Tag: spaceflight

Saw-toothed razor rocks on Mars

11:31 am

Saw-toothed razor rock on Mars
Click for original image.

Looking at the base of Kukenan
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture above, cropped and enhanced to post here, was taken on January 22, 2024 by the high resolution camera on the Mars rover Curiosity.

The photo gives us a fine example of the many very strange and delicate formations seen on Martian rocks and boulders as it slowly weaves its way up Mount Sharp, inside the slot canyon Gediz Vallis. On Earth such thin flakes like these are generally only seen inside caves, where there is almost no life to disturb their development and the natural conditions are as benign as well. On Mars, the only thing that can disturb this rock is the wind, and though over time it can erode things the thin atmosphere allows such flakes to form, aided by the gravity about 39% that of Earth’s.

The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken the same day by the rover’s left navigation camera, and illustrates the overall rocky nature of all of the terrain surrounding Curiosity. It looks to the southeast, at the base of nearby 400-foot-high Kukenan.

For a map showing Curiosity’s location (as well as another weird Martian rock, see my prevous post on January 17, 2024, A rock tadpole on Mars.

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Europe signs up four rocket startups to provide it launch services

10:09 am

Capitalism in space: The European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Commission have jointly signed four rocket startups to contracts for eventually providing these government agencies a competitive commercial rocket industry capable of launching its payloads into space.

Each of the companies will receive a “frame” contract as part of the initiative, allowing them to compete for task orders for launching specific missions. Officials did not disclose the anticipated value of those contracts, or how many launch companies competed to participate in the program.

Four of the companies selected for the Flight Ticket Initiative are startups working on small launch vehicles: Isar Aerospace, Orbex, PLD Space and Rocket Factory Augsburg. None of them have yet conducted an orbital launch but expect to do so within the next two years.

Arianespace, ESA’s launch company that previously had a monopoly on launches, also received a frame contract, but it apparently must now compete for future contracts with these startups.

Europe had attempted to compete with SpaceX by once again using Arianespace and its big space contractors to build the Ariane-6 rocket. That project however is years behind schedule, and has resulted in an expendable rocket that is too expensive. Europe has thus been forced to buy launches from SpaceX.

This new arrangement essentialy means that Europe has adopted the recommendations I made in my 2017 policy paper, Capitalism in Space, available here [pdf]. Rather than design, build, and own its rockets, Europe will instead become a customer like anyone else, buying products developed and owned by private and competing European rocket companies.

Of the startup companies listed above, two (Isar and Rocket Factory) are German, one (Orbex) is British, and one is Spanish (PLD). Thus, this arrangement also spreads the wealth throughout Europe.

Unless outside events change things (such as war or economic collapse), this decision is likely to result in a renaissance in Europe’s launch industry comparable to what is happening now in the U.S. and India. If so, the future for the exploration and settlement of the solar system looks bright indeed.

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Florida legislature considering bills to expand territory of its commerical Florida spaceport

9:51 am

Four bills under consideration in Florida’s legislature are proposing to expand the territory controlled by Space Florida, the state agency that runs the state’s commerical spaceport.

HB 577 and SB 968 seek to expand Florida’s spaceport system territory to include Tyndall Air Force Base and Homestead Air Reserve Base. Space Florida says the land owners still have authority over what projects or improvements can be made.

CS/HM 143 and SB 370 seeks to add seaports as a qualified tax-exempt category of private activity bonds. Space Florida is urging Congress to take action, as receiving the tax exemption is not something the state alone can change.

The bills specifically refer to property that the state owns within these federal bases or recently given back to the state. Overall however these bases remain federal facilities. It thus appears the bills are mostly designed to pressure Congress to act to give Space Florida more control.

The supporters of the bills cite the need for this expansion due to the spectacular increase in commercial launches in Florida, which set a record last year and is expected to do the same each year for the foreseeable future. The irony is that when the space shuttle’s retirement was announced in 2004, Florida officials thought this would be an end to the state’s space operations. Instead, private enterprise since then has resulted in a growth far greater than anything NASA ever provided.

