipro, where the company is based.

On Feb. 22, two days before the Russian invasion, Rudominski sent the first batch of emails seeking seed investment. When the war started, Promin executives realized their investment plans would need to be put on hold while their focus shifted to the safety of employees, families and friends, plus support for Ukrainian defense and humanitarian relief efforts.

By early April, most employees were back working full time.

The company does not reveal its location out of fear of further Russian bombing.

As for its planned rocket launch, though it wishes to do the test from the Ukraine, it also has a deal with one of the new spaceports in Scotland and could launch from there if necessary.

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Orion completes burn to send spacecraft back to Earth

8:50 am

NASA’s Orion capsule yesterday successfully fired its engines as it zipped past the Moon to send it on a trajectory back to Earth, with splashdown in the Pacific off the coast of California scheduled for December 11, 2022.

Not all was hunky-dory, however. Prior to the burn a power unit shut down unexpectedly.

A power unit on board the Orion spacecraft turned off four devices “responsible for downstream power” that connect to the Artemis 1 vehicle’s propulsion and heating subsystems, NASA officials wrote in a statement. But mission personnel swiftly put a fix in place and the mission is carrying on, the statement emphasized. “Teams confirmed the system was healthy and successfully repowered the downstream components,” agency officials wrote in the statement, released late on Sunday. “There was no interruption of power to any critical systems, and there were no adverse effects to Orion’s navigation or communication.”

Engineers think the shut down was related to a test performed in connection with an earlier incident.

Regardless, all now appears well for that December 11nd splashdown.

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The steep interior rim of Aristarchus Crater

11:30 am

Aristarchus Crater
Click for larger image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, is a just released image taken by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, looking across the top of Aristarchus Crater on the Moon from a height of only 60 miles, with the dark surrounding plateau in the foreground contrasting sharply with the bright crater interior. For scale, the distance from the floor of the crater to the top of the rim is about 9,000 feet. The bright central peak is about 1,300 feet tall. The contrast in brightness inside and outside the crater is explained thus:

Adjacent to Aristarchus crater is the Aristarchus plateau, one of the largest volcanic centers on the Moon. Here we find one of the largest rilles [on the Moon, dubbed Vallis Schröteri], a massive pyroclastic deposit, and the source of extensive flood basalts.

These volcanic materials are considered relatively young (for the Moon) – 1.5 to 2.5 billion years. The pyroclastic deposit formed when magma was explosively ejected from the vent and broke into small droplets quenched as glass in the cold vacuum of space as they fell back to the surface. Due to their high glass content, the pyroclastic deposits are distinctly low in albedo (relatively dark), providing a dark background for the bright Aristarchus crater. Within the crater, some of these pyroclastic deposits may be visible as the darkest areas on the far wall, and glassy impact melt is moderately lower in reflectance than the bright, rocky materials exposed on areas of the crater floor and walls.

The overview map below shows both the crater and the vent from which Vallis Schröteri belched.
» Read more

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Curiosity’s recent and future travels amid the Martian mountains

11:09 am

Curiosity's recent and future travels on Mars
Click for full panorama.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

The panorama above, created from 31 images taken by Curiosity’s right navigation camera on December 5, 2022, provides us a wonderful overview of the rover’s recent and future travels amid the lower foothills of Mount Sharp in Gale Crater.

The overview map to the right provides context. The blue dot indicates Curiosity’s present position. The yellow lines indicate the approximate area viewed by the panorama. The red dotted line indicates Curiosity’s planned route, with the white dots the route it has actually traveled. On the panorama, the pink dotted line indicates where it has been, and the red dotted line where it is going.

For scale, Kukenan is estimated to be about 1,500 feet high. Though Chenapua in front seems comparable, it is actually much smaller, only about 200 to 300 feet high, at the most. Orinoco, though lower on the mountain, is probably about 300 to 400 feet high.

To really see the magnificence of this terrain, you must click on the panorama and explore the full image. Curiosity is truly traveling amid mountains, and is the first human robot to do so on another world.

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The uncertainties surrounding India’s proposed first manned mission

10:00 am

Link here. The article does a nice job of outlining the program, dubbed Gaganyaan, as well as the many issues that has caused the first launch to be delayed more than three years.

