Tag: commercial

CEO of Firefly removed

9:18 am

The board of directors of the rocket startup Firefly announced yesterday that the company’s CEO, Bill Weber, “will no longer serve” in that position and has been replaced by an interim CEO.

This change is likely related to a news story the day prior about allegations that Weber had had an “inappropriate relationship” with a female employee.

Firefly has an interesting history when it comes to its CEOs. The company’s first CEO, Tom Markusic, was first sued by Virgin Galactic (his former employer) for stealing proprietary information, and then by his first Firefly investors when he got the company out of bankruptcy by making a deal with a Ukrainian billionaire. That billionaire was later forced to divest from the company by the State Department. The new investors that Markusic found then forced him out in 2022.

Who will take over now remains unknown.

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NASA cancels its VIPER payload on Astrobotic’s Griffin lunar lander

9:06 am

VIPER's planned route on the Moon
VIPER’s now canceled planned route at the Moon’s south pole

Late yesterday NASA announced it was canceling the VIPER rover that was the primary payload on Astrobotic’s Griffin lunar lander, scheduled for launch in the fall of 2025.

NASA stated cost increases, delays to the launch date, and the risks of future cost growth as the reasons to stand down on the mission. The rover was originally planned to launch in late 2023, but in 2022, NASA requested a launch delay to late 2024 to provide more time for preflight testing of the Astrobotic lander. Since that time, additional schedule and supply chain delays pushed VIPER’s readiness date to September 2025, and independently its CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) launch aboard Astrobotic’s Griffin lander also has been delayed to a similar time. Continuation of VIPER would result in an increased cost that threatens cancellation or disruption to other CLPS missions. NASA has notified Congress of the agency’s intent.

Knowing a bit of history is important to understand this decision. In the first half of the 2010s VIPER was called Resource Prospector, and was intended as an entirely NASA-built lunar lander and rover mission with a budget of about billion dollars. In 2018 however the Trump administration cancelled it as part of its decision to shift from missions designed, built, and owned by NASA to making NASA simply a customer buying products from private sector. Rather than spend a billion on one lunar lander/rover mission, NASA would use that money to buy multiple lunar landers from private companies, and put its instruments on those.

NASA then decided to repurpose the rover portion of Resource Prospector, turning it into VIPER to launch on Astrobotic’s Griffin lander. However, that project still carried with it all the problems that curse all government-designed, government-built, and government-owned projects. It had no fixed price contract but instead had the typical government unlimited checking account, and thus its costs kept rising with repeated delays in construction.

When then-NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine revealed the project at the 2019 International Astronautical Congress, the estimated cost was $250 million. By the time NASA was ready to make a cost commitment to Congress, that grew to $433.5 million with landing in 2023. That landing date slipped to 2024 with a cost of $505.4 million. Now it has slipped again to 2025 and with a cost of $609.6 million, more than 30 percent above the commitment. That triggered an automatic cancellation review, Kearns said, which took place last month.

Some of the cause of the 2023 delay was because Astrobotic’s Griffin lander wasn’t ready either. Now however it appears VIPER still won’t be ready for the 2025 launch, even though the lander will be ready.

NASA has therefore decided to stop throwing good money after bad, and kill the rover. It however has not killed its funding for Astrobotic’s Griffin, and the mission will go forward, with the company offering its now open payload space to others. It also may use this space to fly a demonstration mission of its own proposed LunarGrid solar power system.

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SpaceX to FAA: Allow launches to resume before completion of July 11th launch failure investigation

10:59 am

SpaceX on July 15, 2024 submitted a request to the FAA to quickly determine that the July 11th Falcon-9 launch failure posed no threat to public safety, and thus allow the company to resume Falcon 9 launches before the investigation of that failure is completed.

The FAA has two means of allowing a rocket to return to flight operations following a mishap. The first is that it approves a launch operator-led mishap investigation final report, which would include “the identification of any corrective actions.” Those actions need to be put in place and all related licensing requirement need to be met.

The other option is for a public safety determination to be issued. This would be an option if “the mishap did not involve safety-critical systems or otherwise jeopardize public safety,” according to the FAA.

