Tag: capitalism

Astroscale to go public

8:51 am

abandoned upper stage, taken by ADRAS-J
Click for original image.

The Japanese orbital tug start-up Astroscale announced yesterday that it is becoming a publicly traded company on the Tokyo stock market, beginning June 5, 2024.

The company plans to offer 20.8 million shares in the initial public offering, but has not announced a share price. According to filings with the exchange, Astroscale will set that price May 27.

Astroscale has raised more than $375 million through a series of private rounds, most recently a $76 million Series G round in February 2023. That funding has primarily come from Japanese investors, including a strategic investment by Mitsubishi Electric in that Series G round.

The company has also won two major contracts with Japan’s space agency JAXA, building its two ADRAS-J missions to first rendezvous and survey an abandoned upper stage (as shown to the right) and then fly a grapple mission to de-orbit that stage sometime in the future.

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NASA announces launch coverage for the first Starliner manned capsule launch on May 6, 2024

10:23 am

NASA today released the details for its public media coverage of the first manned launch at 10:34 pm (Eastern) on May 6, 2024 of Boeing’s Starliner capsule.

NASA will provide live coverage of prelaunch and launch activities for the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test, which will carry NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to and from the International Space Station.

Launch of the ULA (United Launch Alliance) Atlas V rocket and Boeing Starliner spacecraft is targeted for 10:34 p.m. EDT Monday, May 6, from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The flight test will carry Wilmore and Williams to the space station for about a week to test the Starliner spacecraft and its subsystems before NASA certifies the transportation system for rotational missions to the orbiting laboratory for the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.

Starliner will dock to the forward-facing port of the station’s Harmony module at 12:48 a.m., Wednesday, May 8.

Though that coverage includes several prelaunch and post launch press conferences, the key coverage of the launch itself will begin at 6:30 pm (Eastern) on May 6th, about four hours before the launch itself. It will also include the capsule’s docking with ISS on May 8th.

I will embed NASA’s Youtube live stream here on Behind the Black on both dates, though as always I sugggest waiting until just before launch and docking to tune in. The four hours of streaming prior to launch is mostly going to be NASA propaganda, touting the agency and often misconstruing the facts to overstate its importance. This launch will be just like SpaceX’s Dragon launches, in that almost everything will be run by the two private companies involved, Boeing and ULA, and not NASA. NASA’s real involvement will only begin at the docking to ISS.

This first manned flight of Starliner is long past due. It was supposed to occur about four years ago, but numerous technological and management problems at Boeing forced many delays. Getting that capsule operational will finally give NASA two American companies capable of putting humans in space. It will also offer some competition to SpaceX, though this competition will be weak until Boeing can demonstrate Starliner’s reliability.

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NASA wants to know the important technology the commercial space industry needs

10:10 am

Capitalism in space: NASA is now asking the commercial space industry to tell it which of 187 “technology shortfalls” it should give priority to for funding.

The agency has released a list of 187 “technology shortfalls,” or topics where current technology requires additional development to meet NASA’s future needs. The shortfalls are in 20 areas ranging from space transportation and life support to power and thermal management.

Through a website, the agency is inviting people to review the listed technologies and rate their importance through May 13. NASA will use that input to help prioritize those technologies for future investment to bridge the shortfalls.

This decision illustrates well NASA’s effort in the past decade to shift from being the boss which tells the space industry what to do to becoming a servant of that industry. In the past NASA would focus solely on what it considered its needs in deciding what new technology to fund. Often that would result in projects that NASA considered cool, but were dead-ends commercially, never used by anyone.

Now NASA wants to function more like it used to prior to 1957, when it was called the NACA. Then it worked to provide the engineering data that the aviation industry requested. This change is great news, because it means that NASA’s many small technology development contracts will better serve the needs of the industry and its need to make profits, rather the government’s wish list of projects, some of which serve no one’s real need.

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SES to buy Intelsat for $3.1 billion

9:57 am

Two of the world’s largest and oldest satellite companies of merging. The Luxembourg satellite company SES today announced that it is buying outright the American-based satellite company Intelsat for $3.1 billion in cash.

The companies announced April 30 that they had agreed on the deal, subject to regulatory approvals. SES will pay $3.1 billion in cash along with certain contingent value rights for 100% of Intelsat. The transaction is not expected to close until the second half of 2025.

SES said it will fund the deal through existing cash on hand, which it estimates to be $2.6 billion at the end of March, along with debt. The combined company would have about $4.1 billion in annual revenues and estimated adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $1.9 billion this year. The combined company will remain headquartered in Luxembourg, where SES is based, but will maintain a “significant presence” at Intelsat’s home in the Washington, D.C., area.

These companies had tried to put together a merger deal in early 2023 but those negotiations failed.

This merger continues the consolidation of the older satellite companies that have for decades been focused on building larger high-orbit geosynchronous satellites and are now feeling great competitive pressure from the low-orbit constellations of Starlink and OneWeb.

