Tag: competition

Indian satellite thruster manufacturer opens American factory

9:09 am

Capitalism in space: The Indian satellite company Bellatrix, which up-to-now has manufactured electrical attitude thrusters for satellites built by India’s space agency, has now opened a factory in Delaware in order to attract business from American satellite companies.

Bellatrix hired Chris MacDonald, a former business development director at rocket developer Astra and satellite provider Terran Orbital, to lead its recently created U.S. subsidiary, headquartered in Delaware. The manufacturing facility would support localized production, testing and delivery of propulsion systems to enable faster turnaround times and closer collaboration with U.S.-based customers, MacDonald said via email.

Founded in 2015, Bellatrix’s electric hall effect thruster has been used in a handful of missions for India’s space agency in recent years.

Bellatrix is not the only foreign space company to open offices in the U.S. for similar reasons. The Japanese startups Astroscale and Ispace have done the same, as well as several other companies listed in the article at the link. It appears the new American launch industry, which has significantly lowered the cost to orbit, is attracting orbital business from across the world.

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Vast signs three more customers to fly payloads on its first space station

8:58 am

Haven-1 with docked Dragon capsule
Haven-1 with docked Dragon capsule

The space station startup company Vast has now signed up three more customers to fly payloads on its first space station, Haven-1, due to launch now in the spring of 2026 on a 30-day-long private commercial manned mission.

Vast announced April 8 that Japan Manned Space Systems Corporation (JAMSS), Interstellar Lab and Exobiosphere will fly research payloads on the Haven-1 station launching no earlier than May 2026. They join Redwire and Yuri as payload partners for the station.

JAMSS, which has supported research on Japan’s Kibo module on the International Space Station, will provide a multi-purpose payload facility for microgravity research on Haven-1. Interstellar Lab, a French company, will provide an advanced life sciences research facility called Eden 1.0 that will be used for experiments such as plant growth. Exobiosphere, based in Luxembourg, will fly a biotechnology payload to perform pharmaceutical and healthcare experiments.

The company says it still has one or two payload racks available for additional customers, suggesting that it is finding enough demand to justify profitable commercial operations.

Below are the four private space stations presently under development, with those I consider the most advanced in development ranked first:

  • Haven-1, being built by Vast, with no NASA funds. The company is moving fast, with Haven-1 to launch and be occupied in 2026 for a 30 day mission. It hopes this actual hardware and manned mission will put it in the lead to win NASA’s phase 2 contract, from which it will build its much larger mult-module Haven-2 station..
  • Axiom, being built by Axiom, has launched three tourist flights to ISS, with a fourth scheduled for this spring, carrying passengers from India, Hungary, and Poland. Though there have been rumors it has cash flow issues, development of its first module has been proceeding more or less as planned.
  • Orbital Reef, being built by a consortium led by Blue Origin and Sierra Space. Though Blue Origin has apparently done little, Sierra Space has successfully tested its inflatable modules, including a full scale version, and appears ready to start building the station’s modules for launch.
  • Starlab, being built by a consortium led by Voyager Space, Airbus, and Northrop Grumman. It recently had its station design approved by NASA.
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China launches another technology test communications satellite payload

10:52 pm

China today successfully launched a test technology satellite for doing “multi-band and high-speed communication technology validation tests, possibly for future large internet/communications constellations, its Long March 3B rocket lifting off from its Xichang spaceport in southwest China.

No word on where the rocket’s lower stages and four strap-on boosters, all using very toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

40 SpaceX
19 China
5 Rocket Lab
5 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 40 to 33.

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Congress: Let’s throw some more astronaut lives away so we can preen for the camera!