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First two stages of New Glenn assembled for the first time

9:35 am

After years of delays, Blue Origin announced yesterday that it has finally joined the first and second stages of its orbital New Glenn rocket, in preparation for its planned first launch later this year.

The stages remain horizontal inside Blue Origin’s assembly facility at Cape Canaveral, where engineers continue to check them out.

New Glenn’s launch was originally supposed to be in 2020. Problems with its first stage BE-4 engine put it (as well as ULA’s Vulcan rocket) four years behind schedule. The evidence now suggests that those problems were badly acerbated by the poor leadership of Bob Smith, Blue Origin’s CEO from 2017 to 2023, who apparently refused to spend money on test engines and the additional hardware necessary to test the engine to figure out what was wrong. Smith also appeared to slow all other work down in numerous ways as well as antagonize many at the company, causing a lot of high level engineers over time to flee.

Almost to the day Smith left last year Blue Origin has appeared to come to life. If so, this bodes well for both its future as well as that of the entire American rocket industry. New Glenn is a very powerful rocket, capable of lifting 50 tons to low Earth orbit, making it comparable to SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy. Its first stage is also designed to be reuseable, landing on a drone ship like the Falcon 9. If successful it will thus be a very capable competitor to SpaceX.

The company is aiming for an August launch. Keep your fingers crossed.

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Belgium signs the Artemis Accords

9:19 am

Belgium yesterday became the 34th nation to sign the American-led Artemis Accords, bi-laterial agreements initially conceived by the Trump administration as a way to get around the legal limitations on private property created by the Outer Space Treaty.

Based on the wording of Belgium’s press release, it appear however that this goal is slowly being watered down by the many nations who have signed:

Belgium’s signature of the Artemis Accords is part of its proactive participation in the work of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS). As a party to the five United Nations treaties on outer space, Belgium, in close collaboration with other Member States, has launched several actions within the Committee over the past decade to promote the establishment of an international multilateral legal framework for equitable access to and benefits from space resources, as well as for the safe and sustainable use of these resources. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted word, “equitable”, is one of the key words in Critical Race Theory, and when translated into plain English means providing guaranteed benefits for those who feel oppressed, whether or not they deserve it. Note too Belgium’s effort here to get the United Nations involved. By outlawing any nation from claiming territory and establishing its legal framework, the Outer Space Treaty essentially gave that power to the UN. The accords were conceived as a political way of breaking that restriction, shifting power back to the nations who signed. By inserting the UN into the Artemis alliance Belgium is trying to shift power to the UN again. And it appears it is attempting to form its own alliance of the smaller nations within the accords for this purpose.

The full list of signatories to the Accords is as follows: Angola, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Columbia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Germany, 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, and the United States.

The competing alliance of communist nations, led by China, includes only Russia, Venezuala, Pakistan, Belarus, Azerbaijan, and South Africa. That former deep Soviet bloc nations like Bulgaria and Romania, as well as previously very Marxist Angola, went with the west rather than China illustrates the international distrust of China and its authoritarian methods.

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An ancient Martian river system now meandering ridges

1:46 pm

Context camera mosaic of river system.

An ancient Martian river system
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on August 27, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It was featured by MRO’s science team yesterday, in which Shane Byrne of the Lunar and Planetary Lab University of Arizona wrote the following:

River beds often get filled with gravel and the surrounding terrain is often built up of fine-grained mud from river overflows. The gravely river bottom and the fine-grained surroundings can lead to a strange phenomenon that geologists call inverted channels. After the river disappears, the fine-grained surroundings can be easily eroded away leaving the gravely river bed as a high-standing ridge.

These ridges show the location of the old river beds in Mars’ distant past. The angle at which the ridges join together indicate that these rivers flowed from top-right to bottom-left (i.e. southwest).