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ESA is taking the Vega rockets away from Arianespace and giving it to the company that builds it

9:47 am

Capitalism in space: The European Space Agency (ESA) is in the process of taking control of the Vega family of rockets away from its commercial arm, Arianespace, and returning that ownership to the Italian company, Avio, that builds those rockets.

In late 2023, ESA member states agreed to allow Avio to market and manage the launch of Vega C flights independent of Arianespace. When the deal was initially struck, 17 flights were contracted through Arianespace to be launched aboard Vega vehicles. While these missions are still managed by Arianespace, Avio is working with the launch provider to strike a deal that would allow the Italian rocket builder to assume the management of all Vega flights.

The article’s focus is on a new contract that ESA has just awarded to Vega through Arianespace. noting that this contract will likely be shifted to Avio before launch in 2025.

This decision continues the process of slowly killing off Arianespace. Instead of relying on this government entity to build and market its launch operations, ESA is instead going to become a customer only, relying on competing commercial rocket companies for its launch services. When Avio completes its takeover of Vega, Arianespace will only be responsible for the Ariane-6 rocket, which is built by ArianeGroup and essentially owns it as well. Expect that rocket to be shifted completely to ArianeGroup. At that point Arianespace will no longer have any reason for existing, and will be shut down.

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Why the release of the EU’s own space law has been delayed

10:47 am

In the fall of 2023 officials of the European Union (EU) announced that they expected to release the Union’s own space law, that would regulate the individual space laws of all member nations. Since then the release of that law has been put back several times, and in early April its release was delayed until the summer, after the EU elections in June.

This article published today provides the likely reasons why it has been delayed. Apparently, individual members of the EU have objected to the law as interfering with their own space laws as well as imposing regulations they don’t want or need.

The EU Space Law will need to overcome several obstacles to become a functional and beneficial piece of legislation. Several EU Member States already have national space legislation and are actively engaged in space activities, while an increasing number are adopting domestic frameworks and expanding their presence in the space sector. In a heavily regulated environment, where countries have long established and enforced national laws, the practical implementation of a space law at the EU level may be contested.

The article then lists three reasons for these objections. First, the EU has no experience or stake in this matter. It launches nothing and thus can only pose an additional obstacle to the growing commercial space industries in member countries. Second, an EU space law is certainly going to conflict with the space laws of member countries. Third, this law’s implementation could significantly interfere with the legal timelines established by individual member countries.

The article also lists three reasons why the EU law might be good, but these reasons really can be summed up as attempting to justify the EU’s power grab over the space efforts of the member countries.

In the end, this analysis tells us that the EU’s power grab has been met by significant opposition behind the scenes, and could very well die because of that opposition. Germany, Italy, Spain, and more recently even France have begun to encourage the development of independent competing rocket companies, and all likely fear this EU space law will only get in the way.

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The plan for SpaceX’s first demo in-orbit refueling mission of Starship

10:23 am

Link here The details come from a presentation at a public meeting by Amit Kshatriya, Deputy Associate Administrator of NASA’s Moon to Mars program, with this the key takeaway:

Kshatriya then expanded the discussion beyond the next few Starship flights and talked about the required technologies for a fuel depot in orbit and the in-orbit capabilities needed to transfer fuel. “We need an instance of the ship that is essentially long, has the endurance to stay in orbit long enough for the sequence to work.

“So, we need a ship that has at least three to four weeks of endurance in orbit. That endurance is gained through augmented power system capability, augmented battery capacity, full insulation of the cryogenic systems, vacuum jacketing of all the lines, et cetera, to make sure that the cryogens that are being stored or are meant to be stored don’t boil off.”

The challenges of a cryogenic ship in orbit include the need to prevent boil-off from the stack. To facilitate the journey to the Moon’s surface, Starship will have to be refueled. For this, the company plans to refuel a depot in low-Earth orbit (LEO), which would be resupplied by several tanker Starships. The HLS Starship would then dock with this depot before departing for the Moon.

To prove this system will require a Starship test flight that lasts several weeks in orbit, to prove the capability needed for a lunar mission. It will also require a refueling mission that will require several Starship/Superheavy launches, one to put the fuel depot into orbit, several more to fuel that depot, and a final launch of Starship for its refueling and endurance test.

According to the update, SpaceX is still aiming to be ready of the upcoming fourth Superheavy/Starship demo orbital flight in the first two weeks. The NASA official claimed it would occur no later than the end of May. I see that as a confirmation that NASA really doesn’t expect the FAA to issue a launch permit when SpaceX is ready, and that the permit might not arrive in time for a May launch. This statement is meant to soften the blow when the launch finally gets delayed into June, or later.

Whether the many required later Starship launches as described above can get FAA approval quick enough to prove out this system soon enough to meet NASA’s 2026 present target date for its manned lunar landing seems very unlikely. Moreover, even if it does it will be a major challenge for SpaceX to meet this schedule.

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SpaceX launches 23 more Starlink satellites

3:17 pm

March on bunny! SpaceX today successfully launched another 23 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage completed its thirteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

44 SpaceX
17 China
6 Russia
5 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 51 to 29, while SpaceX by itself still leads the rest of the world, including other American companies, 44 to 36.

