Tag: competition

Firefly first launch attempt fails after liftoff, shortly before stage separation

7:11 pm

Alpha rocket exploding
Screen capture from Everyday Astronaut live stream.

Capitalism in space: Firefly’s first attempt to launch its Alpha rocket to orbit failed at T+2:30 minutes, shortly after it went supersonic and just before first stage engine cut-off and stage separation.

The screen capture to the right shows that explosion.

Lift-off procedures went very well, though the rocket itself appeared to reach supersonic speeds later than their timeline predicted, suggesting it was underpowered.

In fact, the whole operation reminded me of SpaceX’s early attempts to launch its Falcon-1 rocket. Just as happened in one of those early SpaceX launches, there was a launch abort at liftoff, the launch team quickly figured out what happened, recycled the rocket, and successfully lifted off an hour later. Kudos to that team!

The failure is unfortunate, but to repeat the cliche, this is rocket science. They will try again.

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Firefly set for first orbital launch today

9:42 am

Capitalism in space: If all goes right, Firefly Aerospace will attempt its first orbital launch today from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, using its Alpha rocket to place a test payload of science experiments in space.

The launch window is from 6 pm to 10 pm Pacific.

If you wish to watch, I have embedded the live stream below. That stream however have been very poor. The stream is working better here.

Note: They had a launch abort right at launch, and appear to be recycling to try again.

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China building Ingenuity copycat

9:36 am

Ingenuity vs China

China’s space program revealed yesterday that it is designing its own Mars helicopter for future missions to the Red Planet.

The picture to the right shows this Chinese helicopter prototype on the bottom, with Ingenuity on Mars on top.

Notice the similarity? In fact, one could almost say that the Chinese helicopter is an outright steal of the JPL design.

But then, why not? According to an 2019 inspector general report [pdf], China hacked into JPL’s computers twice from 2009 to 2017 and stole 500MB of data. That data almost certainly included the design plans for Ingenuity, under development at the time.

Copying the work of others is expected, especially when that design is found to work. In this case however it almost certainly isn’t copying, but outright theft.

Of course, that has been par for the course for China’s space program. They don’t appear to be capable of innovating on their own. They first must steal someone else’s design, and then revise and upgrade from that. Their final products might be of high quality, but in the end their long term ability to build something new is going to be severely limited, if they cannot start inventing things on their own.

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Flight anomalies occurred during Branson’s suborbital flight in July

9:08 am

Capitalism in space: According to a New Yorker story today, the suborbital flight of Richard Branson in July experienced several flight anomalies that the article suggests should have caused it to end early before reaching space.

The rocket motor on Virgin Galactic’s ship is programmed to burn for a minute. On July 11th, it had a few more seconds to go when a red light also appeared on the console: an entry glide-cone warning. This was a big deal. I once sat in on a meeting, in 2015, during which the pilots on the July 11th mission—Dave Mackay, a former Virgin Atlantic pilot and veteran of the U.K.’s Royal Air Force, and Mike Masucci, a retired Air Force pilot—and others discussed procedures for responding to an entry glide-cone warning. C. J. Sturckow, a former marine and nasa astronaut, said that a yellow light should “scare the [“#$%#] out of you,” because “when it turns red it’s gonna be too late”; Masucci was less concerned about the yellow light but said, “Red should scare the crap out of you.” Based on pilot procedures, Mackay and Masucci had basically two options: implement immediate corrective action, or abort the rocket motor. According to multiple sources in the company, the safest way to respond to the warning would have been to abort. (A Virgin Galactic spokesperson disputed this contention.)

Aborting at that moment, however, would have dashed Branson’s hopes of beating his rival Bezos, whose flight was scheduled for later in the month, into space. Mackay and Masucci did not abort.

Virgin Galactic’s response, including the FAA’s statement, can be found here. The company noted that the flight deviation occurred because of unexpected high altitude winds. The FAA’s comment I think provides some reasonably perspective:
» Read more

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A Martian sunset in Jezero Crater

10:15 am

Sunset on Mars
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, reduced slightly to post here, was taken by the left navigation camera on the Mars rover Perseverance. Looking west to the rim of Jezero Crater, it catches the Sun as it sets behind that rim.

