Tag: commercial

Worldview balloon completes 16-day flight

9:10 am

Worldview Stratollite flight

Capitalism in space: Worldview has successfully completed a sixteen day flight of its Stratollite high altitude balloon.

The map on the right is from their press release [pdf]. From the first link above:

During the 16-day flight, World View was able to spend up to eight days total in an area about 75 miles wide. It also demonstrated more precise station-keeping, says Hartman, by spending 55 straight hours in a region 62 miles wide and also 6.5 hours in an area a little less than 6 miles wide.

Staying within such a small area is crucial for the Stratollite system, as that capability could be useful for a number of different applications for customers, according to Hartman. He notes that such a system above Earth could be used by the military to aid certain missions operations, or the Stratollite could help monitor natural disasters like tornadoes and hurricanes, and help with disaster relief. “There’s just all kinds of very important use cases when we can provide a station keeping capability in an area as small as a [6-mile] diameter area,” says Hartman.

Throughout this flight, the Stratollite covered a distance of 3,000 miles, making its way to the Grand Canyon, Nevada, Oregon, and Utah. Once the World View team decided to bring the Stratollite back down to Earth, the company was able to land it within 400 feet of a targeted area in the Nevada desert where the vehicle was then recovered. World View even hopes to fly some of the components from this flight on an upcoming mission.

The company’s goal these days is not space tourism, but ground observations, and this flight is certainly a solid proof that they are getting close to achieving that goal.

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New study calls for government to center its space policy around private enterprise

12:00 am

Link here. The study is detailed, thoughtful, and strongly reiterates the same policy recommendations I put forth in Capitalism in Space.

The paper outlines what the authors think the government should do over the next decade-plus to encourage the take-over of the American space effort by private enterprise. While much of this makes sense, when they get into outlining the specific projects that they want to happen in the 2020s it comes the stuff of fantasy, what the authors wish would happen.

If the government transitions away from a “space program” and instead creates a chaotic and free space industry, it will then be impossible to lay out a specific step-by-step “program” of achievement. Instead, the engine of freedom will take over, and what it will generate can never be predicted, except that it will be vigorous, surprising, and successful, doing things quickly and with exuberance.

That should be the fundamental goal of our government.

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New Zimmerman op-ed at The Federalist

9:02 am

In the piece, Trump’s Promising New Space Plan Won’t Work Without Cutting The Pork, I take a close look at Trump’s Moon plan and actually come away somewhat encouraged.

For one, it is pretty clear that Gateway has been dumped, or at least deemphasized significantly. Second, the plan shifts the focus from NASA being the builder of the program to NASA being a customer of the private sector.

Read it all. There’s a lot more.

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Astronomers call for regulations to stop commercial satellite constellations

8:12 am

The astronomical community is now calling for new regulations to restrict the number of satellites that can be launched as part of the coming wave of new commercial constellations due to a fear these satellites will interfere with their observations.

Not surprising to me, it is the International Astronomical Union (IAU) that is taking the lead here.

The IAU statement urges satellite designers and policymakers to take a closer look at the potential impacts of satellite constellations on astronomy and how to mitigate them.

“We also urge appropriate agencies to devise a regulatory framework to mitigate or eliminate the detrimental impacts on scientific exploration as soon as practical,” the statement says. “We strongly recommend that all stakeholders in this new and largely unregulated frontier of space utilisation work collaboratively to their mutual advantage.”

When it comes to naming objects in space, the IAU likes to tell everyone else what to do. That top-down approach is now reflected in its demand that these commercial enterprises, with the potential to increase the wealth and knowledge of every human on Earth, be shut down.

The astronomy community has a solution, one that it has been avoiding since they launched Hubble in 1990, and that is to build more space-telescopes. Such telescopes would not only leap-frog the commercial constellations, it would routinely get them better results, far better than anything they get on Earth.

But no, they’d rather squelch the efforts of everyone else so they can maintain the status quo. They should be ashamed.

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Dragon cargo capsule successfully returns to Earth

8:01 am

Capitalism in space: After a month docked to ISS SpaceX’s seventeenth Dragon cargo freighter successfully splashed down yesterday.

