Tag: competition

Firefly postpones its next launch attempt to review data

9:31 am

Firefly yesterday scrubbed its second attempt to launch eight cubesats for NASA and others using its Alpha rocket, postponing the next launch attempt in order to the review the ground system issue that caused the two launch aborts on the first launch attempt on July 1, 2024.

In a social media post, the company stated that it’s standing down “to give the team more time to evaluate data and test systems from the first attempt. … We will work closely with the range and our NASA customer to determine the next launch window,” Firefly wrote on X.

This would have been Alpha’s fifth orbital launch. No new launch date has been announced, though it is expected to occur before the end of this month.

Though it has only flown a few times (with some of those launches failures or only partially successful), Firefly’s Alpha rocket has a robust launch manifest, with its biggest contract with Lockheed Martin for 25 launches. It has signed deals to launch from Wallops Island and Vandenberg, as well as the Esrange spaceport in Sweden. And it also has a contract to build the first stage for Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket.

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Two German-built spy satellites apparently failed immediately after launch

9:17 am

According to a report in the German press, two spy satellites launched in December 2023 apparently never became operational because the antennas on both failed to deploy.

According to the German publication Der Spiegel, the antennas on the satellites cannot be unfolded. Engineers with OHB have tried to resolve the issue by resetting the flight software, performing maneuvers to vibrate or shake the antennas loose, and more to no avail.

As a result, last week, German lawmakers were informed that the two new satellites will probably not go into operation as planned.

The report also notes that, because both satellites never became operational, they remain the responsibility of the building, a German company OHB. It will have to replace them out of its own pocket. It also appears that the company never tested the antenna deployment system prior to launch.

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SpaceX gets NASA contract to launch gamma-ray space telescope

9:09 am

NASA yesterday announced that it has awarded SpaceX a contract to launch a new gamma-ray space telescope, dubbed the Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI), using its Falcon 9 rocket and targeting an August 2027 launch date.

The firm-fixed-price contract has a value of approximately $69 million, which includes launch services and other mission related costs. The COSI mission currently is targeted to launch August 2027 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

This wide-field gamma-ray telescope will study energetic phenomena in the Milky Way and beyond, including the creation and destruction of matter and antimatter and the final stages of the lives of stars. NASA’s COSI mission will probe the origins of the Milky Way’s galactic positrons, uncover the sites of nucleosynthesis in our galaxy, perform studies of gamma-ray polarization, and find counterparts to multi-messenger sources. The compact Compton telescope combines improved sensitivity, spectral resolution, angular resolution, and sky coverage to facilitate groundbreaking science.

The stated launch price gives us a sense of what SpaceX is charging these days for launches. The contract award also illustrates once again why the delays in developing ULA’s Vulcan and Blue Origin’s New Glenn rockets — caused by Blue Origin’s difficulties in manufacturing its BE-4 rocket engine — has ended up costing both companies a lot of money in sales. SpaceX keeps getting these launch contracts because Vulcan and New Glenn are not yet flying operationally. Vulcan has flown once, but it is probably isn’t capable of adding additional launches to is manifest. More important, the rocket is not yet reusable, and probably could not match SpaceX’s price.

As for New Glenn, it supposedly will make its first launch this fall, but we shall see. It remains four-plus years behind schedule, and though it is described as reusable, its first stage landing vertically like a Falcon 9, it is doubtful it will become doing this on its first launches. It needs to prove out its systems first.

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Las Vegas space-related resort (claiming it will be a spaceport) gets FAA airport license

8:56 am

A project to build a space-related resort near Las Vegas has now obtained an airport license from the FAA.

The Federal Aviation Administration said small aircrafts can take off from the site of the Las Vegas Executive Airport, which is proposed to be built on about 240 acres of rural land about 45 minute drive away from Las Vegas. The plan is to develop the site into a Las Vegas Spaceport, according to a news release.

The FAA approval said it doesn’t oppose an airport at the site, the proposed takeoffs won’t need clearance from air traffic control and won’t operate in FAA-controlled airspace. If the airport wants to change any of its operations, it would need FAA approval.