The key quote however is this:

Despite the government claiming that there would be no delays due to Covid, the first uncrewed flight was rescheduled from 2020 to 2021 and then again to 2022. The dates were once again revised to late 2023 or early 2024, announced Union minister of state for science and technology Jitendra Singh in September this year. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted claim is quite amusing, considering how India’s government space agency ISRO shut down entirely because of the Wuhan panic for more than two years, and remains somewhat dormant even now. As a result of that panic, ISRO lost almost its entire commercial market to American companies.

Read the entire article. It summarizes the state of Gaganyaan in good detail, which also implies that a first launch in ’24 remains questionable.

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Martian glaciers below 30 degrees latitude

12:10 pm

A Martian glacier below 30 degrees north latitude
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 28, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). While it shows what looks like a somewhat typical Martian glacial flow pushing through a gap between hills, this glacial flow is not typical. It sits at just under 30 degrees north latitude, closer to the equator than almost any glacial feature on Mars. Moreover, the younger impact crater on top suggests this glacier has been here for some time. Though the impact is younger than the crater, it is not that young, as the dark streaks normally seen in the first years after impact are gone.

Thus, this glacier suggests that not only can near surface Martian ice exist closer than 30 degrees latitude from the equator, it can survive there for a considerable amount of time.

Nor is this glacial flow, so close to the equator, unusual for this region of Mars.
» Read more

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Sunspot update: The Sun’s unprecedented pause to maximum continues

9:44 am

It is the beginning of the month, and NOAA has once again published its update of its monthly graph that tracks the number of sunspots on the Sun’s Earth-facing hemisphere. Below is the newest graph, adding November’s numbers to the timeline and annotated by me with some additional details added to provide context.

Sunspot activity dropped in November, though still remained significantly higher than the prediction, a sunspot number of 77.6 compared to the predicted number of 57.4. At 77.6, the Sun continues the pause that began in June in the ramp up to solar maximum. For the past half year the Sun’s sunspot output has essentially stalled at approximately the same level.

» Read more

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FCC puts the squeeze on SpaceX’s Starlink

9:07 am

More than two years after SpaceX had first requested regulatory permission to launch its full 30,000 Starlink satellite constellation, FCC (under the Biden administration) has finally made a decision, and in doing so it has arbitrarily reduced the number of satellites SpaceX can launch to 7,500.

On November 29th, 2022, the FCC completed that review and granted SpaceX permission to launch just 7,500 of the ~30,000 Starlink Gen2 satellites it had requested permission for more than 30 months prior. The FCC offered no explanation of how it arrived at its arbitrary 75% reduction, nor why the resulting number is slightly lower than a different 7,518-satellite Starlink Gen1 constellation SpaceX had already received a license to deploy in late 2018. Adding insult to injury, the FCC repeatedly acknowledges that “the total number of satellites SpaceX is authorized to deploy is not increased by our action today, and in fact is slightly reduced.”

That claimed reduction is thanks to the fact that shortly before this decision, SpaceX told the FCC in good faith that it would voluntarily avoid launching the dedicated V-band Starlink constellation it already received a license for in order “to significantly reduce the total number of satellites ultimately on orbit.” Instead, once Starlink Gen2 was approved, it would request permission to add V-band payloads to a subset of the 29,988 planned Gen2 satellites, achieving a similar result without the need for another 7,518 satellites.

In response, the FCC slashed the total number of Starlink Gen2 satellites permitted to less than the number of satellites approved by the FCC’s November 2018 Starlink V-band authorization; limited those satellites to middle-ground orbits, entirely precluding Gen2 launches to higher or lower orbits; and didn’t even structure its compromise in a way that would at least allow SpaceX to fully complete three Starlink Gen2 ‘shells.’ Worse, the FCC’s partial grant barely mentioned SpaceX’s detailed plans to use new E-band antennas on Starlink Gen2 satellites and next-generation ground stations, simply stating that it will “defer acting on” the request until “further review and coordination with Federal users.”

Apparently, the FCC’s decision here was essentially a rubber-stamp of recommendations by Amazon, whose Kuiper constellation (so far entirely unlaunched) would be SpaceX’s direct competitor. In other words, the FCC is now taking sides against Starlink to favor its competitors.

