Tag: commercial

Voyager Technologies and Max Space team up to develop inflatable planetary structures

8:01 am

The station designs as of the end of 2025
The station designs as of the end of 2025

The space station startups Voyager Technologies, which is leading the consortium developing Starlab, and Max Space, which is developing its own inflatable Thunderbird station, have now partnered to use their combined talents to develop inflatable planetary structures for habitation and cargo.

In terms of their space stations, they are similar but different. Voyager’s Starlab station will be a single giant module launched on Starship. The consortium building this module had hired the interior decoration company Journey to design the interior, and yesterday showed off a mock-up of that interior.

Max Space’s Thunderbird is an equally large single module but because it uses inflatable technology it will launch on a Falcon 9. The company plans to launch a smaller demo module in ’27 to prove this technology.

Both companies will now use their skills together to begin design work on inflatable habitats that both NASA and SpaceX could use on the planned lunar and Mars colonies.

The phased development path includes ground validation and in-space demonstrations later this decade, with the goal of enabling operational lunar and Mars capabilities aligned with NASA’s exploration timelines. The partnership emphasizes early risk retirement, interoperability and commercial scalability as guiding principles.

In other words, these companies are expanding their business model to sell their products across a wider range of uses. This deal does not change my rankings of the five space stations currently under development, as shown below, but it is an interesting data point that suggests the technology of these space stations can be marketed in many other space-related areas.
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Stephen Sondheim – Someone in a Tree

6:01 pm

An evening pause: For my birthday, a repost of a 2010 evening pause of one of my favorite Broadway songs, from Stephen Sondheim’s Pacific Overtures, which I only recently learned was his favorite song as well.

It tells the story of a significant moment in history, the moment when Japan’s leaders signed their first international treaty in 1852 with the United States, but from the point of view of outside witnesses. Its point is profound, that history is not just made by the leaders who sign the deals, but by every individual who makes up the whole of human society.

It’s the fragment, not the day
It’s the pebble, not the stream
It’s the ripple, not the sea
That is happening.
Not the building but the beam
Not the garden but the stone
Only cups of tea
And history
And someone in a tree.

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French startup The Exploration Company completes first splashdown tests of Nyx capsule prototype

9:31 am

The French cargo capsule startup, The Exploration Company, has successfully completed the first splashdown tests of a smallscate prototype model of its proposed Nyx capsule.

On 5 February, The Exploration Company announced that it had successfully completed a splashdown test campaign at the National Research Council’s Institute of Marine Engineering (CNR-INM) in Rome.

A 1:4-scale mockup of Nyx, with a mass of around 135 kilograms, was built for the test campaign by Poli Model, a small Turin-based model builder. For reference, the full-scale capsule will be 4 metres wide and stand at 7 metres tall. The subscale model’s exterior was fitted with pressure sensors, accelerometers, and a gyroscope.

The tests were conducted in the CNR-INM facility’s Umberto Pugliese towing tank, a 470-metre-long pool measuring 13.5 metres across and 6.5 metres deep. Between 13 and 28 January, a total of 20 drops were conducted at varying heights and speeds in calm water, which the company explained maximised repeatability.

The company hopes to fly a fullscale demo mission to ISS in 2028, and wants to upgrade Nyx to manned capabilities in the 2030s.

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Israeli weather satellite startup raises $175 million in investment capital

9:17 am

An Israeli weather satellite startup, dubbed Tomorrow.io, has now raised $175 million in investment capital to build an AI-driven constellation of satellites to supplement the smallsat constellation it has already launched.

This financing builds on a proven foundation of execution. Tomorrow.io has completed the full deployment of its first satellite constellation, having launched 13 satellites to space, achieving 60-minute global revisit, while scaling an AI-driven intelligence platform now embedded across critical industries. DeepSky extends this foundation into the next phase of the company’s roadmap, supporting continued commercial growth, expanding data coverage, and unlocking new high-frequency sensing capabilities.

I find amusing this new desire to label all computer programming “AI”, when in many cases it is simply the same software slightly upgraded that these companies have been using for years.

Nonetheless, this story signals the continuing transition in the weather satellite industry from the government/Soviet-style model, where all weather satellites are built and operated by governments, to the capitalism model, where governments and industry buy weather data from privately built, launched, and maintained commercial constellations.

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German rocket startup Isar Aerospace opens new rocket testing facility at Esrange spaceport

8:03 am

Proposed or active spaceports in North Europe
Proposed or active spaceports in North Europe

Though the German rocket startup Isar Aerospace is using Norway’s Andoya spaceport to launch its Spectrum rocket, it is now expanding significantly its testing facilities at Sweden’s Esrange spaceport to the east.

