Tag: bankruptcy

Is Dragonfly’s power source less capable than planned?

8:30 am

Artist rendering of Dragonfly soaring over Titan's surface
Artist rendering of Dragonfly soaring
over Titan’s surface

According to a French source yesterday on X, the Department of Energy (DOE) recently informed NASA that the radioisotope thermoelectric generator (MMRTG) that will be used to provide power and heat to the Dragonfly helicopter in its mission on Titan will produce less power than expected.

The source stated the following (translated by Google):

The DOE recently informed NASA that the MMRTG intended for Dragonfly will provide less thermal power than specified. This reduction will result in lower electricity production than initially anticipated.

Dragonfly operates using a large lithium-ion battery pack that is slowly recharged by the MMRTG. Flights and scientific experiments take place during the Titanian day, while the long nights are primarily dedicated to recharging. This reduction in power will extend recharge times between flights. It could reduce the number of trips, limit the distances traveled, or cut the time available for scientific observations at each site.

The heat produced by the MMRTG is also essential for maintaining equipment temperatures. Lower thermal power will make this thermal management more complex throughout the mission.

I can find no other reports about this at NASA, DOE, or in the American press. If true, this issue raises the risks of this very risky $3 billion mission that is vastly overbudget and, according to a September 2025 inspector general report, not likely to meet its 2028 launch window. Recent NASA press releases have implied it is on schedule, but we shall see.

And while NASA has built a helicopter that worked on Mars, the environment of Titan is far more alien. Worse, no NASA mission has ever attempted to function in such conditions. Thus, Dragonfly will not only be going to a very strange place, it will be trying to do so with engineering never tried before.

Hat tip BtB’s stringer Jay.

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FCC overhauls its licensing process

8:04 am

FCC logo

Faced with the on-going launch of thousands to millions of new satellites as well as several new commercial space stations and recoverable capsules of all sizes, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced last week a major overhaul of its licensing process, designed ostensibly to speed approvals and reduce red tape.

You can read the full report here [pdf]. Some of the changes are simple but extremely practical. For example, the FCC has adopted a single form for providing the basic information about each company that can be submitted with each new application. In the past the company had to submit its company information repeatedly, in great detail, requiring many company man-hours to write and many FCC man-hours to review. Now the company and FCC do this once, and then apply it to all future applications.

Similarly, the overhaul standardizes the application forms in an attempt to speed the process. And it allows single applications to apply across larger groups of satellites, reducing the number of applications required.

The overhaul also reviewed the regulations, and eliminated a lot of out-of-date rules that no longer applied.

Will this work? Your guess is as good as mine. Much of the changes read like typical bureaucratic jargon, rearranging the offices and renaming the procedures to make them seem more effective. For example, instead of “traditional licensing process” it is now replaced with a “licensing assembly line.” My heart be still!

In other areas this overhaul continues the mission creep of the commission. The FCC’s statutory powers, which was established merely to assign electromagnetic spectrum to different users, did not include the right to regulate how satellites are decommissioned. Yet, the commission is taking this issue on nonetheless. The new rules address the issue of space junk by requiring companies to provide plans for de-orbiting their satellites or space stations when they are retired. While certainly necessary with the numbers being launched, such requirements could hinder new projects if imposed too stringently or obsessively.

At the same time, this particular rule appears more rational than that attempted by the FCC under Biden. Then, the FCC tried to do this as well, but much more aggressively by outlining in detail how and when all satellites must be de-orbited. The Trump FCC is instead leaving these details to the company, letting them decide the specifics. It is hard to say just now how this more laissez-faire approach will work, for good or ill.

In general, the FCC’s aims appear to be laudable, to eliminate or reduce government interference in the private sector. At the same time, it continues to expand subtly that government interference, though doing it gently.

As I said whether this will work to the benefit of the space industry remains unknown.

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GAO releases a schizophrenic report on NASA

11:31 am

GAO: Work force reductions across NASA

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) earlier this week released a report on the state of NASA’s major projects and the impact on the agency of Trump’s work force reductions.

