Tag: competition

NASA postpones second SLS static fire test

10:52 pm

NASA today announced that it was postponing the second SLS static fire test of the rocket’s core stage due to a valve issue in its main engines.

NASA said it was postponing the Green Run static-fire test, which had been scheduled for Feb. 25, after discovering a problem with one of eight valves called “prevalves” associated with the stage’s four RS-25 main engines. The valve, which supplies liquid oxygen, was “not working properly,” NASA said in a statement, but didn’t elaborate on the problem.

Engineers identified the problem during preparations over the weekend for the test. NASA said it will work with Boeing, the prime contractor for the core stage, to “identify a path forward in the days ahead and reschedule the hot fire test” but did not set a new date for the test.

This was not the first time Boeing and NASA has had valve problems with the rocket, though this problem appears unrelated to the previous issue.

Either way, the continuing technical problems — such as the two previous aborts during testing — does not build confidence in the rocket. First, the schedule is very tight, and is getting tighter. Its first unmanned test flight was supposed to happen by the end of this year, and right now that looks very unlikely. Yet, it must happen within the next twelve months because they have begun stacking the strap-on solid rocket boosters, and those have a sell-by date.

More important, these issues raise big red flags as to the overall trustworthiness of the rocket. I certainly would not want to fly on it, at least not until I see it fly at least a half dozen times successfully. The problems however suggest that achieving such a track record is going to be quite difficult.

And if SLS has any major failures during any launch, be prepared for Congress’s support to finally collapse, especially with the on-going spectacular progress being achieved by SpaceX with Starship along with two Falcon Heavy launches planned for this year.

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Update on Starship: Flight of prototype #10 possible this week

8:53 am

Link here. Lots of stuff going on, with Starship prototypes 15 through 19 being assembled and waiting n the wings. Crews have also repaved and expanded the landing pad at Boca Chica, and begun assembling the first Super Heavy prototype.

The most significant tidbit to me was this:

One section inside a production tent appears to be undergoing preparations to cover the entire windward side in [thermal patches].

This unnamed section could indicate a vehicle that will be taken to an altitude that would test its heat shield under re-entry conditions. Current [thermal] patches are mostly being tested to see how they perform during the stresses of cryogenic propellant loading and launch and landing vibrations.

It is not known yet to which prototype this section belongs to, but that it is being prepared means that SpaceX is moving relentless towards that first orbital flight.

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Roscosmos head: Russia to launch 29 rockets in ’21

5:10 pm

Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, announced yesterday that they expect to complete 29 launches in 2021.

These numbers include all Russia’s launches, including the ones done for Arianespace in French Guiana. In my regular launch updates I don’t count those as Russian launches, as they are run and controlled by Arianespace, under Arianespace contracts.

Nonetheless, there should be an increase in the number of Russian launches in ’21, as they should resume OneWeb launches that were halted last year due to that company going into bankruptcy and then recovering. That bankruptcy meant that Russia’s total launches last year were less than half what they predicted.

The increase in ’21 does not mean Russia will successfully complete 29 launches. Rogozin and Roscosmos have for years routinely overstated their goals, and I think they are doing so again. I expect Russia to complete around 20-25 launches by the end of the year. If they top 25 it would make ’21 their best year since ’15.

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Bloomberg editorial: Scrap SLS!

8:38 am

I wonder who has said this before? In a scathing Bloomberg editorial yesterday, the news service called for President Biden to scrap the Space Launch System (SLS) and let private enterprise do the job instead.

The editorial’s opening sentence will sound very familiar to regular readers at this website:

Why is the U.S. government building a space rocket? In particular, why is it building a space rocket that has cost nearly $20 billion and counting, is years behind schedule, relies on outdated technology, suffers by comparison to private-sector alternatives, and has little justification to begin with?

That a major leftwing news source is beginning to endorse private enterprise and lambast SLS is a further sign that the political winds are blowing hard against this giant wasteful boondoggle. Should anything at all go wrong in its upcoming test schedule expect to see more such calls, coming from even more unlikely and unexpected places.

The lumbering thick-headed Washington political community is beginning to finally move towards the right conclusion, only a decade late.

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Texas power outages delay Starliner but not Starship

8:42 am

Boeing announced yesterday that due to the winter storms and power outages in Texas it has delayed the second unmanned demo flight of its Starliner manned capsule from March 25 to no earlier than April 2nd.

Meanwhile, SpaceX’s Starship operation in Boca Chica, Texas has been proceeding practically unaffected by the power outages.

At the southernmost fringes of Texas, SpaceX’s Boca Chica Starship factory hasn’t been insulated from the chaos, though a large Tesla Solar and Energy installation has almost certainly lessened the blow. Highly cognizant of Boca Chica’s shortcomings for industrial-grade power needs, SpaceX installed that solar array and Tesla-made Powerpacks almost three years ago and substantially expanded it in 2020.

