It launched, flew up, hovered, came down and landed. Woo! But then it bounced slightly when it landed, but still stayed upright. But then, some five or so minutes later, the damn thing popped up in the air and exploded; the lower propellant tank seemed to have cut open.
Soon to compete with SpaceX, the Rocket Lab “Neutron.” Building on their relatively dinky Electron, the Neutron will be able to orbit 8 metric tons (including manned payloads) and will feature a reusable first stage much akin to the Falcon 9 first stage.
It looks to be substantially stubbier than Falcon 9 which should make it much more stable on the landing pad which will likely be a ship or platform out at sea.
Rocket Lab is technically an American company, but the founder is a New Zealander and many launches occur from there as well. Much of the Electron manufacturing occurs in New Zealand; the 3D-printed rocket engines are made in California.
Rocket Lab, like SpaceX before it, should cause many, MANY heads to hang in shame. Who? Well, let’s start with the likes of Boeing and Lockheed. Those titans of the aerospace world should have had this sort of capability *decades* ago. But they chose not to. And the best they’ve come up with is the as-yet unflown “Vulcan,” which is *lame* comparatively. Who else? Oh… how about the United Kingdom? They used to have a planet-spanning empire. They used to have a pretty snazzy launch vehicle of their own, the Black Arrow… which they abandoned fifty years ago. And now New Zealand has not only surpassed *all* of the British Empire with their Electron (dinky as it it, its payload still exceeds that of the Black Arrow), if the Neutron comes along – which there’s no reason to suppose it won’t, though the initial launch date of 2024 might prove optimistic – then the UK will look *even* *worse.*
If Neutron works, then there’ll be no excuses whatsoever. Every nation on the planet *should* have their own launch capability… and in a number of cases, such as the US, their should be *dozens* of new launch vehicles competing to prove who can launch the most for the least.
From Polaris through Poseidon to Trident D-5:
Every one of those was proposed for alternate roles, from truck-towed and truck-launched land based strike missiles to air-launched and ground-launched satellite boosting systems. And they very likely *could* have done that. But they are just not really well suited for any role but sea launched ballistic missile due to the somewhat tricky propellants they use… high energy propellants so they can function adequately while still being able to fit in a small submarine. But for above-ground systems, they’d be somewhat dubious. The environment within a submarine is pretty consistent. For a missile stored in a warehouse and then hauled aloft by an airplane? The thermal and vibration environments will be highly variable.
This photo has popped up online before, but usually in pretty crummy resolution. It’s taken from “Aerojet – The Creative Company” and shows a mockup for a Titan-derived first stage booster rocket. It has double the engines of the standard Titan core stage, either two or four engines depending on how you want to count the LR-87 engines (one set of turbopumps, two combustion chambers) married to a 15-foot diameter core. This is described as a booster designed to loft the Zenith Star space-based laser weapon test system (the ZS was described and illustrated in US Spacecraft Projects #1). Documentation on this specific booster has always been somewhat lacking, though there have been quite a number of Large Diameter Core Titans designed by Aerojet and Martin over the years.
Higher rez scan in the 2021-02 APR Extras Dropbox folder for patrons/subscribers.
First up: a writer for Gizmodo flips her lid over the terrifying prospect of the Defense Department generating ten whole watts of electrical power in space with a solar panel:
This solar panel is officially called the Photovoltaic Radiofrequency Antenna Module (PRAM), and it’s designed to capture the powerful blue light in space that doesn’t pass through the atmosphere. Navy scientists launched it last May using a mysterious drone called the X-37B, and it’s currently circling the Earth every 90 minutes. So right now, as I’m typing, there is a little solar panel looping the planet because the Department of Defense wanted to put it there. Somehow, this is not an episode of the X-Files, it is real life. …
The scientists want to send dozens of these panels to orbit the Earth, and they say if they scale up the project, it could produce enough electricity to fuel a whole city. But as far as I can tell, no one has been clamoring for space power. Myself and the other 99.9% of humanity would be perfectly happy with solar, wind, and other clean energy generated right here on Earth.
If these Defense Department scientists successfully get more of these panels into orbit, there’s no telling what horrors the nation will use them for.
Nobody wants space-based solar power according to this genetic defective.
Huh.
Bonus round, from the color-value reversed version of “Stormfront,” The Root:
“Be less white.”
If it were up to me, this would be America’s motto. Instead of the Pledge of Allegiance, children in school should stand up before class, put their hands over their hearts and shout “BE LESS WHITE” at the flag for five minutes before beginning the day’s lessons. (I’m old AF and I have no idea if students even have to say the pledge before school anymore, but still.) “Be less white” should be printed on t-shirts, bumper stickers, white people’s birth certificates, white people’s tombstones and it should replace “In God We Trust” on the back of U.S. currency.
Uh-huh. Read the comments for an extra dose of “my god humans are stupid.”
A NASA press conference livestream with some interesting vids. At 11:58 to about 15:00 you can see multiple camera angles of the actual landing… on the skycrane looking down at the suspended rover, on the rover looking up at the skycrane, on the rover looking down at the surface. Various still images start at about 28:44. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was able to image the rover, the skycrane, the heat shield and the parachute scattered on the surface at 37:25… but more interestingly, a still image of the actual landing in process at 38:07, where you can see the parachutes fluttering away and the rocket exhaust scattering dust on the surface. The first audio recording from Mars is at 41:21, with a cleaned-up audio at 42:26 giving the sounds of winds on Mars. It’s not spectacular audio, but it’s better than anything produced by astrologers, gender studies majors or critical race theorists. Engineering rigor for the win. AGAIN.
Nuclear powered cars, baby!
Work on the “Enterprise” continues…
One of the things about art is… what’s the “right” version? These days most concept art is probably produced digitally so the colors are mathematically defined, at least in the original. They are of course easily tweaked… but the original can in theory be infinitely reproduced without alteration. But with old-school art, reproduction methods varied in accuracy. Photos would make paintings look different based on lighting and film stock and a myriad of other variables. And then simple *time* causes colors to change and fade in prints. So… what’s “right?” Whatever looks best, I suppose.
So here is a slightly differently version of a piece of art I posted about late last month. The colors are distinctly different: last months post was brighter and more vibrant; this one is more subdued. Click here for the full rez version.
As comparison, here’s the one from a month ago:
It will hit the Martian atmosphere at 3:55 PM eastern coastal elite/12:55 left coast time (2:55 central/1:55 mountain flyover country time). With any luck, about seven minutes later it will hit the Martian surface at a speed that doesn’t turn the rover and it’s helicopter payload into scrap.
Here’s a chatty NASA live stream:
Animation of the landing process:
Cruising along…
