Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers – Refugee
An evening pause: Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.
Tag: commercial
A tour at rocket startup Phantom Space
Creating a new rocket company is not something anyone can do. Nor is it something that even smart people can do, nonchalantly. The history of rocketry is littered with hundreds of attempts, almost all of which failed.
Jim Cantrell, pictured on the right standing next to one of the first test prototypes for a new rocket being made by his new company, Phantom Space, is one such person. In the mid-2010s Cantrell partnered with a number of others to found the company Vector, hoping to be one of the first smallsat rocket companies to launch a cheap and efficient rocket placing tiny satellites into orbit. At the time, Cantrell and Vector were racing neck and neck with Rocket Lab for the honor of being the first to do so.
While Rocket Lab succeeded in 2018, and has since completed more than twenty launches, Vector ended up on the ash heap of history, going bankrupt in 2019. The company’s failure was mostly due to problems with its rocket engine, which in turn caused one of its major investors to back out.
Cantrell however is apparently someone who does not take defeat quietly. Using what he had learned at Vector, in 2021 he started a new rocket company, Phantom Space, with a target date for its first test launch the summer of 2023.
Today Cantrell gave me a quick tour of Phantom’s operations here in Tucson.
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Space Perspectives unveils luxurious interior of Neptune high altitude balloon
Capitalism in space: Space Perspectives has now unveiled the high class stateroom interior that it plans to put inside its Neptune high altitude balloon that will take tourists to 30+ miles altitude.
Space Perspective just released artist’s illustrations of the interior of Spaceship Neptune, which will include 360-degree panoramic windows and even a restroom with a view. The announcement Tuesday (April 12) coincided with the anniversary of the first human spaceflight by cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in 1961.
Based on the imagery, Spaceship Neptune’s cabin appears to come in at least a couple of configurations. One has reclining seats, for example, while another with couches can accommodate a “more intimate dinner for two or special event,” Space Perspective representatives said in a statement on Tuesday.
Space Perspective will provide food and beverage services, and the capsule features mood lighting that can be dimmed to see stars or the curvature of Earth outside. Also included in the capsule’s “Space Lounge” will be a telescope, interactive screens and decorations such as floor lamps and plants to “remind us of the interconnected nature of our planet,” the company added.
The company hopes to begin commercial flights by ’24, each of which will last about six hours. Tickets are priced at $125K each, with the company saying it already has 600 people on its waiting list.
Florence and the Machine – Cosmic Love
An evening pause: Quite beautiful, though her modern singing style obscures the words more than I think necessary.
Hat tip Dan Morris.
ULA orders 116 rocket engines from Aerojet Rocketdyne for its Vulcan upper stage
Capitalism in space: In order to meet its contract with Amazon to launch a lot of Kuiper satellites, ULA has now ordered 116 rocket engines from Aerojet Rocketdyne for the Centaur upper stage of its new and as-yet unlaunched Vulcan-Centaur rocket.
Aerojet said this was the company’s largest ever contract for the RL10 engine. The large purchase of rocket engines comes on the heels of Amazon’s announcement April 5 that it selected Arianespace, Blue Origin and ULA to launch up to 3,236 satellites for its Project Kuiper broadband constellation.
CEO Tory Bruno said ULA plans to fly Vulcan’s first mission late in 2022. Winning the Amazon deal would more than double the annual rate of Vulcan launches to as many as 25 per year, and ULA will ramp up production to meet the demand, Bruno said last week at the Space Symposium.
ULA’s engine choice for Vulcan’s upper stage dates back to 2018 when it selected a variant of the RL10, the same engine used to power the upper stages of ULA’s legacy rockets Atlas 5 and Delta 4 Heavy. Over the past 60 years, more than 450 RL10 engines have flown on various ULA heritage vehicles.
Meanwhile, ULA hopes to get its first BE-4 engines from Blue Origin, needed for the Vulcan first stage, this summer. Vulcan-Centaur cannot make its first launch until it gets some flightworthy BE-4 engines, and these are now three years behind schedule.
Rocket Lab breaks ground on Neutron rocket factory
Capitalism in space: Rocket Lab yesterday broke ground on the construction of its larger proposed Neutron rocket factory at Wallops Island, Virginia, right next door to where the company plans to launch it.
The 250,000 square foot Neutron Production Complex is being constructed on a 28-acre site adjacent to the NASA Wallops Flight Facility and Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. The complex will support Neutron production, assembly, and integration, and is expected to bring up to 250 highly-skilled roles to the region. Construction will also soon begin on a launch pad for Neutron at the southern end of Wallops Island, near Rocket Lab’s existing launch pad for the Electron rocket.
Neutron will largely reusable, its first stage returning to Earth for reuse, and carrying with it the skin of the second stage. The design combines this skin with the fairings that protect the payload and second stage engine, so that only the second stage engine is lost in orbit.
ISRO hires company to build future PSLV rockets
Capitalism in space: For the first time, India’s space agency ISRO is about to hire a private company to build five PSLV rockets, rather than supervise the construction in-house.
Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and L&T consortium has emerged as the lowest bidder to make 5 Polar Space Launch Vehicles (PSLVs) for ISRO. “The company is the lead partner with L&T sharing the work. Other vendors too will be involved with the consortium in the manufacturing of the launch vehicles (LVs). However, the contract is yet to be formalised/ awarded,” HAL said in a statement.
If all goes as planned, the first rockets will be delivered late in ’24.
This contract changes less than it seems, though it is a step in the right direction. ISRO has for years hired private subcontractors to build its rockets and components. What is different now is that it appears that HAL is now the lead contractor, not ISRO. HAL however does not appear to own the rockets it builds, and thus will not be able to build more to sell launches to others. Until this happens, India’s space industry will remain wholly government run.
Funny concert moments
An evening pause: Hat tip Mike Nelson.
Astroscale demo to test space junk removal struggles with failed thrusters
Capitalism in space: Astroscale demo mission, ELSA-d, has been unable to complete a docking with its target vehicle as planned because four of the eight thrusters on the capture “servicer” vehicle have failed.
Engineers had separated the servicer from the target in January so that it could perform a rendezvous and then docking, from a distance, but that test was halted when engineers detected what the company only labeled as “anomalous spacecraft conditions.” This new announcement reveals what that problem was.
With safety always paramount, the Astroscale team has used a complex mix of burns with the remaining thrusters, aerodynamic drag and the natural perturbations of Earth’s gravity to bring the servicer safely back to a distance where operations can continue.
This revised plan began on February 18th, and has now apparently been mostly completed. However, rather than dock, the company has decided to only approach as close to 160 meters (525 feet) to test some sensors, and then retreat. Whether they will then attempt a recapture remains undecided.
Astroscale’s goal is to convince satellite companies to install its magnetic capture device on their satellites. Astroscale’s servicer could then use it to dock with a defunct satellite and deorbit it or maybe fix it. This demo flight was to prove the rendezvous and capture device worked.
From Deep Space 9 – Do-Re-Mi
An evening pause: A short but quite wonderful little performance from the Star Trek series Deep Space 9.
Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.
French company raises €2 million to launch commercial solar sail
Capitalism in space: The French startup Gama has successfully raised €2 million to build and launch its first test solar sail, with the goal of eventually selling those sails for other interplanetary missions.
Gama plans to deploy a 73.3-sq-metre solar sail in a 550km-altitude orbit in October. It will be launched as an additional payload on a SpaceX rocket.
There have been a number of previous solar sail deployment tests by Nasa and the American space advocacy group the Planetary Society. However, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency had been the only organisation to successfully sail on sunlight. In 2010 it used a solar sail to power the experimental Ikaros (Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation of the Sun) spacecraft to Venus.
If successful the company will follow with two more test missions in ’24 and ’25, first testing at higher orbit and testing in interplanetary space.
Starlink delivers 5,000 terminals to Ukraine; loses license in France
Capitalism in space: Starlink today continued its aggressive support for the Ukraine in its war with Russia by delivering another 5,000 terminals to that beleaguered country.
Space reporter Joey Roulette tweeted Wednesday that the majority of the terminals — 3,667, to be exact — as well as the associated internet service were donated directly by SpaceX at a cost of “roughly $10 million,” with USAID purchasing the remaining 1,333 terminals. These numbers apparently came from an earlier version of the USAID release; the updated release doesn’t give dollar figures and refers only to 5,000 Starlink terminals donated by a public-private partnership.
Roulette also suggested in another tweet that France and Poland had made contributions to the Starlink shipments to Ukraine, citing an earlier conversation with SpaceX president and chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell. The USAID announcement only refers to the American partnership, however.
In a second story today, however, Starlink lost its ability to provide service in France, when a court ruled its license had been issued improperly.
France’s Conseil d’État ruled April 5 that French telecoms regulator ARCEP should have launched a public consultation before authorizing Starlink in February 2021.
“In law, they should normally cease [providing services] immediately, pending ARCEP’s public consultation” following the court’s decision, a Conseil d’État spokesperson told SpaceNews.
The court case was apparently instigated by two French environmental groups, who are demanding more regulations against the large satellite constellations.
Relativity still targeting a ’22 first launch
Capitalism in space: The startup rocket company Relativity is still targeting this year for the first test launch of its 3D-printed Terran-1 rocket, according to its CEO Tim Ellis.
The company has raised more than $1 billion in private investment capital.
If successful, Relativity will join Rocket Lab, Virgin Orbit, and Astra as a small satellite launch provider, all capable of launching military and commercial smallsats quickly. The competition will guarantee that their prices will be low as well.
Woody Allen & William Buckley do comedy together
An evening pause: This isn’t sixties pop music, but it is definitely the 1960s, especially if you look at the clothes. It also takes us back to a time when Woody Allen was actually funny. It is a clip from a 1967 Woody Allen television special.
Hat tip Charlie Tutino.
