Tag: competition

ULA completes its 4th launch this year and last Atlas-5 launch for the Space Force

9:10 am

Though ULA’s Atlas-5 rocket still has a number of launches on its manifest before it is retired, early this morning the company successfully completed the last Atlas-5 launch for the Space Force, the rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

This was ULA’s fourth launch in 2024, the most in a year for the company since 2022. The leader board for this year’s launch race remains unchanged:

74 SpaceX
31 China
8 Rocket Lab
8 Russia

American private enterprise however now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 87 to 47, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world combined, including American companies, 74 to 60.

Note: A Rocket Lab that had been scheduled for today has been delayed two days.

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FAA releases proposed environmental assessment of Boca Chica permitting more Starship/Superheavy launches

10:19 am

Superheavy/Starship lifting off on March 14, 2024
Superheavy/Starship lifting off on March 14, 2024

In advance of several planned public meetings, the FAA today released [pdf] its proposed environmental assessment of SpaceX’s proposal to increase the number of orbital launches allowed per year from Boca Chica from 5 to 25.

The report makes for some fascinating reading. First and foremost it indicates the FAA’s general approval of this new launch cadence. That approval however must also be given by the public in comments at those meetings, as well as by the National Park Service (NPS), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Expect serious objections from the NPS and USFSW, both of which have acted to slow or stop SpaceX in the past, when each was given the opportunity. Both have a new opportunity here.
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Boeing completes full series of static hot fire engine burns on Starliner while docked to ISS

9:38 am

Boeing announced today that engineers have successfully completed a full series of static hot fire engine burns testing all of Starliner’s attitude thrusters while still dockecd to ISS.

The one-pulse firings were designed to confirm the performance of each thruster. Aft-facing thrusters were fired for 1.2 seconds and all others for .40 seconds. Between each firing, the team reviewed real-time data and all thrusters performed at peak thrust rating values, ranging from 97-102%. The helium system also remained stable. Additionally, an RCS oxidizer isolation valve that was not fully seated previously, was cycled several times during today’s testing and is now operating normally.

This is the second time the spacecraft has been hot fired successfully while docked, an integrated operation the station and Starliner teams will also conduct during future long-duration missions.

This result is not a surprise, based on the information provided during the most recent briefing. It confirms the data obtained during previous hot fire tests both on a Starliner on the ground and the Starliner docked to ISS. Not only does it appear that Boeing has enough information to fix this problem so it does not occur again, it has proven unequivocally that these thrusters as well as the helium leaks inside the thruster systems pose no unusual risk for a return in the capsule.

NASA and Boeing have a planned review of these results this coming week, when we should expect them to name a return date, likely sometime in the first two weeks of August.

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SpaceX launches another 20 Starlink satellites

9:30 am

I had my days wrong last night. In the previous post I said that SpaceX had another launch scheduled for later tonight. In actuality that launch was today, but in the wee hours early this morning. Four hours after a Falcon 9 placed 23 Starlink satellites into orbit from Cape Canaveral, another Falcon 9 placed 20 Starlink satellites into orbit from Vandenberg in California. That’s three launches in just one day.

The first stage completed its seventeenth launch, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

74 SpaceX
31 China
8 Rocket Lab
8 Russia

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 86 to 47, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world combined, including American companies, 74 to 59.

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SpaceX launches another 23 Starlink satellites

10:17 pm

SpaceX tonight completed its second launch in two nights since resuming launches after a two-week halt after the July 11th upper stage launch failure, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral and placing another 23 Starlink satellites in orbit.

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

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

73 SpaceX
31 China
8 Rocket Lab
8 Russia

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 85 to 47, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world combined, including American companies, 73 to 59.

SpaceX has another launch scheduled for tomorrow night.

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Local billionaire landowner renews his oppposition to the Sutherland spaceport

10:58 am

Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea
Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea.

An effort by the proposed Sutherland spaceport on the north coast of Scotland to place a tracking dish on a nearby peak — where other telecommunication dishes are already installed — is now being fought by local billionaire landowner Anders Holch Povlsen, who had previously tried and failed to stop construction of the spaceport entirely.

The spaceport’s main customer, the rocket startup Orbex, has already experienced endless red tape from the United Kingdom’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). It applied for a launch license in February 2022, and almost two-and-a-half years later still has not gotten an approval. It had previously announced a first launch that year, and has been stymied since, not only by the CAA but by local authorities who have demanded it make many changes to its construction plans.

