Second Launch by German Rocket Company Happens Soon

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Isar Aerospace.

You may remember the name Isar Aerospace from its attempt last year to launch a rocket from the Andoya Space Centre in Norway. It was the first test of the German company’s Spectrum two-stage rocket, and it lasted for less than a minute into launch. That’s how these tests often go.

The second launch, labeled “Onward and Upward,” is scheduled to happen shortly. While it was initially scheduled for January 21st, it has been delayed until March 19th due to pressurization valve issues.

This second time the Germans seem a little more confident given that the launch will include payloads – five CubeSats and one experiment. The company is also securing more space in Munich, Germany, Sweden (Esrange Space Center) and French Guyana (Guiana Space Centre).

When Dr. Markus Söder, Minister President of Bavaria, visited the Isar Aerospace facility last year, he stated:

The success story of our space program continues – and Isar Aerospace is playing a decisive role in writing it. …We are Germany’s Space Valley: Europe’s largest faculty for aerospace is being established at the Technical University of Munich – and 550 companies and 65,000 employees now work in this sector in Bavaria. The future looks bright. With the Bavarian high-tech agenda, we are investing a total of six billion euros in research and science. Live long and prosper, Isar Aerospace!”

Germany is no stranger to rocketry, which benefited the US in no small degree following WWII. With all of this energy directed towards the space industry, Germany and Europe become stronger players in this area and be somewhat less reliant on the US for future payloads.

Musk Madness: Tying SpaceX to xAI

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Image by StellarUniverse from Pixabay

It was German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer who said:

If you put a spoonful of wine in a barrel full of sewage, you get sewage. If you put a spoonful of sewage in a barrel full of wine, you get… sewage.

As much as Elon Musk interferes in German politics, I am not sure whether he reads its philosophers. It is unlikely, or he would have reconsidered merging his xAI with SpaceX.

This comes as a time when Mr. Musk is facing more questions about his ties to the Epstein files, his company Tesla is dealing with a 46 percent drop in profits due to his political antics, and his AI business (already tied to the flaying Twitter/X) is suffering from bad press due to his Grok chat bot creating sexualized images of children. I guess that brings us full circle back to the Epstein files. Of course, this disastrous set of stories not even include the French raid of the Twitter/X offices this week.

As Mr. Musk now prepares an initial public offering of SpaceX stock, it is unclear why he would saddle a successful company with the weight of his questionable AI initiates. It appears he sees an opportunity to use SpaceX as his vehicle for data centers in space one day, in the same way SpaceX has made a bundle of money with its Starlink internet satellites. As we all know, creating those sexualized images uses a lot of power, so why not put the porn portals in space?

It would have been nice to have SpaceX outside of all of the Musk nonsense (not that Starlink has been perfect), but that does not seem to be the plan.

Just as our allies are learning that relying on American arms has put them in a bind, the US space industry is learning that relying on Musk’s SpaceX has put them in a similar bind.

It almost makes you want to move to Mars.

Executive Order to Ensure American Space Superiority

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Apollo Astronaut James B. Irwin, lunar module pilot, works at the Lunar Roving Vehicle during the first Apollo 15 lunar surface extravehicular activity (EVA) at the Hadley-Apennine landing site. (NASA)

Just as Jared Isaacman, NASA’s new Administrator, started to settle into his new post, the White House updated the nation’s space priorities.

A new executive order on Thursday, titled “Ensuring American Space Superiority,” provides clear goals for NASA, which includes:

  • Returning to the Moon by 2028, and the establishment of initial elements of a permanent lunar outpost by 2030;
  • Deploying of nuclear reactors on the Moon and in orbit, including a lunar surface reactor ready for launch by 2030; and
  • Spurring private sector innovation and investment by upgrading launch infrastructure and developing a commercial pathway to replace the International Space Station by 2030.

Adding nuclear reactors as its own goal seems a little odd since it could simply be wrapped into the first goal related to a permanent lunar outpost, but maybe this is just to kick regolith into the eyes of the Chinese who announced a similar intention.

