Tag: capitalism

Europe’s new long term space strategy calls for its own independent and competing manned program

10:25 am

Figure 6 from the Terrae Novae policy paper

The new colonial movement: The European Space Agency (ESA) yesterday unveiled a new roadmap for its future space effort, aimed primarily in developing an independent space program capable of launching its own astronauts and taking them to both the Moon and Mars.

The program is dubbed Terrae Novae (“New Worlds”) and aims to put European astronauts on other worlds using its own rockets and landers by the 2030s. The graphic to the right, figure 6 from the policy paper, illustrates this long term goal.

From the full document [pdf]:
» Read more

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ArianeGroup chosen by Europe to develop reusable rockets

9:47 am

The new colonial movement: The European Commission, which makes the major decisions for the European Space Agency, has chosen the European commercial company ArianeGroup to run two programs designed to produce that continent’s first reusable rocket.

From the press release [pdf]:

The SALTO project will facilitate the first flight tests of the Themis reusable stage demonstrator in Kiruna, Sweden. The ENLIGHTEN project will speed up the development and introduction of reusable engine technologies.

The main goal of SALTO will be to develop the kind of vertical landing technology that SpaceX now does routinely. ENLIGHTEN in turn will develop rocket engines using either methane or hydrogen as the fuel. The total budget allocated for both is just under 50 million euros, which seems quite small. The press release also made no mention of a schedule for accomplishing these tasks.

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Rocket Lab’s Photon completes course corrections, deploys CAPSTONE to Moon

8:45 am

Capitalism in space: Rocket Lab’s Photon upper stage successfully completed its seventh engine burn, putting NASA’s cubesat test lunar orbital on a path toward the Moon.

Following its launch on June 28, CAPSTONE orbited Earth attached to Rocket Lab’s Photon upper stage, which maneuvered CAPSTONE into position for its journey to the Moon. Over the past six days, Photon’s engines fired seven times at key moments to raise the orbit’s highest point to around 810,000 miles from Earth before releasing the CAPSTONE CubeSat on its ballistic lunar transfer trajectory to the Moon. The spacecraft is now being flown by the teams at Advanced Space and Terran Orbital. [emphasis mine]

From here on out CAPSTONE will use its own tiny thrusters to do any course corrections as it heads for an arrival in lunar orbit on November 13, 2022.

The highlighted words in the quote above are significant in and of themselves. The spacecraft is not being operated by NASA. In fact, other than paying for it, NASA has little to do with CAPSTONE. It was designed and built by Terran Orbital. It was launched by Rocket Lab. And it is now being controlled by Advanced Space, a private commercial company focused on providing in-space operations for others.

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Virgin Orbit puts seven Space Force smallsats in orbit

10:05 am

Capitalism in space: Virgin Orbit last night successfully launched seven smallsats for the Space Force, using its Cosmic Girl 747 carrier plane and its LauncherOne rocket.

This was the company’s first night time launch, and its second in 2022. The leader board for the 2022 launch race remains the same:

27 SpaceX
21 China
8 Russia
4 Rocket Lab
4 ULA

The U.S. now leads China 39 to 21 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 39 to 35.

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In 2022 freedom continues to fuel the launch industry towards new records

4:27 pm

With 2022 now half over, we can now get a quick sense of the state of the world’s rocket industry by the number of launches that have so far been accomplished this year.

Last year was the most successful year in rocketry since the launch of Sputnik in 1957. Both nations and private companies managed to launch successfully 134 times, one more than the previous record in 1975. Similarly, with 48 launches in 2021, the U.S. completed the most launches since the height of the 1960s space race, 48 total.

These high numbers last year also suggested that the growth was not a one time thing, but based on a wider sustained growth that would continue.

It now appears that both these records will be smashed in 2022. Below is a graph showing the total number of successful launches year-by-year by the United States since Sputnik, as of June 30, 2022.
» Read more

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Kepler signs up D-Orbit’s orbital tug for its next two satellites

9:56 am

Capitalism in space: The Canadian company Kepler — which already has nineteen satellites in orbit providing data communications — will use the orbital tug developed by the start-up D-Orbit and dubbed ION on its next two satellites.

After separating from the launch vehicle, D-Orbit intends to use ION to drop Kepler’s satellites off at a sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) between 500 and 600 kilometers. Each satellite is the size of six cubesats, a standard smallsat form factor measuring 10 centimeters on each side.

Kepler previously had a deal to use Momentus’s Vigoride tug, but delays and further in-orbit technical problems with that tug has apparently forced it to switch to D-Orbit.

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OneWeb signs up startup rocket company Relativity for future satellite launches

9:34 am

Capitalism in space: The rocket startup Relativity, which hopes to complete its first test launch of its small Terran-1 rocket before the end of the year, yesterday announced that it has won a launch contract with OneWeb to use its larger but not-yet-ready-for-launch Terran-R rocket to place future OneWeb satellites into orbit.

