Tag: capitalism

OneWeb to resume satellite launches this year, complete constellation by mid-2023

9:24 am

Capitalism in space: According to one OneWeb official at a conference yesterday, the company now expects to resume launching its satellites on SpaceX and Indian rockets by the fourth quarter of this year and will complete its constellation by the second quarter of next year.

Launches were suspended when Russia refused to do a launch — and confiscated the 36 satellites — after Europe imposed sanctions in response to the Russian invasion of the Ukraine.

Speaking at the Fourth Summit for Space Sustainability by the Secure World Foundation and the U.K. Space Agency, Maurizio Vanotti, vice president of space infrastructure development and partnerships at OneWeb, said new launch agreements with SpaceX and NewSpace India Ltd. (NSIL) would allow the company to launch the remaining satellites of its first-generation system by the second quarter of 2023.

“Our plan is to be back on the launch pad in quarter four, after the summer, and to complete deployment of the constellation by quarter two next year,” he said. It will take several months after that final launch for the satellites to move to their operational orbits, he added. “We’re going to be in service with global coverage, 24/7, by the end of next year,” he said.

At present OneWeb has not revealed the breakdown of launches from the two companies.

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Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine set for “commissioning” tests

1:29 pm

Capitalism in space: According to a tweet from Blue Origin on June 21, 2022, engineers have finally installed a flight-worthy engine on the test stand in Huntsville for static fire “commissioning” tests.

This is an engine that was supposed to be delivered to ULA for its new Vulcan rocket more than two years ago. With final engine tests only beginning now, it likely means the engine will not be delivered for at least several more months.

ULA will then have to install it in the rocket, and do its own fueling and static fire tests. All this suggests that a Vulcan launch before the end of this year is almost impossible.

When Blue Origin’s own New Glenn rocket will fly using the BE-4 is utterly unknown. ULA at least has built a full-scale test version of Vulcan and done launch countdown rehearsals in order to iron out issues with its launchpad and ground systems. Blue Origin has done none of this.

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Blue Origin determines New Shepard ticket prices by who you are and what you can pay

9:08 am

From the first commercial launch of Blue Origin’s suborbital New Shepard spacecraft in 2021, the company has refused to reveal what its standard price is for a ticket.

Now, after five flights and fourteen passengers, one journalist has determined that the company does not appear to have a standard price, but instead determines its prices depending on who you are and what you can pay.

Blue Origin doesn’t advertise price information on its flight reservation page. Passengers say they have paid from zero to nearly $30 million. Industry insiders say Blue Origin’s ticket price is tailored to individual passengers based on a variety of factors.

“It’s not about money; it’s about who you are, your social capital, whether you align with their launch purposes. It’s kind of a package deal,” said Roman Chiporukha, cofounder of SpaceVIP, a platform that helps the wealthy book space trips, including Blue Origin’s. Blue Origin declined to discuss its pricing strategy. [emphasis mine]

How very socialist of Blue Origin, to treat people differently depending on such factors. Under this policy, people have paid from zero to $28 million per ticket.

The ticket policy itself is not illegal — as long as the price differences are not related to race, ethnicity, sex, or religion. It is just unseemly to consider a person’s wealth and status in determining a price.

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The battlelines and alliances shift over big satellite constellations in space

9:41 am

Two stories today show that the competition for frequency use and orbital territory in space are shifting, partly because of international politics and partly due to changes in technology.

First the harsh conflict between OneWeb and Starlink over the positioning and frequency use of their constellations in orbit now appears to have vanished.

The companies have written a joint letter to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), declaring harmony in low Earth orbit (LEO) for spectrum coordination between their respective current and next generation broadband constellations.

In the letter, which is dated June 13, SpaceX and OneWeb request that the FCC disregard previously filed dissenting comments regarding spectrum coordination in LEO. SpaceX and OneWeb both submitted proposals for their first-generation internet constellations to the FCC in 2016, followed by a second round of proposals in 2020 for each company’s next-generation broadband satellites. Simultaneously, both SpaceX and OneWeb submitted complaints with the FCC in an attempt to get a leg up on each other. Now, it seems the companies are operating on friendlier terms.

The article I think correctly speculates that this new-found cooperation probably resulted from OneWeb’s need to use SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets to get its satellites in orbit, caused by Russia’s confiscation of 36 OneWeb satellites in response to Europen sanctions over the Ukraine War. During the launch negotiations I am sure SpaceX demanded both iron out their differences relating to the satellite constellations. While SpaceX might have been able to gain some advantages in that negotiation due to its strong position, I also suspect that OneWeb has not been hurt in any major way.

In the second story, SpaceX ramped up its opposition to a Dish 5G system in a wavelength used by its Starlink satellties.
» Read more

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SpaceX completes its third launch in less than 48 hours

9:41 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX tonight successfully completed its third launch in less than 48 hours, launching a commercial communications satellite.

The first stage completed its ninth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. At this moment, though the satellite is in orbit it has not yet been deployed.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

26 SpaceX
18 China
8 Russia
3 Rocket Lab
3 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 35 to 18 in the national rankings, and leads the entire world combined 35 to 29.

At this point the U.S. is halfway to matching its annual record for launches of 70, set in 1966. With the year not quite half over, the U.S. is also only seven launches behind its total of 48 last year, which had been the most launches for the U.S. in a year since 1968. SpaceX itself is only five launches behind its own record of 31 from last year, and is easily on a pace to meet its goal of 60 launches this year.

