Tag: competition

Starship launch still stalled by FAA

3:47 pm

According to a tweet by Elon Musk today, Starship will be ready for its first orbital test launch in a few weeks.

Musk also noted however that SpaceX is still awaiting the FAA’s launch license, and because of this he now expects the launch in the third week in April.

Why it is taking months for the FAA to issue this license is disturbing, and suggests that under the Biden administration the feds are behaving more and more like the incompetent Civil Aviation Authority in the UK, which stonewalled Virgin Orbit’s launch for months so that the company now sits on the verge of bankruptcy.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay for this story, who will be gone for the next two weeks on vacation. Have fun Jay.

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SpaceX launches another 52 Starlink satellites

2:58 pm

SpaceX today successfully put another 52 Starlink satellites into orbit using its Falcon 9 rocket launching from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage completed its 8th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

A second SpaceX launch today, this time from Cape Canaveral, Florida, is set to launch very shortly, so the leader board for the 2023 launch race will also change as well:

18 SpaceX
11 China
4 Russia
2 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads China 20 to 11 in the national rankings, and the entire globe combined 20 to 17. SpaceX now trails the entire world, including American companies. 18 to 19.

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Both India’s Chandrayaan-3 and Intuitive Machine’s Nova-C lunar landers pass vibration tests

9:21 am


Click for interactive map.

According to separate announcements just released, both India’s Chandrayaan-3 lander/rover and Intuitive Machine’s private Nova-C lunar lander have passed their last ground tests and are now ready for launch to the Moon later this year.

India’s space agency ISRO successfully completed testing of its Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander/rover in early March, completing vibration tests of the spacecraft and proving it will be able to survive the stresses during launch. The spacecraft successfully completed radiation testing in February.

ISRO is now targeting June 2023 for Chandrayaan-3’s launch.

Intuitive Machines meanwhile announced yesterday that its Nova-C lander has completed vibration testing, and is ready for launch later this year.

The map to the right shows the landing sites of these planned landers near the Moon’s south pole (indicated by the white cross), as well as Russia’s long-delayed lunar lander, Luna-25, which is now targeting a July launch.

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Astra asks for more time from Nasdaq before its stock is delisted

8:54 am

The rocket startup Astra has now asked Nasdaq to give it an extra six months beyond the early April deadline to get its stock price above $1 in order to avoid getting delisted from the stock market.

With its share price at $0.42 upon closing Thursday, Astra Chief Financial Officer Axel Martinez wrote in a blog post that the space company formally requested on Monday another six-month window to raise the share price above $1 for 10 consecutive business days as required to stave off a delisting.

It appears the company might be considering a reverse-stock split, whereby stocks are combined with the total number reduced, thus artificially raising the stock price. Nasdaq will consider this tactic an acceptable solution, though it is also considered a last-ditch approach.

Right now Astra is no longer an operational rocket company, having discontinued its Rocket-3 rocket. It says it is developing a new rocket, dubbed Rocket-4, but whether it can get this operational before it runs out of money or gets delisted remains unknown.

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Rocket Lab and China launch satellites successfully

8:40 am

Both the American company Rocket Lab and China have successfully placed satellites in orbit in the past day.

First, Rocket Lab successfully placed two Earth observation satellites for the company Capella yesterday. This was also its second launch from Wallops Island in Virginia. The company made no attempt to recover the first stage.

Next, China today used its Long March 3B rocket to place its own Earth observation satellite into orbit from its Xichang spaceport, located in the country’s northeast but far from the ocean. No word on whether the rocket’s first stage and four strap-on boosters crashed near habitable areas.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

17 SpaceX
11 China
4 Russia
2 Rocket Lab

For the rest of the year, I will only list the leaders with each launch update. At this moment, American private enterprise leads China 19 to 11 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 19 to 17. SpaceX alone now trails the rest of the world combined, including American companies, 17 to 19.

These numbers will likely change later today, as SpaceX has two launches scheduled in just a few hours. One launch will place two communications satellites in orbit for the Luxembourg company SES. The other will launch another 52 Starlink satellites.

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Student cubesat demonstrates how to use a solar sail for satellite deorbit

10:04 am

Using cheap off-the-shelf parts students at Brown University have successfully tested a simple solar sail in space and shown how it can be used to de-orbit satellites efficiently and inexpensively.

They built a satellite on a shoestring budget and using off-the-shelf supplies available at most hardware stores. They even sent the satellite — which is powered by 48 Energizer AA batteries and a $20 microprocessor popular with robot hobbyists — into space about 10 months ago, hitching a ride on Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket.

