Tag: spaceflight

The inconceivable scale of Mars’ canyons

1:25 pm

Overview map

Today’s cool image takes us to one of Mars’ biggest canyon systems that while linked to Valles Marineris, the biggest Martian canyon of them all, is considered a separate canyon system because it is made up of a labyrinth of criss-crossing canyons instead of a single major canyon line.

In fact, its name is Noctis Labyrinthus, as shown on the overview map to the right. In many ways its complex pattern is reminiscent of the chaos terrain seen mostly in Mars’ mid-latitudes, but there are major differences. The rectangle marks the area we shall zoom into below to show these differences as well as to feebly illustrate the grand scale of these canyons.

First, the formation of these canyons is closely linked to the volcanic events that formed the three giant volcanoes to the west. They are also strongly linked (in ways not yet fully understood) with the suspected catastrophic floods that drained from Noctis, through Valles Marineris, and out into the northern lowland plains to the east, eons ago when this dry equatorial region could have been wet.
» Read more

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New Australian government cancels $1.2 billion program to launch four government satellites

10:09 am

The new Australian Labor government has canceled a $1.2 billion program funded by the previous government to pay for four satellites to provide both civilian and military data from orbit.

The cut will primarily affect the NSMEO program, which was to have four satellites launched between 2028 and 2033 to give Australia a new stream of information from space. While the goal was primarily for civil use, maritime situational awareness data — crucial for keeping an eye on Australia’s sovereign waters — was also part of the project. Also, the weather and earth observation capabilities would have had clear military applications.

Instead the new government has decided to continue the previous policy of using the space capabilities of “its international partners.”

It is unclear whether this decision is good or bad. If the money was to be spent buying these satellites from new Australian satellite companies, it could have helped jump start that nation’s satellite industry. If the plan had instead been to have the government design and build the satellites, then it likely would have merely been a government jobs program that would have cost a lot and accomplished little. In the latter case the new government would thus be shutting down a wasteful program. In the former it prevents a new private industry from forming.

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Orbex to expand facilities in Scotland and Denmark

9:57 am

The British rocket startup Orbex today announced that it is expanding its factory and office space in its facilities in Scotland and Denmark, the former at its facility it leases at the new spaceport in Sutherland.

The company is adding an extra 1,500 square metres of factory and office space to its existing 4,750 square metre estate in Forres, Scotland and Copenhagen, Denmark. The additional space will increase the company’s launch vehicle production and propulsion system manufacturing capacity and add an extra software laboratory and an avionics clean room space with ISO 8 and ISO 9 sections. The additional capacity in Forres is just 3km from its test site at Kinloss, allowing for quick turnaround between the two sites, as Orbex ramps up its testing in the countdown to launch.

The press release doesn’t give any information about the expansion in Denmark. I wonder if it is occurring as a hedge against the kind of bureaucratic delays in the UK that destroyed Virgin Orbit. Orbex’s Prime rocket is presently under construction in Scotland, with its first launch planned for this year out of Sutherland. Whether it can get a launch permit promptly is doubtful, based on the fifteen months it took Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to approve Virgin Orbit. Orbex applied for the launch license in February 2022 (seventeen months ago) and so far there is no word from CAA about its approval.

Other Scandinavian spaceports are under construction in Sweden and Norway, which suggests establishing facilities in Denmark could strengthen Orbex’s ties to these new spaceports, especially in Sweden as both Sweden and Denmark are members of the European Union. Norway meanwhile as strong trades ties to the EU. Orbex has also signed a deal with Arianespace to launch ESA payloads, and it could be those launches could occur in French Guiana.

It seems wise if Orbex prepares for launch problems in the UK. Today’s announcement could be signalling that preparation.

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ISRO to transfer ownership of its smallsat SSLV rocket to a private company

9:38 am

India’s space agency ISRO has now announced that it is planning to transfer full ownership of its new smallsat SSLV rocket to a private company, with that transfer conducted through open bidding.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will soon transfer its Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) to the private sector, after conducting two development flights of the rocket that seeks to provide on-demand services to put satellites weighing up to 500 kg in a low-earth orbit. The space agency has decided to opt for the bidding route to transfer the mini-rocket to the industry, a senior official said. “We will be transferring the SSLV completely to the private sector. Not just the manufacturing, but full transfer,” the official said.

