Breathing new life into an old installation.

Former crucial Australian NASA base has a new mission.

A little known ex-Aussie NASA base has been earmarked to play a pivotal role in the next space mission led by the United States.

Along with the Parkes Observatory in New South Wales, the Carnarvon Tracking Station, 900km north of Perth, was vital to the success of the historic Apollo 11 moon landing mission.

But while the former starred in an iconic Australian movie and became a household name, the latter got all but forgotten, despite being the largest NASA base outside the United States at the time.

Founder of the Carnarvon Space and Technology Museum Phil Youd has revealed to news.com.au that the site is set to receive a minimum of $10 million for a new 29.6-metre dish by Canadian space company ThothX, which aims to secure a 20-year renewable lease to operate and maintain the facility.

Mr Youd, who now doubles as a director at ThothX, also revealed that the dish’s potential new job won’t be trivial, with the company working on significant US contracts....

Cheers.

Virgin Galactic Announces Inaugural Commercial Spaceflight ‘Galactic 01’ Launch Date.

Virgin Galactic is gearing up to take us beyond the blue horizon as the company has revealed the long-awaited launch date for its inaugural commercial spaceflight, ‘Galactic 01‘ (called Virtute 1 by the Italian government), which is set for June 29. Billionaire Richard Branson’s owned company has had quite a tough and long journey to reaching this milestone, with the company facing numerous delays and incidents. Nevertheless, Galactic 01 will host a team of three individuals from Italy’s Air Force and National Research Council, who will conduct microgravity research.

The team will be commanded by Walter Villadei, a colonel in the Italian Air Force, who previously trained with NASA and Axiom Space for commercial orbital spaceflight. Joining Villadei are Angelo Landolfi, an Italian Air Force lieutenant colonel and physician, and Pantaleone Carlucci, a researcher with Italy’s National Research Council. Colin Bennett, an astronaut instructor at Virgin Galactic, will be joining the Italian crew members in the cabin. His role during the research flight will be to assess and evaluate the overall experience. Bennett previously flew on the SpaceShipTwo mission in July 2021, which also included Virgin Galactic’s founder, Richard Branson.....

Cheers.

That went well.

Virgin Galactic joins astrotourism market as VSS Unity rocket plane takes paying passengers to the edge of space.

A three-man crew from Italy has soared more than 80 kilometres above the New Mexico desert aboard a Virgin Galactic rocket plane.

It was the company's first flight taking paying customers to the edge of space since British billionaire Richard Branson founded the venture in 2004.

Two Italian air force officers and an aerospace engineer from the National Research Council of Italy made the brief suborbital ride with three Virgin Galactic crew members.

Two of the Virgin Galactic crew members piloted the vehicle, VSS Unity, once it was launched at high altitude from the belly of its twin-fuselage carrier plane.

About 75 minutes after leaving the ground with its mothership, Unity glided back to its starting point on a runway at Spaceport America near the New Mexico town of Truth or Consequences....

Cheers.

Very well run mission but are sub-orbital flights the ultimate goal of Virgin Galactic? It seems to me that this technology is a dead end as far as space flight is concerned.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

Virgin Galactic is selling tickets to well-heeled tourists with the analogy of buying a ticket to the ferris wheel ride at your local fair.

It's just entertainment.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

Took 10 years to buid, Euclid set for launch

From The Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE: UFO-hunting Harvard scientists say debris from unidentified object that crashed into Pacific Ocean in 2014 appears 'artificial in origin' - and they could be remnants of an 'interstellar spacecraft'

Tiny metal fragments recovered from an interstellar object that crashed into the Pacific Ocean appear 'artificial in origin', scientists say.

A Harvard duo recovered 50 unusual iron spheres after tracking down the unidentified object, known as IM1, off the coast of Papua New Guinea last week as part of a $ 1.5 million underwater search mission.

New lab analysis of the metal spheres reveals they are 'anomalous' and stronger than any observed meteor produced by nature, according to Professor Avi Loeb, former chair of Harvard's astronomy department who led the research.

