Tag: commercial

Mysterious SpaceX launch scheduled for November 10

9:07 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX has a launch scheduled for November 10 in which nothing is known about its payload.

The mystery payload is intriguing, but the article revealed something more significant: This launch, set for November 10, will take place on launchpad 39-A, which means that the first Falcon Heavy launch cannot occur until January 10, at the earliest. According to SpaceX, they will need sixty days to reconfigure that launchpad to the Falcon Heavy after they switch launches back to launchpad 40. That reconfiguration thus cannot begin until after the November 10 launch.

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ULA’s Atlas 5 successfully launches surveillance satellite

8:56 am

Capitalism in space: ULA today successfully launched a reconnaissance satellite using its Atlas 5 rocket.

This was ULA’s seventh launch for the year, putting them behind the launch rate since the company’s formation of about a dozen launches per year. At the moment the seven launches matches 2008, the year with the fewest launches. With only two launches listed for the rest of the year, 2017 could be the first time since 2010 that ULA has not reached double digits in launches.

Whether this drop represents a long term drop in business is unclear. The company is definitely under price pressure from SpaceX and others, but that pressure had not significantly reduced their launch rate in the past four years. It will take a few more years to see.

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Morgan Stanley analysts see SpaceX value growing to $50 billion

7:29 am

Capitalism in space: A report from Morgan Stanley on Friday said that the value of SpaceX could grow to $50 billion, more than doubling its present value, if it successfully launches its proposed broadband satellite constellation.

I like this quote from the article:

Reducing the cost to launch a satellite to about $60 million, from the $200 million that United Launch Alliance charged through most of the last decade, was a monumental breakthrough. SpaceX is trying to reduce its cost to $5 million per mission, and Morgan Stanley says the launch business “generates limited operating income.”

As they say, the proof is in the pudding, and you might say that SpaceX in the past five years has launched a lot of pudding.

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30 day timelapse at sea

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Quite hypnotic, and captures the feel for what a modern ship freighter is like, which is nothing like the romantic past. And somehow, this feels fitting to show on the anniversary of the day Columbus first touched shore in the New World in 1492. He pushed the envelope possibly more than any human has ever done, and changed human history in doing so.

Hat tip Steven Golson.

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Blue Origin considering military certification for New Glenn

4:44 pm

Capitlism in space: Blue Origin is in discussions with military and national security officials in order to find out what the company must do to get its New Glenn rocket, presently under development, certified to bid on military launches.

Only a few days ago I speculated that Blue Origin might have a chance to bid on the Air Force’s new request for proposals for launches after 2022. This story confirms that they are thinking the same thing.

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Trump appoints private sector businessman to head NOAA

8:22 am

President Trump today nominated Barry Myers, the head of the private company AccuWeather, to be chief of NOAA.

This pick will likely accelerate the shift at NOAA from government-built weather satellites to buying the product from the private sector, a shift that NOAA has strongly resisted so far. The article above illustrates that resistance, as it immediately gives space to the naysayers.

But some scientists worry that Myers’ ties to AccuWeather could present conflicts of interest, and note that Myers has no direct experience with the agency’s broader research portfolio, which includes the climate, oceans and fisheries. “I think the science community has real cause for concern,” says Andrew Rosenberg, head of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Rosenberg notes that Myers was an early proponent of carving out a larger role for the private sector in providing weather services. And in 2005, while Myers served as executive vice president and general counsel, AccuWeather lobbied for legislation to prevent the National Weather Service from competing with private firms in providing products including basic weather forecasting. “Is he going to recuse himself from decisions which might potentially be of interest to his company down the road?” asks Rosenberg.

I am not surprised that the Union of Concerned Scientists opposes this shift. They have been a big government, centralized-control advocate for decades. The simple fact is, however, that a lot of money is made predicting the weather. There is no reason the government should be paying for these satellites and providing this service free. If the government didn’t do it, the private weather companies like AccuWeather and the Weather Channel would quickly take over, because — like television networks and communications companies — they need the satellites for their businesses.

Would the data be as available for scientists doing climate research? Maybe in the beginning the private companies would be reluctant to release what to them is proprietary data. As more competing companies got their satellites launched, however, the competition would force them all to make their data available for research, and researchers would end up with more data, not less.

