Tag: commercial

Christmas Food Court Flash Mob – Hallelujah Chorus

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Most claimed flash mob performances are not really what they claim, often well staged with lots of cameras and hardly a surprise to the surrounding innocent crowd. This one, performed during the Christmas season in 2010, appears quite genuine, building out of nowhere at an ordinary mall food court. Even the camera work appears to be mostly from phones, many of which I think the producers obtained from the onlookers after the fact.

And of course, the music of Handel using the words of the Bible cannot be beat.

Hat tip Chris McLaughlin.

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Orbex begins construction of launch platform

9:52 am

Capitalism in space: Orbex announced today that it has awarded a contract to a Scottish company to begin the construction of the launch platform it will use with its smallsat Prime rocket.

Orbex has commissioned Motive Offshore Group, a leading Scottish company specialising in the design and manufacture of marine and lifting equipment, to fabricate and install the Launch Platform at a dedicated test site near Kinloss, close to the Orbex headquarters in Forres, Scotland.

The Launch Platform, known as Orbex LP1, is expected to be fully operational by early 2022. … The new Launch Platform will support the testing of Orbex´s Prime rocket, a micro-launcher designed to transport small satellites weighing around 150kg to low Earth orbit. Although actual launches of the Orbex Prime rocket will not take place at the Kinloss site, the Launch Platform will be fully capable of launching an orbital rocket, allowing for full ‘dress rehearsals’ of launch procedures.

This platform is likely similar to the very transportable launch platform used by Astra. The present plan is to do launches from Orbex’s launch facilities at the Sutherland spaceport in Scotland, presently under construction and the first such launch facility being built in the United Kingdom in more than a half century. If designed to be portable, however, Orbex will also be able to ship the Prime rocket to other launch locations, depending on the orbital requirements of each launch.

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Stratolaunch wins military research contract

9:39 am

Capitalism in space: Stratolaunch announced today [pdf] that it has won research contract with the Missile Defense Agency to provide a testing capability to that agency’s program to develop hypersonic flight technology.

The Stratolaunch team is eagerly preparing to complete its next set of Roc carrier aircraft test flights. The team also continues to make tremendous strides in building its first two Talon-A test vehicles: TA-0 and TA-1. TA-1 will start its power-on testing by the end of year, keeping the company on track to begin hypersonic flight testing in 2022 and to deliver services to government and commercial customers in 2023. Launched from Stratolaunch’s Roc carrier aircraft, the Talon-A vehicles are rocket-powered, autonomous, reusable testbeds carrying customized payloads at speeds above Mach 5.

From this release it appears that the company is planning more flight tests of its giant Roc airplane while it begins the first ground tests of the test vehicles that Roc will take into the air, followed in ’22 with flight tests, followed next with operational test flights in ’23.

The company’s shift from using Roc as a first stage for orbital satellites to using it instead as a hypersonic test bed seems to be paying off. For years the company was unable to find any design for second stage rocket that made both technical or economic sense. Using Roc instead as a vehicle for launching a hypersonic test bed — the Talon — seems more practical, while also providing the military a relatively cheap capability for hypersonic testing that it had previously lacked.

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SpaceX launches NASA X-ray telescope

9:17 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX early this morning successfully launched NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), a small X-ray telescope designed to black holes and neutron stars.

The first stage, making its fifth flight, successfully landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

This launch, SpaceX’s 28th for 2021, extends once again the company’s all time record for the most launches in a year by a private company.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

46 China
28 SpaceX
21 Russia
6 Europe (Arianespace)
5 ULA
5 Rocket Lab

China’s lead over the U.S, in the national rankings has now shrunk to 46 to 45. The launch was the 121st in 2021, making this year tied as the seventh most active year in the history of space, a ranking that is sure to go up before the end of the year.

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Rocket Lab successfully launches two more BlackSky Earth observation satellites

5:15 pm

Capitalism in space: Rocket Lab today successfully launched from its launchpad in New Zealand two more satellite for the Earth observation company BlackSky, completing the launch only 21 days after their previous launch, tying the company’s fastest turnaround.