The image was taken on July 20, 2021, the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon. Seems somehow fitting to catch a sunset on Mars on this date, to illustrate how far we have come in that half century.

To my mind, not enough. Our ability to send robots to other worlds has certainly improved, but in 1969 we were able to put a human on another world. Since 1972 we no longer have had that capability, so that in 2021 all we can do is fly robots elsewhere.

It is time for this to change. I’d much prefer to make believe this photo was a sunrise suggesting a bright future, than the sunset it actually is, indicating a coming dark age.

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Launch schedules impacted by shortages and delivery delays of oxygen/nitrogen

9:53 am

The launch dates of several upcoming launches have been pushed back because of a shortage of liquid oxygen, needed instead for medical purposes, which in turn has slowed deliveries of liquid nitrogen because trucks have been reassigned to delivering oxygen to hospitals..

The effects of a nationwide liquid oxygen shortage caused by the recent spike in hospitalized coronavirus patients has already delayed the launch of a Landsat imaging satellite by a week, and threatens to impact more missions from launch sites in Florida and California.

NASA said last week that the launch of the Landsat 9 satellite aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California would be delayed one week until no earlier than Sept. 23 due to a lack of liquid nitrogen at the military base. ULA uses gaseous nitrogen, which is converted from liquid nitrogen, for purges during testing and countdown operations.

The space agency said pandemic demands for medical liquid oxygen impacted the delivery of liquid nitrogen to Vandenberg.

SpaceX officials have also indicated that their launch schedule may be effected as well.

While the Wuhan flu is being blamed for this shortage, I think it is possibly more related to the rise in launches themselves. Such flu epidemics have happened in the past, causing similar spikes in hospitals, without causing delays in rocket launches. However, the U.S. this year has already almost doubled the number of yearly launches as had occurred during most of the 21st century. In addition, there are now numerous companies building and testing new rockets, all of which require liquid oxygen. The demand by rocket companies for such fuels is thus far higher than it has been for decades.

So, what is the solution? I just described it. The high demand will force the price up for liquid oxygen, which in turn will make it profitable for new providers to enter the market producing liquid oxygen to meet the new demand. It simply appears that at this moment the industry that produces these gases has been slow in reacting to its new demand.

We need only give the situation time and freedom to get solved and, most important, stay out of the way. Freedom and capitalism will solve the problem, as it always does.

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South Korea to launch its own rocket in October

9:47 am

The new colonial movement: South Korea is now targeting October 21, 2021 for the first test launch of its home-built Nuri rocket.

The October flight will be South Korea’s first domestic orbital launch attempt in more than eight years. On Jan. 30, 2013, a Naro-1 rocket placed the STSAT-2C technology demonstration satellite into low Earth orbit.

It was the final of three launches for now retired Naro-1, which consisted of a Russian Angara first stage with a downgraded engine and a South Korean developed solid-fuel upper stage. Two previous Naro-1 launches failed in 2009 and 2010.

They have also scheduled a follow-up test launch in May ’22, assuming all goes well on this first test launch.

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German rocket company successfully tests first stage to failure

9:55 pm

Capitalism in space: The German startup rocket company Rocket Factory Augsburg has successfully completed a tank pressure test of its rocket’s core first stage, testing that stage to failure.

The German startup Rocket Factory Augsburg, or RFA, has concluded another test of their RFA One rocket. In the test, the company performed a destructive cryogenic pressure test of their first stage prototype. The company has shown a video in which the prototype stage broke apart after it was fueled with cryogenic nitrogen to test the quality of the welds and determine the pressure at which the structure fails.

The milestone is the latest for the company which is aiming to develop a reusable launch vehicle for small payloads. The first flight of RFA One is currently slated for late 2022, following more testing and development.

The video of the test, with a dramatic soundtrack (as has sadly become the practice today since all life always has its own soundtrack) can be seen at the link.

This company is one of three German private rocket startups vying to enter the smallsat launch market — Isar, RFA, and HyImpulse — with two hoping to make their first launch next year.

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Astra launch failure caused by one of five 1st stage engines shutting down at liftoff

8:57 am

Capitalism in space: According to an Astra press release, its launch failure on August 28th was caused when one of the rocket’s five 1st stage engines shut down one second after liftoff.

