Tag: spaceflight

Using Gaia data scientists discover the heaviest stellar black hole ever found

10:30 am

In digging into the precise motion data from the Gaia space telescope scientists have discovered the Milky Way’s heaviest stellar-sized black hole, with a mass thirty-three times the mass of our Sun.

Stellar black holes are formed from the collapse of massive stars and the ones previously identified in the Milky Way are on average about 10 times as massive as the Sun. Even the next most massive stellar black hole known in our galaxy, Cygnus X-1, only reaches 21 solar masses, making this new 33-solar-mass observation exceptional.

Remarkably, this black hole is also extremely close to us — at a mere 2000 light-years away in the constellation Aquila, it is the second-closest known black hole to Earth.

The only known black hole inside the Milky Way that is larger is Sagittarius A* (pronounced A-star), the supermassive central black hole at the galaxy’s center and weighing over four million solar masses. That creature is a very different thing, as it involves the long term evolution of the galaxy itself. Stellar-sized black holes only involve the death of a single star, with possible additions from a handful of others.

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NASA admits that its Mars Sample Return project needs new ideas

10:09 am

The present plan for Mars Sample Return
The present plan for Mars Sample Return

In issuing yesterday its reponse [pdf] to the February 28, 2024 audit [pdf] by NASA’s inspector general (IG) of its Mars Sample Return mission (MSR), NASA has admitted that its Mars Sample Return project needs new ideas and major changes. From the press release:

“The bottom line is, an $11 billion budget is too expensive, and a 2040 return date is too far away,” said [NASA administrator Bill] Nelson.

The agency will today issue a call for proposals from the private sector for alternative ideas for picking up the samples on Mars and getting them up into orbit.

This NASA response to the IG report however changes little else in overall project, and almost certainly will not succeed in either reducing cost or shortening the timeline in any way.
» Read more

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NASA: The piece of space junk that crashed through a Florida house came from ISS, and we released it

8:56 am

After completing a careful analysis of the 1.6 pound object that had crashed through two floors of a house in Florida on March 8, 2024, NASA engineers have confirmed that it came from the cargo pallet that was dumped from ISS in March 2021.

As part of the analysis, NASA completed an assessment of the object’s dimensions and features compared to the released hardware and performed a materials analysis. Based on the examination, the agency determined the debris to be a stanchion from the NASA flight support equipment used to mount the batteries on the cargo pallet. The object is made of the metal alloy Inconel, weighs 1.6 pounds, is 4 inches in height and 1.6 inches in diameter.

Though the NASA press release notes the agency will revise its computer models for determining what will burn up in the atmosphere and what will not, it says nothing about reinbursing the homeowner, Alejandro Otero, for the damage to his home. Based on the Outer Space Treaty, the U.S. is likely liable for this damage. I suspect the negotiations are on-going, and if Otero doesn’t have a lawyer yet, he should get one immediately.

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A Martian rock with holes

10:52 am

A Martian rock with holes
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on April 13, 2024 by the high resolution camera on the Mars rover Perseverance.

The largest rock in the picture is probably only one or a few feet or so across. It has two holes, one very visible in the center and a second less obvious in the shadow on the right. What makes the obvious hole most intriguing is that it appears it was formerly entirely enclosed by the boulder, and was exposed when a section broke off. That section is the smaller rock in the foreground. I wonder if the Perseverance team will bring the rover around to get a view of that smaller rock, to see if it has its own corresponding part of this hole.

Note the smoothness of the rocks. This smoothness is very similar to what Curiosity saw when it was either on the floor of Gale Crater, or at the base of Mount Sharp. In both cases that smoothness suggests either flowing water or glacial ice erosion, like the smooth cobbles one routinely finds in streambeds or in the moraines of glaciers.

As Curiosity climbed Mount Sharp the smoothness was replaced with a delicate flaky fleecework indicating many layers but little violent erosion capable of smoothing the surface (see for example the images here and here). It appears Perseverance is still low enough in Jezero Crater to be within the ancient active region, formed from flowing water or ice.

As for the holes, my guess is that this rock formed from lava, and the holes are what geologists call “vugs”, bubbles formed within the lava as it solidified.

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A Martian river of sand

10:16 am

A Martian river of sand
Click for original image.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Cool image time! The panorama above, cropped, reduced, enhanced, and flipped to post here, was taken on April 14, 2024 by the right navigation camera on the Mars rover Curiosity, created from a total of 31 images.

