Tag: competition

Falklands government approves changes that will allow SpaceX to provide Starlink service

3:38 pm

After a small negotiating kerfuffle, the executive committee of the Falklands government has now approved a major licensing fee change that will allow SpaceX to offer its Starlink service to island residences.

The Executive Committee (ExCo) of the Falkland Islands Government has officially approved a considerable reduction in the VSAT licence fee – it is “minded” to slash it from £5,400 to just £180 but it will stay at £5,400 until final agreement in ExCo in early May. This decision paves the way for Starlink to begin providing services in the Falkland Islands, creating a game-changing step towards modernising the Islands’ telecommunications.

It appears that getting this approval required a major grassroots effort, as the government had initially been reluctant to change anything, despite the fact that numerous people were already using Starlink terminals illegally because there were no other options for good internet access, especially because the government’s deal with OneWeb had produced no results.

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Russia and SpaceX complete launches

9:34 pm

Two more launches today. First, Russia launched a Glonass GPS-type satellite, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from its Plesetsk spaceport in northern Russia. The rocket’s core stage, four strap-on boosters and upper stage all landed in planned zones within Russia. Whether they crashed near homes is unknown.

Next SpaceX launched another 23 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The first stage completed its fifth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

Note that though some launch sites indicate China also did a launch this weekend of the solid-fueled Kuaizhou-1A rocket built by the pseudo-company Expace, a translation of this French site indicates the launch was a failure.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

26 SpaceX
9 China
3 Russia
2 Rocket Lab

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Astroforge’s Odin spacecraft tumbling and probably be lost

9:09 am

According to a video update by the company’s founder, Matt Gialich, Astroforge’s Odin spacecraft is slowly tumbling, and is likely going to be lost.

Gialich noted that they still have one more possibility to save the spacecraft, but “hope is fading.”

The goal had been to make the first fly-by of an asteroid by a private company, getting data on the M-type asteroid 2022 OB5, thought to be made up largely of nickel-iron which would make it extremely valuable.

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Blue Ghost successfully completes a soft landing

1:46 am

Blue Ghost's shadow on the Moon, with the Earth in the background
Blue Ghost’s shadow on the Moon,
with the Earth in the background.

Firefly tonight became the second private commercial company to land a spacecraft softly on the Moon, its Blue Ghost successfully touching down within Mare Crisium on the northwest quadrant of the visible near side.

At this moment we do not have details about the spacecraft’s condition. Nonetheless NASA bigwigs have come out of hiding to celebrate (if the landing failed they would have likely quietly disappeared). Lots of blather about “important scientific research” but the most important data from this mission is the engineering.

I think the viewers would much rather stay with mission control to hear details about Blue Ghost’s condition. One big unknown is that, of the four landing leg pads, one did not register contact with the ground, though this appears to simply be a failure of the sensor. Just after landing one engineer in mission controler announced the spacecraft was stable, but more information would be of more useful than listening to upper managers from NASA puff themselves. (It is also getting tiresome that the announcers seem incapable of asking anything but “How do you feel?”, one of the most useless questions a journalist can ever ask.)

The first photos are expected shortly. I will update when available.

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Live stream of the lunar landing of Firefly’s Blue Ghost

7:27 pm

Map of lunar landing sites
Landing sites for both Firefly’s Blue Ghost and
Ispace’s Resilience

I have embedded below the live stream from Firefly of tonight’s landing attempt on the Moon of its Blue Ghost lander. The stream goes live at 1:30 am (Central), with the landing targeting 2:45 am (Central).

The map to the right shows the location, in Mare Crisium. For context the map also shows the landing sites for several Apollo missions, as well as the location where Ispace’s first lander, Hakuto-R1, crashed, inside Atlas Crater. Also shown is the landing site of Ispace’s second lander, Resilience, in the north in Mare Frigoris.

Overall Blue Ghost’s nominal mission is engineering, to prove the lander can get to the Moon, touch down softly, and operate on the surface. If all goes well it will operate for about a week plus, during the lunar day. Whether it can survive the 14-day-long lunar night won’t be known until the Sun rises there and ground engineers can see if they can re-establish contact.

» Read more

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FAA issues launch license for 8th Starship/Superheavy test flight

9:12 am

The FAA yesterday announced that it has given SpaceX the launch license for its 8th orbital test launch of Starship/Superheavy, presently scheduled for March 3, 2025 at 5:30 PM (Central).