As a result, despite major issues posed by freezing weather and power grid instability, SpaceX has managed to keep the lights on and continue work at its Starship factory, while also slowly but surely preparing Starship serial number 10 (SN10) for its first static fire and high-altitude launch.

The weather is clearly slowing the Starship test schedule, but at least the work seems insulated from loss of power.

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Hungarian company awarded NASA contract to develop Moon mini-rover

4:49 pm

A Hungarian company has won a NASA contract worth $225K to develop what the company calls its Puli Moon mini-rover.

Named after a Hungarian breed of dog, the Puli rover is a low-cost platform designed to carry different payloads, including the ice water snooper, which won the 2020 “Honey, I Shrunk the NASA Payload” challenge, a competition organised by the U.S. space agency. Weighing less than 400 grammes (14 oz), its purpose is to probe for water ice by identifying and mapping the subsurface hydrogen content of the lunar soil.

The “news article” at the link appears to be a poorly researched article distributed by Reuters that has now been reprinted without changes by such stalwart American mainstream news outlets like the New York Post and MSN.com, to name two. Neither bothered to do any further research.

The article falsely claims that the airplane-based SOFIA telescope recently confirmed there is water on the Moon. It also claims that this rover will be on a lunar mission next year, something that does not seem likely at all.

A look at the company’s website clarifies things. The company competed in a NASA contest offering its design of a very tiny lightweight rover, won, and was then awarded a larger development contract of $225K. No launch is presently set, though if the company is successful in building it for this cost, they will likely get a berth on a later unmanned mission.

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SpaceX raises another $850 million in investment capital

8:10 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX last week successfully raised another $850 million in investment capital in order to fund both its Starlink and Starship projects.

The article does not detail how the company plans to use the money, though it does also indicate this was not all that was raised.

In addition to SpaceX further building a war chest for its ambitious plans, company insiders and existing investors were able to sell an additional $750 million in a secondary transaction, one of the people said.

If I understand this correctly (which I admit I might not), this means SpaceX now has an additional $1.6 billion on hand in addition to the $2 billion it has previously raised.

Even if it only raised $850 million, that gives it a war chest of almost three billion for both Starlink and Starship. With Starlink already bringing in some earnings, the company should have enough to get done what it aims to do.

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Momentus signs deal to deliver two private cubesats to lunar orbit

11:55 am

Capitalism in space: Momentus has signed a deal with a Singapore startup to provide the transportation to lunar orbit of two cubesats using its next generation space tug.

Momentus Inc. (“Momentus” or the “Company”), a commercial space company offering in-space infrastructure services, and Qosmosys, a new space venture founded in Singapore last year, announced today a service agreement to deliver two cubesats to low lunar orbit as early as 2024 via Momentus’ inaugural lunar mission.

The new contract builds and expands on the agreement announced in January 2021 for delivery of up to four cubesats in low Earth orbit by Momentus’ Vigoride service vehicle, starting in 2022. Qosmosys will expand its novel business ideas to the Moon using a specific bus named Zeus-MS, a version of its Zeus platform it has been developing in cooperation with NuSpace from Singapore, and made specific for lunar missions. Zeus-MS is the precursor to a series of multi-mission platforms that will allow organizations and businesses to host their payloads, and will offer individuals a bespoke, unprecedented line of services to the Moon on regularly scheduled flights.

“We are excited to partner with Momentus again, now onboard Ardoride’s inaugural lunar mission in 2024,” said Francois Dubrulle, CEO of Qosmosys. “Our vision is to make space accessible to all, and Momentus will help us achieve this goal through their efficient orbital services.”

Ardoride, the next generation service vehicle after Vigoride, will extend the range and capabilities of Momentus’s services beginning in 2023.

It is unclear who Qosmosys’ customers are for their lunar Zeus-MS cubesat platform, but I have no doubt they have plenty, many from the university community. For example, universities fund student-built cubesats for educational purposes. Why not make this a project to the Moon, rather than just in Earth orbti? The cost difference would not be much using these new private companies.

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Axiom raises $130 million in investment capital

11:41 am

Capitalism in space: The private space station company Axiom announced today that it has obtained $130 million in investment capital during its most recent round of fund-raising.

The funding will allow the company to expand, including doubling its current workforce of about 110 people this year, Michael Suffredini, president and chief executive of Axiom, said in an interview. It will also support quarterly payments to Thales Alenia Space, which is building the pressurized elements of the first modules. The company recently moved into a two-story building in Houston and is buying a new test facility, with plans to establish a campus at Spaceport Houston, also known as Ellington Airport.