The full mosaic covers a full 360 degree view from where Curiosity presently sits, inside the slot canyon Gediz Vallis. The part shown above only covers a little more than half, looking west at the butte which forms the western wall of the slot canyon, as shown by the yellow lines and the arrow in the overview map to the right. The blue dot marks Curiosity’s present position, while the red dotted line its planned route.

What makes this part of the mosaic especially distinct is the narrow river of sand that flows downhill from the right to the left. While everywhere else the ground is heavily covered with rocks, along this strip the surface is smooth sand, with many frozen dunes resembling waves or ripples as the flows downhill slowly.

The river is formed against a low cliff wall, which is why the sand gathered along this strip. At the same time, the downhill grade to the left (north) is allowing the sand to carve a distinct path, at the base of that cliff.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Mars is alien, Mars is unique, but above all, Mars is wonderful.

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China launches remote sensing satellite

9:17 am

China today successfully launched a remote sensing satellite, its Long March 2D rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China. Video of the launch can be found here.

No word on where the rocket’s lower stages, using toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

39 SpaceX
15 China
6 Russia
4 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined 45 to 27, while SpaceX by itself still leads the rest of the world, including other American companies, 39 to 33.

To my readers: Posting will be unpredictable for the next few days, as yesterday during a hike I fell, smashing my nose and cracking a rib. The nose is now pretty much fine, though it took a while for the bleeding to stop, but the rib makes doing almost anything somewhat painful. I shall see how the day goes.

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SpaceX launches 23 more Starlink satellites with 1st stage on record-setting 20th flight

7:44 pm

The bunny flies again! SpaceX tonight successfully launched 23 more Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage completed its 20th flight, a new record for a Falcon 9 first stage, landing successfully on a droneship in the Atlantic. At this moment SpaceX is beginning to collect a fleet of Falcon 9 first stage boosters that have flown almost as much as NASA’s space shuttle fleet, which flew as follows:

Discovery 39 flights
Atlantis 33 flights
Columbia: 28 flights
Endeavour 25 flights
Challenger: 10 flights

At present SpaceX has one booster with 20 flights, and two with 19, and I think one with 18. It will take a lot more launches to catch up, but it certainly appears possible for at least a few of these Falcon 9 stages to exceed the shuttle numbers.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

39 SpaceX
14 China
6 Russia
4 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined 45 to 26, while SpaceX by itself now leads the rest of the world, including other American companies, 39 to 32.

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LA Times: Can California’s coastal commission stop SpaceX launches from Vandenberg?

9:48 am

Link here. This article is a follow-up on the story I posted yesterday, about a meeting of the California Coastal Commission where locals demanded and the commission considered measures for attempting to limit an increase in launches from Vandenberg.

The article provides many more details about this political battle. It appears the military, out of courtesy, was letting the commission know that it wants to raise the number of launches to accomodate not just SpaceX but other private companies. It can do so without the commission’s permission, but wishes to work with it.

The commission and the ten or so people at the meeting complaining were exploring ways to block this increase. Though the meeting postponed any action until the next meeting in May, it was clear its commissioners will use the next few months to explore ways to expand their control, including looking for funding sources for initiating court actions.

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Amazon: First operational launch of Kuiper satellites delayed

9:38 am

Though Amazon’s CEO Andy Jassy, in his annual letter to shareholders yesterday, touted the Kuiper internet constellation’s profit potential, he also implied that the planned first launch of operational satellites has been delayed.

When Project Kuiper’s first two prototype satellites were launched last October for testing, Amazon said that its first production-grade satellites were on track for launch in the first half of 2024, and that it expected broadband service to be in beta testing with selected customers by the end of the year.

Today, Jassy put a slightly different spin on that schedule. “We’re on track to launch our first production satellites in 2024,” he wrote in his letter. “We’ve still got a long way to go, but are encouraged by our progress.”

Later in a television interview Jassy was more blunt, stating that the first operational satellites will not be ready until “the second half of ’24”, with the service becoming available “in the next year or so.”

The company’s incredibly slow roll-out of this constellation puts it at a significant disadvantage. Both it and Starlink were announced at about the same time, but Starlink already has several thousand satellites in orbit, has been operational for several years, and has almost three million customers signed on. It has gotten all the low-hanging fruit. Amazon will either have to convince those customers to switch — generally a difficult thing to do — or find new customers that have so far been less inclined to buy such satellite services.

