A minor anomaly this week is that SpaceX had started to attempt to launch the Nusantara Lima communications satellite for Indonesia last weekend and finally got good enough weather last night, right at the end of the possible launch windows. When a similar thing happened a few years ago at the start of October, somebody came up with the name Scrubtober. Maybe we should call this year's run Scrubtember?
It's somehow settling to get normalcy back. The launch was at 9:56PM EDT. The trajectory was close to due East, and the sounds of the booster reached us about three full minutes after ignition. We've had launches with stronger rumbles, those that cause our back doors to rattle for longer periods. They're always good and welcome.
This was the 23rd launch and landing for this booster, B1078, and the landing was as smooth as usual. The satellite is headed for the Geosynchronous orbit where it will undergo testing. Nusantara Lima is expected to start operations in 2026 after the testing. PT Pasifik Satelit Nusantara (PSN), Indonesia's first satellite-based private telecom company, will use the spacecraft to beam service to customers across Indonesia's 17,000 islands, as well as in neighboring countries.
Our next launch is Sunday evening, No Earlier Than 6:11PM EDT, when SpaceX will launch another of those Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station under the Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract with NASA. If you're in southern California, you get the next launch before ours, on Saturday afternoon, NET 9:21AM PDT.
Wow, SpaceX launched in September? Gee, I thought BO or ULA would be lighting the sky with their wunderrocketen by now.
ReplyDeleteAlways good to have a bit of "real Life(tm) space action.
ReplyDeleteWhat pray tell is this stuff running around the Running site please?
SNIP "James Webb Telescope Just Alerted The World"
"An alleged JWST leak shows 3I/ATLAS with a perfectly symmetric CO₂ halo, internal infrared brightness, and prime-number pulse patterns unlike any known comet. Trajectory modeling points to ecliptic-plane alignment and precise, non-ballistic course corrections that look intentionally guided. Sudden data lockouts, military retaskings, and quiet space-plane movements suggest the object is being treated as a strategic unknown. Decoded signals hint at phased transmissions and a chilling countdown as 3I/ATLAS approaches the Mars–Earth corridor. This video assembles the anomalies, models, and contested “leaks” to ask the central question: beacon, probe, or an intelligence arriving on schedule?"
I hope just the usual BS for clickbait but is there a need for more distractions for "we the people"?
Aliens or something?
A dangerous and weird world lately.
I've never seen a bigger collection of "WTF??" stuff than the crap coming out since this comet showed up. "Prime number pulse patterns??" Pulse patterns of what exactly? Ecliptic plane alignment? Phased transmissions? Phased what: radio or light? They don't mention what frequency these are on, or any other details.
DeleteI vote for "usual BS for clickbait". There are still people talking about that previous interstellar comet, Oumuamua, as if we know it was a spaceship.
Ever hear the joke that the aliens roll up their windows and lock their doors when they go by Earth? This is why.
LOL, I love that joke.
DeleteI was at our astronomy club meeting at the planetarium last night and comments about the alien spaceship drew a pretty good laugh.
ReplyDeleteThat said the guy that will be running the astronomy outreach program tonight looked rather weary at the thought of trying to explain the nonsense instead of actual science & history.
"Anything that brings people out!", but I think his heart really wasn't in it.