“The FAA will review the request, and if in agreement, authorize a return to flight operations while the mishap investigation remains open and provided the operator meets all relevant licensing requirements,” the FAA wrote on its website.

SpaceX is apparently expecting the FAA to quickly approve this request, as it has now scheduled its next Falcon 9 launch for July 19, 2024, at the end of this week.

The lower level workers at the FAA probably want to get out of the way, but they have to obey orders from above, and it is my suspicion that the White House is applying pressure to make life hard for SpaceX. As I have noted, the FAA has not required the same level of due diligence from either NASA and its SLS rocket, or Boeing’s Starliner capsule.

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Musk: SpaceX is moving its headquarters from California to Texas

2:33 pm

Because of the bill signed into law this week by California governor Gavin Newsom that allows schools to groom little kids sexually and hide that fact from their parents, Elon Musk announced today that SpaceX is moving its headquarters from California to Texas. From Musk’s tweet:

This is the final straw.

Because of this law and the many others that preceded it, attacking both families and companies, SpaceX will now move its HQ from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas.

Musk also noted that X will also relocate from California to Texas.

If you establish a government that oppresses and encourages insane behavior, you will discover that people will flee your tyranny enthusiastically. The Democrats who run California have achieved this goal quite skillfully. May they enjoy their enduring bankruptcy.

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ESA announces asteroid mission to Apophis

9:06 am

Apophis' path past the Earth in 2029
A cartoon showing Apophis’s path in 2029

The European Space Agency (ESA) today announced that is beginning work on an asteroid mission, dubbed Ramses, to the potentially dangerous asteroid Apophis when it makes its next close-fly of the Earth in 2029.

Ramses needs to launch in April 2028 to allow for an arrival at Apophis in February 2029, two months before the close approach. In order to meet this deadline, ESA requested permission to begin preparatory work on the mission as soon as possible using existing resources. This permission has been granted by the Space Safety programme board. The decision whether to commit to the mission in full will take place at ESA’s Ministerial Council Meeting in November 2025.

Using a suite of scientific instruments, the spacecraft will conduct a thorough before-and-after survey of the asteroid’s shape, surface, orbit, rotation and orientation. By analysing how Apophis changes during the flyby, scientists will learn a lot about the response of an asteroid to external forces as well as asteroid composition, interior structure, cohesion, mass, density, and porosity.

Based on the track record of European space projects, which appear to always proceed at a glacial pace with late problems that cause the missions to miss their launch window (with the launch of the Franklin Mars rover as the poster child), the project is getting started far too late to meet its launch date of April 2028. We shall see if Europe surprises us this time and gets the project off the ground as planned.

Right now the only confirmed mission to Apophis is OSIRIS-APEX, which was redirected to the asteroid after it delivered its samples from Bennu to Earth. Many others have been proposed, including a commercial mission, but none appear to be confirmed or under construction.

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More delays for first test hops of Europe’s Themis reusable first stage

9:17 am

Par for the course: The first test hops of Europe’s Themis demonstrator reusable first stage, first proposed in 2018, have now been delayed until 2025.

In a May 2024 presentation given at the International Civil Aviation Organization offices in Paris, the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) announced that initial Themis hop tests would only begin next year. SSC is in charge of the operation of Esrange Space Centre in Sweden, where these initial tests of an integrated Themis demonstrator will begin. Once ArianeGroup moves onto higher altitude flights, the testing will be moved to the Guiana Space Centre.

The demonstrator itself is being built by a partnership of the private company ArianeGroup (Airbus and Safran) and the French space agency CNES, and was originallly supposed to begin test hops in 2022. These delays are typical of European government-run space operations. Note too that this is not a usable first stage, merely a demonstrator. For it to become operational it will have to be rebuilt.

None of this should be a surprise, since the man who runs Arianespace and is likely a key player in all this work, Stephan Israel, said in 2023 this stage would not become operational until the 2030s. Israel has been hostile to reusability from day one, and apparently is having some influence in slowing or blocking this development.

By the time this reusable first stage flies, it will be entirely obsolete and an utter waste of money, at least from a business and profit point of view. It will however have served these bankrupt companies and space agencies well as an empty jobs program, accomplishing little but make-work.