The graph to the right, from the report, shows those reductions across numerous NASA centers nationwide.

In reading the report [pdf], I couldn’t help noting the sharp contrast from its first section, outlining the generally solid state of the agency’s major projects, and its second section, describing the terrible impact of Trump’s workforce reductions, which reduced NASA workforce by about 22%.

The report appeared almost schizophrenic, having a dual personality, with the first section written by a Republican and the second section by a Democrat.

In the first section, after reviewing the major changes imposed on the Artemis program by NASA administrator Jared Isaacman, the key paragraph was this:
» Read more

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JAXA successfully tests older solid-fueled motor for use in its Epsilon-S rocket

9:15 am

Japan's space agency JAXA

Japan’s space agency JAXA has successfully completed a two minute static fire test of an older version of an upper stage solid-fueled motor for use in its new Epsilon-S rocket, the first launch of which has been delayed years because its upgraded upper stage motor kept failing in tests.

The engine burned normally for about two minutes in the test conducted at 9 a.m. at the Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture. JAXA will now examine the data, such as temperature and strain, in detail before determining whether the test was a success. It seeks the launch of a demonstration rocket within this fiscal year.

… In a change in policy, JAXA used an older model with a history of successful launches in the test, because two previous tests of a new model had ended in an explosion. It made the decision so that its flagship rockets will all be operational as soon as possible.

Epsilon-S was originally supposed to do its inaugural launch in 2024. JAXA now hopes to do it later this year. Using the older upper stage design however reduces the rocket’s capabilities, and also likely increases its cost, as the original design was supposed to be less expensive.

While India is making a real effort to promote a private rocket sector and shift to the capitalism model, and China has been utilizing a pseudo-version of that model to invigorate its space industry, Japan remains a backwater, barely able to launch anything because it continues to rely too much on its space agency while its private sector seems captured by it.

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The study that found half of all social science papers cannot be replicated also found that NO education research could be replicated

1:53 pm

Junk research in the soft sciences
Junk research in the soft sciences

In June 2026, I reported on a major 7-year study of more than 3,900 social science papers that found that more than half could not be replicated, suggesting that a very very large percentage of social science research is junk and should be ignored.

A recent close analysis of that paper, shown in the graph above, reveals even more starkly how worthless some of this “science” is. In the field of education, of the six papers the researchers attempted to replicate, only three could be “approximately replicated” (which the researchers appeared to consider largely unsatisfactory). No papers could be confidently replicated. In the field of business, of the six papers tested only one could be replicated, with two others getting that “approximately replicated” label.

In sociology the result was only slightly better but still terrible, with only two of nine papers replicated with confidence.

Meanwhile, about 60% of the papers tested in economic and political science could be replicated.

These are all the soft sciences, but it appears that education, business, and sociology are softer than others. Or to put it more bluntly, the research in these fields is likely all worthless. Education and sociology have been poisoned by Marxist critical race theory now for years. The education field in particular has become more interested in teaching kids the queer agenda and telling lies of oppression about western civilization than teaching the three “R’s”. This inability to replicate any of its junk research shows how bankrupt this part of academia has become.

Business research meanwhile has been equally poisoned by Marxist ideology and the bad business practices of the MBA academic world. No wonder modern corporations so routinely treat their customers like dirt, and fail so spectacular. Their Ivy League managers care only about DEI and ending capitalist oppression and nothing about running a company effectively while creating good products people will want to buy.

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The United Kingdom’s leftist government issues press release, touting how much it is spending on space

10:04 am

The leftist Labor Party that is presently in power in the United Kingdom today issued a press release extolling the “more than £62 million [$83 million] in government funding” it is spending to encourage its home-grown space industry.

The funding – unveiled on Monday 20 July at Farnborough International Airshow by Space Minister Liz Lloyd – will support new satellite communications systems and space innovation projects, helping turn early-stage ideas into commercial products, strengthen the UK’s ability to monitor and protect assets in orbit, and build a more resilient domestic space sector.

