Tag: commercial

Norway signs the Artemis Accords

9:37 am

Norway today became the 55th nation to sign the Artemis Accords, the second nation to do so since Donald Trump assumed the presidency.

The full list of nations now part of this American space alliance: Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Panama, Peru, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

Unlike previous announcements, the only official public announcement (so far) was from the State Department. NASA has not yet issued its own statement. Also, and maybe far more important, unlike the previous announcement in April when Bangladesh signed, the text of the announcement made no mention of the Outer Space Treaty, as had been routinely stated during the Biden administration.

When Trump in his first term had created the Artemis Accords, the goal had been to create an American alliance of nations that supported private property and capitalism, which could also become strong enough to either get around the Outer Space Treaty’s restrictions on these concepts, or work to revise that treaty entirely to allow nations to establish such laws on other worlds. During Biden’s term that goal was abandoned. NASA announcements of new signatories would always state bluntly the exact opposite, that the accords were designed to support the Outer Space Treaty, using this language:

The Artemis Accords are grounded in the Outer Space Treaty and other agreements including the Registration Convention, the Rescue and Return Agreement, as well as best practices and norms of responsible behavior that NASA and its partners have supported, including the public release of scientific data.

Today’s State Department announcement makes no mention of the Outer Space Treaty at all, instead placing the focus on the accords’ principles of private enterprise.

With an alliance now of 55 nations (which is also likely to grow), the present Trump administration is well positioned to force some action on changing or eliminating the Outer Space Treaty’s limitations on private property and the ownership of territory on other worlds. Obviously this is not the most important item on Trump’s plate, but it does need to be addressed if Americans (and everyone else) are to have the freedom to establish colonies on other planets, protected by the same laws that protect Americans on Earth.

Hopefully the subtle language change seen today in this State Department press announcement is a signal that the Trump administration intends to do so.

UPDATE: It appears that NASA still wants this alliance to uphold the Outer Space Treaty. Late today it released its own press release announcing Norway’s signing, and included the boilerplate that I quote above that it began using during the Biden administration.

I wonder when (or if) Marco Rubio or any of the higher ups in the Trump administration (including Trump) will ever take an interest in this issue. So far it does not appear they have.

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Axiom’s next commercial manned flight to ISS delayed at least one week

9:06 am

NASA and Axiom have delayed the launch of the company’s fourth commercial manned flight to ISS by at least a week, from May 29 to June 8, at the earliest.

The NASA press announcement was decidedly vague about the reason:

After reviewing the International Space Station flight schedule, NASA and its partners are shifting launch opportunities for several upcoming missions. The schedule adjustments provide more time to finalize mission plans, spacecraft readiness, and logistics.

This report speculates that SpaceX might have had additional issues getting its brand new manned Dragon capsule ready on time, without out any clear evidence. The capsule has taken longer to build than originally predicted, but giving SpaceX one extra week seems insufficient if the capsule had some outstanding technical issues.

More likely it is exactly as NASA states, the delay is to accommodate the complex coming and going of vehicles to ISS.

The mission will launch one Axiom command pilot and three passengers, government astronauts from India, Poland, and Hungary.

This new manned Dragon, as yet unnamed, will bring SpaceX’s fleet of manned capsules to five, assuming it does not retire one of the older capsules. The company will thus have the largest manned spacecraft fleet ever, exceeding NASA’s four shuttle fleet that existed in the 1990s.

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Kabardinka Ensemble – Dance of the Black Sea Circassians

6:01 pm

An evening pause: From the webpage:

A collection of various Circassian dance figures and influenced by the Western Adyghe tribes Ubykh, Natukhay and Shapsug who once used to populate the Black Sea coasts of the Northwest Caucasus for thousands of years with their Abkhazian cousins before they were completely exiled from the region by Russian Empire in 1864.

The solo dances are especially hypnotic. There are also many elements that resemble Irish dance.

Hat tip Judd Clark.

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SpaceX committing millions to develop the town of Starbase at Boca Chica

10:55 am

Even though the newly minted town of Starbase at Boca Chica is essentially a “company town,” with almost all its residents employees of SpaceX, the company is not treating the town in a traditional company town manner, which in the past meant the company used its monopoly control to the detriment of its employees.

Instead, it appears SpaceX is committing millions to develop the town of Starbase at Boca Chica into a very classy place to live.

The newly minted Starbase, Texas will soon have a $22 million community center, according to online records from the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. The community center is being designed by a Pennsylvania design firm called AE7, and will be located at 41028 Quicksilver Ave. immediately north of a bend in the Rio Grande. It will include a 20,000-square-foot building and pool, with construction aiming to start in June and be completed by June 2026, according to the TDLR records.

