Tag: spaceflight

China targets May 2024 for launch of its Chang’e-6 lunar sample return mission

9:10 am

The Moon's far side
The Moon’s far side. Click for interactive map.

China is now working to a May 2024 launch of its Chang’e-6 lunar sample return mission to bring back about four pounds of material from the far side of the Moon.

The map to the right, created from a global mosaic of Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) imagery, shows the planned location of Chang’e-6’s landing site, in Apollo Basin. The landing site of China’s previous mission to the Moon’s far side, Chang’e-4 and its rover Yutu, is also shown. Both are still operating there, since landing five years ago on January 2, 2019.

Chang’e-6’s mission will be similar to China’s previous lunar sample mission, Chang’e-5, which included a lander, ascender, orbiter, and returner. It launched in November 23, 2020, landed a week later, and within two days grabbed its samples and its ascender lifted off. The samples were back on Earth by December 16, 2020.

There are indications however that Chang’e-6 might spend more time on the surface before its ascender lifts off with samples.

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Uruguay signs Artemis Accords

8:42 am

Uruguay yesterday became the 36th nation to sign the Artemis Accords, originally conceived during the Trump administration as a political maneuver to get around the legal restrictions against private ownership imposed by the Outer Space Treaty.

It is unclear where Uruguay stands with these goals. The last two signatories, Belguim and Greece, hinted in their public statements that their goals were far different, aimed more at imposing the modern leftist globalist agenda instead (“You will own nothing and be happy.”)

At present these are the nations who have signed on: 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, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

The competing alliance of communist nations, led by China, includes only Russia, Venezuala, Pakistan, Belarus, Azerbaijan, and South Africa. Former deep Soviet bloc nations like Bulgaria and Romania, as well as previously very Marxist Angola, joined the American alliance, suggesting that these two space alliances are not a return of the Cold War of the 20th century. Instead, it appears that both alliances are untrustworthy when it comes to individual rights, freedom, and limited government. Both have tensions within each, with many leaders in both groups working both against and for these ideals, with a large plurality likely focused on power and control, not human freedom.

The U.S. can do much good here, if its leadership stands firmly for freedom (to paraphrase John Kennedy). Sadly, its leadership today does not do this, and it is very unclear whether future leaders will do so either.

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The shoreline of a Martian lava sea

3:45 pm

The shoreline of a Martian lava sea
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on October 2, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The science team labeled this a “lava margin.” The darker material on the right is apparently a newer deposit of lava, flowing on top of the lighter lava on the left. The newer deposit is only about three feet thick, so it had to have flowed fast almost like water to cover this large area with such a thin layer before freezing. Even so, this new lava layer has a roughness greater than the older layer below it. Either the older layer is smoother because of erosion from wind over eons, or the lava in these two layers was comprised of slightly different materials that froze with different textures.

The small ridges appear to be wrinkle ridges, created when material shrinks as it freezes.

This margin marks the edge of a very large flood lava event, as illustrated by the overview map below.
» Read more

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SpaceX launches 22 Starlink satellites

2:57 pm

SpaceX today successfully launched another 22 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California at 1:34 pm Pacific.

This was the launch scrubbed yesterday, and its launch today means the company completed three launches in less than 24 hours. The first stage successfully completed its second flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

15 SpaceX
8 China
2 Iran
2 Russia

American private enterprise now leads the entire world combined 17 to 14 in successful launches, with SpaceX by itself is leading the rest of the world combined (excluding American companies) 15 to 14.

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OSIRIS-REx brought home twice as much material from Bennu than planned

10:17 am

The inside of OSIRIS-REx's sample return capsule
The material found inside the sample return
capsule. Click for original image.

Curators cataloging the material returned by OSIRIS-REx’s sample capsule from the asteroid Bennu have now completed weighing the material,l and have discovered that the spacecraft grabbed more than twice as much material from Bennu as planned.

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft delivered 4.29 ounces (121.6 grams) of material from asteroid Bennu when it returned to Earth on Sep. 24, 2023; the largest asteroid sample ever collected in space and over twice the mission’s requirement. The mission team needed at least 60 grams of material to meet the mission’s science goals, an amount that had already been exceeded before the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) head was completely opened.

