Tag: competition

Ball Aerospace purchased by BAE Systems

9:57 am

BAE Systems today announced it has purchased from Ball Corporation its aerospace division, Ball Aerospace, for $5.6 billion.

It appears that the Ball corporation wants to focus its business plan around its “circular aluminum packaging for global beverage and household brands,” rather than aerospace. This sale essentially concludes the company’s slow transition away from its long time space business, which began just prior to Sputnik in 1956. It is essentially out of that business now, and instead has returned entirely to its packaging roots from the late 1800s.

BAE meanwhile strengthens its focus on space, both in the commercial and defense markets, with the addition of the Ball Aerospace division, which has been in the space business for decades.

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The ups and downs of capitalism in space

9:44 am

Two stories today illustrate how allowing freedom and capitalism to rule in the development of America’s aerospace industry carries with it the potential for wonderful achievements as well as depressing failures.

First the potential failure. Despite having successfully flown several missions demonstrating its orbital tug and service module for cubesats, the company Momentus has been forced to lay off 30% of its staff because of dwindling cash reserves.

Momentus reported a record quarterly revenue of $1.7 million in the second quarter, the first time it reported revenues of more than $1 million in a quarter. However, the company reported a net loss of $18.8 million and ended the quarter with $21.6 million of cash and equivalents on hand.

The company is presently scrambling to find new sources of investment capital, as it does not expect its income to grow sufficiently in the next year to keep itself above water, even though it should successfully fly more flights of its Vigoride orbital tug as well as a new service module version.

Next we have the potential achievement: The financial status of the startup satellite company Terran Orbital appears healthy and strong, mostly because of a $2.6 billion contract to build 300 satellites for the wireless communications company Rivada Space Networks. The first $180 million payment under that contract is expected this year.

At the same time, there are storm clouds in the distance, as there remain unanswered questions about whether Rivada has the resources sufficient to fulfill the contract.

During Terran Orbital’s Aug. 15 earnings call, H.C. Wainwright & Co analyst Scott Buck said Rivada’s vagueness about its plans for financing the constellation has caused “investor hesitation around the contract.”

Terran Orbital has already a number of successes building satellites for others, with its most significant achievement the CAPSTONE lunar orbiter it built for NASA. If the Rivada contract falls through I suspect the company will still be able to garner plenty of customers to survive.

For Momentus the situation is more dire, especially because it already faces strong competition from a number of other orbital tug companies.

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Chandrayaan-3’s Vikram lander separates from its propulsion module; Luna-25 in lunar orbit

9:08 am


Click for interactive map.

The two probes aiming to land in the high southern latitudes of the Moon in the next week are now both in lunar orbit and preparing for their planned landings.

First India’s Chandrayaan-3: With its propulsion module having completed the job of getting Chandrayaan-3 from Earth to lunar orbit, the Vikram lander today separated from that module in preparation for firing its own engines on August 23, 2023 and landing on the Moon.

Vikram needs to make several orbital adjustments before that landing attempt.

Second, Russia’s Luna-25 probe entered lunar orbit yesterday, where it will spend the next few days making its own orbital adjustments before attempting its landing on August 21st.

Vikram carries a small rover, Pragyan. Luna-25 is only a lander, though it has a scoop and will do analysis of the lunar soil below it. Neither is landing “near the south pole”, as most news sources are saying. They are landing at latitudes comparable to landing in the Arctic on Earth, on the northern coast of Alaska. As such, neither will find out anything about the question of remnant ice in south pole’s permanently shadowed regions.

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SpaceX launches another 22 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral

8:59 pm

SpaceX tonight successfully launched another 22 Starlink satellites into orbit. its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral at 11:36 pm Eastern.

The first stage completed its thirteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The two fairings completed their 10th and 11th flights, respectively. As of posting the satellites had not yet deployed.

SpaceX has another launch scheduled only hours hence, at midnight (Pacific) from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, aiming to put another 22 Starlink satellites in orbit using a first stage flying for its fifteenth time.