2:48 pm

Jared Isaacman
Jared Isaacman

Here we go again: As I noted yesterday, the hearing this week of Jared Isaacman, Donald Trump’s nomination to become NASA’s next administrator, revealed almost nothing about what Isaacman plans to do once confirmed by the Senate. He very carefully kept his options open, even while he strongly endorsed getting Americans on the Moon as fast as possible in order to beat the Chinese there. When pressed by senators from both parties to commit to continuing the SLS, Orion, and Lunar Gateway projects to make that happen, Isaacman picked his words most cautiously. He noted that at the moment that plan seemed the best for getting to the Moon first. He also noted repeatedly that this same plan is years behind schedule and overbudget.

Like any smart businessman, Isaacman knows he cannot make any final decisions about SLS, Orion, or Gateway until he takes office and can aggressively dig into the facts, as administrator. He also knew he could not say so directly during this hearing, for to do so would antagonize senators from both parties who want those programs continued because of the money it pours into their states. So he played it coy, and the senators accepted that coyness in order to make believe they were getting what they want.

But what do these senators want? It appears our politicians (including possibly Trump) want NASA to launch humans to the Moon using SLS and Orion and do so as quickly as possible, despite knowing that both have real engineering issues of great concern. Instead, our elected officials want politics to determine the lunar flight schedule, instead of engineering, the same attitude that killed astronauts on Apollo 1 in 1967, on Challenger in 1986, and on Columbia in 2003. The engineering data then said unequivocally that things were not safe and that disaster was almost guaranteed, but NASA and Congress demanded the flights go on anyway, to serve the needs of politics.

With SLS and Orion it is now the same foolishness all over again. » Read more

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Anti-Musk terrorists damage Musk statue in Brownsville

9:23 am

In another demonstration of their intolerance and willingness to commit violence and vandalism, anti-Musk terrorists have damaged a bust of Elon Musk in Brownsville that had been placed there by a French entrepreneur.

A 9-foot-tall statue depicting a bust of tech billionaire Elon Musk has been vandalized in South Texas. According to multiple posts across social media, the statue of the SpaceX CEO was vandalized not far from where the company’s Starbase facility sits near Boca Chica Beach.

“The recently installed Elon Musk statue, known as ‘Elonrwa,’ has been damaged. Visible patches of the outer layer appear to have been peeled off the face,” a Facebook user who goes by RGV.me said in an April 8 Facebook post. The Facebook post is accompanied by a photograph showing two areas where it appears a top layer of material has been stripped from the statue, revealing a white or pale gray layer underneath.

This senseless hate of Musk, almost certainly committed by supporters of the Democratic Party — which has been encouraging this violence because it sees Musk as an opponent — must end. And if the fools perpetrating this vandalism don’t come to their senses and stop voluntarily, they should be stopped by force and imprisonment. Just because you disagree with someone on policy does not give you the right to break the law.

And if you doubt this vandalism isn’t being spurred on eagerly by the leadership of the now vile and wholly evil Democratic Party, you need only watch that party’s Senate leader, Senator Charles Schumer (D-New York), practically endorse it when asked:
» Read more

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Isaacman’s nomination hearing reveals nothing of note

10:00 am

Jared Isaacman
Jared Isaacman

The Senate committee on commerce, science, and transportation has just concluded its hearing on the nomination of Jared Isaacman as NASA administrator. Several take-aways:

First, there was little opposition to Isaacman on either side of the aisle. He will be confirmed easily.

Second, Isaacman was very careful to say nothing that might commit him to keeping all present Artemis programs (such as SLS, Orion, or Gateway) unchanged. He instead made it clear his goal is for NASA to attempt a parallel programs to establish a permanent American presence on both the Moon and Mars. This enthusiasm suggests he sees Starship as the vehicle capable of making those parallel programs possible.

In other words, he kept his options open. His goal is to get the Artemis program functioning more efficiently, and will do whatever is necessary to do so. He repeatedly made it clear that too many of NASA’s projects, including specifically Artemis, are routinely overbudget and behind schedule, and this must be fixed.

At the same time he said his goal is to get Americans back to the Moon ahead of the Chinese, and suggested that the present plan using SLS and Orion is likely the fastest way to do so. The technical issues that might make that program very unsafe for the astronauts however were never mentioned.

