Tag: competition

One of Australia’s proposed spaceports moves

9:37 am

Australia's spaceports
Australia’s spaceports

“I’m from the government and I’m here to help!” Because of its inability to get the proper permissions from a local council, the management of Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA) has abandoned its original spaceport location on the Gove peninsula in the Northwest Territory of Australia and shifted east to a new location on the York peninsula in Queensland.

On the map to the right the “X” shows the old location, with the new location near the town of Weipa on the west coast of the peninsula. The change was forced on the company when it could not get proper approvals from the Northern Land Council (NLC), which manages the Arnhem Land Aboriginal Land Trust where the original site was located.

In a statement late on Monday, ELA said its most recent attempt to finalise a lease for the expansion of the ASC in October had been unsuccessful, following three other failed attempts in the last 12 months. In each case, it said the NLC had “failed to meet its own specified deadline for the approval of the Head Lease” or “provide any official reason for the delay”, despite pleas from the NT government and the Gumatj Aboriginal Corporation.

Because ELA has a launch contract with a South Korea rocket startup Innospace that intends to launch next year, it decided the switch had to occur now to make sure it could meet its obligations under this launch contract.

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Panama and Austria to sign Artemis Accords

9:18 am

NASA yesterday announced that both Panama and Austria will sign Artemis Accords tomorrow, bringing the total number of nations in the alliance to fifty.

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

The accords were created by the first Trump administration with the goal to create an alliance with enough clout to overcome the Outer Space Treaty’s restrictions on private property. Under the Biden administration, the goal has been rewritten to accomplish the exact opposite, as noted by NASA yesterday:

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.

With Trump back in charge, expect him to bring the accords back to its original goal. Unlike his first term, the alliance is now large, and he can use it to quickly apply pressure on the international community to overcome the Outer Space Treaty’s limitations on private property.

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SpaceX launches 23 Starlink satellites

10:34 pm

SpaceX just after midnight (Eastern) tonight successfully launched another 23 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The first stage completed its second flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

128 SpaceX
59 China
16 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 147 to 91, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 128 to 110.

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Iran launches its Simorgh orbital rocket

11:11 am

Iran today announced it has successfully placed several small payloads into orbit, its Simorgh rocket lifting off from its interior Semnan spaceport.

The Simorgh carried what Iran described as an “orbital propulsion system,” as well as two research systems to a 400-kilometer (250-mile) orbit above the Earth. A system that could change the orbit of a spacecraft would allow Iran to geo-synchronize the orbits of its satellites, a capability Tehran has long sought.

It also carried the Fakhr-1 satellite for Iran’s military, the first time Iran’s civilian program is known to have carried a military payload.

This was Iran’s fourth launch in 2024, doubling the launch record it had set in 2023.

The leader board for the 2024 launch race remains unchanged:

127 SpaceX
59 China
16 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 146 to 91, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 127 to 110.

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ESA to provide ground station communications support for India’s manned Gaganyaan missions

10:07 am

The new colonial movement: The European Space Agency (ESA) has now signed an agreement with India’s space agency ISRO whereby ESA will provide ground station communications support for India’s manned Gaganyaan missions.

The first unmanned test flights are planned for next year, with the first manned Gaganyaan mission targeting 2026.

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Japan’s space agency admits first launch of its new Epsilon-S rocket will be delayed

10:01 am

Japan’s space agency JAXA yesterday admitted that the first launch of its new Epsilon-S rocket — intended to be cheaper and competitive with the new rockets being developed worldwide — will be delayed because of the explosion that occurred during a static fire test on November 26, 2024.

The news reports in the Japanese press don’t provide much information. It appears the investigation into the explosion is still on-going, and that the cause of the failure has not yet been identified. Because of this, JAXA has been forced to cancel the planned March 2025 date for Epsilon-S’s inaugural flight.

