Chris Isaak – Wicked Game
An evening pause: Performed live 2012.
Hat tip Rex Ridenoure.
Tag: commercial
Lockheed Martin fights request to ease 2018 restrictions on Northrop Grumman’s solid rocket business
A legal fight between Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman has broken out over Northrop Grumman’s recent request to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to ease a 2018 consent order that restricts Northrop Grumman’s ability to market its solid rocket motors (SRM).
On April 2, Northrop petitioned the Federal Trade Commission to drop a 2018 consent order helmed when Northrop acquired solid rocket motor maker Orbital ATK. The consent agreement requires Northrop to supply SRMs to its competitors in the missile market on a non-discriminatory basis and to firewall its SRM business away from its other operations.
At the time, the FTC believed the measure was necessary due to Northrop’s status as a prime contractor and Orbital ATK’s position as one of only two American makers of solid rocket motors.
Northrop is not a major manufacturer in the American missile space, which is dominated by Raytheon and Lockheed. However, if the order is dropped, Northrop will be able to vertically integrate its solid rocket motor business with any munitions the company designs in the future — including potentially prioritizing SRM supplies for Northrop over competitors, Lockheed stated in a response to the petition.
This consent order has prevented Northrop from marketing its solid-fueled rockets openly. Instead, it appears it forces the company to sell to its competitors, such as Lockheed, who then garners the big profits in marketing them. That order I think has also limited Northrop’s ability to use its boosters for other purposes, such as launching satellites.
Overall it appears this consent order has been very counter-productive, in hindering competition in the American solid-fueled rocket industry. At present there is a shortage of production capacity in the U.S., so much so that the Italian rocket company has moved in to market its own solid-fueled rockets here. In fact, it is selling its rockets to Lockheed and Raytheon, which suggests Northrop is entirely justified in asking to be released from this order.
Indian rocket startup Skyroot raises $60 million in private investment capital
Even as it prepares for the first orbital launch attempt of its Vikram-1 rocket, the Indian rocket startup Skyroot has raised $60 million in private investment capital in a recent funding round, bringing the total raised by the company to $160 million.
The startup announced it had raised $60 million at a valuation of $1.1 billion prior to the funding. The round was co-led by early Google investor Ram Shriram’s venture capital firm, Sherpalo Ventures, and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, GIC. New investors in the round include funds managed by BlackRock, Playbook Partners, Shanghvi Family Office, and others. Existing investors that also participated in the round include the founders of Greenko Group and Arkam Ventures.
The company hopes to launch Vikram-1 in about two months, though no specific launch window has been announced. The rocket is presently being shipped to India’s Sriharikota spaceport.
Ed Kowalczyk – Heaven
An evening pause: Chorus:
Take back your evidence
It has no power to deceive
I`ll believe it when I see it for myself
I don`t need no one to tell me about heaven
I look at my daughters, and I believe.
I don`t need no proof when it comes to God and truth
Hat tip Clark Jerrell.
Will Canada’s Telesat really complete its Lightspeed constellation by 2028?
According to the most recent financial report from the Canadian satellite communications company Telesat, it expects its Lightspeed low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite constellation to be launched and operational by 2028.
During the first quarter, Telesat invested $171 million into the Lightspeed program, reflecting $19 million in operating expenses and $152 million in capital expenditures, bringing its total investment to date to approximately $2.7 billion.
The company reported advancing through several technical milestones in early 2026. “During the quarter, we held further design reviews with our satellite and launch vehicle dispenser manufacturers and progressed our work on user terminals, network and satellite operations software development, and ground station deployments,” noted Telesat President and CEO Dan Goldberg.
The company confirmed it remains fully funded, utilizing cash on hand and existing financing facilities, to reach full global commercial service around the end of the first quarter of 2028.
At the moment however the company has launched no satellites in this LEO constellation. Moreover, in a recent amendment to its FCC application, the company reduced the size of the constellation from 1,671 satellites to only 300, with no explanation.
We shall see what happens. My instincts sense a bit of blarney here. This constellation will likely launch, but I think the company’s proposed schedule is questionable.
The UK’s Sutherland spaceport now appears dead
Proposed or active spaceports in North Europe
In a news report yesterday about the failure of the United Kingdom’s rocket startup Orbex in February 2026, the following details about the Sutherland spaceport in Scotland suggests that spaceport is now defunct, with little chance of being revived.
