Archive for May, 2021
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May 11th, 2021
Credit: Nicholas Pilch/U.S. Air Force
Here on Earth, the air, land, and sea are zones of conflict, clashes and combat. There is a growing perception that next up is the ocean of space, transformed into an arena for warfare.
There is ongoing chatter regarding military use of space by various nations. The freshly established U.S. Space Force, for instance, is busily shaping how best to protect U.S. and allied interests in the domain of space, a sector that is increasingly becoming congested, contested and competitive.
Credit: India Defense Research & Development Organization
What conditions could lead to clashes in space? Is such a situation a given – or can they be short-circuited ahead of time? Could nations “slip into” off-planet muscle-flexing, quarreling and actual war-fighting in space that might ignite a fuse that sparks confrontation here on terra firma?
Space.com contacted several leading military space and security experts, asking for their opinions on the current status of the militarization of space.
Go to my new Space.com article here:
“Is war in space inevitable?” at:
https://www.space.com/is-space-war-inevitable-anti-satellite-technoloy
Posted in 
Credit: ISS/NASA
The Springer publishing group is offering an informative free video seminar on the lunar economy.
Stella Tkatchova – a project manager in the European space industry — presents the fundamentals of an emerging lunar economy, including the opportunities and challenges of in-situ resources utilization (ISRU).
Credit: Springer
The author looks into the near future of 2035 and discusses topics like habitation and research on board the Lunar Orbital Platform- Gateway station and in the Moon Village, the collaboration of space agencies with private companies setting the basis for the creation of an emerging lunar economy.
Tkatchova covers the involvement of NewSpace companies in the search for lunar resources, energy supply for habitats and rockets, a robotic space cargo infrastructure, a lunar construction industry and space tourism.
Credit: Moon Village Association/XTEND Design
NewSpace companies
The author argues that NewSpace companies will need to discover, identify and develop emerging lunar space markets and attract Customers, while space agencies will have to define the direct and indirect economic benefits from Lunar exploration to secure political, strategic and financial support. She further argues that ISRU/Lunar exploitation, lunar telecommunications and in-orbit satellite servicing are markets worth exploring and concludes that NewSpace companies will need to discover, identify and develop emerging lunar space markets and attract Customers.
This multi-part video seminar is targeted at space engineers, space economists, planers and politicians working at the vision of an emerging lunar economy.
Go to this Springer link at:
Credit: Robert Christy/Used with permission
China’s Long March-5B big booster stage made a fiery reentry to Earth.
The U.S. Space Force’s 18th Space Control Squadron (SPCS) at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California confirmed the rocket stage reentered Earth’s atmosphere on May 9 and fell into the Indian ocean north of the Maldives.
The Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) has issued this statement: “Coastguard Squadron is active after receiving reports of rocket debris fallen in the Maldivian waters.”
Remnants of the carrier rocket reentered the Earth’s atmosphere at 10:24 a.m. (0224 GMT) on Sunday, with most of the debris burning up, according to the China Manned Space Engineering Office. After monitoring and analysis, the office said the landing area was located at longitude 72.47 degrees east, latitude 2.5 degrees north over the sea, the vast majority of debris was destroyed by the re-entry process of ablation.
Image courtesy of European Union Space Surveillance and Tracking (EUSST)
Similarly, the EU Space Surveillance and Tracking group also confirmed that the rocket body reentered on 2021-05-09 at 02:32 UTC ±25 min.
For a summary of the booster’s fall to Earth, go to this Robert Christy’s Zarya.info link at:
https://www.zarya.info/Diaries/blog/tracks.php?event=CZ%205B%20Re-entry%20-%202021%20May%209
NASA statement
Meanwhile, newly sworn in NASA Administrator Sen. Bill Nelson released the following statement Saturday regarding debris from the Chinese Long March 5B rocket:
Long March-5B Y-2 carrier rocket liftoff. Credit: CASC
“Spacefaring nations must minimize the risks to people and property on Earth of re-entries of space objects and maximize transparency regarding those operations.
“It is clear that China is failing to meet responsible standards regarding their space debris.
“It is critical that China and all spacefaring nations and commercial entities act responsibly and transparently in space to ensure the safety, stability, security, and long-term sustainability of outer space activities.”