I think that makes eighteen successful splashdowns. While NASA keeps demanding SpaceX do more tests of its manned Dragon parachute system, which has been made even more robust than the cargo capsule in that it includes four chutes, not three, for greater redundancy, the company keeps demonstrating that they already know how to do this.

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Stratolaunch shutting down?

10:56 pm

According to a Reuters story today based upon anonymous sources within the company, Stratolaunch is about to cease operations.

The key quote from the article:

As of April 1, Stratolaunch had only 21 employees, compared with 77 last December, one of the four sources said. Most of the remaining employees were focused on completing the carrier plane’s test flight.

The decision to set an exit strategy was made late last year by Allen’s sister, Jody Allen, chair of Vulcan Inc and trustee of the Paul G. Allen Trust, one of the four people and the fifth industry source said. Jody Allen decided to let the carrier aircraft fly to honor her brother’s wishes and also to prove the vehicle and concept worked, one of the four people said.

If true, this is hardly a surprise. The company was never able to find a viable path to orbit. It had built a spectacular plane, but could not find a rocket for that plane to launch.

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NASA selects three companies to provide lunar landers for its science instruments

10:43 am

Captalism in space: NASA today announced the selection of three new companies to provide the agency lunar landers on which to fly its science instruments to the Moon.

The companies chosen:

  • Astrobotic of Pittsburgh has been awarded $79.5 million and has proposed to fly as many as 14 payloads to Lacus Mortis, a large crater on the near side of the Moon, by July 2021.
  • Intuitive Machines of Houston has been awarded $77 million. The company has proposed to fly as many as five payloads to Oceanus Procellarum, a scientifically intriguing dark spot on the Moon, by July 2021.
  • Orbit Beyond of Edison, New Jersey, has been awarded $97 million and has proposed to fly as many as four payloads to Mare Imbrium, a lava plain in one of the Moon’s craters, by September 2020.

If successful as awarded, the cost for these spacecraft will be minuscule compared to what NASA normally spends for its own planetary probes.

These contract awards are puzzling however in one way. All three companies are relatively unknown. None competed in the Google Lunar X-Prize, as did the American company Moon Express, which at one time was thought to be very close to launching. That Moon Express is not one of the winners here is mysterious. The only explanation I can come up with is the lawsuit that Intuitive Machines won from Moon Express in January 2018. Maybe that suit killed Moon Express, and made Intuitive Machines the winner today.

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Anomaly during static fire test of Northrop Grumman OmegaA rocket motor

7:37 am

Capitalism in space: During a static fire test of the first stage solid rocket motor for Northrop Grumman’s OmegaA rocket, the rocket’s nozzle suddenly broke apart two minutes into the firing.

I have embedded video of the test below the fold. The anomaly occurs about 2:11 into the video.

OmegA is being developed as part of a contract awarded to Northrop Grumman by the Air Force:

After the end of the Ares 1 and Liberty launch vehicle projects, Orbital ATK developed a next generation launch vehicle concept to compete for future US Air Force and NASA launches, and won a rocket propulsion system (RPS) contract in January 2016 as part of the Air Force’s effort to end its dependence on Russian RD-180 engine imports, due to increased geopolitical tensions between the West and Russia.

The contract enabled Orbital ATK to keep working on the next generation launch system, which was later named OmegA, with the first and last letters capitalized to incorporate the company’s initials.

In June 2018 Orbital ATK was acquired by Northrop Grumman to become Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems (NGIS), and in October of that year the US Air Force awarded NGIS a launch service agreement (LSA) contract initially worth $181 million for the first 18 months, and ultimately worth $792 million, to develop, build, and test the OmegA rocket, culminating in four test flights of two configurations starting in 2021.

» Read more

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SpaceX investigation into test explosion ongoing

8:19 am

A NASA update yesterday into SpaceX’s investigation into the test explosion that destroyed a manned Dragon capsule revealed that while the company is still working to launch humans by the end of the year, this schedule remains tentative until the investigation is completed.

