March 28, 2025 Quick space links
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.
- Senator raises concerns over Air Force possibly shifting satellite contracts to SpaceX
Though no decision has yet been made, the plan would abandon the smallsat constellation presently being built and rely on SpaceX’s StarShield constellation instead.
- Space Force adds Rocket Lab and Stoke Space to its list of rocket companies that can bid on certain launch contracts
Both join already approved Blue Origin, SpaceX, and ULA.
- More additions to the same ULA launchpad at Vandenberg
Both tweets are by ULA’s CEO Tory Bruno, touting Vulcan upgrades.
- Chinese satellite pseudo-company Genesat to up satellite production to one satellite per day for its Qianfan/Thousand Sails constellation
One of several Chinese projects aimed at providing a state-controlled option to Starlink.
- One powerpoint slide outlining China’s Chang’e-7 south pole mission
Mostly useless unless you read Chinese.
- Overview of China’s present space effort
A good summary but not much new information.
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A big vote of confidence in Starship today:
“NASA has awarded SpaceX of Starbase, Texas, a modification under the NASA Launch Services (NLS) II contract to add Starship to their existing Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch service offerings.”
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-awards-launch-services-contract-for-spacex-starship/
But yes, speaking of votes of confidence in new rockets, the Space Force is definitely giving just that to Neutron and Nova.
Now they just have to get ’em to a launch pad.
Good news in all three cases. The Space Force on-ramping of Rocket Lab and Stoke, in particular, should stand both in good stead the next time either needs to go to the capital markets again.
”Though no decision has yet been made, the plan would abandon the smallsat constellation presently being built and rely on SpaceX’s StarShield constellation instead.”
The senator is right to raise concerns, as such a move would be a disaster. Starlink simply cannot do what this constellation is doing, which is why SpaceX didn’t even bid on it in the first place. Forcing this contract on SpaceX would lead to a huge contraction in military capability for our armed forces.
I agree with mkent on this one, A military contract on civilian satellites is a big step. (remember the blow back on Ukraine use?) How many nations are currently using star link that would oppose military incursion? Or better yet, insist on military applications of their own?
I see this as a delay tactic (temporary substitute) as new and better technologies roll out for future constellations. Was it Bezos who wanted a new constellation linked with a Technology storage hub in orbit or on the moon? His data centers make more than Amazon now?
I could see that. Maybe they’re in hurry now to get minimum viable product up in orbit, while they develop something better for the long haul?
”A military contract on civilian satellites is a big step…How many nations are currently using star link that would oppose military incursion? Or better yet, insist on military applications of their own?”
This isn’t about a concern over putting military traffic on a civilian system (though that, too, is a concern.). It’s that Starlink simply can’t do the types of communication that the PWSA is designed to do.
”I see this as a delay tactic (temporary substitute) as new and better technologies roll out for future constellations.”
No, that’s not what’s happening here. The PWSA architecture is already based on a tranche of satellites being built and launched every two years as a way to start with a viable product, then expand the types of communication being offered, and then roll in new and better technology with each tranche. Starlink would be a big step backward in that regard.
There are two separate types of communications that are relevant to the PWSA. One is inter-satellite communications. These are supposed to occur via bi-directional laser terminals, multiple of which are to be installed on each bird in the PWSA. My current understanding is that all of the PWSA contractors are planning to use Mynaric terminals for this purpose but that there have been serious production problems with these terminals. Perhaps Rocket Lab’s recent purchase of Mynaric will serve to straighten out these problems. Rocket Lab has considerable prior experience with buying makers of niche space-related hardware products and ramping their production up from artisanal levels. If so, great – problem solved.
An alternative would be to use SpaceX’s laser terminals for which mass production has been a thing for awhile now and which are for sale as components to other satellite makers.
Whichever way this decision goes, having functioning lasercom terminals on each PWSA bird is definitely a must even to achieve “minimum viable product” status.
The other sort of communication relevant to the PWSA is bi-directional radio frequency links between PWSA satellites and the ground. There are well-established military data link standards that have to be supported and it may well be the case that standard Starlink birds do not support all the needed frequency bands and/or waveforms necessary to cover this piece of the PWSA architecture.
That is obviously something that could be addressed – likely fairly quickly – by SpaceX in future iterations of Starlink, Starshield or both. SpaceX, to cite a relevant circumstance, has already added direct-to-cell capability to some Starlink birds. Even though not every Starlink bird launched is thus equipped, SpaceX has still launched more such birds over the past year or so than are currently contemplated to constitute the entire PWSA when fully built out. So scale, at least, is not an issue, nor is competitive promptness of deployment.
So I think the idea that Starlink/Starshield is completely incapable of being altered sufficiently to also do the PWSA job is not supportable.
That said, I don’t necessarily support a move to do that. I have a feeling SpaceX’s Starlink factory may soon have much more additional work to deal with than would be entailed in subsuming the job currently intended for the PWSA as a result of Pres. Trump’s Golden Dome initiative.
But the current contractors and subsidiary suppliers for the PWSA – especially the legacy defense contractor players among them – should definitely be operating with no illusions that this program can be turned into just another typical DoD procurement effort that endlessly slides its schedule rightward. They need to produce and be quick about it or they will be replaced.
Here’s something I hadn’t heard. Rand Simberg (Transterrestrial Musings) and Mark Steyn (who I know from his guest hosting back in the day for Rush Limbaugh) were sued by Penn State professor Michael Mann for criticizing him and his “hockey stick” climate change graph. An appeals judge just reduced the original amount Mann was awarded by a jury from $1 compensatory damages / $1 million punitive damages (Stein) and $1 compensatory damages / $1,000 punitive damages (Simberg) to $5,000 punitive damages for Stein because of lack of support for similar awards.
It was a 3-1/2 week trial over this nonsense so I hope they are both doing OK after the lawyer bills and stress of being sued.
Source: https://reason.com/volokh/2025/03/04/punitive-damages-award-in-mann-v-steyn-reduced-from-1m-to-5k/
The Wall Street Journal posted an interesting, lengthy piece on NASA’s future late last night, and I think it’s worth a read.
Elon Musk’s Mission to Take Over NASA—and Mars
By Emily Glazer and Micah Maidenberg
March 29, 2025 9:00 pm ET
https://www.wsj.com/business/elon-musk-nasa-mars-space-travel-d3978a7b?mod=djemwhatsnews
Non-paywalled: https://archive.is/3LNqx
The headline suggests a slant, and maybe there is; but there’s some interesting original reporting in here, even if most of it is with unnamed sources. It suggests that Elon Musk *has* been pushing for NASA to shift away from the Moon and over to Mars–even if it means giving up SpaceX’s lucrative HLS contracts–and maybe that’s believable. But as the article notes, Congress gets a vote, too, and key Republican committee chairmen have been making clear of late that they really, really dig Artemis as currently constituted.