Administrators say that one of Orbex’s key remaining assets is the Sutherland Spaceport site near Melness – although the only construction work undertaken at the site is some 600m of access road. The company responsible for it, Sutherland Spaceport Ltd (SSL), remains financially stable, according to administrators. This means the site could still be sold or potentially restarted, even though no launch activity is currently taking place.
The spaceport sits on land leased from local crofters under a long-term arrangement managed through Highlands and Islands Enterprise. SSL holds a 50-year sublease, with an option to extend for 25 years, and a break clause in 2027.
Orbex had originally intended to launch from Sutherland — close to the rocket factory it had built — but local opposition by billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen (who is a major owner in the competing Saxavord spaceport on the Shetland Islands) as well as endless bureaucratic delays from the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority made that impossible. The company attempted to switch its launches to Saxavord, but the cost and new licensing requirements were too much.
No other launch company has expressed any interest in using Sutherland, and it appears none will be forthcoming in the near future. The red tape in the UK, combined with that powerful local opposition, has made Sutherland a pariah to the smallsat rocket companies looking for launch sites.
Though the spaceport might say it is “financially stable”, without any customers I guarantee it is going to disappear at some point.
Former NASA administrator Bridenstine moves from lobbyist to CEO of orbital tug startup
Jim Bridenstine testifying before Congress
as a big space lobbyist
Former NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine has taken the job of CEO for the orbital tug startup Quantum, ending his post-NASA career as a lobbyist for some of the biggest old space companies.
Since his departure from NASA, Bridenstine has worked as a managing partner of The Artemis Group consulting firm, and the appointment to Quantum Space marks the first time he has taken up an official corporate post, he told Breaking Defense.
“I was asked several times” to be a CEO, he said, but “never accepted until now.”
Bridenstine waxed enthusiastic about Quantum Space’s plans for its Ranger spacecraft that is being designed to support “sustained maneuver for dynamic space operations.”
Bridenstine’s lobbying for the Artemis Group was mostly aimed at encouraging a giant NASA space program, comparable to the 1960s Apollo effort, with the main beneficiaries the older established companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, and at the expense of the new space industry led by SpaceX. That effort was largely a failure, as it has become very clear these old companies can’t get the job done, at least not at a price anyone can afford.
At Quantum Bridenstine is back on the side of new space, pushing a new orbital tug company whose Ranger tug can “carry a whopping 4,000 kilograms (8,818.49 pounds) of hydrazine fuel to orbit, Bridenstine explained, and will use that fuel for both chemical propulsion and electric propulsion.” It plans on launching the first Ranger demo mission in early 2027, after which the company hopes to win both commercial and military contracts using Ranger’s tug capabilities.
SpaceX launches 24 more Starlink satellites
SpaceX tonight successfully launched another 24 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The first stage completed its 24th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.
The leaders in the 2026 launch race:
55 SpaceX
23 China
8 Russia
6 Rocket Lab
For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 55 to 44.
Low Darts – My Old School
An evening pause: Great cover by a group of high school students of this Steely Dan song.
Hat tip Cotour.
Two lawsuits against SpaceX, claiming company operations damage local homes
Starship and Superheavy ascending during October test flight.
SEE UPDATE BELOW for info on 2nd lawsuit.
—————————-
In what appears to be another frivolous lawsuit aimed at SpaceX, about 80 homeowners located from five to ten miles away from SpaceX’s Starbase launch site at Boca Chica have now sued the company, claiming Starship launches have damaged their homes.
The 53 homes are in small towns between 5 and 10 miles from SpaceX’s launch complex near Boca Chica Beach outside Brownsville with 43 in Port Isabel and the others in Laguna Vista, Laguna Heights and South Padre Island.
The lawsuit doesn’t describe the specific damage incurred by each homeowner, but there have been reports of houses shaking, items falling off shelves and broken windows after previous launches and landings of Starship, the world’s largest and most powerful rocket.