European space company Isar Aerospace is significantly expanding their testing operations with SSC Space at Esrange Space Center in Sweden, opening a second test site to support the development and production of its ‘Spectrum’ rocket. The new facility will enable testing of 30+ engines per month, along with expanded integrated stage testing capabilities, increasing testing capacity and enabling faster development.

Launching from Esrange is a problem because of its interior location, but testing engines there, close to Germany and the Andoya spaceport makes great sense.

Isar had hoped to make its second attempt to complete the first orbital launch of Spectrum in January, but postponed the launch until March to deal with a valve issue.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay.

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Midnight repost: Truth, Justice, and the American Way

11:58 pm

Tonight Diane and I decided to watch again the 1978 Richard Donner movie, Superman. The overall film is lighthearted entertainment that captures the myth of this super-hero perfectly. However, it has two scenes that remain among the best moments in movie history (which you can watch here and here). The first captures the myth in every way. The second shows us that Superman truly stood for the best in America.

In watching the movie tonight again and reliving the myth I grew up with — that great things are possible if you believe and follow sincerely Superman’s motto of “truth, justice, and the American way” — I decided to repost my essay from 2020 where I attempted to explain what that motto really meant.

Enjoy!
———————

The heroic Superman as envisioned in the 1950s
George Reeves as the heroic Superman as envisioned
in the 1950s television show, emulated later by Richard
Donner in his 1978 movie. Click for show’s opening credits.

Truth, Justice, and the American Way

The words spoken during the opening credits of a 1950s children’s television show:

Faster than a speeding bullet.
More powerful than a locomotive.
Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
Look up in the sky!
It’s a bird.
It’s a plane.
It’s Superman!

Yes, it’s Superman, strange visitor from another planet who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men.

Superman, who can change the course of mighty rivers, bend steel in his bare hands, and who, disguised as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American Way.

That television show was obviously Superman, starring George Reeves, and these opening words expressed the mythology and basic ideals by which this most popular of all comic-book super-heroes lived.

I grew up with those words. They had been bequeathed to me by the American generation that had fought and won World War II against the genocidal Nazis, and expressed the fundamental ideals of that generation.

Much of the meaning of these fundamental ideals is outright and clear.
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SpaceX wants revisions to federal rural grant program that has awarded it $733 million

4:05 pm

SpaceX is presently asking for changes in the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program that awards grants to companies that provide internet in rural areas and has already awarded the company $733 million in grants.

BEAD was part of the Biden administration’s bipartisan infrastructure act – originally a $42 billion program to bring broadband internet to areas of the country with little or no broadband access. The Trump administration eliminated other infrastructure act programs, and cut BEAD outlays to $21 billion, along with rule changes to allow satellite providers.

SpaceX applied for BEAD funds in 2025. The company won $733 million worth of BEAD projects nationwide, including $109 million in Texas.

Initially the Biden administration awarded SpaceX almost a billion dollar grant, because its Starlink constellation was the only broadband outlet actually doing the job. Then Musk began to campaign for Republicans, and suddenly the Biden administration pulled that grant, saying absurdly that SpaceX was failing to provide its service to rural areas, when that was exactly what it was doing.

Now SpaceX wants BEAD to ease some of its requirements, and wants these grant funds upfront.

I say, this whole BEAD program is a waste of taxpayer money and a perfect example of crony capitalism. I’m glad Trump cut it in half, but that wasn’t good enough. It should be shut down entirely. SpaceX doesn’t need this handout. It is making money hand-over-fist on its own.

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Commercial changes at France’s French Guiana spaceport

9:41 am

French Guiana spaceport
The French Guiana spaceport. The Diamant launchsite is labeled “B.”
Click for full resolution image. (Note: The Ariane-5 pad is now the
Ariane-6 pad.)

Once France’s space agency CNES regained control of its spaceport in French Guiana several years ago from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) commercial pseudo-company Arianespace, it has moved aggressively to make that spaceport attractive to the new European rocket startups.

Beginning in 2022, it began to sign deals with every one of those rocket startups to allow them to establish launch facilities at the spaceport using several long abandoned pads, including the French Diamant rocket site not used for decades as well as the Soyuz launch site unused due to Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine.

CNES decided to standardize Diamant for multiple rocket companies, while leasing the Soyuz site to one.

In a news story today, it appears the startup MaiaSpace, a wholly owned subsidiary of the much larger aerospace company ArianeGroupk, has shifted its launch plans at French Guiana. Initially it was going to launch its rocket from the Diamant pad. In 2024 however it won the contract to use the Soyuz pad, and it has now withdrawn its plans to use Diamant entirely.