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Swiss company tests three-legged hopper for asteroid exploration on zero-G airplane

9:26 am

SpaceHopper in flight
SpaceHopper in flight

A Swiss company, ETH Zurich, has successfully tested the ability of an unmanned three-legged hopper, designed to explore asteroids by hoping in the light gravity, to orient itself using its legs by flying on a zero-G airplane.

The picture to the right is a screen capture from the video embedded below.

All nine leg motors [three per leg] work together to launch the SpaceHopper high off the asteroid’s surface when jumping. As the robot is subsequently in flight, it maintains its upright orientation by selectively extending or withdrawing its legs to shift its center of mass as needed. Upon landing, its legs flex to absorb impact and to keep the bot from falling over.

During zero-G on the airplane flights the hopper successfully jumped, then used its legs to correctly orient itself afterward.

Developing this hopper was initially a student project, and its success has gotten it upgraded, still led by those students.
» Read more

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China: Quequiao-2 is successfully operating in lunar orbit

9:04 am

China’s state-run press today announced that its Quequiao-2 communications relay satellite in lunar orbit has successfully completed its initial in-orbit tests, and is functioning as planned.

The satellite successfully completed a communication test on April 6 with Chang’e-4, which is now carrying out an exploration mission on the far side of the moon. From April 8 to 9, it conducted communication tests with the Chang’e-6 probe, which is yet to be launched. Queqiao-2 was launched on March 20 and entered its target highly elliptical orbit on April 2 after midway correction, near-moon braking and orbital maneuver around the moon.

Two communication and navigation technology test satellites, Tiandu-1 and Tiandu-2, were sent into space together with Queqiao-2. They entered their target circumlunar orbits on March 29 and separated with each other on April 3. They are now conducting a series of tests on communication and navigation technology.

According to the article, Quequiao-2’s orbit is relatively stable for a lunar orbit and requires less fuel to maintain. The spacecraft thus should be able to operate for a very long time. The orbit “has also significantly improved its communication coverage on the south pole region of the moon.” It will be used for all of China’s future unmanned and manned lunar missions, and will provide China the ability to do farside missions routinely.

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Switzerland to sign Artemis Accords

8:56 am

NASA revealed today that Switzerland will become the 37th nation to sign the Artemis Accords in an official ceremony on April 15, 2024.

With this signing, these are the members of the American alliance: Angola, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Columbia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

The NASA press release is revealing about the goals of this alliance, under the Biden administration, both by what it says and what it does not say:

The Artemis Accords reinforce the 1967 Outer Space Treaty as well as the commitment by the United States and partner nations to the Registration Convention, the Rescue and Return Agreement, as well as best practices and norms of responsible behavior that NASA and its partners have supported, including the public release of scientific data.

When established by the Trump administration, the accords were not intended to “reinforce the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.” The accords were intended to create an alliance that would have the political clout to overcome that treaty’s limitations on establishing a private property legal framework in space. Right now the treaty seriously impairs investiment because no company has any assurance it will own any piece of ground it occupies.

The press announcement makes no mention of private enterprise, and implies that the Biden administration is aggressively working to eliminate that goal, and instead use the accords as a way to strengthen government control in space.

Under these circumstances, I wonder why China and Russia haven’t signed on as well.

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A squeezed Martian landscape

1:48 pm

A squeezed Martian landscape
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on February 20, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label “tilted blocks in the low northern latitudes.”

At first glance this circle of tilted blocks appear to mark a place where something erupted from below, pushing and cracking the blocks away in all directions. If there was an eruption however it appears very little if anything poured out from below. Instead, the ground inside the hollow in the center is about the same elevation as the ground surrounding the tilted blocks.

Clearly some pressure from below pushed these surface blocks upward to crack and tilt, but the answer cannot be found in this close-up picture. Instead, we need to look wider, not only at the overview map below, but at the inset on that overview map.
» Read more

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Rocket startup Relativity foregoes bidding on present round of military launch contracts

10:01 am

The rocket startup Relativity has decided not to bid on the present round of National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 3 contracts, saying the first launch of its new Terran-R rocket will not occur until 2026, well after those contracts are going to be awarded and flown.

Relativity was initially aiming to compete for the first round of NSSL Phase 3 contracts expected to be awarded later this year. However, the California-based company’s new Terran R rocket won’t fly until 2026 at the earliest, which falls outside the timeframe for this year’s NSSL Phase 3 awards. “We’ve been fairly transparent with our schedule over the last year and have continued to hit our milestones,” Joshua Brost, chief revenue officer at Relativity Space, told SpaceNews. “We’re very comfortable about on-ramping to NSSL in the future, likely next year as we approach that 12 months from initial launch.”