Read the entire article. In every way this FCC decision smacks of politics, partly to help a Democratic ally (Jeff Bezos) and partly to hurt someone the Democrats now see as an enemy (Elon Musk).

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Delays threaten Europa Clipper mission

8:57 am

A variety of issues delaying completion of the science instruments on the Europa Clipper mission are now threatening to prevent the spacecraft from meeting its 2024 launch date.

[W]ith less than two years to go before launch, only three of those instruments have been installed on the main spacecraft body, and five haven’t yet arrived at JPL.

Some context: Europa Clipper has been under development since 1997, though actual design work did not begin until 2013, nine years ago. It presently has a budget of $4.25 billion (more than double its first proposed budget of $2 billion). Yet now, less than years from launch, seven of ten instruments are behind schedule?

What is really disgusting about this story is that it is par for the course for NASA, which almost never finishes anything on time or on budget.

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Orion fires engine, leaves lunar orbit

8:47 am

After firing its engines yesterday, NASA’s Orion spacecraft has left lunar orbit and begun a long looping route that will zip past the Moon and then head back to Earth.

The burn changed Orion’s velocity by about 454 feet per second and was performed using the Orion main engine on the European Service Module. The engine is an orbital maneuvering system engine modified for use on Orion and built by Aerojet Rocketdyne. The engine has the ability to provide 6,000 pounds of thrust. The proven engine flying on Artemis I flew on 19 space shuttle flights, beginning with STS-41G in October 1984 and ending with STS-112 in October 2002.

The burn is one of two maneuvers required ahead of Orion’s splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on Dec. 11. The second will occur on Monday, Dec. 5, when the spacecraft will fly 79.2 miles above the lunar surface and perform the return powered flyby burn, which will commit Orion on its course toward Earth.

The spacecraft will splashdown on December 11, 2022, if all goes right.

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Expanded craters in Martian ice

12:44 pm

Expanded craters in Martian ice
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on August 18, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It includes a wide variety of geology related to sublimating ice, including expansion cracks as well as several different examples of what scientists call “expanded craters,” impacts that occurred in near surface ice and have been reshaped by the ice’s melting and sublimation at impact and then later. It also shows some obvious glacial fill in the two distorted craters at the center right.

A 2017 dissertation [pdf] by Donna Viola of the University of Arizona outlines nicely what we know of Martian expanded craters. As she notes in her conclusion:
» Read more

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Webb and Keck telescopes track clouds on Titan

11:08 am

Clouds on Titan
Click for original image.

Astronomers have used the Webb Space Telescope and the Keck Observatory in Hawaii to take infrared images days apart of the evolving clouds on the Saturn moon Titan.

The false-color infrared images to the right are those observations. From the press release:

As part of their investigation of Titan’s atmosphere and climate, Nixon’s team used JWST’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) to observe the moon during the first week of November. After seeing the clouds near Kraken Mare, the largest known liquid sea of methane on the surface of Titan, they immediately contacted the Keck Titan Observing Team to request follow-up observations.

“We were concerned that the clouds would be gone when we looked at Titan a day later with Keck, but to our delight there were clouds at the same positions on subsequent observing nights, looking like they had changed in shape,” said Imke de Pater, emeritus professor of astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley, who leads the Keck Titan Observing Team.

Using Keck Observatory’s second generation Near-Infrared Camera (NIRC2) in combination with the Keck II Telescope’s adaptive optics system, de Pater and her team observed one of Titan’s clouds rotating into and another cloud either dissipating or moving out of Earth’s field of view due to Titan’s rotation.

These images only increase my mourning for a Saturn orbiter. Since the end of Cassini’s mission in 2017, we have essentially been blind to the ringed planet and its many moons. These images, while producing excellent data, also illustrate well what we have lost.

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Scientists: Viking-1 might have landed on a field of Martian tsunami debris

10:26 am

The geological history of the Viking-1 Mars landing site

As outlined in their new paper [pdf], a team of scientists now hypothesize that the features that surrounded Viking-1 when it landed on Mars in 1976 were caused by two past Martian tsunamis. Each tsunamis occurred due to an impact in the theorized ocean that is believed to have existed in this part of Mars’ northern lowland plains several billion years ago.