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SpaceX launches two Galileo satellites, part of Europe’s GPS-type satellite constellation

7:50 pm

SpaceX today successfully launched two satellites of Europe’s Galileo GPS-type satellite constellation, the first of a two-launch contract awarded to SpaceX when the Soyuz rocket was no longer available because of Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine and Arianespace’s Ariane-6 rocket was not yet operational.

The first stage completed its 20th flight, tying the record set by another booster only a few weeks ago. Because of the high orbit required by both satellites, that stage was not recovered, the first time SpaceX has expended a first stage since November 2022. SpaceX however also announced that the company is now working to upgrade its Falcon 9 first stages and fairings to fly as many as 40 missions. The two fairings also completed their fourth flight, which brought the total of fairings SpaceX has recovered to 200.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

43 SpaceX
17 China
6 Russia
5 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 50 to 29, while SpaceX by itself still leads the rest of the world, including other American companies, 43 to 36.

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ESA shuffles the management and structure of its ClearSpace-1 space junk removal mission

12:59 pm

The European Space Agency (ESA) this week did a major shake-up in the management and structure of its ClearSpace-1 space junk removal mission that had previously been awarded to the Swiss orbital tug startup Clearspace.

Moving forward OHB SE will take over the responsibility of leading the ClearSpace-1 consortium. The Bremen-based company will provide the satellite bus and will be in charge of system integration and launch. ClearSpace will be responsible for the close proximity and capture operations once the vehicle is in orbit.

In addition to the change in leadership, the mission’s target has also been adjusted, with ClearSpace-1 now expected to rendezvous and capture PROBA-1. The 94-kilogram ESA technology demonstrator was launched aboard an ISRO PSLV rocket in October 2001.

The original target, a payload adaptor from a 2013 Vega launch, had been hit by another piece of junk, damaging it and making it a much more difficult target to grab, using the four grapple arms of the Clearspace spacecraft. No timeline for when this revised mission will fly was announced.

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France’s space agency puts out calls for rocket companies to lease the French Guiana launchpad formerly used by Russia’s Soyuz rocket

10:51 am

Capitalism in space: France’s space agency CNES has now issued a request for commercial rocket companies to bid on leasing the launchpad formerly used by Russia to launch its Soyuz rocket from French Guiana.

The launchpad became available after the European Space Agency (ESA) broke off its partnerships with Russia in February 2022.

Following the cessation of Soyuz launches, it was agreed that ESA would transfer ownership of the site back to CNES under the provision that it would host two new launch systems. The first will be selected by CNES as part of its recently published call. The second will be selected by ESA as part of the agency’s launcher challenge, which was publically announced in late 2023.

According to the CNES call, prospective candidate vehicles will be required to be capable of deploying payloads of at least 1.5 tonnes into low Earth orbit. Additionally, a maiden flight from the launch site will need to be completed no later than 2027. This will drastically limit the potential bidders.

The article at the link lists three potential bidders, Rocket Factory Augsburg, Maiaspace, and Avio. The first two are rocket startups, having not yet launched a rocket. Avio is the lead contractor for Arianespace’s Vega family of rockets, so it already has experience with an operational rocket, though that rocket is presently grounded due to recent launch failures.

There are a number of other rocket startups in Europe, including PLD in Spain and Hyimpulse and Isar in Germany. The incentive to bid for this launchpad might encourage them to upgrade their rocket to meet the bidding requirements.

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NASA: first launch of New Glenn is targeting a September 29, 2024 launch date

10:23 am

According to a presentation given by a NASA official at a conference in London yesterday, the first launch of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket is now targeting a September 29, 2024 launch.

In a presentation at a meeting of a planetary protection committee of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) in London April 24, Nick Benardini, NASA’s planetary protection officer, listed a Sept. 29 date for the launch of Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) mission, a pair of smallsats that will go into orbit around Mars to measure the interaction of the planet’s magnetosphere with the solar wind.

NASA selected Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket to launch ESCAPADE, awarding the company a $20 million task order through the agency’s Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare contract in February 2023 for the mission. The award at the time mentioned only a late 2024 launch, with the expectation that ESCAPADE would be on one of the first, if not the first, flight of the rocket.

Benardini mentioned ESCAPADE in his COSPAR presentation to discuss how the mission was complying with planetary protection requirements, intended to prevent any contamination of Mars, during the assembly of the spacecraft and launch preparations at Cape Canaveral. “They’re slated to be launching Sept. 29 with Blue Origin,” he said.

This is the first time any source at NASA or Blue Origin has revealed a specific launch date. The rocket was originally supposed to fly its first orbital test flight four years ago, but numerous delays, mostly related to the BE-4 engine used by the rocket’s first stage as well as decisions by the company’s former CEO, Bob Smith, to slow all development, pushed that launch back repeatedly. With Smith leaving late last year, the company has suddenly come back to life, with many indications that it was pushing for a launch this year.

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