Relativity, after completing one partly successful launch of its smaller Terran-1 rocket in 2023, abandoned further development on that rocket in order to focus on its larger Terran-R. That decision however put it out of the launch market for years. I have always wondered if that decision was partly influenced by the increased launch regulation of the FAA in the past two years, which has caused the launches of new American rockets to almost cease. It might have realized getting Terran-1 launched again would be difficult and waste valuable company time and resources. Better to take a break on the hope that by 2026, the regulatory atmosphere might have improved.

Furthermore, Relativity uses very sophisticated 3D technology to build its rockets, an asset whose value on the market is maybe much greater than its rockets. It could be that Relativity is exploring this avenue at the moment, and we might find it never resumes launches.

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TESS in safe mode

9:43 am

NASA today revealed that on April 8, 2024 its TESS space telescope went into safe mode, for reasons that are not yet understood.

NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) entered into safe mode April 8, temporarily interrupting science observations. The team is investigating the root cause of the safe mode, which occurred during scheduled engineering activities. The satellite itself remains in good health.

The spacecraft itself remains healthy and they expect to resume science operations “in the coming days.”

That safe mode occurred while “scheduled engineering activities” were ongoing suggests that the two are linked. The lack of any details from NASA further suggests that someone did a “oops!” during those activities, and they are now scrambling to fix things.

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Japan and NASA ink lunar deal

9:33 am

After several years of discussion, Japan and NASA have finally signed an lunar exploration agreement whereby Japan will build a pressurized rover that astronauts can use to travel large distances in exchange for NASA launching two Japanese astronauts to the Moon.

An enclosed and pressurized rover will enable astronauts to travel farther and conduct science in geographically diverse areas by serving as a mobile habitat and laboratory for the astronauts to live and work for extended periods of time. It will be able to accommodate two astronauts for up to 30 days as they traverse the area near the lunar South Pole. NASA currently plans to use the pressurized rover on Artemis VII and subsequent missions over an approximate 10-year lifespan.

This rover is being built in a deal between Japan’s space agency JAXA and Toyota. It will be very heavy, which meanst NASA is now planning its lunar exploration with Starship as a fundamental part. No other planned lunar lander could bring this kind of mass to the surface.

The two Japanese astronauts will likely fly on two different Artemis missions over that time-span. When these missions will occur will largely depend on how long NASA stubbornly sticks with is SLS/Orion/Lunar Gateway framework for getting astronauts to the Moon. These assets are not yet ready. They are also very cumbersome and expensive and slow. Missions using SLS expecially cannot occur faster than every two years, if that. If NASA depends on them, serious lunar exploration will likely not occur before 2030, at the earliest.

If however SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy becomes operational in the next two years, and NASA switches operations to it instead, the pace will pick up, exponentially. Launches could likely occur multiple times per year, and it will be possible to put large amounts of mass on the Moon quickly. That lunar base will be built fast.

The decision to switch however will require a political decision, one that it appears many in Washington are reluctant to make. First, the Democrats now see Elon Musk as an enemy. Why award his company? Secondly, SLS/Orion/Gateway are great jobs programs. Abandoning them will eliminate a lot of wasteful pork, a sin to the politicos who operate our government for their interests, not the interests of the country.

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Russia and SpaceX complete launches

9:08 am

Early today both Russia and SpaceX completed rocket launches.

First, Russia after several scrubs for technical reasons successfully completed a test launch of the largest configuration of its Angara rocket, the Angara-A5. It was the first launch of Angara-A5 from its far east spaceport Vostochny, and the first test launch of this rocket confiruration since 2014. Development had stalled for many years due to a major design issue revealed in 2019.

This launch establishes several important benchmarks for Russia’s space program. This rocket is essential for its goal of building a new space station, and the launch from Vostochny gives Russia as stronger backup to Baikonur in Kazakhstan, where long-term access is becoming problematic.

SpaceX then followed, with a launch of a military weather satellite, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California. The first stage completed its third flight, landing successfully back at Vandenberg.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

38 SpaceX
14 China
6 Russia
4 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined 44 to 26, while SpaceX by itself still leads the rest of the world, including other American companies, 38 to 32.