This was Rocket Lab’s fifth launch in 2021, which the company states will be its last this year. At the start of the year it had predicted it would complete this number, so the company has at least matched its expectations for 2021, despite governmental hold-ups in both New Zealand and Wallops Island that slowed the launch pace.

The leaders in the 2021 launch:

46 China
27 SpaceX
21 Russia
6 Europe (Arianespace)
5 ULA
5 Rocket Lab

China’s lead over the U.S. in the national rankings is now 46 to 44. SpaceX has a scheduled launch later tonight, so the race between the two countries should continue to tighten.

This was also the 120th successful launch in 2021, the most in a single year since 1984, and making it the ninth most active year in the history of space exploration.

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Russia launches two tourists to ISS

8:25 am

Capitalism in space: Using its Soyuz-2 rocket and Soyuz capsule, Russia today successfully launched two tourists to ISS.

Onboard the Soyuz is Yusaku Maezawa, a Japanese billionaire known for starting online businesses Start Today and Zozo. In addition to his Soyuz mission, he has a circumlunar flight aboard SpaceX’s Starship—called “dearMoon”—booked for no earlier than 2023. Maezawa purchased both available seats on this flight of Soyuz. He [is] joined by Yozo Hirano—a media producer from Zozo—who will document the MS-20 mission. This flight will mark the first time two Japanese astronauts fly together, as well as the first flight of any Japanese space tourist.

The mission is commanded by experienced Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin, on what is his third spaceflight. During the mission, he will stand ready to pilot the Soyuz in case the automated guidance software fails.

The Russians claim that this is their first tourist flight to ISS since 2009, but that makes believe the two filmmakers launched to ISS in October were not paying passengers. They might have been working on ISS, and not merely tourists, but they were not professional astronauts but paying customers.

This flight however is the first organized with Russia by the American company Space Adventures since 2009, ending that long gap caused almost entirely because all Soyuz seats since then had been bought by NASA to replace the shuttle. With manned Dragon flights available, the Russians and Space Adventures can sell tickets again.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

46 China
27 SpaceX
21 Russia
6 Europe (Arianespace)
5 ULA

China still leads the U.S. 46 to 43 in the national rankings. With SpaceX and Rocket Lab launches set for later tonight, these numbers should rise again.

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Kickstarter campaign for video game based on Pioneer begins January 18, 2022!

2:58 pm

The asteroid mining ship Dream Watcher docked on the Mars space station.
From Pioneer: The asteroid mining ship Dream Watcher docked
on the Mars space station Landville, c2183.

Back in January, 2021 I wrote an essay, Pioneers and the Future, touting the coming Kickstarter campaign for a digital game based on my science fiction book, Pioneer, that we then expected to start in only a few short weeks. As I concluded,

Very shortly a crowd-funding project will launch, based on my book Pioneer itself. An adventure video game using a graphic novel style has been under development for the past two years and will launch as a crowdfunding project in just a matter of weeks. Both illustrations in this essay come from that project. The producers will be offering some exclusive and limited rewards for supporters, both from themselves and from me personally, so keep an eye on Behind the Black for announcements. You will want to be the first through the door when this project launches.

Not surprisingly, a number of ongoing issues related to COVID as well as casting forced a delay in that campaign.

No more! On January 18, 2022, the Kickstarter campaign for this new video game, Pioneer 2140CC, based on my science fiction book Pioneer, will begin.

The webpage for the game and the campaign can be found at PioneerSpaceGame.com. The press release can be read here.

Tokyo, Japan – Enterstellar Studios is excited to announce that Pioneer 2140CC, a visual novel style, sci-fi space video game, will launch on Kickstarter January 18th, 2022. Pioneer 2140CC is based on the book Pioneer, written in 1983 by famed space historian, radio personality, and cave explorer Robert Zimmerman, who writes about space, science, and culture at his website Behind the Black. The Kickstarter campaign will run from January 18th until February 24th and offer unique physical and rare NFT (non-fungible token) rewards. A minimum funding goal is set at $73,000 USD

The press release outlines many of the game’s planned highlights, as well as the limited and exclusive rewards available for those who donate to the campaign.