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FAA to “investigate” SpaceX launch failure

9:12 am

In what appears to be a perfect example of bureaucratic hubris, the FAA announced right after the Falcon 9 upper stage failure on July 11, 2024 that it “is requiring an investigation” and that it “will be involved in every step of the investigation process and must approve SpaceX’s final report, including any corrective actions.” The agency added:

A return to flight is based on the FAA determining that any system, process, or procedure related to the mishap does not affect public safety. In addition, SpaceX may need to request and receive approval from the FAA to modify its license that incorporates any corrective actions and meet all other licensing requirements.

It is difficult to count all the ways this announcement is arrogant and political.

First, why has the FAA made no such similar demands upon Boeing and its Starliner capsule, during any of its three flights, all of which have had serious issues? On the present manned flight, the failure of its thrusters during docking posed a safety issue to the crew then, and poses a clear safety issue to the public when it comes time for the capsule to return to Earth. If those thrusters don’t fire as planned Starliner could crash anywhere.

Yet the FAA has been entirely uninterested. Could it be because Boeing is not owned by Elon Musk, and the Biden administration isn’t demanding the FAA come down hard on it?

Second, does the FAA really think SpaceX wouldn’t do an investigation of the upper stage failure without an order from the FAA? If anything, left to its own devices it is more likely the FAA would do nothing — as it has done with Boeing with both Starliner and the issues that have occurred with both SLS and Orion. SpaceX however will do an investigation without question, because the company takes such incidents very seriously, and always fixes the problem so that it does not pop up again.

Third, there is absolutely no one at the FAA qualified to do this investigation, or to determine if SpaceX’s “corrective actions” are the right choice. These are bureaucrats, not cutting edge engineers. All they are going to do is watch SpaceX’s people do the work, kibitz a bit here and there, and then rubberstamp the conclusions of the company’s engineers, after making SpaceX wait while it retypes SpaceX’s report.

To claim the FAA has the ability to “approve” any engineering actions here is absurd.

Fourth, to threaten to deny SpaceX’s launch license for future Falcon 9 rockets — the most reliable and dependable rocket ever built — illustrates again the partisan nature of this action. The specificity of the agency’s demands here runs very counter to its demands after other past launch anomalies, involving both SpaceX and others. It is as if the agency has gotten orders to do whatever it can to micromanage everything SpaceX does in order to hinder its operation.

I still expect SpaceX to finish its investigation within weeks, and be ready to fly by the end of July, when the Jared Isaacman manned mission is scheduled. I also now expect the FAA to block that schedule and cause an additional several week delay as it slowly retypes SpaceX’s conclusions.

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Musk: European Union attempted to blackmail X into censoring tweets

2:33 pm

The EU to Elon Musk:
The EU to Elon Musk: “Nice company you got here.
Shame if something happened to it..”

Almost immediately after the European Union announced today that it considered X in violation of its Digital Services Act (DSA), claiming that the social media company owned by Elon Musk was breaking the act “in areas linked to dark patterns, advertising transparency and data access for researchers,” Elon Musk responded most bluntly in a tweet:

The European Commission offered 𝕏 an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us.

The other platforms accepted that deal.

𝕏 did not.

In other words, the EU tried to blackmail X and Musk into censoring some users of X, based on criteria that EU chose. When X refused to play that game, the EU followed through with today’s announcement, threatening the following if Musk does not kow-tow:
» Read more

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FAA is apparently starting a new environmental impact assessment for Boca Chica

12:55 pm

Damaged but working flap on Starship
Damaged but working flap during June 6, 2024
Starship/Superheavy test flight

Today I received the following email from the FAA:

Dear Interested Party:

The FAA is holding public meetings on the Draft Tiered Environmental Assessment (Draft EA) for SpaceX’s proposal to increase the number of launches and landings of its Starship/Super Heavy vehicle at the Boca Chica Launch Site in Cameron County, Texas. The Draft EA will analyze SpaceX’s proposal to increase its launch and landing cadence as follows:

  • Up to 25 annual Starship/Super Heavy orbital launches
  • Up to 25 annual landings of Starship
  • Up to 25 annual landings of Super Heavy

The Draft EA will also address vehicle upgrades.

