Tag: Air Force

Air Force won’t land rockets on a Pacific island as part of its program to test point-to-point rocket cargo delivery

9:11 am

Faced with loud opposition from activists groups, the Air Force has decided it will not land rockets on Johnston Atoll in the Pacific island as part of its program to test point-to-point rocket cargo delivery.

The service had chosen Johnston Atoll, an unincorporated U.S. territory about 700 nautical miles southwest of Honolulu, for testing a program using rockets to rapidly deliver tons of cargo around the globe. The Air Force had announced in the Federal Register in March that it was undertaking an environmental assessment for the construction of two rocket landing pads on the atoll. It anticipated issuing a draft assessment by April, but publication was delayed as opposition to the plan by environmental groups surged. A petition calling for the Air Force to abandon the plan had garnered 3,884 signatures as of Wednesday.

…The Pacific Islands Heritage Coalition, which launched the change.org petition, said in a March 13 news release that building the launch pads on Johnston “only continues decades of harm and abuse to a place that is culturally and biologically tied to us as Pacific people.”

I wonder if this coalition included many local residents. I have doubts. This complaint sounds like something that comes out of the racist anti-white DEI offices in many American colleges.

This decision doesn’t kill this program, but eliminates this island as a test landing site, which means its residents won’t benefit from the development the program would have brought them.

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Air Force issues impact statement for SpaceX’s proposed Cape Canaveral Starship/Superheavy launch site

2:04 pm

Map of proposed Cape Canaveral Starship/Superheavy launch facilities
Click for higher resolution version.

The Air Force today released its environmental impact statement for SpaceX’s proposed Starship/Superheavy launch site at Cape Canaveral, generally approving a launch rate of 76 launches per year, noting that this would cause “no significant impact” on the environment while providing “beneficial impact” on the local economy.

You can read the impact statement here [pdf]. It lists 69 areas where these new operations could impact something, and found in almost all no significant impact. The beneficial impact was found in the areas where the operations would boost the local economy.

The single area where these additional launches might have an impact is the issue of noise, noting that “community annoyance may increase” due to the launches. Considering the wealth that the local community will gain from jobs, industry, and tourism due to those launches, I suspect the only whining about this noise will come from fake environmental groups opposed to anyone doing anything.

None of this is any surprise. Launches have been occurring at Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center for more than three quarters of a century, and the only significant impact to the ecology has been beneficial, reserving large areas from development where wildlife has prospered. If anything, the obviousness of this proves the utter waste of money we now spend on such reports.

The statement notes that it still will require FAA input on coordinating the closure of air space during launches, but it also appears to consider this part of normal routine actions, not a requirement the FAA can use to block operations or approval.

The number of proposed launches however is quite impressive. SpaceX’s plan would close to match the annual number of global launches by everyone for most of the space era. Nor is it impossible considering the design of the rocket and the plans the company has for getting to Mars. The site plan includes two launch mounts for Starship/Superheavy (as shown in the map above). This is in addition to the two Starship/Superheavy launch facilities the company wants to build at Kennedy.

The statement is now open to public comment through July 28, 2025. The Air Force also plans three public meetings in the Cape Canaveral area on July 8, 9, and 10. It will also make a fourth virtual public meeting available from July 15 to July 28.

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Air Force issues draft approval of second SpaceX launchpad at Vandenberg

9:44 am

Air Force last week issued a draft environmental impact statement approving SpaceX’s plans to rebuild the old Space Launch Complex 6 (SLC-6, pronounced “slick-six”) at Vandenberg that was first built for the space shuttle (but never used) and later adapted for ULA’s Delta family of rockets, now retired.

The plan involves rebuilding SLC-6 to accommodate both Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches, including the addition of two landing pads. With its already operational launchpad at Vandenberg, SLC-4E, the company hopes to increase its annual launch rate from 50 (approved by the FAA earlier this month) to as much as 100.

The estimated launch cadence between SpaceX’s existing West Coast pad at … SLC-4E and SLC-6 would be a 70-11 split for Falcon 9 rockets in 2026 with one Falcon Heavy at SLC-6 for a total of 82 launches. That would increase to a 70-25 Falcon 9 split in 2027 and 2028 with an estimated five Falcon Heavy launches in each of those years.

The draft assessment is now open to public comment through July 7, 2025, with a final version expected to be approved in the fall. It appears the Air Force wants it approved, as it needs this capacity for its own launch requirements. It also appears it no longer cares what the California Coastal Commission thinks about such things, as it has no authority and its members appear motivated not by environmental concerns but a simple hatred of Elon Musk.

An annual launch rate of 100 however exceeds what the FAA approved in May, doubling it. In order to move forward either the FAA will have to issue a new reassessment of its own, or some legislative or executive action will be needed to reduce this red tape. Since Vandenberg is a military base, the military in the end makes all the final decisions. The FAA simply rubber-stamps those decisions.

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Varda’s third capsule returns to Earth, completing hypersonic test for Air Force

9:24 am

Varda's third capsule, on the ground in Australia
Varda’s third capsule, on the ground in Australia.
Click for original image.

The third recoverable capsule for the startup Varda has landed successfully in Australia, completing its commercial orbital mission for the Air Force, which tested a positional sensor intended for use during hypersonic missile flights.

The California-based space manufacturing startup said the capsule, carrying an inertial measurement unit (IMU) developed for the U.S. Air Force by Innovative Scientific Solutions Incorporated (ISSI), touched down at the Koonibba Test Range operated by Southern Launch.

