Tag: competition

Space industry expresses opposition to White House regulatory proposal

9:10 am

Not surprisingly, the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF), the industry group that represents pretty much the entire new commercial space business, has sent a letter to both the House and Senate expressing strong opposition to the November 15th White House regulatory proposal that would impose heavy regulation on both launches and the construction of any private facility in space.

“We oppose the recently released National Space Council (NSPC) proposal on the topic in its current form, which fails to consider the points that CSF and many other stakeholders raised during the NSPC listening sessions last year,” CSF said in its letter to Congress.

The organization raised several concerns, including how responsibilities would be split between the two departments and the potential for “duplicative and conflicting” requirements between Commerce and Transportation. “For some operations, it is unclear which agency would hold the authority to issue a relevant license, or if multiple licenses would be needed,” it stated.

The group is concerned about giving additional responsibilities to the FAA’s commercial space transportation office without also significantly increasing its budget, noting that the office is struggling to keep up with its current launch and reentry licensing. At an October hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee, industry officials recommended increasing that office’s budget to handle launch licensing work, without any discussion of it taking on additional responsibilities.

CSF was also worried that the proposed mission authorization system could disrupt plans by NASA to shift from the International Space Station to commercial stations by the end of the decade. “Introducing a bifurcated and unclear regulatory regime for commercial space stations,” the letter stated, “could risk U.S. leadership in low-Earth orbit.”

Apparently the entire space industry came to the same conclusion I did after reading the White House proposal after its release:

Essentially, these new rules — purposely written to be vague — will allow the government to forbid any activity in space by private citizens it chooses to forbid. No private space station could launch without government approval, which will also include the government’s own determination that the station will be operatied safely. Once launched, the vagueness of these regulations will soon allow mission creep so that every new activity in space will soon fall under its review.

Since no one in the government is qualified to supervise things like this, in the end politics and the abuse of power will be the rule.

It must be noted that the entire Democratic Party caucus in the House apparently approves of this power grab, because they immediately abandoned all support of the previously negotiated proposal that the industry and Congress had worked out and a House committee was about to pass. Their opposition forced that committee vote to be canceled. According to that committee, it will resume its consideration of that bill today. We shall see if this industry opposition changes any of their minds.

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Pentagon is now all-in on capitalism in space

9:40 am

Capitalism in space: Based on recent remarks from officials as well as a number of newly issued contracts, the U.S. military has now decided to completely shift from designing and building its own space hardware — which it has increasingly done badly at great cost — to simply becoming a customer buying products from the private sector.

First we have remarks and press announcements from top Pentagon officials, stating this policy change.

Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, who has spearheaded Pentagon efforts to bring cutting-edge technology into defense programs, is overseeing the military’s first commercial space integration strategy.

The new strategy comes as the Pentagon seeks to tap into advancements in commercial space technology to maintain an advantage over China, now seen as America’s top military competitor. “At Deputy Secretary Hicks’ direction, the Department is currently developing our first DoD Commercial Space Integration Strategy in order to drive integration and ensure the availability of commercial space solutions during competition, crisis and conflict,” Pentagon Spokesman Eric Pahon said Nov. 27 in a statement to SpaceNews.

Nor are these merely words. On November 22, 2023 the military announced a request for proposals from twenty different commercial space companies to provide all of its military needs in orbit, with potential contracts worth up to $900 million.

The Proliferated Low Earth Orbit (PLEO) Satellite-Based Services contract, first announced in July, is run by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) on behalf of the Space Force’s Commercial Satellite Communications Office (CSCO), a central marketplace for satellite services operated by the Space Systems Command.

…The PLEO contract “supports the Department of Defense’s requirement to provide worldwide, low-latency PLEO services,” said DISA. The IDIQ contracting method allows the Department of Defense, other federal agencies and international allies “to procure fully managed satellite-based services and capabilities for all domains (space, air, land, maritime and cyber) with a consistent, quality-backed, low-latency offering.”

This shift is excellent news, not only for the commercial space industry but for the American military itself. The former is guaranteed to grow and innovate as these companies compete for military business, while the latter will get what it needs more quickly and at much lower cost.