One of the five main engines shut down less than one second after liftoff, causing the vehicle to slowly lift off the pad before resuming its trajectory. After approximately two minutes and thirty seconds of flight, the range issued an all engine-shutdown command, ending the flight.

The lack of one engine explains the rocket’s strange take-off, where it initially tilted slightly, shifted sideways, and then straightened up and began rising upward. From that point onward the ground controllers knew the mission would not reach orbit, and were only waiting until it reached a safe altitude to cut off the engines and have the rocket fall into the ocean safely.

While the launch failed, Astra’s engineers should be very satisfied by how the software on the rocket functioned. Rather than shut everything down and crashing into the launchpad fully fueled where it could do a lot of damage, the rocket immediately compensated for the loss of one engine and resumed a stable flight, allowing it to get clear.

This success does not negate the failure however. Astra needs to find out why one engine shut down.

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SpaceX successfully launches cargo Dragon to ISS

12:35 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX tonight successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to launch cargo Dragon to ISS.

The first stage completed its fourth flight, landing successfully on the drone ship in the Atlantic. The cargo Dragon is making its second cargo mission for NASA. It will dock tomorrow.

This was SpaceX’s first launch since June 30th, a gap of almost two months as they initiated operations of a new drone ship in the Atlantic and shifted an older drone ship to the Pacific. In the next few weeks expect their fast launch pace for ’21 to resume, with at least one Starlink launch and the September 15th Inspiration4 commercial manned orbital flight.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

29 China
21 SpaceX
13 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman

The U.S. now leads China 32 to 29 in the national rankings.

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Astra third launch attempt fails just before 1st stage engine cutoff

3:57 pm

Astra launch, August 28, 2021

Capitalism in space: The third orbital launch attempt of the smallsat rocket company Astra failed about two and a half minutes into flight, just about twenty seconds before the the first stage engine cutoff and stage separation.

It appeared that the first stage engines shut down about twenty seconds early, and then the rocket began tumbling.

I have embedded the live stream below the fold, cued to just before launch. The image to the right is a screen capture about seven seconds after liftoff. Astra’s rocket did a maneuver at launch I’ve never seen before, where it immediately tilted slightly to transition to the side, and then righted itself to begin gaining altitude. In this image the top of the strongback can be seen on the left, with the now upright rocket beginning its flight.

Whether Astra can figure out what went wrong and attempt another flight before the end of this year remains unclear. This was the third launch in their announced three launch test program, with the goal of reaching orbit on the third launch (today’s). They did not meet that goal, though their second test launch in December came extremely close to orbit with no major technical failures.
» Read more

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Successful orbital engineering test of magnetic space junk removal technology

10:34 am

Capitalism in space: The Japanese-based company Astroscale has successful completed its first test in orbit of a magnetic capture device designed to someday remove for space junk.

Launched on March 22, ELSA-d (short for “End-of-Life Services by Astroscale demonstration”) brought with it to orbit a 37-pound (17 kilograms) cubesat fitted with a magnetic docking plate. During the experiment on Wednesday (Aug. 25), ground controllers first remotely released a mechanical locking mechanism attaching the cubesat to the main 386-pound (175 kg) removal craft, Astroscale said in a statement. The two satellites were still held together by the magnetic system, which is responsible for capturing the debris.

The cubesat was then released completely and recaptured before floating too far away from the main spacecraft. Astroscale said on Twitter that this maneuver was repeated several times. This short demonstration enabled Astroscale to test and calibrate rendezvous sensors, which enable safe approach and capture of floating objects.

Engineers in the coming weeks plan to do even more challenging tests of ELSA, including a capture attempt where the target is made to tumble like an out-of-control satellite.

Eventually the company hopes to sell its target technology to satellite makers so that its satellites will be able to capture them. It already has a deal with OneWeb to develop this technology for its satellites, whereby one of its clean-up satellites could capture a bunch of defunct OneWeb satellites on one flight and deorbit them safely.

Whether this magnetic capture technique could be used on satellites with metal but no specifically designed target is unclear. If so it would place Astroscale a strong position to gain a large portion of the space junk removal business.

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China studying the construction of large-scale structures in space

9:57 am

The new colonial movement: China has now indicated that it has established a project to study methods for building very large structures in orbit, with uses ranging from generating beamed solar power to providing mega-sized manned spaceships and space stations.

