Xabi Gabiola Leniz – Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez
An evening pause: Performed live in c2017.
Hat tip Cotour.
Tag: commercial
Texas gives out $1 billion to corporate internet providers as part of federal BEAD program
The state of Texas today announced the 17 internet providers (all big corporations) that it awarded $1 billion in grants under the federal government’s Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, ostensibly designed to help companies bring fast internet to remote rural areas, but has instead become a perfect example of crony capitalism, welfare for big corporations that don’t need the money but make the right political donations to the right politicians.
The list of companies that won awards is revealing. Rather than list them all, however, consider these three, the highest, lowest, and most well known:
- Nexstream: $401,831,807 for fiber and fixed wireless to 32,404 locations
- VTX Communications: $2,120,407 for fiber and fixed wireless to 261 locations
- Starlink: $108,787,903 for low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite to 63,887 locations
In other words, Nexstream and VTX got grants of $12,400 and $8,124 for each location it provided service, while SpaceX only got $1,703, even though SpaceX by itself provided service to almost 1/4 of all the locations listed across the entire state, 63K out of 209K total. My guess is that the other companies spread the political wealth judiciously to the right people, something that SpaceX almost never does.
Even so, this distribution is far better than during the Biden administration, when it rescinded its grant to Starlink, claiming it had failed to provide any rural internet service, when in fact it was practically the only internet company successfully doing so. That rescinding occurred at almost the same time Musk revealed he was going to support the Republican Party.
Having noted this improvement, I still think this entire program is the worst sort of Washington corruption, and should be canceled. It is a waste of tax dollars — money we don’t have — going to companies that are already making huge profits from their own customers.
A side note: Five companies applied for grants and were denied, with Amazon’s Leo being the most recognizable. Amazon asked for $1.145 million, but since it hasn’t provided service yet to a single customer, its Leo constellation not yet operational, the Texas Broadband Development Office (BDO) rightly denied the request. Thank god for small blessings!
European rocket startup Latitude signs deal to launch from Oman’s Etlaq spaceport
Active and proposed Middle East spaceports
The European rocket startup Latitude and the nation of Oman have now signed a letter of intent whereby Latitude will in late 2027 do the first experimental launch of a rocket from Oman’s Etlaq spaceport near the village of Duqm.
Under the agreement, Etlaq, Oman’s commercial spaceport operator, and Latitude, a French commercial launch service provider, will establish a framework for the first experimental launch of Latitude’s launch vehicle from Etlaq Spaceport. The launch is currently targeted for late 2027.
The two companies will also work together on developing the necessary ground infrastructure, operational planning and regulatory preparations required to support future launch operations.
The announcement was vague as to the nature of the rocket, making no mention of Latitude’s Zephyr rocket, suggesting that this first test launch would be not be orbital, but be a suborbital flight. At the same time, Latitude in January 2026 had said it would launch Zephyr for the first time in 2027, and that the launch would not be from French Guiana. Yesterday’s deal with Oman fits that early announcement.
Latitude is the third European rocket startup to sign a deal with Oman’s Duqm spaceport. PLD signed an agreement in 2025, and HyImpulse did the same one month ago.
Those earlier deals were only agreements to consider the idea. This new deal with Latitude seems more firm as to an actual launch. Note however that Oman announced an aggressive suborbital launch schedule of Middle Eastern rocket startups in 2025, none of which happened. We must therefore recognize that a strong element of blarney exists in all these announcements.
Firefly now targeting a ’28 launch date from Sweden’s Esrange spaceport
Proposed or active spaceports in north Europe
Firefly yesterday announced a new agreement with SSC Space, the Swedish company that manages that country’s Esrange spaceport, outlining the final steps towards a 2028 launch from that location by Firefly’s Alpha rocket.
The companies are now taking the next step towards orbital launch from SSC Space’s Esrange Space Center and undergoing final construction of the pad at Launch Complex 3C with the first launch targeted for 2028.
Key infrastructure development to date includes completing the launch control center, payload processing facility, launch vehicle integration building, tracking and control systems, and security and storage facilities at Launch Complex 3C. Built to support Firefly’s Alpha rocket, the orbital launch complex will expand critical access to space from mainland Europe.
