Tag: competition

Russia’s Soyuz-2 rocket launches military satellite

9:40 am

Russia today used its Soyuz-2 rocket to launch a classified military surveillance satellite, lifting off from its Plesetsk spacesport in northern Russia.

A graphic at the link shows the rocket’s flight path crossed over almost all of Russia as it flew east, with its lower stages and fairings crashing on land. Though the drop zones were inside Russia, there are very isolated regions in the high Arctic latitudes, with few inhabited areas.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

76 SpaceX
48 China
14 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise still leads China 88 to 48 in successful launches, and the entire world combined 88 to 77. SpaceX by itself now trails with the rest of the world (excluding American companies) 76 to 77.

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Australia and the U.S. agree to facilitate rocket launches in Australia

10:37 am

A technology agreement announced on October 25, 2023 between Australia and the U.S. included language that will allow for American rocket companies to launch from Australia, as well as Australian rocket companies to launch American satellites.

According to the White House statement, the agreement…

…provides the legal and technical framework for U.S. commercial space launch vehicles to launch from Australia in a manner that: protects sensitive U.S. launch technology and data in Australia consistent with our shared nonproliferation goals; and creates the potential for new space-related commercial opportunities.

A private Australian spaceport, Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA), has been working to bring U.S. launches there. In addition, an Australian rocket startup, Gilmour Space, wants to launch American payloads. This new government agreement is supposed to facilitate both.

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ABL preparing for second launch attempt of its RS1 rocket

10:09 am

ABL's redesigned rocket launch mount
ABL’s redesigned rocket launch mount

Since its first test launch of its RS1 rocket failed in January 2023, ABL has spent the last ten months doing major revisions of the rocket’s launch mount as well as preparing an upgraded new rocket for a second test launch attempt, expected in the coming months.

This information comes from a long update posted by the company’s CEO, Harry O’Hanley on October 25, 2023.

It appears failure occurred because of a fire at the base of the rocket after liftoff, which in turn was caused by the small size of the rocket’s launch mount.

By analyzing video and data, we formulated a leading theory behind the source of the fire. Our hypothesis centered around the Launch Mount, which is the GS0 assembly that raises and lowers the vehicle. It was designed to fit fully assembled inside a shipping container. While this made transport simple, it resulted in the rocket being held close to the ground.

We believe the compact Launch Mount and proximity of RS1 to the ground restricted the flow of engine exhaust gas. This caused plume recirculation and drove pressures and temperatures beneath the rocket to exceed the RS1 base heat shield design capability. The hot combustion gases breached the aft heat shield and initiated the engine compartment fire. We corroborated this theory with a variety of tests and analyses, including multi-species CFD performed both in-house and by an independent partner.

The graphic to the right, rearranged and annotated to post here, shows the new larger mount. Because of the time it has taken to make that launch mount upgrade, the company also decided to fly its next version of RS1 on this second test launch, rather than the backup rocket from the first launch. This upgraded RS1 has 20% more thrust with a detachable engine section that makes access to it much easier.

O’Hanley made no mention of a specific target launch date from the Kodiak spaceport in Alaska, but his post implies the launch is coming very soon.

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China launches new three-man crew to its Tiangong-3 space station

9:02 am

The new colonial movement: China today successfully used its Long March 2F rocket to place a Shenzhou manned capsule into orbit, carrying a new three-man crew to its Tiangong-3 space station and lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China.

Though relatively little specific information about the crew’s mission has been revealed, it is expected they will do a six month mission, as have previous crews, and conduct spacewalks and maintenance on the station. Meanwhile, the present crew on board will spend about a week transferring duties to the new crew, and then return to Earth after completing its own six-month mission.

No word on where the Long March 2F first stage and its four side boosters crashed in the interior of China, all of which use toxic hypergolic fuels.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

76 SpaceX
48 China
13 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise still leads China 88 to 48 in successful launches, and the entire world combined 88 to 76. SpaceX by itself is now tied at 76 with the rest of the world (excluding American companies).

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The hull of Axiom’s first space station module nears completion

1:44 pm

The hull of Axiom’s first space station module is nearing completion, according to officials of the Italian company Thales Alenia Space that is building it.

