Tag: commercial

ESA cancels call for commercial cargo services to ISS

9:14 am

European Space Agency logo

In what might be a larger decision by the European Space Agency (ESA) to pull back from support to ISS, the agency has cancelled a call for proposals that asked private commercial startups to provide cargo to ISS.

On 3 October, ESA published a call for proposals under its CSOC Cargo Commercially Procured Offset (3CPO) initiative, seeking commercial transport services to the ISS to deliver between 4,900 and 5,000 kilograms of pressurised cargo to the orbiting laboratory. According to the call, the mission was intended to act as a “strategic offset’ to secure flight opportunities for ESA astronauts. It did, however, stipulate that the prospective procurement would only proceed if member states agreed to fund the initiative at the agency’s Ministerial Council meeting on 26 and 27 November 2025.

Following the late November meeting, ESA announced that member states had “agreed to implement short-term actions to guarantee European astronauts’ access to the International Space Station until its planned end of exploitation in 2030.” While this initially appeared to signal a favourable decision on the 3CPO initiative, the agency formally cancelled the call on 17 December, citing “the implementation of programmatic adjustments.”

What makes me speculate that this decision is part of a larger strategy to pull back from ISS is based on other statements by ESA officials cited in the article. It appears ESA is also delaying the mission of one astronaut to ISS that had originally been planned for ’26, possibly by as much as two years.

Though that official said ESA had fully funded its commitments to ISS at its recently concluded ministerial council meetings, both of the above decisions suggest it is shifting its support elsewhere. It could very well be that ESA is beginning the process of transferring its support from ISS to the new commercial private stations, most especially Starlab, which it already has signed a partnership agreement. By delaying funding to ISS, it reserves that money for later use at the new stations.

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Another American orbital capsule company turns to Australia for a landing spot

11:38 am

Proposed Australian spaceports
Australian spaceports: operating (red dot) and proposed (red “X”)
Click for original image.

The American orbital capsule company Lux Aeterna has now signed a deal with the Australian spaceport startup Southern Launch to allow its capsules to land at its Koonibba Test Range in southern Australia.

Under the agreement, two Lux Aeterna Delphi satellites will return to the Koonibba Test Range with Southern Launch. The first mission is targeted to return in 2027.

Lux Aeterna, based in Denver, Colorado, USA, is developing a reusable satellite platform designed to operate in Low Earth Orbit and support defense, intelligence, and commercial missions such as technology demonstrations, hypersonic and materials testing, in-orbit servicing, and in-space manufacturing. The Delphi platform and its core components are engineered to withstand the thermal and structural demands of atmospheric re-entry, enabling routine return and recovery of both the satellite bus and payload to support expedited technology development.

…Under the partnership, Southern Launch will provide end‑to‑end services for each orbital re-entry, including regulatory approvals, range operations, air and maritime coordination, and recovery operations.

This is the second American orbital capsule company to sign with Southern Launch. Varda was the first, and it did so because red tape in the U.S. made use of an American drop zone impractical. It appears Lux Aeterna has come to the same conclusion, and thus went to Australia instead.

This is an issue that needs to be addressed by the Trump administration. It is absurd that red tape is forcing American capsules to land in another country on the other side of the globe.

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Isar ready for second launch attempt

11:26 am

Map of spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea
Spaceports surrounding the Norwegian Sea

In a press release earlier this week, the German rocket startup Isar Aerospace announced that it has successfully completed static fire tests of both stages of its Spectrum rocket, and is now prepared for a second attempt to reach orbit, nine months after the first attempt failed seconds after liftoff.

Though its press release made no mention of a launch date, rocketlaunch.live is listing that attempt for January 13, 2026, taking place at Norway’s Andoya spaceport.

If successfully, the launch will achieve a number of milestones. First, Isar will be the first German rocket company ever to launch a rocket into orbit. Germany’s government has for decades been a partner in Arianespace, the commercial arm of the European Space Agency, but no private company has ever built and launched its own rocket.