The announcement also noted the signing of agreements between Sweden and the U.S. government, streamlining the licensing process as well as simplifying the State Department’s strict ITAR regulations so that U.S. technology can be transported to Sweden.
This plan carries one major caveat. As you can see from the map to the right, except for a due south flight path, orbital launches from Esrange must cross over territories controlled by other nations. Norway’s government has already expressed opposition to such crossings. We have no word from Finland or Russia. And a due south path doesn’t work because the rocket’s lower stages would then crash within Sweden and the European mainland. Alpha’s first stages are not reusable, which means those crashes would be uncontrolled.
At this point it is not clear how Sweden and Firefly are going to resolve this issue.
Blue Origin provides update on pad repair and New Glenn explosion investigation
New Glenn exploding on May 28th.
The CEO of Blue Origin, David Limp, yesterday posted an update on the company’s effort to get its New Glenn rocket back flying after the May 28, 2026 launchpad explosion, promising once again that they will resume launches before the end of 2026.
Most of his update described the work the company is doing cleaning up and rebuilding the launchpad. For one thing, they are taking advantage of the explosion by going directly to an upgrade whereby they no longer stack New Glenn entirely horizontally. Instead, some stacking will be horizontal, and some vertical. This change is to simplify operations and make the pad compatible for the present New Glenn — with its configuration of seven first stage engines and two upper stage engines (7×2) — and the more powerful 9×4 version, with nine first stage engines and four upper stage engines.
As for the investigation into the explosion itself, Limp was much more vague:
We continue to actively investigate the cause of the anomaly. The vehicle is highly instrumented with extensive data from multiple camera angles and sensors, giving us confidence in our ability to identify and correct the root cause. Early analysis points to the aft section of the first stage.
There is no doubt they can get the launchpad ready before the end of the year. Finding the cause of the explosion and fixing it by December however remains less certain. Limp’s reticence could be simply the company’s desire to restrict access to proprietary information. Or it could be they haven’t yet pinned down the cause. If the latter, the December date becomes far more doubtful.
Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo – Promises in The Dark
An evening pause: Performed live 2024. The video begins after Benatar’s intro, so if you want to hear it start it from the beginning.
Hat tip Chris Perry.
The present state of NASA’s Artemis program
The aggressive effort by NASA administrator Jared Isaacman to rationalize and speed up the agency’s Artemis program to get back to the Moon and build a base there has resulted in a plethora of new missions, almost all of which are being built by the private sector.
Today Isaacman and his Moon Base program manager, Carlos García-Galán, held a press conference where they announced four more missions.
- Astrobotic won a $297.9 million contract to build and fly two more of its smaller Peregrine lunar landers. This lander attempted a landing in 2024, but a fuel leak right after launch made that impossible.
- Firefly won a $144.2 million contract to build and fly another Blue Ghost lander, the only commercial lander to successfully achieve a lunar soft landing, in 2025.
- Intuitive Machines won a $148.3 million contract to build and fly another Nova-C lander. This lander attempted two landings, and in both cases it tipped over just after launch. The Nova-D design, under development, has a lower center of gravity, but for reasons not well explained by García-Galán NASA chose to go with the Nova-C design.
All are considered part of the first phase of the Artemis program and thus are targeting a launch by 2028.
In addition, NASA is considering using back-up equipment developed to build the Curiosity and Perseverance Mars rovers to create quickly and relatively inexpensively a lunar rover that they have dubbed “Promise.”
In order to make some sense of this program and these many misssions, I have created below a chronological list of confirmed missions, with their present status indicated (including uncertainties), as well as some unconfirmed missions based on my own speculations. All dates are tentative at this point, even if NASA has provided us a specific target date.
Several things to note as you review this list. While there are handful of missions going elsewhere, Isaacman is attempting to focus the program toward landing at the planned lunar base near the south pole, and to do so as fast as possible in the most effective way. The cargo missions and rovers are to get there ahead of the manned missions, in order to provide the astronauts supplies and surface transportation once they arrive. Those same missions will also do some preliminary scouting, and likely carry power and excavation equpiment needed to build the base.
