Tag: competition

Watch the first launch of Europe’s Ariane-6 rocket

9:14 am

Europe’s Ariane-6 rocket, first proposed in 2014 and about four years behind schedule, will finally make its first launch at 2 pm (Eastern) today.

I have embedded the live stream below.

The rocket was conceived by the European Space Agency (ESA) as an attempt to compete with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. It failed to do this from day one, since the rocket was from day one designed to be expendable. By the 2020s it became clear to European satellite companies and government agencies that its launch cost would be far higher that the Falcon 9, and these companies and agencies have therefore resisted signing launch contracts with ArianeGroup. In fact, if Amazon had not decided in ’22 to give the Ariane-6 a contract for 18 launches to put up its Kuiper satellites, the rocket would have almost no launches in its manifest.

This situation was made even more starkly evident at the end of June, when the European governent weather company Eumetsat cancelled its Ariane-6 contract and switched to the Falcon 9.

Though the unelected bureaucrats and apparatchiks in the European Union are trying to require the use of Ariane-6, ESA and Europe’s rocket future resides in the independent rocket startups (Rocket Factory Augsburg, Isar Aerospace, Hyimpulse, PLD). Because they are in competition with each other as well as SpaceX, and are not saddled with heavy government interference, they can focus on innovating to lower cost. Expect them to quickly begin launching in the next three years, with reusability soon to follow.

» Read more

One comment

$243.6 million plea deal allows Boeing to avoid a criminal trial

9:59 pm

The Justice Department and Boeing have made a plea deal so that the company can avoid a criminal trial for breaking its previous plea deal over 737-Max plane crashes that killed 346 people.

Under the agreement, Boeing will plead guilty to a criminal fraud charge stemming from the fatal crashes in Indonesia in October 2018 and in Ethiopia less than five months later that killed a combined 346 people.

Boeing must also pay the hefty fine [$243.6 million], invest at least $455 million in compliance and safety programs, and have an independent monitor oversee Boeing’s safety and quality procedures for three years

The company had made similar deal in 2021 with Justice when it became clear it had deceived FAA regulators about the software on new 737-Max planes that caused these crashes. This new deal is because the company apparently violated that 2021 deal, and allows it to avoid a criminal trial.

A judge still has to approve this new plea deal. Many families of the deceased oppose it, demanding instead that company managers be put on trial. Even if the judge accepts it, Boeing will still be liable for other more recent incidents.

All in all, Boeing comes off as a morally corrupt and incompetent company that was willing to cut corners, lie about it, thus allow more planes to crash because of its actions.

No wonder everyone wants to blame Boeing for every single incident that has recently occurred on various commercial jets, even though in many cases the blame resides more with the maintenance departments of the airlines that had purchased the planes. And no wonder no one believes the claim that the astronauts that flew up to ISS in June are not “stuck” there. They probably aren’t, but why believe anyone from such a compny.

10 comments

SpaceX launches Turkey’s first homebuilt geosynchronous communications satellite

4:39 pm

SpaceX today successfully launched Turkey’s first homebuilt geosynchronous communications satellite, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage completed its fifteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The fairings on this flight completed their tenth and sixteenth time, respectively.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

71 SpaceX
30 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the world combined in successful launches, 83 to 45, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including other American companies, 71 to 57.

In just over half a year, SpaceX has now exceeded the annual record of 70 launches by the entire United States, set in 1966 and held until 2022.

3 comments

SpaceX releases new video of the fourth Starship/Superheavy test flight in June

9:35 am

SpaceX on July 4, 2024 released a new compliation video of the fourth Starship/Superheavy test flight in June, showing some footage not previously released.

I have embedded it below. As is the policy now of many rocket companies as well as many space agencies worldwide, SpaceX added a pounding music score to the event. While sometimes this is fun, I must admit that I am finding it increasingly annoying. This is not a movie, it is real life. If anything, I think the music robs this particular event some of its magnificence by trivializing it.

But then, what do I know?

At the end, SpaceX teased a launch tower capture of Superheavy on the next flight, but I still think this is not going to happen because of the delays it would cause getting FAA approval.