JAXA should get out of the business of building rockets, as its track record is really horrible. The Japanese government has already told it to do so, but it is clearly dragging its feet, not wanting to give up the turf it has controlled for decades.

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Europe’s Vega-C rocket returns to flight after being grounded for more than two years

3:47 pm

Europe’s Vega-C rocket, built by the Italian company Avio but presently still managed by the European Space Agency’s commercial arm Arianespace, today successfully completed its first launch in two years, lifting off from French Guiana carrying a European Earth observation satellite. As of posting the satellite had not yet been deployed.

The rocket was first grounded when its upper stage failed during a December 2022 launch. The investigation pinpointed the problem as the design of the stage’s engine nozzle. However, the first redesign also failed, requiring a second redesign.

This was the eighth launch worldwide in the past 48 hours, the most ever accomplished in such a short time. All told, five nations completed launches (United States 3, China 2, India 1, Russia 1, Europe 1) from eight different spaceports, with all three American launches completed by SpaceX.

Because this was only the third launch by Europe this year, the leader board for the 2024 launch race remains unchanged:

127 SpaceX
59 China
16 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 146 to 90, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 127 to 109.

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Union official accuses Boeing of more unsafe practices

10:44 am

According Craig Garriott, a union representative at Boeing’s satellite-manufacturing facility in Los Angeles, Boeing’s management has been allowing numerous safety violations to go unfixed in order to focus on profits and fast production.

Acquired by Boeing in 2000, the satellite manufacturing facility has long been considered one of Boeing’s more stable business units. It relies in part on a union workforce that Garriott said is responsible for constructing and testing satellites and their component parts.

“This is perhaps the most technical group of hourly people that you’ll probably find on this planet,” said Garriott, who estimated he’s raised between 300 and 400 safety violations over the past year. Those complaints, he said, range from obstructed fire extinguishers and fire alarms to concerns over heavy machinery blocking exits and trapping workers in certain parts of the factory.

In October, union workers filed a complaint with the Occupational Health and Safety Administration that, according to Garriott, highlighted unsafe conditions on the factory floor. Another technician at the facility, who spoke to CBS News on the condition he remain anonymous to protect his job, said safety had become “an afterthought” and quality had “degraded” over the past five to six years.

It is important to recognize that Garriott’s complaints might simply be the typical tactic of a union representative during or before contract negotiations. There are rumors Boeing plans to sell off its space subsidiaries, which would include this satellite division. Garriott might simply be putting public pressure on the company in order to give himself a better negotiation position if such a sale takes place.

It is also quite possible, based on Boeing’s recent very poor track record in quality control, that everything Garriott says here is also true.

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Sierra Space signs deal using its Dream Chaser mini-shuttles for in-space manufacturing

10:33 am

Sierra Space's family of planned LIFE modules
Sierra Space’s family of planned LIFE modules. Click for original

Sierra Space has now signed agreements with two different startups, Astral Materials and Space Forge, to use its Dream Chaser mini-shuttles for in-space manufacturing.

Astral Materials leverages the microgravity environment of space to grow ultra-high quality semiconductor crystals for advanced chip technologies. Space Forge harnesses free flying manufacturing facilities to produce next-generation materials for commercial industries, national security and research.

Up to now, Sierra’s only customer has been NASA, which wants to use Tenacity, the first Dream Chaser mini-shuttle, to hauling cargo to and from ISS. These new deals illustrate that there are other profit opportunities for the company’s reusable shuttle outside of government. As the startup Varda has already demonstrated with its own returnable capsule, there is money to be made manufacturing products in weightlessness that cannot be produced in the gravity of Earth.

The press release however has one additional tidbit that is intriguing. Sierra is a partner in the Blue Origin-led Orbital Reef commercial space station. It also appears to be the only partner that is actually building anything for that station, specifically its LIFE inflatable modules. The press release mentions that both these agreements include options for Astral and Space Forge to provide “input on Sierra Space’s future space stations.” That this press release does not refer to Orbital Reef here suggests once again that Sierra Space is somewhat dissatisfied with the output of its Blue Origin partner, and is thus creating options for it to build its own space station using those LIFE modules (shown above), should Blue Origin not deliver.