It is also important to note that this plan is still in its very early stages of development. Many of the rockets and spacecraft and landers needed for these missions are not yet operational. Many have not yet demonstrated the capability to do what is requested. Thus, the program will certainly not follow the plan as presently outlined by the agency. Moreover, there will be failures along the way.
The program however is designed to accelerate development, to accept those failures within the program’s larger scope. If one mission fails, others are on the table to fly quickly to overcome the loss. And since the program is relying on the entire aerospace industry, the agency will have great redundancy from many companies.
I welcome comments and suggested changes or corrections. I fully intend to publish this list repeatedly over the coming years as the Artemis program evolves. And as the private sector begins flying its own missions to the Moon, independent of NASA, I intend to include those as well.
» Read more
NASA’s IG: Boeing must foot the bill to get Starliner certified for manned flights
Starliner docked to ISS.
The inspector general (IG) for NASA today released a new audit report [pdf] of the agency’s management of its manned commercial crew program, specifically looking at Boeing’s Starliner capsule and its failures. Though the IG made six recommendations, mostly about management procedures to better run the program, the first was the most important:
As the [Boeing] contract allows, defer payments, including partial or advanced payments, to Boeing for any Starliner-3 milestones until the human-rating certification of Starliner is complete.
In other words, the IG doesn’t want NASA to pay Boeing anything more. Boeing’s contract for Starliner was fixed price. It is Boeing’s responsibility to deliver the product, and until it does so NASA should lay out no more cash.
More significantly, NASA’s management immediately concurred with this recommendation.
This IG report now explains much of what happened in the past few months. » Read more
The rise and fall of two Australian spaceports
Australia’s commercial spaceports as of 2024. Click for original map.
Two stories today about the success of one Australian commercial spaceport and the failure of another illustrate perfectly the normal ups and downs one can expect from freedom and capitalism.
The ports in question are Southern Launch and Equatorial Launch Australia. In the first story, Southern Launch announced today that it has raised $25 million in private investment capital.
Adelaide-based spaceport operator Southern Launch has raised $25 million in a funding round led by national security investor Brindabella & Company, with the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation (NRFC) committing $10 million in direct equity to help scale Australia’s sovereign launch infrastructure.
The capital will fund expansion of Southern Launch’s two facilities – the Koonibba Test Range on the far west coast of South Australia and the Whalers Way Orbital Launch Complex near Port Lincoln – as the company works to meet growing demand from domestic and international launch customers.
Though the spaceport has obtained several tentative launch contacts, this success is mostly the result of its multiple contracts by capsule companies to use Koonibba as a landing site. There is a boom in this recoverable capsule industry at this time — with lots of investment money and multiple companies flying or building capsules. Koonibba at this moment has become the go-to place for such landings.
In the second story, we learn the sad fate of Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA). » Read more
Alicia Keys – No One
An evening pause: Performed live 2007.
Hat tip Rex Ridenoure.
Rocket Lab buys Iridium
In a blockbuster deal today, Rocket Lab acquired the satellite company Iridium and all its satellite constellation assets.
Rocket Lab will acquire all the outstanding shares of Iridium common stock for $54 per share in a cash and stock transaction. This represents an enterprise value for Iridium of approximately $8.0 billion.
The acquisition … merges Rocket Lab’s leading launch capabilities and satellite manufacturing with Iridium’s global satellite communications network, spectrum, and 500-plus strong partner ecosystem to create a competitive, vertically-integrated space company that designs, builds, launches, and operates its own constellations, delivering critical communications capability to millions of users worldwide.
The transaction will give Rocket Lab an immediate foothold in space-based applications, including both proprietary and standards-based satellite Internet of Things (IoT) and direct-to-device (D2D), PNT (GPS-capability), and critical safety-of-life services, creating a formidable challenger in the global telecom market.