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Wang Wenbin (spokesperson, Ministry of Foreign Affairs).
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Informative videos
You may find these China Central Television (CCTV) videos of interest about the Long March-5B “one-and-half stage” rocket.
Also, here’s another CCTV video of Wang Wenbin (spokesperson, Ministry of Foreign Affairs), discussing the extremely low likelihood of damage to aviation or ground facilities of the Long March-5B Y2 deorbit.
Credit: CelesTrak
The folks at CelesTrak and Digital Arsenal are providing a live view of the evolving decay of China’s Long March-5B rocket body that launched the country’s Tianhe core space station module.
Using the latest data from the 18th Space Control Squadron (18 SPCS) of the U.S. Space Force, the projection shows the position of the rocket body and the corridors where that data shows it might reenter.
The colors are set to show the decaying altitude, starting at yellow below 93.2 miles (150 kilometers) and then red below 90.7 miles (146 kilometers). The current official 18 SPCS predicted reentry point is also shown.
The graphic shows how to switch to real time or where to change the projection from 3D to 2D.
China’s Long March-5 booster departs Wenchang launch site.
Credit: CASC
Debris from a Chinese carrier rocket in the coming days is very unlikely to cause damage, said Wang Wenbin, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, according to a China Daily report.
Regarding the atmospheric reentry of the core stage of the country’s Long March5B heavy-lift booster, Wang said it is highly unlikely that the debris will cause any harm to aircraft activity or ground-based assets and personnel. “As far as I know, this type of rocket has unique designs (to make sure) that most of its parts will be burnt up during the reentry process,” he said.
Credit: Bob Christy/used with permission
Estimated window
Bob Christy at Zarya.info reports that the potential impact of China’s 18-ton CZ-5B rocket stage is causing concern.
The two recent CZ 5B stages are the most massive objects to re-enter uncontrollably since the 40 ton Salyut 7/Cosmos 1668 combination came in over South America 1991, Christy adds.
A new map is based on the most recent Trajectory Impact Prediction (TIP) message and shows the ground track during the estimated window for re-entry.
The yellow dot does not represent the impact zone, Christy told Inside Outer Space. Both Space-Track and Aerospace Corporation estimates over the past day have the rocket body most likely falling in the southern hemisphere.
Sol 147 image taken by Opportunity rover. Martian specimens approximately 3-8 mm in size
resembling Puffballs (Basidiomycota), some with stalks or shedding white spore-like material (leprose).
Credit: Rhawn Gabriel Joseph, et al.
UPDATE: Critical review of this research can be found at: “No, NASA photos are not evidence of fungus growing on Mars, sorry
Despite what you might have read, the claims about life on Mars are shoddy and unscientific.”
Life on Mars? According to an international team of researchers there is, in the form of Martian fungi.
Their case makes use of imagery from the NASA Curiosity and Opportunity rovers, as well as photos taken from Mars orbit by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), a super-powerful camera onboard the NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
The research paper appearing in Advances in Microbiology is led by Rhawn Gabriel Joseph, Rudolph Schild from Harvard-Smithsonian, and Xinlei Wei, a microbiologist from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Harsh environment
They explain that Martian fungi, lichens, moulds, algae and other putative life-forms, would have evolved on and already be adapted to the low temperatures, intermittent availability of water, low amounts of free oxygen, and high levels of radiation that characterize the harsh Martian environment.
Strands that snake across and sometimes rise above the surface. If biological, these specimens
may consist of calcified fungal mycelium or encrusted plasmodium and protoplasmic tendrils punctuated
with fossilized bulbous fruiting bodies (sporangia). Or they may be very unusual abiogenic formations.
Credit: Rhawn Gabriel Joseph, et al.
“What would be surprising is if there was no life on Mars,” the team asserts.
“Similarities in morphology are not proof of life. It is possible that all the specimens presented here are abiotic. We cannot completely rule out minerals, weathering, and unknown geological forces that are unique to Mars and unknown and alien to Earth,” the research paper explains. “However, growth, movement, alterations in location and shape, constitute behavior, and coupled with life-like morphology, strongly support the hypothesis there is life on Mars.”
