Chase – Open Up Wide
An evening pause: If you haven’t yet got up from your weekend partying, this will do it. Performed live sometime in the early 1970s.
Hat tip Alec Gimarc.
Tag: commercial
SpaceX launches 24 more Starlink satellites
SpaceX today completed its second launch in 2025, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral carrying 24 Starlink satellites.
The first stage completed its seventeenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
At the moment SpaceX is the only one to complete any launches in 2025, two, though China was supposed to launch its Long March 3B rocket today as well.
I must add that I am very much under the weather today, which explains the limited posting.
Trump administration considering major positive changes at NASA
According to a report two weeks ago by Eric Berger at Ars Technica and reviewed today by Mark Whittington at The Hill, the transition team for the Trump administration is reviewing a number of very major positive changes at NASA. The transition team has set up a five-person committee to review the following:
- canceling the costly Space Launch System rocket and possibly the Orion spacecraft
- Redesigning the entire Artemis program to make it more cost effective
- Set a new goal to put humans on the Moon by 2028
- consolidating three NASA centers into one to reduce overhead
- Reducing the size of NASA headquarters
The first two recommendations would be doing what I have been recommending since 2011. SLS is an over-priced boondoggle that is too cumbersome and expensive. It can never do the job of establishing a lunar base, NASA’s prime goal. The same applies to Orion, which NASA for years touted as an interplanetary spaceship, an utter lie. It is merely an overweight ascent/descent capsule, nothing more.
The third recommendation is mostly for photo op purposes, since it is unlikely a manned landing can occur that quick, especially if the entire Artemis program is redesigned, replacing NASA’s the SLS rocket with SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy. At the same time, if Trump shuts down the FAA’s red tape, we might be seeing many test flights of this rocket in the next two years, accelerating its development considerably.
The last two recommendations match the only recommendation from my 2017 policy paper, Capitalism in Space [free pdf here] that NASA has not yet embraced. I had recommended NASA reduce its overhead and bureaucracy, since it widely known in the business that its many agencies do relatively little for their cost. The rumored proposal under consideration is to consolidate the Goddard center in Maryland, the Ames center in California with the Marshall center in Alabama, with the new combined center in Alabama.
Getting this done however remains difficult. The centers exist because elected officials want them in their states and congressional districts. Expect strong resistance in Congress.
That the Trump administration is considering it anyway suggests these big changes are coming, regardless. And if so, I say Hallelujah!
Italy’s military negotiating with SpaceX to use its Starlink constellation for communications
In what would be a five year deal costing $1.56 billion, Italy’s military is presently negotiating with SpaceX to use its Starlink constellation for communications, rather than wait for the European Space Agency’s (ESA) IRIS2 constellation, which is years from launch and likely to experience delays, as do all of ESA’s projects.
By negotiating a five-year deal with SpaceX, Italy may be aiming to bridge the gap until Europe’s IRIS2 system becomes operational. With the ongoing war in Eastern Europe, the country’s Armed Forces likely view secure military communications as an urgent priority. However, critics may argue that the €1.5 billion price tag represents 14.15% of the total IRIS2 budget for just five years of service. For context, Italy is the third-largest contributor to the European Union, with its €18.6 billion contribution in 2023 accounting for roughly 10% of the EU’s total budget.
This story illustrates the good business sense of Elon Musk. He moved to get Starlink in orbit ahead of anyone else, and now is reaping the cash awards because he can provide services while others cannot.
SpaceX successfully completes the first launch in 2025
SpaceX tonight successfully launched a commercial communications satellite for the United Arab Emirates (UAE), its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
The first stage completed its 20th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The two fairings completed their 16th and 19th flights respectively.
As this was the first launch in 2025, SpaceX is the only rocket company or nation on the leader board. This will not last long, as there are a lot of launches coming in the next few weeks, including the first launch attempt of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, the seventh test orbital launch of SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy, the first launch of China’s Long March 8 rocket, a launch of India’s GSLV rocket, and a number of SpaceX Falcon 9 launches, including one that will send Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander on its way to the Moon.
FAA cancels one of three public meetings on the Starship/Superheavy environmental reassessment
The FAA today announced that it has canceled one of three meetings that it plans to hold in the Brownsville region next week to obtain public feedback on SpaceX’s request to increase its Starship/Superheavy launch rate at Boca Chica to 25 launches per year.
The FAA was scheduled to hold in-person public meetings on January 7th and 9th, 2025. However, due to the designation of January 9, 2025 as a National Day of Mourning to honor the late former President Jimmy Carter, the January 9th meetings are now cancelled.