$56 million of this fund will go to “UK businesses, universities and research organisations,” while the remaining $27 million will go “to support the development of space technologies across UK industry, universities and research organisations.” Not only is this funding small potatoes, insufficient to do more that fund small design studies, much of it is likely going to pie-in-the-sky research not grounded in profit or reality.

This press release contrasts nicely with the statement issued today by the leftist Labor government in Australia. In Australia the government recognized regulation is a problem and vowed to stream line it. In the United Kingdom the Labor government said nothing about this at all, even though the red tape in the UK is far worse than in Australia, having bankrupted two rocket startups and one spaceport.

Based on this UK statement, do not expect much to change in the UK. The Labor government is pouring money into the industry as subsidies, but doing little to fix the country’s more fundamental bureaucratic problems. If anything, these subsidies will worsen things, as a good percentage are going to the very entities in leftist academia that are the source of the problem.

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Australia’s leftist government issues a new policy statement on space

9:46 am

The leftist Labor party that is presently running Australia’s government today issued a new policy statement on the nation’s space industry, focused on trying to encourage its growth.

You can read the statement here [pdf]. Though it is mostly filled with meaningless bureaucratic and leftist jargon, including an an “acknowledgement” of the primary land rights of the aborginal population (or as it calls them, “the many nations of First Peoples”), the statement has one item at the very end that suggests this government recognizes its bureaucracy is slowing development.

After many pages of gobbly-gook that has little substance in reality, that last action item is the following:

Action: Advance regulation and international governance:

  • Evolve domestic regulatory frameworks to support current and emerging
    Australian space activities, ensuring safety, security and national interests
    while enabling entrepreneurship and innovation.
  • Shape international governance by contributing to global rules and norms
    for the safe and sustainable use of outer space.

It appears the Labor government recognizes the regulatory framework in Australia is slowing development, and is at least willing to say it wishes to fix the issue. At the same time, it also vows its continuing allegiance to international globalist regulations and the need to make space “safe and sustainable.”

These two goals are generally opposed to each other. How Labor will square this circle is quite unclear, but at least it appears it is aware of the regulatory issues. Its ability to fix them however will I think be hampered by that party’s very “woke” focus. For example, the statement opens by endorsing ancient aboriginal religious beliefs, but never once recognizes the very basic western values of private property and law that built the country that presently exists.

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Another bad indicator relating to the UK’s space effort

2:30 pm

A space junk removal demo mission first proposed in 2024 by the United Kingdom’s space agency has apparently missed a deadline for issuing the final contract award to one of two startups to fly the mission.

The UK Space Agency has missed a deadline to award a £75.6 million contract for the country’s first mission to capture and remove dead satellites from low Earth orbit.

A call for Phase 3 of the mission’s development was published in July 2025, with the contract initially expected to be awarded by 30 March 2026. However, in its final annual report as an independent entity, published on 14 July, UKSA admitted that the contract award had been delayed. The agency is now targeting summer 2026 but has not explained the reason for the delay or provided a more precise timetable.

The two companies are Astroscale (based in Japan with a UK division) and Clearspace, which has been attempting to launch a junk removal mission for the European Space Agency now for almost a decade, with nothing getting off the ground.

This delay should not be a surprise. The Labor government that is presently in power has been in the process of shutting down the space agency, even as it has allocated a half billion dollars for space-related government projects. It has also done nothing to eliminate the red tape that is squelching its private space industry.

It thus makes great sense that this contract hasn’t been issued. For one, the bureaucracy involved is probably in chaos as the Labor government rearranges deck chairs. For another, there is probably little interest by the private sector to do any work in the UK, because the red tape there is stifling, and has already bankrupted two rocket startups and one spaceport. It is very possible both companies declined to bid. Or if they did, the confusion in the government made any decisions impossible.

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DC government workforce slashed by almost 20% since Trump took office

12:34 pm

The drop in the DC federal workforce under Trump
Click for source.