According to company officials, the capsule reentered Earth’s atmosphere at speeds exceeding Mach 25 – more than 25 times the speed of sound. “This extreme environment offers researchers valuable data to enhance hypersonic navigation, expand orbital economy applications, and support U.S. national security objectives in low Earth orbit,” said Dave McFarland, Varda’s vice president of hypersonic and reentry test.

The capsule had been launched on March 14, 2025 on a SpaceX Falcon 9. Of the capsule’s now three flights, two have tested equipment sensors during descent. Only the first did in-space manufacturing, as had been what Varda anticipated would be its primary customer base.

This was also the second return in a row landing in Australia. Initially the company had planned to return the capsules in the U.S., as it did with its first capsule, but the bureaucratic red tape from both the FAA and the military to do that landing was so bad (delaying the capsule’s return by six months) Varda made alternative arrangements in Australia.

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Rocket Lab’s as-yet unlaunched new Neutron rocket gets military contract

10:01 am

Neutron landing platform
Graphic showing Neutron landing on Rocket Lab’s
barge

Capitalism in space: Rocket Lab has won a contract from the Air Force to test the use of its new Neutron rocket for tranporting cargo quickly across the globe, despite the fact that the rocket won’t make its first launch until later this year, at the earliest.

The mission, slated for no earlier than 2026, will fall under the Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) “rocket cargo” program, which explores how commercial launch vehicles might one day deliver materiel to any point on Earth within hours—a vision akin to airlift logistics via spaceflight.

…The cargo test would be a “survivability experiment.” Neutron is expected to carry a payload that will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere, demonstrating the rocket’s ability to safely transport and deploy cargo.

Neutron is designed to bring its first stage back to a vertical landing on Earth for re-use, similar to what SpaceX does with its Falcon 9. Unlike the Falcon 9, however, Neutron’s fairings remain attached to the rocket, opening and closing like alligator jaws to deploy its satellite payloads. Since it brings the fairing back attached to the rocket and closed after satellite deployment, the plan will be to see if it can carry within this enclosed fairing this Air Force test payload and bring it back unscathed.

This contract suggests the military is very confident that Neutron will fly as planned, and will succeed in its early launches.

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Ursa Major wins contract for hypersonic test flight of its Draper rocket engine

9:29 am

The rocket engine startup Ursa Major has now won a $28.5 million contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory to do a hypersonic test flight using its Draper rocket engine.

The contract, announced May 1, covers both the flight demonstration and integration of the engine into a test vehicle, with work scheduled through early 2027. The project aims to advance U.S. capabilities in hypersonic weapons, a category of defense systems that has become a top Pentagon priority amid competition with China and Russia.

The Draper engine is designed to produce 4,000 pounds of thrust and was developed by Ursa Major with U.S. Air Force funding. Its key differentiator is its use of storable, non-cryogenic propellants — specifically a kerosene and hydrogen peroxide combination — that remain liquid at ambient temperatures. This contrasts with traditional rocket engines that rely on liquid oxygen, which must be kept at ultra-low temperatures and handled with complex cooling infrastructure.

It certainly does appear that the Pentagon is ramping up its hypersonic research with a slew of contracts to many different new commercial space startups. In addition to this deal, Rocket Lab, Varda, and Stratolaunch have won contracts for similar hypersonic testing, with Rocket Lab winning the most. No wonder a new company like Radian (see previous post) is switching its focus toward this research.

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Varda’s third capsule begins orbital operations

9:37 am

Varda's space capsule, on the ground in Utah
Varda’s first capsule on the ground in Utah.

The in-space commercial company Varda on March 15, 2025 confirmed that its third capsule has successfully begun orbital operations after its launch on a Falcon 9 rocket, carrying an Air Force payload that will test measuring the capsule’s re-entry speeds in connection with military hypersonic research.

W-3’s payload is an advanced navigation system called an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) developed by the US Air Force and Innovative Scientific Solutions Incorporated (ISSI). This payload will be tested at reentry speeds it was designed to withstand but has never encountered before.

This payload is part of a $48 million Air Force contract awarded to Varda in December. The company also notes in the press release that it is aiming for a monthly launch rate for its capsules, which provide customers an opportunity to do all kinds of in-space testing and manufacturing. Since this launch took place only fifteen days after the landing of its second capsule, it appears Varda is moving swiftly in that direction, thus providing more business for American rocket startups.

The capsule includes a service module built by Rocket Lab, and will stay in orbit several weeks before it returns to Earth, landing at the Koonibba Test Range in South Australia, operated by the Australian commercial spaceport startup Southern Launch.

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Sierra Space wins Air Force contract to develop orbital cargo delivery system

9:49 am

The Air Force has now awarded Sierra Space a contract to develop its proposed “Space Ghost” satellite spacecraft, designed to be launched into a stand-by orbit carrying needed cargo, where it can upon command deliver that cargo within 90 minutes anywhere on Earth.

Sierra Space won a contract of undisclosed value as part of the AFRL’s Rocket Experimentation for Global Agile Logistics (REGAL) program. The Air Force is exploring the potential of space vehicles to rapidly transport critical supplies from orbital warehouses back to Earth. This could include reusable reentry vehicles capable of delivering payloads from prepositioned stocks in orbit.