The graphic to the right, figure 8 from the paper, shows the hypothesized sequence of events. From the caption:

(a) Pohl crater forms within a shallow marine environment, (b) triggering tsunami water and debris flow fronts. (c) The wave fronts extensively inundate the highland lowland boundary plains, including a section ~ 900 km southwest of the impact site. (d) The ocean regresses to ~ − 4100 m, accompanied by regional glacier dissection, which erode the rims of Pohl and other craters. (e) The younger tsunami overflows Pohl and parts of the older tsunami. Glaciation continues, and mud volcanoes later source and emerge from the younger tsunami deposit. (f) ~ 3.4 billion years later, the Viking 1 Lander touches down on the edge of the older tsunami deposit.

The overview map below provides the larger context.
» Read more

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Soyuz-2 rocket launches Russian military satellite

9:01 am

Russia today successfully placed a military surveillance into orbit using its Soyuz-2 rocket, launching from its Plesetsk spaceport.

Like most launches from Plesetsk, the first stage and fairings landed in the interior of Russia, the drop zones in its far north.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

54 SpaceX
54 China
21 Russia
9 Rocket Lab
8 ULA

The U.S. still leads China 78 to 54 in the national rankings, but trails the entire world combined 85 to 78.

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SpaceX postpones launch of Ispace’s Hakuto-R lunar lander

8:40 pm

SpaceX tonight canceled the Falcon 9 launch of the private Hakuto-R lunar lander, built by the Japanese company Ispace and carrying the UAE’s Rashid rover.

After further inspections of the launch vehicle and data review, SpaceX is standing down from Falcon 9’s launch of ispace’s HAKUTO-R Mission 1 from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. A new target launch date will be shared once confirmed.

The first stage had flown four times previously. Apparently during their standard dress rehearsal countdown and fueling before launch they detected something that cannot be immediately resolved.

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InSight continues to just hold on

5:20 pm

InSight's power levels as of November 27, 2022

The InSight science team today posted another update on the daily power levels the Mars lander’s dust-covered solar panels are producing. The graph to the right includes these new numbers.

As of Nov. 27, 2022, InSight is generating an average between 285 and 295 watt-hours of energy per Martian day, or sol. The tau, or level of dust cover in the atmosphere, was estimated at .95 (typical tau levels outside of dust season range from 0.6-0.7).

The atmosphere is definitely clearing from the dust storm that occurred in October. It also appears that not much of this dust is settling on InSight’s solar panels, since the daily power level has not dropped significantly.

Nonetheless, at these very low power levels, InSight’s future remains day-to-day. Unless it finally gets lucky and a dust devil blows the solar panels clear so more power can be generated, the mission will end should two scheduled communications sessions in a row fail to make contact.

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Traveling in the mountains of Mars

11:54 am

Traveling in the mountains of Mars
Click for full resolution. Original images can be found here and here.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Cool image time! The panorama above was created by two photos taken by the Mars rover Curiosity’s right navigation camera on November 30, 2022. It looks to the south, into Gediz Vallis, the slot canyon that has been the rover’s major goal since it landed in Gale Crater a decade ago.

The blue dot on the overview map to the right marks Curiosity’s present position, now on its way east after making a short detour to the west towards Gediz Vallis Ridge. The yellow lines indicate the approximate area shown by this panorama. The red dotted line in both images marks the rover’s planned future route. The white arrows indicate what scientists have labeled the marker band, a distinct smooth layer seen at about the same elevation in many places on the flanks of Mount Sharp. According to the most recent update from the science team, the rover’s next drive will place it on that marker band, the second time it has been there.

From here the rover will continue south, climbing up into Gediz Vallis.

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China completes construction of world’s largest solar radio telescope array

9:36 am

China has now completed the construction of world’s largest solar radio telescope array, dubbed the Daocheng Solar Radio Telescope (DSRT), made up of 313 separate radio dishes laid out in a giant two-mile wide circle.

DSRT is focused on observing solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) which can interfere with or overload electronics and wreak havoc on and above Earth. CMEs are triggered by realignments in the star’s magnetic field that occur in sunspots, and when directed at Earth, can threaten power grids, telecommunications, orbiting satellites and even put the safety of astronauts aboard the International Space Station and China’s newly-completed Tiangong space station at risk.

Assuming China shares the data from this telescope with the rest of the world, it will function as a back-up to several very old NOAA satellites in orbit that NOAA has failed to replace. If China doesn’t share the data, however, the western world will become very vulnerable should its own satellites finally fail.

