Year: 2024

AST Spacemobile signs multi-launch agreement with Blue Origin

9:24 am

The direct-to-cell satellite company AST Spacemobile announced yesterday that it has signed a multi-launch agreement with Blue Origin to use its New Glenn orbital rocket to place approximately sixty of its second generation BlueBird satellites into orbit in the 2025-2026 time frame.

The next-generation Block 2 BlueBirds are designed to deliver up to 10 times the bandwidth capacity of the BlueBird satellites in orbit today, accelerating the goal to achieve 24/7 continuous cellular broadband service coverage. The service will target approximately 100% U.S. nationwide coverage from space with over 5,600 coverage cells, with beams designed to support a capacity of up to 40 MHz, enabling peak data transmission speeds up to 120 Mbps, supporting voice, full data and video applications. The Block 2 BlueBirds, featuring up to 2,400 square foot communications arrays, will be the largest ever commercially deployed in low Earth orbit once launched, surpassing the current record held by AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird 1-5 and BlueWalker 3, each ~700 square feet in size.

The Block 2 BlueBirds are designed to be compatible with all major launch vehicles. Blue Origin’s launch vehicle, the New Glenn, offers a seven-meter fairing enabling twice the payload volume of five-meter class commercial launch systems, and is well-suited to launching up to 8 of the largest-ever Block 2 BlueBirds.

According to this, the contract is for approximately 7 to 8 New Glenn launches. It also notes the large capacity of New Glenn apparently gives it an advantage over the rockets available from both SpaceX and ULA. If (the operative word) Blue Origin can finally get this rocket off the ground soon, it will then finally provide some real competition to SpaceX.

We shall see. New Glenn is five years behind schedule, and all signs suggest the company continues to move at a relatively slow pace compared to its competitors. It has said it wants to do the first New Glenn launch before the end of the year, but that remains uncertain.

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FAA forming new committee to revise its launch licensing regulations

9:14 am

The timing is interesting: The FAA yesterday announced that it wishes to form a committee of “members of the commercial space industry and academia” to revise its Part 450 launch license regulations that were introduced in 2021 supposedly to streamline the process but have instead served to squelch innovation and new rocket startups significantly.

“The FAA is seeking to update the licensing rule to foster more clarity, flexibility, efficiency, and innovation,” said FAA Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation Kelvin B. Coleman. “Making timely licensing determinations without compromising public safety is a top priority.”

The Part 450 rule was developed to streamline the regulations, reduce the number of times an operator would need to come to the FAA for a license approval and decrease the need for the FAA to process waivers, among other goals.

The committee will consist of members of the commercial space industry and academia and will focus on nine topics, including flight safety analyses, system safety, and means of compliance. It is expected to submit a report with recommended changes to Part 450 rule by late summer 2025. The FAA would then use the recommendations to plan future rulemaking actions. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted words are a lie. While established rockets might have benefited — allowing more launches, Part 450 has practically squelched new development because it forces companies to undergo lengthy reviews every time they attempt to introduce any new technology or redesign to their rockets. SpaceX’s experience with Starship/Superheavy is only the tip of the iceberg, because the company is big enough that it has been able to survive these reviews and push on. Almost all of the new rocket startups that were on the verge of launching in 2020, before Part 450 went into effect, have either delayed launches for years or gone bankrupt.

The FAA hopes to conduct the first meeting of this new committee by the first week in December. It apparently realizes that the Trump administration is going to demand a major change in Part 450 (possibly a complete repeal), and the agency wishes to get ahead of this to maybe fix things.

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NASA begins search for new headquarters building

9:01 am

NASA yesterday announced that — because its present lease expires in August 2028 — it is seeking proposals for a new headquarters building in the Washington, DC region.

NASA is asking for responses from members of the development community, local and state jurisdictions, academia, other federal agencies, commercial aerospace partners, and other interested parties to help inform its decision.

Needs for a new headquarters includes approximately 375,000 to 525,000 square feet of office space to house NASA’s workforce. The desired location is within walking distance to a Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority station. In addition, the new location also needs parking options, as well as convenient access to food establishments.

It seems to me that this is an ideal opportunity to reduce the size of NASA’s management structure. Since the agency has largely accepted the idea of capitalism in space, whereby it builds almost nothing but instead gets what it needs in the private sector, much of its large overhead and staffing that presently exists and was created when NASA attempted to do it all is now unneeded and is actually redundant. Rather than replace and expand NASA’s present headquarters, which appears to be the agency’s goal, the Trump administration should shrink its size, significantly.

Not only would the taxpayer save money, NASA would be further forced to use the private sector for its needs, thus fueling the growth of that aerospace industry. And for those laid off, they will likely have no trouble getting jobs in this new energized private sector.

All in all, such a reduction would be a win-win, for everyone.

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China launches Tianzhou cargo freighter to its Tiangong-3 space station

8:50 am

China today successfully launched a new Tianzhou cargo freighter to its Tiangong-3 space station, its Long March 7 rocket lifting off from its coastal Wenchang spaceport.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

114 SpaceX
53 China
13 Russia
12 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 132 to 79, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 114 to 97.

