VisioRacer – The Napier Deltic 2-Stroke Diesel Engine
An evening pause: A bit of technological history for the geeks out there. The complexity and precision required, all designed before computers, is incredible.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
Tag: commercial
SpaceX requests 43 acres of nearby Boca Chica State Park, offering to expand another park by 477 acres
In order to “expand its operational footprint” at Boca Chica, SpaceX is asking to buy 43 acres of nearby Boca Chica State Park, and will offer as part of the purchase 477 acres adjacent to the Laguna Atascoca National Wildlife Refuge several miles to the north.
The link above includes maps showing the relative location of the properties. According to the meeting agenda for the Texas Parks and Wildlife department (TPWD), scheduled to take up this exchange next week, the commission already favors the deal.
“This acquisition will provide increased public recreational opportunities including hiking, camping, water recreation, and wildlife viewing, and allow for greater conservation of sensitive habitats for wintering and migratory birds,” the TPWD agenda stated. The agenda concludes by stating that the Commission finds that the proposed exchange is in the best interest of TPWD.
The public has been invited to comment on the deal at the meeting. Do not be surprised if we have a riot at that meeting of leftist activists protesting this deal.
Hat tip Robert Pratt of Pratt on Texas.
Next manned mission to ISS to launch tomorrow
The next manned mission to ISS, a private mission by the company Axiom carrying three European astronauts and commanded by an Axiom astronaut, is presently scheduled to launch tomorrow, January 18, 2024, at 4:49 pm (Eastern).
This is a private mission by Axiom, launched on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and flying the astronauts in its Freedom Dragon manned capsule. This will be Freedom’s third flight to ISS. The launch was originally scheduled for today, but SpaceX scrubbed the mission today in order to give it “additional time allows teams to complete pre-launch checkouts and data analysis on the vehicle.” It appears during normal prelaunch checkouts engineers found the joints between the upper stage and the capsule were not tightened the proper amount. The company decided to replace the joints, which caused this one day delay.
The crew will spend up to fourteen days at ISS.
I have embedded a live stream of the launch below.
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Military awards satellite contracts worth $2.5 billion to three companies
The Pentagon’s Space Development Agency (SDA) today announced the award of contracts to Sierra Space, Lockheed Martin, and L3Harris for the construction of 54 reconnaissance satellites, with a total value of $2.5 billion.
The 54 satellites will form part of the SDA’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, a massive missile detection and tracking constellation in low Earth orbit that’s being built and launched in “tranches.” The trio of contracts announced today is for 18 satellites each in the Tranche 2 Tracking Layer: L3Harris’s award is worth $919 million; Lockheed Martin, $890 million; and Sierra Space, $740 million.
Last week SDA had awarded Rocket Lab its own 18-satellite contract for this constellation, worth $515 million.
The contract awards signal several major changes in the Pentagon’s space strategy. First, it is farming the work out to multiple companies, two of which (Rocket Lab and Sierra Space) are new. In the past the military relied on a very limited number of companies, all well established, with most contracts going to only one vender. New companies had great difficulties getting in the door.
Second, it is building a constellation of smallsats rather than single large satellites. Smallsats are cheaper to build and replace, and are much harder military targets to hit.
Third, though it appears the military is designing these satellites, it appears it is still shifting much of the work from it to the private sector. In other words, the Pentagon is becoming a customer instead of a builder. The result will be a healthy space industry capable of doing more for itself and the military.
Uriah Heep – The Wizard
An evening pause: Recorded sometimes in the 1970s, very obviously.
Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.
Indian satellite startup opens new satellite factory
Capitalism in space: The Indian satellite startup Pixxel has opened a new factory in Bengaluru in southern India, where it expects to ramp up satellite production in the coming years.
Bengaluru-based space data company Pixxel inaugurated its first spacecraft manufacturing facility in Bengaluru on Monday. The new facility holds significance as it targets to launch six satellites this year and 18 more by 2025, further advancing its mission of building a “health monitor” for the planet.
Spread across 30,000 square feet, the facility, at its full capacity, is equipped to handle more than 20 satellites simultaneously that can be turned around within a timeframe of six months, making possible a total of 40 large satellites per year.
The company says that its “…total customer base is divided into three divisions as of now – 40 per cent agriculture, 30 per cent resource companies, and 30 per cent government. Pixxel expects 85 per cent of the revenue to be generated from its commercial side and the rest from the government’s side by 2025.”
For India’s government and its space agency ISRO, Pixxel’s existence signals the sea-change in its policies, similar to what has been happening in the U.S. with NASA. In the past ISRO would have built the satellites. Now it is buying them from the private sector in India. That shift bodes well for India’s space industry, and will likely make it a major player in space in the coming years.
SpaceX’s Starlink: More satellites in orbit but fewer close encounters
According to a recent filing with the FCC, SpaceX has found its Starlink constellation had to do fewer collision avoidance maneuvers in the past six months, despite having more satellites in orbit.
