Tag: capitalism

Computer chip company sues SpaceX

9:07 am

The competition heats up: A computer chip manufacturer has sued SpaceX, accusing it of stealing both its engineers and the computer chips they were designing.

Broadcom’s co-founder and chief technology officer Henry Samueli met with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk in October 2015 in attempts to solidify an agreement, at which time Musk insisted Broadcom keep its “A-team” on the project, according to the complaint.

But even as Samueli and Musk were meeting, other SpaceX representatives were attempting to uncover the identities of the “A-team” engineers working on the Space X project, Broadcom says in its complaint. Five Broadcom engineers – all of whom worked on the SpaceX project – resigned their positions with the company effective March 11, and refused to disclose their new employer, according to the complaint. Broadcom says SpaceX confirmed they hired the five engineers on March 9, saying nothing prevented them from hiring other Broadcom engineers.

For its part, SpaceX says the Broadcom engineers – all named as defendants in Broadcom’s complaint – approached them. “SpaceX did not pursue or lure engineers from Broadcom,” a SpaceX spokesman said. “On the contrary, these engineers reached out to SpaceX anticipating significant layoffs at the Broadcom Irvine location.”

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The sad state of South Korea’s space sector

9:57 am

The new colonial movement: It appears that South Korea’s space industry is faltering, according to unnamed sources in that industry, and must be revitalized.

Many critics also point to the near absence of Korean conglomerates in the domestic aerospace scene as a major setback for the nation. “Since space businesses do not generate short-term revenues, most Korean conglomerates are reluctant to jump into the sector,” said an official from the aerospace sector. “Other nations, including the U.S. and Russia, on the other hand, have been running space programs for decades and have a large pool of seasoned engineers and talents, which is why the Korean aerospace industry is far behind in the race for outer space,” he said.

Samsung Group, the largest conglomerate here, previously ran aerospace business arm Samsung Techwin, now renamed Hanhwa Techwin after it was acquired by Hanhwa Group in 2014. Techwin was established in 1977 to develop flight engines. Samsung Group sold part of Techwin’s flight engines business to Korea Aerospace Industries in 1999 and pulled completely out of the aerospace sector in 2014.

What makes this story different from my previous two posts is that its focus is not building a government program (and the bureaucracy to go with it) but to find way to develop a robust private aerospace industry, competing for market share in the world market. With that approach, South Korea might actually launch something in the coming years.

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Europe aims for the Moon

9:49 am

The new colonial movement: The head of the European Space Agency (ESA) said in a video interview this week that building a lunar base is their next major goal.

The head of the multinational agency, Johann-Dietrich Woerner, said the village would “serve science, business, tourism and even mining purposes.” In a video interview posted on the agency’s website, Woerner said a permanent lunar base is the next logical step in space exploration. He said the village could replace the International Space Station in the future. The ISS has been continuously occupied since 2000. It was originally set to be decommissioned by 2020, but its operation has been extended through 2024. The agency said it could take 20 years before the technology is ready to make the Moon village happen.

My next words might sound familiar (see the post below), but few technical details were provided in the video. Instead it appears from the article and the actual interview that the focus here is to establish a bureaucracy, not design rockets or spaceships. I suspect Woerner is looking for projects that can justify the existence of ESA and its bureaucracy, not actually build anything. That he thinks it will take 20 years to make it happen, based on our technology today, is strong evidence of this, since the pace of innovation in the past decade suggests instead that such a Moon colony could happen far quicker, once private space starts making real money in orbit.

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Vulcan passes first design review

6:23 pm

The competition heats up: ULA’s Vulcan rocket has passed its first design review.

This is good news for ULA, but I wouldn’t get too excited. Announcements like this often have little to do with any real construction, and are often made to give the impression to the public and Congress and other investors that something is happening. Right now, all ULA is doing is pushing paper around. Only when they start cutting metal and testing real equipment will I consider Vulcan for real.