The creator of the game, Aaron Jenkin, has worked with me tirelessly for the past four years developing the game so that it will not only be a great video game, it will also faithfully capture accurately Pioneer’s story, characters, ideas, and fast-paced action. I have been endlessly impressed with the quality of Aaron’s work, as well as the top-notch artists he had brought into the project from day one.

So, if you like video games as well as science fiction, this game is for you! Give it a look, and when January 18, 2022 rolls around please consider donating generously so that Aaron can make Pioneer 2140CC a reality!

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Astra’s next launch to be in Florida

9:19 am

According to statements by Astra and the Space Force, the startup’s next launch, its first operational mission intended to place payloads in orbit, will occur in Florida at Cape Canaveral.

Astra announced that it will conduct a launch of its Rocket 3.3 vehicle from Space Launch Complex 46 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in January. The pad, originally developed for tests of the Trident submarine-launched ballistic missile, is now operated by Space Florida. It has been used for launches of Athena rockets and, in 2019, a test of the launch abort system for NASA’s Orion spacecraft.

..Astra said in the statement that it will carry a payload for NASA on that flight but did not disclose additional details. A company spokesperson said this launch will be for NASA’s Venture Class Launch Services (VCLS) program, under a VCLS Demo 2 contract the company won a year ago.

That launch, designated ELaNa 41 by NASA, will carry five cubesats, according to a NASA manifest. Four of the cubesats are from universities: BAMA-1 from the University of Alabama, CURIE and QubeSat from the University of California Berkeley and INCA from New Mexico State University. The fifth, R5-S1, is from NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

No specific date for the launch has as yet been announced.

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ULA and China complete launches

9:14 am

Two launches were successfully completed in the past twelve hours.

First ULA’s Atlas-5 rocket successfully launched two Space Force military satellites and a NASA ultraviolet telescope into orbit on a launch that had been repeatedly delayed since February.

Next, one of China’s pseudo-private companies, Galactic Energy, completed its second launch of its Ceres-1 rocket, putting five smallsats into orbit. As the Ceres-1 rocket uses solid rocket motors, its initial development was for the military, and thus everything Galactic Energy does is carefully supervised by that Chinese military.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

46 China
27 SpaceX
20 Russia
6 Europe (Arianespace)
5 ULA

China now leads the U.S. 46 to 43 in the national rankings. The 118 total launches this year is now the most since 1985. And this number is only temporary, with two more launches scheduled in the next 24 hours.

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Arianespace launches two Galileo GPS-type satellites

8:14 pm

Capitalism in space: Using a Russian Soyuz-2 rocket, Arianespace successfully launched two Galileo GPS-type satellites from its spaceport in French Guiana tonight.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

45 China
27 SpaceX
20 Russia
6 Europe (Arianespace)

China still leads the U.S. 45 to 42 in the national rankings. This launch tonight was 116th successful launch in 2021, which is the most launches completed in a year since 1988. Based on the number of planned launched over the next three weeks, there is an outside chance that the global total will top 127, making this the second most active year ever in the history of space. Even if the numbers end up in the mid-120s, 2021 will be among the top eight years ever.

And I expect next year to easily top this year.

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SpaceX begins construction of Starship launchpad in Florida

9:48 am

Capitalism in space: Elon Musk yesterday announced that SpaceX has begun the construction of a Starship launchpad at its facility at Cape Canaveral, though no launch scheduled was revealed.

Musk implied that the Starship orbital launchpad is being built at Launch complex 39A. If so, it will pose some scheduling issues for SpaceX, as the company also uses that site for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches. In fact, it is the only one it uses for Falcon Heavy.

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NASA buys more Dragon manned flights

9:41 am

Capitalism in space: To give it some coverage because of continuing delays in Boeing’s Starliner manned capsule, NASA announced yesterday that it has awarded SpaceX contracts for three more manned Dragon manned flights to ISS.