“After completing the required and comprehensive safety review, the FAA determined the SpaceX Starship vehicle can return to flight operations while the investigation into the Jan. 16 Starship Flight 7 mishap remains open,” the FAA’s emailed statement reads. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted phrase reveals much. There is a new boss in Washington now who will not tolerate unnecessary red tape that stymies private enterprise unnecessarily. SpaceX is the only entity qualified to investigate the loss of Starship in the seventh flight, and it has completed its investigation. All the FAA can really do in its own “investigation” is retype SpaceX’s conclusion. It might have some clean-up work of its own relating to clearing the air space after Starship was destroyed, but even there SpaceX’s conclusion note that the plan worked out before launch between the company and the FAA worked perfectly.

Under Biden the FAA would have made SpaceX wait while that retyping took place, likely assigned to someone who can only hunt and peck at an old manual typewriter. No more.

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Musk: Verizon’s upgrade of air traffic system failing; proposes Starlink instead

11:05 am

In a series of statements in the last few days Elon Musk has claimed that the $2.4 billion upgrade of the FAA’s air traffic system by Verizon is failing, and further suggested, in a proposal fraught with conflict-of-interest issues, that SpaceX take over the contract instead.

The CNN article that I link to above is surprisingly well written. It describes the situation fairly, and includes no slanderous asides on Musk or SpaceX, as I have found typical of almost every other article written by the propaganda press about this particular subject (or any about Musk).

If Musk says Verizon’s upgrade is failing, I would tend to believe him. That Verizon has barely begun work installing the upgrades, two years after winning the contract, reinforces his accusations. SpaceX has already provided the FAA at no cost three Starlink terminals for testing, and if it does get the job we can be sure the upgrade would be installed far quicker than this.

The conflict-of-interest issue however remains. I am not sure how, or even if, Musk or SpaceX can get around it.

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Polaris Spaceplanes wins contract to develop “a fully reusable hypersonic research vehicle”

9:50 am

The European startup Polaris Spaceplanes, which has been doing tests of an aerospike engine for use in its proposed Aurora orbital re-usable spaceplane, has now won a contract from the German military to develop “a fully reusable hypersonic research vehicle”.

The contract describes the vehicle as a hypersonic testbed and experimental platform for defence-related applications, as well as scientific and institutional research. A secondary role of the vehicle will be to serve as a small satellite launch system when equipped with an expendable upper stage.

While not directly named in the update, this contract will likely kick off the development of AURORA. The contract’s initial scope is limited to the design of the vehicle. However, POLARIS revealed that the contract also includes provisions for follow-on initiatives to manufacture and flight-test the full-size vehicle.

The company has also done a series of test flights using smaller engineering test vehicles. It appears these tests convinced the German military to issue the company this contract.

This contract award also underlines Germany’s enthusiastic embrace of capitalism in space. It not only encouraged the establishment of the most rocket startups ahead of any other European nation, it is now taking action to encourage other aerospace startups as well.

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SpaceX reschedules the 8th Starship/Superheavy orbital test flight to March 3, 2025

9:40 am

SpaceX has rescheduled the 8th Starship/Superheavy orbital test flight from today to March 3, 2025, with the launch window opening at 5:30 pm (Central).

The company gave no reason for the delay, but it also indicated that the FAA has still not closed out the investigation of the Starship failure on the last test in January, nor issued the launch license.

That SpaceX is pushing for this quick launch date suggests it either expects the FAA to issue the permit momentarily, or it is purposely highlighting continuing delay tactics and is applying pressure on the agency. Unlike the Biden administration, which was very hostile to Musk and SpaceX and worked to harass it with lawfare, Trump will not take kindly to such tactics. By making such tactics patently obvious Musk and SpaceX will force Trump to step in.

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Rocket Lab unveils its modified barge its Neutron rocket will use for ocean landings

9:26 am

Neutron landing platform
Graphic showing the barge after modification
with Neutron landing

Rocket Lab today unveiled a modified barge that it will use as a drone ship for ocean landings of the first stage of its new Neutron rocket.

‘Return On Investment’ is a 400 ft (122 m) modified barge that will be customized to enable landings at sea for its reusable Neutron rocket. Modifications will include autonomous ground support equipment to capture and secure the landed Neutron, blast shielding to protect equipment during Neutron landings, and station-keeping thrusters for precise positioning. The Company has acquired the barge and construction of ‘Return On Investment’ will take place throughout 2025, with expectations of being ready to enter service in 2026.