At a minimum, Astral and Space Forge will certainly be interested in doing manufacturing within those LIFE modules, should they end up being part of Orbital Reef.

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Yuma competing for up to $160 million in an NSF grant to establish its own spaceport

10:16 am

Yuma spaceport

Arizona wants its own spaceport! The city of Yuma, located in Arizona’s southwest corner, is now a finalist in a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant program that could award it up to $160 million to establish a spaceport there.

The city is one of two Arizona applicants, the other being the University of Arizona, which wants to use the grant money “to make the state a proving ground for transformative mining technologies.” There are in addition 69 other applicants to the NSF grant.

This announcement is mostly PR, since Yuma not only does not yet have a spaceport licence from the FAA, it does not yet have approval from Mexico to fly missions over that country. Yuma is not on the coast, so launches must cross land. And if not over Mexico, launches would have to cross other U.S. states, something that would need approval as well.

This proposal has been in the works for many years, as having a spaceport in Arizona would draw a lot of space business to the state. It could happen, but to do so will require a lot of approvals from a lot of government agencies.

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Airbus cuts almost 500 jobs in Great Britain

9:30 am

As part of a larger planned belt-tightening that is expected to reducing staffing by more than 2,000, Airbus has now begun eliminating 477 jobs in its British operations.

The cuts are expected to hit the workforce in Stevenage and Portsmouth, where Airbus’s UK space operations are concentrated, while Newport in south Wales may also be impacted. The Stevenage site is also building Europe’s first Mars rover for a mission designed to search for signs of past or present life on the planet that’s due for launch in 2028.

Airbus said that only “overhead positions” – such as management support – will be hit, with nobody assigned to individual programmes or projects affected.

The company claims these cuts are due to SpaceX grabbing a large part of market share in the satellite business. It is also because Airbus is likely overstaffed, its operations shaped by the European Space Agency past requirement that it spread those operations to as many member nations as possible. These cuts in Great Britain are likely an attempt to reduce that spread.

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Another record-setting launch day worldwide

9:19 am

In what might be a record for the global launch industry, yesterday saw a total of four launches at four different spaceports worldwide.

That record might very well be matched today. Already three launches have already taken place, with one more scheduled.

First, India’s space agency ISRO successfully launched European Space Agency’s PROBA-XL solar telescope, its PSLV rocket lifting off from its Sriharikota spaceport on India’s eastern coast. This was India’s fourth launch in 2024.

Next, China launched what its state-run press merely described as a “group of satellites,” its Long March 6 rocket taking off from its Taiyuan spaceport in northern China. That state-run press also said nothing about where the rocket’s lower stages and four strap-on boosters crashed inside China. (UPDATE: More information about the payload can be found here. It appears to have been the third set of 18 satellites launched as part of China’s attempt to compete with Starlink.)

Then, SpaceX launched SXM-9, a new satellite for the constellation of the radio company Siruis-XM, its Falcon 9 lifting off from Kennedy in Florida. The first stage completed its nineteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. As of posting the satellite had not yet been deployed.

If all goes as planned, the fourth flight today will be the first launch in more than two years of Avio’s Vega-C rocket, which has been grounded while the company redesigned and then redesigned again the engine nozzle of its upper stage. The launch is also one of the last that will be managed by Arianespace, which is giving up control to Avio over the next year. The live stream is here.

If successful, it will be the eighth launch worldwide in only two days, something that I am fairly certain has never been done before. In the past there simply weren’t enough independent entities and spaceports available to allow this number of launches in such a short period of time. What makes this record even more striking is that three of the eight launches were launched by one private American company, SpaceX.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

127 SpaceX
59 China
16 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 146 to 89, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 127 to 108.

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