The Silicon Graybeard

Thanks to a tip from SpaceNews.com , I learned that NASA's office of the Inspector General released a report on May 1 covering the aspects of the Artemis 1 mission that are behind the reschedule...

https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2024/05/about-orions-heatshield-issues.html

On one hand, de-orbiting the ISS isn't going to be hard. Get everyone and everything that's valued in any way out of it and stop those periodic missions to lift its orbit. It'll come down eventu...

https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2024/05/nasa-looking-for-funding-to-de-orbit.html

For the entire space age, going back to the late 1950s, the vast majority of satellites have been launched into space with virtually no propellants . The extent of their ability to move has been...

https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2024/04/new-space-startup-aiming-to-solve.html

Just a reminder that Monday May 6 at 10:34 PM Eastern, the Starliner Crew Flight Test, CFT, is scheduled. All information we can get suggests things are moving smoothly toward that test.  Th...

https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2024/04/one-week-from-tonight-monday-may-6.html

A project that has been going on for at least half of April has been my semi-annual testing of various batteries around the house. Primarily, not the stuff I use regularly, but stand by batterie...

https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2024/04/weekend-odds-and-ends.html

Can the Artemis SLS booster and its Orion capsule fly again. More than likely. It's just as we're approaching a year and a half after the first Artemis lunar flyby mission, NASA still doesn't un...

https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2024/04/nasa-still-doesnt-understand-orion.html

The reports have been coming in since the start of this year that this will be the year that Blue Origin's New Glenn Launches. We now have a date .   > In a presentation at a meeting ...

https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2024/04/mark-your-calendars-new-glenn-first.html

It just seemed to be a matter of time, considering how routine they've apparently made landing Falcon 9 first stages, but mark down that on Tuesday evening, April 23, 2024, SpaceX landed their 3...

https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2024/04/with-no-fanfare-spacex-lands-booster.html

As always, small stories that caught my eye JAXA'S SLIM LANDER CONTINUES TO SURPRISE  It was a surprise when JAXA's SLIM lunar lander (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) survived its fir...

https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2024/04/small-space-news-story-roundup-34.html

This past Saturday, April 20, Voyager 1 updated ground control about its health status with a coherent message for the first time in 5 months. While she still isn't fully operational and sending...

https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2024/04/voyager-1-is-awake-and-communicating.html

It's time for our annual bacchanalia of the made-up holiday they call Earth Day, my very favorite holiday to make fun of.  Yes, even more than Kwanzaa. As befitting the environmental movemen...

https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2024/04/its-time-to-celebrate-earf-day-2024.html

Well, this being a weekend, the news is pretty empty, and that's a good thing because today has been long day of sit around and then rush. So I thought of something I've meant to rant on.  T...

https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2024/04/do-you-think-this-is-only-place-where.html

It's no secret that I'm a radio amateur (ham radio operator); I've talked about that hundreds of times over the life of the blog.  There has been a Radio Sunday series and a specific Ham Radio...

https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2024/04/when-hobbies-converge-or-what-heck-is.html

As a followup of sorts to Monday's post on the Mars Sample Return mission and its problems, Space.com reports on an "Astrobiodefense" committee , the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense, and th...

https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2024/04/mars-sample-return-and-space-bugs.html

In a company news update early this week , Rocket Lab announced that their first booster set to be reused is moving through the final steps of being certified for its flight, although they didn'...

https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2024/04/reusability-changes-everything-next.html

The mission of Ingenuity, the wildly successful experimental helicopter sent to Mars strapped to the belly of the Perseverance rover, has long been over. It ended in January , when an accident c...

https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2024/04/jpl-team-says-goodbye-to-ingenuity.html

Boeing's CST-100 Starliner Capsule was rolled to the launch pad today , April 16, and stacked on its Atlas V booster for its long-awaited Crewed Flight Test.  > The spacecraft rolled out�...

https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2024/04/boeings-starliner-capsule-stacked-for.html

I hesitate to use the phrase that the Mars Sample Return (MSR) Mission is cancelled because the source doesn't use that exact, heavy word . Instead, it seems that whatever flies won't look like ...

https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-situation-looks-bad-for-mars-sample.html

Just an idle post about what I've been up to here. As the weeks go by, we're going toward the worst part of the year, weather-wise, as we get closer to summer. I've been saying for quite a whil...

https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2024/04/as-we-move-further-from-best-part-of.html

The topic of orbital debris removal is one of those "gifts that keep on giving" in that it never goes away. Everyone is concerned about it. I'm going to include things like the Mission Extensio...

https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-burgeoning-orbital-debris-removal.html

Next Spaceflight shows a Starlink launch (Group 6-49) scheduled for Friday evening at 9:40 PM EDT from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.  It has been in their schedule for a while....

https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2024/04/a-night-to-keep-my-eyes-on-skies.html

Although it has been needed for quite some time, it appears that the US Space Force has decided to commit to upgrading the major US launch ranges, according to a report today on SpaceNews.com . ...

https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2024/04/space-force-set-to-modernize-us-launch.html

SO WHY DID THE DELTA IV HEAVY SET ITSELF ON FIRE AT EVERY LAUNCH? Even Tory Bruno, CEO of ULA, referred to the Delta IV as "the most metal of all rockets , setting itself on fire before it go...

https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2024/04/two-small-unrelated-stories.html

We watched the final Delta IV Heavy launch early this afternoon , watching the coverage on Spaceflight Now, and going outside to watch at about a minute to go in the count. The trajectory was sa...

https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2024/04/and-delta-rocket-family-is-done.html

As fur as I can tell, not one single thing happened in the world of space, the businesses, or even all of science. Just the eclipse.  Which is not to say nothing happened to billions of peop...

https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2024/04/not-one-thing-happened-today-besides.html