To read the full paper in Advances in Microbiology – “Fungi on Mars? Evidence of Growth and Behavior from Sequential Images” – go to
China’s Long March-5 booster departs Wenchang launch site.
Credit: CASC
China’s incoming Long March 5 booster core stage is generating lots of speculation – particularly the when, what, and where leftovers might reach the Earth’s surface.
Here are a few down-to-earth factoids provided to Inside Outer Space from T.S. Kelso of CelesTrak, an analytical group that keeps an observant eye on Earth-orbiting objects:
- The CZ-5B core stage is supposed to be around 21 metric tons. That’s about twice the mass of an average school bus or the empty mass of a Boeing 737. Estimates for objects like this are that 20-40% of the mass might survive reentry to the surface.
- The rocket body is in a 41° inclination orbit and the uncertainty being given by the 18th Space Control Squadron that predicts when and where human-made objects will reenter the Earth’s atmosphere is ±900 minutes (15 hours). That’s somewhere between 10 orbits before and after the predicted reentry point (May 9 at 04:25 UTC/00:25 EDT). Essentially, that means it could come down anywhere between 41° N and 41° S latitude.
- Perigee (the lowest point of the orbit) is over the Southern Hemisphere and reentry is expected to occur around perigee, so the reality is that observers in Southern Africa, South America, or Australia might see the reentry—not observers in North America or Europe. But most of the Earth is covered by water and much of those land areas are sparsely populated, so it is more likely to pass without anyone actually seeing. In fact, a Long March-3B rocket body just reentered on May 3 and seems to have gone virtually unnoticed—on the equator in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
- The likelihood of anyone being injured by this type of event is small but would not be inconsequential if it happened. Yet we have over 2,000 other uncontrolled rocket bodies still in Earth orbit and each of them presents a risk to people on the surface or satellites in orbit.
- We need to be more responsible and stop leaving these objects in orbit after they have completed their job of deploying their satellite(s) to their intended orbits.
The Aerospace Corporation’s Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies is monitoring the rocket stage (ID 48275).
Artwork: The Aerospace Corporation/CORDS
For follow-up reading, go to:
A Space Debris Expert Weighs in on the Massive Chinese Rocket Body Falling Uncontrollably to Earth at:
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3110 duties.
Curiosity recently drove roughly 145 feet (44 meters) on sol 3109, “so we’ve left our scenic view at ‘Bardou’ behind in the rear-view mirror… er… rear Hazcam… er…. actuaaaallllly, to be perfectly precise, front Hazcam since we drove backwards,” reports Abigail Fraeman, a planetary geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Curiosity Right Navigation Camera Right B photo taken on Sol 3109, May 5, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The Mars machinery now has a new workspace under its wheels, with views of rocks with great textures on the horizon.
Touch and go
A newly scripted plan has a standard “touch and go” sol, meaning the rover will “snap a few photos and laser a rock, squeeze in some quick contact science to analyze the area in front of the rover, and then drive on to our next target all before we need to send the data back so that it arrives on Earth in time for us to see it before making Friday’s plan,” Fraeman explains.
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Right B Camera image acquired on Sol 3109, May 5, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The contact science target in the current plan is a vein named “Gourdon,” with the robot acquiring Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) data on the same vein on a target named “Molieres.”
A rock informally described as having tiger stripes captured in this Left Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3109.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Tiger stripes
“We’ll additionally collect ChemCam passive spectral and Mastcam multispectral data on a different vein target named “Pech Du Loup,” and we’ll take several Mastcam images to capture the colors and textures of nearby rocks,” Fraeman adds.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3109, May 5, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3109, May 5, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Right B Camera image acquired on Sol 3109, May 5, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“For our drive, we’re aiming for a target that is located just above a rock the team informally started describing as having tiger stripes,” Fraeman notes. “The apparent stripes are likely caused by veins that jut out at low angles and are more resistant to erosion than the surrounding rock. It should be great fun to get a closer of view of this and the surrounding rocks in Friday’s plan.”
New Shepard reusable booster design has undergone a series of test flights.
Credit: Blue Origin/Screengrab Inside Outer Space
On July 20th, Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital vehicle will fly its first astronaut crew to space.
