An evening pause: The tower is in Watts, Oklahoma. When the lineman looks to his right he is looking at the helicopter, which for the first few minutes, before it rises above the horizon, is difficult to see.
Hat tip Wayne DeVette.
In what could be a major legal ruling [pdf], a two-judge decision this week in the DC Circuit Court ruled that the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), which has for years imposed environmental rules on other federal agencies based on the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), does not have the statutory authority to do so, thus invalidating every regulation so imposed.
All three members of the three-judge panel agreed that the Agencies acted arbitrarily and capriciously in [in this particular case]. However, before reaching that conclusion, the majority analyzed whether the CEQ regulations the Agencies followed in adopting the plan were valid, an argument not raised by any of the parties. The majority held, sua sponte, that because there is no statute stating or suggesting that US Congress has empowered the CEQ to issue rules binding on other agencies, the CEQ has no lawful authority to promulgate such regulations.
…Although this decision does not explicitly vacate any action taken by the CEQ, it does establish a precedent that CEQ rules lack statutory authorization, and therefore that other agency actions taken under the CEQ framework are at risk of being vacated. If this decision is not overturned by the full appellate court sitting en banc or by the US Supreme Court, it has the potential to completely change the landscape of NEPA review.
The case is complicated, partly because the Byzantine nature of the federal bureaucracy and the many agencies involved. (It is almost as if these agencies created that complexity to confuse and protect themselves.)
The heart of the decision is that CEQ was apparently first created as an “advisory” body to help other federal agencies follow the intent of NEPA in their own rule-making, but instead soon became a “regulatory” body whose rulings other agencies were required to follow. As that authority was never given it by Congress, CEQ exceeded its authority by making its rulings mandatory.
This court decision will likely leave many agencies on their own in establishing environmental regulations, based on NEPA. However, even that regulatory ability faces limitations, based on the Supreme Court’s recent Chevron decision, which said that government agencies do not have right to promulgate new regulations that are not specifically described in congressional law.
In other words, Chevron says that the bureaucracy cannot make things up, based on its own vague opinions.
The trend of all these court rulings appears aimed at limiting the power of the federal bureaucracy. It will however take some time to determine how much that power is limited, as lawsuits begin to percolate through the courts. If there are lot of lawsuits (which does appear to be happening) we should therefore expect that power to be limited significanly.
Though the press release was lacking in many details, Rocket Lab yesterday announced the signing of its first launch contract for its new Neutron rocket, scheduled to make its first orbital test launch in 2025.
Under the contract, Rocket Lab will launch two dedicated missions on Neutron starting from mid-2026. The missions will launch from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 3 on Wallops Island, Virginia. The launch service agreement for these missions signifies the beginning of a productive collaboration that could see Neutron deploy the entire constellation.
The press release did not name the satellite constellation, or the company building it. Rocket Lab’s founder and CEO, Peter Beck, was quoted as follows: “Constellation companies and government satellite operators are desperate for a break in the launch monopoly.” [emphasis mine] That launch monopoly is clearly SpaceX, and Beck was positioning Rocket Lab with Neutron as the company to provide an alternative.
The announcement as well as the company’s third quarter report caused a 45% surge in its stock price.
The rocket startup Firefly has now raised another $175 million of private investment capital, during a new round of funding, on top of another $300 million raised previously.
Firefly Aerospace has raised $175 million in a round led by a new investor to support production of launch vehicles and spacecraft with an increased focus on responsive space capabilities.
The company announced Nov. 12 it raised what it described as an oversubscribed Series D round led by RPM Ventures. Several other existing and new ventures also participated in the round, which values Firefly at more than $2 billion.
That valuation is an increase from the $1.5 billion the company reported in November 2023 when it closed the final tranche of a Series C round. The company did not disclose the size of that earlier round but said then it had raised about $300 million since February 2023.
It appears RPM likes how the company has focused on providing the military launch services, which can also be profitable for private satellite customers. This money will be used to help increase the production of Firefly’s Alpha rocket.
JPL in California announced today a layoff of 325 workers, about 5% of its workforce, the third major layoff imposed this year.
The JPL press release indicates the layoffs are because of NASA budget cutbacks, but does not provide any specificity. The cause centers mostly around NASA’s decision to pause its Mars Sample Return project, which JPL was leading. From this report:
This is the third round of layoffs at JPL this year, a reduction spurred primarily by major budgetary cuts to the Mars Sample Return mission, which is managed by JPL. NASA directed $310 million this year to the effort to bring Mars rocks back to Earth, a steep drop from the $822.3 million it spent on the program the previous year.
