Tag: competition

Starship prototype #28 completes full duration static fire test

8:49 pm

Gearing up for Starship/Superheavy orbital test flight #3: Starship prototype #28 today successfully completed a full duration static fire test, with all six engines firing for about five seconds.

The link goes to SpaceX’s X feed, and shows that test.

This is more evidence that SpaceX intends to be ready in all ways to do that third orbital test flight of Superheavy/Starship by mid-January, at the latest. It also suggests the company is getting close to finishing its investigation into the previous test flight in mid-November.

Of course, none of this means it will launch in mid-January. I predict SpaceX will be stuck twiddling its thumbs waiting for a launch license from the FAA, which will also be waiting for an okay from Fish & Wildlife. Both will likely be forced to work as slowly as possible, likely because of interference from the White House.

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Congress passes short term extension of commercial space regulatory “learning period”

9:19 am

The Senate yesterday passed a short term extension of the regulatory “learning period” at the FAA that limits its ability to regulate commercial space.

[The Senate] quickly passed an extension of the FAA’s authorization, a final piece of “must pass” legislation before the end of the year. The bill (H.R. 6503) passed the House on December 11. Among other things, it extends the “learning period” for commercial human spaceflight until March 9, 2024 that otherwise would have expired on January 1. The learning period, or “moratorium,” prohibits the FAA from promulgating new regulations on commercial human spaceflight while the industry is in its infancy.

The president still needs to sign this bill, but that is expected.

Originally passed in 2004 as an eight-year period, this “learning period” has been extended several times since. The industry wants a longer extension, as it still considers itself quite rightly to be in an experimental test phase, not operational in the sense of airplane manufacture.

Not that this extension matters. It appears in the past two years that the regulators at the FAA have decided to ignore the law and make believe this learning period really doesn’t exist, based on how that agency has treated test launches by SpaceX and others. Rather than let their launches proceed quickly as tests, the FAA has begun to treat each test as an operational flight that requires a long investigation before further launch approvals are given.

Unless there is a major change in leadership in the White House, we should expect a major slow-down of the American launch industry in the coming years, regardless of whether this “learning period” is extended or not.

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Launch of Intuitive Machines Nova-C lunar lander delayed until February

8:45 am

South Pole of Moon with landing sites

Because of scheduling conflicts impacting other SpaceX launches now, SpaceX and Intuitive Machines have delayed the launch of the latter’s Nova-C lunar lander from a mid-January to a mid-February launch window.

The conflict involves the use of the launchpad, that the Falcon Heavy also uses. Technical issues had forced SpaceX to reschedule its next launch to December 28, 2023, leaving little time afterward to reconfigure the pad for the Falcon 9 Nova-C mid-January launch window. Any Falcon Heavy launch delays due to weather would likely make that mid-January window impossible, so the companies have decided better to reschedule now.

Nova-C is targeting a crater rim near the Moon’s south pole, as shown on the map to the right. The floor of that crater is thought to be permanently shadowed, but Nova-C does not have the capability to enter it. This mission is mostly an engineering test mission, to prove Intuitive Machine’s design. If it works, it will operate on the Moon surface for one lunar day, about two weeks. The company then has two more lunar missions contracted with NASA, with the next mission aiming to fly in 2024 as well.

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Spain’s new space agency

9:32 am

Link here. The article provides a detailed description of the history leading up to the formation in March 2023 of Spain’s new space agency, Agencia Espacial Española (AEE) (the Spanish Space Agency in English).

It appears the goal was to consolidate Spain’s government space operations from eleven different agencies so as to better coordinate that government’s work with the nation’s burgeoning new commercial space sector.