More than 60 grams were recovered outside the capsule that had stuck to it during touch-and-go operations. Once they were able to open the capsule and weigh the material inside, they found it had captured as much stuff, so that in total the mission brought back a double complement of material.

This material will now be distributed to scientists worldwide for study. It is likely that it will overturn almost all assumptions presently held about the make-up of the solar system’s asteroid population, since previous to the recent asteroid sample return missions of OSIRIS-REx and Japan’s Hayabusa-2 our only samples came from material that survived after burning through the Earth’s atmosphere. That journey resulted in an incomplete and biased census, with the most delicate material destroyed.

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Space Force cancels major satellite contract with Northrop Grumman

10:02 am

The Space Force today announced it has cancelled a major multi-satellite contract with Northrop Grumman, worth almost a billion dollars, because of cost overruns and scheduling delays.

Northrop was formally notified last month of the termination within “our restricted Space Business,” the defense contractor said in a regulatory filing, using jargon for classified programs. The filing offered no details on the classified satellite or the reasons it was called off, which were provided by people who commented on condition of anonymity because of its secret status.

Based on previous contract announcements, this cancellation appears to be the contract awarded to Northrop Grumman in August 2023, as part of two awards, one to Northrop and the second to Lockheed Martin, with each building 36 satellites of a 72 satellite communications constellation. The Northrop contract was valued at $733 million.

Apparently in the six months since, the Space Force found that Northrop Grumman wasn’t doing a satisfactory. Whether Lockheed Martin will pick up the contract to replace Northrop however is not clear. The Space Force might put it up for bid again.

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Varda finally gets FAA permission to land its capsule

9:43 am

After more than six months of paper-pushing, the FAA has finally agreed to let the commercial in-space manufacturing startup Varda land its orbiting capsule in Utah.

After months of effort and one rejected application, Varda Space Industries said Feb. 14 it has received a license from the Federal Aviation Administration to return a capsule from its first mission.

The FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation issued a reentry license for Varda’s W-Series 1 spacecraft. The license will allow the company to land a capsule from that spacecraft at the Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR) and neighboring Dugway Proving Ground west of Salt Lake City. Varda said that reentry is scheduled for Feb. 21.

…The company had hoped to return the capsule as early as mid-July, but said then was still working with the FAA to obtain a reentry license, required for any commercial spacecraft returning to Earth. One issue the company said it was facing was that it was the first company seeking a reentry license under new regulations called Part 450 intended to streamline the licensing process, but which some companies reported difficulties adjusting to. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted sentence dishonestly implies it has been the companies that are having problems adjusting to these so-called “streamlined” regulations, when the truth is that the FAA has been the one having the problem. Since Part 450 was established all FAA appovals have slowed to a crawl, when previously the FAA moved much faster.

In fact, that sentence is proven dishonest in the article’s very next paragraphs, which describe how the July approval didn’t happen because two government agencies couldn’t get their act together. Varda really had nothing to do with this lack of approval.

The capsule contains pharmaceuticals for sale on Earth that can not be manufactured in gravity. For the government to delay their return almost half a year simply because of red-tape is disgusting, especially because this delay might end up destroying the startup entirely. It is even more disgusting in that these government agencies have had had no problem approving the return of NASA capsules from space, to this very same Utah range.

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SpaceX successfully launches Intuitive Machines Odysseus lunar lander

11:20 pm

South Pole of Moon with landing sites

SpaceX has successfully launched Intuitive Machines commercial Nova-C-class Odysseus lunar lander, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral at 1:05 am (Eastern) on February 15th.

This was the third launch in less than eleven hours today, and the second launch by SpaceX. The first stage successfully completed its 18th flight, landing back at Cape Canaveral.

The green dot on the map to the right shows the planned landing site for Odysseus, next to a crater with a permanently shadowed interior, though it will have no way to travel into it. This will also be the closest landing to the Moon’s south pole, and if all goes well, will take place eight days from today, where it will operate for about ten Earth days. You can find out more about the lander’s payloads and mission from the press kit [pdf].

It must be emphasized that like India’s Vikram lander and Pragyan rover, Japan’s SLIM lander, and Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander, Odysseus is mostly an engineering test to prove out the landing systems. If this spacecraft does any science on the lunar surface that will be a bonus.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

14 SpaceX
8 China
2 Iran
2 Russia

American private enterprise now leads the entire world combined 16 to 14 in successful launches, with SpaceX by itself is now tied the rest of the world combined (excluding American companies) 14 to 14.