Under the agreement, Relativity will launch OneWeb’s low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites on Terran-R, the first fully reusable and entirely 3D printed rocket, starting in 2025. These launches will support OneWeb’s deployment of its Gen 2 satellite network, which will add capacity and fresh capabilities to build upon the initial constellation of 648 satellites the company is currently building out.

Since its launch contract with Arianespace using Russian Soyuz rockets fell apart due to Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine, OneWeb has been signing up a range of rocket companies, first SpaceX, then India, now Relativity. Apparently the satellite company realized it was a bad idea to depend on only one rocket, and is now lining up several to make sure its satellites can launch on schedule, no matter what.

For Relativity, this agreement solidifies its future, even before it has completed its first launch. It now has five customers for its Terran-R rocket, with contracts worth $1.2 billion. All it has to do now to become a major player in the global launch market is to get its rockets off the ground.

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FCC approves Starlink for moving vehicles; rejects DISH’s request to use Starlink wavelength

9:06 am

The FCC made two decisions yesterday that were both favorable to SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation.

First, it gave Starlink permission to provide service on moving vehicles such as cars, trucks, boats, and aircraft. Second, it rejected a DISH network request to use a wavelength in its ground-based system that is presently being used by both Starlink and OneWeb satellites.

This decision will continue the shift in communications from high-orbit/ground-based to low-orbit satellite constellations.

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Rocket Lab’s Photon upper stage completes 3rd of 7 engine firings to get CAPSTONE to Moon

9:37 am

Rocket Lab’s Photon upper stage has now successfully completed the third of seven planned engine burns designed to slowly raise the Earth orbit of NASA’s experimental lunar cubesat CAPSTONE so that it can eventually be sent towards the Moon.

Lunar Photon’s HyperCurie engine will perform a series of orbit raising maneuvers by igniting periodically to increase Photon’s velocity, stretching its orbit into a prominent ellipse around Earth. Six days after launch, HyperCurie will ignite one final time, accelerating Photon Lunar to 24,500 mph (39,500 km/h) and setting it on a ballistic lunar transfer. Within 20 minutes of this final burn, Photon will release CAPSTONE into space for the first leg of the CubeSat’s solo flight. CAPSTONE’s journey to NRHO is expected to take around four months from this point. Assisted by the Sun’s gravity, CAPSTONE will reach a distance of 963,000 miles from Earth – more than three times the distance between Earth and the Moon – before being pulled back towards the Earth-Moon system.

Once in lunar orbit, CAPSTONE will be used to both test operations in that orbit (similar to the one NASA’s Lunar Gateway space station will use) while also demonstrating the use of a cubesat on an interplanetary mission.

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Amazon to FCC: Consider limiting SpaceX’s Starlink constellation for our benefit

9:28 am

In a letter sent to the FCC last week, Amazon asked the agency to limit the size of SpaceX’s full constellation so that Amazon will be free to someday launch its own Kuiper constellation.

In the recent letter, Amazon recommends the FCC license a “subset of SpaceX’s proposed system” (as opposed to the whole fleet) to give the agency additional time to consider the “novel challenges” such a significant expansion might present. For example, Amazon believes hundreds to “more than 10,000” of SpaceX’s new satellites could be operating in the altitudes already approved for its Kuiper satellites, which could cause interference in the spectrum and “orbital overlap.” The company claims SpaceX has refused its requests for communication around these concerns as it has urged the FCC to approve its application. It also cites eight other satellite operations who have objected to the plan, including Dish Network, which is currently engaged in a public battle over radio frequencies with SpaceX.

Amazon’s concerns might carry more weight if the launch of its constellation was not so delayed. Both Amazon and SpaceX began development of their satellite constellations at about the same time. Yet, while SpaceX has already launched almost 3,000 satellites, and is providing its service to several hundred thousand customers, Amazon has yet to launch a single satellite.

Thus, though what Amazon is asking the FCC seems reasonable, it is also asking the FCC to block a competitor’s successful operation while it dilly-dallies along, accomplishing little.

This pattern from Amazon fits the pattern of all of Jeff Bezos’s space-related projects: Big promises, little action, and when competitors get things done sue or demand the government play favorites. Sure does not seem to me to be a good long-term business plan.

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SpaceX launches SES communications satellite

2:14 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX today successfully launched a SES communications satellite, using its Falcon 9 rocket.

The first stage, making its second flight, successfully landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic. As of this writing, the satellite itself has not yet been deployed.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

27 SpaceX
21 China
8 Russia
4 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads China 37 to 21 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 37 to 34.

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