CNES has therefore put out a call to the European rocket industry to fill this slot at Diamant. At present Isar Aerospace, PLD Space, Rocket Factory Augsburg, and Latitude have agreements to use Diamant, though only Latitude and PLD had done any development work on their facilities there.

As far as I know, these companies comprise the entire cadre of new European rocket startups, so I don’t know what other users CNES hopes to find. Furthermore, CNES had wanted to standardize the launch site for everyone, and the companies had balked at that idea. PLD got a deal to use its own pad at Diamant. I suspect the reason Isar and Rocket Factory have done little there is because they want their own facilities as well.

Either way, French Guiana is moving the direction of supporting competitive commercial operations, and that is a very good thing.

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Judy Garland -Trolley Song

6:01 pm

An evening pause: From the 1944 film, Meet me in St. Louis. I posted this in July 2010 as one of the very first evening pauses. As I wrote then, “The last line of the song says it all, about life and love.”

Hat tip to Judd Clark, who suggested it, which convinced me it was time to post it again.

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Falcon 9 upper stage has issue preventing de-orbit burn; SpaceX pauses launches

8:34 am

According to a SpaceX tweet yesterday afternoon, the upper stage of the Falcon 9 rocket that successfully launched 25 Starlink satellites “experienced an off-nominal condition” when it was preparing to do its final de-orbit engine burn.

During today’s Falcon 9 launch of @Starlink satellites, the second stage experienced an off-nominal condition during preparation for the deorbit burn. The vehicle then performed as designed to successfully passivate the stage. The first two MVac burns were nominal and safely deployed all 25 Starlink satellites to their intended orbit.

Teams are reviewing data to determine root cause and corrective actions before returning to flight

It appears that SpaceX has temporarily paused its launch schedule while it reviews this incident, shifting a launch that was supposed to occur last night back three days to February 5th. While the launch itself was successful, the company likely wants to get a handle on what went wrong before resuming launches.

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Musk: I have merged xAI with SpaceX

3:35 pm

Elon Musk today announced that he has merged the company xAI (which includes X) with SpaceX, because in his mind the needs of the two companies interlace perfectly.

The requirement to launch thousands of satellites to orbit became a forcing function for the Falcon program, driving recursive improvements to reach the unprecedented flight rates necessary to make space-based internet a reality. This year, Starship will begin delivering the much more powerful V3 Starlink satellites to orbit, with each launch adding more than 20 times the capacity to the constellation as the current Falcon launches of the V2 Starlink satellites. Starship will also launch the next generation of direct-to-mobile satellites, which will deliver full cellular coverage everywhere on Earth.

While the need to launch these satellites will act as a similar forcing function to drive Starship improvements and launch rates, the sheer number of satellites that will be needed for space-based data centers will push Starship to even greater heights. With launches every hour carrying 200 tons per flight, Starship will deliver millions of tons to orbit and beyond per year, enabling an exciting future where humanity is out exploring amongst the stars.

The basic math is that launching a million tons per year of satellites generating 100 kW of compute power per ton would add 100 gigawatts of AI compute capacity annually, with no ongoing operational or maintenance needs. Ultimately, there is a path to launching 1 TW/year from Earth.

My estimate is that within 2 to 3 years, the lowest cost way to generate AI compute will be in space. This cost-efficiency alone will enable innovative companies to forge ahead in training their AI models and processing data at unprecedented speeds and scales, accelerating breakthroughs in our understanding of physics and invention of technologies to benefit humanity.

Many sources online are speculating that this new merged company will make the company’s initial public offering (IPO) now rumored for this summer even more sky high. I remain puzzled however why Musk would want to do it, and this merger today illustrates why. He controls both SpaceX and xAI completely, as both are privately owned. He didn’t need to convince government regulators of anything. Once the company is public, with publicly traded stock, that will change. He will no longer have such freedom of action.

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Amazon buys ten more launches from SpaceX to place its Leo satellites in orbit

10:59 am

Amazon Leo logo

Hidden in Amazon’s submission last week to the FCC, requesting more time to launch its Leo internet constellation, was this tidbit:

Less than two years after the Commission granted its authorization, Amazon Leo announced the largest commercial launch procurements in history to deploy its initial constellation. It has since added to this launch capacity, and today has contracted for 102 launches across four providers: 18 launches on Arianespace’s Ariane 6, 24 launches on Blue Origin’s New Glenn, 38 launches on ULA’s Vulcan Centaur, 9 launches on ULA’s Atlas V, and 13 launches on SpaceX’s Falcon 9. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted phrases indicate the significant changes. In my initial post last week I was focused solely on whether the FCC would grant Amazon the time extension to get its constellation in orbit. At the moment it has only 180 satellites operating in orbit, and to meet its license requirement it must have 1,616 launched by July.