In January, 100 on-site contractors at JPL were let go after NASA instructed the lab to reduce spending in anticipation of a much tighter budget. In February, the lab laid off 530 employees — approximately 8% of its workforce — and another 40 contractors.
It increasingly appears that JPL’s place in the redesigned mission could be significantly reduced.
The press release also makes it sound like these cutbacks are the end of the world. As JPL has mostly functioned for decades as a private institution attached to NASA almost like a government agency, no one there ever expects to get laid off. In the real world however layoffs such as this happen all the time, especially when a company fails to deliver. JPL in recent years has had budget and management problems, epitomized by the problems now seen with that sample return mission, so it should not be surprised by these cutbacks from NASA.
For the first time a cargo Dragon capsule used its Draco attitude thrusters to test their ability to adjust or raise ISS’s orbit.
NASA and SpaceX monitored operations as the company’s Dragon spacecraft performed its first demonstration of reboost capabilities for the International Space Station at 12:50 p.m. EST on Friday. The spacecraft’s Draco thrusters adjusted the station’s orbit through a reboost of altitude by 7/100 of a mile at apogee and 7/10 of a mile at perigee, lasting approximately 12 minutes and 30 seconds.
This posting is late because of my Grand Canyon trip, but I’m posting this now to make sure it is on the webpage. The goal of the test was to prove another American method for adjusting ISS’s orbit, in order to replace the Russian Progress capsules which now do the job. This test proved Dragon’s thrusters can be used for small orbital adjustments, but whether it can do major orbital corrections remains unclear. A previous test using Cygnus had already showed it could do the job.
In what appears to be a first, Polaris Spaceplane on October 29, 2024 successfully completed the first ever inflight ignition of an aerospike engine, using its Mira-2 unmanned engineering prototype.
Later in the day on 29 October, MIRA II took off from Peenemünde Airport on the coast of the Baltic Sea with a takeoff mass of 229 kilograms, which represented a reduced propellant load. The vehicle flew to the ignition point over the Baltic Sea, approximately 3 kilometres away from the ground station, and once there, completed a short three-second burn of its AS-1 aerospike engine. During the short burn, MIRA II experienced an acceleration of 4 m/s².
According to the company, the engine operated at a reduced chamber pressure during the three-second burn, resulting in a fuel-rich combustion.
There have been several attempts in the past to develop the aerospike engine, none of which ever completed any test flights, as far as I am aware. The concept is that the thrust is released in a string of openings, with only one wall forming the nozzle shape and the atmosphere used to complete the nozzle on the other side. As the atmospheric density changes the nozzle shape thus changes its shape, producing the most efficient thrust throughout the engine’s entire flight.
More test flights will be required before the company will be able to begin work on its full scale Aurora spaceplane.
SpaceX tonight launched another 20 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.
Of the 20 satellites, 13 were the direct-to-cellphone version. The first stage completed its eleventh flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
110 SpaceX
49 China
13 Russia
12 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 128 to 75, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including American companies, 110 to 93.
With the first launch of Sierra Space’s first Dream Chaser reusable unmanned cargo mini-shuttle, Tenacity, now scheduled for May 2025, the company has announced that it is beginning work on a second cargo spaceplane, dubbed Reverence, along with a mission control center to operate its fleet in orbit.
Sierra Space spokesperson Alex Walker shared the new May 2025 estimate and said work on Reverence, also known as DC-102, will resume once the team returns to Colorado — but declined to clarify when that would happen. At that point, Walker said, it will likely be another 18 months before the second spaceplane is complete. In addition to the fleet of cargo-carrying craft, Sierra Space is also working on a crewed variant of the vessel, labeled the DC-200 series, and a national security DC-300 variant.
Company officials say each mini-shuttle is good for 15 flights, so having both vehicles gives the company a total of 30 flights to sell to various space station and orbital customers.
Selling to others outside NASA may be necessary, because Tenacity is four-plus years behind schedule. By the time it begins flying ISS will already be approaching retirement in only a few short years.
The company intends these new Dream Chaser projects to work in tandem with its LIFE inflatable modules, which are presently being developed as part of the Blue Origin-led Orbital Reef space station. And while much of work on the rest of that station appears moribund, it appears that Sierra is developing everything needed for its own space station. We should therefore not be surprised if Sierra decides to bid on NASA’s next space station funding round independent entirely of the Orbital Reef partnership.