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SpaceX launches 23 Starlink satellites

9:00 am

SpaceX last night successfully launched another 23 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage completed its seventeeth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. That SpaceX now has several first stages that have been reused this much and it isn’t considered news is in itself a story. The company has actually gotten this rocket to perform like an airplane, a goal that Elon Musk aspired too more than a decade ago.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

87 SpaceX
53 China
15 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise now leads China 99 to 53 in successful launches, and the entire world combined 99 to 84. SpaceX meanwhile widens its lead over the rest of the world (excluding American companies) 87 to 84.

As a number of my readers have noted, the U.S. lead this year is entirely due to SpaceX, indicating a dominance that is actually unhealthy. Other American companies need to come forward and challenge it, because the competition will spark innovation and better rocketry. With no competition, it is inevitable that even SpaceX could get lazy.

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Blue Origin begins third major expansion of Huntsville facility

9:03 am

Blue Origin has been issued a $8.4 million building permit by local Huntsville authorities as part of the third major expansion of its rocket-manufacturing facility there.

According to the report, of the 377 permits issued so far in October and November, this was the largest. All three expansions have occurred in the past three years.

The article however includes this ridiculous statement:

The aerospace company owned by Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin has emerged as one of the top commercial spaceflight companies as the country has placed a renewed effort on returning to the moon and eventually to Mars.

How could Blue Origin be “one of the top commercial spaceflight companies” when it has still not launched anything into orbit? Even the tiny rocket startup Astra, now on the verge of bankruptcy, put more mass into orbit than Blue Origin. Everyone has, since the mass Blue Origin has put into orbit so far equals a nice fat zero.

This expansion however does suggest that something positive might finally be happening at the company. With the removal of Bob Smith as CEO and Jeff Bezos now living in Florida and closer to the action it could be that the continuing string of non-accomplishment that has made Blue Origin a bit of a joke in the space industry might possibly be ending.

We shall have to wait and see, however.

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Ariane-6’s core stage completes full 7 minute engine test

8:45 am

Engineers yesterday successfully completed a two-hour dress rehearsal countdown and fueling of an Ariane-6 first stage followed by a full seven minute engine burn, simulating what that stage would do during a launch.

The test took place on Ariane-6’s launchpad in French Guiana.

The November 23 test sequence was run the same way as the previous ones, with a launch sequence and final countdown representative of a launch, including removal of the mobile gantry and filling the launcher’s upper and core stage tanks with liquid hydrogen (-253° Celsius) and liquid oxygen (-183° Celsius). The test ended with the ignition of the core stage Vulcain 2.1 engine, followed by more than 7 minutes of stabilized operation covering the entire core stage flight phase. All functional aspects of Ariane 6’s core stage during the flight phase were tested.

According to the European Space Agency, only one more engine test of the Ariane-6’s upper stage remains before the spring launch can be attempted, and that engine test is planned for next month in Germany.

With the retirement of the Ariane-5 rocket in July, Europe has had no large rocket to launch payloads. Originally Ariane-6’s first launches were supposed to be in parallel with Ariane-5’s last launches, but its development is four years behind schedule.

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China launches classified satellite

9:23 am

China today used its Long March 2D rocket to launch what it described as “a technology experiment satellite for satellite internet technologies”, the rocket lifting off from its Xichang spaceport in the southwest of China.

No other information was released. While the satellite could be a test satellite for a constellation comparable to Starlink, the lack of information suggests otherwise.

No word also on whether the rocket’s first stage, using toxic hypergolic fuels, landed near habitable areas. The drop zone was over heavily populated areas in China.

Furthermore, China’s Kuaizhou-1 rocket had also been expected to launch today from Xichang in the wee hours of the morning, also carrying a classified payload. No word yet on whether that launch occurred, was scrubbed, or was simply the Long March 2D launch, the name of the rocket misunderstood prior to launch because of China’s secrecy.

Putting that unknown launch aside, here are the present leaders in the 2023 launch race:

86 SpaceX
53 China
14 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise still leads China 98 to 53 in successful launches, and the entire world combined 98 to 83. SpaceX by itself still leads the rest of the world (excluding American companies) 86 to 83.

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Eutelsat-OneWeb gets license approval in India

9:21 am

Less than two weeks after SpaceX obtained regulatory approval to offer its Starlink system in India, Eutelsat-OneWeb (newly merged) has now gotten its own approval.