Sierra Space, based in Louisville, Colorado, said its defense technology team designed the Ghost system to be capable of remaining in orbit for up to five years, storing and delivering essential supplies on-demand. Once fully developed, the spacecraft could be used for missions such as delivering rescue kits for downed pilots, medical supplies for disaster relief or logistical support for military operations.

The company began doing drop tests of a Space Ghost prototype heat shield in March, and apparently the data satisfied the Air Force enough to issue this development contract. Whether such a system however makes sense remains unknown. To be able to deliver cargo anywhere on Earth will require putting up a large constellation of Space Ghost satellites, in many different orbits. Moreover, it is unclear how much cargo each satellite would carry.

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Telescope removed from Mauna Kea on Big Island as local Hawaiian council rejects new telescopes on Haleakala on Maui

8:09 am

Even as a local Hawaiian authority on the Big Island has completed the removal of the first of three telescopes on the top of Mauna Kea, a local council on the island of Maui have voted 9-0 to oppose an Air Force project to build new telescopes on top of Haleakala.

The proposed new facility is called AMOS STAR, which is an acronym for Air Force Maui Optical and Supercomputing Site Small Telescope Advanced Research. It would feature six telescopes enclosed in ground-mounted domes and one rooftop-mounted domed telescope.

The county’s resolution urged the military to heed community calls to cease their development efforts. It urged the National Park Service, Federal Aviation Administration and the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources to deny the project permits.

At this time it appears that Hawaiians desended from the original indigenous population are opposed to all western technology, even as they rely on it. These new telescopes are proposed by the Air Force because it needs better capilities to track the tens of thousands of new satellites being launched by numerous companies and governments. This information will help prevent collisions in space.

As for their claims that these peaks are “considered wao akua, or ‘realm of the gods,’ and [places] of deep spirituality for Native Hawaiians to engage in some of these traditional practices,” as stated in the council’s resolution, I have some doubts. For almost three-quarters of a century such religious concerns and objections were never mentioned by anyone. If they existed indigenous Hawaiians appeared to have no problem “engaging in traditional practices” right next to telescopes. Only when some activists appeared in the past decade, looking to insert themselves in the process (thus obtaining positions of power and money) did the peaks become so important religiously.

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Air Force proposes installing seven more telescopes on Hawaiian peak

10:02 am

Air Force is proposing the addition of seven more telescopes on the top of Haleakala on the Hawaiian island of Maui.

It appears it is also facing major opposition within Hawaii to this proposal.

Last week, the Air Force held scoping meetings in Kahului, Pukalani and Kihei that drew hundreds of people, many of them Native Hawaiians who consider Haleakala sacred and oppose any further installation of telescopes. They made their voices loud and clear in many hours of testimony.

“The American military is like a sick old man who won’t take no for an answer,” said Sesame Shim. Shim described the installation of telescopes on Haleakala as a violent desecration of a family member, an analogy several other women echoed in testimony, eliciting loud applause.

According to the Air Force, the telescope are needed to track the growing number of orbiting objects in space.

If the Air Force proceeds, I am sure this opposition will attempt to physically block construction, as it did with the now practically defunct Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on Mauna Kea on Hawaii’s big island. It appears that the political forces on Hawaii not only are opposed to all technology, they are hostile to all non-natives, and are working in the end to cleanse their islands of these white-skinned devils.

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FAA schedules first three public meetings for Starship/Superheavy impact statement review

8:48 am

The FAA has now scheduled the first three public meetings as part of its new environmental impact statement review of SpaceX’s proposed construction plans at Cape Canaveral.

The in-person open houses will feature information stations where the FAA will “provide information describing the purpose of the scoping meetings, project schedule, opportunities for public involvement, proposed action and alternatives summary, and environmental resource area summary. Fact sheets will be made available containing similar information,” the project website says.

“At any time during the meetings, the public will have the opportunity to provide verbal comments to a court reporter or written comments via a written comment form at one of several commenting stations,” the website says.

It appears that SpaceX is proposing two different options for establishing an additional launchpad for Superheavy/Starship. Its preferred option is to refurbish pad LC-37, which was most recenly used by ULA to launch its Delta-4 Heavy in April. A second option is to develop a new pad entirely, dubbed LC-50.

Though the FAA claims this new impact statement is necessary because SpaceX has upped the planned annual Superheavy/Starship launches from 24 to 44, that claim is bogus. The difference is not that significant, and more important, rockets have been launching from these pads now for almost three-quarters of a century, and the environment has not only not been harmed by that activity, the wildlife surrounding the cape has prospered tremendously by the creation of a large zone where no development can occur.

That history is the real impact statement, and it proves the new red tape is unecessary. What the FAA (and the Air Force) are now doing is simply lawfare against SpaceX.

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Air Force sends letter of concern about Vulcan to ULA

10:21 am

According to a report yesterday [behind a paywall], the Air Force has sent a letter of concern to ULA and its joint owners, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, about the long delays getting its new Vulcan rocket operational.

When the military chose in 2021 ULA and SpaceX to be its two launch providers for the first half of the 2020s, it expected ULA to complete 60% of the launches and SpaceX 40%. It also expected Vulcan to being launching within a year or two, at the latest.

Instead, the first launch of Vulcan did not occur until 2024, and its second launch — required by the military before it will allow Vulcan to launch its payloads — won’t occur until late this year. Worse, the military has a large backlog of launches it has assigned to Vulcan that need to launch quickly.