Though vague, the project would have practical applications for potential megaprojects including colossal space-based solar power stations. Such facilities would be based in geostationary orbit and span kilometers. These stations would collect solar energy and transmitting power to Earth through microwaves.

Kilometer-scale, ultra-large spacecraft are described as “major strategic aerospace equipment for the future use of space resources, exploration of the mysteries of the universe, and long-term habitation in orbit,” according to the project outline within the mathematical and physical sciences attachment to the released document.

The project would focus on minimizing the weight of the spacecraft to reduce the number of launches and construction, according to an initial report by the South China Morning Post.

It appears that this project is only in its preliminary design phase, with a budget of $3.2 million. Its existence however reinforces the overall rational and long term approach China’s government is taking to space exploration. At this moment they mean business, and are focused on getting the cutting edge technology designed and built rather then maintaining a bureaucratic infrastructure and the jobs that go with it — as NASA and Russia have been doing for the past forty-plus years.

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Rocket Lab becomes third rocket company to go public

9:46 am

Capitalism in space: On August 25, 2021 Rocket Lab became the third rocket company to go public, following Virgin Galactic and Astra to sign a merger deal with a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC).

Nasdaq celebrated the milestone, inviting Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck to ring the market’s opening bell Wednesday morning.

The SPAC merger, with a San Francisco-based company called Vector Acquisition Corporation, provides Rocket Lab with about $777 million. The funds will aid the development of multiple projects, including Rocket Lab’s big, next-generation Neutron rocket, company representatives said.

Nor is this all. Virgin Orbit has also signed a similar deal this wee, and will begin trading stock soon.

All these deals indicate that the investment community is very confident in making big profits in space, and is now willing to commit a lot of cash to that prospect.

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ULA to no longer sell Atlas-5 launches

9:36 am

Capitalism in space: In an interview ULA’s CEO Tory Bruno has announced that they have contracts on all of the company’s remaining Atlas-5 rockets, and will no longer be offering that rocket for new sales.

“We’re done. They’re all sold,” CEO Tory Bruno said of ULA’s Atlas V rockets in an interview. ULA, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, has 29 Atlas V missions left before it retires sometime in the mid-2020s and transitions to its upcoming Vulcan rocket, Bruno said. The remaining Atlas V missions include a mix of undisclosed commercial customers and some for the Space Force, NASA, and Amazon’s budding broadband satellite constellation, Project Kuiper.

This means that the company is now firmly committed to its Vulcan rocket, which also means it is entirely committed to the repeatedly delayed BE-4 engine that Blue Origin is building for that rocket. This announcement suggests that Bruno is confident that the BE-4’s problems have been overcome, and that Blue Origin is about to begin regular assembly of the many flightworthy engines ULA will need.

If so, this is really good news. It not only means that Vulcan launches will finally begin, but that Blue Origin might also begin flying its New Glenn rocket. Both will give the U.S. some competitive options for getting big payloads into space. Right now the only real choice at a reasonable price is SpaceX, and having one choice is never a good thing.

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Amazon protests SpaceX’s Starlink plan to FCC

9:23 am

Amazon on August 25, 2021 filed a protest with the FCC against SpaceX’s proposed expansion of its Starlink constellation that would allow almost 30,000 satellites to be launched.

“Should the Commission depart from its rules and precedent and endorse the approach of applying for multiple, mutually exclusive configurations, the consequences will extend far beyond the SpaceX Amendment,” wrote Mariah Shuman, corporate counsel for Amazon’s broadband megaconstellation venture Project Kuiper, in an Aug. 25 letter to the FCC. “However inefficient this strategy might be for the Commission and parties responding to applications, other prospective licensees will surely see the benefit in maximizing their optionality by describing multiple configurations in their license applications.”

Shuman asked the FCC to “dismiss SpaceX’s Amendment, and invite SpaceX to resubmit its amendment after settling on a single configuration for its Gen2 System.”

It appears Amazon does not want the FCC to approve multiple proposed satellite configurations put forth by SpaceX in a single application. Instead, it wants the FCC to force SpaceX to pick one, and submit that alone. It also appears that doing what Amazon requests would be more in line with past FCC policy.

