Archive for April, 2023
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April 21st, 2023
Wait a minute!
Image credit: Barbara David
The cacophony of captions rippling through the various feeding troughs of news regarding the SpaceX Starship’s test launch has been a tad deafening.
While not nearly as loud as the mammoth rocket’s departure, they were as circuitous and apocalyptic as the vehicle’s flight path, such as:
Image credit: SpaceX
“Elon Musk’s prized Starship mega-rocket exploded into a fireball”
“SpaceX giant rocket fails minutes after launching from Texas”
“SpaceX’s Starship breaks apart during test flight”
“SpaceX successfully launches largest ever space rocket – which blows up”
“SpaceX’s uncrewed Starship explodes on launch attempt”
But there have been a few that had punch lines like “Starship Succeeds, in Spite of Failure.”
Image credit: SpaceX/Inside Outer Space screengrab
And then there are those that perhaps offer too much warmth and oomph proclaiming “Why Thursday May Change the World.”
Somewhere in all this, reality will find a true trajectory.
Pre-launch, chief SpaceX rocketeer, Elon Musk, tried to temper high-expectations: “Success is far from certain, but excitement is guaranteed.”
Yep, that heart-stopping excitement was indeed surefire.
From SpaceX: “As if the flight test was not exciting enough, Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly before stage separation,” later posting: “With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s test will help us improve Starship’s reliability as SpaceX seeks to make life multi-planetary.”
Image credit: SpaceX/Inside Outer Space screengrab
There were many milestones met by the Starship/Super Heavy Launch – for one, lumbering skyward off the pad and leaving it mostly intact and useful for another day!
Musk and his fellow rocketeers have surely amassed lots of engines-out and in-flight data.
“We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming,” once said Wernher Von Braun.
So it’s back to paperwork, analysis, and perhaps more ground-testing.
Whatever the case, in reaching for the stars, there’s always the stoop for reality factor.
Small moves…small moves.
Onward Elon…onward!
Image credit: SpaceX/Inside Outer Space screengrab
For a launch replay, go to:
https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-test
Posted in 
UFO/UAP Congressional Hearing:
TESTIMONY ON THE MISSION, ACTIVITIES, OVERSIGHT, AND BUDGET OF THE ALL-DOMAIN ANOMALY RESOLUTION OFFICE
Date: Wednesday, April 19th, 2023
Testimony by:
Dr. Sean M. Kirkpatrick, Director, All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office
Hearing replay, go to:
Image credit: U.S. Senate/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Image credit: U.S. Senate/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Image credit: U.S. Senate/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Image credit: U.S. Senate/Inside Outer Space screengrab
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale crater is now performing Sol 3802 duties.
Here are some newly relayed imagery from the robot of its current surroundings:
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3801, April 16, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3801, April 16, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3801, April 16, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3801, April 16, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3801, April 16, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Image credit: Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies
Coming up is an April 19 Senate hearing on the mission, activities, oversight, and budget of the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office. Senate Subcommittee Hearing on Emerging Threats and Capabilities. Hearing starts at 10:30 AM, Wednesday, April 19th. WITNESSE(S): Dr. Sean M. Kirkpatrick, Director, All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office.
To view the hearing, go to: https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/hearings/to-receive-testimony-on-the-mission-activities-oversight-and-budget-of-the-all-domain-anomaly-resolution-office?fbclid=IwAR1LAM4_efY0Pu9dPFcl4HXYdduXfOpDz0hcWWRyQ7-b_lSWJVEUDcgnXwk
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY).
Image credit: Senator Gillibrand
CNN interview
CNN’S State of the Union interview on April 16 between TV reporter Jake Tapper and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY):
TAPPER: According to “The Washington Post,” some of the leaked documents reveal that U.S. intelligence agencies knew of four additional Chinese spy balloons, including one that flew over an American carrier group, and that there are still lingering questions about the true capabilities of the one that crossed the mainland U.S.
Shown at Congressional hearing, Video 1 2021 flyby movie showing a purported UAP.
Credit: Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Do you think the Biden administration is being forthcoming enough when it comes to everything they know about these balloons?
GILLIBRAND: Well, I will be having a hearing on all of the unidentified aerial phenomenon this coming week.
TAPPER: Oh, great.
GILLIBRAND: And one of the things…
TAPPER: Will you come back and talk to us about it afterwards?