We shall see whether Isaacman as administrator will be so sanguine about sending Americans around the Moon within an Orion capsule with a questionable heat shield.

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Firefly wins Space Force contract to test orbital maneuvers with its Elytra space tug

12:33 pm

Firefly yesterday announced it has been awarded a Space Force contract to use its Elytra space tug to test orbital maneuvers designed for military purposes.

As part of the mission, Elytra will host a suite of government payloads, including optical visible and infrared cameras, a responsive navigation unit, and a universal electrical bus with a payload interface module. Firefly’s Elytra Dawn configuration will utilize common components from the company’s launch vehicles and lunar landers, including the avionics, composite structures, and propulsion systems, to enable on-demand mobility, plane changes, and maneuvers with high delta-V capabilities and reliability.

Though unstated, the inclusion of cameras suggests the Pentagon wants to test Elytra’s ability to maneuver close to other satellites and photograph them.

This contract further illustrates Firefly’s effort to diversify its space products. Like Rocket Lab, it is not relying solely on its rocket division to make money, but is also developing and selling a range of space products, from lunar landers to orbital tugs to satellite equipment.

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Ted Cruz: Isaacman in interview commits NASA to getting Americans to Moon fast

8:52 am

In a tweet posted yesterday, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) revealed that in his private interview with Jared Isaacman, nominee for the post of NASA administrator, Isaacman “committed to having American astronauts return to the lunar surface ASAP.”

During our meeting, Mr. Isaacman committed to having American astronauts return to the lunar surface ASAP so we can develop the technologies needed to go on to Mars.

The moon mission MUST happen in President Trump’s term or else China will beat us there and build the first moonbase.

Artemis and the Moon-to-Mars Program are critical for American leadership in space!

It appears Cruz is trying to apply pressure on Isaacman and the Trump administration to not cancel SLS, as has been rumored for months. Though SLS and Orion have numerous issues, being too costly and cumbersome with risky designs that threaten the lives of any astronauts on board, cancelling them would likely delay any American manned mission to the Moon for several years, possibly allowing China to get there first.

We shall get a better idea of this situation at Isaacman’s nomination hearing, scheduled for tomorrow.

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Space Force gives SpaceX launch originally contracted to ULA

8:45 am

For the second time in less than a year, the Space Force has taken a launch away from ULA and given the payload to SpaceX to launch.

The GPS III SV-08 satellite, the eighth in the GPS III constellation, is now scheduled to launch no earlier than late May aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, the Space Systems Command announced April 7.

This marks the second time in recent months that the Space Force has reassigned a GPS launch from ULA to SpaceX. Last year, the GPS III SV-07 satellite was moved from a planned ULA Vulcan rocket launch in late 2025 to a SpaceX Falcon 9, which successfully launched on December 16 in a mission called Rapid Response Trailblazer.

Both switches were apparently triggered because of the delay in getting ULA’s new Vulcan rocket certified by the military, resulting in all of ULA’s launches in 2025 being pushed back significantly. That certification finally occurred a few weeks ago, but it appears the Space Force has decided that ULA won’t be able to get all those launches off this year as planned. It therefore decided to shift this launch to SpaceX.

This situation once again highlights the importance of private companies to move fast in the open competition of private enterprise. SpaceX has always done this, and thus it gets contracts and business that other companies that move with the speed of molasses lose.

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Russia launches three astronauts to ISS

10:57 pm

Russia early on April 8, 2025 successfully launched two Russians and one American to ISS on a six month mission, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from its Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan.

They will dock with ISS after only two orbits, three hours after launch.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

40 SpaceX
18 China
5 Rocket Lab
5 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 40 to 32.

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SpaceX launches 27 more Starlink satellites using a new first stage

8:16 pm

SpaceX today successfully placed 27 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The first stage completed its first flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. In the past three years SpaceX has been launching about one to two new first stages per year in order to sustain its fleet, and this launch follows that pattern.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

40 SpaceX
18 China
5 Rocket Lab
4 Russia (with a manned Soyuz launch scheduled for the early morning hours)

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 40 to 31.