According to recent data, the number of federal workers in the Washington, D.C. area has now reached a 30 year low, reduced by 60,000, from nearly 376,000 at the start of Trump’s second term to 312,500 in May.

The graph to the right shows how Trump’s arrival instigated the drop.

The Department of Education took the heaviest blow, with nearly 40 percent of its workforce slashed in 2025 as Trump made clear his goal: to dismantle the agency outright. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Treasury weren’t far behind, each shedding roughly a quarter of their staff, with the IRS bearing the brunt as the administration moved to gut tax enforcement.

Beyond those, USAID, Agriculture, HHS, the VA, and the Department of Labor all saw double-digit percentage losses in their workforce, with USAID and the USDA especially targeted.

What must also be noted is the lack of any significant consequences resulting from these reductions. It has had no impact on life in general. In fact, all economic indicators — which say the U.S. economy is generally doing well — suggest its only impact has been free up Americans and let them get on with their lives.

This however is only a start. A lot more non-workers in DC should get their walking papers. They contribute little or nothing, while squelching the freedom of the rest of us.

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India restricts the ability of space agency employees to leave due to recent exodus

9:08 am

The effort of India's government to defeat private enterprise
The effort of India’s government to defeat private enterprise

Turf war! In what will eventually be a useless and counter-productive dictatorial action, the Indian government has issued a directive restricting the ability of employees of its space agency ISRO from retiring or resigning, an action taken due to a recent exodus of between 100 and 120 engineers, scientists, and managers, many of whom left to take jobs in India’s nascent but growing private space sector.

In a memorandum issued on July 14, the Department of Space (DoS) directed major ISRO centres, including the UR Rao Satellite Centre (URSC) and the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), not to routinely approve resignation or voluntary retirement requests from Group ‘A’ scientific and technical personnel associated with the Gaganyaan mission and other “important missions/projects”. Instead, such requests will require scrutiny by the Department of Space before a final decision is taken.

…Under the new directive, all resignation and voluntary retirement requests from scientific and technical personnel, including those at and below the rank of scientist and engineer, must be forwarded to the Department of Space along with “clear recommendations” from the respective centre directors, who will no longer have the authority to routinely clear such requests.

Multiple news reports from India today cite a recent spate of resignations and retirements, with many of those exiting employees getting jobs in private industry, with the most notable that of former ISRO chairman S Somanath, who has taken a position on the board of directors of the rocket startup Agnikul, which hopes to launch its own reusable rocket at some point in the future.

The government claims it has taken this action to make sure it doesn’t lose critical ISRO employees needed for its Gaganyaan and space station government projects, both of which are facing delays and technical challenges.

This directive will likely fail, however, for two reasons, both of which might in the long run be beneficial to India. First, young people just out of college will see it and decide it is better to get jobs in the private sector right off the bat. Why work for someone who will try to turn you into a serf who can’t leave? Second, it will guarantee an even greater exodus over time, as ISRO employees who want to leave will now take aggressive action to get out, as soon as they can. In both cases, the directive will encourage people to work for private industry, not the government.

At the same time, this directive suggests the government and ISRO is now taking action to squelch that new private sector. This order will limit the commercial industry’s ability to hire experienced ISRO people, thus slowing its development.

Similar actions were taken by NASA in the 2000s and 2010s when the agency began its transition to the capitalism model. There was great resistance within the government to ceding power to the private sector, resistance that still exists and showed itself again during the Biden administration. That government effort in the U.S. however has largely failed, because the public has elected a government (Trump and the Republicans in Congress) that favors the private sector, and because the private sector is getting the job done.

How things will play out in India remains unknown. Its administrative state is much more powerful, and its cultural traditions are not grounded as much in private enterprise, as is the U.S.

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South Africa makes deal with Amazon for Leo internet service

8:42 am

Amazon Leo logo

While SpaceX has still not made a deal with South Africa to provide Starlink service to its citizens, Amazon yesterday announced it has finalized its own agreement to allow a South Africa telecommunications operation to sell its Leo satellite internet service there.