Thus, I didn’t look closely at these launch contract numbers. While the number of launches for Arianespace (18) and ULA (47) appears to match Amazon’s contract numbers from its original 2022 announcement, Blue Origin’s total has dropped by three launches, 27 to 24.

SpaceX in turn has gained another ten launches, on top of its original already completed 2023 three-launch contract. (In 2023, faced with a stockholder lawsuit for ignoring SpaceX’s Falcon 9, the only operational rocket among all of these at the time and by far the cheapest, Amazon’s management quickly signed SpaceX to that three-launch contract.)

The submission last week tells us that sometime recently Amazon signed SpaceX to a new contract for ten more launches. The numbers also suggest that the company took three launches away from Blue Origin’s New Glenn. Apparently, Amazon is not happy with Blue Origin’s launch pace, and signed SpaceX to help get more satellites in orbit. Without question, SpaceX will get these ten additional launches off faster than ULA, Arianespace, or Blue Origin combined. In fact, I bet it gets all ten done before the middle of this year, assuming Amazon can deliver it the satellites.

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SpaceX launches 25 more Starlink satellites; uses 1st stage for 31st time

9:28 am

SpaceX this morning successfully placed another 25 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The 1st stage (B1071) completed its 31st flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. Though this number set no records, it moved that booster closer to catching the records for the most reused launch vehicle, presently held by the shuttle Discovery:

39 Discovery space shuttle
33 Atlantis space shuttle
32 Falcon 9 booster B1067
31 Falcon 9 booster B1071
30 Falcon 9 booster B1063
29 Falcon 9 booster B1069
28 Columbia space shuttle

Sources here and here.

The 2026 launch race:

14 SpaceX
6 China
2 Rocket Lab

This list is likely inaccurate, as Russia had a Soyuz-2 launch of a classified payload planned just prior to SpaceX’s launch, but as yet there been no confirmation of its success. SpaceX also has another launch schedule for this evening. I will include both when I update then.

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SpaceX submits proposal to FCC for new constellation of one million satellites

3:03 pm

SpaceX yesterday submitted a proposal to Federal Communications Commission to build new satellite constellation made up of one million satellites designed as an orbiting data center.

In one 8-page document, SpaceX describes its proposed Orbital Data Center system. “To deliver the compute capacity required for large scale AI inference and data center applications serving billions of users globally, SpaceX aims to deploy a system of up to one million satellites to operate within narrow orbital shells spanning up to 50 km each (leaving sufficient room to deconflict against other systems with comparable ambitions),” the company says.

The same satellites would harness the sun’s energy, orbiting at “between 500 km and 2,000 km altitude and 30 degrees and sun-synchronous orbit inclinations,” the company adds. The orbiting data centers would also use “optical links,” or lasers, to connect with Starlink, using the existing satellite internet system to route traffic to users below.

“Orbital data centers are the most efficient way to meet the accelerating demand for AI computing power,” the filing adds in bold, pointing to the growing energy costs of AI data centers on Earth. The company is also betting it can launch the space-based data centers at a rapid clip using SpaceX’s more powerful Starship vehicle, which is also crucial to upgrading Starlink with next-generation satellites.

The FCC is likely not going to okay this submission, as written. It is clearly very preliminary, but appears to be consistent with SpaceX’s way of doing business. It sees an opportunity, and jumps in with full force. While others are working up their plans, SpaceX submits its first license proposal outlining the plan in very broad terms, thus getting there first.

And SpaceX is very well positioned to launch this constellation as promised. It has the rockets, and has proven itself capable of running a satellite constellation of vast size.

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Axiom wins slot for next tourist mission to ISS

2:25 pm

NASA yesterday announced that it awarded the space station startup Axiom the next slot for a tourist mission to ISS.

NASA and Axiom Space have signed an order for the fifth private astronaut mission to the International Space Station, targeted to launch no earlier than January 2027 from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

…Axiom Mission 5 is expected to spend up to 14 days aboard the space station. A specific launch date will depend on overall spacecraft traffic at the orbital outpost and other planning considerations.

Both Axiom and the space station startup Vast had been bidding for the fifth and sixth tourist slots. That Axiom had already done this four times previously was probably NASA’s reasons for choosing it. The agency has not yet decided on who will get the sixth slot, targeting a mission likely in 2028. My bet is that it will give to Vast, because by then Vast’s own demo station Haven-1 will have launched and been visited, thus giving that company some of the experience Axiom already has.