“This is a really the major step for us,” he said. “The B round is typically where you get your first large investment, but more importantly than the money is the community of investors that you put together, so that future rounds are largely from those investors.” That group of investors, he said, was “a perfect fit for us and puts us in a good position, however we want to go forward.”

Suffredini also admitted that while helps get those first modules built for launch to ISS in ’24, they will still need “probably between half a billion and a billion dollars” to build their full private space station.

Sounds like a lot, eh? ISS cost about $100 billion, but that is not including the contributions of the U.S.’s international partners. It is also likely a conservative estimate, as it likely does not include any of NASA’s overhead in connection with the station. Construction officially began in 1994, but actually started a decade earlier when President Reagan first proposed its predecessor, the Freedom station, and those costs are not included as well.

So Axiom will build its private station for about a billion, and get it done in about five years. NASA spent anywhere from $100 to $200 billion, and took more than three decades to get it launched and built.

Which product would you buy?

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SpaceX launches sixty more Starlink satellites; plus an installation report from one customer

10:06 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX tonight successfully launched another 60 Starlink satellites, using its Falcon 9 rocket.

The first stage on its sixth flight however failed to land successfully. It is amazing that we now expect these landings to succeed, proving how reliable we now expect SpaceX’s rocket to be.

The 2021 launch race:

5 SpaceX
3 China
2 Russia
1 Rocket Lab
1 Virgin Orbit

The U.S. now leads China 7 to 3 in the national rankings. Another SpaceX launch is scheduled for tomorrow, followed by a Rocket Lab launch a little more than 24 hours later.

A report from one Starlink customer on his installation experience

The sixty new Starlink satellites bring the constellation to more than 1,100 satellites, allowing SpaceX to continue expanding regions where it is offering the service. Below the fold is an update from reader Steve Golson on his experience installing his own Starlink dish and service in Maine, now running for several days. Rather than cut and past sections, I think it best to quote his email to me in its entirety, including some of the images he sent. The opinions expressed are Steve’s alone, but they are coming from a customer who appears very satisfied with the product, up to now.
» Read more

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1st Vulcan test core stage arrives at Kennedy

9:31 am

Capitalism in space: ULA’s first complete Vulcan core stage, meant at this point only for testing launch procedures, has arrived at Cape Canaveral.

After connecting the launch platform and the rocket to gas and electrical systems at the pad, ULA engineers will run the Vulcan booster and the ground infrastructure through a series of exercises, culminating in loading of thousands of gallons of cryogenic liquid methane and liquid oxygen into the rocket.

Once these tests are complete, the stage will be returned to ULA’s facility in Alabama to be refitted with flight worthy BE-4 engines so it can fly on a later mission. The engines presently attached are test engines.

ULA expects the first flightworthy BE-4 engines to be delivered by Blue Origin by the summer. These will then be incorporated into the first Vulcan to fly (hopefully before the end of the year) and carrying Astrobotic’s unmanned Peregrine lunar lander.

That rocket, as will all Vulcan rockets for the foreseeable future, will be entirely expendable. Though ULA says it intends at some point to recover for reuse the engines of the core stage, they have not delineated a time schedule for when that will happen.

At this point the only customer ULA has for this rocket is the government — especially the military. Vulcan cannot compete in price with SpaceX’s rockets, so I doubt any commercial satellite company will be much interested in it. The military will pay the extra bucks, because it wants more than one launch company for redundancy, and it has already committed to buying Vulcans for the next five years.

Of course, that long term commitment to Vulcan by the military will likely change if other cheaper rockets enter the market. At the present the military is limiting bidding on future launches to just SpaceX and ULA. That cannot hold up in court if other viable rocket companies wish to bid. Expect those new companies to do what SpaceX did when the Air Force refused to let it bid on military launches about five years ago, sue, and win in court.

At that point ULA’s an entirely expendable Vulcan will be very vulnerable to losing its last customer. ULA must make this rocket reusable or it will die as a company.

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Saudi government considering Moon and Mars missions

10:33 am

The new colonial movement: The Saudi government has established a commission for developing its own space program, with missions to either the Moon or/and Mars under consideration.

According to the chairman, only a few weeks separate the Commission from launching an entire branch centered on boosting and encouraging investment in the space field.

…More so, Prince Sultan predicted that the Kingdom, in two years’ time, will finish assembling an integrated crew with international space agencies. The team is expected to mount space exploration missions to Mars and the Moon.

Their stated goal is to help diversify their economy as well as inspire their citizens. Their unstated goal is a need to compete with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which already has a successful Mars orbiter (built in partnership with the U.S.)

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Europa Clipper to fly on commercial rocket, not SLS

11:30 pm

NASA managers have now decided unequivocally to not use SLS to launch Europa Clipper, and will instead choose a commercial rocket in about a year.