Until that second launch, the leaders at this moment in the 2023 launch race are as follows:

56 SpaceX
35 China
11 Russia
6 Rocket Lab
6 India

In successful launches, American private enterprise now leads China 64 to 35 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 64 to 57. SpaceX by itself trails the rest of the world combined (excluding American companies) 56 to 57, but this will become a tie if the second launch occurs as planned.

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Astra scrambling to find investors as its cash reserves dwindle

9:27 am

Despite a major reorganization, including laying off a quarter of its workforce, Astra now appears to be scrambling to find new investors even as its available cash reserves shrink.

The company’s financial runway is diminishing even as the company finds new sources of capital, such as a loan announced Aug. 4 that will provide Astra with $10.8 million and plans announced in July to sell up to $65 million in Astra stock in an “at-the-market” transaction. The company forecasted an adjusted EBITDA loss of $25 million to $29 million in the third quarter, ending the quarter with $15 million to $20 million of cash and equivalents on hand.

One analyst on the call expressed frustration with those projections, asking Astra executives for the “upside” of the company’s plans. Kemp emphasized the backlog of orders for its thrusters, which Astra said Aug. 4 was valued at $77 million, as well as orders from the U.S. Space Force and the Defense Innovation Unit for the Rocket 4.

However, he suggested the company’s efforts to focus on thruster production were intended to buy time for Astra as the company looks for new investors. The company said Aug. 4 it was working with PJT Partners, an investment bank, to identify “potential strategic investments in the Astra Spacecraft Engine business” that would bolster its finances. “We are actively focused on finding investors in these two businesses,” he said, noting that the company’s launch and spacecraft propulsion business lines are distinct and “in different phases of their development.”

Essentially the company is approaching a make-or-break moment. What I think is likely to happen is it will either go bankrupt, or be purchased outright by a new big-money investor who will take over the company entirely, replacing its present management with new people.

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Russia considering flying Proton rockets after 2025

9:19 am

According to a story today in Russia’s state-run TASS news outlet, the Khrunichev design bureau that builds Russia’s Proton rocket is in negotiation with Kazahkstan to use all the remaining Proton rockets available, even if that requires additional launches after 2025, the date Roscosmos had previously announced as when all Proton launches will cease.

The Khrunichev Center (part of the state-run space corporation Roscosmos) is actively working on future cooperation with the Kazakh side, including with regard to the use of the Proton carrier rocket, the center’s CEO Alexey Varochko told TASS. “The Khrunichev Center is actively working on various scenarios of mutually beneficial cooperation with the Kazakh side, including those involving the Proton carrier rocket,” Varochko said.

According to the official, the possibility of using Protons after 2025 may be considered only if both Russia and Kazakhstan give their consent.

It sounds like Khrunichev has some spare Protons, and wants to make some money from them, even if Roscosmos has forbid it. It also appears that there is political infighting within Roscosmos about the retirement of Proton and resulting the loss of government jobs at Khrunichev.

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Chandrayaan-3 reaches final lunar orbit for landing

9:12 am


Click for interactive map.

India’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft completed its final lunar orbital engine burn today, placing it in the correct orbit to release the lander Vikram, carrying the Pragyan rover.

The release is scheduled for tomorrow, with the landing targeting August 23, 2023. This will be India’s second attempt to softland an unmanned probe on the Moon. The Vikram lander of Chandrayaan-2 failed in 2019 during its final engine burn above the surface, crashing thereafter. Engineers at India’s space agency ISRO spent several years upgrading that lander to better insure this new attempt would succeed.

The lander has been given more ability to manoeuvre during the descent, the mission allows for a bigger 4 km x 2.4 km area for landing, more sensors have been added, one of the thrusters has been removed, and the legs of the lander have been made sturdier to allow for landing even at slightly higher velocity. More solar panels have also been added to ensure that the mission can go on even if the lander does not face the sun. More tests to see the capability of the lander in different situations were carried out to make Chandrayaan-3 more resilient.

Both Vikram and Russia’s Luna-25 lander, scheduled for touchdown on August 21, will land in the high southern latitudes of the Moon, at about 70 degrees. They are not going to the Moon’s south pole, as many news reports claim.

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Intuitive Machines sets mid-November launch date for its Nova-C lunar lander

9:16 am


Click for interactive map.