The composition of the metallic spherules Dr. Loeb and team reclaimed from the ocean have been analyzed, with the following results: Iron: 82 %, Silicon: 8 %, Magnesium: 4 %, Titanium: 2 %, plus trace elements. This appears to correspond to neither meteoric iron, which contains considerable nickel, nor to any usual manmade alloy.

It loosely resembles ferrosilicon alloys, but these typically have 50 to 75 % silicon, and range from 15 to 90 percent silicon. These alloys are used in steel making. What purpose a ferrosilicon having only 8 % silicon would, or could serve is unclear.

Planned analysis of the isotopic ratios of the elements in this alloy should prove interesting. If they differ from those ratios found in our solar system, the extraterrestrial origin of the specimens would be confirmed.

The linked article (above) also mentions that the object, from which Dr. Loeb secured fragments, could have been ejected from a supernova, before it found its way to Earth. Such objects are well known to astrophysicists as 'iron bullets'.

Looking further into this possibility, I considered the sort of supernovas that eject iron. These are type 1a supernovas. Their spectra indicate the presence of substantially more silicon, in comparison to iron, than is found in Dr. Loeb's specimens. Calcium was apparently not present in the specimens, in significant amounts.

I also considered the possibility that the passage of a great deal of time, since the creation of these elements in supernovas, could have altered their abundances, relative to one another. However, I found that the isotopes of iron, silicon, and calcium, which could have contributed substantially to the bulk composition of the specimens, are stable, and do not decay to any detectable degree.

So, the creation of the object, from which the recovered fragments are thought to have come, doesn't appear to have its origin in a supernova.

A savior for some, but a growing headache for others.

Musk’s Starlink satellites are leaking radiation that harms deep space astronomy, study warns.

SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation is emitting radiation that is harmful to deep space astronomy, according to a new study.

The space-based internet network is made up of more than 4,000 satellites in low-Earth orbit – the latest of which were launched on Sunday night – with SpaceX boss Elon Musk planning to extend the constellation to nearly 12,000 satellites over the next few years.

Astronomers have previously complained about the light pollution from Starlink satellite clusters, which is known to impact optical observations, however the latest research uncovered a different source of disturbance that also impacts radio astronomy.

Scientists using the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) telescope, made up of connected antennas spread across Europe, measured a low-frequency radio hum from 47 of 68 Starlink satellites observed.

“This frequency range includes a protected band between 150.05 and 153 MHz specifically allocated to radio astronomy by the International Telecommunications Union,” said Cees Bassa, an astronomer at the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy and co-author of the research.....

Hmm, someone didn't do their EM planning and testing properly. Time to de-orbit the lot and no more launches of new ones.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

... At least they have a planned max lifetime of about 5 years before deliberate de-orbit...

Hopefully that isn't an excuse to skim on the design to see who might not notice...?

... And then again, supposedly SpaceX/Starlink are positively engaging with the astronomy community to nicely cooperate...


One to watch!

Keep searchin',
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Can we glue coral reefs back together?

These scientists have a novel way of solving the Great Barrier Reef's coral rubble problem: glue.

Many of the Great Barrier Reef's challenging issues are well known — from the coral-eating Crown of Thorns starfish to bleaching — but now scientists are trying to solve another problem: coral rubble.

Patches of coral rubble are left behind when boats crash into the reef, it's hit by cyclones or the coral dies off due to other threats.

Brett Lewis from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) said the reef can't easily repair these patches of rubble.

"[The] patches need to be stabilised because corals cannot grow on loose rubble," he said.

Waves and currents move the rubble around, preventing it from forming into a stable seabed......

.....That's where QUT chemistry professor Leonie Barner's team comes in.

They've developed what they call a bio-adhesive. That is, a bio-degradable "glue", or putty, which can be safely used to stick the broken pieces of coral back together.

"We need to be really, really careful about what we are introducing into the reef, because we want to save the reef and not harm [it]," Professor Barner said.