During a Feb. 10 presentation at a meeting of NASA’s Outer Planets Assessment Group (OPAG), leaders of the Europa Clipper project said the agency recently decided to consider only commercial launch vehicles for the mission, and no longer support a launch of the spacecraft on the SLS.

“We now have clarity on the launch vehicle path and launch date,” Robert Pappalardo, project scientist for Europa Clipper at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said. That clarity came in the form of a Jan. 25 memo from NASA’s Planetary Missions Program Office to “immediately cease efforts to maintain SLS compatibility” and move forward with a commercial launch vehicle, or CLV, he said.

Though this decision was expected following the approval of the most recent congressional budget for NASA, which contained language allowing NASA to abandon SLS if it thought it wise, this decision continues the string of recent stories that all point toward the eventually abandonment of SLS itself.

At the moment the rocket most likely to win the contract is the Falcon Heavy.

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Turkey to do lunar mission, send astronaut into space

8:59 am

The new colonial movement: Turkey’s leader, Tayyip Erdogan, announced yesterday a new space exploration initiative that will include sending an unmanned probe to the Moon as well as flying an astronaut into space.

“The first rough landing will be made on the moon with our national and authentic hybrid rocket that shall be launched into orbit in the end of 2023 through international cooperation,” Erdogan said, detailing a two-phase mission. Erdogan did not elaborate further on the cooperation. Last month, Erdogan spoke to Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk on possible cooperation in space technologies with Turkish companies.

Speaking in an event in Ankara, Erdogan announced a programme with 10 strategic goals including sending a Turkish citizen to a scientific mission in space.

The manned mission will not be flown by Turkey, but will be purchased from someone else, either Russia or SpaceX or Boeing maybe even China.

The timing of this announcement, the same day the UAE’s Al-Amal probe entered Mars’ orbit, suggests it was prompted by that success, and is an example of keeping up with the Joneses. Whether there is any reality to these proposals however remains to be seen.

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China’s Tienwen-1 enters Mars orbit

8:42 am

The new colonial movement: China’s Tienwen-1, carrying an as-yet-unnamed lander/rover, successfully inserted itself into orbit around Mars early today.

With a successful Mars Orbit Insertion, the craft has entered a highly eccentric, equatorial capture orbit of the planet, and controllers will now spend two months undertaking initial activations and checkouts in Martian orbit for the primary science mission while altering the craft’s orbit from equatorial to polar.

In April 2021, the lander, with the rover inside, will detach from the orbiter and prepare for Entry, Descent, and Landing. Prior to launch, 23 April 2021 was given as the target landing date.

The landing location is within Utopia Planitia and will — if the orbit insertion burn is completed successfully — utilize a combination of aerobraking, parachute descent, retrorocket firing, and airbag deployments to achieve a soft touchdown on the Martian surface. After landing, the rover will be deployed — ideally on the same day — to begin a planned 90 Sol (Martian day) mission to categorize the local environment.

The suspected landing site in Utopia Planitia is at about 25 degrees north latitude. Though it is in the northern lowland plains, this latitude places it south of the latitudes (greater than 30) that scientists now believe ample ice likely exists underground but accessible. The lander/rover carries radar equipment capable of detecting evidence of underground ice, and will look nonetheless. If it finds any, this will be a significant discovery.

Two down, one to go. Next week, on February 18th, the American rover Perseverance will attempt its landing in Jezero crater.

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Falcon Heavy wins contract to launch 1st two Gateway modules

9:47 pm

NASA today awarded SpaceX a $331 million contract to launch the first two components of the Lunar Gateway space station, using its Falcon Heavy rocket.

The Gateway’s Power and Propulsion Element and Habitation and Logistics Outpost will launch in tandem no earlier than May 2024 aboard the Falcon Heavy rocket from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The $331.8 million launch services contract, awarded by NASA’s Launch Services Program at Kennedy, includes the Falcon Heavy launch and “other mission-related costs,” the agency said in a statement. The $331 million contract value is nearly three times the price NASA is paying for a Falcon Heavy launch in July 2022 with the Psyche asteroid probe.

What is significant about this contract is what it does not mention: SLS. Gateway was originally conceived by NASA as a project that would give purpose to the SLS rocket, a rocket that Congress required NASA to build without giving it any mission. Now it appears NASA is looking to build Gateway without SLS, at least on this first launch.

I would throw this news item in the bin containing an number of recent stories, all of which signal that SLS is on increasingly thin ice.

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Musk: Starlink to go public once operational

8:48 am

Capitalism in space: According to a tweet by SpaceX founder Elon Musk, once the Starlink internet satellite constellation is operational and has a “reasonable well” cash flow it will issue and IPO and become a publicly traded stock.