“I am growing concerned with ULA’s ability to scale manufacturing of its Vulcan rocket and scale its launch cadence to meet our needs,” [Air Force Assistant Secretary Frank] Calvelli wrote. “Currently there is military satellite capability sitting on the ground due to Vulcan delays. ULA has a backlog of 25 National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 2 Vulcan launches on contract.”

These 25 launches, Calvelli notes, are due to be completed by the end of 2027. He asked Boeing and Lockheed to complete an “independent review” of United Launch Alliance’s ability to scale manufacturing of its Vulcan rockets and meet its commitments to the military. Calvelli also noted that Vulcan has made commitments to launch dozens of satellites for others over that period, a reference to a contract between United Launch Alliance and Amazon for Project Kuiper satellites.

ULA says that once operations ramp up, it plans to launch Vulcan twice a month. The Air Force doubts about whether that will be possible however are well founded. To meet that schedule ULA will need delivery per month of at least four BE-4 engines from Blue Origin, and so far there is no indication the Bezos company can meet that demand. Delays at Blue Origin in developing that engine are the main reason Vulcan is so far behind schedule in the first place.

In order to get Vulcan operational, ULA needs to fly a second time successfully. The second launch of Sierra Space’s Tenacity mini-shuttle is booked for that flight, and was originally supposed to launch this spring. Tenacity however was not ready, as it is still undergoing final ground testing. The launch is now set for the fall, but both ULA and the Pentagon are discussing replacing it with a dummy payload should Tenacity experience any more delays.

The source of all of these problems points to Blue Origin. Not only has it been unable to deliver its BE-4 rocket engine on schedule — thus blocking Vulcan — the long delays in developing its own New Glenn orbital rocket (which uses seven BE-4 engines) has given the military fewer launch options. As a result the military has been left with only one rocket company, SpaceX, capable of launching its large payloads.

To put Blue Origin’s problems in perspective, for Blue Origin to finally achieve its many promises and get both Vulcan and New Glenn flying regularly, it will need to begin producing a minimum of 50 to 150 BE-4 engines per year, with two-thirds for its own New Glenn rocket. Right now all evidence suggests the company is having problems building two per year.

In other words, the Pentagon might send a letter of concern to ULA, but it should instead be focusing its ire on Blue Origin.

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FAA and Air Force initiate new environmental impact statements for Starship/Superheavy launchpads in Florida

12:08 pm

We’re here to help you! Really! Late yesterday, in a typical Friday story dump just before the weekend to reduce any notice, the FAA announced it has begun a new environmental impact statement (EIS) of SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy launchpad infrastructure being built in Florida, working in parallel with a similar environmental impact statement now being conducted by the Air Force.

The EIS will be the second environmental review involving SpaceX’s plans to use LC-39A for Starship launches. NASA completed an environmental assessment (EA) in 2019 of the company’s plans at the time to build launch infrastructure at LC-39A for Starship, finding it would have no significant impact. At the time SpaceX was planning up to 24 Starship launches from that pad annually. A new EIS, the FAA concluded, is needed because of changes in the design of Starship and its operations since the 2019 assessment.

The FAA claims a new assessment is needed because SpaceX is now planning as many as 44 launches. The Air Force has not said why its new assessment is needed. That EIS, which began in March, covers a launchpad previously used by the Saturn-1B and Delta-4 rockets from 1964 to 2022, another pad use by the Air Force’s Titan rocket from 1965 to 2005, as well as a new pad, dubbed SLC-50.

LC-39A meanwhile has been used for launches since the 1960s. The Saturn-5, the space shuttle, and the Falcon 9 all launched from this pad.

The dishonest absurdity of these impact statements can not be overstated. There is zero reason to do new assessments. All the pads have been in use for decades, with all kinds of rockets, some comparable to Superheavy/Starship. The environment and the wildlife refuge at Cape Canaveral have both thrived.

Moreover, to force completely new impact statements because the design and plans for Superheavy/Starship have changed somewhat (but not fundamentally) is even more stupid. This is a new rocket, being developed day-by-day and launch-by-launch. Will the FAA and the Air Force require new EIS’s every time SpaceX changes anything? It seems so.

This is clearly lawfare against Elon Musk and SpaceX by the White House and the administration state. It doesn’t like Musk, and it is now searching at all times for ways to block or damage him.

I confidently predict that neither statement will be completed by the end of 2025. Based on the timeline of most EIS’s, which when politics are involved are almost always slowed by the legal action of activists, the earliest either will be approved will be mid-2026, though likely later.

What is not clear is whether the FAA and Air Force will stop all work while this red tape is being unwound. If so, then the first operational launches of Superheavy and Starship cannot happen out of Cape Canaveral until well into 2027, which means NASA entire Artemis program will be seriously delayed. My previous prediction that the first manned lunar landing can’t happen before 2030 is becoming increasingly too conservative.

And remember this: If Joe Biden and the Democrats remain in power after November, all bets are off. At that point they are certain to ramp up the lawfare against those they see as political enemies, even if their targets are doing great things for the nation and the American people.

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Watch video from Varda’s return capsule as its comes back to Earth

9:42 am

I have embedded below video taken from inside the capsule of the commercial startup Varda from its release from the Rocket Lab service module throughout its descent back to Earth.

The capsule had been launched in June 2023, carrying equipment to manufacture HIV drugs in space and then return them to Earth for sale. Even though the company had begun negotiations with the FAA and the Air Force two years prior for landing that capsule in the Air Force’s test range in Utah, those agencies blocked its planned return in the September of 2023, and was only able to do it last month. This mission is demo flight, with three others now scheduled.