The picture above is a mosaic produced from the global survey taken by MRO’s lower resolution context camera. It gives us a fuller picture of this river system, with the rectangle showing the small area covered by the photo on the right. Overall this ancient and extinct river of ridges travels more than thirty miles downhill from the northeast to the southwest.
» Read more

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Sierra Space confirms burst test of its fullscale inflatable module was successful

9:21 am

Sierra Space yesterday confirmed that the pressure test-to-failure of a fullscale inflatable space station module was successful in proving its safety and design.

The pressure shell for Sierra Space’s LIFE™ (Large Integrated Flexible Environment) habitat is made of expandable “softgoods,” or woven fabrics that perform like a rigid structure once inflated. During an Ultimate Burst Pressure (UBP) test, the teams inflate the test article until it fails, which helps determine how strong its softgoods materials would be under extreme stresses in the harsh environment of space. The full-scale unit in this test reached 77 psi before it burst, which well exceeds (+27%) NASA’s recommended level of 60.8 psi (maximum operating pressure of 15.2 psi multiplied by a safety factor of four).

A short video showing the moment the module bursts can be seen here.

The module is for the Orbital Reef commercial space station that Sierra Space is building in partnership with Blue Origin, which is supposed to be the lead company in the project. However, it is Sierra Space that appears to be building and testing hardware. What Blue Origin is doing remains unclear, as has been the case now for five-plus years.

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Ingenuity team confirms the helicopter is healthy

8:47 am

In a slightly more detailed status update today, the engineering team that operates the Mars helicopter Ingenuity has confirmed that the helicopter is healthy and apparently undamaged after its 72nd flight.

During that last flight, a vertical up-and-down hop to allow communications with the helicopter and thus obtain better information as to its status and location, contact was lost as Ingenuity descended to land.

On Saturday, Jan. 20, communications were reestablished between Ingenuity and NASA’s Perseverance rover. The Ingenuity team has determined the helicopter is power-positive and is sitting vertically on the surface. Next steps include running further diagnostic checks, commanding Ingenuity to take photos of its location on the surface, and performing a spin test.

It is still unclear if full communications have been restored. Ingenuity must be within line-of-sight of the rover Perseverance for this to happen, and it appears that still might not be so. During its 71st flight the helicopter landed prematurely in an unexpected spot, apparently limiting communications significantly. The 72nd flight was likely to locate it more precisely and gather data.

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Another apparent splat on Mars

5:44 pm

Another apparent splat on Mars
Click for original image.

This cool image poses a mystery that might be important for future colonists. The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on October 23, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The science team merely labels this vaguely as simply “landforms.” What it appears to be is an ancient flow of mudlike material or a delta that moved from the west to the east. Its nature is even more evident in the full picture. The top of the delta however appears corroded and old, with a number of craters on top suggesting it has been here for a long time.

Its mudlike appearances suggests water was involved, possibly as ice impregnated within the soil. However, the location says no, unless this occurred so long ago that the entire climate of Mars and this region was vastly different. And in fact, it might have been.
» Read more

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Merging galaxies

10:02 am

Merging galaxies
Click for original image.

Time for another cool image from the Hubble Space Telescope. The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken by Hubble to study “the overall physical characteristics of galaxies and their star formation.”

What the picture however reveals best is the ongoing merger of three galaxies.

Arp 300 consists of two interacting galaxies, UGC 05028 (the smaller face-on spiral galaxy) and UGC 05029 (the larger face-on spiral). Likely due to its gravitational dance with its larger partner, UGC 05028 has an asymmetric, irregular structure, which is not as visible from ground-based telescopes but is quite distinct in this new image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. The bright knot visible to the southeast of the center of UGC 05028 may be the remnant of another small galaxy that is in the process of merging with that galaxy.

As always with Hubble galaxy images, there are a plethora of other background galaxies scattered about, including what appears to be another merger in the center right of two elliptical galaxies. In fact, except for one star in the lower right (with the four spikes), every other object in this photo is a galaxy of many shapes and distances.

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Perseverance looks back at the floor of Jezero Crater

9:49 am

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Looking out across Jezero Crater
Click for original image.

Cool image time. The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken today by the left high resolution camera on the Mars rover Perseverance.