The name appears to be a dig against the stock market analyst who gave the company a negative report a few days ago, predicting Neutron won’t launch for the first time in 2025 — as Rocket Lab continues to predict — but in 2026.

At the same time, not having the landing platform ready until 2026 means that the first few launches will have to attempt a return to land or that first launch is delayed to 2026.

Meanwhile, Rocket Lab’s just released quarterly report appears to defy that negative assessment as well.

Rocket Lab founder and CEO, Sir Peter Beck, said: “2024 was a record-setting year for Rocket Lab, with our highest annual revenue ever posted of $436.2 million and a record Q4 2024 revenue of $132.4 million – a 382% increase compared to Q4 2021, our first full quarter following our debut on the Nasdaq as a publicly-traded company. Top achievements across launch and space systems include a record number of 16 launches for Electron in 2024 (a 60% increase in launch cadence compared to 2023) and more than $450 million in newly-secured launch and space systems contracts.”

More and more it appears to me that this stock market analyst was simply attempting to lower the stock price so as to garner profits when the price rebounded back to its proper value.

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Varda’s successfully returns its 2nd capsule from orbit

8:58 am

The startup Varda yesterday successfully returned its second capsule from orbit, with the capsule re-entering the atmosphere and touching down in Australia after spending six weeks in space.

The W-2 capsule carried a spectrometer built by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and employed a heatshield developed in collaboration with NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. The capsule also carried internal research that will expand Varda’s pharmaceutical processing capacity and capability.

The capsule landed at the Koomibba Test Range, operated by the spaceport startup Southern Range and located on the southern coast of Australia. Varda had arranged this landing location after it had absurd regulatory delays getting permission to land its first capsule at the Air Force test range in Utah.

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All is so far well with Intuitive Machines Athena lunar lander

9:27 am

The Moon's South Pole with landers indicated
The Moon’s South Pole with landers indicated.
Click for interactive map.

According to a tweet yesterday from Intuitive Machines, its Athena lunar lander is operating as expected since its launch last night.

The lander is in excellent health, sending selfies, and preparing for a series of planned main engine firings to refine her trajectory ahead of lunar orbit insertion, planned on March 3. Intuitive Machines is targeting a lunar landing opportunity on March 6.

If all goes as planned, Athena will land only 100 miles from the Moon’s south pole, as shown on the map to the right. This location had originally been picked for NASA’s now canceled VIPER rover, because the terrain would have allowed the rover to travel down into some permanently shadowed regions. NASA now hopes to use the Grace hopper on Athena to accomplish the same task.

Next week will also see a second privately built rover land on the Moon, though several days before Athena. Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander is scheduled to land on March 2, 2025 in Mare Crisium on the eastern edge of the Moon’s visible hemisphere. Furthermore, there is presently a third private lander on its way to the Moon, built by Japan’s Ispace. It is taking a longer route there, with its landing occurring in May.

There is also a fourth commercial lander, Astrobotic’s Griffin, that is presently targeting a launch by the end of 2025. It was originally supposed to carry VIPER, but has now replaced that with the commercial test prototype rover being built by the startup Venturi Astrolab, which is competing to get the contract to build the manned rover for NASA’s Artemis program.

Lunar exploration is certainly heating up.

Hat tip to reader Richard M for the Athena tweet update.

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SpaceX and China complete launches

9:02 am

Since my last launch report yesterday there have been two more launches (with another planned for later today).

First, last night SpaceX launched another 21 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket — using a new first stage — lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The first stage successfully landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic. This new stage shows that SpaceX appears building about one to two new first stages per year in order to maintain its fleet.

Next, China placed two classified remote sensing satellites into orbit, its Long March 2C rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in the northwest of China. No word on where the rocket’s first stage, which uses very toxic hypergolic fuel, crashed inside China.

Another launch is expected later this afternoon, by Russia, launching a new Progress freighter to ISS.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

25 SpaceX
9 China
2 Rocket Lab

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SpaceX launches Intuitive Machines’ Athena lunar lander

5:33 pm

The Moon's South Pole with landers indicated
The Moon’s South Pole with landers indicated.
Click for interactive map.