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Russia in discussions with Malaysian province about potential spaceport

1:49 pm

Proposed spaceports in Malaysia
Proposed spaceports in Malaysia

Officials from Glavcosmos, the commercial division of Russia’s Roscosmos space agency, have been holding meetings with officials from the Malaysian province of Sabah about building a spaceport there.

Glavkosmos said technical studies identify Sabah as the most suitable location in Southeast Asia for orbital launches, including low-earth and sun-synchronous orbits, due to its strategic geography and safe rocket stage drop zones. The proposed spaceport could create more than 2,000 high-income jobs and boost local supporting industries.

One year ago, in January 2025, the Sabah government announced it was holding similar discussions with the Ukraine. It seems either those talks fell through, or Russia decided to move in and block the Ukraine from making a deal.

A second Malaysian state, Pahang, is also planning a spaceport, working instead with China.

In all cases, it does appear for some reason Malaysia is not very interested in working with western nations.

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Blue Origin shuts down New Shepard suborbital tourist flights

1:22 pm

Blue Origin yesterday announced it is “pausing” the suborbital tourist flights of its New Shepard spacecraft for no less than two years.

Blue Origin today announced it will pause its New Shepard flights and shift resources to further accelerate development of the company’s human lunar capabilities. The decision reflects Blue Origin’s commitment to the nation’s goal of returning to the Moon and establishing a permanent, sustained lunar presence.

Those “lunar capabilites” not only include its lunar landers, both manned and unmanned, but its New Glenn rocket, which it wants to sell to NASA to use for these missions. Both need more attention. In addition, it could be the company’s CEO, David Limp, wants to allocate more resources to the company’s Orbital Reef space station proposal, which has been sitting dead in the water for the past year-plus. All these projects have been very slow to get out of the starting gate, partly because of the very leisurely culture that Blue Origin’s previous CEO installed, and partly because the company has put out too many projects it is not focusing well on finishing.

There is also likely a third reason: New Shepard was not making a profit. While the company has been flying it quite regularly in recent months, it does not appear it could ever recover its costs. Moreover, I suspect the demand for these short suborbital tourist flights has diminished with advent of orbital tourism and the soon-to-arrive multiple commercial space stations.

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Amazon asks FCC for time extension for launching its Leo constellation

11:22 am

Amazon yesterday submitted a request to the Federal Communications Commission to extend the July deadline on its license for its Leo internet satellite constellation, which presently requires it to have 1,616 satellites in orbit by that date.

At present Amazon has 181 satellites in orbit, all launched in the last ten months. At that pace there is no chance the company can meet its FCC requirement. From its FCC submission:

While Amazon Leo will meet the deadline for full deployment of its constellation established by its license and the Commission’s rules, launch delays will cause it to fall short of the interim milestone requirement to deploy half of its originally authorized constellation by July 30, 2026. The Commission’s rules provide for extension of such milestones where, as here, delay arises from unforeseeable circumstances beyond an operator’s control or overriding public interest considerations favor an extension.

Because it meets both criteria, Amazon Leo respectfully requests a 24-month extension of its 50% milestone to July 30, 2028, or alternatively, a waiver of this interim requirement.

In its submission Amazon claims the delay is entirely the fault of the rocket companies it was relying on to launch the satellites, but that is a bogus claim. It initially choose to depend almost entirely on three new rockets (Blue Origin’s New Glenn, ULA’s Vulcan, and Arianespace’s Ariane-6), all of which had not launched and were still under development. To expect these to launch on time was absurd.

Furthermore, its ULA contract also called for launches using company’s already operational Atlas-5 rocket, which Amazon claims were delayed because of “unexpected anomalies and delays caused by issues with its vehicle fairings and solid rocket boosters.” I don’t buy it, and suspect the real cause was that Amazon was unable to produce the satellites on time.

Faced with these delays and a stockholder lawsuit, Amazon subsequently signed SpaceX to do three launches, which that company did quickly, in less than four months. If Amazon had truly wanted to get its Leo satellites in orbit on time, it would have given SpaceX more launches and gotten it done.

Nonetheless, it is likely the FCC will agree to Amazon’s extension request. The company has now shown it is committed to the process and intends to get its constellation in orbit. It is not sitting on its license doing nothing. I would not be surprised however if the FCC imposes some new requirements in an effort to force Amazon to launch more satellites more quickly.

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General Electric – Conquest of the Cascades

6:01 pm

An evening pause: According to this website, this documentary was “made by General Electric between 1928 and 1929 to commemorate the completion of this monumental [8-mile-long] tunnel which took 1800 workers and three years to construct.”

Three years! Today that’s how long it would take just to get the environmental assessment written and approved.

Hat tip Blair Ivey.

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