NASA issued a contract notification announcing its plans to issue a sole-source award to SpaceX for three missions. Those missions would be in addition to the six “post-certification missions,” or PCMs, that SpaceX won as part of its $2.6 billion Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contract in 2014. The announcement did not state the price of those three new missions.

This is money that would have gone to Boeing, if it had gotten its act together and gotten Starliner flying on schedule. Instead, SpaceX is making the profits.

There has been no updates from Boeing since October on the valve issue that now stalls Starliner. While Boeing claims it is aiming for an unmanned demo flight to ISS in early ’22, this remains entirely speculative at this moment.

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BE-4 engine delayed until ’22

9:36 am

Capitalism in space: The CEO of ULA, Tory Bruno, admitted yesterday that the first production versions of Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket engine, required for his company’s new Vulcan rocket, will not be delivered until until early ’22.

Bruno had previously said he expected the engines in late 2021 but on Friday he confirmed the BE-4s will not arrive until early 2022. “I was hoping to get those engines for Christmas. I had giant stockings at home waiting for them,” Bruno quipped in the CNBC interview.

“I’ll say it’s taking them a little longer to fabricate my production engines. They’re in the factory now being built at Blue Origin,” said Bruno. “The COVID epidemic has affected them and their supply chain and it’s just taking a little bit longer, but they’re doing very, very well,” he added. “There’s been no problems with them and in fact, we’re doing the final testing, or what we call certification testing. And that is just going really, really well.”

It appears that Blue Origin is dealing with the difficulties of production, not design, at this point, the same kind of issue that SpaceX recently revealed with its Raptor engine. Blue Origin needs to be able to manufacture these engines at a somewhat high pace, as both ULA’s Vulcan and Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket use it. It appears that in designing it Blue Origin didn’t think about the manufacturing until very late in the game.

Bruno also said that he plans on flying Vulcan twice in ’22. We shall see.

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SpaceX completes Starlink/BlackSky Falcon 9th launch

11:10 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX tonight successfully launched 48 Starlink satellites and 2 BlackSky commercial Earth observation satellites using its Falcon 9 rocket.

This was the 27th successful launch by SpaceX, extending its record this year for the most launches in a year by any private company ever. The first stage made its ninth successful flight, landing successfully on the drone ship in the Atlantic. The fairings were new, but were expected to be recovered and reused.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

45 China
27 SpaceX
20 Russia
5 Europe (Arianespace)

China’s lead of the U.S. in the national rankings is now 45 to 42.

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NASA awards contracts to three private space station projects

4:48 pm

Capitalism in space: NASA today announced development contract awards to three different private space station projects.

  • Nanoracks Starlab concept won $160 million. Partners include Voyager Space and Lockheed Martin.
  • Blue Origin’s Orbital Reef project was awarded $130 million, partnering with Sierra Space, Boeing, and Redwire.
  • Northrop Grumman won $125.6 million on a concept based on upgrades to its Cygnus freighter.

All three contracts are Space Act agreements, designed by NASA to jumpstart the companies and their design efforts. All three are in addition to the effort by Axiom to build its own ISS modules that will eventually detach to form its own independent station.

That’s four private American space stations now in the works. All are aiming to launch before this decade is out.

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Rocket Lab unveils its new big rocket, Neutron

10:50 am

Capitalism in space: In a video released today, Rocket Lab founder Peter Beck provided the major design details for the company’s new larger rocket, Neutron, planned for launch it appears sometime in the next two years.

I have embedded the video below the fold. The rocket has these innovations:

  • The landing legs do not deploy, but are permanently mounted around a relatively wide rocket base.
  • The fairings never release. They open like a clamshell to allow the upper stage and payload to exit as a unit, and then close and return with the first stage.
  • The rocket body will be made from carbon fiber, which Beck claims Rocket Lab can manufacture fast.
  • The first stage will always return to the launch site rather than land on a barge in the ocean.
  • The rocket’s engine, dubbed Archimedes, is expected to do first static tests in ’22.