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Activists file lawsuit to prevent land swap at Boca Chica

2:51 pm

The same collection of activists who have been waging lawfare against SpaceX’s Boca Chica rocket facility have now filed a new lawsuit, this time against the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission (TPWD) in order to block an approved land swap that gives SpaceX 43 acres of a Boca Chica state park in exchange for receiving 477 acres nearby.

The South Texas Environmental Justice Network, the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas, and Save RGV banded together for a lawsuit filed in the District Court of Travis County on April 3. The suit alleges that Texas Parks and Wildlife violated statutory requirements for the proposal, including the requirement to consider alternatives to giving away public park land; the requirement to ensure the minimization of harm to the public park land; and the requirement to consider the best interests of the local community and TPWD.

These jokers represent very few people in south Texas. Worse, the so-called “Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas” was in Mexico, not Texas, when it existed. The corporation that exists now is a front for filing these lawsuits, taking advantage of the numerous DEI regulations that now exist to favor such minorities.

That the commission approved the swap unanimously, despite heavy pressure from these groups, illustrates the larger support in Texas for what SpaceX is doing. Expect the Texas courts to endorse that support as well. All these suits will do is delay, delay, delay.

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Rocket Lab to refly a recovered first stage

2:31 pm

Electron 1st stage floating in the water

Rocket Lab today announced that a first stage used on a launch in January and recovered successfully from the ocean, as shown to the right, has now been moved into its normal production line for preparation for a reflight on an upcoming launch.

The stage was successfully launched and recovered as part of the ‘Four of a Kind’ mission on 31 January 2024 and has already passed more acceptance tests than any other recovered Electron stage, including:

  • Tank pressurization test – a process that filled the carbon composite tank with inert gas and held it in excess of maximum operating pressure for more than 20x longer than the standard Electron flight duration
  • Helium leak check – a stringent process that determines there are no leaks in the tank
  • Carbon fiber structural testing – including ultrasonic assessment and other non-destructive tests to confirm no delamination of the carbon composite tank fibers.

The stage will now undergo final fit out and rigorous qualification and acceptance testing to the same standard as a brand-new Electron tank to determine the recovered stage’s suitability for reflight.

No actual launch date has been set. The company first wants to complete its final testing. If successful and the stage flies again, Rocket Lab will join a very elite club, becoming only the second entity anywhere — after SpaceX capable of reusing a significant part of its rockets. That capability will allow it to drop prices, and better compete.

This success also underlines the lack of creativity from more than a half century of managers and rocket engineers, who repeatedly insisted such reuse was impractical, or impossible. The idea of recovering a stage from the ocean and reusing it was considered crazy, so no one ever tried it. Rocket Lab is about to prove more than a half century of managers and rocket engineers wrong.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay.

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China successfully tests new propulsion system for satellites

10:01 am

The state-run Chinese press today touted the successful use of a new “cold-propulsion system” on the Tiandu-2 test satellite launched into lunar orbit with its Queqiao-2 relay communications satellite.

The cold propulsion system recently provided high-precision orbital attitude control for the satellite during lunar orbit, marking the first successful application of the liquid ammonia cold air micro-propulsion system in the field of deep-space exploration.

The storage tank is an important component of satellite propulsion systems. As a pressure component, it requires not only high precision of forming and no leakage, but also good anti-fatigue performance, allowing for repeated fuel filling and discharge.

The article touts the tank so much because it was 3D-printed, making it the first such tank sent into space by China.

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Angara launch scrubbed for the second day in a row

9:52 am

Technical issues early this morning caused Russia to scrub, for the second day in a row, the first launch of its new Angara-A5 heavy-lift rocket from its Vostochny spaceport in the far east of Russia.

The first attempt to launch the Angara-A5 rocket from the Vostochny spaceport on Tuesday was canceled about two minutes before the scheduled liftoff due to a failure of the pressurization system of the oxidizer tank in the central block [the core stage] of the rocket.

The second attempted launch Wednesday was also aborted by the automatic safety system, which registered a flaw in the engine start control mechanism, said Yuri Borisov, head of Russia’s state-controlled space corporation Roscosmos. He added that the failure was most likely rooted in a programming error.

They intend to try again tomorrow.

Angara has been under development for about two decades. This launch, which carries a dummy payload, will be the fifth launch of Angara, though the first of of the heavy-lift A5 configuration since 2014. In 2019 vibration issues were discovered that caused a major delay in its development. Of the previous four launches, only one carried an actual payload into orbit. All the others carried dummy payloads, with one test launch failing.