Povlsen, who has himself invested in the competing Saxavord spaceport on the Shetland Islands, has repeatedly acted to block Sutherland, so far with no success. This new suit is especially absurd — claiming the new dish would harm the local landscape — which is why the local councils appear ready to reject it.
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To guarantee no capsule debris hits inhabited areas, SpaceX to move its manned splashdowns to Pacific

10:32 am

As part of the changes SpaceX is instituting to the de-orbit procedures of its Dragon capsules in order to end any chance parts of the service module will fall in inhabited areas (as has happened several times in the past few years) the company will be shifting all manned splashdowns to the Pacific Ocean.

Repeated issues with large chunks of debris from Dragon — “trunks” where the fuel and electrical supplies are held — have repeatedly crashed down in areas ranging from Australia to North Carolina. One measure to fix that will be tasking future spacecraft after Crew-9, perhaps as soon as Crew-10, to splash down on the U.S. Pacific coast, SpaceX said during a press conference today (July 26).

“What we’ll do is we’ll implement a software change to complete the deorbit burn before jettisoning the trunk, like we did with Dragon-1, and then the trunk will intentionally land […] in an unpopulated area of the ocean,” Sarah Walker, SpaceX’s director of Dragon mission management, said in the livestreamed briefing. “So to make this change possible, we’ll move a Dragon recovery vessel to the Pacific sometime next year.”

Crew-9 is now scheduled to launch to ISS on August 18th on a six month mission, landing sometime in February 2025. Crew-10 would launch about that time and land sometime in August, 2025.

Side note: The announcement yesterday of August 18th for the launch of the next Dragon manned mission suggests NASA is now confident it can determine a date prior to that for returning Starliner. This reinforces the fact that the astronauts and Starliner are not “stranded” on the station, and any news source that states or even implies such a thing indicates it is a place where you are likely getting junk news, on all its stories.

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SpaceX’s Falcon 9 resumes launches, successfully launching 23 Starlink satellites

11:44 pm

SpaceX tonight successfully resumed launches of its Falcon 9 rocket after a July 11, 2024 launch was a failure due to an engine leak in the upper stage. The rocket lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, successfully placing 23 Starlink satellites into orbit.

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

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

72 SpaceX
31 China
8 Rocket Lab
8 Russia

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 84 to 47, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world combined, including American companies, 72 to 59.

SpaceX has additional launches scheduled for tomorrow and the next day, so these numbers are only temporary.

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Sierra Space successfully completes 2nd test-to-failure of a full scale LIFE inflatable module

11:40 am

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

Sierra Space today announced it has completed a second successful test-to-failure of a full scale version of its LIFE inflatable module, intended for use not only on Blue Origin’s proposed Orbital Reef space station, but also available for purchase by other space station.

The latest test by the numbers:

  • Company’s second Ultimate Burst Pressure test of a full-size, inflatable space station structure occurred on June 18
  • Test unit stood over 20’ tall and was comparable in size to an average family home
  • The article was 300 m³ in volume, or 1/3rd the volume of the International Space Station
  • Test results exceeded NASA’s recommended x4 safety levels by 22%
  • Two 4-ft x 4-ft steel blanking plates were integrated into the highest loaded cylinder section of the article; both were 50 lbs. lighter than the ones used in the first full-scale test and accommodate larger windows

The test article in the company’s historic first full-scale burst test last December peaked at 77 psi, which well exceeded (+27%) NASA’s recommended level of 60.8 psi (maximum operating pressure of 15.2 psi multiplied by a safety factor of four). This most recent test in June showed similar results – within five percent of the pressure loading of December’s test article – with this one reaching 74 psi, exceeding NASA’s 4x safety factor by 22 percent. These back-to-back test results accelerate Sierra Space’s path to flight certification, verifying scalability for 10 cubic-meter and up to 1,400 cubic-meter structures based on the company’s current softgoods inflatable architecture. Sierra Space is currently gearing up for a first test of its 500 cubic-meter space station technology next year.

Video of this test, dramatically edited with its own music soundtrack, can be seen at the link.