“SpaceX needs to pass through a deep chasm of negative cash flow over the next year or so to make Starlink financially viable,” Musk wrote in another tweet. “Every new satellite constellation in history has gone bankrupt. We hope to be the first that does not.”

Based on the company’s pace of launching satellites and rolling out service, this moment could occur as early as late this year. More likely it will occur in mid-22.

I would also expect that stock to quickly rise in value, and based on the history of all of Musk’s companies, will continue to rise thereafter. Expect also that a significant portion of the investment capital that Starlink will raise will be used to finance the development of Starship and Super Heavy, because Starlink will need that larger rocket to maintain its satellite constellation.

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UAE’s Hope or Al-Amal Mars Orbiter orbital insertion

8:31 am

UPDATE: The probe has apparently achieved orbit.

The new colonial movement: The United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) Mars orbiter, Hope, or Al-Amal in Arabic, is about to insert itself into orbit around the red planet, with that insertion to be confirmed by 11:08 (Eastern).

If you want to watch, I have embedded the live stream below the fold. A warning: The insertion is a relatively interesting event to watch, as the orbiter works autonomously and the signal confirming it happened arrives after the event. Most of the stream is propaganda for the UAE.
» Read more

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Lockheed Martin picks ABL’s rocket to make its first UK launch

9:21 am

Capitalism in space: Lockheed Martin has chosen the smallsat rocket company ABL Space Systems to launch its first UK satellite payload from Shetland.

Lockheed said Feb. 7 that ABL will perform a launch of its RS1 rocket from the Shetland Space Centre, a spaceport to be developed on the island of Unst in the Shetlands, in 2022. The rocket, on a mission called the UK Pathfinder launch, will place into orbit a tug developed by Moog in the UK that will then deploy six 6U cubesats.

The launch will fulfill an award made by the British government in 2018 to support development of a domestic launch capability. The $31 million contract to Lockheed Martin covered a launch, then planned for a spaceport at Sutherland in northern Scotland, as well as Moog’s orbital maneuvering vehicle.

Lockheed did not disclose at the time, though, which vehicle it would use for the launch. The company does not have a small launch vehicle of its own compatible with the spaceport, but has invested in companies working on such vehicles, including ABL Space Systems and Rocket Lab.

It appears Lockheed choose ABL over Rocket Lab because of its mobile launch capability. As designed, its RS1 rocket needs no permanent infrastructure at the launch site. All they need is a concrete pad.

This decision also heightens the competition between the two presently proposed UK spaceports in Sutherland, Scotland, and Unst, Shetland. While planning at Sutherland started earlier, local opposition appears to be slowing it down.

ABL is one of six smallsat rocket companies planning a first orbital launch in 2021. While it is unlikely all will do so, the likelihood is increasing that several will, which will make things very busy in the rocket industry.

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Starship update: Prototype #10 being readied for launch

9:08 am

Link here. Not only have the engines been installed on the tenth Starship prototype, the static fire test is set for this week, maybe as early as today. It appears they are trying to launch the next test flight before the end of February.

At landing they will now fire all three engines, in case one or more fail to light (as happened with prototype #9), and then shut down all but one immediately and let that do the landing burn. This adds redundancy and increases the odds of a successful landing.

The article also provides a detailed update on the status of future Starship and Super Heavy test articles. While #11 is being readied for launch, it appears that, based on what has been learned from #8 and #9, they are dismantling prototypes #12-14 and incorporating changes to #15, which will likely fly after #11.

One aspect of this development program struck me today. These prototypes are essentially expendable rockets. Like it did with its early expendable Falcon 9, SpaceX is using these throw-away prototypes to test ways to make them more reusable and reliable. Unlike the Falcon 9s, however, the company isn’t using these prototypes to launch payloads, at least not at this stage. It isn’t good enough that these prototypes can successfully launch. They must be able to land as well.

I suspect that once during this test program the full rocket begins to reach orbit SpaceX will add payloads, even as they continue to test re-entry and landing. The early flights might produce rockets that successfully bring satellites into space but end up getting destroyed upon return. Those loses will then be used to make later ships better and more likely to return intact.

Eventually, we will have a rocket entirely reusable and flying multiple times, just like the Falcon 9 first stage.

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Tianwen-1 takes first picture of Mars

12:48 pm

Mars as seen by Tianwen-1 for the first time
Click for full image.

The new colonial movement: China’s Tianwen-1Mars spacecraft has taken its first picture of Mars, cropped and reduced to post here to the right.