Eutelsat-OneWeb is half owned by an Indian investment firm, so it is no surprise it obtained this approval soon after SpaceX. The two companies will now be competing aggressively for business in this giant country, whose technological capabilities has been renewed in recent years by the abandonment of a socialist/communist government for a leadership focused on encouraging freedom, capitalism, and competition.

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North Korea launches spy satellite

8:59 am

In its third attempt this year to launch a spy satellite, North Korea today succeeded at last, its new Chollima-1 rocket lifting off from Sohae spaceport on the country’s western coast and placing in orbit what is probably a relatively primitive spy satellite with a limited lifespan.

Though launched on the coast, the flight path crossed over North Korea, with drop zones for the rocket’s lower stages in the Yellow and East China seas. The previous two launch failures (in May and August) did the same, with South Korea salvaging stages and the satellite from the first failure. The data recovered suggested the spy satellite was of “no military utility” according to the South Korean military.

As usual, U.S. and South Korean officials condemned the launch, calling it a violation of UN sanctions. Note too that this was not North Korea’s first successful launch, having managed launches in 2012 and 2016 previously, with a different rocket.

Because this was North Korea’s first success in 2023, the leader broad in the 2023 launch race remains unchanged:

86 SpaceX
52 China
14 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

However, the launch was the 180th in 2023, setting a new global record for the launches in a single year, eclipsing the record set last year. Since Sputnik in 1957 the average number of successful launches globally was generally less than a hundred. This year it is very possible the world will double that average, almost entirely because of American private enterprise, which leads China 98 to 52 in successful launches, and the entire world combined 98 to 82. SpaceX by itself still leads the rest of the world (excluding American companies) 86 to 82.

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SpaceX launches 23 more Starlink satellites

12:56 am

SpaceX early last night continued its campaign to reach 100 launches in 2023, its Falcon 9 rocket launching for the third time in just over four days, lifting off from Cape Canaveral carrying 23 more Starlink satellites into orbit.

The first stage completed its fifteenth launch, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

86 SpaceX
52 China
14 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise now leads China 98 to 52 in successful launches, and the entire world combined 98 to 81. SpaceX by itself is now leads the rest of the world (excluding American companies) 86 to 81.

With this launch, the number of successful orbital launches in 2023 now matches the record total of 179 set last year. With a little more than five weeks to go, expect that number to top 200 before the year is out, especially because China has historically tended to launch a lot of rockets in December.

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North Korea announces it will attempt orbital launch of spy satellite this week

10:26 am

North Korea has announced that it will make a third attempt to place a spy satellite into orbit this week, lifting off anytime between November 22nd and December 1st, with drop zones of the rocket’s lower stages over the Yellow and East China seas.

The North initially planed to make the third launch attempt in October following two botched launches — in August and May. But it did not press ahead with the plan last month, raising speculation that it might need more preparation time.

As expected, South Korea has protested. It is also likely gearing up to attempt to recover as much debris from the launch as possible, as it did successfully on the previous launches.

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High altitude balloon company World View will not go public

10:18 am

The high altitude balloon company World View has ended its negotiations, begun early this year, with a venture capital investment firm to merge and make its stock public.

In a Nov. 17 statement, World View and Leo Holdings Corp II announced they were canceling plans announced in January to merge. The decision to end the merger was mutual, the companies said.

The companies did not give a specific reason for calling off the deal. “Over the course of 2023, World View received strong interest from potential investors,” the companies stated. “However, given challenging market conditions, World View and Leo jointly determined that it was the best course of action at this time to not proceed with their previously announced transaction.”

There could be a lot of good and bad reasons this deal fell through. Mostly likely World View officials saw the generally negative consequences experienced by other space startups that went public in this manner in the past few years, and decided it better to hold off.

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Rocket engine startup Ursa Major enters solid-rocket motor business

10:08 am

Recognizing a desperate need of the military to ramp up production of solid rocket motors after much of its missile stockpile has been depleted by President Biden’s large gifts to the Ukraine, the rocket engine startup Ursa Major has now announced it is entering solid-rocket motor business.