It is intriguing that the only developments related to Orbital Reef appear to come from Sierra Space. From Blue Origin — supposedly the lead company in that project — we hear almost nothing. Though Sierra Space has said the partnership is still solid, it has also made it clear it is building the LIFE module not just for Orbital Reef. I think it is hedging its bets, anticipating that Orbital Reef will be another Blue Origin dud, and wants to market itself to others.

Hat tip to stringer Jay for this story.

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NASA/Boeing: Cause of Starliner thruster failure identified

10:21 am

According to NASA and Boeing officials, ground static fire engine tests have now identified the likely cause of the thruster failures on the Starliner capsule during its docking to ISS in early June, and puts them in a position next week to determine a return date for the capsule and its two astronauts.

It appears the problem is related to teflon seals in the thrusters, detected while engineers did a series of tests on the ground with another Starliner capsule. Based on this information, Boeing thinks it can fix the problem on future capsules, while also insuring there will be no problems returning the astronauts from ISS.

The thrusters in question are all attitude thrusters, where there is a lot of redundancy and the issue has been seen to be well controlled from the start. The larger thrusters used for the undocking and de-orbit burn have been tested as well, and have not shown any similar issues at all.

The ground tests have also identified the cause of the helium leaks within the capsule engine system. Boeing will use this data to fix later capsules as well. These leaks are not a concern for the return to Earth.

The plan now is to do in the next few days one more set of static fire tests with the capsule docked on ISS, doing short bursts with all the attitude thrusters to further confirm what has been learned on the ground. If that goes as expected, a final meeting next week will determine the return date for the capsule and crew.

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Hungary/Axiom finalize deal to fly a passenger on its AX-4 commercial manned mission to ISS

9:52 am

Hungary and Axiom have finalized their agreement to fly 32-year-old mechanical engineer Tibor Kapu on Axiom’s AX-4 commercial manned mission to ISS, presently targeting an October 2024 launch date.

That flight will use a Dragon capsule and last 14 days. Kapu would be the second Hungarian to ever fly in space, following Bertalan Farkas’s eight day mission in 1980 in a Soyuz capsule during the Soviet era.

Hungary and Axiom had worked out an initial agreement in 2022, with the country to pay the company $100 million for the flight. At that time the flight was to last 30 days, not two weeks. It was also unclear if the mission would be free-flying or dock with ISS, or even whether it would fly on a Dragon or Starliner capsule. There is no word on how these changes have impacted the price.

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Saxavord: We will get our last required spaceport license by September

11:45 pm

Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea
Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea.

My heart be still: According to one official of the Saxavord spaceport in the Shetland Islands, it expects to get its last required spaceport license from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) of the United Kingdom sometime in September of this year.

In a presentation at the Farnborough International Airshow here July 23, Scott Hammond, deputy chief executive and operations director of SaxaVord Spaceport, said he expected the spaceport to receive the last of the licenses from U.K. regulators in September needed to host the inaugural launch of Rocket Factory Augsburg’s RFA ONE rocket there.

The red tape getting the first launch off at Saxavord has been odious and disheartening, to say the least. After almost two years of deliberations, the CAA awarded the spaceport its spaceport license in December 2023. This finally allowed it to be a spaceport, but apparently that was insufficient for it to be allowed to do any launches. The CAA then took three more months to issue what it called the range license.

Saxavord was still not allowed to do any launches. The CAA demanded one more license for what it calls “airspace access for launches.” I have no idea how this is different than the range license, unless the CAA has separated control of the surface from the air space, and thus requires two separate licenses for each. Either way, getting that approved has now dragged on for months. No one should be confident Saxavord’s September prediction for approval will turn out to be true.

All these licenses however will still not permit any launches to proceed. The CAA also requires each particular rocket company to get its own launch license. Though Saxavord as well as Rocket Factory are targeting a launch before the end of the year, soon after getting that last airspace license, they might be counting their chickens before they hatch, based on the CAA’s track record with Virgin Orbit.

After Cornwall got all its CAA licenses to allow Virgin Orbit to launch from that airport, Virgin thought it would be able to get is launch license quickly and launch within only a few months. Instead, the CAA took about a year to issue Virgin its launch license, with that long delay eventually becoming the main reason the company went bankrupt.

Rocket Factory unfortunately appears to have locked itself into Saxavord. It has already done a static fire test of its first stage there, and has delivered the rocket’s upper stage. If the CAA takes its time again giving its approval, the startup might find itself bleeding cash, as Virgin Orbit did.

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