Amazon Leo has entered into an agreement with Herotel, South Africa’s largest fixed internet service provider, to bring satellite internet to South Africa through a new service called evry, powered by Amazon Leo. Under the agreement, Herotel will use Amazon Leo’s technology as part of Herotel’s new service evry. Evry is expected to launch commercially in 2027 to connect residential customers in South Africa. This is the first Amazon Leo agreement of this kind in Africa.

SpaceX initially refused to agree to the South African government’s demands that the company sell some ownership of its company to locals under a racial quota system that favored blacks. That racial quota system however was lifted in December 2025. For some reason however SpaceX has not worked out a deal since then (possibly because it refused to pay bribes), and so Amazon apparently moved in and grabbed the business.

Whether SpaceX can work something out as well is not known. Regardless, the competition is good, as it is always better to have more than one option in any product field.

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FAA seeking comments on SpaceX’s request to expand Starship’s landing zones

4:43 pm

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) today released its draft environmental reassessment [pdf] that would allow SpaceX to both expand add landing zones for bringing its Starship spacecraft back from orbit.

From the introduction:

Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) is seeking to obtain a modification of its existing vehicle operator license from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to account for Starship reentry contingency operations in the Pacific Ocean as well as an additional Starship reentry trajectory for landing at the Boca Chica Launch Site in Starbase, Texas (TX). SpaceX must obtain a license modification from FAA to land the Starship vehicle in the Northern Pacific Basin (south of the Aleutian Islands), as well as information for airspace closures for an additional trajectory which includes landing at the Boca Chica Launch Site in Starbase, TX. SpaceX also intends to expand the previously evaluated landing areas in the Hawaii and Central Pacific Basin (southwest of the Hawaiian Islands) and the Southeast (SE) Pacific (off the coast of Chile) as additional contingency landing locations for Starship.

Starship flight path over the Pacific for landing at Boca Chica
Starship flight path over the Pacific for landing at Boca Chica

The map to the right shows Starship’s proposed flight path for returning to Boca Chica.

The key quote however is in the FAA’s conclusion, after reviewing all the typical potential issues:

FAA has concluded that no significant impacts would occur as a result of SpaceX’s Proposed Action.

At this stage of the reassessment the FAA is seeking public comment through July 26, 2026. Expect the typical protests from the left, hostile to anything new (especially if Elon Musk is involved). Based on past rulings in these matters by the FAA (even when Biden was president), expect this expansion of landing sites to be approved. Under Trump expect the decision to be made more quickly, especially because this landing site expansion is crucial for allowing the company to begin routine orbital flights of Starship in preparation for NASA’s Artemis lunar landing.

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Democrat running for Texas attorney general wants to investigate Musk if elected

10:32 am

The Democratic Party in proper perspective
The Democratic Party, in proper perspective

They’re coming for you next: A Texas Democrat, Nathan Johnson, running for that state’s attorney general position, yesterday announced in an interview that he intends to investigate Elon Musk and SpaceX if elected, claiming the almost $110 million grant given to the company for its Starlink rural service was favoritism and corruption.

Not surprisingly, the Democrat sprinkled his accusations with a lie.

Johnson, who won the Democratic primary runoff for attorney general in May, said the award by Texas Republicans of 99% of the available grant funds to a company led by billionaire Musk, a Donald Trump ally, was lopsided. [emphasis mine]

The problem with Johnson’s claim is that it is utterly false. Texas awarded $1 billion in total grants to 17 different internet providers, with SpaceX getting a grant in the middle of the pack and only 11% of the total awarded. Other companies got far more, for doing far less.

Not surprising, both sources in the propaganda press, The Guardian and The Dallas Morning News, accepted this lie blindly, proving that neither has the slightest interest in reporting the news or any real facts, and are in fact more interested in acting as PR firms for the Democrats. Neither outlet spent even one nanosecond checking up on the Texas grant program. Its press release outlining the awards was remarkably transparent about the awards.