“The first module shell is effectively completed,” Jason Aspiotis, Axiom’s director of in-space infrastructure and logistics, said at AIAA’s Ascend conference here on Oct. 23. “A lot of the subsystems that will populate the underlying structure–think about life support systems, avionics, propulsion, [guidance, navigation and control systems], power, communications, all that good stuff–we’re developing in a lab in Houston.” Hab One hatches have also been fabricated, tested and prepared for delivery to Thales Alenia Space to support Hab One pressure testing, the company says.

The first module is to be shipped to Houston by 2024 for final assembly and integration at Axiom Space’s factory at Ellington Airport. The company plans to launch the Hab One module in 2026.

Based on this news report, Axiom’s schedule has not experienced any further delays since it pushed back the launch from 2024 in June.

The article also says, almost as an aside, that ISS is planned for decommission “in 2031”, which is one year later than any previous report I’ve seen. I suspect this is correct, but is information that NASA really didn’t want revealed to the public as yet, as it had enough trouble convincing its international European and Japanese partners to stay on until 2030. Moreover, there remains serious concerns the older Russian modules themselves might fail before then, based on the number of stress fractures found in their hulls, so admitting NASA hopes to keep the station flying till ’31 will appear questionable at best.

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Boeing losses total almost a billion dollars this quarter

1:15 pm

The hits to Boeing keep coming: In addition to the $1.5 billion it has had to write-off because of problems with its Starliner capsule, Boeing is now reporting losses in the third quarter totaling almost a billion dollars, with half those losses coming from overruns on its fixed price contract to provide Air Force One to the U.S. government.

The $482 million loss on the high-profile presidential plane was due to “higher estimated manufacturing costs related to engineering changes, labor instability and the resolution of supplier negotiations,” Boeing Chief Financial Officer Brian West said during the company’s third-quarter earnings call Wednesday.

Boeing has faced numerous problems with the VC-25B program, including shortages of workers and parts, that have delayed delivery of the first of two Air Force One jets until 2027. To date, the company has lost over $2.4 billion on the program, according to a company spokesperson. CEO Dave Calhoun said last year that Boeing should have never agreed to the fixed $3.9 billion price tag.

The second-largest contributor to losses for Boeing’s Defense, Space & Security (BDS) business was a satellite program that cost the company $315 million in the third quarter. The company wouldn’t identify the program, but West said the loss is “tied to customer considerations and higher estimated cost to deliver a highly innovative satellite constellation contract that we signed several years ago.” [emphasis mine]

Let me translate what CEO Calhoun was really saying in the highlighted sentence: “We want a blank check! Boeing is incapable of producing anything based upon a standard fixed price, and wants the federal government to go back to open-ended cost-plus contracts that put no limit to overruns and schedule delays.”

Whether Boeing gets that blank check or not really depends on Boeing. It is very possible our corrupt legislators in Congress — who think money grows on trees — will bring these cost-plus contract back, but I doubt Boeing will win many such contracts in the near future, based on its horrible performance on all levels technically. It needs to completely clean house, with major shake-ups in management and staff, as whoever is working there now is simply doing a terrible job.

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SpaceX gets ESA contract to launch up to four of its Galileo GPS-type satellites

9:41 am

The European Space Agency (ESA) this week announced that it has awarded SpaceX a launch contract to put up to four of its Galileo GPS-type satellites into orbit. Though the deal is signed, approval must still be obtained by ESA’s members and executive commission.

This will be the first time SpaceX will launch any ESA satellites, and the first time in fifteen years that a Galileo satellite will launch outside of Arianespace operations. Previously the Russians had done a number of Galileo launches, using its Soyuz-2 rocket launching out of Arianespace’s French Guiana spaceport, but that partnership ended with Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine.

For the ESA the situation is even worse. It needs SpaceX to launch its satellites because at present it doesn’t have any of its own rockets to do it. The Ariane-5 is retired, and the new Ariane-6 (meant to replace it) is long delayed, and will not have its first test launch until next year, at the earliest. The Vega-C (too small for Galileo anyway) is also grounded due to design defects in the nozzle of its upper stage, while the Vega rocket it replaces has only one more launch before its own retirement.