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Soil bacterium from Earth can both make and repair bricks made from Moon-materials

9:36 am

Researchers in India have now discovered that the same soil bacterium from Earth they used to manufacture bricks made from Moon-materials can also act to repair cracks in those bricks.

A few years ago, researchers at the Department of Mechanical Engineering (ME), IISc developed a technique that uses a soil bacterium called Sporosarcina pasteurii to build bricks out of lunar and Martian soil simulants. The bacterium converts urea and calcium into calcium carbonate crystals that, along with guar gum, glue the soil particles together to create brick-like materials. This process is an eco-friendly and low-cost alternative to using cement.

… In a new study, they created different types of artificial defects in sintered bricks and poured a slurry made from S. pasteurii, guar gum, and lunar soil simulant into them. Over a few days, the slurry penetrated into the defects and the bacterium produced calcium carbonate, which filled them up. The bacterium also produced biopolymers which acted as adhesives that strongly bound the soil particles together with the residual brick structure, thereby recovering much of the brick’s lost strength. This process can stave off the need to replace damaged bricks with new ones, extending the lifespan of built structures.

These results are encouraging but not necessarily for space exploration. This research can likely be applied with great profit here on Earth to repair damaged materials already in place.

As for using it in space or on the Moon, great uncertainties remain, such is whether the bacteria could even survive or function in a different gravity environment. The team hopes to test this on one of India’s planned Gangayaan manned missions.

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Fram2: The first X-ray image taken in space

9:04 am

First X-ray taken in space
Click for original.

During the commercial and private Fram2 flight last week, the crew used equipment developed by two commercial companies, MinXray in Chicago and KA Imaging in Canada, to take the first X-ray images of a human being.

The picture to the right shows the hand of one of the crew, with a ring on one finger. From the press release:

Chicago-based MinXray is contributing its IMPACT system, a compact, battery-powered X-ray generator designed for use in remote environments, including space. Its rechargeable lithium-ion battery eliminates the need for external power sources, making it an ideal solution for microgravity applications.

KA Imaging’s Reveal 35C X-ray Detector was selected for this mission due to its cutting-edge SpectralDR technology. The Reveal 35C provides dual-energy subtraction imaging in a single exposure, generating three distinct images: soft tissue, bone, and a traditional digital radiograph.

Apparently the two companies have combined their resources to develop a fully portable X-ray machine small enough to be transported in a capsule, and partnered with the Fram2 team to test it in weightlessness for the first time. With refinements a larger machine could be sold and installed in space stations for both medical research as well as simple doctoring.

Because weightlessness causes the loss of bone density in the weight-bearing bones, such technology has long been critically necessary in orbit for studying and possible mitigating that problem. That after decades NASA failed to get it built and installed in ISS, yet a private mission made it happen, illustrates once again the advantages of a free and competitive private sector in space. NASA’s complex rules for getting experiments on ISS frequently acts to block some experiments. The lack of those rules on private missions allows for things to happen quickly.

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Space Force awards SpaceX, ULA, and Blue Origin $13.7 billion in launch contracts

10:41 am

The Space Force yesterday awarded a combined $13.7 billion in launch contracts to SpaceX, ULA, and Blue Origin, covering military launches through 2032.

The contracts, announced April 4 by the U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command, are part of the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 3 Lane 2 procurement, a cornerstone initiative designed to bolster the Pentagon’s access to space for its most sensitive and risk-averse missions.

SpaceX emerged as the leading contractor, securing $5.9 billion in anticipated awards, followed by ULA at nearly $5.4 billion and Blue Origin at nearly $2.4 billion. The three companies are expected to collectively perform 54 launches under the agreement between fiscal years 2025 and 2029.

