MEANWHILE, IN A PART OF AMERICA THAT STILL WORKS: Astounding Science (Non-)Fiction: Space X Rocket Over San Diego (Breath-Taking Photos).
Search Results
FIRST THE FAA STARTS MESSING WITH THEM, NOW THIS: DoJ Investigating Space X for Not Hiring a Foreign National. “It is unclear exactly why the IER is investigating a pattern or practice of discrimination when Space X is required to discriminate against broad categories of non-citizens for ITAR compliance reasons.”
SPACE X: Parachute Issues Will Further Delay First Commercial Crew Missions.
Recent parachute test issues SpaceX’s Dragon program — as well as, in some media reports, Boeing’s Starliner — will likely delay the launch of the first commercial crew missions to the International Space Station, an analyst for Forecast International Inc. said.
“In broad stokes, these anomalies will delay both programs,” said Forecast’s Carter Palmer in an e-mail interview. “Boeing, for example, is putting further tests on hold until the issue is identified. SpaceX may have to redesign the parachute in the future.”
Of the two reported failed tests, it is SpaceX’s that received the most media attention — including testimony by NASA’s Bill Gerstenmaier at a May 8 hearing concerning NASA’s deep space and lunar exploration plans. The SpaceX test (which included a test sled instead of a test capsule) simulated a failed main parachute, which was using only three of the included four parachutes; however, the company did complete five similar tests before this failure.
Boeing has also experienced recent parachute test issues, said Gerstenmaier — head of NASA’s human spaceflight program — in an interview with Spaceflight Now.
If this stuff were easy, everyone would be doing it.
SPACE X AIMING FOR A February 6 launch date for the Falcon Heavy.
HOW’S THAT SPACE PROGRAM COMING ALONG? Five-mile asteroid impact crater below Atlantic captured in ‘exquisite’ detail by seismic data.
SPACE: Vulcan competes second flight despite SRB anomaly.
United Launch Alliance’s second Vulcan Centaur lifted off Oct. 4 on a test flight needed to certify the vehicle for carrying national security payloads, but may have suffered a problem with one of its solid rocket boosters.
The Vulcan Centaur lifted off at 7:25 a.m. Eastern from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The liftoff took place near the middle of a three-hour launch window after an initial half-hour delay to provide additional time for pre-launch checks.
The first countdown attempt was halted 1 minute and 51 seconds before liftoff. Tory Bruno, chief executive of ULA, said on social media that a “transient on a redundant data system” triggered the hold, and controllers resolved the issue and reset the countdown for the second attempt, which resulted in liftoff.
ULA said that the vehicle’s performance was nominal in the early stages of flight. However, the separation of the two GEM 63XL solid rocket boosters (SRB) took place nearly 30 seconds later than the timeline the company provided before launch. About 35 seconds after liftoff, there appeared to be material coming off one of the boosters, whose plume changed appearance, suggesting damage to the SRB’s nozzle.
Other reports claim the engine bell might have blown or burned completely off. But the Centaur second stage successfully reached orbit.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: The SLS’s launch tower now costs far more than the world’s tallest building.
In 2019, NASA awarded Bechtel a contract to deliver a launch tower – a glorified steel truss far simpler than the booster catching towers SpaceX assembles in weeks – by March 2023 for a total cost of $383m.
As of today, the OIG reports that the tower will cost $2.7b and is to be finished by September 2027, but more likely 2029. For reference, the Burj Khalifa is seven times taller, contains paying tenants, hotels, and shops, and was built in five years for just $1.5b.
If you had $2.7b in 27 million $100 notes, and you piled them up, they would be so much taller than Bechtel’s non-existent launch tower that you’d need not one, not two, but 23 separate piles to exhaust the supply. Whoever wrote Bechtel’s side of the contract certainly earned their bonus. Whoever wrote NASA’s side should be made to paint the entire structure with a toothbrush – but I expect they’ve long since been on Bechtel’s payroll in some kind of advisory no-show job.
I’m out of words — and the launch tower failure is just one of several billion-dollar failures-by-design described in detail at the link.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Commercial space’s critical role in the race to outpace adversaries.
SPACE: Voyager 2 shuts down science experiment as power stores dwindle.