While Amazon might have a point, the optics once again make another Jeff Bezos’ company look ugly, more interested in using the courts to stymie its competitors than actually launching anything. Amazon’s Kuiper internet constellation was first proposed in early 2019. More than two years have passed and none of its more than 3200 satellites have launched — not even one test satellite — with no clear indication yet on when launches will finally begin.

SpaceX began testing its Starlink system in 2018, and already has about 1,700 operational satellites in orbit. The comparison between the two companies is stark, and not favorable to Amazon.

In fact, Elon Musk was not shy in taking advantage of these optics to note them quite sharply in a tweet yesterday, saying, “Turns out Besos [sic] retired in order to pursue a full-time job filing lawsuits against SpaceX.”

Amazon is not Blue Origin, but both companies were founded by Bezos, and it appears right now that both prefer court battles to rocket engineering.

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ULA rolls Vulcan core first stage to launchpad for tank tests

9:26 am

Capitalism in space: ULA yesterday rolled out a test Vulcan core first stage to its launchpad for a variety of tests in preparation for its first launch, now delayed until next year.

The rocket’s core stage will undergo Pathfinder Tanking Tests (PTT) at Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. It is outfitted with two development BE-4 engines that will be replaced by flight engines before launch. The tanking, or fueling, tests will validate launch pad infrastructure, evaluate countdown procedures, and train the launch team.

That these launchpad tests were delayed until now suggests that ULA had hoped to do them with the flightworthy engines, and then follow-up quickly with Vulcan’s first orbital launch in the fall. With the admission this week by both Blue Origin and ULA that the flightworthy BE-4 engines would not be delivered this summer as promised, ULA probably decided it was better to get this testing done now with the development engines, in order to save prep time for when the flightworthy engines finally arrive.

Thus, the delays at Blue Origin are costing ULA money. Once the flightworthy engines are installed, ULA will still need to do static fire launchpad tests, which means they will have to do much of this test program all over again. The extra countdown rehearsals are of course beneficial, but they are an extra expense, and also require extra time.

ULA’s CEO, Tory Bruno, has tried very hard to streamline ULA’s operations so they are more efficient and thus more competitive. Blue Origin’s failure to deliver on time is making Bruno’s effort very difficult.

It also shows that SpaceX’s policy of building as many of its components in-house, instead of depending on outside contractors, makes sense. And that all of the new rocket companies are doing the same proves that others agree. ULA’s dependence on others for its rocket engines will thus in the long run put it at big competitive disadvantage.

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Blue Origin successfully completes another unmanned suborbital flight with New Shepard

8:47 am

Capitalism in space: Only one month after its first passenger flight, Blue Origin today successfully completed another suborbital flight with its New Shepard booster/capsule, this time flying 18 commercial payloads for NASA and others.

These details about the spacecraft itself I think are significant:

The New Shepard booster, Tail 3, and its associated capsule, RSS H.G. Wells, flew the mission. Tail 3 is dedicated to uncrewed science missions like NS-17, and this was Tail 3’s 8th flight.

…Blue Origin expects to fly one more New Shepard mission this year with sister ship Tail 4 and the crew-capable capsule RSS First Step

In other words, Blue Origin now has two working New Shepard spacecraft. This will allow them to eventually up their launch pace.

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Musk’s Boring Co offers to dig tunnel for resident transportation during launch closures

1:49 pm

Capitalism in space: Elon Musk’s Boring Company has proposed digging a tunnel so that people can still access Boca Chica’s beaches even during periods when SpaceX is doing launch operations and needs to close the surface roads.

The Boring Company (TBC) met with Cameron County officials to discuss the possibility of a tunnel project running from South Padre Island (SPI) to Boca Chica Beach.

The Boring Company pitched the idea of an SPI-Boca Chica tunnel to Cameron County administrator Pete Sepulveda Jr. and county engineer Benjamin Worsham early this summer. Cameron County officials have been thinking of giving people access to part of Boca Chica Beach even during closures.

The county has said it likely cannot afford to pay for such a thing, but Musk’s company is still proposing to do an in-depth study to find out what will be necessary to make it happen.

It could very well be that Musk might find some cash to help pay for this himself. The public relations would be excellent, and it would I think be the right thing to do. It is also possible that the local communities will have more cash themselves because of the booming economy SpaceX is bringing them.