It certainly is assembling all the pieces needed for a station, without any help from Blue Origin.
The space station startup Vast has announced it has now signed an agreement with the Czech government to possibly fly one of its astronauts to the company’s Haven space stations, either the smaller Haven-1 or the full size Haven-2 to follow.
Any future mission with Vast could see Aleš Svoboda, one of 12 reserve astronauts selected by the European Space Agency in November 2022, become the second Czech astronaut. Svoboda has been a focal point for the Czech government’s efforts to stimulate growth in the Czech space industry and inspire the country’s young people to pursue STEM careers, crystallized by the launch of the Czech Journey to Space project in June 2024.
In September 2024 the Czech government had signed a similar agreement with Axiom. Under that agreement, Svoboda would fly to ISS. This new deal opens the possibility he will fly elsewhere.
It is very possible the Czechs want to do both, and are covering their bets by signing both agreements. In either case, no mission dates have been set.
SpaceX today launched 23 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.
The first stage completed its third flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
109 SpaceX
49 China
13 Russia
12 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 127 to 75, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including American companies, 109 to 93.
SpaceX today announced its plan to fly the next and sixth orbital test flight of its Starship/Superheavy rocket on November 18th, less than two weeks from today.
The next Starship flight test aims to expand the envelope on ship and booster capabilities and get closer to bringing reuse of the entire system online. Objectives include the booster once again returning to the launch site for catch, reigniting a ship Raptor engine while in space, and testing a suite of heatshield experiments and maneuvering changes for ship reentry and descent over the Indian Ocean.
The success of the first catch attempt demonstrated the design feasibility while providing valuable data to continue improving hardware and software performance. Hardware upgrades for this flight add additional redundancy to booster propulsion systems, increase structural strength at key areas, and shorten the timeline to offload propellants from the booster following a successful catch. Mission designers also updated software controls and commit criteria for the booster’s launch and return.
As noted earlier, the FAA has made it clear that no new license is required since this flight plan is essentially the same as the fifth flight.
An evening pause: One of the sharpest and clearest performances of this classic Dire Staits song.
Hat tip Mike Nelson.
The resounding landslide victory by Donald Trump and the Republicans yesterday is going have enormous consequences across the entire federal government. As a space historian and journalist who has been following, studying, and reporting on space policy for decades, this essay will be my attempt to elucidate what that landslide will mean for NASA, its Artemis program, and the entire American aerospace industry.
The absurd cost of each SLS launch
The Artemis Program
Since 2011 I have said over and over that the government-designed and owned SLS, Orion, and later proposed Lunar Gateway space station were all badly conceived. They all cost too much and don’t do the job. Fitting them together to create a long term presence in space is difficult at best and mostly impractical. Their cost and cumbersome design has meant the program to get back to the Moon, as first proposed by George Bush Jr. in 2004, is now more than a decade behind schedule and many billions over budget. Worse, under the present program as currently contrived that manned lunar landing will likely be delayed five more years, at a minimum.
For example, at present SLS is underpowered. It can’t get astronauts to and from the Moon, as the Saturn-5 rocket did in the 1960s. For the first manned lunar landing mission, Artemis-4, SLS will simply launch four astronauts in Orion to lunar orbit, where Orion will rendezvous and dock with the lunar lander version of Starship. That Starship in turn will require refueling in Earth orbit, using a proposed fuel depot that has been filled by multiple earlier Starship launches.
Once Starship is docked to Orion the crew will transfer to Starship to get up and down from the Moon, and then return to Earth in Orion.
You think that’s complicated? » Read more
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on October 18, 2024 issued the first deep space communications license to the private asteroid mining startup company Astroforge for its planned Odin mission to an asteroid.
Asteroid prospecting company AstroForge has been awarded the first-ever commercial license for operating and communicating with a spacecraft in deep space, ahead of its Odin mission that’s set to launch and rendezvous with a near-Earth asteroid in early 2025.
The license, granted by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Oct. 18, pertains specifically to setting up a communication network with radio ground stations on Earth, to enable commands to be sent up to Odin and data to be transmitted back to Earth. In this case, deep space is defined by the International Telecommunications Union as being farther than 2 million kilometers (1.2 million miles) from Earth.