…The students added a 3D-printed drag sail made from Kapton polyimide film to the bread-loaf-sized cube satellite they built. Upon deployment at about 520 kilometers — well above the orbit of the International Space Station — the sail popped open like an umbrella and is helping to push the satellite back down to Earth sooner, according to initial data. In fact, the satellite is well below the other small devices that deployed with it. In early March, for instance, the satellite was at about 470 kilometers above the Earth while the other objects were still in orbit at about 500 kilometers or more.

Based on the data, it is expected the cubesat will burn up in the atmosphere in five years, not twenty-five or so predicted for the other cubesats launched to the same orbital elevation.

This experiment above all proves that most of the very expensive demo missions to test this kind of technology have been grossly over-budget. The entire cost of this student-built project was just $10,000, and it actually was more successful in proving this technology than a number of past solar sail projects that cost millions.

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Virgin Orbit pauses operations; seeks funding

9:15 am

Virgin Orbit today paused all operations for at least a week, putting almost its entire staff on furlough as it seeks new financing.

Chief Executive Dan Hart told staff that the furlough would buy Virgin Orbit time to finalise a new investment plan, a source who attended the event told Reuters news agency. It was not clear how long the furlough would last, but Mr Hart said employees would be given more information by the middle of next week.

If Virgin Orbit dies, its death will be because a British government agency killed it. The company had planned on launching from Cornwall in the early fall of 2022, at the latest, and then do several other launches in 2022, all of which would have earned it revenue. Instead, the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) delayed issuing the launch license until January 2023, about a half a year later, preventing Virgin Orbit from launching for that time and literally cutting it off from any ability to make money. The result was that it ran out of funds.

Obviously the launch failure that followed the CAA’s approval did not help. Nor did the company’s decision to rely on only one 747 to launch its satellites. Nonetheless, the fault of this company’s death can mostly be attributed to a government bureaucracy that failed in its job so badly that it destroyed a private company.

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China’s Long March 11 rocket launches classified Earth observation satellite

9:06 am

China yesterday used its Long March 11 solid-fueled four-stage rocket to launch a classified Earth observation satellite into orbit.

The launch was from an interior spaceport, so the rocket’s lower stages crashed somewhere in China or Mongolia. No word on if they landed near habitable areas.

The 2023 launch race:

17 SpaceX
10 China
4 Russia
1 Rocket Lab
1 Japan
1 India

American private enterprise still leads China 18 to 10 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 18 to 16. SpaceX alone is now tied with entire world, including the rest of the U.S., 17 to 17.

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Firefly wins its second NASA contract to land payloads on the Moon

8:59 am

Capitalism in space: Firefly announced today that it has won a $112 million NASA contract to use its Blue Ghost lunar lander to bring three instruments to the Moon, one into orbit and two on the ground on the far side of the Moon.

Before landing on the Moon, the company’s Blue Ghost transfer vehicle will deploy the European Space Agency’s Lunar Pathfinder satellite into lunar orbit to provide communications for future spacecraft, robots, and human explorers. After touching down on the far side of the Moon, the Blue Ghost lunar lander will deliver and operate NASA’s S-Band User Terminal, ensuring uninterrupted communications for lunar exploration, and a research-focused payload that measures radio emissions to provide insight into the origins of the universe.

The NASA press release provides more details about the three payloads.

This is Firefly’s second NASA lunar lander contract. The first is scheduled to land in 2024 and deliver ten NASA science instruments to Mare Crisium, the large mare region in the eastern side of the Moon’s visible hemisphere. This second flight is tentatively scheduled to launch in 2026.

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NASA agrees to Axiom’s third planned commercial passenger mission to ISS

8:45 am

NASA today announced that it has given Axiom the go-ahead for its third planned commercial passenger mission to ISS, now tentatively scheduled for November 2023.

Axiom Mission 3 (Ax-3) is expected to spend 14 days docked to the space station. A specific launch date is dependent on spacecraft traffic to the space station and in-orbit activity planning and constraints. NASA and Axiom Space mission planners will coordinate in-orbit activities for the private astronauts to conduct in coordination with space station crew members and flight controllers on the ground.

As NASA did in announcing its agreement to Axiom’s previous flight, the agency’s press release makes believe it “selected” Axiom for this flight, as if it had the power and right to do so. Hogwash. Axiom has purchased the flight from SpaceX, and wishes to rent space on ISS for two weeks for its customers. All NASA has done is agree to the deal, while also charging Axiom very large fees for that rental.

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SpaceX launches cargo Dragon to ISS

5:43 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX tonight successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to put a cargo Dragon capsule into orbit and on its way to ISS.

The first stage successfully completed its seventh flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The Dragon freighter is making its third flight, and will dock with ISS on the morning of March 16th.

The 2023 launch race:

17 SpaceX
9 China
4 Russia
1 Rocket Lab
1 Japan
1 India

American private enterprise now leads China 18 to 9 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 18 to 15. SpaceX alone leads entire world, including the rest of the U.S., 17 to 16.

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