October 11, 2023 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- Relativity signs multi-launch agreement with Intelsat
The launches are for Relativity’s new Terran-R rocket, not yet launched, and will begin as early as 2026. The deal likely also allows Intelsat complete freedom to go elsewhere if Relativity has problems delivering.
- Blue Origin confirms that Brent Sherwood, head of the company’s Advanced Development Programs, is retiring
This is likely part of the house-cleaning in connection with the exit of CEO Bob Smith. The company desperately needs new leadership willing to get something, anything, done.
- Astra considering selling 51% of its propulsion division as well as parts of other divisions
If so the company would be selling its most productive division at this point, suggesting its future is dim indeed.
- A picture of the outside of OSIRIS-REx’s sample collector
The rocks and dirt in the middle right are extra material from Bennu that were captured and retained outside the collector. The scientists say a preliminary look at the material has found carbon and water (held in molecules of other material), but that is not news, as we already knew both were there.
- Spacewalk on ISS cancelled as engineers assess the coolant leak from Russia’s Nauka module
This leak is far more serious than the previous two leaks, as it is part of ISS itself, not a Progress or Soyuz capsule that is there only temporarily.
- Sierra Space selected by DARPA for its “10-year lunar architecture study”
The tweet suggests merely that Sierra has been selected to enter contract negotiations, not that it has won a contract.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- Relativity signs multi-launch agreement with Intelsat
The launches are for Relativity’s new Terran-R rocket, not yet launched, and will begin as early as 2026. The deal likely also allows Intelsat complete freedom to go elsewhere if Relativity has problems delivering.
- Blue Origin confirms that Brent Sherwood, head of the company’s Advanced Development Programs, is retiring
This is likely part of the house-cleaning in connection with the exit of CEO Bob Smith. The company desperately needs new leadership willing to get something, anything, done.
- Astra considering selling 51% of its propulsion division as well as parts of other divisions
If so the company would be selling its most productive division at this point, suggesting its future is dim indeed.
- A picture of the outside of OSIRIS-REx’s sample collector
The rocks and dirt in the middle right are extra material from Bennu that were captured and retained outside the collector. The scientists say a preliminary look at the material has found carbon and water (held in molecules of other material), but that is not news, as we already knew both were there.
- Spacewalk on ISS cancelled as engineers assess the coolant leak from Russia’s Nauka module
This leak is far more serious than the previous two leaks, as it is part of ISS itself, not a Progress or Soyuz capsule that is there only temporarily.
- Sierra Space selected by DARPA for its “10-year lunar architecture study”
The tweet suggests merely that Sierra has been selected to enter contract negotiations, not that it has won a contract.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Robert wrote, about the Blue Origin rearrangement: “This is likely part of the house-cleaning in connection with the exit of CEO Bob Smith. The company desperately needs new leadership willing to get something, anything, done.”
This is the kind of management that I had expected of Bezos when he left Amazon in order to focus on Blue Origin. That it took two and a quarter years and a failure analysis report to get to this rearrangement does not bode well for Bezos’s leadership of the space company.
Musk, on the other hand, lets others lead his companies while he makes the major engineering decisions. He seems to be better with technology than with business, and not only does he seem to believe in rapid development but also concurrent engineering, where all areas of the process are considered during each phase of the development process. Quality engineering and mass manufacturing seem to be considered even in the early parts of development, which explains why the Falcons have had such success and why Starship is able to make so many test units (about ten a year, Starship and Super Heavy combined, close to one a month).
This is the kind of thinking that Blue Origin needs to embrace. Bezos didn’t embrace it two and a quarter years ago, and I have doubts that he will do so now, but for many industries it has long been the difference between success and failure — or perhaps mediocrity.
When Bob Smith took over Blue Origin, I think many of us assumed that the slowdown in launches was an attempt to assure passenger safety. I think that it is now clear that safety did not improve significantly. As SpaceX has shown with its first integrated test and Blue Origin showed with its operational (unmanned) failure, last year, actual flights are where the experience is gained in order to improve safety. Reducing flights and going slow has not done Blue Origin any favors, has set it behind schedule in every way, and has harmed its reputation. It has become difficult to root for Blue Origin.