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Blue Origin BE-4 engine delayed again

10:14 am

In an interview ULA’s CEO Tory Bruno revealed that Blue Origin is not going to deliver the first two flightworthy BE-4 engines this summer, as promised, with delivery now probably not until the end of the year.

“I will not get them before the end of the year,” said Tory Bruno, CEO of ULA, in an exclusive Denver Business Journal interview ahead of this week’s Space Symposium industry gathering in Colorado Springs. “It will be shortly into the beginning of the 2022 calendar year, and anywhere in there will support me being able to build up a rocket and have that Vulcan waiting on my customer, Astrobotic.”

…“We’ve actually be been able to accommodate this, but I’ll be straight with you, the dates we’ve set up for them now— we really don’t have the ability to make any big moves after this,” Bruno said. “I need them to diligently work through the plans we have and get done on time.”

ULA needs to launch its new Vulcan rocket twice in order to get approved for its first military launch, now expected in less than 12 months. They thus no longer have any schedule margin.

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China completes two launches

2:23 pm

China today successfully completed two launches, using from different spaceports its Long March 2C and Long March 3B rockets.

The 2C launched a two demo internet communications satellites designed to eventually be used in a large constellation similar to the constellations of SpaceX and OneWeb. The launch also included a third unidentified communications satellite.

The 3B placed in orbit what is believed to be a military reconnaissance satellite.

Both rockets dumped their first stages somewhere in the interior of China. No word on whether those stages carried parachutes or grid fins to better control their landing, or crashed near habitable regions.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

29 China
20 SpaceX
13 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman

The U.S. still leads China 31 to 29 in the national rankings.

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Ispace’s 3rd lunar lander to be larger, built entirely in U.S.

9:06 am

Capitalism in space: The private Japanese company Ispace announced yesterday that its third lunar lander will be larger (to provide more payload space for customers) and built entirely in U.S. (to better garner NASA contracts).

The lander, being developed by the company’s U.S. office in Denver, will fly as soon as 2024 on the company’s third mission to the moon.

A major difference in the new design, company officials said in interviews, is the payload capacity. While the lander ispace is building for its first two missions in 2022 and 2023 can carry 30 kilograms of payload to the lunar surface, the new lander will have a payload capacity of 500 kilograms to the surface. It will also be able to deploy an additional 2,000 kilograms of payloads to lunar orbit.

The company is also hardening the lander to survive the two week long lunar night.

The decision to shift operations to the U.S., and partner with U.S. companies General Atomics and Draper, makes Ispace a viable competitor for later NASA contracts, which in turn can encourage other privately funded payloads to sign on.

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Boeing to buy part of Virgin Orbit for $3.2 billion

3:18 pm

Capitalism in space: In a stock market merger/investment deal, Boeing is going to buy a part ownership in Virgin Orbit for $3.2 billion, with the deal to close by the end of the year.

After the deal completes, Branson’s Virgin group will hold about 68 per cent of Virgin Orbit. Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, Mubadala Investment Company, is an existing investor in Virgin Orbit and will have about 17 per cent, while the Pipe and other private investors will hold about 15 per cent of the group. Boeing’s share was not disclosed.

My first thought was that Boeing wanted to get into a space company that was doing things better than anything Boeing was trying. And considering that Virgin Orbit a Richard Branson space company, albeit one with some real success, that indicates how badly everything else is at Boeing

My second thought was: Where is Boeing getting the cash? My impression is that because of its various problems with the 737-Max, it has sold almost no planes in the past two years, and has even had to refund money from many purchasers. Its cash flow with Starliner is nil until they fly it. SLS has brought them money as the contract is cost-plus, but hardly enough to pay for this deal.

My third thought was that this deal indicates the continuing cash problems at Branson’s Virgin Group. The Wuhan panic cut airline traffic significantly. It appears Branson is still digging for cash to bail out these operations.

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Two smallsat orbiters to launch in ’24 to study Martian upper atmosphere

11:53 am

NASA has picked a twin orbiter mission being built by a partnership of the University of California-Berkeley and the private rocket company Rocket Lab to place two smallsats in orbit around Mars to study how the harsh environment of space might be causing the red planet to lose its atmosphere.

The entire project is dubbed ESCAPADE (an insanely contrived acronym) but the two smallsats have been dubbed “Blue” and “Gold.”

