The Thornton Quarry in Illinois
An evening pause: A drone view of the Thornton Quarry in Illinois, one of the largest stone quarries in the world, which is located here.
Hat tip Wayne DeVette.
Tag: commercial
SpaceX successfully launches Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral
SpaceX today successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to put a SES communications satellite into orbit.
The first stage successfully completed its eighth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The company also attempted to complete a second launch just a little more than three hours later from Cape Canaveral, but the countdown of the Falcon Heavy rocket aborted just 59 seconds prior to liftoff. No word on what happened, though the company has another launch window beginning around 7:30 pm Eastern time tomorrow. If successful it would be the second Falcon Heavy launch in 2023, using two side boosters flying their eighth and third flights respectively. Because of the fuel needs of the payload, neither the side boosters or the core stage will be recovered.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
27 SpaceX
16 China
6 Russia
3 Rocket Lab
3 India
American private enterprise now leads China 30 to 16 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 30 to 28. SpaceX by itself trails the rest of the world, including other American companies, 27 to 31.
Maxar’s Worldview-3 satellite snaps in-orbit pictures of Landsat-8 satellite
Click for original short movie.
Using its high resolution imaging capability, mostly designed to do Earth observations, Maxar engineers took a series of pictures of NASA’s Landsat-8 satellites when the two satellites happened to pass reasonably close to each other. One of those pictures, a screen capture from the short movie that Maxar created, is to the right.
Maxar Technologies’ Worldview-3 satellite has delivered images of NASA’s Landsat 8 spacecraft from ranges of between 56 miles (91.4 kilometers) and 80 miles (129.9 km), showing clear details of the powerful Earth-observation satellite. A still image reveals the 29.5-by-1.3 foot (9 by 0.4 meters) solar array powering Landsat 8, as well as distinct science payloads on the satellite’s 9.8-foot-long (3 m) bus, or main body.
Both satellites are in similar, near-polar orbits, with Worldview-3 circling around 381 miles (613 km) above Earth, while Landsat has a higher altitude of 437 miles (703 km).
Though very cool, this image was taken by Maxar to sell the company’s capabilities to future customers. The military wants the ability to do surveillance of foreign satellites, while satellite companies often need to get such imagery of their satellites to assess their condition. Maxar has now proven it can provide this service to both.
Big space Raytheon shifts gears to compete in the new space market
Capitalism in space: Raytheon, a traditional big space contractor focused mostly on winning military contracts, has decided to shifts gears from what has in recent years been a failed effort to compete for major contracts direct from the military and instead offer its capabilities to other commercial space companies.
This decision was fueled largely by the approach of the military’s Space Development Agency (SDA) to commercial contracts.
SDA’s approach to buying satellites from multiple prime contractors under fixed-price contracts is “revolutionizing space acquisitions,” [Raytheon official David Broadbent] said. The agency has been a “huge disrupter,” he said.
“Let’s call it what it is,” Broadbent added. “Raytheon and many of our traditional defense primes were constructed around sole source classified cost-plus businesses, and five to seven-year acquisition cycles.” Those markets no longer exist, he said. “So we’ve had to take a very hard look at ourselves … and drive to a far more efficient model of producing capabilities.”
In other words, Raytheon has recognized that the government golden goose of unlimited cost-plus contracts is gone, and that the company’s over-priced habits under those contracts made it difficult for it to compete against new startups designed to be efficient, low-cost, and quick on their feet.
By marketing its available products directly to other satellite and rocket companies, Raytheon can avoid the long contract competitions of the government, and make sales more effectively. As it does this it will also have time to restructure the company itself, trimming it down and making it more efficient so that it can better compete for government contracts at a later time.
Raytheon’s change is the result of the SDA essentially accepting many of the recommendations put forth in my 2017 policy paper, Capitalism in Space (a free pdf download). Rather than have the military the designer and builder of a few big and expensive satellites (also very vulnerable to attack), it is now the customer buying constellations of many small and cheap satellites from many private companies. Such smallsat constellations are much more difficult to disable by hostile powers.
Stevie Ray Vaughan – Lenny
An evening pause:Hat tip Rex Ridenoure.
With the federal bureaucracy gleefully sharpening its knives to shut down Boca Chica, SpaceX should quickly shift Starship/Superheavy operations to Florida
Superheavy still going strong, shortly after Max-Q
The results of the spectacular test launch last week of SpaceX’s Superheavy/Starship heavy lift rocket was predictable in almost all ways.
First, everyone knew that it was highly unlikely that the launch would do everything intended. This was the first time ever that SpaceX had fired all 33 Raptor-2 engines at the base of Superheavy, at full power. It was the first time ever that this firing took place with Starship stacked on top. It was the first time ever that the entire stack was fueled. It was the first time ever that this rocket — the world’s most powerful (twice as powerful as the Saturn-5 and about three times more powerful than SLS) — had every launched.