The photo shows Valles Marineris as the darker splotch in the center-right of the hemisphere, with the northern lowland plain that this canyon feeds into, Chryse Planitia, the triangular dark area to the north east. Both Viking-1 and Mars Pathfinder landed in this region. The whitish border area on the triangle’s eastern flank is the area that Europe’s Rosalind Franklin rover will hopefully land in ’23.

The whitish area that caps the north pole is likely the annual mantle of dry ice that covers the planet’s polar regions down to about 60 degrees latitude each winter. Right now it is early spring in the northern hemisphere, and that mantle has only begun to sublimate away. In another few months that mantle will disappear entirely, exposing the terrain below it.

Finally, the very bright edge on the planet’s eastern limb is either caused by a cloud layer, or is simply an over-exposure. Hard to say which.

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ULA’s CEO advocates old way of doing things

11:17 am

In a webinar yesterday the CEO of ULA, Tory Bruno, argued that there is too much money being invested in new rocket companies and the money would be better spent developing in-space activities instead.

To be attractive to investors, these new space activities should be dual-use with both commercial and national security applications, Bruno said.

The launch market is becoming dangerously “overheated” for a couple of reasons. One is simply that there are too many launch companies chasing a “more or less fixed size” pool of customers, Bruno said. In the large rocket market, he said, prices are falling and the demand for satellite launches “has remained stubbornly inelastic.”

“It’s down to a third or even a fourth of the cost of what access to space was just a handful of years ago,” Bruno said. “Yet we have seen no increase in the overall size of the launch market nor have we seen a corresponding tripling or quadrupling of space activity.”

While Bruno is correct when he says that there are likely too many new launch companies, he is so wrong about his belief that the customer base “has remained stubbornly inelastic” that he is practically in the wrong galaxy. The lower costs he complains about are exactly why there is so much investment capital being poured into the new launch companies, because those investors see those lower costs attracting many new customers, something that is demonstrated by the growth of the launch rate in the past few years (something that I expect will explode in the next two years).

Many of these new companies will fail, for any number of reasons. No matter. A large number will succeed, and attract more than enough customers to make a profit.

What Bruno really is complaining about are the new lower launch costs. ULA can’t match them, and for this reason faces a crisis in that it might not be able to attract any customers at all in the coming years, even with the introduction of its new Vulcan rocket. And though Bruno has done a good job trying to make ULA competitive in this new market, he appears to have generally failed to change the company significantly. For example, why hasn’t ULA tried to market its Atlas 5 and Vulcan rockets for multi-payload smallsat launches, as SpaceX did with the recent launch of 143 smallsats on one Falcon 9? I can’t think of any reason why ULA’s rockets couldn’t do the same. Yet the company has done nothing to try to market itself to this smallsat industry. Instead, they have let Rocket Lab, Virgin Orbit, and now SpaceX grab it, along with at least four or five new smallsat rocket companies about to do their first launches.

Instead, Bruno advocated during this webinar that the federal government get involved, acting to encourage investors to leave the launch market and instead focus on building companies that only do things in space.

What a deal! The government helps to limit the number of new rocket companies, thus protecting ULA’s market share. ULA in turn can continue to charge its high prices, because the new in-space companies the government subsidized will have few launch options. In fact, the high launch prices that would result from a smaller launch market would likely force the federal government to also subsidize the launch costs for the new in-space companies so they can even afford to get to orbit.

All for the benefit of old big space companies like ULA, who for decades did nothing to innovate or lower the cost to launch.

I think what Bruno is really signaling to us here is that he is not hopeful for the future of his company in today’s present competitive free market, and is thus advocating government intervention to save his company.

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Starlink now has over 10,000 users

9:46 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX revealed yesterday that its Starlink internet constellation now has over 10,000 users in both the U.S. and elsewhere.

The update on Starlink’s customer base came in a petition to the FCC, with SpaceX asking that Starlink be designated an “Eligible Telecommunications Carrier” or ETC. The company noted that receiving this designation is necessary for Starlink to provide service to regions in “Alabama, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.”

SpaceX was awarded access to those regions under the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunities Fund, an auction to bring broadband services to rural areas. The FCC in December awarded SpaceX with nearly $900 million in federal subsidies in the first phase of the auction.

“Designating Starlink Services as an ETC is in the public interest because it will enable the company to receive support that will facilitate rapid deployment of broadband and voice service to the Service Areas at speeds and latency comparable to terrestrial systems in urban locations,” SpaceX wrote in the filing on Thursday.

One of my readers, Steve Golson, emailed me yesterday to tell me he is one of those rural customers, as he is located in Maine.

We are at latitude 43.2°N which was too far south for their early beta program, but they’ve just opened it up to us. I signed up back in June 2020, when the Starlink beta signup first went live. Yesterday I received this email:

“Starlink is now available in limited supply in your service area. … Availability is limited so orders must be completed within 15 minutes of landing on the order page. If you are not able to order at this time, the Starlink team will continue to send updates as more capacity becomes available.”

