Category: Behind The Black

Firefly savior Max Polyakov gives away his stock

9:58 am

Capitalism in space: Forced by the Biden administration to leave the smallsat rocket company Firefly Aerospace because he is not a U.S. citizen, the billionaire Max Polyakov — who brought the company back from bankruptcy — has now sold his 58% share to the company’s founder, Tom Markusic for one dollar.

His announcement of this decision did not speak well of the federal government:

I am giving up for 1 usd consideration all my 58% stake in Firefly to my co-founder and partner Tom. Dear CFIUS, Air Force and 23 agencies of USA who betrayed me and judge me in all your actions for past 15 months . I hope now you are happy . History will judge all of you guys. Max love Ukraine and yes I have Ukrainian passport and I am Founder of Firefly !!! Bye my “bird” and at the end of the days I proud what I done for my Land soul and heritage !!!

While it is generally not a good idea to have a non-U.S. citizen controlling a rocket company, Polyakov’s record here was outstandingly positive, for the U.S. Moreover, the Ukraine is a strong ally of the U.S., or used to be. To force him out for no reason seems irrational. A more rational approach would have been for the government to insist on monitoring his actions closely, so that only if he appeared to be acting against our interests would it act.

Polyakov’s decision to give Markusic the company further proves his good will. Too bad we have now lost him.

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FAA administrator, a Trump holdover, announces resignation

9:41 am

FAA administrator Steve Dickson yesterday announced that he will officially resign from the agency on March 31, 2022.

Dickson was appointed by President Trump in 2019 to a five year term, so his resignation now cuts his term short by two years.

Dickson gave as his reason for resigning a desire to spend more time with his family, the go-to explanation for every Washington official’s resignation. While this may be true, I can’t help wondering if friction and pressure from the Biden administration contributed to his decision.

For example, though Dickson’s record with private enterprise has been mixed, his record in connection with commercial space was mostly good, working to help the new launch industry prosper by keeping out its way as much as possible. This record was especially obvious with SpaceX’s operations in Boca Chica, where there was little regulatory effort to slow that work until Biden became president, and even then relatively little. It could be the Biden administration was unhappy with this approach, and was trying to force Dickson to regulate SpaceX more.

A new administrator, appointed by Biden, will certainly be less friendly. Based on most Biden appointees in the past year, the administration will likely want to put someone in place who is hostile to capitalism, favors a communist agenda, and wants to impose strong government control. Thus, this resignation almost certainly puts another nail in the coffin of SpaceX’s desire to launch Starship test flights from Boca Chica.

Then again, that new administrator would have to be approved by the Senate, and right now, based on the Senate’s 50-50 split between Democrats and Republicans, it will be difficult for the Biden administration to get a radical leftist approved. This difficulty will be further magnified by Biden’s horrible poll numbers as well as similar polls suggesting a bloodbath for Democrats in the mid-term November elections. For them to force through an extremist in this position now will not help those poll numbers.

I therefore predict the nominee put forth by Biden will likely mouth empty support for private enterprise during the confirmation hearings. If the Senate Republicans are fooled by this disingenuousness (something that has happened frequently), when confirmed that person will immediately act to impose the government’s will on most commercial operations, especially those by SpaceX.

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EU advances proposal to build its own broadband satellite constellation

9:19 am

Capitalism in space? Despite negative assessments of the project by its own bureaucracy, the European Union has decided to move forward on a proposal to build its own broadband satellite constellation.

The board’s negative score was based on several factors, including a lack of “analytical coherence” about why the proposed constellation is the best solution to the problems it is intended to address about broadband access and secure communications, use of a “predetermined technical solution” that isn’t specified and a lack of a timetable. The board also raised concerns about the validity of the data the commission used to back the proposed constellation as well as climate impacts from deploying it.

According to E.U. rules, an impact assessment must receive a positive opinion from the Regulatory Scrutiny Board for it to proceed. If it receives a negative opinion twice, only the commission’s Vice-President for Inter-institutional Relations and Foresight, Maroš Šefčovič, can allow the initiative to proceed.