Russia needs the Angara-A5 rocket if it is going to build its own space station, because it no longer has the Proton rocket to launch modules. It also needs to get its Vostochny spaceport up and running, because its long term access to Baikonur in Kazakhstan is increasingly questionable.

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Japan to sign deal with NASA to fly two Japanese astronauts to Moon

9:34 am

According to story in the Japanese press yesterday, a deal between Japan and NASA will be signed next week whereby Japan will have two astronauts go on Moon missions in exchange for providing cargo to the Lunar Gateway station as well as a manned lunar rover.

The report today is unclear whether those Japanese astronauts will land on the Moon, but I expect they will. The rover project is being led by Toyota. It will include a airtight cabin where spacesuits will not be necessary and passengers can also sleep, allowing for very long exploratory traverses from the landing site.

Reports of this deal have been appearing in the press since 2022, when NASA said it would involve flying one Japanese astronaut to the Moon. In December 2023 it was reported that the deal would be signed within a month. It is now April. It appears the extended negotiations have gotten Japan a second astronaut Moon walker.

NASA’s Artemis program is beginning to shape up as an international program for getting almost everyone to the Moon but Americans. I am exaggerating, but I think in the future Americans will find it easier to go on a private mission to the Moon than depend on NASA, especially because of all the international deals NASA will have to honor.

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SpaceX launches more Starlink satellites

11:41 pm

The bunny never stops! SpaceX tonight successfully launched 23 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage completed its second flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

37 SpaceX
14 China
5 Russia
4 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined 43 to 25, while SpaceX by itself leads the rest of the world, including other American companies, 37 to 31.

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The foot of a Martian glacier

1:00 pm

The foot of a Martian glacier
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on February 18, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label as the “terminus of possible glacier-like feature.” That feature is at the lower left, at the point where glacier-like material appears to be flowing out of the channel from the northeast but then ending in an area of rough fingers.

That this looks exactly like a glacier does not guarantee that it is one, which is why the scientists insert the word “possible.” Nonetheless, the geology resembles that of a glacier, from the parallel lines along its length as well as its existence inside this channel. The location is also at 49 degrees south latitude, well within the mid-latitude strips on Mars where scientists believe many such glaciers exist.

The overview map below adds further weight to this conclusion. It also suggests that there are even more glaciers on Mars than research up to now has suggested.
» Read more

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ULA completes last Delta-4 Heavy launch

10:06 am

Delta-4 Heavy on its last launch
Delta-4 Heavy on its last launch

ULA today successfully completed the last Delta-4 launch, the Delta-4 Heavy version — the most powerful — lifting off from Cape Canaveral and placing a National Reconnaissance Office surveillance satellite into orbit.

From this point on ULA will rely on its new Vulcan-Centaur and Atlas-5 rockets, though production of the Atlas-5 has ceased. When the remaining Atlas-5s are flown, the Vulcan-Centaur in its many iterations will become the company’s mainstay rocket. All this might change depending on who buys ULA. If Blue Origin buys the company, the mix will be more complex, as that company is developing its own New Glenn rocket.

This was ULA’s second launch in 2024, so there is no change to the leader board in the 2024 launch race:

36 SpaceX
14 China
5 Russia
4 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined 42 to 25, while SpaceX by itself leads the rest of the world, including other American companies, 36 to 31.

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Turkey to join China’s lunar base program

9:02 am

Turkey yesterday announced that it is applying to join China’s program to build a lunar base on the Moon, dubbed the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), becoming the ninth nation in that partnership.

Those nations are Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, and Venezuela. In addition, another nine academic organizations of one kind or another have signed on.

Interestingly, Turkey’s government apparently decided to partner with China after it flew its own astronaut on Axiom’s AX-3 mission to ISS in January, flying in a SpaceX Dragon capsule launched by SpaceX’s Falcon 9. Previously it had also signed a deal with Sierra Space to participate in both its Dream Chaser and Orbital Reef station.

This new agreement suggests the present instability of international politics has forced it to go to its very powerful neighbors. Or maybe Turkey is signing on with everyone, attempting to burn the candle at both ends.

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New startup to launch a new design for inflatable modules

8:50 am

A new startup, dubbed Max Space, is presently building a test inflatable module it hopes to fly on a SpaceX launch in 2025, testing its new design for inflatable modules that it says is safer and more easily scalable.