Though I am guessing somewhat, I think this image looks east and down into the floor of Jezero Crater, as indicated by the yellow lines in the overview map above. The mountains in the distance are not the easter rim of Jezero, which is generally indistinct, but some peaks inside the crater itself. They appear higher because Perseverance is looking down at them from the delta, near the western rim.

The white line on the map shows the rover’s entire journey so far since landing in February 2021, about 14.77 miles. Since Perseverance’s recent travels should be within this picture, and I can see no rover tracks, it suggests my guess as to what the picture looks at could be very wrong. No matter. Up until now the landscape inside Jezero Crater has in general been less spectacular than seen by Curiosity in Gale Crater many miles away. This picture however shows us that Perseverance can provide us some good views also. It is also a precursor to the views we shall get once the rover exits Jezero and begins to explore the rough regions to the west.

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Engineers shut lunar lander SLIM down in hope sunlight can recharge its batteries

8:54 am

SLIM's landing zone
Map showing SLIM landing zone on the Moon.
Click for interactive map.

Once they were able to download sufficient data, engineers have intentionally shut down Japan’s lunar lander SLIM in order to increase the chances it will recover should sunlight hit its solar panels and recharge its batteries.

The shutdown occurred three hours after landing on January 19, 2024, when the batteries still has a charge of about 12%.

Before turning the lander off remotely, mission control was able to receive technical and image data from its descent, and from the lunar surface. “We’re relieved and beginning to get excited after confirming a lot of data has been obtained,” JAXA said Monday in a statement, adding that “according to the telemetry data, SLIM’s solar cells are facing west”.

“If sunlight hits the Moon from the west in the future, we believe there’s a possibility of power generation, and we’re currently preparing for restoration,” it said.

The landing took place in the morning on the Moon, so there is a chance that in about a week, when the Sun shifts to the western sky, the panels will get sunlight and begin to recharge the battery.

Meanwhile, engineers confirmed that the two experimental mini-rovers were successfully deployed (see the media kit [pdf] for more details). At the moment we do not know if they have operated as planned, one rolling and the other hopping.

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Iran launches another satellite

10:30 pm

Iran today claimed its second satellite launch in less than four months, placing a smallsat into an orbit its state-run press said was 466 miles high.

As yet this launch has not been confirmed by the U.S. military or any other sources. Like its previous launch in September, the information released is so slim it is unclear if the satellite is in orbit or not. This launch however used a new three-stage solid-fueled rocket dubbed Qaem-100, and from the image released, appears powerful enough to do the job.

Meanwhile, SpaceX once again scrubbed a Starlink launch, the third time in three days, due to weather, illustrating once again that despite the company’s almost clockwork ability to launch, its goal of reaching 150 launches in 2024 could be stymied simply by not having enough clear days where weather is not a problem.

The 2024 launch race:

6 SpaceX
5 China
1 India
1 ULA
1 Japan
1 Iran

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Scientists finally look at prime samples captured by OSIRIS-REx of the asteroid Bennu

9:21 pm

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

Scientists have finally opened the sample capsule from OSIRIS-REx to see the prime asteroid material obtained from the asteroid Bennu during the spacecraft’s touch-and-go sample grab.

The captured material inside the capsule can be seen in the picture to the right. It is the debris inside the ring.

Erika Blumenfeld, creative lead for the Advanced Imaging and Visualization of Astromaterials (AIVA) and Joe Aebersold, AIVA project lead, captured this photograph of the open TAGSAM head including the asteroid material inside using manual high-resolution precision photography and a semi-automated focus stacking procedure. The result is an image that shows extreme detail of the sample.

Next, the curation team will remove the round metal collar and prepare the glovebox to transfer the remaining sample from the TAGSAM head into pie-wedge sample trays.

The final mass of material will be determined once it is removed and weighed, though the team has already recovered more than 70 grams that had clung to the outside the capsule, which in itself exceeded the mission’s targeted goal.

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Ingenuity’s status uncertain but likely healthy

8:42 pm

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Updates from the engineering team that operates the Mars helicopter Ingenuity in the past two days have suggested the helicopter might be in trouble. First the team issued a status update yesterday that indicated communications had been lost prematurely during the helicopter’s 72nd flight.

