Cher & Tina Turner – Shame on You!
A evening pause: Performed live on television 1975.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
Tag: commercial
Arianespace’s chief condemns the idea of independent private European rocket companies
Stéphane Israël, the head of Arianespace, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) commercial rocket division, yesterday strongly condemned the idea of allowing independent private European rocket companies to develop and compete with his government operation.
“It is not possible to copy-paste the US model,” he said. “It is not possible. The level of space spending in the United States is five times higher than in Europe, and the private capital is not the same. So if the answer is to say let’s do what the US has done, I think we will not manage to do it.”
Moreover, Israël said the European Space Agency must resist supporting microlaunchers to the point where these companies might compete with the existing capabilities.
“A huge mistake would be that this focus on microlaunchers destabilizes Ariane 6 and Vega C—it would be a historic mistake,” he said. “Microlaunchers can be of support to boost innovation. But we should not make any confusion. This launcher will never give autonomous access to space to Europe. They’re on a niche market representing maybe 10 percent of the market, and less than that when it comes to European needs.”
He said this in Brussels at the 15th European Space Conference, where it appears he was trying to convince the ESA to block any competition with Arianespace.
Israël might say this, but not only has his track record in predicting the success of commercial space in the U.S. been bad, other European governments are not taking his advice. Both Germany and the United Kingdom have several rocket startups gearing up for their first launches this year, with others in Spain and France not far behind. Moreover, Israël doesn’t have much to offer in competition. Arianespace’s Vega rocket, intended to be a low cost option, has failed on three of its last eight launches. The Ariane 6 rocket is years behind schedule, and has not yet launched. And both are overpriced and cannot compete, not only with the American rocket startups but with India’s government rockets.
Moreover, those European governments have in recent years been taking control and power away from Israël and Arianespace. Unlike earlier rockets, the Ariane 6 rocket is not controlled or owned by Arianespace. Instead, it belongs to ArianeGroup, the partnership of Airbus and Safran that is building it. Arianespace’s role in operating it will be greatly limited, once it begins flying.
Stacked Starship and Superheavy complete first full wet dress rehearsal countdown
SpaceX yesterday successfully completed a full wet dress rehearsal countdown of its stacked Starship prototype #24 and Superheavy prototype #7, fueling both completely and taking the countdown down to T-0.
On this rehearsal however the Superheavy engines were not fired. From two SpaceX tweets:
Starship completed its first full flight-like wet dress rehearsal at Starbase today. This was the first time an integrated Ship and Booster were fully loaded with more than 10 million pounds of propellant
Today’s test will help verify a full launch countdown sequence, as well as the performance of Starship and the orbital pad for flight-like operations
Next step: Another full wet dress rehearsal countdown that includes a short static fire test of all 33 Superheavy Raptor-2 engines. Once that is done successfully, the company will be ready for that first orbital launch.
Meanwhile, SpaceX awaits its launch license from the FAA. I remain pessimistic that it will be issued on a timely manner, as there are clear signs the Biden administration wants to use its power against Musk, whom it now sees as an enemy.
Rocket Lab successfully completes first launch from the U.S.
Using its Electron rocket, Rocket Lab yesterday placed three smallsats into orbit, launching for the first time from Wallops Island in Virginia.
The company now has three launchpads, one in Wallops and two in New Zealand. Expect its launch pace in 2023 to ramp up to, at a minimum, once per month.
The 2023 launch race:
5 China
5 SpaceX
1 Rocket Lab
In the national rankings, the U.S. leads China, 6 to 5. No one else has yet launched, though Japan plans a launch today.
Fender – recreating the classic “Brownie” Stratocaster used by Eric Clapton
An evening pause: Apparently Clapton used what is called a “Brownie” Stratocaster when he recorded the song Layla. In this video Fender rebuilds an old one to make it like new, for Clapton.
Hat tip Cotour.
Johann Sebastian Bach – Christmas Oratorio BWV 248
An evening pause: Good music is good music, and should not require the right season to enjoy.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
First Vulcan rocket arrives at Cape Canaveral
ULA’s first Vulcan rocket has now arrived at Cape Canaveral in preparation for its planned inaugural launch before the end of March.
This first mission for Vucan will fly in a VC2S configuration. “VC” stands for “Vulcan Centaur.” The number, in this case “2,” represents the number of solid rocket boosters needed and the final letter stands for the payload fairing length.