By law, Spain has created the AEE without any increase in public spending. The new agency has been allocated an initial budget of 700 million euros per year, which was primarily drawn from funding for ESA [European Space Agency] participation, the CDTI, and INTA [two other Spanish agencies]. However, it is expected that the AEE will receive higher budgets in the future for the development of its own programs outside those directly linked to the ESA. The task of financing space activity public and private alike is of utmost importance, and one of the agency’s roles should be to create mechanisms for making investment attractive and effective, either directly or through public-private partnerships — a model that is producing excellent results in several countries around the world, like the United States. [emphasis mine]

It appears the goal is to emulate the policies followed by NASA in the past few years, buy services and products from the private sector rather than build these things within the government. If so, AEE will likely help jumpstart that new space industry. Whether it can stay focused on this goal, or shift into a typical government empire-building operation that sucks the life out of everything, will be its real fundamental test.

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Firefly schedules second launch in 2023

9:19 am

Firefly has now scheduled the second launch of its Alpha rocket in 2023, with a launch window of about 20 minutes on the morning of Decmeber 20, 2023.

The payload is a smallsat from Lockheed Martin testing new antenna technology, but the launch is for the Space Force. Like the previous September 15, 2023 launch, it is designed to test the ability of Firefly to get a payload into orbit quickly, from assembly to launch.

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China’s X-37B copy deploys six independent satellites

8:56 am

Four days after it was launched last week, China’s unnamed reuseable mini-shuttle, essentially a copy of the Space Force’s X-37B, deployed six independent small satellites that appear to be emitting a variety of signals.

The objects have been given letter names, A through F. Because their deployment occurred at different times they are in different orbits than the mini-shuttle, though all orbits cross at some point. The radio signals appear to be either simple beacons or signals of an as-yet undetermined nature.

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UK finally gives Saxavord spaceport a license

11:33 am

Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea
Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) in the United Kingdom finally issued a spaceport license today to the Saxavord spaceport on the Shetland Islands, thirteen months after the application was submitted.

This license however does not mean that launches will take place anytime soon. First, Saxavord will have to resume construction of its facilities, which ceased earlier this year because of the CAA hadn’t issued the permit. Moreover, this license does not allow launches. As noted by the CAA:

Spaceport licences allow a person or organisation to operate a spaceport, they are granted in the UK under the Space Industry Act 2018 (SIA). For a launch to happen an operator will need to have developed and proven their technology, be operationally ready, and have a launch licence from the UK Civil Aviation Authority. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted language is especially crushing, because it literally forbids the launch of any new untested rocket. Since every single rocket so far being developed for these two spaceports is new and untested, none will be allowed to launch unless they move operations elsewhere. This requirement explains for example why the startup ABL shifted its next launch from the Sutherland spaceport — it had hoped to launch this year — to Kodiak, Alaska. Orbex will have even more problems, as it has signed a fifty year lease to launch its new Prime rocket from Sutherland, with its rocket factory close by. If it can’t test fly Prime from Sutherland the company will be very badly hampered.

Even if these companies eventually get launch licenses for their untried rockets, expect such approvals to take a very long time, based on the CAA’s past and present history. It took the CAA almost a year to approve Virgin Orbit’s launch license, essentially bankrupting the company.

Nor are my conclusions here — which I have been stating now for more than a year — simply opinions. They have now been confirmed by a new report issued only a few days ago by the UK Space Agency, which admitted the following:
» Read more

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Chinese pseudo-company launches satellite

9:45 am

The Chinese pseudo-company Ispace today launched what is only described as a “prototype recoverable experiment spacecraft” by another Chinese pseudo-company, its Hyperbola-1 rocket lifting off from the Jiuquan spaceport in the northwest of China.

China’s state-run press now routinely makes no mention of these pseudo-companies. In the past China would tout them in an effort to make the rest of the world believe, falsely, that it had its own competitive and growing space industry. Now it appears the Xi government has decided it doesn’t like the growing and somewhat independent success of these companies, and is making it clear to all that, in the end, everything they do belongs to the government.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

91 SpaceX
61 China
17 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise still leads China in successful launches 104 to 61, and the entire world combined 104 to 96. SpaceX now trails the rest of the world combined (excluding American companies) 91 to 96.