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Russia launches Progress freighter to ISS

8:34 pm

Russia today (February 15th in Kazakhstan) successfully used its Soyuz-2 rocket to launch a Progress freighter to ISS.

As happens on launches from Kazakstan to ISS, the rocket’s core stage and strap-on boosters crashed within Kazakstan inside planned crash zones.

This was supposed to be the third launch today, but SpaceX’s second launch today, this time of 22 Starlink satellites, was scrubbed due to weather and reschduled 24 hours till tomorrow at Vandenberg. There is still one more launch scheduled today, SpaceX launching Intuitive Machines Nova-C lunar lander at 9:57 pm (Pacific).

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

13 SpaceX
8 China
2 Iran
2 Russia

American private enterprise still leads the entire world combined 15 to 14 in successful launches, with SpaceX by itself now trailing the rest of the world combined (excluding American companies) 13 to 14.

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SpaceX launches two military prototype satellites

3:38 pm

SpaceX today successfully launched two prototype reconnaissance satellites for the U.S. military, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral at 5:30 pm (Eastern) time.

The first stage successfully completed its seventh flight, landing back on at Cape Canaveral.

This is the first of four launches scheduled for the next eleven hours. Next up is another Falcon 9 launch, carrying 22 Starlink satellites and lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

13 SpaceX
8 China
2 Iran

At present American private enterprise leads the entire world combined 15 to 13 in successful launches, with SpaceX by itself tied with the rest of the world combined (excluding American companies) 13 all.

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Spiders on the rim of a Martian crater

3:06 pm

Spiders on the rim of a Martian crater
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on December 29, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows strange spidery formations on the rim of a 17-mile-wide crater about 500 miles from the south pole of Mars.

Scientists think these spider features are formed due to the seasonal cycle on Mars. In the winter at the poles the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere falls as snow in the polar regions, creating a thin dry ice mantle that covers everything. When spring arrives, sunlight goes through the clear mantle to heat its base, causing that dry ice to sublimate into gas that is trapped below the mantle. Eventually that mantle cracks at a weak point and the gas escapes, spewing dark dust on its top. By summer the mantle is entirely gone, and the black splotches disappear as they blend back into the same colored ground.

At the south pole the ground appears to be firmer and more structurally sound than at the north pole. The trapped gas appears to travel upward along the same tributary paths to the same escape points each year, thus carving these spidery features that are permanent features.
» Read more

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Orbital perturbations caused by passing stars might very well have caused past extinctions

11:21 am

According to new computer simulations, scientists now think that any calculations of the long term changes in the orbits of the planets in our solar system must include the orbital perturbations caused by passing stars, perturbations that might very well have caused past extinctions. From their paper’s introduction:

Simulations of the long-term orbital evolution of the Sun’s planets have nearly always modeled the solar system as an isolated system. For many purposes, this is a very good approximation, but the solar system is of course part of the Milky Way Galaxy. Consequently, it occasionally suffers close encounters with other field stars, and solar neighborhood kinematic studies predict an average of ∼20 stellar passages within 1 [parsec] of the Sun each [million years].

Because the solar system cross section scales with the square of heliocentric distance, the large majority of these encounters will be distant and inconsequential to the planets’ dynamics, but this is not guaranteed. In fact, there is a ∼0.5% chance that a field star passage will trigger the loss of one or more planets over the next 5 [billion years], and such passages may actually guarantee the disruption of the planets’ orbits many [billion years] after the Sun becomes a white dwarf. Yet, encounters need not trigger an instability for them to have dynamical consequences for the planets. For instance, it has been suggested that ∼one-third of Neptune’s modern eccentricity has been generated through past stellar encounters, but many of the long-term dynamical effects of stellar passages remain unknown.

Their simulations as well as other data suggest that for computer models to have any chance of accurately calculating the orbital evolution of the solar system’s planets, those models must include the passing of nearby stars.

Or to put it in more blunt terms, the uncertainties here are so great that it is unlikely any computer model will ever be able to reconstruct our solar system going back further than 50 million years.

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