…Earlier this year, Starbase officials registered several other community projects with state regulators, including a $20 million school “housing children from infancy to grade 12,” whose construction was set to get underway in April. Other projects include a 2,555-square-foot medical clinic, a $2 million multifamily construction featuring a 111,745-square-foot “new parking garage and multifamily” development at 52163 Memes St.

SpaceX is also building a $100 million office building for its operations. It has also filed plans to create a $13.5 million recreation center and sushi restaurant. Another plan to build a $15 million retail plaza was proposed earlier, but has remained stalled.

Under the leadership of Elon Musk (“the new Hitler” according to the brainless Democratic Party and its media propagandists), the employees of SpaceX at Starbase will be living in an up-to-date modern and very upper middle class environment, comparable to the best suburban communities found anywhere in the United States.

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China and SpaceX complete launches

9:58 am

Two launches so far today. First, China successfully launched the first 12 satellites for proposed orbiting computer constellation dubbed the “Three-Body Computing Constellation,” its Long March 2D rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China.

As is usual for China’s state-run press, it revealed little useful information about this constellation.

Each satellite in this initial batch is equipped with a domestically developed 8-billion-parameter AI model capable of processing satellite data across levels L0 to L4 (with L0 referring to raw data directly collected by the satellite), CGTN learned from the lab. The constellation also supports full inter-satellite connectivity. In addition to AI-powered data processing, the satellites will carry out experimental missions, including cross-orbit laser communication and astronomical science observations.

The press also provided no information about where the rocket’s lower stages, using very toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.

Next, SpaceX placed another 28 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The first stage completed its fourth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

58 SpaceX
26 China
5 Rocket Lab
5 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 58 to 43.

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AST SpaceMobile: It will be launching satellites almost monthly in the second half of ’25

9:42 am

Though it did not state the all the specific rockets the company will use, the satellite-to-cellphone company AST SpaceMobile revealed this week that it plans to launch its BlueBird satellites every month or two beginning in July 2025.

India’s GSLV rocket is slated to carry AST SpaceMobile’s first Block 2 BlueBird satellite, which the operator said is scheduled to ship from its Texas facility in June. At three times the size of each of the five Block 1 BlueBirds launched last year on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the satellite would surpass its predecessors to become the largest commercial antenna ever deployed in low Earth orbit.

Abel Avellan, AST SpaceMobile founder and CEO, said that from the second or third launch this year, Block 2 BlueBirds would feature in-house developed chips to support peak data rates of up to 120 megabits per second at 10 times the capacity of Block 1. Subsequent launches would also deploy between three and eight Block 2 satellites at a time, depending on the rocket, Avellan told investors during the company’s earnings call.

Avellan did not give an update on other launch missions that would leverage SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Blue Origin’s New Glenn rockets, whose larger fairings can accommodate up to eight Block 2 satellites per flight.

Whether AST SpaceMobile will be able to fulfill this schedule however is a big question. SpaceX could provide the rockets for all these launches, but the availability of its Falcon 9 rocket might be limited due to other customer contracts as well as its own needs to launch Starlink satellites. Blue Origin’s New Glenn could certainly use the business, but that rocket has only launched once, and the company has been very slow about doing its second launch, now scheduled for later this month. It is very unclear whether it could do more than one of these launches this year.

India’s GSLV rocket could grab the business, but once again it is unclear it has the capacity to do more than two such launches before the end of the year.

All in all, it appears the demand for rocket launches exceeds the supply, a situation that is very good for the launch industry.

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Varda’s third capsule returns to Earth, completing hypersonic test for Air Force

9:24 am

Varda's third capsule, on the ground in Australia
Varda’s third capsule, on the ground in Australia.
Click for original image.

The third recoverable capsule for the startup Varda has landed successfully in Australia, completing its commercial orbital mission for the Air Force, which tested a positional sensor intended for use during hypersonic missile flights.

The California-based space manufacturing startup said the capsule, carrying an inertial measurement unit (IMU) developed for the U.S. Air Force by Innovative Scientific Solutions Incorporated (ISSI), touched down at the Koonibba Test Range operated by Southern Launch.

According to company officials, the capsule reentered Earth’s atmosphere at speeds exceeding Mach 25 – more than 25 times the speed of sound. “This extreme environment offers researchers valuable data to enhance hypersonic navigation, expand orbital economy applications, and support U.S. national security objectives in low Earth orbit,” said Dave McFarland, Varda’s vice president of hypersonic and reentry test.

The capsule had been launched on March 14, 2025 on a SpaceX Falcon 9. Of the capsule’s now three flights, two have tested equipment sensors during descent. Only the first did in-space manufacturing, as had been what Varda anticipated would be its primary customer base.

This was also the second return in a row landing in Australia. Initially the company had planned to return the capsules in the U.S., as it did with its first capsule, but the bureaucratic red tape from both the FAA and the military to do that landing was so bad (delaying the capsule’s return by six months) Varda made alternative arrangements in Australia.