The project, dubbed the Las Vegas Spaceport, intends to build a hotel and space-related training facilities to attract space geeks, and claims it will eventually add a launchpad, but considering its location, that last claim is very unlikely. The airport license however will allow it to add flight-training to its portfolio.

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SpaceX launches 20 Starlink satellites

8:27 am

SpaceX early this morning launched another 20 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

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

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

70 SpaceX
29 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the world combined in successful launches, 81 to 44, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including other American companies, 70 to 55.

To get a sense of how incredible SpaceX’s launch pace this year has been, those 70 launches, completed in only days more than first half of the 2024, matches the American record for launches in a entire year, that was set in 1966 and remained the record until 2022.

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Florida approves expansion of spaceport territories

9:32 am

Map of potential Florida spaceports

The Florida legislature has now approved two new locations in Florida where rocket launches can take place.

Governor Ron DeSantis signed off on a bill that, as of Monday, will add South Florida’s Homestead Air Reserve Base and the panhandle’s Tyndall Air Force Base to Florida’s growing spaceport territories.

The map to the right shows the spaceport locations within Florida. While the state government might now allow launches from these locations, it is unclear if either military facility is entertaining the idea.

Regardless, the Florida government is clearly intent on encouraging and attracting this new industry to its state.

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Blue Origin expands deal to fly citizens free on New Shepard

9:16 am

Blue Origin, in partnership with a non-profit, has expanded its program to fly citizens free on suborbital flights of New Shepard, adding India and what it calls “the small island developing states (SIDS)” to the recently announced deal to fly a Nigerian.

The non-profit, dubbed Space Exploration and Research Agency (SERA), has purchased one seat on each of the next half dozen flights, and will only charge passengers $2.50 for the ticket.

In an unprecedented move, SERA will allow people around the world to vote on which citizens will take the approximately 11-minute journey. Anyone living in one of the program’s partner nations can apply to secure a seat. Applicants must be proficient in English, at least 18 years of age, and meet Blue Origin’s parameters for height, weight, physical fitness, and citizenship.

Five of the seats will be allocated to specific nations, and candidates will be voted on by citizens of those nations. The sixth will be open to anyone within a SERA-partnered country and chosen through a global vote. Remaining seat assignments will be announced later this year.

Overall, this continues the PR stunt nature of Blue Origin’s suborbital New Shepard, which apparently does not have enough business to fill its passenger manifest, and thus is arranging these give-aways. While the gesture is nice, it would be far better if the company got its orbital rocket off the ground and actually began flying real cargos and passengers into space.

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PLD pushes for first orbital launch from French Guiana in 2025

10:40 am

The Spanish rocket startup PLD announced last week that it has invested more than $10 million in developing its own launchpad and assembly facility at France’s French Guiana spaceport, and is targeting 2025 for the first orbital launch of its Miura-5 rocket.

The launcher company PLD Space has announced today an investment of 10 million euros in MIURA 5 Launch Complex at Guiana Space Center (CSG), Europe’s spaceport in Kourou (French Guiana), owned by the French Space Agency (CNES) and the European Space Agency (ESA). With the first launch of its rocket at the end of 2025, PLD Space will become the first non-institutional launch operator that will go to orbit from this historical base.

The company is reconfiguring the launchpad used by France to launch its Diamant rocket back in the 1960s and 1970s. It will include “its own launch zone and a preparation area, comprising an integration hangar, a clean room, a control center, and both commercial and work offices.”

Right now it appears that PLD along with several other European rocket startups are going to bypass a number of American rocket startups that had had a significant headstart, but also appear to be stalled in the last year or so because of a new regulatory framework at the FAA.

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New Polish suborbital rocket to be test flown from Andoya spaceport in Norway

10:26 am

Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea
Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea

A new Polish suborbital rocket, dubbed “ILR-33 Amber 2K,” and being developed by the Łukasiewicz Institute of Aviation, will do its next test flight from the Andoya spaceport in Norway.