The article does not provide a source, so this story is at present unconfirmed. It does fit with the overall policy of the Modi government, but it also clashes with the power structure in India’s vast bureaucracy that is resisting that policy. It is very possible that the story has been leaked as part of that struggle, likely by bureaucracy to gin up opposition prior to the transfer being implemented.

Up to now under the Modi government’s efforts to force ISRO to give up power, the assets of ISRO that have been used to generate commercial profits — such as its rockets — have generally been transferred to a new separate bureaucracy created by ISRO dubbed NSIL. NSIL supposed to operate like a private company, but it is wholly owned by the government, and is thus structured to retain control within that government.

If this news story is correct, the Modi government is about to bypass NSIL and force ISRO to sell off SSLV. If so this is excellent news, though the devil will certainly be hidden in the final details of the sale.

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SpaceX launches 22 Starlink satellites using a first stage for 16th time

9:11 pm

SpaceX tonight successfully launched 22 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral using a first stage for a record sixteenth time, all achieved with a period of just over three years.

The stage successfully landed on its drone ship in the Atlantic. In addition, the two fairing halves each successfully completed its ninth flight.

In those three years this one first stage flew almost as many times as all of the launches of Russia (24), ULA (20), and Europe (20). Somehow, with those sixteen launches I think SpaceX has fully gotten its full value for what it spent building and refurbishing that stage.

To understand how routine SpaceX has made all this, when that first stage landed tonight there were no cheers at SpaceX, at all. There was just routine silence, as the launch crew proceeded with what has become an entirely routine procedure.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

46 SpaceX
25 China
9 Russia
5 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads China in launches 52 to 25, and the entire world combined 52 to 43, with SpaceX by itself leading the rest of the world, excluding American companies, 46 to 43.

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China launches classified technology test satellite

9:37 am

According to China’s state-run press, it used its Long March 2C rocket to launch a satellite to test “internet technologies” today, lifting off from its interior Jiuquan spaceport in the northwest of China.

This is all that press told us. Nor did it say where the rocket’s first stage crashed in China, whether it used parachutes to control its descent, or whether it came down uncontrolled near habitable territories.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

45 SpaceX (with a planned Starlink launch tonight)
25 China
9 Russia
5 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads China in launches 51 to 25, and the entire world combined 51 to 43, with SpaceX by itself leading the rest of the world, excluding American companies, 45 to 43.

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Puzzling crater on alien Mars

2:08 pm

Puzzling crater on alien Mars
Click for original image.

Today’s cool image once again illustrates that the things that orbiters photograph on the Martian surface are not always what they seem at first glance. The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on March 23, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label as “layering” in this small mile-wide crater.

That layering, seen on both the interior and exterior slopes of its circular rim, is what makes this crater puzzling. It suggests this crater was not formed by an impact, but by volcanism. The layers suggest repeated eruptive events. That the crater sits above the surround plain by about 100 feet strengthens this conclusion.

And yet, a look at the overview map below suggests this conclusion is premature.
» Read more

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SpaceX launches another 48 Starlink satellites

12:39 pm

Using its Falcon 9 rocket, SpaceX today successfully launched another 48 Starlink satellites, lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base.

The first stage completed its twelfth flight, landing softly on a drone ship in the Pacific. The two fairing halves completed their fourth and seventh flights respectively.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

45 SpaceX
24 China
9 Russia
5 Rocket Lab

In successful launches, American private enterprise now leads China 51 to 24 in the national rankings, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world combined, excluding American companies, 45 to 42.

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Taiwan wants and needs Starlink, but local law is blocking a deal

9:46 am

After three years of discussions, negotiations between Taiwan and SpaceX to provide Starlink to that nation broke off in 2022 because of a local Taiwanese law that requires local ownership of at least 51%.

SpaceX would not agree to these conditions, and ended the negotiations. In response, Taiwan has been struggling to get its own communications satellite into orbit, with limited success.

To address that vulnerability, the Taiwan Space Agency (TASA) intends to launch its first self-made low-Earth orbit communication satellite in 2026 and at least one more by 2028, Director General Wu Jong-shinn said. Taiwan also will have rockets capable of carrying payloads weighing over 100 kilograms, he added in an interview.

Since the country doesn’t yet have those rockets, this plan remains dependent on foreign launchers. Moreover, to be effective in low-orbit will require not two satellites but a constellation of 20 to 30. Taiwan is years from being to launch such a constellation.

