The Fendertones – Little Saint Nick
An evening pause: A nice cover of the Beach Boys classic.
Hat tip Alton Blevins.
Tag: commercial
ULA’s Vulcan rocket fully stacked for the first time
The landing site for Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander
In preparation for its targeted January 8, 2024 launch, ULA’s Vulcan rocket has now been fully stacked for first time in its assembly building at Cape Canaveral.
ULA’s new rocket has rolled between its vertical hangar and the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station several times for countdown rehearsals and fueling tests. But ULA only needed the Vulcan rocket’s first stage and upper stage to complete those tests. The addition of the payload shroud Wednesday marked the first time ULA has fully stacked a Vulcan rocket, standing some 202 feet (61.6 meters) tall, still surrounded by scaffolding and work platforms inside its assembly building.
It will next be rolled to the launchpad for some final checks prior to launch on January 8, 2023. Unlike most first launches, it carries a real payload, Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander, which hopes to softly place several NASA and commercial payloads near the Gruithuisen Domes in the northwest quadrant of the Moon’s visible hemisphere, as shown on the map above.
White House issues “policy framework” to lobby for its space regulatory proposal
Faced with stiff opposition from industry and politicians from both parties in Congress to its regulatory proposal issued in mid-November, the White House yesterday released what it called a “policy framework” for implementing that proposal.
You can read this policy framework here [pdf]. It is filled with high-sounding claims about its goal is to encourage private development and reduce red tape, but in the end it only adds more government entities to the entire bureaucracy that regulates commercial space. From the framework itself:
The Secretaries of Commerce and Transportation will co-lead a Private Sector Space Activities Interagency Steering Group in consultation with the Chairperson of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), comprising representation from the Departments of Defense, Energy, Homeland Security, Interior, and State, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and any other Federal entities with expertise or equities pertaining to private sector novel space activities, including relevant stakeholders from the Executive Office of the President. The Steering Group serves as a coordinating body to ensure that the U.S. Government oversight system is prepared to meet U.S. priorities while taking into consideration the competitiveness of U.S. industry now and into the future.
One of the criticisms of the White House proposal from mid-November was that it would split regulation between Commerce and Transportation, thus increasing the complexity for commerical companies. This steering group is clearly an effort to answer those complaints, but based on this proposal, it simply adds one more bureaucratic layer to the mix, making things even more complicated.
The framework also calls for the expansion of the government’s regulatory footprint on several fronts, such as controlling orbital debris, and achieved through “expanding existing, or establish new, federal advisory committees to account for all expanded space authorities in furtherance of this Framework and related legislative proposals.”
From the viewpoint of freedom, this entire proposal reads like a zombie end-of-the-world horror film, with bureaucratic zombies appearing endlessly from all directions, aimed at consuming any independent private company as quickly and as thoroughly as possible.
The original commercial space act proposal from Congress, that the Biden administration (and most Democrats) oppose but carries the endorsement of the private commercial space industry, was passed by its House committee, but still needs to be voted on by the full House, as well as the Senate. Because it remains in limbo, the White House has issued this framework, in the hope it can give its side the ammunition needed to defeat that bill and replace it with the White House’s.
Starship prototype #28 completes full duration static fire test
Gearing up for Starship/Superheavy orbital test flight #3: Starship prototype #28 today successfully completed a full duration static fire test, with all six engines firing for about five seconds.
The link goes to SpaceX’s X feed, and shows that test.
This is more evidence that SpaceX intends to be ready in all ways to do that third orbital test flight of Superheavy/Starship by mid-January, at the latest. It also suggests the company is getting close to finishing its investigation into the previous test flight in mid-November.
Of course, none of this means it will launch in mid-January. I predict SpaceX will be stuck twiddling its thumbs waiting for a launch license from the FAA, which will also be waiting for an okay from Fish & Wildlife. Both will likely be forced to work as slowly as possible, likely because of interference from the White House.
Céline Dion – O Holy Night
An evening pause: Performed live for television, 1998.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
The Biden war against Musk is a war against America
How the modern Democratic Party has evolved
madly to the left, according to Elon Musk
In 2022 Elon Musk essentially completed the long process of going from what he described as a moderate who had previously voted overwhelming for Democrats to a Republican voter strongly hostile to the present Democratic Party.
He announced this shift in a tweet on May 18, 2022, in which he said the following:
In the past I voted Democrat, because they were (mostly) the kindness party.
But they have become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican.
Now, watch their dirty tricks campaign against me unfold. [emphasis mine]
In the almost twenty months since Musk made that statement, his prediction of a “dirty tricks campaign” by the Democrats has become quite evident and true. Numerous federal agencies under the control of President Joe Biden began taking strong actions to stymie Musk’s companies, sometimes abusing the law in what appear to be legitimate ways, and sometimes abusing power in ways that are absurd. Below is a short list, many of which have been repeatedly reported here at Behind the Black:
» Read more
Congress passes short term extension of commercial space regulatory “learning period”
The Senate yesterday passed a short term extension of the regulatory “learning period” at the FAA that limits its ability to regulate commercial space.