Other private companies have sent missions to the Moon, but this will be the first to go beyond. Odin will orbit and map the asteroid — not yet chosen — in advance of a larger AstroForge spacecraft, dubbed Vestri, that will land on the asteroid.
An evening pause: On election day, I give you the most concise and poetic description of what America has always stood for, first spoken on November 19, 1863. On this day it will either signal “a new birth of freedom,” or a sad funeral speech to a nation that was dedicated to government of the people, by the people, for the people, and successfully proved it for almost 250 years.
Last night three different rockets took off from three continents.
First, Russia launched two space weather satellites and 53 cubesats, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from its Vostochny spaceport in the far east. The main payload were the two Ionosfera-M satellites, designed to study the Earth’s ionosphere in tandem.
The rocket flew north, over Russia, where its lower stages were dropped into planned drop zones. No word if they crashed near habitable ares.
Next, SpaceX launched an unmanned cargo Dragon to ISS, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The first stage completed its fifth flight, landing safefly back at Cape Canaveral. The capsule is on its fifth flight, and successfully docked with ISS this morning.
Finally, Rocket Lab launched a “confidential commercial” payload under a contract designed to launch very fast after contract signing, its Electron rocket lifting off from one of its launchpads in New Zealand.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
108 SpaceX
49 China
13 Russia
12 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 126 to 75, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including American companies, 108 to 93. Note too that with these launches the world has exceeded 200 launches in 2024, the second time this has ever been done, with the record of 213 launches set last year. This record will almost certainly be broken sometime this month.
An evening pause: Performed live 1968. One of the most beautiful songs ever written.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
After losing its first Mira prototype test plane during a flight in May, the German startup Polaris Spaceplanes has now begun test flights of its replacement, dubbed Mira-2.
With this prototype the company hopes to test its aerospike engine in flight for the first time, leading to the construction of its full scale spaceplane Aurora.
This five-metre-long vehicle is equipped with jet engines for take-off and landing and one of the company’s in-house developed AS-1 aerospike engines for rocket-powered flight.
POLARIS conducted the first three test flights of the MIRA II demonstrator at the Peenemünde Airport on the coast of the Baltic Sea. Over the three flights, the vehicle accumulated a total of 20 minutes of flight time and covered more than 50 kilometres.
All three flights were unmanned, as Mira-2 is relatively small. The company will now install the aerospike engine, with the next flights testing that engine. If successful, it would be the first time ever an aerospike rocket engine has ever flown.
Australia’s commercial spaceports. Click for original map.
The Australian government has now issued permits for two different spaceports, making possibly orbital launches at both in the near future.
First the planning minister for the province of South Australia has issued final approval allowing launches at the Southern Launch facility on Australia’s southern coast, though that approval included serious restrictions, such as no rocket launched could be taller than 30 meters. He also placed limitations on the number of launches per year, 36, the amount of noise a launch could make, and added other rules “regarding cultural heritage and native vegetation management.”
The spaceport hopes to complete its first orbital launch by the end of next year. Not surprisingly, the leftists in Green Party opposed the spaceport.
Second, the Australian Space Agency issued a launch license to Gilmour Space at its Bowen spaceport on the eastern coast of Australia, seven months late. This quote from the company’s founder is instructive:
But Mr Gilmour said when he and his brother, James Gilmour, set out to be the first to build a rocket of its kind in Australia almost a decade ago, he never imagined that getting a [launch] permit would be the most difficult part. “In my wildest dreams, I didn’t think it’d take this long,” he said. “I honestly thought the environmental approval [to launch a rocket over the Great Barrier Reef] would take the longest, and we got that well over a year ago.”
The company had originally hoped to launch early this year. It still hopes to do so before the end of 2024.
According to a report from Bloomberg today and based on anonymous sources, the rocket startup Relativity is experiencing serious cash shortages that threaten its future.
Relativity Space Inc., the privately held US maker of 3D-printed rockets that once soared to a $4.2 billion valuation, is running low on cash, raising questions about the future of its launch business, people familiar with the matter said.
The company has faced challenges raising additional capital, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the matter is confidential. Relativity, which last launched a rocket in March 2023 and has plans to launch its larger Terran R in 2026, hasn’t reached a decision on a path forward.
It is hard to say whether this information is correct. However, the story also had this tidbit that I myself have heard from my own sources:
The company also announced plans to incorporate more traditional manufacturing methods with Terran R, moving away from using 3D printing.