SpaceX today successfully launched the second lunar lander built by the startup Intuitive Machines, dubbed Athena, for a landing near the lunar south pole in about eight days, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The “X” on the map to the right indicates the landing location, on a mountain called Mons Mouton, about 100 miles from the south pole. This will be the closest landing to the pole by any lander. It is also the site that was originally selected for NASA’s now cancelled VIPER rover mission.

The launch also included NASA Lunar Trailblazer lunar orbiter, designed to map the Moon’s surface for evidence of water, and Astroforge’s first interplanetary probe, dubbed Odin, which will attempt the first close fly-by of an asteroid by a privately built and own space probe. The asteroid, 2022 OB5, is thought to be made up largely of nickel-iron, which makes it a prime mining target.

The first stage completed its ninth mission, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

24 SpaceX (with another launch scheduled for later tonight)
8 China
2 Rocket Lab

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Intuitive Machine’s Athena lunar lander to launch later today

12:41 pm

The second attempt by the startup Intuitive Machines to soft land a spacecraft on the Moon is scheduled to launch today at 7:16 pm (Eastern) time on a Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

I have embedded the Space Affairs live stream feed below, because it starts only 45 minutes before launch. If you want to watch an extra hour of pre-launch blather and propaganda from NASA, the official live steam can be found here. Be warned however. All the live feeds are being produced by NASA, which tends to make believe it made everything happen, when in truth both the rocket and lander are privately owned and built. NASA is contributing most of the science instruments, but without SpaceX and Intuitive Machines, none of those instruments would go anywhere.

A very good description of the mission and the science instruments on board, including a hopper, and a drill, can be found here.

Secondary payloads on the rocket include a low cost NASA lunar orbiter and the first interplanetary probe of a private company.

The first, Lunar Trailblazer, has two instruments for mapping the existence of water on the lunar surface. The second, Astroforge’s Odin spacecraft, will attempt a close fly-by of the asteroid 2022 OB5, thought to be made up mostly of nickel-iron and thus potentially very valuable resource for mining.

» Read more

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Rocket Lab’s shares lose 10% because of a negative assessment by stock analyst

9:53 am

Because one stock market analyst, Bleeker Street Research (BS) this week issued a negative assessment of Rocket Lab’s schedule for launching its new Neutron rocket, the company’s shares have lost about 10% of their value in the past few days.

In the report, BSR opines that while Rocket Lab has captivated investors with the promise of Neutron, its research shows the promise is built on shaky ground.

BSR believes the Neutron launch won’t take place until mid-2026, and could be delayed until mid-2027. Engine development, structure production, Wallops Island in Virginia, USA, launch pad construction, and transporting Neutron to the site are all factors cited by BSR as driving the delay.

BSR also questioned whether Rocket Lab could get its launch price of $50-$55 million.

Delays in launching a new rocket are to be expected, though as of now Rocket Lab has not indicated any issues that would preclude their predicted first Neutron launch in 2025.

One wonders if this report is merely the typical price manipulation you see all the time from stock market honchos. Issue a negative report which causes the price to drop, and then use that drop to buy up shares at discount prices.

At the same time, the analysis could be correct, though it depends on unnamed sources.

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AST SpaceMobile successfully tests cell-to-satellite calls transmitting video

9:37 am

According to press releases from both Verizon and AT&T on February 24, 2025, each has successfully tested cellphone-to-satellite video calls using the first set of satellites in AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird satellite constellation. From ATT:

AT&T and AST SpaceMobile have successfully completed a video call by satellite over AT&T spectrum using the BlueBird satellites launched last September. These are the same satellites that will be used to start commercial service.

From Verizon:

Verizon and AST have yet again pushed the boundaries of what can be done with mobile devices by successfully trialing a live video call between two mobile devices with one connected via satellite and the other connected via Verizon’s terrestrial network connection.

The satellites will essentially act like cell towers in space, filling in all dead spots not reached by ground-based towers.

AST’s constellation is competing with Starlink, which has signed T-Mobile for its service. In addition, Eutelsat-Oneweb has just successfully tested using its satellite constellation for the same purpose.

I suspect that in time, when these satellite systems have been thoroughly tested and have become operational, they will allow these phone networks to begin decommissioning their cell towers on Earth, thus reducing their costs significantly and thus lowering the cost to their customers.