The flight was designed as a quick pop-up vertical flight to check out the helicopter’s systems, following an unplanned early landing during its previous flight. Data Ingenuity sent to the Perseverance rover (which acts as a relay between the helicopter and Earth) during the flight indicates it successfully climbed to its assigned maximum altitude of 40 feet (12 meters). During its planned descent, communications between the helicopter and rover terminated early, prior to touchdown.

A further update today said that communications had been regained, but also noted that the engineering team still did not have a full understanding of the helicopter’s status.

We’ve reestablished contact with the #MarsHelicopter after instructing @NASAPersevere
to perform long-duration listening sessions for Ingenuity’s signal.

Based on the information released (or lack thereof) from the previous flight, the 71st, it is my sense that the situation is not as dire as these reports suggest, and that the situation might simply be related to issues of communications. Let me explain why I have come to this conclusion.
» Read more

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JAXA: SLIM soft landing successful but will likely die prematurely after landing

10:40 am

According to managers at Japan’s space agency JAXA, its SLIM lunar lander successfully completed its soft landing on the Moon.

It appears SLIM’s solar cells are not producing power. The spacecraft is presently on battery power, which will only last a few hours. Engineers are presently rushing to download images, taken during descent and after landing. There is also no word yet on whether the two test rovers were successfully released and achieved their test goals.

To precisely determine if the lander achieved its goal to hit a precise landing zone less than 300 feet across will require further analysis, much of which will depend on the images presently being downloaded. At the moment the engineers believe this goal was achieved, however, based on the telemetry already received.

Thus, it appears Japan has managed a soft-landing, something that in the past few years several countries (Israel, Russia, India, United States) and private companies (SpaceIL, Ispace, Astrobotic) have failed to do. Right now Japan appears to be the third nation to succeed in this new round of lunar exploration, joining China and India (which succeeded on its second attempt).

The next lunar landing attempt will be by the American private company, Intuitive Machines. Its Nova-C lander is scheduled for launch on a Falcon 9 rocket in mid-February.

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SLIM lands on the Moon

9:00 am

Telemetry after SLIM's landing

According to telemetry data (as shown on the screen capture to the right), Japan’s SLIM lander has apparently landed on the Moon near Shioli Crater, proving its autonomous precision landing system worked as planned.

At the moment however Japan’s space agency JAXA has not yet confirmed that the landing was completely successful. After landing the announcers on the live stream repeatedly noted that though the telemetry indicated it had landed as planned, engineers had not yet confirmed that the lander was still operational. Note how the data to the right suggests the spacecraft is tilted slightly. This tilt appears to match the tilt of the surface, but it could also indicate a problem with communications.

A press conference announcing either a confirmation or a failure will begin shortly at the live stream above.

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Chinese pseudo-company successfully completes rocket hop test

8:55 am

The Chinese pseudo-company Landspace successfully completed a rocket hop flight of its Zhuque-3 prototype hopper yesterday, testing vertical take-off and landing in preparation of recovering and reusing the first stage of its rockets.

The hop itself went to 350 meters and performed a small translation maneuver to the landing pad. The hope is called “ZQ-3 VTVL-1” which refers to “Vertical Takeoff – Vertical Landing”. It uses a single TQ-12 methane engine, which is also used on the current ZQ-2 rocket. The engine can throttle between 50-110% of the normal 80 tons of thrust, giving it a throttle range between 40 and 88 tons. The performed flight went on for roughly 60 seconds. The weight of the hopper is 50.3 tons.

Landpace confirmed the landing precision with 2.4 meters, with a landing speed of 0.75 meters per second, at a pitch angle of roughly 0.14 degrees, and a roll angle of 4.4 degrees. The hopper survived the hop and is already being inspected after the flight.

Video of the hop can be viewed at the link. The hopper is almost identical in concept to SpaceX’s Grasshopper test vehicle used by that company, flying with one engine of the same type used in its operational rocket.