Since from its very founding Relativity touted 3D printing as the wave of the future, claiming its decision to build its rockets entirely in that manner would produce rockets fast and cheaply. That it is no longer doing this suggests that reality was not the same as these visions, and the company discovered that it is better to look for the best way to do each thing rather than try to fit everything into the same mold.
It also appears that the company spent a lot of its capital trying to make 3D printing work, and as a result it is now short of cash.
Boeing’s racist hiring goals in 2024
According to a report from Bloomberg news today, Boeing has now dismantled its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) division, with its head leaving the company.
Staff from Boeing’s DEI office will be combined with another human resources team focused on talent and employee experience, according to people familiar with the matter. Sara Liang Bowen, a Boeing vice president who led the now-defunct department, left the company on Thursday. [emphasis mine]
The highlighted phrase above tells us all we need to know. The focus under Boeing’s new CEO Kelly Ortberg will be “talent and employee experience,” not skin color or gender.
Bowen wrote the following in announcing her dismissal:
It has been the privilege of my lifetime to lead Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at the Boeing company these past 5+ years. Our team strived every day to support the evolving brilliance and creativity of our workforce. The team achieved so much – sometimes imperfectly, never easily – and dreamed of doing much more still. [emphasis mine]
As far as I can tell, all that Bowen accomplished was to destroy the reputation of Boeing as a quality manufacturer of aerospace products. Instead, it became a place which hired people based on their race, and didn’t care if they knew the difference between a screwdriver and a forklift. The screen capture to the right comes from the company’s 2024 Boeing Sustainability & Social Impact Report [pdf], which is still online, as is the webpage of Boeing’s DEI division. Both still tout the racist quota goals of this DEI department that forced the company to consider race and gender above talent and experience in its hiring. Hopefully that ugliness will vanish soon as well.
Meanwhile, Boeing union employees on the west coast are about to vote on a third contract proposal, having rejected the previous two and going on strike since mid-September. I suspect the decision above to get rid of this poisonous DEI department will sit well with those union employees, and likely help to encourage them to approve the plan.
Reaction Engines, the British hypersonic engine company that since 2011 has been touting its Skylon spaceplane and winning a variety of development contracts to build it. has now gone bankrupt, shutting down all operations.
However, this year, the company found itself in major financial difficulties due to unexpectedly slow growth and the inability to secure an additional £150 million (US$193 million) in funding, followed by BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce being unwilling to put up bail-out capital.
As a result, as of October 31, Reaction Engines is in the hands of administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). The company’s website forwards to PwC where there is a notice saying that further information will be released to creditors as the available assets are assessed. According to Sky News, 173 of the company’s 208 staff were made redundant.
After more than a decade of work and no apparent progress, it appears no one was willing to front the company any additional cash.
The European Commission yesterday finally awarded a gigantic contract to a consortium of European satellite companises to build its government-conceived and government-designed communications constellation designed to duplicate constellations already in orbit and built by Starlink and OneWeb.
The full constellation, dubbed IRIS2 and first proposed in 2022, is expected to have 290 satellites. The consortium, dubbed SpaceRISE, is led by satellite companies SES, Eutelsat, and Hispasat, and also includes Thales Alenia Space, OHB, Airbus Defence and Space, Telespazio, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Hisdesat, and Thales SIX.
In other words, practically every major European aerospace company gets a piece of the pie.
According to a 31 October press release, the European Commission aims to have the IRIS2 service up and running by 2030. The project was initially expected to cost approximately €6 billion, of which the European Commission would provide 60%, with the rest being covered by private industry. However, recent reports have indicated that the project’s budget will likely reach as much as €10 billion.
Based on these numbers, it is going to take more than six years to launch, with each satellite costing about 3.5 million euros.
This is a very typical European government project, conceived not to fill a real need but to make sure there is a European version of something for Europe to use. It is also conceived as a way to transfer cash to as many European aerospace contractors as possible. Considering the number of companies involved and the fact that the whole constellation is government designed, expect the budget to well exceed ten billion euros before completion, and take far longer to become operational than presently planned. For example, the project was first proposed more than two years ago and only now has the contract been issued. In that time SpaceX conceived and has practically launched its entire direct-to-cell Starlink constellation of about the same number of satellites.
An evening pause: For Halloween, I have decided to bring back this wonderfully staged classic from 1958, starring Vincent Price and directed by William Castle. No blood, no gore, but the worth every minute.