» Read more

10 comments

European Parliament member demands cancellation of launch deal with SpaceX

9:26 am

Christophe Grudler, a member of the European Parliament (MEP) has written a letter to the government-run weather satellite company Eumetsat, demanding that it cancel its decision on June 26, 2024 to use a Falcon 9 rocket rather than the Ariane-6 on its next launch.

In a letter headlined “Request to reconsider launch decision in favour of European strategic interests”, Grudler disputes the decision of EUMETSAT, the intergovernmental European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, to choose America rather than Europe for launching its new satellite. He argues it goes against the principle of giving preference to Europe, something the organisation denies.

“I am writing to urgently request that you reconsider the recent decision to allocate the MTG-S1 satellite launch to a non-EU launch provider, and instead await the results of the inaugural launch of Ariane-6, which was your first choice for this satellite,” the Liberal member of Parliament wrote in a letter to the board.

…Grudler’s requests are threefold: “Cancel the last Council decision regarding a specific launcher solution, Await the inaugural launch of Ariane-6 before making any final decisions for MTG-S1; Reaffirm your dedication to European strategic autonomy by supporting European launch solutions”.

Eumetsat’s decision was clearly a financial one. SpaceX charges much less than Ariane-6, and its Falcon 9 rocket is proven and launching routinely. Ariane-6 won’t have its first launch until next week, on July 9th.

Grudler’s demands are purely political, but since the EU has generally been run top-down, letting politics and power determine its policy, he could force a cancellation of the contract. In the short term this will help ArianeGroup, a partnership of the aerospace companies Airbus and Safran that own Ariane-6, while hurting Europe’s weather satellite capabilities. In the long run it however might aid the growth of Europe’s new competing rocket startups, as it will provide them a guaranteed market. At the same time, having a guaranteed market by government fiat tends to limit competition and thus raise costs.

It appears that some politicians in Europe are still not sold on capitalism and freedom.

17 comments

ESA approves taking the Vega-C rocket away from Arianespace

9:12 am

The council that runs the European Space Agency (ESA) today approved a resolution that shifted ownership of the Vega-C rocket away from government-run Arianespace and giving it back to its builder, the Italian aerospace company Avio.

Arianespace and Avio have agreed that Arianespace will remain the launch service provider and operator for Vega and Vega-C launch services until Vega flight 29 (VV29), scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2025. For Vega-C launches following VV29, the customers who have already contracted with Arianespace will be offered the possibility to transfer their contracts to Avio as the new launch service provider and sole operator of Vega.

Arianespace will primarily focus with ArianeGroup on the Ariane 6 exploitation to best meet the customer needs.

The council also agreed with France’s plan to allow independent commercial rocket startups to launch from French Guiana. Control of that spaceport has also been taken from Arianespace and returned to its owner, the French space agency CNES.

Essentially, this decision ties Arianespace’s future to Ariane-6, which is likely to disappear once its present manifest of launches, mostly for Amazon’s Kuiper constellation, gets launched.

4 comments

Kazakhstan joins China’s lunar base project

9:03 am

Kazakhstan today became the twelth nation to join China’s International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) project, and the first besides Russia with a real viable space industry.

The agreement appears to also include language allowing both nations to use each other’s spaceports. Since Kazakhstan’s main area of participation in space is its Baikonur spaceport, built during the Soviet days and up to now used exclusively by the Russians, this agreement could be a big deal. As the article notes,

China is currently working to boost pad access for emerging commercial launch service providers. The Baikonur cosmodrome was set up by the Soviet Union in Kazakhstan. It is leased to Russia until 2050. The country also hosts the Sary Shagan Test Site. Kazakhstan shares a border with Xinjiang, in China’s west.

“Kazakhstan will need to diversify away from Russia if it wants to have a big future in space,” Bleddyn Bowen, an associate professor specializing in space policy and military uses of outer space at the University of Leicester, told SpaceNews.

This deal indicates once again the foolishness of Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine. It highlighted to all of its neighbors that they need to form alliances with others to strengthen their hand should Russia turn its aggressive eye in their direction. Kazakhstan has now done so, to Russia’s long term detriment.

China’s twelve partner nations are Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Russia, Serbia, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, and Venezuela. In addition, about eleven academic or governmental bureaucracies have signed on along with several other countries (Bahrain and Peru) who have not signed on but are involved in other ways.