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SpaceX launches another satellite, recovers 1st stage

4:06 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX today has just successfully launched a commercial satellite, using a previously flown first stage, which it was able to successfully land and recover for the second time. I can’t wait for the first time they fly one of these first stages for the third time.

This was SpaceX’s 15th launch for the year, which ties them with the Russians for most launches so far in 2017. It also puts them one short of doubling their previous yearly launch record of 8, and also puts them only one behind the record for most launches by a U.S. company since 1986 (ULA launched 16 times in 2009).

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Air Force shifting to commercial space products

9:20 am

In order to save money and speed development, the Air Force is shifting its policy from building all its own space products to buying them from commercial companies.

The desire to leverage more commercial technology came after the Army concluded that a pre-planned modernization path would have taken until 2032 to complete, and ultimately would have cost more than desired, James Mingus, director of the Army’s Mission Command Center of Excellence, said Oct. 10 at the Association of the United States Army conference here. “We are going to halt programs that are not sufficiently, or cannot be sufficiently remedied; we are going to fix those programs we need to be able to “fight tonight,” and then we are going to pivot to an ‘adapt and buy’ approach,” he said.

Being able to “fight tonight” means maintaining the necessary telecommunications infrastructure to engage in combat at a moment’s notice. Beyond keeping that capability steady, the Army wants to apply commercial solutions, which Mingus said “probably meet the majority” of the Army’s needs.

This process began when SpaceX forced the Air Force to open up its launch bids to competition. It has continued as commercial space has shown itself to be fast and innovative and capable of meeting the Air Force’s needs quickly and cheaply. It has probably been accelerated again by the Trump administration itself. In the end, by trusting private enterprise to provide the Air Force what it needs, the country’s economy will grow, and it will do so efficiently, while the government will save money and get what it needs, sooner.

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NanoRacks and Moon Express team up for lunar missions

8:53 am

Capitalism in space: The private space company Moon Express has signed an agreement with NanoRacks to help manage its planned lunar commercial missions.

Under the agreement, NanoRacks, a company best known for transporting satellites and other payloads to the International Space Station, will handle sales, marketing and technical support for payloads that will fly on Moon Express’ series of lunar lander missions, starting in early 2018. “The primary goal of our alliance with NanoRacks is to ensure a great customer experience,” said Bob Richards, founder and chief executive of Moon Express, in a statement. “Our companies share a culture of customer focus, and together we will be able to provide end to end support from payload concept to mission operations.”

NanoRacks does similar work for researchers and cubesat manufacturers who want access to ISS. They act as the go-between, bundling the different projects and arranging them with NASA.

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Private company to build its own ISS airlock

9:25 pm

Capitalism in space: The private company NanoRacks has raised the funds necessary to build its own ISS airlock and install it in 2019.

“The reason we want our own airlock is this airlock is going to be five times bigger than the current airlock, and it’s going to be far more commercial,” Manber said in a Sept. 27 presentation at the International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia. In addition to satellite deployments and experiments, he said the module will be commercial “real estate” on the station, with the ability to mount payloads on its exterior. “It’s getting us more into the real estate business and space station operations,” he said.

Manber said the module was on track to launch in 2019, carried to the station in the trunk of a SpaceX Dragon cargo resupply spacecraft. A formal manifesting of the payload on a resupply flight is now being finalized, he said, while the airlock itself is being manufactured.

What this suggests to me is that ISS might not go away in 2024, but instead slowly shift to private ownership and operation, all for profit. This deal appears to lay the groundwork for this shift.

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Air Force releases request for launch proposals

1:02 pm

Capitalism in space: The Air Force has released a new request for proposals for providing launch services after 2022.

The Air Force has released a request for proposal for its next iteration of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle, known as EELV, to be used on space lift such as the Atlas V, Delta IV, and Falcon 9 rocket systems. The service said Thursday it plans to award “at least three agreements” for prototype development as part of its Launch Services Agreement strategy.

The news comes amid the Air Force’s attempt to move away from its use of Russian-made RD-180 engines.