GILLIBRAND: Absolutely.
TAPPER: OK.
Balloons, drones, debris or birds
GILLIBRAND: I created, along with Senator Warner and Senator Rubio and Senator Heinrich and some others, an office within the DOD and the Intelligence Committee specifically to review every unidentified aerial phenomenon that the military has access to.
And we have the most intense — intensely specific technology that can video different aerial phenomenon, that can get radar, heat sensing through our aircraft, through other radar detection. And so we set up this office two years ago.
Image credit: Statista
And, during that two years, they have reviewed over 300 different evidence of aerial phenomenon. About half of them were deemed to be weather balloons, this type of balloon technology, perhaps detection devices. About two dozen were deemed to be drones. A handful were debris or birds.
Domain awareness
And there was still 171 that they have not assessed what it is. And so this work has to be done. If we’re going to have domain awareness, if we’re going to have aerial dominance, if we want to make sure that our adversaries aren’t spying on us, or using new technologies, or have aircraft that we don’t even know how it functions or how fast it is or how effective it is, that is a national security risk.
UAP have been reported by Navy pilots unlike anything they have ever witnessed.
Image credit: Enigma Labs/Lt. Cmdr. Alex Dietrich
And so knowing what these aircraft are is essential. And the military, unfortunately, just hasn’t been doing that work. They have just assumed they are nonadversarial because of how they fly or how they function. But I think knowing whether you are being spied on through different kinds of technology is essential to our national security.
So this office is up and running. I’m working with colleagues to make sure it’s fully funded. We’re pushing the Biden administration and the military to ask for full funding this year. And I think it’s vital.
Image credit: SpaceX
SpaceX is targeting as soon as Monday, April 17 for the first flight test of a fully integrated Starship and Super Heavy rocket from Starbase in Texas.
The 150-minute test window will open at 8:00 a.m. Central Time.
From SpaceX: “Teams are completing final checkouts and reviews ahead of Starship’s first flight test attempt; weather is looking pretty good for tomorrow morning but we’re keeping an eye on wind shear.”
Image credit: SpaceX
SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy missions would include human and cargo missions to the Moon, satellite payload missions, and future human flight to Mars.
FAA evaluations
After completing an evaluation of all applicable Vehicle Operator License requirements, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued a commercial Vehicle Operator License to SpaceX for launches of the Starship/Super Heavy Launch Vehicle Program in Cameron County, Texas.
Image credit: FAA
“The affected environment and environmental impacts of Starship/Super Heavy operations at the Boca Chica Launch Site had been analyzed in the 2022 Final Programmatic Environmental Assessment for the SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy Launch Vehicle Program,” according to the FAA SpaceX Boca Chica Project Team.
Image credit: FAA
Since the 2022 Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA), SpaceX provided the FAA with additional information regarding Starship’s planned landing, Super Heavy’s planned soft water landing, and the Launch Pad Detonation Suppression System, adds the project team.
“Based on the Written Re-Evaluation, the FAA concluded that the issuance of a vehicle operator license for Starship/Super Heavy operations conforms to the prior environmental documentation, that the data contained in the 2022 PEA remains substantially valid, that there are no significant environmental changes, and all pertinent conditions and requirements of the prior approval have been met or will be met in the current action. Therefore, preparation of a supplemental or new environmental document is not necessary to support the Proposed Action,” states the project team.
Image credit: SpaceX
Future flights
According to FAA documents, SpaceX is proposing to conduct up to five Starship/Super Heavy orbital launches annually.
Each launch may include a landing of Starship and/or Super Heavy.
From the Boca Chica Launch Site, orbital launches would primarily be to low inclinations with flight trajectories north or south of Cuba that minimize land overflight. Future launches from the site may be to higher, 70‐degree inclination with limited overflight of remotely populated portions of Mexico.
Resources
NewSpaceGlobal’s report, “SpaceX Starship: Design, Development and Commercial Prospects” reviews the progress made so far, existing and new markets that operational Starships can serve, and the many challenges ahead.
For more information on this informative report, go to:
https://starshipreport.com/product/spacex-starship-report/
To view the FAA’s Final Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) Executive Summary for Starship/Super Heavy, go to:
https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/2022-06/Final_PEA_Executive_Summary.pdf
To watch the test flight, go to this live SpaceX link at:
https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-test
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
The Shenzhou-15 taikonauts onboard the orbiting Chinese Tiangong space station have completed their fourth spacewalk, the China Manned Space Agency said on Sunday.