The mission builds on decades of experience at SSL in building satellite instruments and fleets of spacecraft to explore regions around Earth, the moon and Mars, specializing in magnetic field interactions with the wind of particles from the sun. Each of the two satellites, named after UC Berkeley’s school colors, will carry instruments built at SSL to measure the flow of high energy electrons and ionized oxygen and carbon dioxide molecules escaping from Mars, magnetic field detectors built at UCLA and a probe to measure slower or thermal ions built at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida.

With twin satellites, it is possible to measure conditions simultaneously at two places around the planet, Lillis said, allowing scientists to connect plasma conditions at one site to the escaping ion flux at another. Over the course of the mission, the two satellites will change positions to map the upper atmosphere and magnetosphere of nearly the entire planet from an altitude of between 150 and 10,000 kilometers.

Maybe the most important aspect of this mission however is not what it will learn at Mars, but how it is being financed and built. NASA is only paying about $80 million, a tiny amount compared to most past unmanned planetary probes. The university in turn is buying Rocket Lab’s Photon satellite structure rather than building the satellites from scratch. It will configure the instruments to fit into that ready made satellite body, thus saving time and money.

By doing it this way NASA and the planetary science community is increasingly relying on private companies to provide them their planetary probes, rather than building such things by hand themselves, at much greater cost. The result is a growing and thriving private commercial sector that owns and builds its own planetary probes, for profit.

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Update on Starship/Superheavy preparations for orbital test flight

9:15 am

Starship prototype #20 being prepped
Screen capture from Labpadre live stream, available here.

Link here. In sum it appears that SpaceX is getting very close to launch, with the permit approval of the FAA increasingly becoming the biggest obstacle to progress.

Although the completion of all of this testing could take a long time, in Elon Musk’s mind, the path to returning B4 and S20 to being an integrated stack could be during this month.

A week ago, Musk tweeted that the “first orbital stack of Starship should be ready for flight in a few weeks, pending only regulatory approval.” Ultimately, once the vehicle is in its launch configuration, there will be a lengthy process of passing the aforementioned regulatory approval, with an environmental public comment period triggered ahead of launch. This has to be completed before the launch license can be granted by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The screen capture above shows Starship prototype #20 sitting on the suborbital flight test pad, as workers on cherry-pickers work on its exterior. The orange, green, and white tiles are likely tile locations still needing some level of installation work.

Based on SpaceX’s normal pace of operations, the engine testing for both Starship and Superheavy will take several weeks, once both are ready for such testing. While Starship appears just about ready, Superheavy apparently needs more work. When SpaceX stacked both together on the orbital launchpad several weeks ago, it suggested both were closer to launch than they were. Their present status suggests engine testing will likely begin in September, with Starship at the beginning of the month and Superheavy at the end of the month. That would make a launch possible sometime in late October, assuming the federal government doesn’t decide to shut this entire operation down by refusing to issue a permit.

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Russia launches another 34 OneWeb satellites

12:38 am

Russia today put another 34 OneWeb satellites into orbit, using its Soyuz-2 rocket.

OneWeb now has 288 satellites in orbit, out of the planned 648. At present the constellation is able to provide service to customers in latitudes north of 50 degrees. Though SpaceX’s Starlink constellation is also offering service to customers in the same northern latitudes, the two companies service different customer bases, with OneWeb aimed at big business and government operations and Starlink aimed at individual residential customers.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

27 China
20 SpaceX
13 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman.

The U.S. still leads China 31 to 27 in the national rankings.

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Top engineers and managers fleeing Blue Origin

3:58 pm

According to this story today, Blue Origin this summer lost at least sixteen top management and engineering employees, all leaving in a very short time.

At least 16 key leaders and senior engineers have left Blue Origin this summer, CNBC has learned, with many moving on in the weeks after Bezos’ spaceflight.