The article does provide an interesting tidbit. Despite protests that ULA hasn’t yet made a decision between Blue Origin or Aerojet Rocketdyne for the first stage engine of Vulcan, it was Blue Origin’s engine that they used for the design review, suggesting that this is the engine they plan on using in the real rocket.

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Virgin Galactic signs deal for supersonic plane

6:18 pm

The competition heats up: Virgin Galactic has signed a deal with Boom, the start-up company trying to build the first commercial supersonic passenger jet since the Concorde.

Boom, which has spent the past three months participating in Y Combinator’s startup accelerator program in Silicon Valley, has inked a deal with Virgin. As part of the deal, Virgin has taken an option in Boom’s first 10 planes, while Virgin Galactic, the private space exploration company, will assist with manufacturing and testing through its manufacturing arm, The Spaceship Company.

I hope Boom is more successful than Virgin Galactic in getting its project off the ground. If not, than it will be a long time before we see this plane take off.

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First Rocket Lab launch this year

6:13 pm

The competition heats up: The new launch company Rocket Lab has announced that it expects the inaugural launch of its Electron rocket to take place sometime in the middle of this year.

The company announced March 22 that it has completed qualification tests of the Rutherford engine, allowing it to be used in flights of the Electron vehicle. A video released by the company showed the engine firing on a test stand for more than two and a half minutes.

The first launch is planned for the middle of this year, company spokeswoman Catherine Moreau-Hammond said March 23, with the overall flight test program running through the second half of the year. Those launches are planned from a site the company is developing on New Zealand’s North Island.

This company is in direct competition with Virgin Galactic’s LauncherOne, and like everyone will likely be in operation first, beating Branson’s company despite starting almost a decade later.

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Premature shutdown of Atlas 5

6:07 pm

In the heat of competition: The first stage Russian engine in the Atlas 5 rocket that put Cygnus in orbit this week shut down six seconds prematurely for reasons that are as yet unclear.

The early shutdown had no effect on the Cygnus mission, as the Atlas 5’s upper stage compensated for it by burning longer. Nonetheless, ULA has opened an investigation to find out what caused the early shutdown.

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Atlas 5 launches Cygnus

11:04 pm

The competition heats up: A ULA Atlas 5 rocket tonight successfully placed an Orbital ATK Cygnus freighter into orbit to resupply ISS.

This was the second time an Atlas 5 put Cygnus into orbit. The next Cygnus flight will mark the return of Orbital’s Antares rocket.

This Cygnus capsule contains probably one of the more interesting engineering experiments flown by NASA in years. When it leaves ISS in about two months they will ignite a fire inside it to study the way fires spread and burn in weightlessness.

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New supersonic passenger plane coming?

8:43 am

Boom! A new aviation company thinks it can develop a new supersonic passenger plane with ticket prices far less than the Concorde’s.

If you’re ever stuck on a plane pining for the glory days of air travel, hop on YouTube and search for “the Concorde.” Among the results are a bunch of firsthand accounts of people sipping Champagne and scarfing down caviar on one of the bygone supersonic jets while they travel at 1,300 miles an hour. Try to appreciate the joy on their faces, or at least remember that they paid as much as $20,000 round trip, while you’re crammed into a middle seat with nothing but a dollop of hummus and a few overpriced crackers to get you through the next few hours.

Or perhaps find some solace in this: A Denver startup called Boom Technology plans to bring supersonic passenger travel back, and to bring it to the masses … ish. While the finished product is years away, on March 23, Boom will unveil its design for a 40-seat plane that can fly 1,451 mph (Mach 2.2). At that speed, a New York-to-London flight would take about 3 hours and 24 minutes. Blake Scholl, Boom’s founder and chief executive officer, says round-trip tickets will cost $5,000. “The idea is for a plane that goes faster than any other passenger plane built before, but for the same price as business class,” he says.

The project is barely past the PowerPoint stage, so color me skeptical. Nonetheless, I also believe it is possible, especially when I noticed in reading the article the similarities between between this company’s founder and that of SpaceX’s.

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