This story nicely exemplifies the modern ugly nature of both the Democratic Party and its supporters. They lie, are filled with envy, and are quite eager to use the power of government to destroy anyone who opposes them. No wonder the party has had no problem nominating and electing rapists, Nazis, and perverts as its candidates and officials.

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Saxavord approves August launch window for Rocket Factory Augsburg

8:40 am

Proposed or active spaceports in north Europe
Proposed or active spaceports in north Europe

The Saxavord spaceport yesterday announced it has approved a five week launch window beginning on August 10, 2026 during which the German startup Rocket Factory Augsburg will be permitted to attempt a launch of its RFA-1 rocket.

SaxaVord Spaceport said the launch window was designed to minimise disruption to everyday life in Unst while maintaining the highest safety standards. The window spans five weeks from Monday 10 August, but restrictions will not be in place continuously throughout that period. Instead, potential launch attempts can only take place on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays between 4pm and 8pm.

In April Rocket Factory had applied for a launch window opening on July 1st. As expected, Saxavord did not give it, likely because of regulatory demands by the United Kingdom’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). It appears the CAA had in 2024 required Saxavord to put in a perimeter fence surrounding the facility, and it had not done so. Last week the spaceport announced it would spend more than $100K to install the fence. I suspect this last delay is to give it time to do the work.

The launch itself will be Rocket Factory’s first attempt. In 2024 it was gearing up for a launch, but an explosion during the last static fire test of the first stage destroyed the stage and damaged the pad.

If this launch occurs as planned, it will end almost a decade of delays at Saxavord, almost all of which the result of red tape from the CAA. As a result, though Saxavord had a significant head start on the other spaceports shown on the map above, it remains uncertain whether it or Norway’s Andoya spaceport will achieve the first successful launch. The German rocket startup Isar Aerospace has been trying to launch from Andoya since last year. Its first attempt in 2025 was a failure, and its second attempt has been scrubbed three times since January. A new launch attempt is tentatively scheduled for later this month.

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Saxavord spaceport suddenly wants to spend £120K for a security fence

8:53 am

Proposed or active spaceports in north Europe
Proposed or active spaceports in north Europe

In what might cause another delay in the first launch from the United Kingdom’s Saxavord spaceport on the Shetland Islands, the spaceport’s management last week suddenly submitted a plan to spend £120K to build a security fence around the spaceport, even as the launch window for the German startup Rocket Factory Augsburg’s first launch had opened.

SaxaVord Spaceport has submitted a building warrant application detailing plans for a perimeter fence, which would be built at an estimated cost of around £120,000. The application was submitted last week, just ahead of the provisional launch window sought by German aerospace company Rocket Factory Augsburg, which took effect from 1st July.

It is part of wide ranging safety and security plans set out as part of SaxaVord’s range control licence, which was approved by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) in 2024.

Since Rocket Factory announced in April its application to launch during this July launch window, there has been no word from Saxavord if that window was approved. Nor has Rocket Factory provided any updates on any specific launch dates. It has delivered both rocket stages to Saxavord, but beyond that there have been no other updates.

This new security fencing suggests that a launch approval was denied by the CAA, because that fencing was not in place as ordered in 2024. It appears Saxavord is now scrambling to get it done so Rocket Factory can launch.

The CAA has a bad track record. The delays caused by that government agency due to its regulatory burdens has resulted in two rocket companies going bankrupt (Virgin Orbit and Orbex) and one spaceport shutting down (Sutherland). It would not surprise me if Rocket Factory does not launch in July. In fact, I predicted this in April. Hopefully my pessimism about the CAA is wrong, but at present I am skeptical.

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Academic publisher Springer Nature to divest itself of woke Scientific American

10:14 am

Scientific American logo
About to go the way of the dodo.

As the saying goes, “Go woke, go broke.” The academic publisher Springer Nature has now announced it is selling off its two consumer magazines, Scientific American and the German Spektrum der Wissenschaft, stating that it wishes “to focus on its core global publishing activities across research, health and education.”