It seems Taiwan is cutting off its nose to spite its face by not changing this ownership law. Its entire internet access is dependent on 14 undersea cables, and China has already demonstrated the ability to destroy these cables when it cut two in February. No foreign operation is going to give up its ownership to make a deal in Taiwan.

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Students complete first suborbital launch from new Nova Scotia spaceport

9:37 am

Students today completed the first suborbital launch from the new Nova Scotia spaceport being run by Maritime Launch Services.

The launch was completed by Arbalest Rocketry, a rocketry team from Ontario’s York University. It in turn is part of a nationwide Canadian student program called Launch Canada involving “over 1000 students nationwide from over 25 universities and colleges.”

Maritime hopes to offer both a launchpad and a rocket to satellite companies. It has deals with rocket startups in both the Ukraine and the United Kingdom, whereby satellite companies can come to Martitime and get full launch services.

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Large mass of granite unexpectedly detected on Moon

9:12 am

Using archival data from four lunar orbiters (two American and two Chinese), researchers have unexpectedly detected evidence suggesting the existence of a large 20-mile-wide mass of granite under a lunar volcanic caldera.

“We have discovered extra heat coming out of the ground at a location on the Moon believed to be a long dead volcano which last erupted over 3.5 billion years ago. It’s around 50km across, and the only solution that we can think of which produces that much heat is a large body of granite, a rock which forms when a magma body – the unerupted lava – below a volcano cools. Granite has high concentrations of radioactive elements like uranium and thorium compared to other rocks in the lunar crust, causing the heating we can sense at the lunar surface”.

Except for some small grains found in Apollo lunar samples, granite has not been found anywhere in the solar system except on Earth. This discovery, if confirmed, will strengthen the theory that the Moon was once part of the Earth and was created from the impact of a second large body.

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Update on preparations at Boca Chica for next Starship/Superheavy test launch

9:03 am

Link here. The article provides an excellent review of the extensive work SpaceX is doing, especially in repairing and upgrading the Superheavy launch facility.

Overall, SpaceX is moving fast, suggesting that Elon Musk’s prediction that it will be ready technically to launch in August quite believable. I remain doubtful that launch will happen in August, however, as I fully expect the FAA and the Biden administration will not issue a launch license on time, but will delay it.

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Swirls draining into a Martian crater

11:59 am

Swirls draining into a Martian crater
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, sharpened, and annotated to post here, was taken on April 8, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The picture shows a terrain of swirls and terraced mesas. Because the shadows are deceptive, I have annotated the picture to show the actual drainage pattern of those swirls, suggesting that whatever material forms these swirls is not only draining about 200-250 feet down into the low point at the picture’s center, the swirls are also draining toward the small 1,000-foot-wide crater in the upper left. That crater however appears to lie on top of the swirls, which means it came after them.

What are the swirls made of?
» Read more

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Europe’s Ariane-5 rocket completes its last launch

3:30 pm

The Ariane-5 rocket today successfully completed its final launch, lifting off from French Guiana and placing two communications satellites into orbit.

At the moment Europe has no capability of putting anything into orbit. Ariane-5 is retired. Ariane-6, its replacement, is far behind schedule will probably not make its first test flight until next year. The Vega-C rocket is grounded because of a launch failure in December 2022.

This was only the second launch for Europe in 2023, so the the leader board in the 2023 launch race remains the same:

44 SpaceX
24 China
9 Russia
5 Rocket Lab

In successful launches, American private enterprise still leads China 50 to 24 in the national rankings, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world combined, excluding American companies, 44 to 42.

6 comments

Alien Mars

11:19 am

Alien Mars
Click for original image.

Today’s cool image illustrates again the alien geology of Mars, often disguised as geological features that at first glance seem familiar. The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on April 9, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Its most distinct feature, the mile-wide double crater in the center bottom, at first appears typical of such craters found on the Moon and elsewhere, suggesting that the bolide that caused it broke in two as it cut through the Martian atmosphere.

This double crater however is not like lunar double craters, in that the shape of both craters is deformed, and the deformation is not quite the same in each. Moreover, the crater does not appear to have an upraised rim or to have thrown out any obvious ejecta. Instead, the two objects hit what looks like soft ground, such as when you drop a pebble into snow.

There’s more.
» Read more

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Curiosity’s most damaged wheel appears to be surviving the rough terrain on Mount Sharp

9:46 am

Curiosity's middle left wheel, from November 2022 to July 2023
For original images go here and here.