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Australia’s government proposes subsidies to build spaceport in Western Australia

10:28 am

Australian spaceports
Proposed commercial spaceports in Australia

The Labor Party that presently runs Australia has now proposed a $2 million program to “develop a business case” for a spaceport in the generally unpopulated state of Western Australia.

The red arrow and two X’s on the map to the right shows three potential locations. The Eucla and Christmas Island locations have been proposed by a private startup dubbed Space Angel. The Albany location has been proposed by a different startup called WA Australia.

At present, only the Bowen spaceport on Australia’s eastern coast has all its license approvals to do orbital launches, with the first now scheduled for mid-March. Southern Launch however has been a suborbital launch site for decades, and is also where many spacecraft returning from space have landed.

That the present leftist Australian government is considering a program to encourage new spaceports at these other locations instead makes me wonder if there isn’t a bit of political quid-pro-quo going on. Why favor these new locations in Western Australia exclusively? Why not offer this program to all the spaceports? I am especially suspicious of this proposal considering the regulatory burden the Labor government has placed on those other eastern spaceports, delaying approvals for years.

With so many commercial Australia spaceport proposals however suggests the political pressure to ease those regulations might be soon forthcoming.

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SpaceX now targeting February 28, 2025 for 8th Starship/Superheavy test orbital flight

1:13 pm

Superheavy captured for the second time
Superheavy captured for the second time,
on January 16, 2025

SpaceX today announced it will attempt the eighth Starship/Superheavy test orbital flight this coming Friday, February 28, 2025, with a launch window beginning at 5 pm (Central). From the company’s website update:

The upcoming flight will target objectives not reached on the previous test, including Starship’s first payload deployment and multiple reentry experiments geared towards returning the upper stage to the launch site for catch. The flight also includes the launch, return, and catch of the Super Heavy booster.

The company also published today a detailed report on its investigation into the loss of Starship soon after stage separation in the 7th test flight.
» Read more

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Close-up of Blue Ghost’s landing zone on the Moon

12:26 pm

Close-up of Blue Ghost's landing zone
Click for original image.

The science team for Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) on February 21, 2025 posted the picture to the right, reduced and sharpened to post here, showing in close-up the March 2, 2025 landing zone for Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander.

The Blue Ghost landing region (image center, 18.56°N, 61.81°E) is heavily cratered due its ancient age (>3 billion years). … The landing region is near a large volcanic cone, Mons Latreille, which formed billions of years ago as part of the massive outpouring of basaltic magma that filled much of the Crisium basin.

Despite the many craters, there are plenty of smooth spots in this landscape. The real challenge for the lander is finding its way to them.

For a map showing this location on the Moon, go here.

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Eutelsat-Oneweb uses its satellite constellations to test technology for phone-to-satellite capabilities

9:17 am

The communications company Eutelsat-Oneweb announced today that it has successfully tested the technology that would allow smartphones to use its satellite constellations as orbiting cell towers in order to eliminate dead zones in their ground-based systems.

Based on the press release, it is unclear whether the tests actually included a cell phone.

The trial used Eutelsat OneWeb satellites, with the MediaTek NR NTN test chipset, and NR NTN test gNB provided by ITRI, implementing the 3GPP Release 17 specifications. Sharp, Rhode & Schwarz provided the antenna array and test equipment and the LEO satellites, built by Airbus, carry transponders, with Ku-band service link, Ka-band feeder link, and adopt the “Earth-moving beams” concept. During the trial, the 5G user terminal successfully connected to the 5G core via the satellite link and exchanged traffic. [emphasis mine]

That user terminal might have been a smart phone, or it could have been an engineering test terminal.

Either way, Eutelsat-Oneweb appears to be aggressively trying to enter the competition for cell-to-satellite business, competing with the systems already operational from Starlink and AST SpaceMobile.

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Thales Alenia completes the habitable module for Lunar Gateway

9:05 am

Lunar Gateway
The Italian company Thales Alenia last week announced it has completed construction and testing of the hull for the habitable module for Lunar Gateway, and is now preparing it for shipment to the U.S. for final outfitting.

HALO’s (Habitation and Logistics Outpost) primary structure is ready to be packaged for shipment to the United States. After successfully completing a series of environmental tests in Thales Alenia Space’s plant of Turin, Italy, HALO’s pressurized structure, built by our company, will be delivered to Gilbert, Arizona, where prime contractor Northrop Grumman will complete its outfitting ahead of launch to lunar orbit with Gateway’s Power and Propulsion Element.