For the video, Varda included a window looking up outside the capsule, and a camera to film everything that occurred outside that window during descent, release of parachutes, and impact on the ground. It is quite fascinating, as you can see that the capsule initially tumbles, then as the atmosphere thickens its aerodynamic shape causes it to stablize with its heat shield at its bottom.
» Read more

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Boeing dropped from competition for Air Force “doomsday” plane

6:09 pm

It appears that by mutual agreement the Air Force has eliminated Boeing in the competition to build a new replacement for the E-4B Nightwatch, what the military calls its “doomsday” airplane, designed to survive a nuclear war.

Sources told Reuters that Boeing – the incumbent manufacturer of the E-4B Nightwatch – could not agree with the USAF on data rights and contract terms for the replacement plane that began flying in the 1970s. In other words, the planemaker did not want to sign a fixed-price agreement.

…”Rest assured, we haven’t signed any fixed-price development contracts nor (do we) intend to,” Brian West, Boeing’s chief financial officer, told investors in October.

With Boeing out of the competition, Sierra Nevada (the parent company of Sierra Space) is left as the only bidder. It is also quite willing to operate under a fixed price contract.

As I noted in a comment thread after a reader first posted a link to this story,

Boeing is signing its own death warrant. The entire federal defense and space agencies are steadily switching to fixed-price, and will simply go to others if Boeing refuses to accept those terms.

In fact, those agencies will want to go to others, because Boeing is making it clear it can’t meet its contractual obligations.

This decision also tells us a great deal about Boeing as a company. Its inability to fulfill any contract under a fixed price means it no longer has the discipline to do anything right. It seems buying products from it at this point might be a very foolish proposition.

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Federal government continues to block the return of Varda’s commercial capsule, carrying drugs to treat HIV

9:47 am

Even as the FAA continues to block Varda from returning its capsule back to Earth, the Air Force has now joined in to block its landing at its Utah Test and Training Range, the same location NASA will use on September 24 to drop the return capsule from OSIRIS-REx, carrying material from an asteroid.

Varda originally planned to bring back a capsule containing crystals of ritonavir, a drug used to treat HIV, in mid-July. After announcing that had been delayed [due to the FAA’s refusal to issue a landing license in July], the company was looking at September 5 and 7, a source told TechCrunch. This information was confirmed by USAF.

The company declined to comment, but posted on X that the “spacecraft is healthy across all systems” and that they are continuing to collaborate with regulators to bring the capsule back to Earth. They added that the spacecraft can survive for up to a year on-orbit.

“Sept. 5 and 7 were their primary targets,” a spokesperson for the USAF said in an emailed statement. “The request to use the Utah Test and Training Range for the landing location was not granted at this time due to the overall safety, risk and impact analysis. In a separate process, the FAA has not granted a reentry license. All organizations continue working to explore recovery options.”

The spokesperson further said that Varda “is working on presenting alternate plans,” but would not elaborate further whether that meant seeking an alternate landing site. A spokesperson for the FAA told TechCrunch that Varda’s application was denied on September 6 because the company “did not demonstrate compliance with the regulatory requirements.”

“On September 8, Varda formally requested that the FAA reconsider its decision. The request for reconsideration is pending,” the spokesperson said.

The actions of these agencies is unconscionable and a outright abuse of power. There is no rational reason for the FAA to continue to deny Varda the right to bring its capsule back to Earth. Its claims of environmental impact are bogus, especially since capsules and spacecraft have been returning to Earth like this for more than three-quarters of a century. Nor is there any reason for the Air Force to have blocked the return now. Its claim of issues of “safety, risk, and impact” is utter garbage, especially since it is allowing a NASA capsule to land in this exact same facility in only days, and that capsule is carrying material from an asteroid.

One might question why Varda apparently flew its capsule prior to getting these landing approvals, but it did exactly the right thing, for two reasons. First, if it waited for approvals before flying, it would have no leverage on these power-hungry federal agencies and it likely would still be on the ground, going bankrupt (think of Virgin Orbit in the United Kingdom). This by the way is the same tactic used by SpaceX. You don’t wait on them, you put them under the gun by moving forward as fast as possible.

Second, this situation helps highlight the power grab by these agencies. While the FAA has some concerns relating to conflicts with airplane traffic, that should simply be a matter of coordination and involve no great delay. Similarly, landing on an Air Force base is merely scheduling. Since when did government agencies have the power to block a landing beyond those points? They don’t, not legally, morally, or practically.

Though I am sure most workers at the FAA and Air Force are likely trying to do their best to help
Varda, the structure of such regulatory agencies always encourages the power-hungry to grab power. The result has been endless mission creep, to the point where today no space activity can happen without some government agency sticking its nose in to demand control.

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Stratolaunch’s Roc airplane completes another test flight

9:31 pm

Stratolaunch today announced that it has successfully completed the third capture-carry test using its giant Roc airplane, carrying an engineering test version of its Talon vehicle, designed to do hypersonic flight tests for the Air Force.

The flight was the tenth for the company’s launch platform Roc and marks the beginning of routine flight operations in Vandenberg Space Force Base’s Western Range off California’s central coast. The flight, which lasted a total of five hours, performed risk reduction by practicing a variety of separation profiles and confirming telemetry between Roc and Talon-A vehicles and Vandenberg Space Force Base’s communication assets, assuring that back-up telemetry data collection will occur during future flight tests.