The update included two important details. First, SpaceX is going to use for its launch abort test the Dragon capsule it had previously planned to fly on its first manned demo mission, and for that mission will use the capsule intended for the first operational manned flight. That first operational flight will then use a new capsule from their assembly line.

Second, the update confirmed that the anomaly that caused the explosion occurred as they were activating the SuperDraco thruster system, but prior to the firing of the thrusters. While this suggests once again that the failure might have not have involved the capsule but the test procedures, we will not know for sure until they release their investigation conclusions.

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Super Heavy/Starship construction now in SpaceX facilities in Texas and Florida

7:47 am

Capitalism in space: Even as it prepares for more Starhopper vertical test flights next month, SpaceX has now initiated Super Heavy/Starship construction in its facilities in both Boca Chica, Texas, and Cape Canaveral, Florida.

SpaceX is working a dual test flow for its new Super Heavy and Starship systems, with construction ongoing in Florida while Starhopper prepares to restart test operations in Texas. Two orbital Starship prototypes are now in staggered stages of production while the first Super Heavy booster is set to begin construction in the next three months. However, the focus will soon return to Starhopper, as it prepares for an incremental series of untethered test hops.

Earlier this month it came to light that SpaceX crews at Cocoa Beach in Florida were starting to assemble a second orbital Starship prototype vehicle, similar to the first of such articles that are currently located at the company’s launch and testing facility in Boca Chica, Texas.

According to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, these two builds were going to be the center of a cooperative/competitive effort between the two sites and their respective team members, in which they would share insights and lessons learned during development – although they were not required to put them to use.

There is another aspect to this that must be emphasized. Super Heavy and Starship are not rockets as we have come to think of them. They are the names for a class of vehicle, each of which is intended to fly many times. SpaceX is therefore not building the first version of a throwaway rocket, but a ship it will use over and over. Because of this, they are not going to be building many of these ships, as you would with an expendable rocket. Instead, they are going to build only a handful, like a ship company that builds luxury ocean liners.

Building two ships simultaneously thus allows them to hone the engineering more quickly and efficiently. It also means that when they are done, SpaceX will have two giant space liners for getting people and cargo into orbit, literally a small fleet that will give them redundancy and make quick flight turnarounds possible.

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SpaceX raises more than a billion in investment capital

10:28 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX announced this week that it has raised more than a billion dollars in investment capital.

The launch provider turned satellite operator raised $486.2 million in one round, and $535.7 million in another, the company said in May 24 filings to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The filings show SpaceX sold all but $18.8 million of the shares available between the two rounds. The company raised $1.022 billion in total.

It appears the money will be used to finance the construction of both Super Heavy/Starship and their Starlink satellite constellation. The article also notes that SpaceX generated $2 billion in revenues last year. All told, the company seems to be in very healthy shape financially.

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Boeing completes Starliner thruster tests

10:23 am

Capitalism in space: Almost a year after the company experienced a fuel leak during thruster tests of its Starliner manned capsule, Boeing announced this week that those tests have now been completed successfully.

In a statement, Boeing said it completed hot-fire testing May 23 of the spacecraft’s entire propulsion system, including various thrusters, fuel tanks and related systems within a “flight-like” service module of the spacecraft. Those tests took place at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico.

A series of tests demonstrated thruster firings for in-space maneuvers, high-altitude aborts and low-altitude aborts. The company said the tests were all successful.

They now plan their launchpad abort test this summer.

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SpaceX successfully launches 60 prototype Starlink satellites

12:34 am

Capitalsm in space: SpaceX this morning successfully launched 60 prototype Starlink satellites as the first part of their planned constellation of thousands of satellites designed to provide worldwide internet access.

The first stage, already used twice before, landing successfully on their drone ship. You can watch the launch here.

The leaders in the 2019 launch race:

7 China
6 SpaceX
4 Europe (Arianespace)
3 Russia
3 India

The U.S. now leads China 11 to 7 in the national rankiings.

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Justice charges man with falsifying inspection reports for rocket parts

3:12 pm

The Justice Department has charged an employee of a company now out of business for falsifying inspection reports of rocket parts intended for use on both the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rocket.