Describing the solid rocket motor [SRM] market as “plagued by a broken supply chain and an overextended industrial base,” the Colorado startup today announced its plans to use its 3D printing techniques developed for liquid rocket engines to speed production of solid-fuel propulsion systems. Ursa Major has received several contracts from the Air Force Research Laboratory for its work on a new rocket engine for heavy space launch vehicles, as well as a hypersonic engine.

“Traditional SRM providers rely on production lines that are difficult to re-tool, expensive to ramp up, and dependent on a significant workforce to operate,” the company said in a press release touting its “new approach” to manufacturing, dubbed Lynx. “Ursa Major is offering a new way to scale production of SRMs,” Ursa Major CEO Joe Laurienti said in the press release. “Lynx meets the defense industry’s need for a faster, cheaper, scalable, and flexible SRM production process that results in better-performing solid rocket motors.”

The article also notes that at present the military is dependent on only two companies for new solid rockets, Northrop Grumman and Aerojet Rocketdyne (now L3Harris). The article also notes that it could take anywhere from five to eighteen years for these companies to replenish the depleted stocks.

The bottleneck however has brought several new players into the field, with the military eager to issue contracts to these new players. This decision by Ursa Major is thus a very good one.

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India now plans robotic lunar sample return mission

9:58 am

Following the successful landing of Vikram on the Moon, officials of India’s space agency ISRO have announced it is considering a much more ambitious follow-up, Chandrayaan-4, that will not only land on the lunar surface with a much larger rover, it will also dig up some samples and return them to Earth.

The spacecraft will travel to the moon, land, collect samples, and then connect to another module in space. The module will then return to Earth orbit. As the two modules approach Earth, they will separate, with one part returning to Earth and the other will keep orbiting the planet. Desai described the mission as ambitious, stating, “Hopefully, in the next five to seven years, we will meet the challenge of bringing samples from the moon.”

For return to Earth, Desai said that the mission would need two launch vehicles containing four modules (Transfer module, Lander Module, Ascender Module and Re-entry module). RM and TM would be Parked in the lunar orbit and two will go down from which Ascender Module will get separated from lander module and would collect the sample.

If India does this mission, while also completing its first manned mission during that time frame, it will place itself in direct competition with China and the U.S., and in fact will be getting close to matching both in capabilities.

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Musk: Next Starship/Superheavy test launch could happen in only 3 to 4 weeks

9:50 am

Superheavy & Starship, on their way
Superheavy & Starship, shortly after liftoff on November 18th

In a tweet on November 19, 2023, Elon Musk revealed that SpaceX could be ready for its next Starship/Superheavy test launch in only a matter of weeks, assuming federal red tape doesn’t get in the way.

Starship Flight 3 hardware should be ready to fly in 3 to 4 weeks. There are three ships in final production in the high bay (as can be seen from the highway).

In reporting on the second test launch on November 18, 2023, I noted that with prototypes ready to go SpaceX could probably launch within a month. Musk has now confirmed that assessment.

I also predicted that the FAA and Fish & Wildlife would not allow such a thing, and though they will determine there is no reason not to launch again, they will not issue a launch licence until the February/April time frame.

I want this prediction clearly on the record. It is important for the public to know the source of these delays.

It is also important for the press to apply pressure on these government paper pushers so they don’t feel encouraged in their intransigence. When I made a similar (and wholly accurate) prediction in May about the second launch, many in the press criticized that prediction (directly and indirectly) for daring to say bad things about government regulators. Now it appears that others in the press are no longer so naive, and are willing to note the slowness of the licensing process.

The regulators might not want to stand in the way and are simply following procedure. The press however mustn’t treat them gently. It must hold their feet to the fire to make sure they don’t take their time doing so.

Moreover, we have seen fewer headlines claiming falsely that the rocket “blew up” or “exploded.” Instead, a large percentage of the press now got it right and noted the mission’s success and that the destruction was not an accident but part of the self-destruct system.

After the last launch I lambasted the press for getting these facts wrong. Maybe holding their feet to the fire forced a reassessment and better reporting this time around.

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Musk: Starship/Superheavy launchpad essentially undamaged after launch

12:37 pm

Superheavy launchpad post launch
Click for original image.

In a tweet posted only a short time ago, Elon Musk announced that the redesigned and rebuilt Boca Chica launchpad experienced little or no damage during the launch of Superheavy/Starship on November 18, 2023.