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ESA’s commitment to launch Franklin rover to Mars by ’28 will require U.S. participation

9:28 am

The Europeans Space Agency’s decision to spend $725 million over the next six years to launch its Rosalind Franklin rover to Mars by 2028 will not only require the United Kingdom to develop a Mars lander, it will require U.S. participation that has not yet been secured, including the donation of a launch vehicle.

The mission’s launch this year was canceled when Russia invaded the Ukraine, thus ending all of its scientific partnerships with Europe.

The mission, now slated for launch in 2028, will primarily replace the Russian components with European ones, with several exceptions. “We have expectations that the U.S. will also contribute to this, with a launcher, a braking engine and the RHUs, the radioisotope heating units,” he said. “But the majority of the future ExoMars mission is European.”

The launch rocket will be the most expensive U.S. contribution, and to get NASA to pay for the launch will require something in return from ESA, most likely guaranteed research use of the Franklin rover by American planetary scientists. Such a deal is similar to what Europe has gotten with both Hubble and Webb, where ESA contributes something and its scientists get a percentage of guaranteed observation time.

With a rover such an arrangement is more complicated, however, which is probably why the deal is not yet settled.

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SOFIA finds no phosphine in Venus’ atmosphere

9:16 am

The uncertainty of science: Using NASA’s airborne telescope SOFIA on three of its last flights, astronomers searched and found no evidence of phosphine in the Venus atmosphere, once again throwing cold water on a 2020 study that said it had detected about 20 molecules out of every billion.

Because that 2020 study and the accompanying press releases noted that on Earth phosphine is only seen in life-related processes, the general press stupidly screamed “Life found on Venus!” And as I said at that time:

This discovery is not giving us “a hint of life on Venus.” All these scientists have done is detect a chemical whose formation in Venus’ very alien environment is a mystery. Yes, on Earth this chemical comes from life related activities, but to claim that the presence of biology must explain it on Venus is not science, but witchcraft and the stuff of fantasy. We know practically nothing about the full make-up of Venus’ atmosphere, its chemistry and environment, which makes it impossible to hint at any theories, no less life.

Since then several studies (here and here and here) have suggested the phosphine detection was not what it seemed. This new Sofia data puts the nail in the coffin.

Sophia’s data also shows once again the utter unreliability of the modern mainstream press. Routinely it pushes false or weak stories, consistently showing that its reporters and editors are ignorant or naive about almost every story they cover, from science to politics. To trust its conclusions on any controversial story is to put your faith in fortune tellers.

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NASA awards construction company $57 million development contract for lunar construction

9:00 am

Capitalism in space: NASA today awarded a $57 million development contract to ICON, a Texas-based company that specializes in building 3D-printed homes on Earth, to begin work on designing habitats for the Moon.

As noted in this report:

The newly announced NASA contract, granted via the agency’s Small Business Innovation Research program, will help the company mature its tech and procedures. ICON plans to use the money to learn how lunar soil, or regolith, behaves in lunar gravity using simulated samples and real ones brought back by the Apollo missions, company representatives said.

The company will also test its hardware and software on a space mission that simulates lunar gravity. And there will be an even more ambitious trial, if all goes according to plan. “The final deliverable of this contract will be humanity’s first construction on another world, and that is going to be a pretty special achievement,” [CEO Jason] Ballard said in the statement.

ICON has already built a prototype 3D-printed Mars habitat that NASA plans to use to train astronauts for long missions.

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China launches military satellites using Long March 2D rocket

8:45 am

China yesterday used its Long March 2D rocket to put, according to Space Force data, three military satellites into orbit, even though China’s state run press says only one satellite was launched.

The Chinese space industry (opens in new tab) and media reports (opens in new tab)suggest that the launch carried a single Yaogan 36 remote sensing satellite. However space tracking by the U.S. Space Force’s 18th Space Defense Squadron, which focuses on space domain awareness, registered three payloads in orbit in roughly 300-mile-altitude (500 km) orbits.

China’s previous two launches involving Yaogan 36 satellites also saw satellite triplets sent into orbit, meaning Sunday’s launch was a third group of three Yaogan 36 satellites.