I don’t know about the German magazine, but I do know that Scientific American has become a junk and very woke publication in recent years, unreliable for good reporting as its editorial policy has been instead to push a variety of leftists tropes, from queer sex theories to Covid falsehoods. As the article at the link notes,

The low-lights from the magazine’s stack of articles include:

  • Scientific American colluding with other media to normalize “climate emergency” terminology, despite vast swaths of scientific evidence showing the Earth’s climate has continuously changed over 4 billion years.
  • The magazine pushing “birth parent” terminology, which is utter nonsense in the face of real biology.
  • The magazine offering a ridiculous take on football injuries…tying them to racism.
  • Endorsing Kamala Harris for President.

Other examples of the magazine pushing junk science can be seen here and here.

The article above also notes the interesting timing of this announcement, just before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) was to approve the union its writer staff has recently overwhelming voted for. The unionization was supposedly about “compensation, workload, job security,” but it also included the demand for “editorial independence”, the typical code words used by the leftist journalists to demand the ability to write whatever they want, even if the magazine’s owners protest.

Well, rather than protest, this magazine’s owners decided to fire the magazine entirely.

Hat tip to reader Gary.

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Texas gives out $1 billion to corporate internet providers as part of federal BEAD program

3:19 pm

The state of Texas today announced the 17 internet providers (all big corporations) that it awarded $1 billion in grants under the federal government’s Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, ostensibly designed to help companies bring fast internet to remote rural areas, but has instead become a perfect example of crony capitalism, welfare for big corporations that don’t need the money but make the right political donations to the right politicians.

The list of companies that won awards is revealing. Rather than list them all, however, consider these three, the highest, lowest, and most well known:

  • Nexstream: $401,831,807 for fiber and fixed wireless to 32,404 locations
  • VTX Communications: $2,120,407 for fiber and fixed wireless to 261 locations
  • Starlink: $108,787,903 for low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite to 63,887 locations

In other words, Nexstream and VTX got grants of $12,400 and $8,124 for each location it provided service, while SpaceX only got $1,703, even though SpaceX by itself provided service to almost 1/4 of all the locations listed across the entire state, 63K out of 209K total. My guess is that the other companies spread the political wealth judiciously to the right people, something that SpaceX almost never does.

Even so, this distribution is far better than during the Biden administration, when it rescinded its grant to Starlink, claiming it had failed to provide any rural internet service, when in fact it was practically the only internet company successfully doing so. That rescinding occurred at almost the same time Musk revealed he was going to support the Republican Party.

Having noted this improvement, I still think this entire program is the worst sort of Washington corruption, and should be canceled. It is a waste of tax dollars — money we don’t have — going to companies that are already making huge profits from their own customers.

A side note: Five companies applied for grants and were denied, with Amazon’s Leo being the most recognizable. Amazon asked for $1.145 million, but since it hasn’t provided service yet to a single customer, its Leo constellation not yet operational, the Texas Broadband Development Office (BDO) rightly denied the request. Thank god for small blessings!

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The present state of NASA’s Artemis program

12:00 pm

Artemis logo

The aggressive effort by NASA administrator Jared Isaacman to rationalize and speed up the agency’s Artemis program to get back to the Moon and build a base there has resulted in a plethora of new missions, almost all of which are being built by the private sector.

Today Isaacman and his Moon Base program manager, Carlos García-Galán, held a press conference where they announced four more missions.

  • Astrobotic won a $297.9 million contract to build and fly two more of its smaller Peregrine lunar landers. This lander attempted a landing in 2024, but a fuel leak right after launch made that impossible.
  • Firefly won a $144.2 million contract to build and fly another Blue Ghost lander, the only commercial lander to successfully achieve a lunar soft landing, in 2025.
  • Intuitive Machines won a $148.3 million contract to build and fly another Nova-C lander. This lander attempted two landings, and in both cases it tipped over just after launch. The Nova-D design, under development, has a lower center of gravity, but for reasons not well explained by García-Galán NASA chose to go with the Nova-C design.