Intuitive Machines announced yesterday that the launch of its lunar lander, Nova-C, is now targeting a November 15-20, 2023 window, lifting off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

The yellow dot on the map to the right indicates the landing site, Malapert A, in the southern latitudes of the Moon. The white cross indicates the south pole.

The lander had originally planned to launch in 2021, but delays in construction pushed the launch back two years. A second company, Astrobotics, has its own lander, Peregrine, that though also delayed two years, has been ready to launch since early this year. It won’t launch until the end of this year at the earliest, however, due to delays in readying its rocket, ULA’s Vulcan on its first flight.

Both India’s Chandrayaan-3 and Russia’s Luna-3 are right now on their way to the Moon, with each planning a landing next week.

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China makes available to the international community Chang’e-5’s lunar samples

9:52 am

China on August 2, 2023 announced that it is now allowing scientists from all nations to apply for access to the lunar samples brought back to Earth by its 2020 Chang’e-5 mission to the Moon.

The announcement outlined very specific rules for the loan of the samples, including requirements that if any part of a sample needs to be destroyed to study it that action be videotaped in detail. Samples loaned for research are for one year periods only, though this can be extended.

The rules also allow two month loans for the use of samples in public display, such as at a museum.

In both cases China will closely supervise the research and retain the right to recall the samples at any time if it doesn’t approve of what the borrower is doing.

U.S. law forbids our government officials or agencies from working with China, so don’t expect NASA or its scientists to apply for these samples. However, the law doesn’t apply to independent scientists, though serious state department regulations would apply. I therefore doubt many American scientists will apply for any samples. It would carry too many risks to their other research.

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Chandrayaan-3 completes next-to-last orbital maneuver before releasing Vikram lander

9:31 am


Click for interactive map.

According to India’s ISRO space agency, its Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft has successfully completed the next-to-last orbital maneuver burn before releasing Vikram lander, lowering the spacecraft’s orbit around the Moon to 150 by 177 kilometers.

Today’s maneuver can be considered the second last vital maneuver. The one that takes place on August 16, will set the course for the Vikram lander.

Based on how today’s and August 16’s manoeuvres are executed, ISRO will get to decide where the Vikram lander touches down, among three predesignated spots on the Moon’s surface.

It had been my understanding that the landing zone was as indicated by the red dot on the map to the right. It might be instead that was only one of three potential landing sites. If so, I will update the map when more data is released.

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Axiom signs deal with Poland and ESA to send Polish astronaut to Axiom’s future space station

9:22 am

Capitalism in space: Axiom last week signed an agreement jointly with Poland and the European Space Agency (ESA) to send Polish astronaut to Axiom’s space station, expected to launch sometime in 2026.

This was the second European astronaut Axiom has signed a deal to fly to space, with the ESA in both cases providing support.

In April 2023, Axiom Space and the Swedish National Space Agency signed a letter of intent to send an ESA astronaut to the ISS. Through this agreement, the upcoming Axiom Space mission, Ax-3 now targeting launch in January 2024, will be the first commercial mission to the ISS to include an ESA project astronaut.

The date for the flight of the Polish astronaut was not announced. Nor is it clear whether this astronaut will fly to Axiom’s first module, attached to ISS, or wait until Axiom’s completes its station and separates from ISS entirely.

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China’s solid-fueled Kuaizhou-1A rocket launches five smallsats

9:14 am

China yesterday launched five smallsats using its solid fueled Kuaizhou-1A rocket, lifting off from its Xichang spaceport in the south of China.

It was the second launch from Xichang yesterday. Unlike the Long March 3B, which uses very toxic hypergolic fuels, the Kuaizhou-1A uses solid fuels in its lower three stages (the fourth in orbit is liquid-fueled), which are not as toxic but still somewhat unhealthy. As with the earlier launch, however, those lower stages crashed somewhere in China. No word whether they landed near habitable areas.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

55 SpaceX
35 China
11 Russia
6 Rocket Lab
6 India

American private enterprise still leads China in successful launches 63 to 35, and the entire world combined 63 to 57. SpaceX by itself now trails the entire world (excluding American companies) 55 to 57.

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