Though I doubt Blue Origin will have launched enough to get certified by the Air Force when the contracts are awarded in 2020, expect them to demand a pie of the action soon thereafter.

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Stratollite completes five day balloon test flight

3:48 pm

Capitalism in space: World View’s first test flight of its stratollite high altitude balloon out of its Tucson launch site has successfully achieved a five day mission.

The vehicle hovered between 55,000 and 75,000 feet, while successfully testing out equipment designed to steer the balloon and keep it relatively stable at the same spot. Onboard were a 50.6-megapixel Canon EOS 5DS camera to do Earth observations, as well as communications equipment from the US military’s Southern Command. The military is interested in using the stratollite to look for human and drug trafficking, as well as maritime piracy.

World View says it’s going to bring down the stratollite sometime today, after hitting all of its critical milestones. “This is an enormous leap in our development program and we are certain the stratollite is going to forge a new path in how we observe, react to and collect data about our planet,” Jane Poynter, CEO of World View, said in a statement.

It is pretty clear that World View has shifted its focus from high altitude tourist flights in a balloon to high altitude reconnaissance and research flights, suggesting that they found the customer demand for the tourist flights at $75,000 each to be weak.

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TeamIndus still searching for funds for Google Lunar X-Prize mission

9:51 am

Capitalism in space: TeamIndus, one of the five finalists in the Google Lunar X-Prize mission, is still searching for the funds it needs to pay for its launch.

Bengaluru-based aerospace start-up TeamIndus is scouting for funds and sponsors to build a spacecraft with a rover for landing and exploring the lunar surface. “The total budget of the moon mission is about Rs 450 crore, out of which we have raised more than half (Rs 225 crore) and have spent. We’re trying to accumulate the rest through sponsors and others interested in this mission,” TeamIndus Fleet Commander Rahul Narayan told reporters here on Thursday.

They have a contract to launch on India’s PSLV rocket, but have been trying to raise the funds needed to pay for it now for months. In July they had raised half the needed funds. Though this article says they have raised more than half (in Indian money: Rs 225 crore), that number remains half of the total budget listed (Rs 450 crore). From this it appears they have not yet found any additional sponsorship.

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MDA becomes Maxar

9:43 am

Capitalism in space: The space company MDA has acquired DigitalGlobe and reorganized itself under the new name Maxar Technologies.

The acquisition and name change appears to be part of a strategy to make this long time Canadian company an international company able to do U.S. military missions.

MDA undertook a major corporate reorganization in May 2016 as part of its “U.S. Access Plan” strategy, including the appointment of Mr. Lance and the formation of SSL MDA Holdings, Inc., with its headquarters in San Francisco, which manages and controls all of the Company’s operations across Canada, the U.S. and internationally. This process was completed under the guidance and approval of the U.S. Department of Defense, whereby SSL MDA Holdings operates under a Security Control Agreement. This structure allows the Company to pursue and execute U.S. government programs that require security clearances.

Maxar’s SSL division is the one building a satellite servicing mission for DARPA, and has been sued (unsuccessfully) by Orbital ATK for getting favorable treatment by the government, including federal monies, even though it is a foreign company. This reorganization apparently is aimed at eliminating Maxar’s foreign status in the U.S.

The name change also succeeds in making the company more marketable. MDA, which stands for MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd, always sounded like an accountant firm. Maxar is much better.

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ArianeGroup struggles with the concept of reusability

10:13 pm

Capitalism in space: ArianeGroup, the company building ESA’s next generation rocket Ariane 6, is debating when and if it should introduce reusability into its design.

[Patrick Bonguet, head of the Ariane 6 program,] said ArianeGroup is studying reusability with Prometheus “in order to be sure to take the right path at the right moment.” Those efforts are mostly to prevent Europe from being caught flat-footed in the wake of other reusable launch systems, namely from SpaceX and now also Blue Origin.

Reusability is far from a primary focus, however. “We still have not understood, would we save money by reusing? At least with our launch rate?” he asked. “We hope to launch 12 times a year. If we reuse 12 times, that means we only manufacture one time per year. It is difficult for us to have that.”