Isar’s success will also beat out the German startup Rocket Factory Augsburg and Spanish startup PLD, both of which are getting close to a first launch as well.

Second, the launch from Andoya will make that spaceport the first in Europe to place a satellite into orbit, despite coming to this commercial spaceport competition years after two of Great Britain’s proposed spaceports in northern Scotland. While Norway’s government has greased the rails, removing red tape to allow Andoya to become operational quickly (and thus attracting rocket startups like Isar, Firefly, and Astrobotic), Great Britain’s red tape has delayed its spaceports for years, while putting one rocket company, Virgin Orbit, out of business.

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Former ULA CEO Tory Bruno now working for Blue Origin

11:05 am

In a tweet on X, Blue Origin today announced that former ULA CEO Tory Bruno is now working for them, acting as president for its “newly formed National Security Group.”

Blue Origin’s CEO, David Limp, quickly chimed in with his own tweet, endorsing the hire.

My guess is that Limp felt Blue Origin needed someone with experience dealing with the military, and Bruno brings that capability, having managed ULA’s military launch contracts for years. It also means Blue Origin is very serious about grabbing a larger market share of those launches once its New Glenn rocket begins launching regularly.

I also wonder if Bruno grew tired of the culture at ULA, which has appeared resistant to building reusable rockets. Bruno sold Vulcan initially with the idea of quickly upgrading it to recover its engines for reuse, but by all signs the company has been very unenthusiastic about the idea. (The idea itself might not be viable, but overall ULA has shown no interest in developing a reusable rocket of any sort.) Bruno might have decided he’d rather work with a company enthused by reusability, especially as this is the future. Once ULA completes its large Amazon Leo launch contract it faces a bleak future, with many newer cheaper reusable rockets coming on line.

It could also be that Bruno was made an offer he couldn’t refuse. Money is always a powerful incentive.

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Japanese bank invests in Starlab

9:41 am

Starlab design in 2025
The Starlab design in 2025. Click
for original image.

The consortium building the Starlab space station today announced that the Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank of Japan has invested in the project.

Through this investment, SuMi TRUST Bank will support Starlab’s efforts to develop and commercialize space station technologies, while exploring opportunities for collaboration that contribute to the advancement of space-related industries and broader industrial development in Japan and globally.

The press release provided no other information, other than this boilerplate PR jargon. The amount invested was not mentioned.

Regardless, the investment tells us two things: First, Starlab has now raised more than $400 million in investment capital, and appears in a solid position to begin work on its large single module station to be launched on Starship.

Second, the investment in this American-based space project by this Japanese bank speaks volumes about the sad state of Japan’s own commercial space industry. Other than the lunar lander Ispace, Japan has seen little success from any other major rocket startups. One rocket startup, Interstellar, has obtained some investment capital, but the development of its rocket seemingly stopped for the past five years. Another, Space One, has had one launch failure. And though Honda has completed a successful vertical take-off and landing of a small rocket prototype, it doesn’t expect to attempt an orbital launch until 2030.

Meanwhile, the two rockets owned by Japan’s space agency JAXA, the H3 and Epsilon, are grounded because of launch failures.

It appears this bank believes it is more likely to earn profits from this American project than from these other Japanese space efforts.

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Brigham Young University Choir & Orchestra – Oh Come All Ye Faithful

6:01 pm

An evening pause: I hope all my Christian readers had a wonderful and joyous Christmas, from your Jewish but very secular host. With good will to all!

Hat tip Judd Clark.

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Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol

12:10 pm

A mid-day pause: As I now do practically every Christmas, I bring you the classic 1951 version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, starring Alastair Sim. In my opinion still by far the best adaption of the book and a truly wonderful movie.

And as I noted in a previous year:

Dickens did not demand the modern version of charity, where it is imposed by governmental force on everyone. Instead, he was advocating the older wiser concept of western civilization, that charity begins at home, that we as individuals are obliged as humans to exercise good will and generosity to others, by choice.