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November 14, 2024 Quick space links

3:16 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

  • ESA touts its plans to build a low cost, super heavy-lift reusable rocket
    The space agency asked two European rocket companies to propose concepts, from which ESA will then decide what to do. Or to put it another way, ESA is still designing and owning the rocket instead of getting the product from the private sector. This rocket will therefore be the same kind of failure that Ariane-6 has been, expensive, inefficient, and uncompetitive.
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Boxwork in the dry Martian tropics

2:17 pm

Boxwork on Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped and enhanced to post here, was taken on July 17, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label as boxwork, a pattern of intersecting straight ridges criss-crossing each other in a generally random manner.

The ridges themselves are very small, only a few feet high. To make them more visible I have purposely cropped this section without reducing its resolution. I have also increased the contrast.

What caused them? According to this paper [pdf] about similar boxwork found on Mount Sharp in Gale Crater, the boxwork “formed when cements filled existing pore spaces and fractures in fractured rock, and these cements were left as topographic ridges after erosion.”

In other words, the surface hardened, then fractured. Later more resistent material, likely lava, filled the cracks. When erosion later stripped the top surface away, the lava was more resistent and so became the ridges we now see.
» Read more

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NASA reveals that it and Russia disagree about the danger posed by the airleak on ISS

8:54 am

Figure 3 from IG report
Figure 3 from September Inspector General report, annotated by me to show Zvezda location.

In a public session yesterday by a NASA commission focused on accessing the safety condition of ISS, officials revealed that the commission and Russia disagree about the root causes behind the airleak and cracks in the docking section of the Zvezda module on the Russian half of ISS, as well as the risk of a catastrophic failure. According to the commission’s head, former astronaut Bob Cabana.

The Russian position is that the most probable cause of the PrK cracks is high cyclic fatigue caused by micro vibrations. NASA believes the PrK cracks are likely multi-causal including pressure and mechanical stress, residual stress, material properties and environmental exposures.

The Russians believe that continued operations are safe, but they can’t prove that to our satisfaction. The U.S. believes that it’s not safe, but we can’t prove that to Russian satisfaction that that’s the case. So while the Russian team continues to search for and seal the leaks, it does not believe catastrophic disintegration of the PrK is realistic and NASA has expressed concerns about structural integrity of the PrK and the possibility of a catastrophic failure.

Because of this disagreement American astronauts now close the hatch between the Russian and American halves of ISS whenever a docking to Zvezda is taking place, and apparently keep that hatch closed until unloading of the docked spacecraft is complete. The Russians in turn only open the hatch to the docking section of Zvezda when they need to load or unload material into the freighter docked there, and coordinate with American astronauts whenever they do so.

Engineers from the two nations continue to discuss the issue, and hope to result their disagreement and come up with a joint plan.

Ultimately, this issue indicates the certain end of ISS in the near future, and adds ugency to the need to get some of those commercial space stations operating in orbit.

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Pakistan to fly a small rover on China’s Chang’e-8 lunar lander

8:36 am

In an agreement signed yesterday, the Space and Upper Atmo­sphere Research Comm­ission (Suparco) in Pakistan announced it will collaborate with China to build a small rover that will to fly on China’s Chang’e-8 lunar lander.

The lander is present scheduled to land near the Moon’s south pole in 2030, will be China’s second lander to the south pole region, and will also act to officially establish China’s International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) on the lunar surface. It will also include a “hopper” to explore the nearby surface.

Pakistan had already signed on to China’s space alliance to build the ILRS. China’s present list of partners is as follows: Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Russia, Serbia, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, and Venezuela. That partnership also includes about eleven academic or governmental bureaucracies.

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Denmark joins the Artemis Accords

8:27 am

In a signing ceremony yesterday in Copenhagen, Denmark became the 48th nation to sign the Artemis Accords.

The full list of nations now part of this American space alliance: Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Peru, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

With this alliance established, the incoming Trump administration will have great political international leverage, increasing the chances it can finally use the accords to achieve its initial goal, to overcome the legal restrictions on private property imposed by the Outer Space Treaty.

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China and SpaceX complete morning launches

8:16 am

Both China and SpaceX today successfully completed morning launches.

First China launched an environmental satellite to study “ocean salinity,” its Long March 4B rocket lifting off from its Taiyuan spaceport in northeast China.

No word on where the rocket’s lower stages crashed inside China. All use very toxic hypergolic fuels, which can literally dissolve your skin.

Next SpaceX completed another launch of 23 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The first stage completed its eighteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

114 SpaceX
52 China
13 Russia
12 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 132 to 77, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 114 to 95.

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SpaceX launches 20 Starlink satellites

12:41 am

SpaceX tonight successfully launched 20 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The satellites included 13 of the Starlink direct-to-cell satellites. The first stage successfully completed its eighth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

113 SpaceX
51 China
13 Russia
12 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 131 to 76, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 113 to 94.

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