Mission engineers sent a command to shutter the Voyager 2’s Plasma Science, or PLS, experiment — which was used to observe solar winds — on September 26 using the Deep Space Network, a series of massive radio antennae that can beam information billions of miles through space.
It took 19 hours for the message to reach Voyager 2, and a return signal was received 19 hours later, NASA said Tuesday.
Despite the aging probe’s emptying power stores, NASA expects that Voyager 2 will keep operating with at least one science instrument into the 2030s.
Built to last.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: U.S. faces stiff competition from China in satellite remote sensing.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: SpaceX pauses Falcon 9 launches after upper stage deorbit anomaly.
THE NEW SPACE RACE:
Meanwhile, back in America, the @FAANews is smothering the national space program in kafkaesque paperwork! https://t.co/7sIpVu7zZ6
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 28, 2024
THE NEW (COMMERCIAL) SPACE RACE: Iridium approved to work on LEO compatibility for upcoming smartphones.
FIGHT THE POWER: SpaceX’s Elon Musk calls on FAA chief to resign. I doubt the FAA’s bureaucracy — it’s currently stopping a ready-to-go Starship from launching until November, when it’s been ready since August — has much to do with safety. Frankly, I don’t think the FAA understands what’s going on well enough to contribute much.
AND YET ASTRONAUTS SEEM TO BE PRETTY LONG-LIVED: Space travel might be harmful for human hearts.
SPACEX WILL LAUNCH ASTRONAUTS TO THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION TODAY AT 1:17 PM EDT. You can watch it here.
SPACE IS HARD. SO ARE SUBMERSIBLES: China’s Newest Nuclear Submarine Sank, Setting Back Its Military Modernization.
The U.S. doesn’t know if the sub was carrying nuclear fuel at the time it sank, but experts outside the U.S. government said that was likely.
Undersea technology has long been an area of U.S. advantage, but China has been pushing hard to narrow the gap.
China has been moving to diversify the production of nuclear-powered submarines. Production has been centered in the northeastern city of Huludao, but China is now moving to manufacture nuclear-powered attack submarines at the Wuchang Shipyard near Wuhan.
Beijing had 48 diesel-powered attack subs and six nuclear-powered attack subs at the end of 2022, according to a Pentagon report issued last year on China’s military power,
That report said that China’s aim in developing new attack submarines, surface ships and naval aircraft is to counter efforts by the U.S. and its partners to come to Taiwan’s aid during a conflict and to achieve “maritime superiority” within the first island chain, a string of territory from the Japanese archipelago through Taiwan and the Philippines to the South China Sea.
The Zhou-class vessel that sank is the first of a new class of Chinese nuclear-powered subs and features a distinctive X-shaped stern, which is designed to make the vessel more maneuverable.
The sub was built by China State Shipbuilding Corp., a state-owned company, and was observed alongside a pier on the Yangtze River in late May when it was undergoing its final equipping before going to sea.
After the sinking, large floating cranes arrived in early June to salvage the sub from the river bed, according to satellite photos of the site.
Exit quote: “In addition to the obvious questions about training standards and equipment quality, the incident raises deeper questions about the PLA’s internal accountability and oversight of China’s defense industry, which has long been plagued by corruption.”
THE NEW SPACE RACE: China to launch near-Earth asteroid sample return mission in 2025.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Radian Aerospace begins tests of spaceplane prototype.
Radian Aerospace, a company with ambitions to develop a reusable orbital spaceplane, has started flight tests of a prototype vehicle.
The Seattle-based company announced Sept. 25 that it performed an initial series of taxi tests of a prototype flight vehicle it calls PFV01 at an unidentified airport in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. The tests included what it called “short hops” by the vehicle as it tested its handling characteristics for takeoff and landing.
PFV01 is designed to test the aerodynamics of the company’s proposed Radian One, a spaceplane that would take off horizontally using a rail sled system more than three kilometers long and reach orbit using rocket engines before returning to a runway landing. The vehicle, as currently designed, could carry up to five people and 2,270 kilograms of cargo to low Earth orbit and return with up to 4,540 kilograms of cargo.
Plus: “The company performed the tests in Abu Dhabi with the support of an unnamed partner there. The airfield where the tests took place was a ‘good, permissive environment,’ Holder said, that gave the company access daily.”
Was that a slap at the Biden-Harris FAA?