It is always a matter of choice. And when we take that choice away from people, we destroy the good will that makes true charity possible.

And in 2016 I said this:

I watched this again and felt like weeping, not because of the sentimentality of the story itself but because it is so seeped in a civilized world that increasingly no longer exists. There was a time when this was our culture. I fear it is no longer so. As noted by the Spirit of Christmas Present, “This boy is ignorance, this girl is want. Beware them both, but most of all beware this boy.”

It seems for the past few decades we have not heeded that warning, and are now reaping the whirlwind.

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The SpaceX alumni that are reshaping the space industry

10:16 am

Link here. The article provides a very comprehensive list of the many former SpaceX employees who have left SpaceX to form their own companies, most of which in space or related industries, raising $3 billion in private investment capital.

The list includes a lot of very small operations doing work on the periphery, such as in the health industry or software for a variety of industries, not just space. It also includes some new major space players, such as the orbital tug company Impulse, and the recoverable capsule company Varda.

For some reason the article refers to this new generation of space entrepreneurs as the “SpaceX Mafia”, as if they are teaming up like mobsters to eliminate any competition. This is beyond false. Instead, they are the epitome of competition and the American dream, each forming their own company to push new ideas.

Take a look. It provides a nice and very hopeful overview of the future.

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Avio wins launch contract from Taiwan to launch four satellites

10:01 am

The Italian rocket company Avio has won a $81 million launch contract from Taiwan’s space agency TASA to use its Vega-C rocket to launch four Earth observation satellites.

FORMOSAT-8 will be a constellation of six high-resolution optical Earth observation satellites. The first was launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in November. The next, FORMOSAT-8B, which does not yet have a publicly announced launch services provider, is, according to TASA, slated for launch in December 2026. The FORMOSAT-9 constellation will be made up of two synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites, which are expected to be launched in 2028 and 2030, respectively.

All four satellites will be launched aboard Vega C rockets from the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana.

It is not clear if this contract involves four separate launches, or two (one for Formosat-8A and B, and a second for Formosat-9A and B). It is also not clear if this contract is one of the two launch contracts Avio had previously announced, without revealing the customers.

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Kathy Mattea – Mary did you know

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Another reprise, this time from 2020. As I wrote then: “This song honoring Jesus I think really speaks of every child born on Earth, and how every parent should see them. As Wordsworth said, they come ‘trailing clouds of glory.'”

Did you know that your baby boy has walked where angels trod?
When you kissed your little baby then you kissed the face of god.

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Next Starship/Superheavy launch in March?

9:17 am

According to this detailed update on SpaceX’s work at Boca Chica by NASASpaceflight.com, we should expect the next orbital test flight of Starship/Superheavy some time in March 2026.

As far as the launch date for this first flight of Block 3, sources point to March as the most likely viable timeframe. This launch will mark numerous firsts, from the vehicle, its Raptor 3 engines, and the first use of the upgraded Pad 2 architecture that will be mirrored at Pad 1, along with 39A and SLC-37 on the East Coast.

Block 3 refers to a major upgrade in Starship, which will fly prototype #39. Meanwhile, work getting Superheavy prototype #19 prepped has moved fast, following the loss of #18 from an explosion during ground fueling tests.

Recent observations show significant milestones: after welding the liquid oxygen (LOX) tank to the engine section (including pre-installed landing tanks and transfer tube), teams added methane tank barrels and the forward dome with its integrated hot staging ring. By December 20, all barrel sections were delivered and stacked, achieving this in just 25 days from November 25 — half the 42 days required for Booster 17, the final Version 1 booster.

The report also said that a February launch is a possibility, but is less likely.

Meanwhile, news outlets are reporting that the Trump administration is considering giving SpaceX about 775 acres in a wildlife preserve adjacent to Starbase in exchange for 692 acres SpaceX owns elsewhere. If confirmed, this deal would be similar to the land swap Texas had wished to do with SpaceX the company scrapped last year.

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