Thales Alenia also builds the hull for Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus capsule, from which HALO was based. HALO is longer however, and has three docking ports for the attachment of Gateway’s other modules.

The press release at the link appears mostly designed to tout Gateway and Thales Alenia’s major contribution to it, which also includes building the airlock for the United Arab Emirates. The company also has European Space Agency contracts to build a lunar lander for delivering cargo to the Moon as well as a habitat for use on the Moon. All of these projects are presently threatened with major changes should the Trump administration decides to cancel SLS, Orion, and Lunar Gateway.

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Rocket startup Interstellar receives another grant from Japan

8:51 am

The Rocket startup Interstellar announced on February 21, 2025 that Japan’s program to encourage commercial space has awarded it a new $9.3 million grant, bringing the total amount the company has received to approximately $53 million.

The SBIR is a 3 phased governmental program aimed to promote the implementation of advanced technologies developed by startups in Japan. Interstellar was selected in September 2023 under the space section focused on the “Development and Demonstration of Private Launch Vehicles” were the company received up to ¥2 billion [$13.3 million] in funding for Phase 1. After passing the review for Phase 2 in September 2024, another maximum of ¥4.6 billion [$30.8 million] were awarded.

In addition, in early January Toyota invested $44 million in this startup.

This story indicates that the Japanese government is finally moving to encourage private commercial space. It had announced this grant program in late 2023, but its bureaucracy had initially seemed reluctant to issue grants. This appears to be finally changing.

Interstellar is in itself an interesting story. Five years ago it appeared to be aggressively building its Zero rocket. It then disappeared. I figured its investment capital had dried up and the company had shut down. It seems it has now been reborn.

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Gilmour announces target date for first launch of its Eris rocket

8:32 am

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

The rocket startup Gilmour Space today announced that it is targeting March 15, 2025 for the first orbital test of its Eris rocket, lifting off from its private Bowen spaceport on the east coast of Australia.

The news follows final airspace approvals from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) and Airservices Australia, clearing the last regulatory hurdle before launch. It also marks the culmination of years of innovative R&D and manufacturing by the Gold Coast-based company, which developed the Eris launch vehicle and Bowen Orbital Spaceport in North Queensland.

Gilmour Space made history in March last year when its Bowen spaceport was granted the first orbital launch facility licence in Australia, and when it secured the country’s first Australian Launch Permit for Eris TestFlight 1 in November. Now, with airspace arrangements finalised and mandatory notice given to the Australian Space Agency, the company is preparing for liftoff.

Obtaining its permits from Australia’s government has taken years. The company first hoped to launch in 2022, but the red tape stymied that possibility.

If successful however this company’s achievement will be multifold. It will not only beat into orbit numerous other startups in the U.S. and Europe, it will give Australia its own orbital rocket built in Australia. For a country whose government never had much interest in joining the world’s space power — and appeared for the past three years determined to squelch this private company — Gilmour’s achievement will be significant. If anything, its success could force that government to change its ways

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Blue Ghost instrument proves Earth-orbiting GPS-type satellites can be used to track location from the Moon

9:16 pm

Having now reached lunar orbit in preparation for its landing on March 2, 2025, an engineering test instrument on Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander has now proven that even from that distance spacecraft can use the multiple GPS-type satellites in Earth orbit to track their position.

The Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE) acquired and tracked Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals for the first time in lunar orbit – a new record! This achievement, peaking at 246,000 miles, suggests that Earth-based GNSS constellations can be used for navigation in transit to, around, and potentially on the Moon. It also demonstrates the power of using multiple GNSS constellations together, such as GPS and Galileo, to perform navigation. After lunar landing, LuGRE will operate for 14 days and attempt to break another record – first reception of GNSS signals on the lunar surface.

This test is a very big deal. It tells us that operations on the Moon, at least those on the near side, will likely not require a GPS-type infrastructure in lunar orbit, thus allowing a lot of difficult missions to proceed sooner while saving a lot of money and time.

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China and SpaceX complete launches

7:36 pm

Two more launches today. First China launched a communications satellite into orbit, its Long March 3B rocket lifting off from its Xichang spaceport in the southwest of China. No word on where the rocket’s core stage and four side boosters crashed inside China. Nor has China released much information about the satellite itself.