Pending results of post-flight data analysis, the team will progress toward a separation test in the coming weeks, enabling the company to perform its first hypersonic flight in 2023.

There is a lot of potential test capability for Roc and Talon, not just with hypersonic missiles and aircraft. If Stratolaunch succeeds in fulfilling this Air Force contract, it will likely garner a good amount of additional business.

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Diesel fuel spill at Air Force surveillance facility on Hawaiian mountaintop

9:49 am

The Air Force reported today that about 700 gallons of diesel fuel spilled out on January 29, 2023 at Air Force’s surveillance telescope facility on top of Haleakala on the island of Maui.

The spill occurred at the Maui Space Surveillance Complex, which tracks satellites and space debris using several telescopes atop Haleakala, a dormant volcano. “Due to a mechanical issue, a diesel fuel pump for an on-site backup generator failed to shut off” Sunday night, the Air Force said in a news release.

At about 8 a.m. Monday, maintenance personnel discovered the failure and shut off the transfer pump, the Air Force said.

Since 2021 the military has had two other accidents at different Hawaiian facilities. Considering the hostile political atmosphere there for any facility not run by “native Hawaiians”, this new fuel spill could not have come at a worse time. Expect pressure to mount to remove this facility.

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General Atomics wins Air Force contract to build technology test lunar satellite

10:35 am

General Atomics yesterday announced that it has been awarded an Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) contract to build a satellite to test a variety of technologies in near lunar space.

The AFRL Oracle spacecraft program is intended to demonstrate advanced techniques to detect and track objects in the region near the Moon that cannot be viewed optically from the Earth or from satellites in traditional orbits such as geosynchronous earth orbit (GEO). The anticipated launch date for the Oracle spacecraft is late 2025.

While this is good business for General Atomics, the company is not selling its product to the Air Force, but building what the Air Force wants, making the spacecraft government owned. This is how the space industry functioned in the United States for almost a half century after Apollo, generally accomplishing little for great cost. Much better in the long run if the military bought this kind of product from private companies, who developed it for profit and for sale not just to the military.

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X-37B returns successfully to Earth after 908 days in orbit

7:13 pm

One of the two X-37B reusable mini-shuttles that Boeing built for the military successfully returned to Earth early this morning after completing 908 days in orbit, a new longevity record.

This was the sixth mission of the crewless reusable plane, built by Boeing and jointly operated by the U.S. Space Force and the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office. Known as Orbital Test Vehicle 6, it launched to orbit May 17, 2020, on a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket.

On this mission the X-37B carried several U.S. military and NASA science experiments, including a Naval Research Laboratory project to capture sunlight and convert it into direct current electrical energy, and the U.S. Air Force Academy’s FalconSat-8, which remains in orbit.

It appears, based on the amount of information released after landing, that the Space Force is making more of what it does and will do on this and future X-37B flights more public.

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Advanced Space wins lunar orbiter contract with Air Force

9:21 am

Advanced Space, the company that is presently running the CAPSTONE mission that will arrive in lunar orbit on November 13th, has won a $72 million contract with the Air Force Research Laboratory to build and operate a new experimental lunar orbiter.

The mission, dubbed Oracle, is targeting a 2025 launch and will operate in lunar orbit for two years.

“Our primary goals for the program are to advance techniques to detect previously unknown objects through search and discovery, to detect small or distant objects, and to study spacecraft positioning and navigation in the XGEO realm,” said James Frith, the principal investigator. XGEO refers to the space beyond geosynchronous orbit out to the moon. Oracle will operate in the vicinity of Earth-moon Lagrange Point 1, about 200,000 miles from Earth. The GEO belt, by comparison, is about 22,000 miles above Earth.

An additional goal of Oracle is to help mature AFRL’s green propellant technology. “While there are no specific plans yet to refuel Oracle, AFRL wants to encourage civil and commercial development of on-orbit refueling services,” said Frith.

The federal government’s transition from the building rockets, spacecraft, and satellites to simply buying them from the private sector continues. In the past, when the Air Force attempted to design and build everything, a project like this would have cost at least five times more and taken two to five times longer to get launched. Now, it hires Advanced Space to do it, and gets what it wants quickly for lower cost.

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Ursa Major makes rocket engine deal with Air Force

10:16 am

Capitalism in space: Ursa Major announced today that the Air Force has awarded it a contract to test and qualify its Hadley rocket engines for future military space missions.

Ursa Major will also be providing the Air Force Research Lab with statistically significant data sets from extensive testing of multiple Hadley engines, including measurements of specific impulse, or ISP, combustion stability, vibration and shock profiles, and range of inlet pressures and temperatures.

Hadley will be qualified using similar metrics according to an internal test plan based on industry guidelines and best practices, focusing on engine life, operating space, functional requirements, and performance. The qualification test campaign under this effort will include runtime at and beyond the extremes of the power level and mixture ratio targets, demonstrating that Hadley operates safely and reliably within the power level and mixture ratio required for missions of DOD interest.

Ursa Major was founded by the engineers who developed SpaceX’s Merlin engine. It has already won a number of rocket engine contracts, including an order for 200 Hadley engines from rocket startup Phantom Space., and a contract with Northrop Grumman to replace the Russian-built engines on its Antares rocket with Ursa Major’s larger Arroway engine. [Ed: Ursa Major doesn’t have this contract, Firefly does. Ursa Major’s Arroway is simply comparable and competitive for the same business.]

