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April 16th, 2023
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.
Posted in 
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.
I’m 50! Saturday Night Live’s Molly Shannon. Image credit: SNL
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter has performed a Molly Shannon maneuver – “I’m 50!”
The craft made its 50th flight on April 13, soaring to its highest altitude to date.
Stats: Horizontal distance covered, roughly 1,056 feet (322 meters); Maximum altitude roughly 59 feet (18 meters) – the highest altitude reached to date; Hit a ground speed of roughly 10.3 miles per hour (4.60 meters per second); Duration of flight 145.7 seconds.
This image was acquired on April 13, 2023 (Sol 763 of the Perseverance rover mission) at the local mean solar time of 15:07:25. This was the date of Ingenuity’s 50th flight.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
White knuckle flights
After its milestone-making mission, the craft touched down near the half-mile-wide (800-meter-wide) “Belva Crater” on the Red Planet.
With Flight 50 under its rotors, the helicopter team plans to perform another repositioning flight before exploring the “Fall River Pass” region of Jezero Crater.
“We are not in Martian Kansas anymore,” said Josh Anderson, Ingenuity operations lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California. “We’re flying over the dried-up remnants of an ancient river that is filled with sand dunes, boulders, and rocks, and surrounded by hills that could have us for lunch. And while we recently upgraded the navigation software onboard to help determine safe airfields, every flight is still a white-knuckler.”
Built with many off-the-shelf components, such as smartphone processors and cameras, Ingenuity is now 23 Earth months and 45 flights beyond its expected lifetime. The craft’s first flight took place on April 19, 2021.
Artist’s concept of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter flying through the Red Planet’s skies. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The rotorcraft has now flown for roughly 89.2 minutes in total and collectively more than 7.1 miles (11.6 kilometers) in distance.
Electronic earshot
According to JPL, beyond facing more challenging terrain, Ingenuity will also fly at a greater frequency in the coming days. That flight rate is due to the helicopter needing to remain within “electronic earshot” of the busily-working NASA Perseverance rover. With its auto-navigation capability, the Perseverance robot can wheel hundreds of meters each day.
Ingenuity helicopter is enabling looks at future aerial craft for Mars exploration.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was built by JPL, which also manages the project for NASA Headquarters. NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley and NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, provided significant flight performance analysis and technical assistance during Ingenuity’s development.
AeroVironment Inc., Qualcomm, and SolAero also provided design assistance and major vehicle components. Lockheed Space designed and manufactured the Mars Helicopter Delivery System.
A range of less-expensive landers, rovers and aerial vehicles are foreseen to help advance a sustainable human presence on Mars.
Image credit: Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS)/Chuck Carter (Used with permission)
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
Work is now underway to shape a new NASA Mars helicopter design. There are a lot of add-ons beyond the Ingenuity aerial vehicle that has been busily buzzing the distant and distinct planet.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Thanks to Ingenuity’s nearly 50 hops across the Jezero Crater landscape, much has been learned to soup-up a future rotorcraft for the Red Planet.
For more information, go to my new Space.com story – “NASA sets sights on a next-generation Mars helicopter to return Red Planet samples” at:
https://www.space.com/mars-sample-return-next-generation-helicopter
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3797, April 12, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale crater is now performing Sol 3798 tasks.
The terrain the rover drivers are now navigating is challenging – “slippery sand surrounding big, wheel-unfriendly rocks,” reports Michelle Minitti, a planetary geologist at Framework in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 3797, April 12, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“These contrasting regimes contributed to us not-quite-arriving at our planned workspace with all six wheels confidently on known terrain,” Minitti adds. “Thus, we had to pivot from a combined contact and remote science day, to one with remote science and a drive.”
Interesting textures
Minitti points out that there are interesting textures in the workspace and the surrounding terrain motivated the science team to not want to stray too far from the robot’s current area.
Curiosity Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) photo taken on Sol 3797, April 12, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL
“So the rover drivers planned a short bump toward another intriguing rock that gives us a bit more confidence that we can arrive at it to enable arm work in the next plan,” Minitti explains.