In that period, Starlink satellites had to perform 24,410 collision avoidance maneuvers, equivalent to six maneuvers per spacecraft. In the previous reporting period that accounted for the six months leading up to May 31, 2023, the constellation’s satellites had to move 25,299 times. The data suggests that even though the Starlink constellation has grown by about 1,000 spacecraft in the last six months, its satellites made fewer avoidance maneuvers in that period than in the prior half year.
At the moment it is not clear why the number dropped, especially as it had been doubling every six months previously as more satellites were launched. This might signal improved more precise orbital operations, or it could simply be a normal fluctuation. It will require additional reports to get a better sense.
These numbers however should rise as more larger satellites constellations (from Amazon and China) start launching as expected.
Yamma Ensemble – Kondja mia
An evening pause: This song is an example of what the group calls the tribal music of Sephardic Jews. The title of the song means “My rose.” Leave the closed captions on to see an English translation of the lyrics, which are quite beautiful. It is all very Middle Eastern, and something the Palestinians would recognize and like, until you told them it was by their fellow Semites, the Jews.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
SpaceX launches again, this time from Cape Canaveral
SpaceX today completed its second launch today from opposite coasts, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off this evening from Cape Canaveral, carrying 23 Starlink satellites.
The first stage completed its twelfth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The 2024 launch race:
5 SpaceX
4 China
1 India
1 ULA
1 Japan
SpaceX launches 22 Starlink satellites
SpaceX early today successfully launched 22 additional Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.
The first stage completed its eighteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
The 2024 launch race:
4 China
4 SpaceX
1 India
1 ULA
1 Japan
Elon Musk’s employee update released January 12th
I have embedded below an employee update of the status of all of SpaceX’s projects, given by Elon Musk and released publicly on January 12, 2023. The video has been edited only to remove the many enthusiastic applauses by Musk’s audience of co-workers in order to shorten it.
Though Musk provided a lot of general information about the company’s long term goals with Starlink, Starship, Mars, the Moon, and other topics, these are the most important take-aways relating to its ongoing efforts now:
- Falcon 9: The company is now upgrading its first stage so that it will be able to fly reused forty times, not twenty. Musk also noted that they have now reused the rocket’s fairings more than 300 times.
- They are now aiming for about 150 launches in 2024. (It appears now that the biggest obstacle to this goal will be weather, as seen by the weather delays that have stalled Falcon 9 launches this very week.)
- The Dragon fleet has now spent more days at and flights to ISS than the NASA’s entire shuttle fleet.
- Starlink: It is a supplement to present phone and internet service, not a replacement, serving remote areas. Its biggest obstacle now however to providing that service is government approvals. The company is blocked by regulators in many places where the service is operational.
On Starship/Superheavy, he revealed these facts:
- They are planning to double its payload capacity to 200 tons to orbit, twice the Saturn-5.
- Starship would have made orbit on the second orbital test if it had had a payload. To simulate the weight of payload it had carried extraoxidizer, and when it vented these as it approached orbit it caused problems that activated the self-destruct system.
- The third orbital test flight will thus almost certainly reach orbit, and will then test engine burns, some refueling technology, payload deployment, and de-orbit procedures.
Musk emphasized that they must be able to fly these tests frequently to get Starship/Superheavy functioning, not just for SpaceX but for NASA’s Artemis program. As he said, “Time is the one true currency.” With each launch they refine the system to make it more reliable and operational. Without those launches they can’t.
He did not mention why launches might not happen frequently, probably because the last thing he needs to do is antagonize the regulators who are slowing him down. I (and other journalists) however are not under that restriction. The biggest obstacle to SpaceX’s success is the red-tape being wound around it by the Biden administration and its love of strict regulation, possibly instigated by its political hostility to Elon Musk as a person.
This government action to stymie freedom must end, and the sooner the better.
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Peregrine still operational but expected to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere
Click for original image.
According to an update yesterday from Astrobotic’s engineering team, the damaged lunar lander is likely to enter the atmosphere burn up when its orbit brings it back to Earth in about a week.
In an update the day before, the company released a graph of the spacecraft’s position in relation to the Earth and Moon, shown to the right. From that update:
Peregrine remains operational at about 238,000 miles from Earth, which means that we have reached lunar distance! As we posted in Update #10, the Moon is not where the spacecraft is now (see graphic). Our original trajectory had us arriving at the Moon on day 15 post launch. Our propellant estimates currently have us running out of fuel before this 15-day mark
The plan had apparently been to circle the Earth twice in this elongated orbit, with the second orbit (after some mid-course corrections) bringing Peregrine close enough to the Moon (after it had moved further in its orbit) to be captured by its sphere of influence. With the loss of fuel due to the leak, the spacecraft doesn’t have the fuel to do any of the required engine burns, including one that would avoid the Earth’s atmosphere upon return.