There will be three public meetings, one on August 13, 2024 on South Padre Island, one on August 15, 2024 in Port Isabel, and the third a virtual zoom meeting on August 20, 2024. Anyone can register for the zoom meeting. For all the meetings, “The public will have an opportunity to submit written and oral comments during the meetings.” Expect the leftist anti-Musk, anti-SpaceX activists to come out in droves.

What is really significant about this is that SpaceX has applied to expand its operations at Boca Chica beyond the limitations set by the environmental reassessment issued in 2022. The FAA had said in that reassessment it would re-open it if and when SpaceX requested any changes. It has now done so.
» Read more

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Russia arrests three Europeans this week for trespassing at Baikonur spaceport

10:23 am

Russia this week arrested three Europeans, two Dutch and one Belgium, for sneaking onto the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan illegally.

This is the second time this year and the third time since 2022 that Russia has caught Europeans attempting to enter the spaceport illegally. In June one of those trespassers died in the attempt from dehydration. It appears it has become “a thing” to do, mostly by social media types who then post videos of their travels.

Russia and Kazakhstan however invite these trespasses because neither makes it easy or even possible to visit the spaceport and see its sights. Its inavailabiity makes it a target, and thus these illegal visits. It would be much better is both countries routinely ran public tours, at very reasonable rates, as NASA does at Cape Canaveral. India’s space agency ISRO meanwhile makes money by selling tickets to view its launches.

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South Korea: Numerous close calls between its lunar orbiter and others

9:58 am

A South Korean official has revealed that during the ongoing mission of its lunar orbiter Danuri it has had to act to avoid dozens of potential collisions with three other spacecraft.

In a presentation at the Secure World Foundation’s Summit for Space Sustainability here July 11, Soyoung Chung, senior researcher at the Korea Aerospace Research Institute’s (KARI’s) strategy and planning directorate, said her agency had received 40 “red alarms” of potential collisions among spacecraft orbiting the moon in the last 18 months.

The warnings primarily involve close approaches involving KARI’s Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter from India’s space agency ISRO, which are all in similar low orbits around the moon. The three agencies voluntarily share information about the orbits of their spacecraft using a NASA platform called MADCAP that generates collision warnings.

In addition, engineers had to institute a maneuver to avoid Japan’s SLIM lunar lander, and in that case the warning occurred only a day before the potential collision was to occur.

The official noted that at present there is no system to coordinate lunar orbits and spacecraft, as exists for Earth orbit. South Korea and Romania have proposed giving this power to the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, which based on UN politics would likely be a very bad thing for the commercial space industry. I guarantee that UN agency would quickly favor government missions in its decision, and would also favor authoritarian governments over capitalist nations.

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Spanish rocket startup PLD gets $34 million loan to build orbital rocket

9:43 am

The Spanish rocket startup PLD has obtained a $34 million bank loan to build its Miura-5 orbital rocket.

On 12 July, PLD Space announced that it had received a €31.2 million syndicated loan from Banco Santander, EBN Banco, and the Instituto de Crédito Oficial. A syndicated loan is provided by a group of lenders to distribute the financial risk among the participating lenders.

…According to the company, the loan amount will primarily be used for the Miura 5 rocket development programme, which includes both the development of the rocket and the expansion of the company’s industrial capabilities. It will also be used to support the company’s growth, with PLD planning to surpass 300 employees by the end of 2024.

For a rocket startup to get significant financing through a bank loan like this is very unusual. Almost always banks are reluctant to loan money for such a risky project. Instead, rocket startups get investment capital from venture capitalists, who are willing to take greater risks. PLD itself has already raised $164 million in this manner, $46 million of which came from the Spanish government itself.

I therefore wonder if some political pressure from the Spanish government helped convince the banks to approve the loan.

Regardless, PLD hopes to do the first orbital test launch of Miura-5 in 2025, with operational flights to follow the next year.

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Europa Clipper mission threatened by faulty transistors

9:31 am

Engineers have learned that transistors installed on NASA’s Europa Clipper mission were not built to the right specifications and could fail in the harsh environment surrounding Jupiter.