That was the case for the broadband constellation. “Because of the political importance of this Programme, the urgency of action and having the additional clarifications and evidence viewed as satisfactorily addressing the identified shortcomings and suggested specifications of the Regulatory Scrutiny Board, the Commission – also in the light of the agreement by the Vice-President for Inter-Institutional Relations and Foresight – has considered it opportune to proceed with the Programme,” the legislative proposal stated.

Except for a commitment to spend $6.8 billion, at the moment the proposal includes few details, including the type and number of satellites, what frequency they would use, what orbits they would be in, and who would build and launch them.

Based on the typical time schedule for other recent European projects, do not expect this constellation to launch for at least another decade, at which time it will be obsolete.

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Chandra in safe mode

9:11 am

The Chandra X-ray Observatory last week experienced a loss of power that caused engineers to put the science instruments on the space telescope into safe mode while they investigate the problem.

No further information is presently available.

Chandra has been in orbit since 1999, and is now on an extended mission through 2025. It would be a great tragedy if it failed now, just as the infrared Webb telescope is about to begin operations. The two space telescopes are complementary.

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Cracking ice on Mars?

12:43 pm

Cracking ice on Mars?
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on December 7, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the MRO science team dubs “erosion of scalloped terrain” in the northern lowland plains of Mars.

The cracks invoke the polygon cracks one sees in mud as it dries. The circular feature suggests a buried crater whose shape is merely suggested because the cracks are conforming to the underground topography.

Are we looking at dried mud? Maybe, but more likely we are seeing a sheet of ice now sublimating away and cracking as it does so. If you look at the full photo you will see the cracked material also appears to drape itself over several nearby low ridges, something that seems more likely from ice than mud.

The overview map below also suggests this is a buried layer of ice.
» Read more

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Pushback: Three school board members recalled in San Francisco

11:10 am

London Breed, mayor of San Francisco
San Francisco’s Democratic Party mayor London Breed,
who now takes full control of school board.

Vote the bums out! Voters in San Francisco yesterday ousted three members of the city’s seven-member school board members because of their focus on renaming schools honoring American heroes like Washington and Lincoln while refusing to reopen the city’s schools or deal with its budget issues.

School board president Gabriela López, vice president Faauuga Moliga and commissioner Alison Collins were all stripped of their positions during a special election, according to tallies by the San Francisco Department of Elections.

Furious parents launched the recall effort in January 2021 after arguing the school board was pushing progressive politics instead of acting in the best interests of children amid the pandemic.

…The recall effort was launched as the school board was trying to rename 44 school sites that it said honored public figures linked to racism, sexism and other injustices — including Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and trailblazing US Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).

Critics argued the push made a mockery of the country’s racial reckoning — as parents demanded to know why the board would waste time renaming schools when the priority needed to be reopening classrooms. The board eventually scrapped the plan after widespread uproar.

Opponents had called the recall a waste of time and money given the district is facing a number of challenges, including a $125 million budget deficit and the need to replace retiring Superintendent Vincent Matthews.

» Read more

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China tests lunar orbital maneuvers using last in-space component of Chang’e-5 sample return mission

9:48 am

China appears to be using the last in-space component of its Chang’e-5 sample return mission, left in lunar orbit after the samples came back to Earth and the sample ascent capsule was sent crashing to the lunar surface, to test a variety of lunar orbital maneuvers that could be used in future missions.

Chinese engineers have apparently moved it from a near-Moon orbit to what is called a distant retrograde orbit (DRO), shifting back and forth from the Lagrange points on each side of the Moon with respect to the Earth. Though some spacecraft in the Artemis program are planned to use this orbit, this is the first time anyone has done so.

[S]pacecraft activity tracker Jonathan McDowell, also an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center, told SpaceNews that he believes China is probably using the Chang’e-5 spacecraft gaining experience with astrodynamics. “They are using it as a toy to play around with. It is clearly useful as a stable lunar orbit for future missions, I just don’t think it’s a specific precursor.”

This activity is also par for the course for China. They have previously used other leftover lunar spacecraft to test different orbital maneuvers. The activity also confirms China’s determination to continue its exploration and settlement of the Moon.

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OneWeb sued by businessman for not paying him

9:38 am

An American businessman with ties in Kazakhstan and who claims he used those ties to obtain permission for OneWeb to launch its satellites there has now sued OneWeb.