If their test program continues as planned, Landspace hopes to begin flying reuseable stages in 2025, with that first stage capable of flying 20 times.

Of all the pseudo-companies in China, Landspace appears to be the most successful. It not only has an operational orbital rocket, Zhuque-2, that has carried satellites into orbit twice (here and here), it is very close to achieving rocket reuseability competitive with SpaceX.

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Astrobotic’s Peregrine burns up in Earth’s atmosphere

8:23 am

At about 3:50 pm (Eastern) yesterday, the lunar lander Peregrine, built by the private company Astrobotic, hit the Earth’s atmosphere above the South Pacific and burned up, according to an update from the company.

The mission is over, having failed to reach the Moon due to a ruptured propellant tank caused by a leak in an interior helium tank.

The company was successful in regaining control over the mission after the leak, activating all payloads and getting data back from them, including images and even a short movie. It was also able to communicate with it from lunar distances. It failed however in testing its landing capabilities, its primary mission.

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SpaceX successfully launches four astronauts to ISS on Axiom private mission

3:03 pm

They’re coming for you next: SpaceX today successfully launched three European astronauts (plus the company capsule commander) to ISS on an Axiom private mission, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral at 4:49 pm (Eastern).

The capsule, Freedom, is flying humans into space for its third time. The first stage successfully completed its fourth flight, landing back at Cape Canaveral.

The mission itself is private, but the customer is the European Space Agency, which has paid the company Axiom to bring its astronauts to ISS for a fourteen day mission. Axiom in turn hired SpaceX to provide the rocket and capsule. This flight is confirmation that Europe has accepted the concept of capitalism in space, whereby it no longer depends on governments to accomplish what it wants, but instead is a customer buying those products from the private sector.

The astronauts are expected to dock with ISS early tomorrow morning.

The 2024 launch race:

6 SpaceX
5 China
1 India
1 ULA
1 Japan

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More academics demand that space activity be controlled and regulated, by them

1:13 pm

Modern academia: Marching with Lenin!
Modern academia, proudly marching with Lenin!

Yesterday I linked to a student newspaper article at the University of Alberta advocating more regulation over all space activity, focused on replacing private ownership with collective ownership while simultaneously imposing Marxist racial quotas to get rid “old white men”.

Today there was another story from academia demanding similar regulation. On January 12, 2024 there was a public panel discussion at Arizona State University (ASU), where four academics argued for the need for more government regulation of space. The description of the panel’s goals at the event’s website gives us a good hint of the goals of these academics:

Space exploration and utilization is a rapidly expanding sector, and there is growing consensus that the complex space governance system must evolve with it. Faced with this dynamic nature, in this fireside chat, with leading experts in space governance, policy law and space science, we present a clear framework for conceptualizing the space governance system as a tool for discussions on space law and policy, demystifying its structure and the actors, instruments and collaborations within it. We then consider key debates in the space policy field within this framework from a global and transdisciplinary perspective.

This is typically bad academic writing, designed to intentionally hide its meaning. One of the panelists however translated it most bluntly in this quote from article about the event:
» Read more

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Scientists: Evidence of large deposits of buried ice along Martian equator

10:24 am

Theorized buried ice deposits on Mars
Click for original figure from paper.

Using data obtained from Europe’s Mars Express orbiter, scientists believe they have detected evidence of a very large and extensive deposit of buried ice in the dry Martian equatorial regions, buried within the Medusae Fossae Formation, what is thought to be the largest volcanic ash deposit on Mars.

The blue-to-orange areas inside the Medusae on the map to the right, taken from figure 5 of the paper, shows where they have detected potential buried ice, at depths ranging from one to two thousand feet below the surface. The orange areas indicate the thickest ice deposits, as much as two miles thick. From the paper’s abstract:

The MARSIS radar sounder [on Mars Express] detects echoes in Medusae Fossae Formation deposits that occur between the surface and the base which are interpreted as layers within the deposit like those found in Polar Layered Deposits of the North and South Poles. The subsurface reflectors suggest transitions between mixtures of ice-rich and ice-poor dust analogous to the multi-layered, ice-rich polar deposits.

