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Helium leak delays Starliner crewed test flight
May 14, 2024
WASHINGTON — The launch of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft on its first crewed flight has slipped at least four days because of a helium leak in the spacecraft.
Boeing announced May 14 that the launch of the Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission, previously scheduled for May 17, has been rescheduled for no earlier than May 21 at 4:43 p.m. Eastern on an Atlas 5 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
The cause of the delay, the company said, was what it described as a “small helium leak” in the spacecraft’s service module, which engineers traced a flange in one of Starliner’s reaction control thrusters. Helium is used to pressurize the propulsion system on the spacecraft.
Boeing did not state in the announcement when the leak was detected, including if it was known during the previous launch attempt May 6 versus some time later, or if the leak would have prevented a launch had it been detected during the countdown. Company spokespersons did not respond to questions about the leak.
The May 6 launch was scrubbed not because of any problems with Starliner but instead with a valve in the rocket’s Centaur upper stage. The rocket was rolled back to the vertical integration facility building near the launch pad, and Boeing said in its statement that the valve was successfully replaced May 11 and tested to confirm it was working properly.
According to the Boeing statement, the company is working with NASA to characterize the leak rather than replace the flange. “As a part of the testing, Boeing will bring the propulsion system up to flight pressurization just as it does prior to launch, and then allow the helium system to vent naturally to validate existing data and strengthen flight rationale,” Boeing stated.
There had been few updates about the status of the mission after the announcement it would be delayed to May 17 to replace the Centaur valve. There had been hints, though, that the mission might slip beyond that date. After previously stating that the CFT crew of Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams would remain at the Kennedy Space Center for the next launch attempt, NASA said May 10 that the two had returned to Houston while staying in a pre-launch medical quarantine. NASA also informed media May 13 that the rollout of the Atlas 5 back to the pad had been delayed a day to May 16. In both cases, though, NASA said the launch remained scheduled for no earlier than May 17.
This incident is the latest in a long string of delays for the program. Various problems with the spacecraft, such as software, valves, parachute components and wiring tape, have all contributed to years of cumulative delays in development of the spacecraft and its test flights. Boeing hopes that, with a successful CFT mission, it will get those problems behind it and enable regular crew rotation missions to the International Space Station as part of a $4.2 billion contract the company received from NASA in 2014.
NASA officials, while eager to start using Starliner and end its reliance solely on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, emphasized after the May 6 scrub that they were not in a hurry to launch the CFT mission. “We’re not in a rush to fly from a station standpoint. We did clear our summer schedule intentionally to give us plenty of runway for the CFT mission,” Dana Weigel, NASA ISS program manager, said at the briefing after the scrub.
https://spacenews.com/helium-leak-delays-starliner-crewed-test-flight/
Earth-size planet discovered around cool red dwarf star shares its name with a biscuit
May 15, 2024
Astronomers have discovered an Earth-size planet orbiting an ultracool red dwarf star similar in size to Jupiter. The red dwarf, located some 55 light-years away, is 100 times less bright than the sun and exhibits half the temperature of our star.
This new extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, is named SPECULOOS-3 and represents just the second time astronomers have discovered a planetary system around a red dwarf star, the first being the Trappist-1 system.
The Earth-size world was discovered by the Search for habitable Planets Eclipsing Ultra-cool Stars (SPECULOOS) project located at the Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. The aim of the mission (which is named after a popular Belgian biscuit called "Speculoos") is to use infrared observations to detect rocky exoplanets around nearby ultracool stars like red dwarfs and so-called "failed stars," or brown dwarfs.
"SPECULOOS-3 b orbits a red dwarf star. The small size of these stars makes it easier to detect small Earth-size planets around them, and above all to observe any planetary atmospheres," Émeline Bolmont, team member and assistant professor in the astronomy department at the UNIGE, said in a statement. "Numerous studies show that life could develop on planets orbiting red dwarfs. They are, therefore, ideal candidates for us."
While SPECULOOS-3 b is practically the same size as our planet, there are other differences that marks it out as radically different from Earth. This includes the fact a full orbit of its star, and thus a year on SPECULOOS-3 b, lasts just 17 hours. This exoplanet is also likely "tidally locked" to its star, meaning it has an eternal dayside and an everlasting nightside.
"We believe that the planet rotates synchronously, so that the same side, called the day side, always faces the star, just like the moon does for the Earth," SPECULOOS team leader Michaël Gillon said in a statement. "On the other hand, the night side hand, would be locked in endless darkness."