…Others quietly updated their LinkedIn pages over the past few weeks. Each unannounced departure was confirmed to CNBC by people familiar with the matter. Those departures include: New Shepard senior vice president Steve Bennett, chief of mission assurance Jeff Ashby (who retired), national security sales director Scott Jacobs, New Glenn senior director Bob Ess, New Glenn senior finance manager Bill Scammell, senior manager of production testing Christopher Payne, New Shepard technical project manager Nate Chapman, senior propulsion design engineer Dave Sanderson, senior HLS human factors engineer Rachel Forman, BE-4 controller lead integration and testing engineer Jack Nelson, New Shepard lead avionics software engineer Huong Vo, BE-7 avionics hardware engineer Aaron Wang, propulsion engineer Rex Gu, and rocket engine development engineer Gerry Hudak.

Those who announced they were leaving Blue Origin did not specify why, but frustration with executive management and a slow, bureaucratic structure is often cited in employee reviews on job site Glassdoor.

There is another possibility that would be more hopeful. It could be that Jeff Bezos is shaking up the company because of its poor accomplishments during the past four years, since CEO Bob Smith was hired.

That Smith however is still there makes this guess unlikely. The article also notes that Smith’s approval among Blue Origin employees is abysmal, with only 15% approving his management, when compared to high numbers given to the management leaders at SpaceX and ULA.

Thus, this exodus is more likely a sign that that the rats are fleeing what they see as a sinking ship.

It would be a mistake to dismiss Blue Origin however. The company is swimming in dough because of Bezos’ deep pockets, and he is free to do what he thinks must be done to fix things. Under such conditions it is very unlikely Blue Origin will disappear. More likely Bezos will straighten things out, though the company now has to play big catch up, not only against SpaceX but also against the fleet of new orbital rocket companies about to come on line — all doing so ahead of Blue Origin.

There is also the possibility that this story has got its facts wrong. It makes a very big error near the beginning, claiming that former SpaceX engineer Lauren Lyons had left Blue Origin to join SpaceX, when she had actually left SpaceX to take a big promotion at Firefly. My mistake. Lyons had moved from SpaceX to Blue Origin. This job change was leaving Blue Origin to go to Firefly.

Hat tip to reader Jay.

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British court dismisses billionaire’s lawsuit against Sutherland spaceport

10:52 am

A British judge today dismissed entirely [pdf] the lawsuit filed by billionaire Anders Povlsen, who had been trying to block the construction of a spaceport in Sutherland, Scotland, a region where he owns thousands of acres and is involved in many environmental issues.

Povlsen instead has been lobbying to have a spaceport instead built in the Shetland Islands, by a company he has invested in.

The ruling on all points went against Povlsen. The judge concluded:

Since I have held that none of the grounds of challenge is well founded it is unnecessary to [do anything], and I do not propose to do so (other than to say what I have already said….)

I shall sustain [the defense’s case and]… repel the petitioner’s pleas-in-law, and refuse the petition. I shall reserve meantime all questions of expenses.

This likely clears the way for construction of the Sutherland spaceport, from which the British smallsat rocket company Obex wants to launch. Lockheed Martin has said it would launch smallsats from Sutherland, but it has also said it would launch from Shetland too.

Povlsen’s opposition based on environmental concerns was of course a smokescreen to get this competing spaceport closed so that the one he has invested in in Shetland would get all the business. For more than three-quarters of a century launches have taken place at both the Kennedy and Vandenberg spaceports in the U.S., with neither doing any harm to the surrounding wildlife. Moreover, at Kennedy that spaceport forced the creation of a wildlife preserve, which prevented development. As long as they are operated with care and properly, spaceports are good for wildlife.

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China’s astronauts complete 2nd spacewalk at Tianhe space station

9:50 am

The new colonial movement: Two Chinese astronauts yesterday successfully completed a six hour spacewalk, installing components on the outside of the Tianhe space station module necessary for future construction work.

The pair, wearing second generation Feitian (“flying to space”) extravehicular mobility suits, completed installing foot restraints and an extravehicular working platform to the large robotic arm. Chinese media outlets streamed footage of the EVA. … The EVA also included work on a panoramic camera, installing a toolkit, adding a pump set for the Tianhe thermal control system and other apparatus in preparation for the arrival of two further modules in 2022. The EVA was completed at 2:33 a.m. Friday, around an hour ahead of schedule.

The first spacewalk occurred in the first week in July.

These astronauts have been working at the station since mid-June, and are expected to return to Earth in mid-September, completing a three month mission. Shortly thereafter a new cargo freighter will launch to the station to provide supplies for the next crew, due in October.

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