Based on the contracts, SpaceX will do 28 launches, ULA 19, and Blue Origin 7. Since these launches include many military payloads that must go on “risk-adverse” rockets, the distribution of launches makes sense. While SpaceX’s rockets (Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy) are well proven to be reliable, both ULA and Blue Origin launch with new rockets, Vulcan and New Glenn respectively, that have barely yet left the factory. Vulcan has done only two launches, with the second having technical issues (supposedly resolved). Blue Origin has done only one successful launch, though it failed to land the first stage as planned.

The distribution however serves the needs of both the military and the American rocket industry. It gives the Pentagon redundancy, multiple launch providers. And it gives America the same, three competing rocket companies striving for business and profit.

The result is going to be a very vibrant American space effort, doing a lot of things having nothing to do with the Pentagon.

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Fram2 private manned mission splashes down safely

10:29 am

The Fram2 private commercial manned mission successfully ended today when SpaceX’s Resilience capsule splashed down safely off the coast of California.

The crew spent about four days in space, circling the Earth in the first polar orbit by a human crew.

This was SpaceX’s sixth privately funded manned mission. Three docked with ISS and were paid for by Axiom. Three flew independently, with two paid by Jared Isaacman and one by Chun Weng (which landed today). Plus Axiom has scheduled its next ISS commercial flight for May, 2025, using a new SpaceX capsule (bringing the company’s manned fleet to five spacecraft).

As I noted earlier this week, SpaceX is making space exploration profitable, which in turn makes the government irrelevant. And ain’t that a kick?

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Engineers use simulated moon dust to make glass

9:06 am

Engineers have successfully manufactured glass using simulated moon dust, and found this “moonglass” works better than Earth glass in solar panels.

To test the idea, the researchers melted a substance designed to simulate Moon dust into moonglass and used it to build a new kind of solar cell. They crafted the cells by pairing moonglass with perovskite—a class of crystals that are cheaper, easier to make, and very efficient in turning sunlight into electricity. For every gram of material sent to space, the new panels produced up to 100 times more energy than traditional solar panels.

…When the team zapped the solar cells with space-grade radiation, the moonglass versions outperformed the Earth-made ones. Standard glass slowly browns in space, blocking sunlight and reducing efficiency. But moonglass has a natural brown tint from impurities in the Moon dust, which stabilizes the glass, prevents it from further darkening, and makes the cells more resistant to radiation.

Though encouraging, they are many unknowns that could become show stoppers. For one, this research was all done in Earth gravity. In the Moon’s 1/6th gravity the results might be very different. For another, all they have done is demonstrate a way to make glass using Moon dust. That is a far cry from building solar panels, as implied by the press release.

Nonetheless, the results demonstrate one more way in which a lunar base can eventually become self-sufficient, the inevitable goal.

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China: samples from the near and far sides of the Moon are different

8:53 am

Scientists studying the lunar samples brought back from China’s Chang’e-6 mission to the far side of the Moon have determined that the different environments create differences in the surface material.

The study found that the solar wind exposure time of the Chang’e-6 samples was close to the minimum observed in the Apollo 11 samples, lower than that of the other Apollo samples, and slightly shorter than that of the Chang’e-5 samples. However, surprisingly, the npFe⁰ grain sizes in the Chang’e-6 samples were larger. “This might suggest that solar wind radiation in this region leads to more pronounced segregation and aggregation of iron,” she noted. These exciting new results add to the growing evidence that space weathering on the lunar farside may differ from that on the nearside, and, contrary to previous findings from Apollo and Chang’e-5 samples, solar wind radiation plays a more dominant role in the space weathering process on the lunar farside.