This deal continues Rocket Lab’s aggressive effort in the last few years to diversify its capabilities beyond simply launching rockets. It has successfully demonstrated its ability to build satellites and even interplanetary probes. This merger immediately gives the company the spectrum and communications constellation that already has 2.5 million subscribers, with the ability to enhance and expand that constellation using its launch and satellite capabilities. With the introduction of its larger Neutron rocket next year, Rocket Lab will be well positioned to compete directly with all the other communications constellations, and to do it at a lower cost.
The deal also strengthens the company’s vertical integration. As the press release notes, it “creates an end-to-end space company spanning launch, spacecraft, spectrum, and on-orbit communications services through a proprietary network. Expected to eliminate third-party launch costs for constellation deployment and replenishment and captures launch margin internally while guaranteeing orbital access as launch capacity tightens, ensuring continuity of service to customers.”
Not surprisingly, the value of Rocket Lab’s stock today has leaped upward, rising from a closing price on Friday of around $85 to over $100 today (late Monday).
The industry trend across the board now is vertical integration, begun by SpaceX. It just pays to have the rocket company own the satellite constellation. Such a partnership lowers cost, and gives the company great flexibility and control. Expect more satellite constellations to team up with other rocket companies, especially the startups like Stoke Space and Relativity that are building reusable rockets.
SpaceX launches Sirius radio geosynchronous satellite
SpaceX tonight successfully launched a SiriusXM radio geosynchronous satellite, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force station in Florida.
The first stage (B1085) completed its 17th flight (31 days after its previous mission), landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The two fairings completed their 6th and 30th flights respectively.
This was SpaceX’s second launch today. The leaders in the 2026 launch race:
78 SpaceX
41 China
10 Rocket Lab (plus two suborbital HASTE launches)
8 Russia
For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 78 to 71.
SpaceX launches 24 more Starlink satellites
SpaceX this morning successfully launched another 24 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The first stage (B1088) completed its 17th flight (25 days after its previous flight), landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
The leaders in the 2026 launch race:
77 SpaceX
41 China
10 Rocket Lab (plus two suborbital HASTE launches)
8 Russia
For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 77 to 71.
Living Stone Walling – Building a stone arch bridge without mortar
An evening pause: The ancient methods still work, and in fact work better with modern equipment.
Enjoy your weekend.
Hat tip Cotour.
Rocket Lab launches another radar satellite for Japanese company Synspective
Rocket Lab early today successfully completed its tenth launch (out of a 27-launch contract) for the Japanese radar satellite company Synspective, its Electron rocket lifting off from one of its two launchpads in New Zealand.
The leaders in the 2026 launch race:
76 SpaceX
41 China
10 Rocket Lab (plus two suborbital HASTE launches)
8 Russia
For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 76 to 71.
SpaceX’s proposed cloud constellation of a million satellites named “Starmind”
Elon Musk has confirmed that SpaceX has named its proposed constellation of a million data computing satellites will be dubbed “Starmind”, following its pattern in recent years of naming every new project in a similar manner.
After Starship, Musk has named every project a variation thereof. We have had Starlink, Starshield, Starbase, Starfactory, Starfall, and now Starmind. It is also building natural gas pipeline to supply methane to Boca Chica that it has dubbed Starpipe.
The company hopes to launch the first Starmind satellites on Starship early in 2027.
Firefly buys the AI navigation technology used on its Blue Ghost lunar landing
Blue Ghost’s shadow on the Moon, with the Earth in the background,
after its 2025 touchdown.
Firefly has now acquired Space-ng, the company that makes the AI navigation technology and software that Firefly used on its successful Blue Ghost lunar landing in 2025.
Space-ng’s vision navigation software was utilized during Firefly’s historic Blue Ghost Mission 1 to determine position and attitude, detect hazardous lunar terrain, and autonomously redirect Blue Ghost in real-time, enabling a safe, precise touchdown within the Moon’s Mare Crisium.
…In addition to vision navigation software, Space-ng brings high-resolution spacecraft cameras and AI compute hardware to enable advanced space domain awareness, onboard optical navigation, rendezvous and proximity operations, and docking without requiring GPS or GNSS. Firefly plans to integrate Space-ng’s technologies across its fleet of lunar landers and orbital vehicles to support its growing mission manifest, including three additional lunar missions under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, another lunar mission supporting NASA MoonFall, and a space domain awareness mission for the Defense Innovation Unit.
