Tag: competition

Musk provides update to his Boca Chica crew

11:50 am

The candidate landing zone on Mars for Starship
The candidate landing zone on Mars for Starship

Elon Musk yesterday gave a 44-minute update on Starship/Superheavy to his team in Boca Chica, outlining what he now expects in the next two years as well as in the next two decades.

You can watch his presentation here. Musk began by once again describing his fundamental goal behind the company, to make the human race multi-planetary, for its own survival, and that Mars is at this time the best choice for doing so. He then provided some details about the on-going development of Starship/Superheavy:

  • SpaceX will be ready to launch 4th test flight in early May
  • There is an 80-90% chance they will attempt a tower landing of Superheavy, caught by its chopstick arms, by the end of this year
  • Starship will require at least two precision ocean landings before they attempt a tower landing
  • To provide tower redundancy for these test landings, by next year they will have 2 towers at Boca Chica, 2 at Cape Canaveral, with Cape Canaveral operational by next year
  • In 2024 they hope to build 6 Superheavys and Starships for test flights
  • By 2025 they plan to test full refueling of Starship in orbit
  • The third iteration of Starship/Superheavy will be capable of placing 200 tons in orbit
  • That third iteration will cost less to launch than Falcon 1, $2-3 million
  • To make a base on Mars self-sufficient quickly, he anticipates sending large fleets of Starships every two years, everytime the flight window to Mars opens.
  • The preferred landing sites will be in the low mid-latitudes, 30-40 degrees, with elevations two kilometers below the Martian “sea level”, to take advantage of a thick atmosphere.
  • If all goes as planned, Musk expects SpaceX to establish a Mars colony in about two decades

That next-to-last bullet point fits perfectly with the region north of Amazonis Planitia, as shown on the map above, where SpaceX has requested numerous images from the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It is two kilometers below the “sea level” of Mars. It is at a latitude either on or close to 40 degrees north latitude. It is a region that orbital data says has lots of very near-surface ice. And it is flat, making those first landings relatively safe.

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Argentina demands right to inspect Chinese antenna facility

9:45 pm

The Argentina government of Javier Milei is now demanding the right to inspect a Chinese antenna facility that was established in Argentina in 2014 and began operating in 2017 under a 50-year-lease.

Under the agreement between the two nations, 10% “of the resources in the base must be utilized by Argentina.” However, China has been operating the facility unsupervised from the beginning. Likely built to support China’s space program, manned and planetary, U.S. officials have also suggested it is being used for military purposes, a possibility that cannot be dismissed since all of China’s space program falls under the supervision of the People’s Liberation Army.

Milei apparently wants a hand in its operation, or at least a much clearer idea of what it is doing. It is very possible he will even shut it down if he is not satisfied with the answers he gets.

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SpaceX launches 22 Starlink satellites, with 6 capable of direct-to-cell service

9:34 pm

The beat goes on: SpaceX tonight launched another 22 Starlink satellites, six of which were capable of direct-to-cell service. The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Vandenberg, with its first stage completing its sixth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

35 SpaceX
14 China
5 Russia
4 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined 40 to 25, while SpaceX by itself leads the rest of the world, including other American companies, 35 to 30.

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Varda quickly raises $90 million after completing its first orbital manufacturing mission

2:18 pm

As expect, Varda announced yesterday that it raised $90 million in investment capital following the publication of the results of its first orbital manufacturing mission, where its returnable capsule was used to produce test pharmaceuticals in space that cannot be made on Earth.

Varda announced April 5 it raised a Series B round led by venture firm Caffeinated Capital, with participation from Lux Capital, General Catalyst, Founders Fund and Khosla Ventures. The company has raised $145 million to date. The funding round comes on the heels of the successful conclusion of its first demonstration mission, W-1, on Feb. 21 when the company’s capsule landed at the Utah Test and Training Range. The capsule had been part of a spacecraft launched in June 2023 to test the ability to produce pharmaceuticals in microgravity.

The new funding will allow Varda to scale up production of spacecraft that take advantage of microgravity to produce pharmaceuticals that are not possible or cost-effective to make on the ground.

The company already has a second returnable capsule scheduled for launch this summer on a Rocket Lab Electron rocket.

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Mitsubishi joins private consortium building the Starlab commercial space station

8:24 am

The Japanese big space company Mitsubishi has now joined the private consortium building the Starlab commercial space station for NASA, teaming up with Voyager Space and Airbus.

At this moment it appears that Voyager, the lead company in this station, is attempting to capture the international market that up to now has been part of ISS. Airbus gets it direct access to European companies and the Europeans Space Agency (ESA). Mitsubishi now gets it direct access to Japanese government financing.

The other stations being built with NASA financing, Axiom and Orbital Reef, so far seem more focused on getting American business, as is Vast’s Haven-1 station, being built entirely from private funds.

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Thailand joins China’s partnership to build a lunar base on the Moon

8:13 am

Thailand today signed an agreement with China to become the eighth nation to join its partnership to build its lunar base on the Moon, dubbed the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS).