It appears Beck is specifically disagreeing with some of SpaceX’s approach with this design, using carbon fiber instead of metal, and making the engine simple without pushing its power limits too hard.
» Read more

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Nissan reveals prototype lunar rover

10:33 am

Capitalism in space: Nissan today unveiled its first prototype design of an unmanned lunar rover, built for the Japanese space agency JAXA.

Nissan Motor Co. unveiled Thursday a prototype of a lunar rover co-developed with Japan’s space exploration agency that will employ the automaker’s motor control technology to maneuver across the Moon’s loose terrain. The automaker said it aims to make the rover capable of traversing the undulating Moon surface smoothly by applying technology developed for use in its roadgoing electric vehicles such as the Leaf and Ariya.

The picture of the prototype at the link is, to put it mildly, not impressive. It uses rubber tires, and is really nothing more than a control box attached to four tires.

JAXA apparently also has Toyota working on a competitive project. The competition should therefore eventually produce something worthwhile.

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Rocket Lab to attempt quickest turnaround yet on next launch

10:26 am

Capitalism in space: Rocket Lab announced today that its next launch of two new BlackSky Earth observation satellites is targeting December 7th, and will thus attempt quickest turnaround yet for the company between launches, 19 days.

It does not appear the company will attempt to recover the first stage of the Electron rocket on this launch. Previous announcements had said it will attempt that recovery on its first launches in ’22.

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Musk shakes up Raptor engine development

11:16 am

Capitalism in space: Based on all the reports I’ve read, Elon Musk this past weekend did a major shake-up of the management that was running the Raptor engine development, apparently focused on the need to be able to mass produce these engines at a very high rate to allow numerous test flights in the coming year.

More here, including this company email from Musk:

Unfortunately, the Raptor production crisis is much worse than it had seemed a few weeks ago. As we have dug into the issues following the exiting of prior senior management, they have unfortunately turned out to be far more severe than was reported. There is no way to sugarcoat this.

I was going to take this weekend off, as my first weekend off in a long time, but instead, I will be on the Raptor line all night and through the weekend.

The management shakeup was as follows:

This ‘senior management’ that left is likely referring to Will Heltsley, former SpaceX senior vice president of propulsion. As CNBC reported, he left Raptor production due to a lack of progress. In addition, former SpaceX vice president of mission and launch operation Lee Rosen and senior director of mission and launch operations Rick Lim have left the company. Raptor engine production is now being led by Jacob Mackenzie, who has been with the company for over six years.

The reports imply that the engine itself is in trouble, but I do not think that is the issue. Instead, as Musk has said many times, more important than developing new technology is developing the efficient manufacturing processes that will allow the company to take advantage of that technology. It appears the manufacturing part of Raptor had not been covered well by the now disposed management.

SpaceX not only needs a working reliable Raptor engine, it needs to be able to mass produce them in the hundreds, quickly. This is the challenge that apparently the previous management failed to face. Musk is now refocusing Raptor development around this need.

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Russians set December 8th for launch of next ISS tourist flight

10:17 am

Capitalism in space: Roscosmos today announced that the next tourist flight to ISS of two Japanese tourists will launch on December 8th.

“According to the Russian plan of ISS flight, the Soyuz-2.1A rocket carrying the Soyuz MS-20 transport spaceship with the 20th visiting ISS expedition on board is scheduled to lift off from the Baikonur cosmodrome at 10:38 am Moscow time [07:38 GMT] on December 8, 2021,” the agency said.

The crew will include Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin and two Japanese space tourists – billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and his assistant Yozo Hirano

Maezawa is also the man who has signed a deal with SpaceX to fly to the Moon on Starship, once that spacecraft is finished.

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Nice overview of space tourism options

1:37 pm

Link here. The author does an excellent job outlining in detail the pros and cons of each space tourism option, from Virgin Galactic (“joy ride”) to Axiom’s orbital station trips (“Five stars!”)

She misses a few however, such as the recent announcement by the balloon company Worldview that it plans near space tourists flights in competition with Space Perspectives, and for a much smaller ticket price. There are also two Spanish balloon companies gearing up to capture this end of the space tourist business.

Regardless, if you’ve got some spare cash and want to spend it in an adventurous way, here is a guide for doing so.

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