Just inspected the Starship launch pad and it is in great condition!

No refurbishment needed to the water-cooled steel plate for next launch.

Congrats to @Spacex team & contractors for engineering & building such a robust system so rapidly!

Musk included the picture to the right in the tweet, showing the essentially undamaged launchpad pad. A close looks suggests there was some damage to the rear pillar near the top, but overall it appears the next launch could occur here very quickly.

Musk of course is wrong about who he credits for redesigning and rebuilding this launchpad. The real credit must go to the FAA bureaucrats who led the investigation and must have clearly guided those SpaceX engineers and contractors. To expect private citizens to think for themselves and come up with such difficult engineering without supervision from government paper-pushers in Washington is unreasonable and unfair. Maybe the Biden Justice Department should consider another lawsuit against Musk, this time for spreading more disinformation!

Moreover, who cares that the launchpad deluge system worked exactly as planned? We must allow Fish & Wildlife to spend several months now to investigate this launch — as well as write a long report of many words — to make sure that deluge of water did not harm any of the wildlife that lives on this barrier island, which has a water table of essentially zero and is flooded regularly and repeatedly by storms over time.

Anyone who disagrees is clearly a bigoted racist who wants to harm little children!

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SpaceX launches 22 Starlink satellites

8:40 am

The beat goes on: SpaceX early this morning launched another 22 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandeberg in California.

The first stage completed its 15th flight, landing successfully on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

85 SpaceX
52 China
14 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise now leads China 97 to 52 in successful launches, and the entire world combined 97 to 81. SpaceX by itself is now leads the rest of the world (excluding American companies) 85 to 81.

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SpaceX successfully launches Superheavy and Starship

6:57 am

Superheavy & Starship, on their way
Note how all 33 Superheavy engines are firing.

SpaceX this morning successfully launched its Superheavy/Starship heavy lift rocket into its test orbit.

The test flight achieved far more than the first test in April. First, during the entire flight of Superheavy all 33 Raptor-2 engines fired normally. None cut out prematurely. Then at very risky hot fire stage separation — where the second stage (Starship) ignited prior to separation from Superheavy — the correct number of engines shut down, Starship’s engines fired, and Superheavy successfully separated and began its maneuvers for a soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.

At that point mission controllers issued the self-destruct command to destroy Superheavy. Though it appeared that the stage was struggling to flip for its controlled return to Earth, it is also very likely that mission controllers wanted to test that flight termination system after its not perfect performance on the first test flight. Then, the self-destruct command did not activate the instant the command was given, being delayed by about 40 seconds. This time it appeared it worked as planned.
» Read more

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SpaceX launches 23 Starlink satellites

10:15 pm

While everyone is focused on the Starship/Superheavy launch scheduled for tomorrow at 7 am (Central) at Boca Chica, SpaceX tonight launched another 23 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage successfully completed it eleventh flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

84 SpaceX
52 China
14 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise still leads China 96 to 52 in successful launches, and the entire world combined 96 to 81. SpaceX by itself is now leads the rest of the world (excluding American companies) 84 to 81.

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Researchers confirm it was a Chinese rocket stage that impacted Moon in 2022

9:35 am

Impact, before and after
The crash site is the double crater in the
lower image.

Researchers have now confirmed that the unknown rocket stage that impacted the Moon in 2022 was from a Chinese rocket, a Long March 3B that launched China’s Chang’e-5 lunar sample return mission in November 2020.

“In this paper, we present a trajectory and spectroscopic analysis using ground-based telescope observations to show conclusively that WE0913A is the Long March 3C rocket body (R/B) from the Chang’e 5-T1 mission,” the researchers, led by Tanner Campbell, a doctoral student in the UA’s Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, wrote in a study that came out Thursday (Nov. 16) in the Planetary Science Journal. These two lines of evidence — how the object was moving and what it was made of — leave little doubt about WE0913A’s provenance, Campbell and his colleagues report.

The data, combined with the unusual double crater caused by the impact, also suggests that this stage had additional unknown equipment at its top, matching the mass of its engines at the bottom. Since the Chinese continue to deny it was their stage and have said nothing about it, we have no idea what that extra equipment might have been.

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