The partners so far are Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa, Thailand, and Venezuela. In addition, another nine academic organizations of one kind or another have signed on. Except for Russia, the partners in China’s program are mostly there for public relations purposes, and will contribute little to the project. And Russia itself will likely not contribute much either, considering its inability to get any major new projects launched for the past two decades.

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SpaceX launches another 23 Starlink satellites

7:47 am

Like an Energizer bunny: SpaceX last night successfully placed 23 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage successfully completed its 14th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

34 SpaceX
14 China
5 Russia
4 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined 39 to 25, while SpaceX by itself leads the rest of the world, including other American companies, 34 to 30. SpaceX also has another launch scheduled for tonight.

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Gilmour’s Eris rocket now assembled and ready for launch from Bowen spaceport in Australia

10:43 am

Australian commercial spaceports
Click for original map.

The Austrialia rocket starup Gilmour has now assembled its first Eris rocket in anticipation of its first orbital test launch from that company’s Bowen spaceport on the east coast of Australia.

According to the report at the link, the launch could happen “in the coming weeks,” though no date has been set. Gilmour has already received its spaceport license from the Australian government, but has not yet gotten its launch license from the Australian Space Agency, despite putting in its application two years ago.

It appears there is now a race between this spaceport and the one on the south coast run by Southern Launch to launch first. Both are saying they will launch in mere weeks, but both are also awaiting launch approvals from the Australian Space Agency, which appears to be having difficulties making these first approvals. Either it is dragging its feet, or doesn’t know how to do this yet. Hopefully the bureaucrats will figure out how to say yes to freedom and let these spaceports and companies finally launch, before they run out of cash.

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NASA picks three commercial companies to build manned lunar rovers

10:29 am

Capitalism in space: NASA yesterday announced that it has picked three commercial companies, Astrolab, Intuitive Machines, and Lunar Outpost, to begin feasibility design work on its new manned lunar rovers, dubbed a Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV), for its planned Artemis missions to the Moon.

NASA will acquire the LTV as a service from industry. The indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, milestone-based Lunar Terrain Vehicle Services contract with firm-fixed-price task orders has a combined maximum potential value of $4.6 billion for all awards.

The three companies are actually each a partnership of several American companies, as follows:

  • Astrolab is building its FLEX rover in partnership with Axiom Space, Inc., and Odyssey Space. Its contract is worth up to $1.9 billion.
  • Intuitive Machines is building its RACER rover in partership with AVL, Boeing, Michelin, and Northrop Grumman. This initial award is worth $30 million, but future buys from NASA could exceed $1 billion.
  • Lunar Outpost is building its Lunar Dawn rover in partnership with Lockheed Martin, General Motors, Goodyear, and MDA Space.

All three lead companies are essentially startups that have partnered with older established players, a likely requirement imposed by NASA to give their effort some experienced help. Though this system of dividing up the work between all the players follows the old scheme used by NASA and the established big space companies for decades in order to guarantee every company gets steady work and a continuing cash flow from the government, the difference is that the product will be designed, built, and owned by each partnership, not NASA, allowing each to sell that product to others outside the agency.

If this goes as planned, eventually the government money will become somewhat irrelevant, once a real commercial industry starts functioning in space and on the Moon. That’s what happened in the airplane industry in the 1920s to the 1950s.

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An abandoned module from one of China’s manned capsules burns up over California

9:29 am

The orbital module of China’s Shenzhou-15 manned capsule, launched with three astronauts in November 2022 and then abandoned in orbit when those astronauts returned to Earth in the spring of 2023, burned up over southern California yesterday.

The fall created a blazing fireball witnessed by people from the Sacramento area all the way down to San Diego, according to the American Meteor Society (AMS). As of Tuesday afternoon, 81 people had reported sightings of the event to the AMS.

It is unlikely, though not impossible, that any pieces hit the ground. The module is considered small enough to be destroyed during descent. Nonetheless, its uncontrolled re-entry highlights China’s general irresponsibility when it comes to space junk. For example, the Russia Soyuz capsule has a similar design, but based on history Russia has for decades routinely controlled the de-orbit of its abandoned orbital module so that it does not come down over land.

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First manned Starliner mission now targeting a May 6, 2024 launch

8:47 am

In order to work around scheduling issues at ISS, NASA and Boeing have now scheduled the first manned Starliner mission to launch no earlier than May 6, 2024.

Following a review of the International Space Station operations, NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test now is targeting no earlier than Monday, May 6, for Starliner’s first launch with astronauts to the orbital complex. The date adjustment optimizes space station schedule of activities planned toward the end of April, including a cargo spacecraft undocking and a crew spacecraft port relocation required for Starliner docking. NASA and Boeing also are performing prelaunch closeout work and completing final certification for flight.

Two astronauts will fly the capsule to ISS for a two week stay, testing its systems in order to determine if it is ready for regular operations.

This launch is years behind schedule due to numerous technical problems that have cost Boeing billions in extra costs as well as lost income. In order to convince other customers besides NASA to buy seats on Starliner will likely require the capsule to fly many times without issues. Until then, I suspect anyone wishing to do a tourist flight in space will pick SpaceX instead, because of its now proven safety and reliability record.

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