Max Space is taking a different technical approach to earlier systems that used a bi-directional “basket weave” fabric structure. “When you start making fibers go in two different directions, 90 degrees apart, the result is you don’t know how much load is going in one direction or the other,” said Maxim de Jong, co-founder and chief technology officer of Max Space, whose past work included development of [Bigelow’s private] Genesis 1 and 2 [orbital modules]. That requires additional material to ensure sufficient margins of safety and also makes it difficult to scale up designs to larger volumes. “Every scale-up is a point design and has to be revalidated,” he said.

Max Space is pursuing a technology called an ultra-high-performance vessel created by de Jong that distributes loads in one direction, a design that he credited to a “totally accidental discovery” while working on other concepts. That reduces the uncertainty in safety margins, which has been demonstrated in tests where modules burst at pressures within 10% of predicted levels. “The predictability is great and the scalability is great,” he said.

According to the company, this design will allow it to quickly build modules with as much as a thousand cubic meters volume, matching ISS in a single module, and able to launch on a single Falcon 9.

The company is not planning its own station. Instead, it simply wishes to be a provider of modules to the other American space stations, four of which are presently being built. It also is offering its modules as potential fuel depots as well as in-orbit storage faciliites.

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ESA awards Thales Alenia contract to build Mars lander for Franklin rover

8:40 am

Oxia Planum drainages
The drainage patterns at the Franklin rover
landing site

Click for paper [pdf].

The European Space Agency (ESA) today awarded the Italian company Thales Alenia a €522 million contract to build the entry, descent, and landing module for ESA’s Franklin rover, now scheduled for launch in 2028.

Under this contract, Thales Alenia Space will lead the definition of the Entry, Descent and Landing Module and maintenance activities for the transfer module (carrier) and the rover, including upgrades and replacement of time-sensitive elements. A full audit and tests will be carried out on the rover to ensure its readiness for the new mission. In addition, replacement of some payload elements is planned, such as integration of the new Enfys infrared spectrometer. The batteries and tanks will be replaced on the carrier module as well as potential adjustments to align with the updated trajectories to Mars. New developments on the descent module and landing pad are also required, because the European avionics part of the descent module will be reused.

This contract was necessary because the project was initially a partnership with Russia, whereby Russia provided this lander as well as the launch services. That partnership was severed after Russia invaded the Ukraine, which caused this mission to Mars to be delayed four to six years.

NASA then chipped in $30 million to help pay for launch out of Cape Canaveral, though no launch company has been announced. I suspect both ESA and NASA wish to wait before making a deal, considering how launch costs are dropping. At present it is impossible to predict the landscape of that market in 2028.

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A whirlpool half-hidden by dust

10:23 am

A whirlpool half-hidden by dust
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, reduced and sharpened to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and shows us a magnificent spiral galaxy about 100 million light years away that also has very active nucleus at its center as well as many star-forming regions (in blue) in its outer arms.

That we do not see the same blue spiral arms on the right side of the photo is not because they are lacking, but because a very large stream of dust blocks our view.

This dark nebula is part of the Chamaeleon star-forming region, itself located only around 500 light-years from us, in a nearby part of the Milky Way galaxy. The dark clouds in the Chamaeleon region occupy a large area of the southern sky, covering their namesake constellation but also encroaching on nearby constellations, like Apus. The cloud is well-studied for its treasury of young stars, particularly the cloud Cha I, which has been imaged by Hubble and also by the … James Webb Space Telescope.

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Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter snaps a smeared image of South Korea’s Danuri lunar obiter

10:04 am

Danuri as seen by LRO
Click for original image.

Cool image time! On March 5 to March 6, 2024, the orbits of NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and South Korea’s Danuri orbiter had three close approaches, during which LRO had a chance to snap pictures of Danuri as it zipped by in the opposite direction.

The first image is to the right, cropped but expanded to post here.

The flight paths of the two vehicles were nearly parallel but in opposite directions, resulting in extreme relative velocity. The LROC NAC exposure time was very short, only 0.338 milliseconds. But still, Danuri was smeared by a factor greater than 10x in the downtrack direction.

…On the first opportunity, LRO was slewed 43 degrees to capture Danuri from a distance of 5.0 kilometers

Of the three pictures taken, this one appears the best. In all three cases, the fast relative speed was too fast for the camera shutter, so that Danuri’s image was smeared as you see.

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