Red dwarfs, or "M-dwarfs," are believed to account for 70% of the stars in the Milky Way galaxy. Because they are thousands of degrees cooler than the sun, they burn through their fuel supplies needed for nuclear fusion relatively slowly. This means red dwarfs have exceptionally long lifetimes — at least a hundred times longer than the estimated 10-billion-year lifetime of the sun.
The planet's star, SPECULOOS, is actually part of an even cooler subclass of red dwarfs that astronomers predict will be the last stars alight in an eventually cold and dark cosmos; these orbs will likely burn for more than 100 billion years. This means life may have more time to develop around red dwarfs than it does in systems around stars that live fast and die young.
Yet, red dwarfs aren't very well understood because of their low luminosity. Additionally, it is rare to discover planets around these small, cool stars. So, although red dwarf exoplanets might technically be the most common worlds in our galaxy, we don't actually know much about them. SPECULOOS aims to change that.
That fact that ultracool dwarf stars are scattered across the sky means scientists must observe the objects one at a time and over a period of weeks in order to detect possible transiting planets. That requires a dedicated network of professional telescopes like those that comprise SPECULOOS, and the discovery of SPECULOOS-3 b marks a step in the right direction toward the goal of understanding red dwarf worlds.
However, though red-dwarf-orbiting planets are touted as ideal locations for life to take hold, SPECULOOS-3 b isn't habitable, to be clear. The planet is bombarded by about 16 times more radiation than Earth receives from the sun, making liquid water unable to exist on its surface.
When it comes to hunting for life on a planet around a red dwarf, the seven Earth-like planets of the Trappist-1 system, many of which are in the habitable zone of their star, are still better targets. But this doesn't make SPECULOOS-3 b uninteresting. Far from it.
SPECULOOS-3 b will be the ideal target for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), when it comes to testing if planets that exist in close proximity to their stars can hold on to an atmosphere, the team believes.
"The JWST should be able to determine whether the planet has been able to retain an atmosphere despite its proximity to its star," Bolmont said. "If we find one on this highly irradiated planet, it gives us good hope that one also exists on the planets in TRAPPIST-1's habitable zone."
https://www.space.com/earth-size-planet-speculoos-3b
https://www.8newsnow.com/investigators/what-is-kona-blue-the-proposed-las-vegas-ufo-technology-program-unveiled/
What is Kona Blue? The proposed Las Vegas UFO technology program unveiled
Updated: May 9, 2024 / 06:24 PM PDT
Information has recently surfaced shedding light on an ambitious program that would have researched UFO technology in southern Nevada, aiming to exploit the tech, interview witnesses to extraterrestrial activities, and study the physical and psychological effects of the encounters.
Code-named “Kona Blue,” Las Vegas would have been in the eye of the storm when it came to UFO technology investigations if the program had come to fruition. But why the transparency now? Dr. James Lacatski, formerly a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) analyst and missile expert, has some insight.
AAWSAP ORIGINS
“It was completely UFO-related,” Lacatski said regarding Kona Blue. In 2007, Lacatski became interested in reports of UFO activity at certain hotspots, including a property in northeast Utah known by its nickname Skinwalker Ranch.
Lacatski designed and championed a highly secretive program called the Advanced Aerospace Weapons System Application Program (AAWSAP), an acronym that purposefully omits terms regarding UFOs. He met with Nevada Senator Harry Reid, who, along with two Senate colleagues, secured $22 million in funds. With the contract awarded to a subsidiary of Bigelow Aerospace, AAWSAP became the largest acknowledged UFO investigation in history.
AAWSAP boasted 50 full-time employees, most based in southern Nevada, and created the world’s largest UFO data warehouse. It spawned more than 100 technical papers on different aspects of UFO technology and related phenomena. DIA has not released any of those papers.
However, Lacatski, the overall project manager, and his colleague Dr. Colm Kelleher, the onsite manager in Las Vegas, have co-authored two books about AAWSAP, reporting as much as government officials would allow.
In his 2023 book, Lacatski casually revealed that in 2011, he informed a U.S. senator and a high-ranking official that “the United States was in possession of a craft of unknown origin and had successfully gained access to its interior. This craft had…. no intakes, exhaust, wings, or control surfaces …(no) engine, fuel tanks, or fuel.”
In other words, the U.S. had a flying saucer.