All are considered part of the first phase of the Artemis program and thus are targeting a launch by 2028.

In addition, NASA is considering using back-up equipment developed to build the Curiosity and Perseverance Mars rovers to create quickly and relatively inexpensively a lunar rover that they have dubbed “Promise.”

In order to make some sense of this program and these many misssions, I have created below a chronological list of confirmed missions, with their present status indicated (including uncertainties), as well as some unconfirmed missions based on my own speculations. All dates are tentative at this point, even if NASA has provided us a specific target date.

Several things to note as you review this list. While there are handful of missions going elsewhere, Isaacman is attempting to focus the program toward landing at the planned lunar base near the south pole, and to do so as fast as possible in the most effective way. The cargo missions and rovers are to get there ahead of the manned missions, in order to provide the astronauts supplies and surface transportation once they arrive. Those same missions will also do some preliminary scouting, and likely carry power and excavation equpiment needed to build the base.

It is also important to note that this plan is still in its very early stages of development. Many of the rockets and spacecraft and landers needed for these missions are not yet operational. Many have not yet demonstrated the capability to do what is requested. Thus, the program will certainly not follow the plan as presently outlined by the agency. Moreover, there will be failures along the way.

The program however is designed to accelerate development, to accept those failures within the program’s larger scope. If one mission fails, others are on the table to fly quickly to overcome the loss. And since the program is relying on the entire aerospace industry, the agency will have great redundancy from many companies.

I welcome comments and suggested changes or corrections. I fully intend to publish this list repeatedly over the coming years as the Artemis program evolves. And as the private sector begins flying its own missions to the Moon, independent of NASA, I intend to include those as well.
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NASA’s IG: Boeing must foot the bill to get Starliner certified for manned flights

10:02 am

Starliner docked to ISS
Starliner docked to ISS.

The inspector general (IG) for NASA today released a new audit report [pdf] of the agency’s management of its manned commercial crew program, specifically looking at Boeing’s Starliner capsule and its failures. Though the IG made six recommendations, mostly about management procedures to better run the program, the first was the most important:

As the [Boeing] contract allows, defer payments, including partial or advanced payments, to Boeing for any Starliner-3 milestones until the human-rating certification of Starliner is complete.

In other words, the IG doesn’t want NASA to pay Boeing anything more. Boeing’s contract for Starliner was fixed price. It is Boeing’s responsibility to deliver the product, and until it does so NASA should lay out no more cash.

More significantly, NASA’s management immediately concurred with this recommendation.

This IG report now explains much of what happened in the past few months. » Read more

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The rise and fall of two Australian spaceports

8:53 am

Australian commercial spaceports
Australia’s commercial spaceports as of 2024. Click for original map.

Two stories today about the success of one Australian commercial spaceport and the failure of another illustrate perfectly the normal ups and downs one can expect from freedom and capitalism.

The ports in question are Southern Launch and Equatorial Launch Australia. In the first story, Southern Launch announced today that it has raised $25 million in private investment capital.

Adelaide-based spaceport operator Southern Launch has raised $25 million in a funding round led by national security investor Brindabella & Company, with the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation (NRFC) committing $10 million in direct equity to help scale Australia’s sovereign launch infrastructure.

The capital will fund expansion of Southern Launch’s two facilities – the Koonibba Test Range on the far west coast of South Australia and the Whalers Way Orbital Launch Complex near Port Lincoln – as the company works to meet growing demand from domestic and international launch customers.

Though the spaceport has obtained several tentative launch contacts, this success is mostly the result of its multiple contracts by capsule companies to use Koonibba as a landing site. There is a boom in this recoverable capsule industry at this time — with lots of investment money and multiple companies flying or building capsules. Koonibba at this moment has become the go-to place for such landings.

In the second story, we learn the sad fate of Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA). » Read more

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