The issue with the transistors came to light in May when the mission team was advised that similar parts were failing at lower radiation doses than expected. In June 2024, an industry alert was sent out to notify users of this issue. The manufacturer is working with the mission team to support ongoing radiation test and analysis efforts in order to better understand the risk of using these parts on the Europa Clipper spacecraft.

Testing data obtained so far indicates some transistors are likely to fail in the high-radiation environment near Jupiter and its moon Europa because the parts are not as radiation resistant as expected. The team is working to determine how many transistors may be susceptible and how they will perform in-flight. NASA is evaluating options for maximizing the transistors’ longevity in the Jupiter system. A preliminary analysis is expected to be complete in late July.

This issue could be disaster for the mission, which has a launch window that opens on October 10, 2024. If it is impossible to replace the bad transistors, NASA will be faced with two choices, neither great. It could launch regardless and hope for the best. It could delay the mission to fix the problem, which might involve a delay of years waiting for a new launch window.

This story appears to illustrate once again the decline in quality control that appears to be happening across much of American industry. The technology for building radiation-hardened equipment has been standard for decades. For a company to deliver equipment below standard now suggests incompetence or fraud, neither of which speaks well for it and the entire industry.

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SpaceX launch experiences a failure of upper stage

10:52 pm

Second stage engine with leak

For the first time since June 2015, a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch experienced a failure today after lifting from Vandenberg in California. During a launch tonight of twenty Starlink satellites, the upper stage showed signs of a fuel leak during its initial burn, and according to a tweet from Elon Musk, it exploded when it relit to make a final orbital adjustment.

Upper stage restart to raise perigee resulted in an engine RUD [rapid unscheduled dissembly] for reasons currently unknown. Team is reviewing data tonight to understand root cause.

Starlink satellites were deployed, but the perigee may be too low for them to raise orbit. Will know more in a few hours.

The arrow on the screen capture from the live feed, taken during the upper stage’s initial burn, indicates that apparent leak.

The first stage however successfully completed its nineteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

This failure ended an incredible string of 344 successful launches, a record unmatched by any rocket ever in the history of space exploration. It was also the very first launch failure of SpaceX’s Block 5 Falcon 9, the rocket’s final design that has allowed the first stages to be reused now more than twenty times.

The next SpaceX launch is presently scheduled for July 14, 2024, but we should expect that launch to be postponed while engineers investigate the failure tonight. We should also expect that delay to last no more than several weeks, at most.

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India picks astronauts to train for manned mission to ISS

10:36 am

India has now reduced from four to two the astronauts it is training for the fourth Axiom commercial mission to ISS, planned for launch no earlier than October 2024.

Only one of these two men will fly on that Axiom mission, with the other being the back-up should a change be required. The decision on who has not yet been made.

The astronauts will have to go to the United States ahead of the mission to train on the specifics of the ISS. “While they have general training for space-fairing, much of their training in India focussed on Gaganyaan modules. They will have to be familiarised with ISS modules and protocols,” the official said.

The names of the two astronauts has not been released, as far as I can find. Either way, this training will be used in preparation for India’s own manned Gaganyaan orbital mission, now scheduled for 2025, since three of these four men will fly on Gaganyaan.

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Axiom signs $125 million deal with startup Gravitics to build a module for its space station

10:22 am

Artist conception of Gravitics' Starmax module
Artist conception of Gravitics’ Starmax
module, designed to fit inside Starship

The space station company Axiom on July 9, 2024 awarded a $125 million contract to the Seattle-based startup Gravitics to build a module for its upcoming space station.

The space station modules Gravitics is designing range from 3 meters (9 feet) to 8 meters (26 feet) in diameter. The largest module, which the company boasts will have the “largest interior volume in a standalone spacecraft,” is dubbed StarMax, a name inspired by SpaceX’s towering Starship rocket.

“We started by looking at Starship and saying, ‘Someone is going to maximize that payload volume,'” Doughan said.

It appears this contract is for one of the company’s smaller modules, though this could change with time.