After four consecutive test missions completed successfully in Poland, the next stage of preparations of the ILR-33 AMBER 2K to reach the edge of space will take place this year in July. Polish technology will be tested in Norway where one of the key European space centers for launching space vehicles is located.

According to this report, this rocket has a core stage with a hybrid-fueled engine plus two strap-on solid-fueled boosters, a configuration rare for suborbital rockets. After this test flight it will then begin operational suborbital flights, run by a Polish company Thorium from 2025 to 2027.

This deal is another competitive blow to the Saxaford and Sutherland spaceports in the United Kingdom. Both started commercial operations years ahead of either Andoya or Esrange, but because of red tape nothing has been yet allowed to launch from either. This Polish deal one of several for both the Andoya and Esrange spaceports that might have gone to the UK otherwise.

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SpaceX studying changes to de-orbit procedures for Dragon service module

10:09 am

Because it appears the trunk section of the service module of SpaceX’s Dragon capsules actually survives re-entry, the company is now studying changes to its de-orbit procedures so that it can guarantee that trunk will not crash on land, as has happened now three times in the past two years.

The solution [a NASA official] said NASA and SpaceX are looking at involves changing deorbiting procedures. Currently, the trunk is released before the capsule performs its orbit burn. That means the trunk can remain in orbit for months before making an uncontrolled reentry.

Instead, [that NASA official] said engineers are examining doing the deorbit burn and then releasing the trunk. That would provide more control of where the trunk reenters, ensuring that any debris that survives reentry lands in unpopulated regions.

To make this new procedure work they need to recalculate the fuel requirements for doing the de-orbit burn. It also requires them to figure out when to detach the trunk after the burn. I expect SpaceX to successfully implement these changes before the next Dragon launch, whether manned or unmanned.

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Ispace’s Resilience lunar lander completes thermal vacuum testing

10:01 am

The Japanese startup Ispace announced late last week that its second lunar lander, formerly names Hakuto-R2 and now dubbed Resilience, has successfully completed thermal vacuum testing and is on schedule for a launch before the end of this year.

The testing was completed at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Tsukuba Space Center in Tsukuba, Japan, where the agency operates a large testing facility. The flight model was assembled at the facility and all payloads or testing models were integrated into the lunar lander before testing began. All test success criteria were met; ispace engineers are now reviewing the detailed data that RESILIENCE collected during the ten-day testing regime. The results will allow engineers to optimize the spacecraft thermally for spaceflight as well as improve flight operation procedures.

Thermal vacuum testing is conducted in a large chamber that allows the lunar lander to experience conditions similar to what it will face during its journey through outer space including extreme temperatures in a vacuum environment. Initial test results indicated successful operation of power systems, guidance, navigation and control (GNC) equipment, radio communications, and thermal control of the lander while simulating an actual spaceflight. During testing in the chamber, ispace operators utillized the lander’s onboard radio to assess connections, send commands to, and receive telemetry from the lander, further simulating actual flight operations.

This lander will also carry a mini-rover, and will be launched by a Falcon 9 rocket. The company’s press materials don’t name a location for the lunar landing spot, though one must have been chosen. I suspect, as this mission is a precursor to Ispace’s first NASA lunar landing mission set for 2026, it will be sent to the same location as Ispace’s first Hakuto-R1 test mission, which got to within three miles but then crashed because sensors thought it was just above the surface and shut off the engines prematurely.

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Japan’s H3 rocket launches successfully for the second time

9:24 pm

Japan’s space agency JAXA today successfully completed the second successive launch of its new H3 rocket, placing an Earth observation satellite into orbit.

This was the third launch of the H3, with the first in May 2023 a failure, and the second a success in February 2024.

I have embedded the video of the launch below, cued to T-15 seconds. This was Japan’s third launch in 2024, exceeding last year’s total of two and matching its total from 2024.

The leader board for the 2024 launch race remains unchanged:

69 SpaceX
29 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the world combined in successful launches, 80 to 44, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including other American companies, 69 to 55.
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