With no arm work in the plan, geology and environmental planning groups ably filled up their pre-drive science time with Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam), Navcam, and Mastcam observations.
Curiosity Rear Hazard Avoidance Camera Left B image taken on Sol 3797, April 12, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Dust devil survey
“Navcam will start things off with a dust devil survey. Mastcam planned a series of stereo images and mosaics at targets that all shared regularly-spaced, resistant features paralleling the layering of this area,” Minitti reports, “despite being geographically dispersed, their similarities earned them the same name, ‘Teotonio.’ Layering patterns on another target, ‘La Macarena’ (pause to sing it to yourself…), earned another Mastcam mosaic, as did one of the blocks in the area (‘La Vueltosa’) exhibiting a scalloped fracture pattern that we have not seen for quite awhile. This pattern is also present on the block we are bumping toward, ‘Regina.’”
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3797, April 12, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The Mastcam images planned on Regina should be returned to Earth in time to help researchers carry out an analysis of the target.
Channel structure
ChemCam targeted yet another scalloped fracture block, “Chiles,” with its lone Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) analysis in the plan. Farther afield, Mastcam will capture the west side of “Owenteik” butte, and ChemCam will collect a Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) mosaic of a hypothesized inverted channel structure on Gediz Vallis Ridge, Minitti notes.
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Left B photo taken on Sol 3797, April 12, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
In parallel with all the pre-drive science and the drive, the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) passive will run for four hours, adding an active measurement post-drive, as well.
Post-drive, Navcam will acquire a cloud altitude observation, and the Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) will provide a view of the ground beneath Curiosity’s left front wheel.
The Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) and Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) will keep their regular watch on the weather and radiation conditions in Gale crater, Minitti concludes.
Image credit: ICON
The “Pancosmorio theory” describes the complexity of maintaining gravity and oxygen, obtaining water, developing agriculture and handling waste far from Earth.
Pancosmorio theory is a word coined to mean “all world limit” – and is detailed in “Pancosmorio (World Limit) Theory of the Sustainability of Human Migration and Settlement in Space,” published in March in Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences.
According to one of the paper’s authors, it would be unwise to spend billions of dollars to set up a space settlement only to see it fail, because even with all other the systems in place, you need gravity.
Image credit: ICON
One-G gravity
Humans and all Earth life have evolved within the context of 1G of gravity.
“Our bodies, our natural ecosystems, all the energy movement and the way we utilize energy is all fundamentally based upon 1G of gravity being present,” explains Cornell University’s Morgan Irons.
“There is just no other place in space where there is 1G of gravity; that just doesn’t exist anywhere else in our solar system. That’s one of the first problems we must solve.”
For more information, go to “Pancosmorio (world limit) theory of the sustainability of human migration and settlement in space” at:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fspas.2023.1081340/full
Also, go to Baine Friedlander in the Cornell Chronicle at:
https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2023/04/humans-need-earth-ecosystem-deep-space-living
Image credit: SpaceX
At T-minus 00:00:00 “Excitement Guaranteed”
The first flight test of a fully integrated, fully reusable SpaceX Starship and Super Heavy rocket is close at hand.
This voyage is on tap to help “inform and improve” the probability of success in the future of this transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, and to Mars and beyond.
“The first integrated flight test of Starship is trending towards the third week of April, pending regulatory approval,” explains SpaceX. A “soft landing” of the Starship is slated for the Pacific north of Hawai’i.
Numerous tests of the Super Heavy rocket have been carried out, including a full-duration 31 Raptor engine test – the largest number of simultaneous rocket engine ignitions in history.
Projected flight profile.
Image credit: SpaceX
Starbase facility
At the SpaceX Starbase facility on Boca Chica Beach in Texas, SpaceX has also built the world’s tallest rocket launch and unique “catch tower.”
At nearly 500 feet tall (146 meters), the launch and catch tower is designed to support vehicle integration, launch, and catch of the Super Heavy rocket booster.
Image credit: SpaceX
For the first flight test, the team will not attempt a vertical landing of Starship or a catch of the Super Heavy booster, adds SpaceX.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has not made a license determination for the SpaceX Starship Super Heavy operation.
For more information, go to: https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/starship/