“SpaceX has repeatedly subjected the surrounding areas to extraordinary amounts of acoustic energy including noise, vibrations, and sonic booms,” it said of the flights, which can produce multiple sonic booms in addition to the sustained noise of launch, depending on the mission. Starship operations have subjected the plaintiffs’ homes “to repeated intense and damaging acoustic events,” the lawsuit said. [emphasis mine]
In other words, the launches are noisy, and might have caused some things to fall off shelves and might have broken windows. Note too that in Florida the safety zone around launches is three miles, and comparable rockets to Superheavy/Starship (Saturn-1B, Saturn-5, the Space Shuttle and SLS) have repeatedly launched there without causing any noticeable damage. I myself watched a shuttle launch from five miles away and found the sound of the launch actually disappointing. It certainly wasn’t going to cause damage to anything at that distance.
This lawsuit therefore appears simply to be a case of some lawyer trying to blackmail a big company for some ready cash. Its origin might also stem from the insane leftwing hate of Musk because he had to gall to support the election of Donald Trump in 2024. Note too that the author of the article at the link, Brandon Lingle, seems to be one of those insane anti-Musk haters, as he never has anything good to say about SpaceX, and treats all environmentalists like saints.
UPDATE: It appears the same law firm behind the lawsuit above has filed a second lawsuit for 80 other landowners in the vicinity of SpaceX’s MacGregor test site near Waco, claiming the static fire engine tests there are causing them unspecified problems as well. As with the lawsuit above, it appears the claims are mostly an attempt to squeeze money from SpaceX, with some of that effort fueled by anti-Musk hatred.
Lockheed Martin joins partnership to build off-shore launch platform
Artist’s rendering of Seagate platform. Click for original.
According to a post yesterday by Johnathon Caldwell, a vice president and general manager at Lockheed Martin, the company will be joining the partnership of Seagate and Firefly to build an off-shore launch platform from which Firefly hopes to launch its Alpha rocket.
The three companies will work together on mission‑application concepts and flight‑demonstration projects that leverage Seagate’s Gateway offshore launch platform. This sea‑based launch facility, combined with Firefly’s responsive Alpha launch vehicle, will provide rapid, flexible access to space from diverse locations, an essential capability for tactical payloads and national‑security missions.
Seagate only went public with this project in late March. Firefly signed on in April. Now Lockheed Martin has joined. It appears the concept has great potential for it to attract so much interest so quickly. Nor should this be surprising. The Chinese have been very successful in the past two years with its own sea platform, and the concept was proven years ago with Sea Launch.
Though Firefly presently launches Alpha from Vandenberg, the company also has deals with Sweden’s Esrange spaceport and a lease for a pad at Cape Canaveral. It has also been studying launching from a proposed commercial spaceport in northern Japan. This partnership with Seagate might allow it to abandon all these land-based sites, or supplement them.
Lockheed Martin in the past has invested heavily in new rocket companies, including Rocket Lab, ABL, Orbex, and X-Bow. Of these, only Rocket Lab has succeeded. With this deal Lockheed is looking for another option for getting its commercial and military payloads into orbit, with a much greater launch flexibility.
Blue Origin’s 1st unmanned lunar lander completes ground testing
Blue Origin’s unmanned Blue Moon MK-1 lunar lander
in test chamber. Click for original image.
Blue Origin’s 1st unmanned lunar lander, dubbed Blue Moon Mark-1 (MK-1) or “Endurance,” has completed ground testing at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, prior to its planned launch before the end of this year.
The NASA press release however said nothing about the results of that testing.
Testing in NASA Johnson’s Chamber A, one of the world’s largest thermal vacuum test facilities, enabled engineers to model the vacuum of space and the extreme temperature conditions the spacecraft would experience during flight. By recreating these conditions on the ground, teams evaluated system performance and verified structural and thermal integrity prior to launch. NASA and Blue Origin will incorporate lessons learned from MK1’s design, integration, and testing to support NASA’s future Artemis missions that will return American astronauts to the Moon.
Normally when such testing is completed the press release touts their success. The vagueness in the language above is to my instincts somewhat concerning. Did they find something in that testing that needs modification prior to launch? If so, getting this lander off the ground before the end of the year is going to be questionable, as those fixes will have to be incorporated and then tested again.
Any delay such as this would in turn impact the first test in orbit of Blue Origin’s manned Blue Moon MK-2 lunar lander, scheduled for late 2027 during the Artemis-3 manned mission, where NASA wishes to test rendezvous and docking for both Blue Origin’s lander and SpaceX’s Starship.
Some clarity here would be reassuring.