Up until now, Axiom has hired the European company Thales Alenia to build the modules for its Axiom space station, with the first modules to initially be docked with ISS and then undocked to fly independent when ready. This contract, which is not exclusive, indicates Axiom’s desire to develop resources in America.

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India now has its own private company building space station modules

9:45 am

Even as India’s space agency ISRO gears up to build its own government space station, a Indian startup is proposing to build and launch its own commercial space station inflatable module, capable of carrying “6 to 16 personnel.”

The company, AkashaLabdhi, says it is negotiations with SpaceX for a launch target in 2027.

Founded in 2023, AkashaLabdhi has prepared its prototype model of the habitat called ‘Antariksh HAB’, according to a report by The Times of India. Antariksh HAB contains features such as an expandable shell that ensures ‘exceptional orbital debris and radiation protection’, the company says on its website. According to AkashaLabdhi, the design has multiple purposes besides space habitation. It can be used for microgravity experiments, satellite maintenance, orbital logistics storage. The company also hopes to see its usage for space tourism, armed forces operations among others.

“With a forward-looking perspective, this adaptable habitat holds potential for long-term lunar surface exploration,” the company said on its website. Built with several layers, the structure is meant to reach its intended orbit of 1,100 km. AkashaLabhi CEO Siddarth Jena told TOI on Wednesday that the structure will take about seven days to fully inflate, once it reaches its desired destination.

How real the plans of this company is unknown. That it exists at all and is proposing such ambitious plans illustrates however the capitalism in space revolution that is going on in India. The country has the technical capabilities to do such things, and is now free to go ahead due to the policies of the Modi government that has forced ISRO to provide aid and support, rather than control everything.

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Starliner return delayed until after ground thruster tests are completed and analyzed

9:15 am

Starliner docked to ISS
Starliner docked during the unmanned demo
flight in May 2022

According the NASA and Boeing officials yesterday, they are in the process of doing ground thruster tests to emulate the problems that occurred on the thrusters during docking procedures to ISS in early June, and will not decide on a return date for Starliner until after those tests are completed and analyzed, expected sometime in the next two weeks.

It appears some of the ground tests were delayed slightly due to the arrival of Hurricane Beryl in Texas.

It is very important to note that the astronauts are not “stranded” on the station, as a lot of news organizations are still claiming. The thrusters on Starliner that failed are part of the service module, which will not return to Earth when the astronauts come home on the the capsule. They therefore want to do as much research as possible beforehand in order to determine the cause of the failures in order to prevent them on future capsule flights. For example, the ground tests are first attempting to duplicate precisely what happened during docking, and will then do tests attempting to duplicate what will happen during de-orbit.

In the meantime, they appear to have no doubt that they can use Starliner for return, no matter what. At the moment only one thruster appears out-of-commission, and none of the thrusters that failed during docking are used for the de-orbit burn. They are only used for orientation, and the capsule has ample redundancy for this function sufficient for de-orbit.

In addition, it is a good thing for them to extend Starliner’s total flight time. I suspect even if everything had worked as planned they would have extended this mission as they have. This allows them to prove out the in-space operation of the capsule and service module. So far it appears that operation has been excellent, which is one reason they are willing to delay the return to do the ground tests.

Overall, my impression is that the situation is entirely under control, and in fact NASA is reasonably satisfied with the capsule’s operation in general. It appears that the agency will likely have no problem in flying future manned missions with Starliner, though it will want the thruster issue solved beforehand.

As for Boeing, these problems have stained its reputation further, and have likely made it much more difficult to sell future capsule flights to other customers. I would say however that after listening to the last few press briefings it seems to me that Boeing’s manned space division is now doing the proper due diligence it should have done before. For example, the thruster problems appear to be related to overheating during use, which is a very fixable issue.

These facts actually makes me more confident in the capsule, and future potential customers should do the same review themselves.

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Japanese company proposes building a module to add to Axiom’s space station

9:24 am

Axiom's space station assembly sequence
The assembly sequence for Axiom’s space station while attached to ISS.
Click for original image.

The Japanese company Mitsui has now proposed building a module — based on Japan’s HTV cargo freighter that did several missions to ISS — and sell it to the commercial space stations now under construction.