The meeting schedule is now as follows:
- In-person meeting: Tuesday, January 7, 2025; 1:00 PM–3:00 PM & 5:30 PM–7:30 PM CDT at the Texas Southmost College, Jacob Brown Auditorium, 600 International Boulevard, Brownsville, TX 78520
- Virtual on-line meeting: Monday, January 13, 2025; 5:30 PM–7:30 PM CDT Registration Link here. Dial-in phone number: 888-788-0099 (Toll Free), Webinar ID: 879 9253 6128, Passcode: 900729
As I noted in November when the new environmental reassessment and these meetings were announced, it is practically certain that the fringe anti-Musk activists groups SaveRGV, Sierra Club, the Friends of Wildlife Corridor, and the fake Indian Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas (which never existed in Texas) are organizing to be there in force, demanding SpaceX’s Boca Chica operations be shut down.
If the rest of the public, which is the vast majority of the Brownsville community, does not show up to counter these fringe activists, it will make it much easier for the bureaucrats who hate Musk at the FAA to take action against SpaceX. It is essential that the business community at least make an appearance, as the arrival of SpaceX has brought billions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs to Brownsville.
Sergei Prokofiev – Dance of the Knights
An evening pause: Stay with it as the opening is rarely included.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
India and SpaceX announce their planned launch goals for 2025
We now have predictions from both India and SpaceX on the number of times each will attempt orbital launches in 2025.
In a tweet from India’s space agency ISRO today, the agency announced it plans ten launches in 2025. This count includes one launch of its man-rated Heavy Lift Vehicle-Mark 3 (HLVM3) rocket in March, testing its unmanned Gaganyaan manned capsule, one launch of its slightly smaller LVM3 rocket, four launches of its older GSLV rocket, three of its even smaller PSLV rocket, and one of its smallest new rocket, the SSLV. The last two the Indian government hopes to transfer to the private sector. (Note: The tweet says nine launches, but the graphic shows ten.)
This prediction does not include any additional orbital launches that India’s two private rocket startups, Agnikul and Skyroot, might attempt. Both have said they hope to do their first launches in 2025.
SpaceX meanwhile is hoping to smash its own record in 2024. According to comments made by the company’s CEO Gywnne Shotwell in mid-December (comments that I missed at the time), the company is planning 175 to 180 launches in 2025. This increase will likely come from two sources. First, it is my understanding that the company is adding another drone ship to its recovery fleet, allowing for more Falcon 9 launches. Second, it is probably going to be able to conduct Starship/Superheavy launches much more frequently, because the Trump administration is almost certainly going to eliminate much of the FAA regulatory red tape that has stymied the entire American rocket industry these last four years.
In the coming weeks I expect more nations and companies will announce their intended launch targets for 2025.
The global launch industry in 2024: A year of amazing highs and depressing lows, with the best yet to come
For the past five years the entire global rocket industry has experienced a revolution that has resulted in a rise in global launch numbers unprecedented since the launch of Sputnik in 1957. 2024 was no different, with the total number of successful launches topping 256, two to four times the average number of launches that had occurred yearly prior to 2020.
This success has almost entirely been driven by the arrival of many private rocket companies competing for government and commercial business — led largely by SpaceX — aided by the decision by governments worldwide to get out of the way and let private enterprise do the job. The result has been spectacular, so much so that it now seem possible in the very near future to see humans finally revisiting the Moon and even getting to Mars and the asteroids.
At the same time, 2024 saw some significant signs that this success is not guaranteed, and could vanish in an instant if care is not taken.
The graph below, my annual count of launches world wide, provides the groundwork for these conclusions.
» Read more
A detailed look at SpaceX’s investors and its stock valuations
Link here. The article provides a good review of some of SpaceX’s major investors as well as the recent rounds whereby employees who hold common stock are allowed to sell some shares as a bonus.
Secondary sales like this remain one of the only ways that employees have to sell their shares. Another bit of good news for employees in this sale [in December] was that the $70 per share price was an improvement over the previous tender of $56 when adjusting for the stock split, Bloomberg reported at the time. And Bloomberg also reported last month that the next tender offer may be as high as $108 to $110 apiece.
SpaceX remains a private company however. This is not stock that can be traded on the stock market, but privately issued (under strict rules) to raise money without giving stock-holders rights to operate the company.
Neil Young – Old Man
An evening pause: Performed live 1974.
Hat tip Cotour.
Seventh Starship/Superheavy test launch now targeting January 10, 2025
Based on a single word tweet by Elon Musk as well as the FAA’s license approval, it now appears that SpaceX is targeting January 10, 2025 for the seventh Starship/Superheavy test orbital launch.
According to the FAA license, the launch window that day opens at 4 pm (Central), with backup launch opportunities each day through January 15th.
Reading that license is very illuminating. The depth in which the FAA now demands compliance from SpaceX is beyond daunting, and illustrates the mission creep the agency has used to grow its power. Based on a recent Supreme Court ruling, the company likely has grounds to sue and win, correctly claiming that Congress never gave it such power over so many things, and that its regulatory oversight is unconstitutional.