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SpaceX successfully launches German military satellite

8:45 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX this morning used its Falcon 9 rocket to successfully launch a German reconnaissance satellite, completing its second of three launches this weekend.

The first stage completed its third flight, landing at Vandenberg, in thick fog. The third launch is set for just after midnight tonight.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

25 SpaceX
18 China
8 Russia
3 Rocket Lab
3 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 34 to 18 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 34 to 29.

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Musk sued even as a handful of employees organize to slander him

9:59 am

Musk hate: In the past twenty-four hours, the rising effort to damage SpaceX and Elon Musk by many in our generally petty and envious elitist culture reached new levels, as illustrated by two different stories.

First, it appears a small group of anonymous “woke” employees at SpaceX organized a campaign to publish a letter condemning Elon Musk.

An open letter to company executives was posted in an internal SpaceX Microsoft Teams channel with more than 2,600 employees, the Verge reported on Thursday (June 16). The letter asks the founder of SpaceX and Tesla to change his ways. “Elon’s behavior in the public sphere is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us, particularly in recent weeks,” the letter states.

…”As our CEO and most prominent spokesperson, Elon is seen as the face of SpaceX — every tweet that Elon sends is a de facto public statement by the company,” the letter adds. “It is critical to make clear to our teams and to our potential talent pool that his messaging does not reflect our work, our mission or our values.”

Unlike most corporations today — that routinely kow-tow to such attacks — SpaceX’s management pushed back hard, with the company’s CEO, Gwynne Shotwell, immediately issuing a strong company-wide email condemning the letter and announcing that an investigation has identified several people involved and has fired them. From her email:
» Read more

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Ariane-6 rocket delayed again

9:27 am

Capitalism in space: The first launch of ArianeGroup’s new rocket, Ariane-6, has been delayed again, and will not launch this year as planned.

The new delay appears mostly related to getting the rocket’s ground systems up and running.

The rocket, being built for the European Space Agency’s commercial division, Arianespace, had originally been scheduled for launch in 2020. Initially the rocket struggled to find customers, because it is not reusable and is thus more expensive. That changed in the past few months with the Ukraine War eliminating Russian rockets as a competitor combined with a new gigantic launch contract from Amazon to launch a large number of its Kuiper satellites using Ariane-6.

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SpaceX launches another 53 Starlink satellites

9:20 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX today successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to launch another 53 Starlink satellites into orbit, initiating a weekend where the company hopes to complete three launches in three days.

At the time of this writing, the satellites had not yet been deployed. The first stage landed successfully on the drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean, completing its 13th flight, a new record. The video of the landing at the link was also one of the clearest yet, with little drop-out or distortion.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

24 SpaceX
18 China
8 Russia
3 Rocket Lab
3 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 33 to 18 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 33 to 29.

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Firefly founder stepping down as CEO

9:08 am

Capitalism in space: Tom Markusic, the founder of the smallsat rocket startup Firefly, is now stepping down as CEO, apparently forced out by the company’s new investors.

The company said that Markusic would shift from chief executive to a new role of chief technical advisor, effective June 16. He will remain a member of the company’s board and a “significant minority investor” in the company.

The move comes four months after AE Industrial Partners (AEI), a private equity firm, agreed to acquire a “significant stake” in Firefly from Noosphere Venture Partners, which sold its interest in Firefly at the request of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. Noopshere is a fund run by Ukrainian-born investor Max Polyakov. In March, AEI said it was leading Firefly’s $75 million Series B round.

The statement suggested that Firefly’s new owners wanted new leadership for the company as it prepares a second launch of its Alpha rocket. That launch is expected no earlier than mid-July from Vandenberg Space Force Base, nearly a year after the first Alpha launch failed.

Essentially, the two people that created this company and then saved it have been forced outt, largely as a result of federal government demands. Polyakov was forced to sell to AEI by the government because he was not American, and it appears AEI then forced Markusic out.

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NASA shuffles crew for first Starliner manned mission

8:48 am

In a press release yesterday, NASA announced the two-person crew that will fly on the first manned mission of Boeing’s Starliner capsule to ISS.

[C]ommander Barry “Butch” Wilmore, whom NASA assigned to the prime crew in October 2020, will join NASA astronaut Suni Williams, who will serve as pilot. Williams previously served as the backup test pilot for CFT [crew test flight] while assigned as commander of NASA’s Boeing Starliner-1 mission, Starliner’s first post-certification mission. As CFT pilot, Williams takes the place of NASA astronaut Nicole Mann, originally assigned to the mission in 2018. NASA reassigned Mann to the agency’s SpaceX Crew-5 mission in 2021.

The crew for this flight, delayed now more than two years, has changed several times. In 2020 astronaut Chris Ferguson dropped out for personal reasons. Then NASA listed the crew as Wilmore, Mike Finke, and Nicole Mann, with Williams then assigned to Starliner’s next mission, its first long term flight to ISS.

With this change, the crew has been reduced to two, and Finke is now listed as a backup should something further change with the prime crew.

The press release made no mention of an actual launch date, though it did say that Boeing and NASA are still reviewing the data from Starliner’s unmanned demo mission:

The Starliner team is in the process of delivering the initial test flight data to NASA and jointly determining forward work ahead of a crewed flight. These engineering and program reviews are expected to continue for several weeks, culminating in a launch schedule assessment at the end of July, based upon spacecraft readiness, space station scheduling needs, and Eastern Range availability.

The goal had been to fly before the end of this year. It appears NASA and Boeing are still pushing to meet that goal.

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