Mitsui has created a subsidiary called LEO Shachu to develop the module. What makes this project very likely to happen is that Mitsui is also an investor in Axiom’s space station, and according to the article at the link, a Axiom official who is also a retired Japanese astronaut who flew to ISS has expressed interest in it.

This story also helps outline the international landscape of the future stations. While Voyager Space’s Starlab station has been partnering extensively with Europe and Airbus, Axiom appears to be partnering more closely with NASA and Japan. The third station that has obtained NASA money, Blue Origin’s Orbit Reef, had made an earlier deal with Mitsubishi, but appears to have obtained few other outside partners, and that Mitsubishi deal only involved “development work,” not specific hardware. Moreover, Mitsubishi later made a new deal with the Starlab station, suggesting it had broken up with Blue Origin.

A fourth station, being built by the private company Vast with no NASA money, has partnered with SpaceX and ESA. It is also likely to be the first to launch its first module in August 2025, followed soon thereafter by a 30 day 4-person Dragon mission.

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Astroscale’s ADRAS-J test spacecraft continues successfully maneuvers around abandoned rocket upper stage

9:04 am

abandoned upper stage, taken by ADRAS-J
Click for original image.

The Japaneses orbital tug startup Astroscale has revealed that its ADRAS-J test spacecraft has successfully completed more complicated autonomous proximity maneuvers around an abandoned H2A rocket upper stage that it rendezvoused with in March 2024.

Astroscale announced July 9 that its Active Debris Removal by Astroscale-Japan (ADRAS-J) spacecraft conducted a “fly around” maneuver, going part way around the H-2A upper stage it has been inspecting for the last few months. ADRAS-J used sensors to maintain a distance of just 50 meters from the stage.

However, about one third of the way through the maneuver, ADRAS-J encountered what the company called an “unexpected attitude anomaly” that triggered an automatic abort. The spacecraft moved away from the stage as designed to avoid any risk of a collision. “The abort maneuver implemented during the fly-around operation demonstrated that ADRAS-J can maintain safety even while performing close approach observations of non-cooperative objects,” the company said in a statement, adding that engineers had found the cause of the anomaly and were preparing for another close approach to the stage.

The picture to the right is of that upper stage, taken shortly after ADRAS-J arrived near the stage in the spring. According to the company, the stage is in remarkably good condition despite fifteen years in orbit, and also is flying in a very stable manner, tumbling almost not at all. This data suggests a mission to grab it and de-orbit it safely would be relatively easy.

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Europe at last launches Ariane-6

12:47 pm

Ariane-6 seconds after liftoff
Ariane-6 seconds after liftoff

Arianespace, the commercial rocket arm of the European Space Agency (ESA) today successfully completed the first launch of its new Ariane-6 rocket, lifting off from French Guiana in South America carrying nine cubesats plus two re-entry test capsules.

As of posting, the nine cubesats have been deployed. Of the remaining payloads, one is a smallscale version of the return cargo capsule being built by the French company The Exploration Company. It will test the re-entry technology for that capsule.

UPDATE: There was an issue restarting the upper stage later in the flight that prevented the last payloads from being released. The bigwigs at the press conference at this link repeatedly insisted the flight was a complete success, but this failure of the upper stage is not a good thing, but hardly a disaster. It is similar to problems Firefly had on some of its early flights, which the company was able to overcome.

If all goes as planned, Arianespace and Arianegroup (the private company that builds and owns the rocket) hope to ramp up launches over the next three years, doing one more in 2024, six in 2025, eight in 2026, and ten in 2027. It says the rocket has contracts for thirty launches, eighteen of which are for launching Amazon’s Kuiper internet constellation.

I expect Ariane-6 to face heavy competitive pressure over that time period, not only from SpaceX but from the new European rocket startups that should begin launching at far less cost. The pressure should make the future of Ariane-6 somewhat dim, unless the European Union steps in and mandates its use by European satellite companies. If the latter happens, expect Europe’s entire space industry to suffer badly.

This was Europe’s first launch in 2024, so the leader board in the 2024 launch race has not changed:

71 SpaceX
30 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the world combined in successful launches, 83 to 46, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including other American companies, 71 to 58.