She says the team looked to nature when finding ways to create the glue.

"One component that we are using is actually a plant extract, so it's coming from a natural resource, and the other one is a bio-compatible polymer," Professor Barner said.

"So it has no harmful effects on the marine environment."

The glue buys the reef some time, allowing the coral to recover, before the putty dissolves away.......

From The Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE: UFO-hunting Harvard scientists say debris from unidentified object that crashed into Pacific Ocean in 2014 appears 'artificial in origin' - and they could be remnants of an 'interstellar spacecraft'

Tiny metal fragments recovered from an interstellar object that crashed into the Pacific Ocean appear 'artificial in origin', scientists say.

A Harvard duo recovered 50 unusual iron spheres after tracking down the unidentified object, known as IM1, off the coast of Papua New Guinea last week as part of a $ 1.5 million underwater search mission.

New lab analysis of the metal spheres reveals they are 'anomalous' and stronger than any observed meteor produced by nature, according to Professor Avi Loeb, former chair of Harvard's astronomy department who led the research.

It seems that that Harvard team has a bit to explain.

An exciting discovery leads to controversy as Harvard scientists collect fragments from interstellar meteor.

An exciting discovery has led to controversy after scientists from Harvard University collected fragments believed to belong to a huge interstellar meteor, but PNG officials have raised concerns that the research was conducted within their waters without a permit.

Last year, the US Space Command confirmed the 500-kilogram interstellar fireball that crashed in the ocean near Manus Island in 2014 came from outside our solar system, sparking excitement among researchers.

The ABC can reveal the expedition team entered PNG on business visas and did not have a permit or official approval to conduct the research.

Wilson Thompson, chairman of the PNG National Research Institute (NRI), said his department did not receive a research application from Harvard.

On its website, the NRI is listed as the only authority able to issue research visas in PNG.....

Meanwhile many others reckon that the so called UFO was nothing but a meteor.

Cheers.

Dr. Loeb and the Galileo Project reportedly communicated with the authorities in Papua New Guinea for eight months, and have an agreement with the University of Technology of that nation, to study materials taken from the seafloor, and share the results with them. I note that the linked ABC article alleging wrongdoing is currently unavailable. Has it been withdrawn?

The contention that the recovered fragments are from a meteorite seems rather thin. Iron meteorites are found to have a significant fraction of nickel in their make up, from 5 to 25 %. The newly recovered fragments have only tiny trace amounts of this element.

It can't even be reasonably asserted that nickel was once present in these materials in significant amounts, and radioactively decayed away. All but a tiny trace of nickel is stable, and does decay in this matter. Even an extremely long passage of time shouldn't have made any real difference.

As I mentioned before, the elements and their proportions in the specimens do not appear to match those of any ordinary manmade alloy, either.

.. I note that the linked ABC article alleging wrongdoing is currently unavailable. Has it been withdrawn?..

The link is still active here.

Cheers.

India is taking another shot at the moon.

India launches its latest lunar rocket Chandrayaan-3 as it works toward Artemis Accords goal of manned mission to the Moon.

If conditions are right we should find out soon how it went.

Cheers.

Ok, who's bit of space junk does this belong to?

Australian Space Agency says mystery item on Green Head beach could be part of 'foreign space launch vehicle'.

Owner of space junk solved.

An amateur sleuth claims to have solved the mystery of an unidentified object that washed ashore a Western Australian beach.

....But a sleuth on Reddit noted the object appears eerily similar to the third stage of India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PLSV) rocket.

The view was backed up by Dr Alice Gorman, an expert in the field of space archaeology at Flinders University.

Dr Gorman told news.com.au that she believes the object is a fuel cylinder that came from the third stage of India’s polar satellite launch vehicle rocket....

Cheers.

Houston, you have a problem.

NASA briefly loses contact with ISS after power outage and relies on backup systems for first time.

It seems that power problems arn't over just yet in Texas.

Cheers.