Mars is slam-dunked by hundreds of basketball-sized meteorites every year
Seismic data from Mars indicates that our neighboring planet is hit about three hundred times a year by meteorites the size of basketballs.
A study authored by researchers from Imperial College London and ETH Zurich was able to use data collected from NASA’s now-defunct InSight Lander, which is equipped with a seismological tool termed the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS). It’s the only seismometer on Mars, and a crucial source of info pertaining to the biggest events that happen on and under the surface of Mars, including meteorite impacts.
The first full-scale mission of Amazon’s Project Kuiper has slipped to the end of 2024, a year after the company finally got its prototype satellites into orbit.
In a post regarding its satellite manufacturing facility in Kirkland, Washington, Amazon said: “We’re targeting our first full-scale Kuiper mission for Q4 aboard an Atlas V rocket from ULA.” It’s a slip from the first half of 2024 stated by the company last year as it basked in the glow of its successful Protoflight mission.
When I first saw mention of this in the news I thought it was no big deal. Test launches of new rockets fail all the time, after all. But it turns out that this test was not meant to be a launch at all, which adds a little excitement. Fortunately it doesn’t sound like anyone was killed.
Watched this launch live today on their YT channel, wish I had known about it a week ago - I keep meaning to head down to Tanigashima! Raining cats & dogs up here in Fukuoka, but weather there for the launch looked perfect:
Nice work by JAXA, H3 hopefully has passed its earlier teething troubles.
Does a Jules-Verne-style launch system count as a SSTO?
(I just now looked it up and was surprised to learn that in the novel From the Earth to the Moon the giant cannon was built in Florida, of all places. The capsule was built of Aluminum, and in the sequel book Around the Moon it orbits the moon, makes it back to earth and does a survivable landing in the ocean. Verne was remarkably prescient for someone writing in 1865, more than a century before the real moon launch!)
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