Assuming this detection is real, this would be the largest reservoir of potential water in the dry equatorial regions found yet, comparable to another similar buried detection deep below the giant canyon Valles Marineris but much larger.

Accessing this water however will not be simple, as it is deep underground. You couldn’t just drill a well, as it is ice, not a liquid water table. It would have to mined like minerals on Earth. There are uncertainties about this conclusion as well. It is possible the detection is not water but volcanic ash or dust compacted in a way that mimics an ice detection.

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SpaceX files for permits to build a shopping center and restaurant at Boca Chica

9:44 am

SpaceX has now filed for permits to build both a shopping center and restaurant at Boca Chica, with construction beginning in March and completed by the end of the year.

The location proposed is on the beach only a short distance to the west of SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy facilities. It will be located looking north not at the Gulf of Mexico but at South Bay, one of the large inlets that surround the spit of land where those facilities are located. It is also located on roads that might not close during launches, which means it might be an excellent location to attract tourists during launches, about six miles from the launch site itself.

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SLIM lowers orbit in preparation for January 19, 2024 lunar landing

9:33 am

SLIM's landing zone
Map showing SLIM landing zone on the Moon.
Click for interactive map.

The Japanese unmanned lunar lander SLIM, in orbit around the Moon since December 25, 2023, has now lowered its orbit in preparation for its lunar landing attempt, now scheduled for tomorrow, January 19, 2024, with operations beginning at 10:00 am (Eastern).

The image to the right indicates the targeted landing area near Shioli Crater. The mission’s prime engineering goal is to demonstrate precise robotic landing technology, able to land a spacecraft softly on another planet within a target zone less than 300 feet across. If successful it is expected to survive for about two weeks, studying the surface below it with a multi-spectral camera but also releasing two test probes, one a hopping rover and the second a rolling spherical rover. Both carry their own science instruments.

I have embedded the live stream for tomorrow’s landing below.
» Read more

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Astronomical high-altitude balloon flight now exceeds two weeks

9:14 am

GUSTO's flight path as of January 18, 2024

A high-altitude stratospheric balloon, dubbed GUSTO and designed to study the interstellar medium, has now been circling the south pole over Antarctica for fifteen days.

The map to the right shows its full flight path since its launch on December 31, 2023. From the press release:

GUSTO is mapping a large portion of the Milky Way galaxy and Large Magellanic Cloud to help scientists study the interstellar medium. The observatory is transmitting the data it collects back to watchful teams on the ground as it steadily circumnavigates the South Pole around 120,000+ feet.

GUSTO is flying on a 39 million cubic-foot zero-pressure scientific balloon, which is so large it could easily fit 195 blimps inside of it. The balloon is used to fly missions for long periods of time during the Austral Summer over Antarctica. GUSTO is aiming for a NASA record of 55+ days in flight to achieve its science goals.

You can follow GUSTO’s flight in real time here.

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SpaceX requests 43 acres of nearby Boca Chica State Park, offering to expand another park by 477 acres

1:52 pm

In order to “expand its operational footprint” at Boca Chica, SpaceX is asking to buy 43 acres of nearby Boca Chica State Park, and will offer as part of the purchase 477 acres adjacent to the Laguna Atascoca National Wildlife Refuge several miles to the north.

The link above includes maps showing the relative location of the properties. According to the meeting agenda for the Texas Parks and Wildlife department (TPWD), scheduled to take up this exchange next week, the commission already favors the deal.

“This acquisition will provide increased public recreational opportunities including hiking, camping, water recreation, and wildlife viewing, and allow for greater conservation of sensitive habitats for wintering and migratory birds,” the TPWD agenda stated. The agenda concludes by stating that the Commission finds that the proposed exchange is in the best interest of TPWD.

The public has been invited to comment on the deal at the meeting. Do not be surprised if we have a riot at that meeting of leftist activists protesting this deal.

Hat tip Robert Pratt of Pratt on Texas.

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