The complaint states that in January 2018, an internal audit by SQA Services, Inc. (SQA), at the direction of SpaceX, revealed multiple falsified source inspection reports and non-destructive testing (NDT) certifications from PMI Industries, LLC, for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy flight critical parts. SpaceX notified PMI of the anomalies. Source inspections and NDT are key tools used in the aerospace industry to ensure manufactured parts comply with quality and safety standards. Specifically, the signed source inspection report had a forged signature of the SQA inspector. SpaceX and SQA officials believed the signature of the inspector was photocopied and cut and pasted onto the source inspection report with a computer.

On February 16, 2018, the NASA Launch Services Program alerted the NASA Office of Inspector General (OIG), and Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Resident Agency, regarding the falsified source inspection reports and false NDT certifications created by PMI. Some of the false source inspection reports and false NDT certifications were related to space launch vehicle components that, at the time of discovery, were to be used for the upcoming Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission, which launched from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on April 18, 2018.

Based on this report, it appears that SpaceX identified the problem before launch and that none of the questionable parts ever flew.

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SpaceX suing Air Force due to exclusion from development contracts

2:50 pm

SpaceX has initiated a lawsuit against the Air Force for excluding the company from the rocket development contracts totaling $2.3 billion that it issued last year to ULA, Blue Origin, and Northrop Grumman.

The full SpaceX complaint alleges that the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center “wrongly awarded” the funds “to a portfolio of three unproven rockets based on unstated metrics.” Under the Launch Service Agreement (LSA) program, the Air Force awarded three SpaceX competitors funding to develop new launch systems. The LSA awards granted $500 million to Blue Origin for its New Glenn rocket, $792 million to Northrop Grumman for its OmegA rocket and $967 million to ULA for the Vulcan Centaur rocket.

“By any reasonable measure, SpaceX earned a place in the LSA portfolio,” the complaint said.

I had guessed last year that SpaceX had decided not to bid for this money because of the strings the Air Force would attach to the development of Super Heavy/Starship. According to this lawsuit, that guess was wrong. SpaceX wanted its own share in this government cash, and didn’t get it.

Considering how Air Force requirements appeared to immediately slow down the development for ULA and Blue Origin, I still think SpaceX is better off without the cash. They have had to raise money from the private sector, and so far appear to have been successful in doing so, without those strings attached.

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India’s PSLV launches Earth observation radar satellite

8:13 am

India’s PSLV rocket today successfully put a radar satellite designed to do Earth observations into orbit.

The leaders in the 2019 launch race:

7 China
5 SpaceX
4 Europe (Arianespace)
3 Russia
3 India

That India at this stage ties Russia says as much about India’s growing presence as a space power as it does about Russia’s fading presence.

In the national rankings, the U.S. still leads China 10 to 7.

Note: This and the last few posts were written from our hotel in London, near Covent Garden.

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Wisconsin HS students win U.S. rocketry competition

11:08 am

A team of high school students from Wisconsin have won U.S. rocketry competition and will now represent this country in the international competition to be held at the Paris International Air Show in June..

The team’s victory follows months of preparation designing, building, and testing a rocket capable of meeting rigorous mission parameters set by the contest’s sponsors – the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), National Association of Rocketry, and more than 20 industry sponsors. This year’s rules celebrated the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 by requiring each rocket to carry three eggs in a separate capsule to symbolize the three astronauts that made the journey to the Moon and back.

The Top 101 teams, hailing from 25 states from Hawaii to New York, competed for a total of $100,000 in prize money and scholarships at the national finals – an all-day event held at Great Meadow in The Plains, Va., outside of Washington, D.C. The $100,000 prize pool will be split among the Top 10 teams, with Madison West taking home the top prize of $20,000 as U.S. champions. In addition, the top twenty-five finishers receive an invitation to participate in NASA’s Student Launch initiative to continue their exploration of rocketry with high-powered rockets and challenging mission parameters.

The growth of this competition is clearly tied directly to the boom in commercial rocketry going on worldwide.

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