There are differences in the solar wind’s influence on different regions of the Moon. During each synodic month, the near side of the Moon enters Earth’s magnetotail, where the protection afforded by Earth’s magnetic field reduces its exposure to the solar wind; in contrast, the farside is continuously exposed to direct solar wind radiation. Moreover, due to orbital dynamics, different locations on the Moon experience varying impact velocities from cometary and asteroidal meteoroids. The relative velocity between the Moon’s surface and impacting meteoroids changes with the lunar phase: during a full moon, when the Moon and meteoroids move in the same orbital direction, the relative velocity increases; the opposite occurs during a new moon.

That there are differences between samples from the Moon’s two hemisphere should not a surprise. Confirming and characterizing those differences however is good.

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Fantasyland: Turkey to establish its own spaceport

10:11 am

If you believe this I have a bridge I can sell you cheap: According to Turkey’s state-run press, the Turkish Space Agency is now researching locations for its own spaceport, either in Turkey or in some other nearby nation such as Somalia.

According to information provided by relevant government agencies, efforts are ongoing to select a suitable location for the facility. Discussions are underway with countries near the equator, including Somalia, to maximize launch efficiency.

…Once operational, the spaceport will support independent satellite launches, marking a major step in Türkiye’s ability to access space without relying on foreign platforms.

Recently Turkey launched its first home-built smallsat on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. It seems its space agency now believes it can quickly whip up its own rocket and launch it from a quickly built spaceport, likely in another country.

This announcement is nothing but government blather published to puff up these government officials so that they can garner more funding and build bigger more palatial offices.

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Iran accelerates plans for new coastal spaceport

10:01 am

Iran's spaceports

According to Iran’s state-run press, the government is about to begin the next construction phase for its proposed new coastal spaceport near the city of Chabahar.

The head of the Iranian Space Agency has announced that the second phase of the Chabahar spaceport for semi-heavy liquid-fueled launchers is to be inaugurated in the current Persian calendar year. Hassan Salarieh said on Tuesday that the first phase of the Chabahar spaceport is for solid fuel launchers and is expected to be inaugurated this year (which started March 21), adding that adequate studies were conducted regarding the second phase of the site in previous years and the new phase for semi-heavy liquid fuel launchers is to be opened during the year.

The details are very vaguely words. Will launches of solid-fueled rockets begin this year, or construction? Earlier reports had promised the first launch from Chabahar would occur in March 2025. That clearly has not occurred.

This spaceport will supplement Iran’s older Semnan launch facility in the country’s interior, from which all previous Iranian launches have occurred.

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ULA and Amazon schedule first Kuiper satellite launch for April 9, 2025

9:49 am

The launch of the first 27 satellites in Amazon’s 3,200-plus satellite Kuiper internet constellation has now been scheduled for April 9, 2025, using ULA’s Atlas-5 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The Kuiper constellation, intended to compete directly with SpaceX’s Starlink constellation, was first conceived at about the same time as Starlink. Since then — while Amazon moved slowly launching only two test satellites — SpaceX launched thousands and signed up millions of customers, grabbing market share that it will be difficult for Kuiper to re-capture.

The launch will also be the first in 2025 for ULA, which had hoped to do as many as 25 launches this year with its old soon-to-be-retired Atlas-5 and new Vulcan rocket. The six-month delay in getting the Pentagon to finally certify Vulcan for commercial military launches has put a damper on that plan. Right now ULA will be lucky if it can complete half those launches.

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Update on the private Fram2 manned orbital spaceflight

9:15 am

The crew of Fram2 in weightlessness

In the past day the crew of the private Fram2 manned orbital spaceflight have released several updates, describing their initial experience in weightlessness as well as releasing some images of themselves inside the Resilience capsule.

First, on April 1, 2025 the mission commander, Chun Wang, the billionaire who paid for the flight, posted a tweet describing how all four crew members experienced space sickness the first day in orbit.

The first few hours in microgravity weren’t exactly comfortable. Space motion sickness hit all of us—we felt nauseous and ended up vomiting a couple of times. It felt different from motion sickness in a car or at sea. You could still read on your iPad without making it worse. But even a small sip of water could upset your stomach and trigger vomiting.