In today’s download of images from Curiosity was a set of pictures taken by its Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) of the rover’s wheels, as part of the science team’s routine inspection procedures after every 500 meters of travel.

The picture to the right shows what I think is the rover’s left middle wheel, its most heavily damaged, comparing what that wheel looks like now versus what it looked like in November 2022. At that time five of the wheel’s zig-zag grouser treads were broken, three of which are visible in both pictures. The numbers indicate identical wheel treads.

As you can see, after more than seven months of travel across some of the roughest and rockiest ground so far seen on Mars, no more grousers have broken in the new picture. The plus (“+”) signs indicate places where I think some additional metal between the grousers appears to have broken away, but even here the additional damage appears minimal.

Based on past wheel inspections, I expect more images will be taken in the next day or so. We shall see if those pictures indicate any further damage elsewhere. Based on this new picture, however, it appears that the care the science team takes in picking Curiosity’s route, as well as its software (designed to avoid the worst terrain), is continuing to preserve the wheels from further significant damage.

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South Korea: North Korean spy satellite of “no military utility”

8:36 am

Having completed its salvage operations to recover rocket and satellite remains from North Korea’s failed launch on May 31st, the South Korean military today revealed that the satellite had “no military utility as a reconnaissance satellite.”

As expected, it also provided few details to back up that claim:

The JCS [South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff] did not detail the findings through the allies’ analysis of the wreckage nor did it disclose any photos of the retrieved part of the satellite. Last month, a Seoul official struck a cautious note, insinuating that disclosing all the information the military gleaned from the salvage operation would rather benefit the North Korean military.

It is likely true that the North Korea satellite was of limited value, but it is also true that secrecy and disinformation works to the advantage of South Korea’s military. We therefore would be wise to remain skeptical about any of its claims, one way or the other.

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Instrument designed to detect lightning releases first data

9:41 am

Lightning over Europe
Lightning over Europe. Click for original movie.

The first data from the Lightning Imager launched in December 2022 on Europe’s Meteosat weather satellite has now been released, the images compiled into movies showing lightning activity across Europe, Africa, the Middle East and parts of South America.

While the animations are a first initial result from the Lightning Imager, the Meteosat Third Generation Imager is currently undergoing its commissioning phase during which the instruments are calibrated and the data is validated. Data from the Lightning Imager will be available for operational use in early-2024 at an increased sensitivity.

You can see all the movies here. The lightning is found almost exclusively over land. In fact, you can see the lightning in one storm vanish as the storm drifts out into the Mediterranean.

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SpaceX and FAA seek dismissal of lawsuit against Starship at Boca Chica

9:01 am

Both the FAA and SpaceX have now submitted their response to the lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and other environmental and leftist political groups, requesting a dismissal of their lawsuit demanding no more launches at Boca Chica until the federal government completes a new environmental impact statement.

In a filing Friday, the FAA said the groups lack legal standing for their claims against the agency that granted a launch license to SpaceX’s Starship rocket program. Separately, a SpaceX filing said the first Starship launch on April 20 provided no cause for the FAA to conduct a new environmental assessment, a process that could halt further test launches for years. “For the foregoing reasons, defendants request that the court dismiss the complaint in its entirety,” Todd Kim, assistant attorney general for the environment and natural resources division of the U.S. Department of Justice, wrote in the filing in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

In a sane world, this lawsuit would have been thrown out of court almost instantly. There is no evidence the test launch of Starship/Superheavy caused any environmental damage. Furthermore, launches from Cape Canaveral for the past seven decades have proven this fact repeatedly.

We no longer live in a sane world. There is no guarantee the court will rule in favor of the FAA or SpaceX.

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Parker completes 16th orbit of the Sun

8:53 am

On June 22, 2023 the Parker Solar Probe completed its 16th close approach to the Sun, passing within 5.3 million miles of the solar surface while moving at 364,610 miles per hour.

The mission team at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, noted the close approach was preceded by a small trajectory correction maneuver (TCM) on June 7 —​ the first course correction since March 2022. Mission Design and Navigation Manager​ Yanping Guo of APL said TCMs are performed periodically to ensure that the​ spacecraft remains on course, and the latest maneuver kept Parker on track to hit the “aim point” for the mission’s sixth Venus flyby on Aug. 21. ​

With each perihelion now, Parker sets new records of speed. No human spacecraft has ever flown so fast.

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