Returning to the Moon by 2028 will certainly be a challenge, but luckily Administrator Isaacman is showing no favorites when it comes to meeting this goal. This week he made this statement about plans to return to the Moon:

I don’t think it was lost on either vendor that whichever lander was available first to ensure that America achieves its strategic objectives on the moon is the one we were going to go with.

His friend Elon Musk was certainly listening, but so far we have not heard him say that the new NASA Administrator has a 2 digit IQ. Of course, it has only been a few days, though the honeymoon is likely to be very short.

Space Stories: JPL Rover Operations Center Opens, Chinese Protect Space Station, and Roman Telescope Will Scan for Voids

Posted on by onespaceman2000

Here are some recent space-related stories of interest.

—NASA JPL: “NASA JPL Unveils Rover Operations Center for Moon, Mars Missions“

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California on Wednesday inaugurated its Rover Operations Center (ROC), a center of excellence for current and future surface missions to the Moon and Mars. During the launch event, leaders from the commercial space and AI industries toured the facilities, participated in working sessions with JPL mission teams, and learned more about the first-ever use of generative AI by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover team to create future routes for the robotic explorer.

—Futurism: “China Installs Defensive Countermeasures on Space Station“

About a month after a tiny piece of space debris stranded three astronauts for nine days aboard China’s Tiangong space station, the taikonauts aboard the orbital outpost have begun making some modifications. According to state media network CGTN, the country’s space travelers Zhang Lu and Wu Fei endured an eight-hour spacewalk earlier this week in order to install a debris protection panels on the space station’s outer hull. While there, they also performed an inspection of Tiangong’s exterior, along with other minor repairs.

—Space Telescope Science Institute: “NASA’s Roman Telescope Will Observe Thousands of Newfound Cosmic Voids“

What do fizzing champagne glasses and our universe have in common? They’re both full of bubbles! The cosmic bubbles are vast structures hundreds of millions of light-years across. Their walls are outlined by collections of galaxies. The details of these bubbles – their size, shape, and distribution – can tell us more about the mysterious force known as dark energy that is causing the universe’s expansion to accelerate. The upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will detect and measure tens of thousands of cosmic voids, some as small as just 20 million light-years across.

Space Stories: Crew Returns from ISS, Isaacman Nomination Advances, and Robotic Spacecraft to Save Space Telescope

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Image (Credit): The Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft undocking from the ISS earlier today. (NASA)

Here are some recent space-related stories of interest.

—CBS News: “3-man Crew Undocks from International Space Station, Wrapping Up 8-month Stay“

A NASA astronaut and two cosmonaut crewmates strapped into their Soyuz ferry ship and undocked from the International Space Station on Monday, heading for landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan to wrap up an eight-month mission…With Soyuz commander Sergey Ryzhikov strapped into the descent module’s center seat, flanked on his left by cosmonaut Alexey Zubritsky and on the right by NASA’s Jonny Kim, the Soyuz MS-27/73S spacecraft undocked from the lab at 8:41 p.m. ET.

—Reuters: “US Senate Committee Votes to Advance NASA Nominee Jared Isaacman“

The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee voted late on Monday to advance the nomination of billionaire private astronaut Jared Isaacman to lead NASA...Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz said: “You are as committed to American supremacy in the final frontier as is this committee and the entire Senate. My hope is that you will be confirmed and in this role before the end of this year.” He also won support of the panel’s top Democrat, Senator Maria Cantwell.

—Indian Defence Review: “A Rescue Mission Will Save NASA’s Space Telescope Using a Rocket Dropped from a Plane“

Launched in 2004 to study gamma-ray bursts, Swift has been a crucial asset in understanding some of the most energetic events in the universe. However, over time, the spacecraft’s orbit has been decaying due to the drag from Earth’s atmosphere. As the orbit continues to degrade, the telescope is set to fall from its current 249-mile altitude unless action is taken. The problem is that Swift lacks onboard thrusters for orbit adjustments. With no replacement mission in the pipeline, NASA has turned to the private sector for a solution, and Katalyst is stepping in with a bold plan…For Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, however, no astronauts will be involved. Instead, Katalyst will perform the rescue entirely remotely.