I ordered right away, and I was notified that the dish shipped today, with delivery late next week by FedEx Ground. Cost is $500 for the dish, WiFi router, power supply, cables, mounting tripod. Monthy cost is $99. That’s the beta cost, but I suspect their final costs will be similar.

Now I’m getting a roof mount ready. You *really* need an unobstructed view of the whole sky. The very cool Starlink app (iOS and Android) shows you how much of your sky needs to be unobstructed.

He promises to give further updates as his service rolls out.

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NASA awards Firefly lunar contract

9:29 am

Capitalism in space: NASA yesterday announced that it has awarded the new smallsat rocket company Firefly a $93 million contract to build a lunar lander for delivering scientific payloads to the Moon’s surface.

This is the first delivery awarded to Firefly Aerospace, which will provide the lunar delivery service using its Blue Ghost lander, which the company designed and developed at its Cedar Park facility. This facility also will house the integration of NASA and any non-NASA payloads, and also will serve as the company’s mission operations center for the 2023 delivery.

The lander is based on the design of Israel’s Beresheet lunar lander that failed in its landing attempt in 2019. After that failure a group of Israeli engineers from that project formed their own company, and partnered with Firefly to build a new lander, which is now dubbed Blue Ghost.

The NASA contract itself replaces OrbitBeyond, which had won a lunar landing contract initially but had backed out in 2019.

Finally, the timing of this announcement immediately after Firefly had revamped its board of directors to remove its main Ukrainian backer from an obvious management position is most telling. Suggests to me that they did that revamping in direct response to NASA’s concerns, and once done NASA could then move forward with the contract award.

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Biden administration endorses Artemis program

9:14 am

During a press conference yesterday Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki stated that the Biden administration plans to continue the Artemis manned lunar program that was initiated by the Trump administration.

“Through the Artemis program, the United States government will work with industry and international partners to send astronauts to the surface of the moon — another man and a woman to the moon,” Psaki told reporters in a White House press briefing Thursday. “Certainly, we support this effort and endeavor,” she added.

The Biden administration was under pressure to endorse Artemis, coming from its own party. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress want the pork it represents to them. This statement now aligns Biden with Congress. The American effort to return to the Moon, established by Trump, is now practically engraved in stone.

What the statement that Psaki read did not detail is whether that support will include the SLS rocket or the Orion capsule. Nor did her statement indicate any time schedule for a landing, which adds weight to the supposition that they are going to abandon the Trump’s effort to push for a 2024 manned landing on the Moon.

Moreover, the letter sent to the White House on February 3rd by eleven Democrats endorsing Artemis (available here [pdf]), also said nothing about SLS or Orion. Instead, it was more intent on encouraging the White House to award contracts to the private sector to build the manned lunar lander. NASA had announced on February 1st that it was delaying its decision on who should build it, and those Democrats did not want that delay to result in the contracts getting killed.

Both statements tell us is that SLS itself is presently on very thin ice. Congress wants Artemis, but Artemis is no longer synonymous with SLS. For the past two years the Trump administration had been awarding contracts to numerous private companies to design and build many components of Artemis, rather than have NASA do the designing and building (as it had with SLS). Those contracts have created a cohort of new vested interests that rely on Artemis, all of which I am sure are screaming at their representatives in Congress to keep their work funded.

Furthermore, SpaceX’s development of Starship is clearly showing everyone that an alternative to SLS does exist, and could be operational for much less and much sooner.

To my mind, all this evidence suggests that the Washington political world is getting itself ready for the possibility of abandoning SLS. They don’t want to, but if alternatives to its pork are available that are also more productive, they are steeling themselves for making the difficult political decision of switching.

This evidence also suggests that the Biden administration will continue the policies I outlined in my 2017 policy paper Capitalism in Space (available as a free download here [pdf]) and adopted by the Trump administration. I had recommended that all design and construction should be taken from NASA and given to many different private companies, with that private sector also owning what they build while competing for those government dollars. NASA would outline the project’s goals and concept, and then act merely as a customer which would find others to execute those goals and concepts, as quickly and as cheaply as possible.

If the Biden administration is embracing these recommendations, this is very good news. While the motives of these corrupt politicians might be bad, the result could be very good for the U.S. Allowing the private sector to do the job means it might actually get done, rapidly and for much less. It will also help fuel the growth of a very robust American space industry, which once established will soon no longer depend solely on the government for its business. The lower cost required by the competition to get NASA business will encourage others to buy the products, and soon thereafter the government will become irrelevant to this industry’s success.

This is the model used in the early 20th century to jump start the airline industry. It worked. It now looks like NASA and the govenment will do it in space.