From inside the country’s space station, Deng Qingming assisted spacewalkers Fei Junlong and Zhang Lu to perform a series of tasks on Saturday, before the two returned to the station’s Wentian lab module.
Image credit: CGTN/Inside Outer Space screengrab
As noted by China’s Xinhua news agency, the trio has carried out extravehicular activities on four occasions since they were launched into space in November 2022, “setting a domestic record for the most spacewalks by a single crew.”
Equipment installed
During the most recent spacewalk, several items of equipment have been installed, including the extravehicular extended pump sets, cross-module cables, and supporting devices for the extravehicular payload platform.
In doing so, subsequent large-scale science and technology experiments outside the space station can be done, the CMSA stated.
Image credit: CGTN/Inside Outer Space screengrab
In related China station news, a Long March-7 Y7 carrier rocket has been transported to the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in south China’s Hainan Province. That booster is set to hurl the uncrewed Tianzhou-6 cargo spacecraft into Earth orbit.
The Tianzhou-6 cargo spacecraft is scheduled to be launched in May, the first flight mission since China entered the stage of space station application and development.
Image credit: Shujianyang Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA
On-orbit experiments
China’s Shenzhou-15 mission crew successfully performed the first in-orbit ignition test in the Mengtian space lab module’s combustion cabinet recently, according to the Technology and Engineering Center for Space Utilization (CSU) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The experiment used methane as fuel and the two ignitions lasted about 30 seconds in total.
Stirling thermoelectric converter. Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
The Shenzhou-15 astronauts also completed tests for a free-piston Stirling thermoelectric converter, marking the country’s first successful verification on the use of the technology in orbit.
Also, in-orbit verification experiments using a two-photon microscope have been performed. This device can obtain three-dimensional images of the epidermis and superficial dermis of an astronaut’s skin during a space mission, which provides a new tool for the future research on the in-orbit health monitoring of astronauts, according to China Central Television (CCTV).
The Shenzhou-15 crew is scheduled to return to Earth this June.
Go this video focused on the recent spacewalk at: https://youtu.be/LA4zVvbLkfE
NASA’s Curiosity Mars helicopter at Jezero Crater performed its 50th flight on April 13.
Newly-issued color imagery shows the Red Planet’s landscape. The craft used its high-resolution color camera mounted in its fuselage and pointed approximately 22 degrees below the horizon.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Also released are black and white images. The rotorcraft used its navigation camera mounted in the helicopter’s fuselage and pointed directly downward to track the ground during flight.
Image credit: SpaceX
On April 14, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued SpaceX a Vehicle Operator License to launch the Starship / Super Heavy vehicle from Boca Chica, Texas.
SpaceX is targeting as soon as Monday, April 17 for the first flight test of a fully integrated Starship and Super Heavy rocket from Starbase in Texas. The 150-minute test window will open at 7:00 a.m. Central Time.
License valid for 5 years
“After a comprehensive license evaluation process, the FAA determined SpaceX met all safety, environmental, policy, payload, airspace integration and financial responsibility requirements. The license is valid for five years,” the FAA stated.
The FAA is responsible for protecting the public during commercial space transportation launch and reentry operations.
Image credit: SpaceX
“We carefully analyzed the public safety risks during every stage of the mission and required SpaceX to mitigate those risks,” the FAA statement continues. “In addition, the FAA will implement various airspace integration measures designed to reduce the impact of the launch on commercial airline flights and other airspace users.”
Close/reopen airspace
Lastly, the FAA statement said:
- The FAA will use key mission “triggers” such as the loading of rocket fuel and the final disposition of the booster rocket to pinpoint when to close and reopen airspace.
- For the first time, the FAA will implement time-based procedures for a launch from Boca Chica. This will identify and reroute only the aircraft directly affected by the closed airspace allowing more aircraft to stay on their most optimal and efficient routes. It has previously only been used for launches from the Florida space coast.
- Both the Starship vehicle and the Super Heavy booster rocket will transmit telemetry data to the FAA via the Space Data Integrator tool. Data such as position, altitude, speed and any deviation from its expected flight path will provide the FAA situational awareness, and in combination with other information, help to reopen airspace quicker.
