Poland fires head of its space agency
Apparently due to his failures in min-February dealing with debris dropped on Poland from a de-orbiting Falcon 9 upper station, the government has fired the head of its space agency.
The President of the Polish Space Agency, Grzegorz Wrochna, has been dismissed following a botched response to the uncontrolled re-entry of a Falcon 9 second stage that scattered debris across multiple locations in Poland.
It appears Wrochna’s office had sent its reports on the debris to the wrong email address, so that the people higher up in the command chain were not informed properly about what was happening. This failure was then compounded in early March when the space agency’s computer systems were hacked, forcing it to shut down its access to the internet.
You might ask why Poland even has a space agency, and if you do you are asking the right question. The nation does not have “a space program,” which would require an agency. Instead it has a handful of new rocket startups, mostly focused on suborbital flights. All these need is the right legal framework to succeed, not a bureaucracy telling them what to do.
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 print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
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
Apparently due to his failures in min-February dealing with debris dropped on Poland from a de-orbiting Falcon 9 upper station, the government has fired the head of its space agency.
The President of the Polish Space Agency, Grzegorz Wrochna, has been dismissed following a botched response to the uncontrolled re-entry of a Falcon 9 second stage that scattered debris across multiple locations in Poland.
It appears Wrochna’s office had sent its reports on the debris to the wrong email address, so that the people higher up in the command chain were not informed properly about what was happening. This failure was then compounded in early March when the space agency’s computer systems were hacked, forcing it to shut down its access to the internet.
You might ask why Poland even has a space agency, and if you do you are asking the right question. The nation does not have “a space program,” which would require an agency. Instead it has a handful of new rocket startups, mostly focused on suborbital flights. All these need is the right legal framework to succeed, not a bureaucracy telling them what to do.
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 print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. 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
Polish interest in space is definitely on the rise. The new startups aside, Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski, an ESA project astronaut Polish Ministry of Economic Development and Technology (MRiT), and the Polish Space Agency (POLSA), is slated to fly to the International Space Station as part of Axiom Mission 4, also known as Ax-4, a commercial human spaceflight mission. This marks only the second time a Polish national will fly in space, and the first time a Polish national will visit the ISS, with the mission set for launch in spring 2025.
He’s considered an ESA astronaut for this mission, but his seat is really being paid for by the Polish government — specifically, the Polish Ministry of Economic Development and Technology (MRiT), and the barely sorta existing Polish Space Agency (POLSA).
But yes, it’s the rise of American commercial space capabilities (Axiom and SpaceX) that are enabling Sławosz to make this mission. If the Poles had waited for a normal ESA ISS rotation….well, I am not sure ISS will last that long.
And here I thought Dietrich was the space cadet, not Wojo.
Most members of ESA have a space agency. Poland’s ranks 10th of 23 nation states in contributions, slightly below the Netherlands. The Polish government is also paying for an astronaut to take part in an Axiom mission.