Much like the Axiom-UK deal posted below, the American commercial space industry is once again making money from others, solely due to the capabilities developed in the past decade due to competition and freedom.

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Axiom signs deal with the United Kingdom to fly all British mission

9:30 am

The space agency of the United Kingdom today announced that it has signed a deal with Axiom to fly an manned mission in space, with four astronauts spending up to two weeks in space (likely in a SpaceX Dragon capsule).

The flight, estimated to cost around £200 million, is being organized in cooperation with the European Space Agency (ESA), though all the astronauts will be British. The announced commander, Tim Peake, spent six months on ISS in 2015, and has come out of retirement to do the flight.

It is also unclear at this moment whether it will fly to ISS, or simply remain in orbit. In fact, few specific details have yet been released.

The bottom line however is that the new American space industry is going to make money from Britain’s desire to be a space power. Seems like a good deal to me.

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ULA sets Christmas Eve as launch date for first Vulcan rocket launch

8:35 am

In an interview for CNBC, ULA’s CEO revealed that the company has now scheduled the first orbital launch of its new Vulcan rocket for December 24, 2023, Christmas Eve, with a backup launch window in January.

The rocket will carry Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander, targeting the western edge of the lunar mare dubbed Mare Imbrium. It will also carry human ashes to be buried in space, from the private company Celestis.

Vulcan was also originally supposed to carry Amazon’s first two test Kuiper satellites, but the delays in developing Vulcan forced ULA to use an Atlas-5 rocket instead, that launched on October 6th.

If the launch is successful, the company will try to quickly ramp up its launch pace to 24 times per year, in order to meet the contract for 47 launches it has with Amazon to launch Kuiper satellites, as well as its contract obligations to the Pentagon to launch military satellites.

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India releases on-board camera views during its Gaganyaan launch abort test

9:46 am

India’s space agency ISRO today released the on-board camera views taken during its Gaganyaan launch abort test on October 21, 2023.

The test was a complete success, and the footage shows each step clearly, from launch to stage separation to deployment of parachutes.

ISRO is still targeting 2024 for the first manned Gaganyaan mission, which will carry two to three astronauts into orbit for three to seven days. To meet that target however will require a lot of fast work, as the agency intends to fly three separate unmanned orbital missions of the Gaganyaan capsule prior to putting humans in it. More likely the manned mission will happen in 2025.

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Belarus joins China’s lunar base project

9:33 am

The former province of the Soviet Union Belarus has now signed an agreement to partner in China’s lunar base project, joining another former part of the U.S.S.R., Azerbaijan, as well as Russia, Pakistan, Venezuela, and South Africa.

Except for Russia, all the other partners in this project have little space capabilities, so don’t expect Belarus to contribute much. This deal is mainly for public relations purposes, to show that China has obtained some international partners.

In truth, the partnership more resembles the communist block run by the former Soviet Union — made up of failing communist states — except that communist China is now leads it.

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Varda signs deal with Australian private spaceport operator to land its capsules

9:13 am

Blocked from landing its American-built space capsules by the American government, the startup Varda has now completed negotiations and signed an agreement with Southern Launch, an Australian private spaceport operator, to land its capsules at the Koonibba Test Range northwest of Adelaide.

Varda’s business plan is to launch unmanned capsules in which pharmeceuticals and other products that can’t be made on Earth are manufactured, then return the capsule to earth where they are sold for a profit. This deal will allow Varda to land its next capsule there in 2024.

Meanwhile, Varda first capsule, presently in orbit after manufacturing pharmeceuticals for HIV, appears to be a total loss because the FAA and the Pentagon refused it permission to land in the U.S., for what appear to be purely bureaucratic reasons.

There was no single specific issue that held up the reentry, he said. “It was ultimately a coordination problem amongst three different groups that had not worked through this operation before.” He added that there were no safety concerns with Varda’s spacecraft or its ability to meet requirements for an FAA license. An additional challenge is that Varda is the first company to seek an FAA reentry license through a new set of regulations called Part 450. Those regulations are intended to streamline the process but, on the launch side, have been criticized by companies for being difficult.

The U.S. government is now the enemy of its citizens, so incompetent that it actually works to block them from achieving their goals.

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