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Starlink gets approvals to operate in Saudi Arabia, Scotland, and Bangledesh

12:08 am

In the past two days SpaceX’s Starlink constellation for providing internet service globally has obtained approvals from three different countries, widening its use significantly worldwide.

First, Scotland has approved Starlink to begin a six-month trial whereby the constellation will provide internet access on trains operating “between Inverness and Thurso, Wick, Kyle of Lochalsh and Aberdeen.” If successful, the program will be expanded to provide service along other rural train lines in Scotland.

Next the Bangledesh government approved a 90-day waiver allowing Starlink to “supply bandwidth from outside the country.” Normally the regulations in that country require such services to be routed through “local gateways”, which likely refers to local communications companies. This waiver will allow SpaceX to offer Starlink in its normal manner, direct to the customer and outside any already established communications network.

Whether the waiver will be extended further is at present unknown, but I suspect it will be because of public pressure.

Finally, Elon Musk announced that Saudi Arabia has now approved Starlink for “aviation and maritime use” within the country.

All in all, SpaceX continues to vacuum up the world’s internet market simply because none of its competitors have made the effort to compete aggressively. They continue to cede territory to Starlink, without a fight.

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Gilmour finally gets launch license from Australian bureaucrats

11:37 am

Australian commercial spaceports
Australia’s commercial spaceports. Click for original map.

After several years of delays, the Australian rocket startup Gilmour Space today announced that it has finally been issued a launch license from the Australian Space Agency.

According to the company, “pending weather & final system checks, we’re on target for our launch window to open NET May 15.”

The launch will take place at Gilmour’s own Bowen spaceport on the east coast of Australia. The Eris rocket has three stages and is designed to launch smallsats similar to Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket.

It is amazing this company hasn’t gone bankrupt waiting for this launch license. It applied in 2022, hoping to launch that year. Three years later it finally gets the okay. The amount of cash it had to burn unnecessarily in those years would generally destroy most startups.

Whether the red tape in Australia will clear up in the future is decidedly unknown, especially with the election victory this month of the leftist party.

Hat tip BtB’s stringer Jay.

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Pentagon raises the list of companies that can bid on space infrastructure projects to almost two dozen

9:48 am

Capitalism in space: In its effort to rely on the private sector for its space needs, the Pentagon yesterday added fourteen space companies to its list of eight companies that can bid on space infrastructure projects.

The latest round of companies added to the project includes Capella Space, EdgeCortix, Eutelsat America Corp. OneWeb Technologies, Fairwinds Technologies and AST Space Mobile, Illumina Computing Group, Lockheed Martin Space, MapLarge, SES Space & Defense, Skycorp, SkyFi, Ursa Space, and Viasat.

They join eight other firms that were brought on board in 2022: Aalyria Technologies, Amazon Web Services, Amazon Kuiper, Anduril, Astranis, ATLAS Space Operations, Enveil, Google, Palantir, Planet Labs, Microsoft, and SpiderOak.

Essentially, the Pentagon wants these companies to compete for contracts to build various space-based communications assets, coming up with the designs and spacecraft themselves. In this round the specific goal is to develop satellite systems that can transmit data and communications to military units anywhere on the globe.

It is puzzling however that SpaceX is not included in this list, even though all its competitors are. I suspect this is because SpaceX’s Starshield version of Starlink is covered under different military programs and contracts. Or it could be that politics forced the military to exclude it in this case. Or there could be some other reason that defies logic. Understanding the byzantine workings of the government’s bureaucracy is often impossible.

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Lockheed Martin invests in new solid-fueled rocket startup

9:36 am

In its most recent fund-raising round, the solid-fueled rocket startup X-Bow (pronounced “crossbow”) raised $35 million in private investment capital, with Lockheed Martin being the largest investor.

Lockheed Martin’s involvement marks a deepening interest in securing alternative sources for solid rocket motors, components that are increasingly vital to a wide range of U.S. missile systems, including hypersonic weapons. The investment comes three years after Lockheed’s attempt to acquire Aerojet Rocketdyne was blocked by the Federal Trade Commission on antitrust grounds. Aerojet was later bought by L3Harris Technologies, leaving Lockheed without a vertically integrated propulsion supplier.

Nor is this the first time that Lockheed Martin has invested in a rocket startup. It had previously invested in ABL and Orbex, both liquid-fueled but struggling or failing, as well as the much more successful Rocket Lab. It has also invested in the orbital tug startup Orbit Fab, the orbital capsule company Inversion Space, and the satellite startup Terran Orbital, which it ended up buying entirely.

All in all, Lockheed Martin appears determined to join the new wave of space startups, if not by doing it itself but by buying into the successes of new startups. So far this has not entirely paid off, but it does appear to be, in the long term, a viable strategy to keep Lockheed Martin competitive and in the game.

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