Next SpaceX placed another 22 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California. The first stage completed its eleventh flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

23 SpaceX
8 China
2 Rocket Lab

At this moment SpaceX’s 23 launches in 2025 is not far short of being twice as much as the 14 launches completed by rest of the entire world combined. It certainly is outpacing everyone else quite handily.

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Musk: ISS should be de-orbited quickly! And he may be right.

12:23 pm

Figure 3 from September Inspector General report
Figure 3 from September Inspector General report, showing ISS and outlining the airlieak annotated to show Zvezda and Poisk locations.

Food fight! Yesterday Elon Musk did a Donald Trump, issuing a bunch of tweets that are likely causing some heads to explode inside NASA, Congress, and Europe.

First — and far less significant — Musk got into a war of insults with European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen over his comments in recent days accusing the Biden administration of delaying the return of the two Starliner astronauts “for political reasons.” Mogensen accused Musk lying about this, and Musk responded by calling Mogenson “fully retarded” and an “idiot,” adding that “SpaceX could have brought them back several months ago. I OFFERED THIS DIRECTLY to the Biden administration and they refused. Return WAS pushed back for political reasons.”

Since Musk was there and Mogensen was not, it seems Musk won that battle. NASA meanwhile issued a mild statement saying everything it has done has been to maximize safety, a statement that matches the facts quite accurately.

Then Musk — on a far more important topic — stirred the pot more by tweeting his belief that ISS should be retired now.

It is time to begin preparations for deorbiting the Space_Station. It has served its purpose. There is very little incremental utility. Let’s go to Mars.

In a second tweet he recommended the de-orbit should occur “two years from now.”

Left unstated by Musk was what might be his most important reason for retiring ISS so quickly: the fragile condition of the Russian-built Zvezda module. » Read more

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Airbus writes off $314 million for unnamed space program losses

10:45 am

Airbus on February 20, 2025 announced that it has written off $314 million due to issues in an unnamed program in its space division, adding to an almost billion dollar write-off in June 2024.

Airbus said Feb. 20 it took the 300-million-euro charge in the fourth quarter of 2024 as it completed reviews of a final, unnamed program in its space portfolio. The company had hinted in late October that it could take additional charges on that program as it completed a comprehensive review. “We had to go through the program in detail, bottom up, to fully review what we had in our portfolio, and that we have done,” Thomas Toepfer, chief financial officer of Airbus, said in a call with analysts. He did not identify that program.

The company took 900 million euros in charges in June 2024, and the company said the total charges against earnings on its space business in 2024 was 1.3 billion euros. Toepfer said that the company does not anticipate additional charges as it’s completed the review of all its space programs.

There are some hints that the program involved bad bids for satellite contracts and with suppliers. I can’t help wondering if it is also related to the overall failure of Ariane-6 to garner customers. Airbus builds and owns it in partnership with Safran.

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Billionaire who fought Sutherland spaceport now owns at least half of competing Saxavord spaceport

9:46 am

Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea
Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea

Anders Povlsen, the Danish billionaire who aggressively fought the establishment of the Sutherland spaceport on the north coast of Scotland, where he owns lots of land, has increased his holding of the competing Saxavord spaceport on one of the Shetland Islands, raising his share of ownership there to at least 50%.

Danish billionaire Anders Povlsen has increased his stake in Shetland Space Centre via his company, Wild Ventures Ltd, which now owns more than half of its shares. New filings with Companies House also show that Lise Kaae, the chief executive of Mr Povlsen’s investment firm, Heartland, has been appointed as a director at the spaceport.

Mr Povlsen, who made his fortune in retail fashion and is reported to be Scotland’s largest landowner, has been involved in the spaceport since 2020 when Wild Ventures Ltd invested £1.5m.

Povlsen had for years aggressively opposed Sutherland, expressing that opposition with repeated lawsuits that caused years of regulatory delays. Those delays in turn impacted Sutherland’s biggest customer, the rocket startup Orbex, which had a fifty year lease on a launchpad and had hoped to start launches of its Prime rocket in 2022. In December 2024, with no sign it would get a launch license from the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority anytime soon, Orbex essentially gave up on Sutherland, announcing suddenly it was switching launch operations to Saxaford.

It now appears Povlsen’s lawfare effort has born fruit, which I think explains why he has now suddenly increased his ownership share in Saxavord

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