The number of unknowns were gigantic, which was exactly why SpaceX needed to do the launch. The company’s engineers needed to find out what they didn’t know about Superheavy in order to refine their engineering so that Superheavy will be more likely for success in its next launch. They also needed to find out what such a launch would do to their preliminary launchpad, in order to refine its engineering as well so that future launches could take place with little or no damage.
Thus, it is not surprising that there were surprises. The most significant was the actual amount of success. Superheavy functioned far better than anyone could have dreamed, retaining flight control through max-q and then flying for almost three minutes before Starship failed to separate and the entire stack lost control and had to be destroyed. Most of its engines worked, though discovering the reasons for the handful that failed will be a prime question in the subsequent investigation.
The second unsurprising thing about this launch is the reaction of the federal bureaucracy, run by Democrats and the Biden administration. It has quickly moved in to squelch any further launches at Boca Chica, likely for a considerable time. The FAA immediately initiated its own investigation while grounding all further launches from Boca Chica. The Fish & Wildlife Service has now begun detailing, almost gleefully, the amount of ground damage the launch caused, including ripping out the concrete base below the rocket and flinging chunks of debris hundreds of feet away as well as depositing a cloud of sand dust on everything up to 6.5 miles from the launchpad.
This quote however is significant, and tells us the real truth:
» Read more
SpaceX and Canadian phone company Rogers sign deal
SpaceX and the Canadian phone company Rogers Communications yesterday announced that they have signed an agreement to provide satellite-to-phone communications to customers throughout Canada.
Rogers and SpaceX will offer satellite-to-phone technology in Canada using SpaceX’s Starlink low earth orbit satellites and Rogers national wireless spectrum. The companies plan to start with satellite coverage for SMS text and will eventually provide voice and data across the country’s most remote wilderness, national parks and rural highways that are unconnected today.
This deal makes SpaceX now a direct competitor to OneWeb, as it is apparently structured comparable to how OneWeb operates. Up until now, SpaceX has been almost exclusively marketing to individuals, who connect up to Starlink directly. OneWeb meanwhile provides its service to large ground-based customers who then sell their network — enhanced by OneWeb capabilities — to individuals or small businesses. Because of this difference in approach, the two companies were selling their wares to different markets, making the competition less intense.
SpaceX with this deal is copying OneWeb’s approach almost exactly, which means the competition for satellite internet communications is now going to heat up considerably. For users of the internet, this is the best thing that could happen.
SpaceX successfully launched 46 upgraded Starlink satellites
SpaceX early this morning successfully launched 46 upgrades Starlink satellites, launching its Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The first stage successfully completed its thirteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. The two fairings completed their sixth and seventh flights respectively.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
26 SpaceX (with a Falcon Heavy launch planned later today)
16 China
6 Russia
3 Rocket Lab
3 India
American private enterprise now leads China 29 to 16 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 29 to 28.
I have embedded the live stream of the Falcon Heavy launch below, for those that wish to view it. It is scheduled for a 7:29 pm (Eastern) launch from Cape Canaveral.
» Read more
Fiona Apple & Elvis Costello – I Want You
An evening pause: Performed live 2006.
Hat tip Lee Stevenson.
NASA announces winners in its annual school manned rover design competition
NASA today announced the winning teams in its annual competition for high schools and colleges to come up with the best new designs for manned rovers capable of operating on other worlds.
The annual engineering competition – one of NASA’s longest standing challenges – held its concluding event Friday, April 21 to Saturday, April 22, at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, near NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.
More than 500 students from around the world participated during HERC’s 29th anniversary competition. Student teams represented 16 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, as well as the countries of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, India, Mexico, Peru, and Singapore. Teams were awarded points based on navigating a half-mile obstacle course, conducting mission-specific task challenges, and completing multiple safety and design reviews with NASA engineers.
The first place winners were teams from Escambia High School from Florida and the University of Alabama. NASA also listed winners in a whole range of other categories (“crash and burn”, “pit crew”, “social media”), many of which appear designed simply to make sure everyone got a participation award.
NASA awards 12 companies small development contracts with total value $14.5 million
NASA today announced it has awarded twelve different space companies small development contracts, total value $14.5 million, for developing new technologies ranging from new welding techniques to new thermal protection systems to better lunar rover tires.
The companies are also a wide mix, from large well-established giants like Lockheed Martin and Boeing to new startups like Blue Origin and Sierra Space.
SpaceX leases second launchpad at Vandenberg
SpaceX announced yesterday that it has leased a second launchpad at Vandenberg, taking over the pad that ULA previously leased for use by its Delta family of rockets, now being phased out.
The site will be used to launch “Falcon rockets”, which suggests both the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy. All told, SpaceX now has six launchsites, three at Cape Canaveral, two at Vandenberg, and one at Boca Chica, with the Starship/Superheavy site at Kennedy presently under construction.
The launchpad at Vandenberg, dubbed SLC-6 (pronounced “slick-6”), was originally built to launch the space shuttle, something that never happened. When I got a tour of Vandenberg in 2015 I took some good pictures of it.
It is very likely SpaceX will make major changes, as it did to the shuttle launchsite it took over at Kennedy.