8 comments

China launches “satellite group” of Earth observation satellites

8:50 am

According to China’s state-run press, a Long March 6A rocket today successfully launched a “group of satellites … for geographic mapping, land resource surveys, scientific experiments and other purposes,” lifting off from its Taiyuan spaceport in northeast China.

No further information was provided, including where the rocket’s oxygen-fueled lower stages and its four solid-fueled strap-on boosters crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

70 SpaceX
30 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the world combined in successful launches, 82 to 45, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including other American companies, 70 to 57.

Leave a comment

Space Force adds Stoke Space and Blue Origin to its list of smallsat launch companies

9:59 am

The Space Force has now added rocket startups Stoke Space and Blue Origin to its list of launch companies who are now approved to bid on launches of the military’s small satellites.

The two firms join 10 other vendors in the OSP-4 pool: ABL Space Systems, Aevum, Astra, Firefly Aerospace, Northrop Grumman, Relativity Space, Rocket Lab, SpaceX, United Launch Alliance (ULA), and X-Bow.

This program is designed for launches that are not critical and can be used to help new rocket companies, while also encourage all the companies to move more quickly, as the contracts are designed to be require a launch within 12 to 24 months after award, and sometimes much sooner. For example, several recent Firefly launches required the company to deliver the payload to the assembly building and get it mounted in less than a few days, and to do so only when told by the military.

This military smallsat launch program is also wholly different than the Space Force’s large payload launch program, which presently only allows SpaceX, ULA, and Blue Origin to bid on launches. With both programs however it appears the military is no longer limiting the companies that can bid to as small a number as possible — which had been its policy for the first two decades of this century — but instead is eagerly expanding the number over time to increase competition and its own options. With the large payload program the Pentagon intends to revisit its list yearly to widen it as new companies mature.

6 comments

Payload for the last launch of Avio’s Vega rocket now heading to French Guiana

9:44 am

While it remains unclear when the launch will occur, the two-satellite payload for the last launch of Europe’s Vega rocket is now heading to French Guiana.

The payload is two satellites that will be placed in orbits 180 degrees apart in order to make it possible to make fast repeat coverage of the Earth.

This particular launch is long delayed, for several reasons, one of which has been extremely embarrassing for Avio, the Italian company that builds the Vega family of rockets.

In December 2023, European Spaceflight reported that Avio had lost two of four propellant tanks required for the upper stage of the rocket’s final flight. The tanks were later found crushed, forcing the company to find an alternative. At the time, it proposed either using test articles of the tanks that had been used during the vehicle’s qualification phase in 2012 or modifying Vega C upper stage propellant tanks. It’s not clear which of the two options Avio selected to pursue.

The lack of any announced launch date suggests Avio might still have not come up with a solution, or if it has, the solution is not yet fully implemented.

Leave a comment

Isaacman’s Polaris Dawn mission to launch July 31, 2024

9:32 am

Jared Isaacman
Jared Isaacman

According to a short notice on the Polaris Dawn webpage, Jared Isaacman’s manned orbital mission where he will do the first spacewalk by a private citizen is now targeting a launch date of July 31, 2024.

The four-person mission is planned to spend five days in orbit in SpaceX’s Resilience Dragon capsule, during which it will fly to as high as 870 miles, the highest orbit flown since Gemini 11 in 1966, and the farthest any human has flown from Earth since the Apollo lunar missions. That orbit will make possible some new radiation research:

[T]his is high enough to penetrate the inner band of the radioactive Van Allen Belts that encircle the Earth. This isn’t good for the crew consisting of Mission Commander Jared Isaacman, Mission Pilot Scott Poteet, Mission Specialist Sarah Gillis, and Mission Specialist and Medical Officer Anna Menon, but their initial orbit will be highly elliptical with a lower altitude of 120 miles (190 km), so their exposure will be minimal.

The purpose of this radiological game of chicken is to conduct 38 science experiments to study the effects of spaceflight and space radiation on human health. When these are completed, the altitude for the remainder of the five days in orbit will be reduced to 430 miles (700 km).

Isaacman will then attempt his spacewalk, opening a hatch on Resilience that replaced its docking port. While Isaacman will be the only one to exit the capsule, all four crew members will be in comparable spacesuits, since the capsule has no airlock and thus its entire atmosphere will escape during these activities.