[The Senate] quickly passed an extension of the FAA’s authorization, a final piece of “must pass” legislation before the end of the year. The bill (H.R. 6503) passed the House on December 11. Among other things, it extends the “learning period” for commercial human spaceflight until March 9, 2024 that otherwise would have expired on January 1. The learning period, or “moratorium,” prohibits the FAA from promulgating new regulations on commercial human spaceflight while the industry is in its infancy.
The president still needs to sign this bill, but that is expected.
Originally passed in 2004 as an eight-year period, this “learning period” has been extended several times since. The industry wants a longer extension, as it still considers itself quite rightly to be in an experimental test phase, not operational in the sense of airplane manufacture.
Not that this extension matters. It appears in the past two years that the regulators at the FAA have decided to ignore the law and make believe this learning period really doesn’t exist, based on how that agency has treated test launches by SpaceX and others. Rather than let their launches proceed quickly as tests, the FAA has begun to treat each test as an operational flight that requires a long investigation before further launch approvals are given.
Unless there is a major change in leadership in the White House, we should expect a major slow-down of the American launch industry in the coming years, regardless of whether this “learning period” is extended or not.
Launch of Intuitive Machines Nova-C lunar lander delayed until February
Because of scheduling conflicts impacting other SpaceX launches now, SpaceX and Intuitive Machines have delayed the launch of the latter’s Nova-C lunar lander from a mid-January to a mid-February launch window.
The conflict involves the use of the launchpad, that the Falcon Heavy also uses. Technical issues had forced SpaceX to reschedule its next launch to December 28, 2023, leaving little time afterward to reconfigure the pad for the Falcon 9 Nova-C mid-January launch window. Any Falcon Heavy launch delays due to weather would likely make that mid-January window impossible, so the companies have decided better to reschedule now.
Nova-C is targeting a crater rim near the Moon’s south pole, as shown on the map to the right. The floor of that crater is thought to be permanently shadowed, but Nova-C does not have the capability to enter it. This mission is mostly an engineering test mission, to prove Intuitive Machine’s design. If it works, it will operate on the Moon surface for one lunar day, about two weeks. The company then has two more lunar missions contracted with NASA, with the next mission aiming to fly in 2024 as well.
The Choir of King’s College – Sussex Carol
An evening pause: Performed live 2021 in the King’s College Chapel, Cambridge.
Spain’s new space agency
Link here. The article provides a detailed description of the history leading up to the formation in March 2023 of Spain’s new space agency, Agencia Espacial Española (AEE) (the Spanish Space Agency in English).
It appears the goal was to consolidate Spain’s government space operations from eleven different agencies so as to better coordinate that government’s work with the nation’s burgeoning new commercial space sector.
By law, Spain has created the AEE without any increase in public spending. The new agency has been allocated an initial budget of 700 million euros per year, which was primarily drawn from funding for ESA [European Space Agency] participation, the CDTI, and INTA [two other Spanish agencies]. However, it is expected that the AEE will receive higher budgets in the future for the development of its own programs outside those directly linked to the ESA. The task of financing space activity public and private alike is of utmost importance, and one of the agency’s roles should be to create mechanisms for making investment attractive and effective, either directly or through public-private partnerships — a model that is producing excellent results in several countries around the world, like the United States. [emphasis mine]
It appears the goal is to emulate the policies followed by NASA in the past few years, buy services and products from the private sector rather than build these things within the government. If so, AEE will likely help jumpstart that new space industry. Whether it can stay focused on this goal, or shift into a typical government empire-building operation that sucks the life out of everything, will be its real fundamental test.
Firefly schedules second launch in 2023
Firefly has now scheduled the second launch of its Alpha rocket in 2023, with a launch window of about 20 minutes on the morning of Decmeber 20, 2023.
The payload is a smallsat from Lockheed Martin testing new antenna technology, but the launch is for the Space Force. Like the previous September 15, 2023 launch, it is designed to test the ability of Firefly to get a payload into orbit quickly, from assembly to launch.
SpaceX launches 23 Starlink satellites
SpaceX tonight successfully launched another 23 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.
The first stage completed its third flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
92 SpaceX
61 China
17 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 India
American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 105 to 61, and the entire world combined 105 to 96. SpaceX now trails the rest of the world combined (excluding American companies) 92 to 96.
This was the 201st launch this year, the first time ever that the global launch industry has exceeded 200 launches. Before 2021, annual global launch totals were generally less than 100. It now looks like there is a good chance they will never again be as low as that. (I should have noted this at the 200th launch, but missed it.)