Things however quickly settled down, allowing them to open the nose cone so that they could see out the large cupola window. They released the first images of the Antarctic, and followed soon after with the first images of themselves inside Resilience. The picture to the right, taken by Wang, shows is three crewmates, Jannicke Mikkelsen, Rabea Rogge, and Eric Philips clearly now enjoying the experience of weightlessness.

Still no word on a return date. The mission was initially supposed to last 3 to 5 days. We are now on day three, with no indications of a planned return date.

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China launches radar-related satellite

8:47 am

China today successfully launched a technology satellite designed to calibrate “ground-based radar equipment”, its Long March 6 rocket lifting off from its Taiyuan spaceport in northern China.

No word on where the rocket’s lower stages crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

37 SpaceX (with another Starlink launch later today)
18 China
5 Rocket Lab
4 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 37 to 31.

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Starliner’s troubles were much worse than NASA made clear

11:51 am

Starliner docked to ISS
Starliner docked to ISS.

According to a long interview given to Eric Berger of Ars Technica, the astronauts flying Boeing’s Starliner capsule on its first manned mission in June 2024 were much more vulnerable than NASA made it appear at the time.

First, the thruster problem when they tried to dock to ISS was more serious than revealed. At several points Butch Wilmore, who was piloting the spacecraft, was unsure if he had enough thrusters to safely dock the capsule to ISS. Worse, if he couldn’t dock he also did not know if had enough thrusters to de-orbit Starliner properly.

In other words, he and his fellow astronaut Sunni Williams might only have a few hours to live.

The situation was saved by mission control engineers, who figured out a way to reset the thrusters and get enough back on line so that the spacecraft could dock autonomously.

Second, once docked it was very clear to the astronauts and NASA management that Starliner was a very unreliable lifeboat.
» Read more

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ESA isn’t forcing private companies building cargo capsules to hire contractors from all its partners

10:33 am

Capitalism in space: When the European Space Agency (ESA) in May 2024 awarded two contracts to the French startup The Exploration Company and the established Italian contractor Thales-Alenia to develop unmanned capsules for bringing cargo to and from orbit, it also made a major policy change that went unnoticed at the time.

During a press briefing on 23 May [2024], following the Phase 1 awards, ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher explained that the agency would not require participants in the initiative to adhere to its geo-return policy. The policy typically ensures that contracts are distributed among ESA member states in proportion to their financial contributions. “We contract very differently because we will be the anchor customer,” said Aschbacher. “That means we buy a service. We give industry all the freedom to find the best solution technically, but also the best partners, with whomever they want to work with.”

What means is that the two companies, in developing their capsules, have not been required to spread the work out across Europe. Instead, they have been free to do the work entirely in house, or hire just the subcontractors they prefer, from anywhere. As the CEO of The Exploration Company noted, “In plain terms, we choose our suppliers based purely on quality and cost—not because they’re French, Italian, or German. We choose the best supplier for the job.”

In the past, as part of its bureaucratic and political needs, ESA’s “geo-return policy” required every space project to spread the wealth to all of the ESA’s partner nations, in amounts proportional to their financial contributions to the ESA. The result was that every project went overbudget, took too long to complete, and was unrealistically complex. Many projects simply failed because of these issues. Others took decades to get completed, for too much money. And when it came to rockets, it produced the Ariane-6, that is too expensive and cannot compete in today’s market.

This decision last year means that ESA is very slowly adopting the concept of capitalism in space, whereby it acts merely as a customer, buying products that are completely owned and controlled by the seller.

This new policy presently only applies to the development phase of these capsules. Though no decision has been made about the construction phase, involving much more money, ESA publications indicate it will apply there as well.

Though it is taking time, Europe’s space bureaucracy is beginning to accept the idea of freedom and capitalism.

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Fram2 passengers take their first pictures of Earth’s polar regions

10:10 am

The Arctic as seen from Fram2

SpaceX yesterday released a short video of the first pictures of the Earth’s polar regions taken by its Fram2 passengers on the capsule Resilience.