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Environmental groups file another complaint attempting to stop SpaceX launches at Boca Chica

3:45 pm

In what is now becoming a routine process of harassment, several environmental groups have filed another complaint against the FAA and Fish & Wildlife for eventually issuing a second launch license to SpaceX, permitting it to do its mid-November second orbital test launch of its Starship/Superheavy rocket from Boca Chica, Texas.

In the supplemental complaint, the groups — Center for Biological Diversity, American Bird Conservancy, Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas, Inc., Save RGV and Surfrider Foundation — allege the FAA failed to properly analyze the environmental impacts of the first Starship launch before issuing a revised license for the second launch that took place Nov. 18.

That new licensing process included an environmental review by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) regarding a pad deluge system that SpaceX installed on the pad to prevent damage like that the pad suffered during the first launch. The FWS concluded that the deluge system would produce no significant environmental changes.

The environmental groups argue that both FAA and FWS fell short of what was required under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to review the environmental impacts of Starship launches. The FAA, it stated in the complaint, “once again failed to take the requisite ‘hard look’ at the impacts of the Starship/Superheavy launch program through a supplemental NEPA analysis.”

Let me translate what this complaint really says, and I can do it only a few words: “Your review didn’t come to the conclusions we want — which is to block all work by SpaceX — so that we can do what we want!” Both the American Bird Conservancy and the Surfrider Foundation simply want unlimited access to the region for their own recreation, while the Center of Biological Diversity is only interested in stopping all human development anywhere — until it can settle its frequent lawsuits against the government and pocket its payoff.

As for Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas and Save RGV, both are bogus organizations. The first is for a almost non-existent Indian tribe that never even lived in this area (they were based in Mexico), and the second claims it represents the people of the south Texas region who want SpaceX’s work stopped. Since almost everyone in Brownsville and throughout the region is celebrating the new prosperity brought to them by SpaceX, it is essentially a front group for the Marxist environmental movement that hates all prosperity. It doesn’t represent anyone really in south Texas.

As before, this complaint will have to be fought, wasting time and money.

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Russia launches weather satellite

3:29 pm

Russia early today successfully launched a new weather satellite, the second in a new constellation, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from Baikonur in Kazakhstan.

The flight path took the rocket north, with its lowers stages crashing in landing zones in Russia.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

91 SpaceX
60 China
17 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise still leads China in successful launches 104 to 60, and the entire world combined 104 to 95. SpaceX now trails the rest of the world combined (excluding American companies) 91 to 95.

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NASA: The flight plan for Dream Chaser Tenacity’s first demo mission to ISS

9:30 am

NASA today provided a detailed description of the flight plan for the first demo ISS mission of Sierra Space’s first Dream Chaser reuseable mini-shuttle, dubbed Tenacity, now targeting some unspecified date in 2024.

It will carefully approach ISS, testing its maneuvering and rendezvous capibilities, and then be grabbed by the station’s robot arm to be berthed to the station.

On its first flight to the International Space Station, Dream Chaser is scheduled to deliver over 7,800 pounds of cargo. On future missions, Dream Chaser is being designed to stay attached to the station for up to 75 days and deliver as much as 11,500 pounds of cargo. Cargo can be loaded onto the spacecraft as late as 24 hours prior to launch. Dream Chaser can return over 3,500 pounds of cargo and experiment samples to Earth, while over 8,700 pounds of trash can be disposed of during reentry using its cargo module.

On this first demo flight it will remain docked for 45 days, and then land on the shuttle runway at Cape Canaveral.

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Rocket Lab returns to flight, successfully launching a Japanese commercial radar satellite

9:17 pm

Rocket Lab today successfully launched a Japanese commercial radar satellite, its Electron rocket lifting off from one of its two New Zealand launchpads.

This was the company’s first launch since September, when its Electron rocket experiened a failure in its upper stage.

No attempt was made to recover the first stage, likely because it was decided to keep this return to flight as simple as possible.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

91 SpaceX
59 China
16 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 104 to 59, and the entire world combined 104 to 93. SpaceX still trails the rest of the world combined (excluding American companies) 91 to 93.

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