That announcement from the group backed by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos also adds: “We are offering one seat on this first flight to the winning bidder of Blue Origin’s online auction. Starting today, anyone can place an opening bid by going to BlueOrigin.com.”
“This seat will change how you see the world.”
Jeff Bezos, founder of Blue Origin.
Credit: Blue Origin
Auction phases
Details of the three-phase auction are:
May 5-19: Sealed online bidding – you can bid any amount you want on the auction website (no bids are visible)
May 19: Unsealed online bidding – bidding becomes visible and participants must exceed the highest bid to continue in the auction
June 12: Live auction – the bidding concludes with a live online auction
Blue Origin’s crew capsule – a suborbital six-seater craft.
Credit: Blue Origin
Club for the Future
The winning bid amount will be donated to Blue Origin’s foundation, Club for the Future, “to inspire future generations to pursue careers in STEM and help invent the future of life in space,” according to a Blue Origin statement.
The communiqué from Blue Origin also notes:
“On this day 60 years ago, Alan Shepard made history by becoming the first American to fly to space. In the decades since, fewer than 600 astronauts have been to space above the Kármán Line to see the borderless Earth and the thin limb of our atmosphere. They all say this experience changes them.”
Alan Shepard’s liftoff strapped into Freedom 7 Mercury capsule on May 5, 1961.
Credit: NASA
Blue Origin explains that they named their launch vehicle after Alan Shepard to honor his historic flight.
New Shepard has flown 15 successful consecutive missions to space and back above the Kármán Line “through a meticulous and incremental flight program to test its multiple redundant safety systems. Now, it’s time for astronauts to climb onboard,” explains the firm’s statement.
For more information, go to:
The upcoming reentry of China’s Long March-5 rocket body is a reminder of a much larger problem.
China’s big booster tossed the country’s Tianhe space station module into orbit on April 29th. Now satellite and space debris monitoring groups are keeping a close eye on the uncontrolled nose dive to Earth of the large rocket stage. Leftover debris from its fiery fall could reach terra firma.
But over what part of Earth it will reenter is a sketchy predictive pronouncement. Nobody knows for sure of the exact date/time of the rocket body’s demise.
One report has the hardware out of control, tumbling along an elliptical orbit and falling to Earth in a few days, perhaps as early as May 9th.
In short, the rocket body equation adds up to a dilemma.
The Aerospace Corporation’s Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies is presently predicting a reentry time for the CZ-5B rocket body (ID 48275) on May 10th, plus or minus 41 hours.
Artwork: The Aerospace Corporation/CORDS
Magnitude of the problem
“It really isn’t about this one rocket body…because every rocket body in Earth orbit is uncontrolled,” explains T.S. Kelso of CelesTrak, an analytical group that keeps an observant eye on Earth-orbiting objects.
The true magnitude of the problem can be identified by a quick check on CelesTrak.
“It shows there are 2,033 rocket bodies in Earth orbit…at least those that we have orbital data for as there may be more classified ones. Of course, every one of them is uncontrolled. Of the 2,033, 546 belong to the U.S. and only 169 belong to China.
“Maybe we all need to be more responsible and not leave uncontrolled rocket bodies in orbit,” Kelso told Inside Outer Space.
Clutter in the cosmos.
Credit: Used with permission: Melrae Pictures/Space Junk 3D
Where are they?
Who is the worst offender? It is Russia with 1,035 rocket bodies.
“There are another 66 rocket bodies in Earth orbit that we have no data for, because they are classified,” Kelso notes, that is, there are no “where are they?” orbit elements available. “Most we have no idea what orbit they are in, so they could reenter or just run into something else in orbit, pretty much without any warning.”
One of those is from a 1967 launch and eight are from launches in the 1970s, Kelso adds.
Bottom line
Just for 2020 launches, there are still 32 rocket bodies in orbit. China is not doing particularly well, though, since 15 of those are Chinese. Ten of those are U.S., with five of those being for classified launches, Kelso reports.
“The problem is the number should be zero and we all need to start working now to make sure we don’t continue to make this problem worse,” Kelso concludes. “But the bottom line is that we all need to do better to stop leaving things in orbit after their intended use and to find safe ways to remove them.”