Since that revelation, Lacatski has declined to say anything unauthorized by the Pentagon.
“There was more to it, considerably more to that discussion about what the situation was,” Lacatski said. “We can’t go into that.”
However, thanks to a surprise release from the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), the Pentagon’s current UFO program, the public is more able to read between the lines. The formerly top-secret document, declassified in February by Homeland Security, describes Kona Blue, a program designed by Lacatski, Kelleher, and other AAWSAP colleagues, as an ambitious plan to study and exploit UFO technology.
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KONA BLUE
The papers describing Kona Blue, which would function as a successor to AAWSAP, did not mention UFOs or UAPs by name, but there are clues. For one, the documented purpose of Kona Blue was to “identify potentially disruptive technologies” by analyzing “material of unique origin and engineering.” Success in doing so would depend on gaining access to said materials.
Kona Blue would establish a system to collect sightings of such technology, including at locations of frequent reports. The papers reference advanced technology that has already been recovered and a plan to interview those familiar with those recoveries and how they might recover more. One section notes this recovered technology exists only within special access programs.
The program would have created a medical division to study the physical and psychological effects of encounters with advanced aerial vehicles on humans, including deaths and injuries. Notably, Kona Blue experts would be tasked with handling and examining “unusual and unique biological specimens.” It is not explicitly stated what the specimens were, but it is not difficult to infer.
Meant to be based in Las Vegas, the document notes that buildings already cleared to handle top secret materials were standing by. Businessman Robert Bigelow reportedly spent more than $1 million to bring his facilities into compliance with security requirements in preparation for the AAWSAP effort. His team had expected to receive unspecified but highly sensitive materials.
In 2009, Senator Harry Reid wrote to the Department of Defense to ask for special classification for the DIA program. Officials in Washington were alerted, opposition mounted, and the program’s budget disappeared. As a result, in 2011, Lacatski, Kelleher, and others tried to find another home for Kona Blue.
Documents show the Department of Homeland Security was briefed about what AAWSAP had learned. Dr. Tara O’Toole, deputy secretary for science and technology and noted scientist, was impressed enough to sign off on Kona Blue.
However, as with AAWSAP, when top officials began knocking on doors to ask for access to the special materials, opposition to Kona Blue quickly mobilized and the proposed program was stopped dead.
Lacatski was measured when he spoke of the special materials officials wanted to access.
“There’s material, and there’s material,” he said. “Are you talking about material to be investigated? In other words, pieces falling off flying saucers? Or are you talking about full-blown craft? You know, there’s a big difference.”
BLUE LEGACY
Kona Blue was declassified by AARO to discredit evidence and testimony provided by witnesses and whistleblowers. Dr. Sean Kirpatrick, former head of AARO, said the people who tell of crashed saucers were all referring to Kona Blue.
However, as the program never existed and only a handful of people even knew it was proposed, it seems unlikely that witnesses who reported crashed saucers were seeing the results of Kona Blue.
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“You have to spread the message”: Chilean senator claims to have been abducted by aliens
May 13, 2024
Senator Karim Bianchi (independent) from the Magallanes region revealed an extraordinary experience that he claims to have lived in 2012 during a trip between Puerto Natales and Punta Arenas. Specifically , the parliamentarian recounted an encounter with what he described as beings “from another planet.”
“I was on my way from Natales to Punta Arenas, a light that was spinning on a saucer approached me, my vehicle turned off,” the congressman said in a recent interview on the Vía X program “Not News.”
According to Bianchi, this event occurred while he was having a telephone conversation. “I was on the phone with someone; Everything turns off and then I appear 200 kilometers ahead ,” she said.
The senator's story does not end there. After this experience, Magellan's parliamentarian began to perceive signs that he interpreted as significant. “ After that event he saw owls and owls everywhere ,” he mentioned, revealing that this appearance led him to investigate the symbolism of these animals.
But the story takes an even more surprising turn: Bianchi claimed that an individual calling himself “from another planet” visited his office and handed him secret NASA documents.
“An old, bald boy came to the office and brought me some papers, and he told me ' you have to spread the message ,'” he said. According to the senator, this person claimed to be an extraterrestrial and gave him the documents due to his experience of being abducted.
https://www.msn.com/es-cl/noticias/other/usted-tiene-que-difundir-el-mensaje-senador-chileno-afirma-haber-sido-abducido-por-extraterrestre/ar-BB1mjxBd