Bonguet said reusability would essentially erase the production efficiencies ArianeGroup is striving for, starving the Ariane 6 industrial base of the work upon which it relies. A smaller tip-toe into reusability could come through salvaging Ariane 6’s payload fairings. Swiss manufacturer Ruag Space is developing reusable fairings, which Bonguet said are of interest to ArianeGroup.

I guarantee that by the mid-2020s they will entirely be “caught flat-footed” if they have not begun by then the use of reusable rockets.

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Timelapse photography of Fort Jefferson in Dry Tortugas National Park

6:01 pm

An evening pause: From the youtube webpage: “On a remote island hours away from Key West lies the largest masonry structure in the Americas: Fort Jefferson. Built with 16 million bricks, but never finished, the fort served as a prison during Civil War. In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, upon visiting the island, named it a National Monument, and in 1992 it became part of Dry Tortugas National Park.”

Hat tip Wayne DeVette.

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First Flight

9:21 pm

The last part in Doug Messier’s series on the commercial aviation/space history, First Flight, is now available.

Messier brings his history of Virgin Galactic up to the present, and then compares their efforts to build a reusable suborbital spacecraft with that of Blue Origin and its New Shepard design. For Virgin Galactic, the comparison does not reflect well upon them. While fourteen years have passed since the company began its so far unsuccessful effort to reach suborbital space, Blue Origin has already done it multiple times, with a reusable ship. And it took Blue Origin about half the time to make that happen.

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Rory Feek – Fifty Thousand Names

6:01 pm

An evening pause: The song is by George Jones. It speaks of those who died and are remembered at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. Even though that particular war was somewhat misguided, the courage and bravery of those who fought it, and the fact that in the end it did serve to halt for a time the spread of communism and tyranny, should not be forgotten.

There’s stars of David and rosary beads
and crucifixion figurines
and flowers of all colors large and small
There’s a Boy Scout badge and a merit pin
Little American flags waving in the wind
and there’s 50,000 names carved in the wall.

Sadly, there are a lot of very wealthy athletes today who have forgotten this.

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Sierra Nevada and Canada sign agreement for using Dream Chaser

3:11 pm

Capitalism in space: Sierra Nevada has signed an agreement with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) to study ways in which Canada might utilize the company’s reusable Dream Chaser spacecraft.

This agreement is very preliminary, with no apparent specific plans announced nor any exchange of money. It is however another signal of the strong interest that foreign governments have in buying time on Dream Chaser, once it is operational.

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One Chute

9:58 am

Part 4 of Doug Messier’s series on commercial space history, A Niche in Time, is now available. It is entitled “One Chute” and focuses on the long and sad history of Virgin Galactic.

One new detail that Messier notes struck me:

At the time of the accident, Virgin Galactic had about 700 customers signed up to fly on SpaceShipTwo. Officials now say the number is around 650. Assuming full ships with six passengers aboard, Virgin Galactic would need 109 flights just to fly out its current manifest. The figure doesn’t include flight tests and missions filled with microgravity experiments. That’s a lot of launches to make without expecting at least one catastrophic failure, possibly involving prominent wealthy passengers.

It increasingly appears that this will be a total loss for the investors who poured money into Virgin Galactic.

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Falcon Heavy launch delayed?

9:43 am

In quelling a false rumor that said NASA was forcing SpaceX to change the launchpad location for its Falcon Heavy (it is not), SpaceX noted that Falcon Heavy’s first launch will occur “no earlier than the end of 2017.”

Previously they have said that they are aiming for November 2017, following the reconfiguration of the 39-A launchpad from Falcon 9 launches to Falcon Heavy launches. This statement suggests that a November launch is now considered unlikely. The reconfiguration will take 60 days, and cannot occur until SpaceX switches its Falcon 9 launches from launchpad 39-A back to launchpad 40. Since a Falcon 9 launch is presently scheduled for launchpad 39-A this Saturday, that reconfiguration cannot begin before then. Moreover, the launchpad for an October 30 Falcon 9 launch remains unnamed, suggesting that launchpad 40 might not be ready by then and therefore forcing SpaceX to use 39-A for Falcon 9. This would in turn delay the first Falcon Heavy launch to the very end of December, at the earliest.

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