VC2S will use a 51-foot-long Standard payload fairing. Nestled inside will be a few different payloads. This mission will send the first two Kuiper prototype satellites into Low Earth Orbit (LEO), Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander to the Moon and a Celestis Memorial Spaceflight payload into deep space. The remains of several people connected to the original Star Trek series will be launched on what Celestis dubbed the “Enterprise Flight,” including show creator Gene Roddenberry along with actors Nichelle Nichols and Jackson DeForest Kelley.
This first Vulcan launch will also be the first of two flights required by the Pentagon in order to certify Vulcan for military launches. Since ULA already has contracts for seven Vulcan military launches, it very much wants to get these two launches off this year, as soon as possible. According to the article at the link, ULA is thus aiming to fly this year those two test flights, followed quickly by the first military launch.
Whether it can complete three Vulcan launches in 2023 is quite uncertain. For example, it will need to get four more BE-4 engines from Blue Origin for the second and third launches, and there is no indication at this time that Blue Origin is close to delivering.
Then there is the delays and risks involved with this first launch. Though ULA has decades of experience building and launching rockets, the first launch of a rocket almost always experiences delays during testing. We should expect the same with Vulcan.
Assuming this schedule holds, however, this means ULA is targeting 10 launches in 2023, five Atlas-5 launches, two Delta Heavy launches, and three Vulcan launches. That would be the most launches by this company in a year since 2016.
First launch from Shetland Islands predicted for the fall
According to an official at the SaxaVord spaceport in the Shetland Islands in Scotland, its first orbital satellite launch is now expected before the end of this year.
Scott Hammond, director of operations at SaxaVord spaceport, acknowledged there is often uncertainty around timetables for private space launches. However, he said a recent agreement with a German company, Rocket Factory Augsburg, would see them begin testing their engines in the summer ahead of a launch later in the year.
He told the Press Association: “Probably in July, we’re going to start full stage testing. That will be the full, first stage, nine engines all firing for about three minutes. So that’ll be really, really impressive. I expect about four months or so of that depending on success. And then we’re looking with Rocket Factory to launch towards the end of the year, for the orbital launch.”
I would not bet a lot of money on this schedule. Rocket Factory is a German rocket startup that has never launched before, and the first launch from such startups are routinely delayed months to years. What Hammond is really doing is creating buzz for SaxaVord, even as a rival spaceport in Sutherland, Scotland, is getting built.
Metal Church – Beyond The Black
An evening pause: Performed live 2016. Heavy metal music about a post-nuclear war world, written in 1984. It is a shame that fear might be returning.
Hat tip Björn Larsson a.k.a. LocalFluff.
Investment in space dropped 58% in 2022
According to a new report by Space Capital, a New York venture capital firm, overall investment in space dropped 58% in 2022, dropping from the $47.4 billion peak in 2021 to $20.1 billion in 2022.
Space Capital, a New York-based venture capital firm, published its Space Investment Quarterly Jan. 19 for the fourth quarter of 2022. The report notes that early-stage startups fared better than later-stage and growth companies.
One exception was SpaceX, which raised $2 billion in 2022, or 32 percent of the total 2022 private investment in space infrastructure. SpaceX was also in the minority because it raised capital in both 2021 and 2022. Only 38 percent of the space infrastructure companies that raised capital in 2021 sought additional funding in 2022.
Essentially, if you remove SpaceX from the picture, major investment in space startups largely came to a halt in 2022. Furthermore, the report states that it also expects further investment in 2023 to be parsimonious. Apparently the venture capital community has realized how risky many of these space startups are (as seen by the loss of stock value for companies like Virgin Galactic, Astra, and Virgin Orbit), and is becoming more careful where it puts its money.
The Rolling Stones & Sheryl Crow – Honky Tonk Women
An evening pause: Performed live 2003.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
ABL completes investigation of January 10th launch failure
ABL yesterday released the results of its investigation into the January 10th launch failure of its RS1 rocket.
Just over ten seconds after launch the rocket suffered “a complete loss of power,” its engines shut down, and it came crashing back to Earth about 60 feet to the east of the launch pad. The resulting explosion and fire damaged and destroyed significant equipment, including a nearby “fabric hanger.” The report then goes on to describe the cause:
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