Of all the recent attempts by commercial companies to land on the Moon, Firefly is the only one to have a complete success. While Space-ng’s technology worked perfectly to guide Blue Ghost to a safe touch down, the guidance technology used by Intuitive Machines (twice), Ispace (twice), Beresheet, and the first Vikram lander for India all failed close to landing. No wonder Firefly decided to buy it.
Musk’s employee stock options made them millions; Bezos’s employee options were worthless
According to a very intriguing article at Business Insider today, the stock options offered to employees at SpaceX and Blue Origin were starkly different, with SpaceX’s options making millions for its workers while Blue Origin’s were essentially worthless.
Three ex-employees of Jeff Bezos’ rocket maker Blue Origin told Business Insider that the company’s unusual approach to equity left them with stock options that are essentially worthless.
Meanwhile, they’ve watched SpaceX’s dizzying rise to a $2 trillion-plus valuation provide a massive windfall for early hires — from engineers to welders to cafeteria workers — who received stock options during their time at Elon Musk’s company.
Blue Origin’s options were written so that they only could be cashed in if the company went public within ten years. As Bezos has shown zero interest in going public — which would take away his full ownership and control of the company — those options have been steadily expiring as they reach their ten year due date.
At SpaceX however the employee stock options could always be cashed in, even before the company went public. Employees, both current and former, were allowed to sell their stock back to SpaceX or to its investors in private liquidity events that usually occurred twice each year. After the IPO they could now sell the stock on the open market, at the going rate.
The difference is possibly one additional reason the accomplishments of the two companies have been so starkly dissimilar/ SpaceX made sure its employees got a pay off for the long hours it demanded. Blue Origin did not.
Leo Arnaud & John Williams – Bugler’s Dream/Olympic Fanfare
An evening pause: The opening theme of this piece, by Leo Arnaud, was used by ABC for its Wild World of Sports and Olympic coverage in the ’60s and 70s. John Williams later wrote a version for use for NBC’s Olympic television broadcast, incorporating Arnard’s work at the beginning. This live 2009 performance is by the Bands of His Majesty’s Royal Marines in London.
Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.
South Korea’s space agency wants to accelerate its launch capabilities
The head of South Korea’s space agency KASA, Oh Tae-seok, yesterday outlined plans to to accelerate the launch cadence of its government-built Nuri rocket, while also beginning research into building a second spaceport along with a specific launchpad for private companies.
Oh Tae-seok, head of KASA, held a press briefing at the agency in Sacheon, South Gyeongsang Province, on Thursday. “This week, the assembly of the first, second, and third stages of the fifth Nuri rocket will be completed,” he said. “From next week, we will begin full assembly of the entire rocket, and after the Launch Management Committee in early August, a September launch is expected.”
Oh also stressed the need to build a repeated launch system after the fifth launch to advance toward an era of “commercial launch services.” “To ensure the economic viability of Nuri, changes are needed in standardization and specification, as well as contracting methods and launch site operations, in addition to the advancement project,” he said. “We are preparing for four launches from 2029 to 2032.”
In addition, the agency plans to accelerate construction of the second spaceport. KASA began accepting candidate site applications for the second spaceport on the 22nd of this month. “We will select the final candidate site in October this year and aim to begin the project in 2028,” the agency said Thursday.
This second news report quoted Oh as also saying this:
“In the 2030s, rather than the current R&D approach, we should consider converting to a system where we commission launch services through purchasing, as NASA does.” This is a model similar to how NASA purchases launch services from private companies such as SpaceX.
In other words, even as he accelerates the use of Nuri, Oh wants to replace it with private rockets. Whether he can do both is questionable, because they act to cancel each other. A cheaper and viable government rocket will make it difficult for private startups to compete.
At the moment South Korea has one truly viable rocket startup, Innospace, which has one launch failure and hopes to try again before the end of the year. That it does not launch in South Korea but in Brazil suggests KASA has not been as cooperative with the commercial sector as Oh wants. His statements about building a launchpad for the private sector suggest he is aware of this.