Getting the Hadley engine certified by the Air Force will instantly make this engine more appealing to numerous rocket companies. In fact, it will make Ursa Major as a company more appealing. If this certification moves forward quickly, expect the Air Force to follow with a certification program for the larger Arroway engine. And if that occurs this engine might supplant other engines produced by Aerojet Rocketdyne and Blue Origin, especially because it appears that Ursa Major is using the same manufacturing philosophies of SpaceX, focusing not so much on design as assembly-line manufacturing, as shown by its 200 engine contract with Phantom.

Thus, it appears focused on producing many engines at less cost, and quickly.

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Stratolaunch unveils first Talon-A test vehicle

9:24 am

The pylon and Talon test vehicle attached to Roc
Click for original image.

Capitalism in space: Stratolaunch yesterday released the first pictures of its first Talon-A test vehicle, dubbed TA-0, to be used to test in-flight the pylon on the company’s giant Roc airplane that the Talon-A will be attached to.

The photo to the right, reduced, enhanced, and annotated to post here, shows the test vehicle attached to the pylon which hangs from the bottom of Roc’s wing. From the press release:

The pylon, which was introduced during Roc’s fifth test flight on May 4, will be used to carry and release Talon-A hypersonic vehicles. The hardware is comprised of a mini-wing and adapter that is constructed with aluminum and carbon fiber skins. It weighs approximately 8,000 pounds and occupies 14 feet of Roc’s 95-foot center wingspan, allowing for adequate space between the aircraft’s dual fuselages for safe vehicle release and launch. The custom structure also features a winch system that will load Talon-A vehicles onto the platform from the ground, expediting launch preparation and reducing the need for ground support.

Although this first version of Talon-A will not be powered in flight, its future iterations will be rocket-powered, autonomous, reusable testbeds carrying customizable payloads at speeds above Mach 5. TA-0 will continue functional and integration testing in the coming months, culminating in a captive carry and vehicle flight later this year. After completing TA-0 separation testing, the company will transition to flying its first hypersonic test vehicle, TA-1. The team has also started fabrication of a third vehicle, TA-2, the first fully reusable hypersonic test vehicle.

The development and initial testing of Talon-A is partly funded from a contract with the Air Force. If successful, the Air Force will likely move on to purchasing actual hypersonic test flights.

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Stratolaunch completes 5th test flight of giant Roc airplane

10:21 am

Capitalism in space: Stratolaunch yesterday successfully completed the fifth test flight of its giant Roc airplane, now being designed for testing hypersonic vehicles in flight.

You can read the press release here [pdf], which stated the following:

The fifth flight debuted a new pylon on the aircraft’s center wing that will be used to carry and release Talon-A hypersonic vehicles. The hardware is comprised of a mini-wing and adapter that is constructed with aluminum and carbon fiber skins. It weighs approximately 8,000 pounds and occupies 14 feet of Roc’s 95-foot center wingspan, allowing for adequate space between the aircraft’s dual fuselages for safe vehicle release and launch. The state-of-the-art structure also features a winch system that will load Talon onto the platform from the ground, expediting launch preparation and reducing the need for ground support.

The company has been building two Talon hypersonic vehicles, and now has a third under construction. This third Talon is intended to be reuseable. All will be used as part of the company’s contract with the Air Force to test hypersonic technology, with the first flights now scheduled for ’23.

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Orbit Fab wins contract to outfit U.S. military satellites for refueling

8:48 am

Capitalism in space: Orbit Fab has won a $12 million contract to outfit U.S. military satellites with its refueling port.

The funding includes $6 million from the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force, and $6 million from Orbit Fab’s private investors. The contract is for the integration of Orbit Fab’s fueling port, called RAFTI — short for rapidly attachable fluid transfer interface — with military satellites. The port allows satellites to receive propellant from Orbit Fab’s tankers in space.

At present there are no refueling missions scheduled, simply because the satellites that could be refueled are not yet in orbit. Orbit Fab and the military however are discussing an in-orbit demo mission.

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Stratolaunch wins Air Force hypersonic research contract

1:17 pm

Capitalism in space: Stratolaunch today announced [pdf] that is has been awarded by the Air Force contract to study whether its Roc aircraft carrier and Talon-A research craft will be useful in test hypersonic weapons and spacecraft.

Stratolaunch, LLC is pleased to announce a research contract with the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).

Stratolaunch, under partnership with Booz Allen Hamilton, is on contract with AFRL to examine and assess the feasibility of hypersonic flight tests of a wide range of Air Force experiments and payloads on a frequent and routine basis.

Stratolaunch supports national security objectives for hypersonic offensive and defensive weapons development through the design, manufacture, and operation of a fleet of reusable hypersonic aerospace vehicles air-launched from its globally deployable carrier aircraft, Roc. The company plans to augment existing Department of Defense flight test resources through affordable, commercially contracted, rapid-turnaround hypersonic flight testing for the Department of Defense and its prime contractor partners.

This contract is not to do actual tests, but to study whether Stratolaunch’s equipment can make hypersonic tests easier, cheaper, and more frequent, as the company promises.

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SpaceX’s Starship gets Air Force point-to-point cargo study contract

10:46 am

Capitalism in space: The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has signed a $102 million five year contract with SpaceX to study the practicality of using its Starship spacecraft as a method for transporting large cargo point-to-point on Earth.