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Japan dithers about capitalism in space

9:38 am

Despite its government creating in November 2023 a new “Space Strategic Fund” worth more than $6 billion designed to encourage capitalism in space and handing it to Japan’s space agency JAXA to administer, JAXA officials continue to dither on how to use that money to encourage private enterprise in space.

Japan’s space agency is seeking industry proposals for technologies that could contribute to future commercial space stations as the government studies what role it would play in supporting efforts to replace the International Space Station.

…That work will inform plans by Japan on how it can participate in commercial space stations being developed by American companies in partnership with NASA. “We are discussing how we will join NASA’s Commercial LEO Destination program,” said [Yasuo Ishii, senior vice president of JAXA]. “Our responsibility is not clear yet, but, of course, commitment at the government level is essential to commercial operations.” [emphasis mine]

The highlighted phrases above reveal the underlying motives of JAXA, which is not to encourage private independent space companies and reduce its involvement. Just the opposite. And it appears Japan’s government is a partner in this. While Japan gave that money to its space agency, which seems to be searching for ways to hold onto its power, both Europe and India instead quickly took power and funding away from their government agencies (Arianespace and ISRO respectively) to encourage independent private space companies to flourish.

This dithering will only put Japan further behind these countries as well as China, a reality that has become increasingly embarassing for the island nation.

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Watch the first launch of Europe’s Ariane-6 rocket

9:14 am

Europe’s Ariane-6 rocket, first proposed in 2014 and about four years behind schedule, will finally make its first launch at 2 pm (Eastern) today.

I have embedded the live stream below.

The rocket was conceived by the European Space Agency (ESA) as an attempt to compete with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. It failed to do this from day one, since the rocket was from day one designed to be expendable. By the 2020s it became clear to European satellite companies and government agencies that its launch cost would be far higher that the Falcon 9, and these companies and agencies have therefore resisted signing launch contracts with ArianeGroup. In fact, if Amazon had not decided in ’22 to give the Ariane-6 a contract for 18 launches to put up its Kuiper satellites, the rocket would have almost no launches in its manifest.

This situation was made even more starkly evident at the end of June, when the European governent weather company Eumetsat cancelled its Ariane-6 contract and switched to the Falcon 9.

Though the unelected bureaucrats and apparatchiks in the European Union are trying to require the use of Ariane-6, ESA and Europe’s rocket future resides in the independent rocket startups (Rocket Factory Augsburg, Isar Aerospace, Hyimpulse, PLD). Because they are in competition with each other as well as SpaceX, and are not saddled with heavy government interference, they can focus on innovating to lower cost. Expect them to quickly begin launching in the next three years, with reusability soon to follow.

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$243.6 million plea deal allows Boeing to avoid a criminal trial

9:59 pm

The Justice Department and Boeing have made a plea deal so that the company can avoid a criminal trial for breaking its previous plea deal over 737-Max plane crashes that killed 346 people.

Under the agreement, Boeing will plead guilty to a criminal fraud charge stemming from the fatal crashes in Indonesia in October 2018 and in Ethiopia less than five months later that killed a combined 346 people.

Boeing must also pay the hefty fine [$243.6 million], invest at least $455 million in compliance and safety programs, and have an independent monitor oversee Boeing’s safety and quality procedures for three years

The company had made similar deal in 2021 with Justice when it became clear it had deceived FAA regulators about the software on new 737-Max planes that caused these crashes. This new deal is because the company apparently violated that 2021 deal, and allows it to avoid a criminal trial.

A judge still has to approve this new plea deal. Many families of the deceased oppose it, demanding instead that company managers be put on trial. Even if the judge accepts it, Boeing will still be liable for other more recent incidents.

All in all, Boeing comes off as a morally corrupt and incompetent company that was willing to cut corners, lie about it, thus allow more planes to crash because of its actions.

No wonder everyone wants to blame Boeing for every single incident that has recently occurred on various commercial jets, even though in many cases the blame resides more with the maintenance departments of the airlines that had purchased the planes. And no wonder no one believes the claim that the astronauts that flew up to ISS in June are not “stuck” there. They probably aren’t, but why believe anyone from such a compny.

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