The picture to the right is a screen capture from that film, looking out the capsule’s large cupola window in its nose. The capsule’s nosecone can be seen at the bottom, having hinged sideways out of the way during orbital operations.

The tweet provided little information about the images. For example, it did not say which pole was imaged. Since the ground and ice below is dark, we are likely looking at the north pole, which at this time of year is mostly in shadow. You can see what looks like the edge of the ice pack, partly hidden by clouds.

The flight is scheduled to last from three to five days, and is presently in its second day. Not much information from the crew in orbit has at this point been released. I suspect they are simply enjoying their experience in private, since they are not obligated to share it with the world.

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SpaceX launches 28 Starlink satellites; China launches test internet satellite

8:39 am

SpaceX yesterday successfully placed 28 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Thank you from several readers for letting me know that I missed it. This was the company’s first of two launches yesterday, the second of which was the Fram2 manned mission. I was so focused on that I missed the first.

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

China in turn today launched a satellite to test new technology for providing the internet from orbit, its Long March 2D rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in China’s northwest. Little information was released about the satellite, and no information was released about where the rocket’s lower stages — using very toxic hypergolic fuels — crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

37 SpaceX
17 China
5 Rocket Lab
4 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 37 to 30.

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Blue Origin completes investigation of the failed landing of New Glenn’s 1st stage

3:18 pm

Blue Origin today announced that it has completed its investigation into the failure of New Glenn’s first stage when it attempted to land on a barge in Atlantic during the rocket’s first launch on January 16, 2025.

Our ambitious attempt to land the booster, “So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance,” was unsuccessful due to our three BE-4 engines not re-igniting properly. Our review confirmed that all debris landed in our designated hazard area with no threat to public safety. The report identified seven corrective actions, focusing on propellant management and engine bleed control improvements, which we’re already addressing. We expect to return to flight in late spring and will attempt to land the booster again.

It is very concerning that the three BE-4 engines that were supposed to relight were unable to do so, especially because this engine was supposedly designed from the start of re-usability.

The next scheduled New Glenn launch in for June, launching NASA’s Escapade Mars orbiters.

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CEO of rocket engine startup accused of bankrupting company by misuse of funds

9:10 am

Buyer beware: Christopher Craddock, the founder in 2014 of the rocket engine startup RocketStar, has now been accused by his former CEO of bankrupting the company by the misuse of funds for “pricey jaunts to Europe, jewelry for his wife, child support payments, and, according to the company’s largest investor, ‘airline tickets for international call girls to join him for clandestine weekends in Miami.'”

Onetime stockbroker Christopher Craddock established RocketStar in 2014 after financial regulators barred him from working on Wall Street over a raft of alleged violations. Craddock held the firm out as “an entity that intended to reinvent space exploration,” states a $6 million lawsuit filed by former CEO Michael Mojtahedi and obtained by The Independent.

….according to Mojtahedi’s complaint, RocketStar “is nothing more than a Ponzi scheme… [that] has been predicated on Craddock’s ability to con new people each time the company has run out of money.”

“Craddock recklessly and lavishly misappropriated for his lifestyle almost every cent RocketStar received from investors, running the company into the ground by August 2024,” the complaint says. “At that point, Craddock’s ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ lifestyle caught up with him, investor funds dried up completely, and his house of cards collapsed.”

Whether Craddock was the crook Mojtahedi say he was remains at this moment unproved. In a sense however this is beside the point. This story illustrates one reality about capitalism that no one should ever forget: Be careful with whom you invest your money. Make sure you know their background. And above all, investigate the company thoroughly before investing in it.

It sure appears that the wealthy people who invested in RocketStar did none of this research. They were the con-man’s perfect mark, innocently handing over cash to someone because what he said sounded good. Rocket science however ain’t easy, and merely sounding good is not enough.

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