[Program manager Greg] Spanjers said the SpaceX work is focused in four areas: collecting data from commercial orbital launches and landings; exploring cargo bay designs compatible with U.S. Transportation Command containers [TRANSCOM] and support rapid loading and unloading; researching landing systems that can operate on a variety of terrain; and demonstrating the heavy cargo launch and landing process.

The emphasis on landing options and interoperability with TRANSCOM containers and loading processes is an important element of the project, Spanjers noted, because the department’s vision for how the point-to-point capability could be used is broader than just the commercial business case. While companies are primarily interested in delivering cargo to and from established sites, the military wants to deliver supplies and humanitarian aid to locations that may not have spaceports.

This contract is in many ways similar to NASA’s manned Starship lunar lander contract. Both provide SpaceX some cash for developing a different version of Starship, even as the bulk of development money for building Starship comes from the private investment community.

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U.S. military adds Blue Origin to its point-to-point space cargo development program

9:50 am

Capitalism in space: The U.S. military on December 17th signed an agreement with Blue Origin to add it to its point-to-point space cargo development program.

The command last year signed similar agreements with SpaceX and with Exploration Architecture Corp. (XArc). Blue Origin is the third company to ink a CRADA [as these development contracts are called] for the rocket cargo program.

Under CRADAs, companies agree to share information about their products and capabilities but the government does not commit to buying anything. U.S. TRANSCOM’s analysis of industry data will inform the newly created “rocket cargo” program led by the Air Force Research Laboratory and the U.S. Space Force. The Air Force in its budget proposal for fiscal year 2022 is seeking $47.9 million to conduct studies and rocket cargo demonstrations. [emphasis mine]

I highlight the total budget of this program to show that this is a very small government program. The cash it provides these three companies is nice, but it is chicken feed when compared with the total cost of development. It certainly will not result in a faster pace at Blue Origin in developing its New Glenn rocket, which is presently two years behind schedule with further delays almost certain because its BE-4 rocket engine is not yet ready for mass production.

Whether the program itself is a good thing, or merely another example of government crony capitalism, is open to question. The practicality of using either Starship or New Glenn for cargo transport remains very unproven, especially for New Glenn, which was not designed with such a purpose in mind and cannot land its upper stage on Earth as Starship can.

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Russia confirms and defends anti-satellite test

1:33 pm

Russia today confirmed that it had done the anti-satellite missile test earlier this week that destroyed one of its defunct satellites and produced a cloud of space junk.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence also issued a Russian-language statement defending the test. The minister-general of the army, Sergei Shoigu, said that the test was successful and that “the resulting fragments do not pose any threat to space activities,” according to a machine-generated translation to English.

The U.S. State Department said Monday that the test created a cloud of space debris made up of over 15,000 objects, calling it a threat to astronauts and cosmonauts, and space activities of all countries. The debris could pose a threat for years to come, experts have said. The space station’s crew had to shelter in their return ships on Monday when the debris cloud was first detected.

Russia’s space agency Roscosmos wrote on Twitter Monday that the space debris cloud “has moved away from the ISS orbit”, which is roughly 250 miles (400 km) above Earth. The space debris tracker LeoLabs estimates the debris cloud is at 273 to 323 miles (440 to 520 km) in altitude. However, “the station is in the green zone,” Roscosmos added.

The Russian claim that the debris at present poses no threat to ISS could very well be true. The trouble is that it appeared to have posed a threat initially, and will likely be a problem in the future. As a signatory of the Outer Space Treaty, Russia was required to avoid such a situation, and chose not to.

The article at the link notes similar tests by China (2007), the U.S. (2008), and India (2019). Of all these anti-satellite tests, only the U.S. targeted a satellite in an orbit so low that the debris posed no threat to operating satellites or manned spacecraft, and was also quickly pulled Earthward to burn up in the atmosphere. India chose a higher satellite whose debris posed less threat, but took longer to burn up and was initially of some concern.

China and Russia could have done the same thing. They did not, and their irresponsibility has badly worsened a problem that already was considered a serious concern.

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House slams military for not reforming contracting for space missions

9:28 am

Government marches on, to nowhere! The House Appropriations Committee has issued a report strongly criticizing the Air Force and the new Space Force for its failure to reform in any way its contract acquisition management, even though that was the prime reason Congress created the Space Force in the first place.

The report dedicates an entire page to detailing the committee’s dissatisfaction with what it sees as foot-dragging on space acquisition reform — which was one of the primary congressional rationales for the creation of the new space service in the first place. Indeed, the [appropriations committee] reiterates: “The Committee believes the Space Force was established to bring greater attention and focus to fixing its acquisition issues because previous attempts to do so did not produce lasting results.”

The [committee’s] concerns include that that Department of the Air Force — which oversees the Space Force much as the Navy oversees the Marine Corp — still has no clear plan for creating a separate management chain for space acquisition. Similar concerns were voiced at a May hearing by both the chair and ranking members of the HAC defense subcommittee, Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., and Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif., respectively.

None of this should be a surprise. The reason the Space Force was advocated by some reformers was to get it out from under Air Force control and allow it to decide for itself what it needed. The belief was that this would streamline contracting and project development.

The fear, which I expressed repeatedly, was that the swamp in Washington would instead use this as an opportunity not to streamline operations but to create a whole new bureaucracy. That is standard operating procedure for government bureaucracies. Any time Congress has mandated a new agency designed to reduce bureaucracy it has for more than a century instead led to a larger bureaucracy, with nothing streamlined.

It appears the latter is what is now happening with the Space Force.

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