Commercial imaging satellites prove their military worth in the Ukraine War
Capitalism in space: Because of the ability of private commercial satellites to obtain high resolution reconnaissance and radar images of the ground quickly, U.S. intelligence agencies decided right before the Russian invasion of the Ukraine to not only use those satellites, but to funnel that data both to the public and to the Ukraine.
“We partner with over 100 companies, we’re currently using imagery from at least 200 commercial satellites and we have about 20 or so different analytic services in our pipeline,” David Gauthier, director of commercial and business operations at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), said during a panel discussion at the 37th Space Symposium. “Because of all that, when Russia prepared to invade, we and the NRO [National Reconnaissance Office] increased and accelerated several efforts that were underway commercially,” said Gauthier.
The daily flow of intelligence that previously was only available from government sources and seldom released to the public is no accident, said Gauthier. “This moment has really been set up by a lot of hard work by many companies and many in the government to prepare ourselves to take better advantage of commercial capabilities.”
Leading up to the conflict, he said, “we more than doubled the commercial electro-optical imagery that was bought over Ukraine.” Imagery from companies like Maxar, BlackSky and Planet “was able to flow directly to those who need it, EUCOM [U.S. European Command], NATO and directly to Ukrainians,” Gauthier said.
The military’s increased reliance on reconnaissance imagery from these private commercial satellite constellations during this war is likely to accelerate the military’s switch from building its own big and expensive government satellites — which also launch rarely and provide little redundancy — to using the private sector for its needs.
In other words, the success of the private sector in this area during this war has once again proved the validity of the recommendations in my 2017 policy paper, Capitalism in Space [pdf].
The government should stop being a builder and instead become merely a customer. Let competing private companies do the work. Not only will the government get what it needs faster and for far less, the competition will fuel innovation and prosperity for the American people.
Update on SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy operations at Boca Chica
Link here. Though the permitting process for launching Starship from Boca Chica is stalled or maybe even blocked, SpaceX is continuing to use this waiting time to upgrade and improve the design of both Starship and its giant booster, Superheavy, abandoning earlier prototypes for newer versions incorporating those upgrades.
[Superheavy] Booster 4 and [Star]Ship 20, having served as articles to test the ground systems and verify the major design outlines of booster and ship, have now been phased out, with Elon Musk confirming on Twitter that these wouldn’t perform the long-awaited orbital velocity test flight.
Instead, it is now expected that Booster 7 and Ship 24 will be the duo performing this duty. For that same reason, SpaceX cleared the way for Booster 7 by removing Booster 4 from the OLM on March 24.
The company has been doing tank tests and stack tests of these new prototypes at a fast pace, even as it is assembling even newer prototypes.
ISRO once again delays first launch of its new SSLV rocket
India’s space agency ISRO today announced that it is once again delaying the first launch of its new Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) rocket.
This rocket, designed to launch cubesats and compete with private companies like Rocket Lab, Virgin Orbit, and Astra, was first going to launch in the summer of 2019. That launch was delayed until 2020, only to be blocked entirely for two more years because of India’s panic over the Wuhan flu.
Last month ISRO announced the successful completion of static fire tests of the rocket’s solid rocket first stage, suggesting a spring launch in ’22 would occur. That has now been delayed again, now targeting early summer.
The delays have cost India a great deal in market share. Had SSLV launched in 2020, it would have been well positioned to garner business now captured by Rocket Lab, Virgin Orbit, and Astra, the latter two of which were not yet operational at that time. Now India trails all these companies, with other American companies (Firefly, Relativity, ABL) on the horizon as well.
Spinlaunch wins suborbital launch contract from NASA
Capitalism in space: Spinlaunch has won a launch contract from NASA to use its rocket-tossing spin launcher, shown in the photo to the right, to place a test payload on a suborbital flight later this year.
Unlike a vertical rocket first stage, the launcher spins its upper stage to a high acceleration and flings it upward. While the G-forces are too brutal for any delicate equipment or biology, this technique could be a very cheap way to toss bulk payloads like water and oxygen into space.
Spinlaunch has already done one test flight in November ’21, and hopes to do its first orbital test flight by ’25.
Breaking: Army Corp of Engineers suspends SpaceX’s Boca Chica permit process
We’re here to help you! According to this very short Bloomberg news report today, the Army Corp of Engineers has entirely suspended SpaceX’s Boca Chica permit process for expanding the facility.
The reason given is that SpaceX “failed to provide requested information.”
Though not yet confirmed, this permit appears to be separate from the environmental reassessment process being led by the FAA to approve Starship launches from Boca Chica. Instead, this appears to have an application to add an additional launchpad and other facilities to the site.
Assuming this distinction is true, then launches from Boca Chica of Starship might still be approved. The action however once again indicates the growing hostility to SpaceX within the federal bureaucracy, apparently aided and abetted by the Biden administration.
Mary Hopkin – Those Were The Days
An evening pause: It seems this week is 60s pop week.
Hat tip Dan Morris.