China typically describes Yaogan satellites as being designed for uses including gathering scientific data, conducting land surveys and monitoring agriculture. However, the secrecy surrounding the satellites leads analysts outside of China to believe that the satellites also have military capabilities and stakeholders.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

54 SpaceX
54 China
20 Russia
9 Rocket Lab
8 ULA

The U.S. still leads China 78 to 54 in the national rankings, while trailing the entire world combined 84 to 78.

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SpaceX conducts successful static fire test of Superheavy

3:14 pm

SpaceX today successful completed a 13-second static fire test of its Superheavy first stage booster at Boca Chica, Texas.

I have embedded the video of the test below, cued to just before ignition. The test fired eleven of the booster’s 33 engines, and appeared to go very smoothly.

The company is still moving steadily towards an orbital launch of Superheavy and Starship before the end of the year.

» Read more

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A Martian knife mesa with terraces

1:32 pm

A Martian knife mesa with terraces
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on August 21, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label as a “layered mound.” It also shows a plethora of geological mysteries, all of which relate to the as yet not quite understood geological history of Mars.

First, note the different colors north and south of the ridgeline. According to the science team’s understanding of what these colors mean [pdf], the orange-red to the north suggests dust, while the bluish-green to the south suggests coarser materials, such as rocks and sand. Though frost and ice are generally bluer, such things are generally found on the pole-facing slopes where there is less sunlight. Thus the bluish-green material to the south is unlikely to be ice or frost, though this is not impossible, as the picture was taken in the winter and the latitude is 35 degrees north.

Why however is there such a dichotomy of rocks, sand, and dust between the north and south slopes? And if frost and ice, why is it more prominent to the south, when it should instead be more prominent to the north?

Other mysteries: Is the circular depression on the ridgetop an impact crater or a caldera? If the latter, this suggests the mound is some kind of volcano, likely mud, though lava is not excluded. If so, however, why is there no caldera on top of the ridge to the south?

The location, as shown in the overview map below, reveals other puzzles.
» Read more

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Virgin Orbit’s cash problems continue

9:25 am

Because of endless delays getting a regulatory approval of a launch in the United Kingdom, Virgin Orbit has been unable to complete the 4 to 6 launches in 2022 that it had planned, and is thus experiencing serious cash shortages that has now caused it to cancel plans to sell “additional securities.”

Virgin Orbit reported third quarter revenues of $30.9 million, which exceeded the zero revenues reported in Q3 2021. The company’s net loss was $43.6 million, which was higher than the $38.6 million loss in Q3 2021.

While costs and losses have mounted, Virgin Orbit has experienced delays in increasing its launch rate. The company had planned to conduct four to six launches this year. Today, the total stands at only two with just over a month left in 2022.

Virgin Orbit’s third launch was originally scheduled to take place in last August from Spaceport Cornwall in England. The company is still awaiting a license from the UK government that would allow the launch to take place. It is the first time the government has licensed both an orbital launch and a spaceport, so the process it taking longer than anticipated.

The company had not only ramped up production of its LauncherOne rocket in anticipation of an increased launch rate, it also purchased two more 747s to act as the rocket’s first stage carrier. Those actions however were based on the ability to increase the launch rate, which has been stymied since the summer by Great Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority, which can’t seem to issue permission for Virgin Orbit to launch from a runway in Cornwall.

The canceled sale of securities appears part of the entire investment deal near the end of 2021. The cash shortages and this deal also appear connected to the decision by Richard Branson’s Virgin Group to invest $25 million in Virgin Orbit earlier this month.

Virgin Orbit officials say they intend to double their launch rate in 2023. I suspect that they have to. It is now sink or swim.

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China sets new annual record with launch of manned Shenzhou-15 to space station

9:02 am

China today successfully used its Long March 2F rocket to launch three astronauts on a six month mission to its Tiangong-3 space station, setting a new annual national record for launches in a single year.

China’s previous high of 52 successfully launches was achieved last year. This launch, with about five weeks left in the year, is its 53rd in 2022.

This mission will also be the first on Tiangong-3 where there will be an overlap of two crews, with six people occupying the station for a short while.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

54 SpaceX
53 China
20 Russia
9 Rocket Lab
8 ULA

The U.S. still leads China 78 to 53 in the national rankings, while trailing the rest of the world combined 83 to 78.

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