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Firefly shakes up board of directors

9:09 am

The smallsat rocket company Firefly, only a month or so from the first orbital test flight of its Alpha rocket, has drastically changed its board of directors, removing its main financial backer from the Ukraine and replacing him with Americans.

Among those no longer on the board is Firefly’s financial savior, Polyakov, who has dual Ukrainian-British citizenship and lives in Edinburgh. This is a substantial change, as it moves the company’s key financial backer from a role as a decision maker to that of a stockholder. Markusic said Polyakov has the rights of a stockholder but that Firefly’s board now directs the company. Polyakov remains Firefly’s largest shareholder.

“These changes are part of the logical growth and development of Firefly,” Polyakov told Ars. “I’m extremely proud of what we have accomplished to date. Moving forward, I have the utmost confidence in Tom, his team, and the new board members.”

Some concerns had previously been raised about Polyakov’s background. This move, however, is more due to having an all-American board of directors, which should bolster Firefly’s efforts to work with the defense community.

Essentially, the company and Polykov have moved Polykov out of a sensitive position so as to make the company seem more palatable to the federal government. His presence on the board would have likely made it difficult to win any government contracts. Making him in name just a stockholder will reduce that issue.

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SpaceX competitors lobbying to kill FCC subsidy for Starlink

9:00 am

A lobbying effort instigated by some of SpaceX competitors in the rural internet service business is now working to kill the $886 million subsidy the FCC had awarded the company for developing its Starlink internet constellation.

The losers in the awards process apparently are teaming up with the Democrats to challenge all the awards, with SpaceX their main target.

The [award to SpaceX was] made when Trump administration appointees still controlled the FCC and now the agency is led by Biden appointees who could cut off applicants it considers dubious. Last month, 160 House and Senate members urged the FCC to scrutinize recipients, in part because network construction takes time. “We fear that we will not know whether funds were improperly spent for years to come,” said the lawmakers.

There is a “a need for proper upfront assessment,” Representative Jim Clyburn, of South Carolina, the No. 3 House Democrat, said in an email. He said many applicants claim to be able to deliver faster service to new customers than they are delivering to current subscribers.

This is a fight for government hand-outs, period. The losers are now using political pressure to change the decision. And since the Democrats generally hate SpaceX (and Elon Musk) because it is so successful at actually achieving what it sets out to do, they are glad to help them. Not only will it bring these politicians campaign donations (called bribes if you are honest), it will destroy the one space company that is proving that capitalism and freedom works.

From my perspective, no one, including SpaceX, should get these funds. SpaceX is proving they aren’t necessary to get the job done (bringing fast internet service to rural communities). Moreover, the federal government really doesn’t have the cash, deep in debt as it is.

But then, my perspective is now considered quaint, even “raaaaaaacist”, in our modern corrupt Marxist society.

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SpaceX launches another 60 Starlink satellites

11:29 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX tonight successfully launched another 60 Starlink satellites using its Falcon 9 rocket.

The first stage completed its fifth flight, landing successfully on the drone ship in the Atlantic. Both fairings were also used.

The 2021 launch race:

4 SpaceX
2 China
1 Rocket Lab
1 Virgin Orbit
1 Russia

The U.S. now leads China 6 to 2 in the national rankings. SpaceX had planned another launch later this morning, but they have delayed that launch one day until tomorrow.

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Hans Koenigsmann, 4th person hired by Musk at SpaceX, retiring

10:11 am

The fourth person Elon Musk ever hired when he was starting SpaceX, Hans Koenigsmann, has announced that he is retiring.

SpaceX vice president of build and flight reliability Hans Koenigsmann is retiring and has begun transitioning his role to former top NASA official William “Bill” Gerstenmaier, according to note to employees that was seen by CNBC.

Essentially, Koenigsmann and Gerstenmaier will be trading places. Gerstenmaier has been a consultant at SpaceX, will now move into Koenigsmann’s position, while Koenigsmann will become a technical advisor similar to what Gerstenmaier has been.

Without doubt Koenigsmann is one the the main reasons why SpaceX has become as successful as it has. I am sure Elon Musk will miss him.

While I have heard sources in the space community happy about the choice of Gersternmaier to replace him, I have reservations. Gersternmaier was in charge of NASA’s manned space program for almost the entire period it was trying to build SLS and Orion, and was the key planner behind its numerous delays and problems. While he started out well at NASA, those later years make me think of him as a typical Washington bureaucrat, spinning problems to defuse negative publicity rather than fixing them quickly. It was this spinning over the problems with SLS that I think finally got him fired by the Trump administration.

I hope I am wrong. I also know that if I am not, the odds are high that Gerstenmaier will not last long in this position. Musk does not tolerate spin.

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