Giorgi Rtskhiladze, an American-Georgian businessman, claims that he was not paid for arranging space rocket-launch rights for OneWeb in Kazakhstan. The company received public funding in 2020 after filing for bankruptcy and winning the support of Dominic Cummings, then the Prime Minister’s most senior adviser.

The $30m claim, filed in New York, alleges that Mr Rtskhiladze successfully lobbied the Kazakh government to allow OneWeb to launch satellites from Kazakhstan and operate a ground station for its internet network but was not paid. Mr Rtskhiladze alleges that OneWeb defrauded him by keeping him engaged with Kazakh officials but then terminated his services only after he demanded payment. His work led to “hundreds of millions of dollars in value” for OneWeb, he claims.

OneWeb denies these claims entirely. The claims do appear suspicious because Russia was doing the launching, and it has a solid lease to do so with Kazakhstan. Moreover, it is very doubtful Kazakhstan would do anything to threaten those launches, considering Russia was making a lot of money from them and would not take kindly to such an action.

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China wants a formal hot line with U.S. and its companies to avoid space collisions

9:30 am

China last week proposed that a formal method of communications be established between it and the U.S. and its companies in order to avoid space collisions.

The proposal was made after Chinese officials once again claimed that several Starlink satellites had threatened its space station, something U.S. officials dispute.

At a Feb. 10 press conference, Zhao Lijian, spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, reiterated claims the country made to the United Nations in December that it had to maneuver its space station twice in 2021 to avoid close approaches by SpaceX Starlink satellites. “China was fulfilling the international obligation stipulated by Article V of the Outer Space Treaty by informing the U.N. of the Starlink satellites’ dangerous approach to the Chinese space station that threatened the safety of in-orbit Chinese astronauts,” he said according to a government transcript, adding that the “in-orbit Chinese astronauts were facing real and urgent safety threats.”

China filed its notice with the U.N., he said, after failing to hear U.S. officials. “After the incidents, China’s competent authorities tried multiple times to reach the U.S. side via e-mail, but received no reply,” he said.

The U.S. government, though, tells a different story. In its own note verbale filed with the U.N., dated Jan. 28 and published by the U.N.’s Office for Outer Space Affairs Feb. 3, the U.S. says it never heard from the Chinese government about the close approaches by satellites designated Starlink-1095 and Starlink-2305.

This cat-and-mouse game is not simply about avoiding collisions in space. China this year will launch two more modules to its space station, using its Long March 5B rocket. Unless it has completely redesigned the rocket (very unlikely), the core stage for both launches will come crashing uncontrolled to the ground, causing endless bad press for China. These claims by China appear to be a propaganda effort to improve its image prior to those launches.

Nonetheless, establishing a better lines of communications with China to avoid future collisions makes sense. Right now U.S. companies are forbidden by law from communicating directly with China, which makes resolving collision threats difficult if not impossible.

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A rebranded Virgin Galactic to reopen ticket sales

9:14 am

Capitalism in space: Virgin Galactic today announced both a major rebranding of the company — significantly deemphasizing its links to Richard Branson — as well as a resumption of ticket sales for its suborbital flights.

Virgin Galactic opened ticket sales to the general public and rebranded itself today a week ahead of what promises to be another dismal quarterly earnings report. The company most recently reported to having 700 reservations for suborbital spaceflights, with plans to reach 1,000 later this year. Space tourism flights are currently scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2022.

Virgin Galactic’s battered stock, which opened at $8.93, soared by more than 29 percent to $10.50 on the New York Stock Exchange. The company is scheduled to report earnings (actually a loss) for the fourth quarter of 2021 on Feb. 22.

Tickets will cost $450K, with a $150K deposit required. It also appears that — in order to encourage sales — the company is capping present sales to the first 1,000 who provide the deposit. Since it has for years claimed it has 700 paying customers already, this suggests they are looking for only another 300 at this time.

Branson’s share in the company is now only about 11% — having successfully pumped and then dumped 80% of his shares — and it appears its management senses his name and the association with his Virgin Group now carries more negative than positive connotations. The new company logo for example shrinks the word “Virgin” so much that if you didn’t look close, you’d think the company was simply called “Galactic.”

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