If this mission is successful, I expect Isaacman will renew his push at NASA for making the goal of his next Polaris mission to replace the gyros on the Hubble Space Telescope. At the moment agency officials have expressed skepticism and seem uninterested. That might change however.

7 comments

Firefly’s Alpha rocket launches eight smallsats into orbit

9:13 pm

Firefly tonight successfully launched eight smallsats for NASA and others, its Alpha rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The payloads on this launch were not all built by NASA, but I think NASA paid the launch costs as part of a program to help startups. One payload, Catsat, is a test of a spherical inflatable antenna created by the startup Freefall. If successful, it will be make it possible for cubesats to transmit much more data than they can now. As of posting seven of the eight satellites had been deployed. Catsat’s deployment however had not been confirmed.

As this was Firefly’s first launch in 2024, the leader board of the launch race does not change:

70 SpaceX
29 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise however now leads the world combined in successful launches, 82 to 44, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including other American companies, 70 to 56.

8 comments

Firefly postpones its next launch attempt to review data

9:31 am

Firefly yesterday scrubbed its second attempt to launch eight cubesats for NASA and others using its Alpha rocket, postponing the next launch attempt in order to the review the ground system issue that caused the two launch aborts on the first launch attempt on July 1, 2024.

In a social media post, the company stated that it’s standing down “to give the team more time to evaluate data and test systems from the first attempt. … We will work closely with the range and our NASA customer to determine the next launch window,” Firefly wrote on X.

This would have been Alpha’s fifth orbital launch. No new launch date has been announced, though it is expected to occur before the end of this month.

Though it has only flown a few times (with some of those launches failures or only partially successful), Firefly’s Alpha rocket has a robust launch manifest, with its biggest contract with Lockheed Martin for 25 launches. It has signed deals to launch from Wallops Island and Vandenberg, as well as the Esrange spaceport in Sweden. And it also has a contract to build the first stage for Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket.

Leave a comment

Two German-built spy satellites apparently failed immediately after launch

9:17 am

According to a report in the German press, two spy satellites launched in December 2023 apparently never became operational because the antennas on both failed to deploy.

According to the German publication Der Spiegel, the antennas on the satellites cannot be unfolded. Engineers with OHB have tried to resolve the issue by resetting the flight software, performing maneuvers to vibrate or shake the antennas loose, and more to no avail.

As a result, last week, German lawmakers were informed that the two new satellites will probably not go into operation as planned.

The report also notes that, because both satellites never became operational, they remain the responsibility of the building, a German company OHB. It will have to replace them out of its own pocket. It also appears that the company never tested the antenna deployment system prior to launch.

4 comments

SpaceX gets NASA contract to launch gamma-ray space telescope

9:09 am

NASA yesterday announced that it has awarded SpaceX a contract to launch a new gamma-ray space telescope, dubbed the Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI), using its Falcon 9 rocket and targeting an August 2027 launch date.

The firm-fixed-price contract has a value of approximately $69 million, which includes launch services and other mission related costs. The COSI mission currently is targeted to launch August 2027 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

This wide-field gamma-ray telescope will study energetic phenomena in the Milky Way and beyond, including the creation and destruction of matter and antimatter and the final stages of the lives of stars. NASA’s COSI mission will probe the origins of the Milky Way’s galactic positrons, uncover the sites of nucleosynthesis in our galaxy, perform studies of gamma-ray polarization, and find counterparts to multi-messenger sources. The compact Compton telescope combines improved sensitivity, spectral resolution, angular resolution, and sky coverage to facilitate groundbreaking science.

The stated launch price gives us a sense of what SpaceX is charging these days for launches. The contract award also illustrates once again why the delays in developing ULA’s Vulcan and Blue Origin’s New Glenn rockets — caused by Blue Origin’s difficulties in manufacturing its BE-4 rocket engine — has ended up costing both companies a lot of money in sales. SpaceX keeps getting these launch contracts because Vulcan and New Glenn are not yet flying operationally. Vulcan has flown once, but it is probably isn’t capable of adding additional launches to is manifest. More important, the rocket is not yet reusable, and probably could not match SpaceX’s price.

As for New Glenn, it supposedly will make its first launch this fall, but we shall see. It remains four-plus years behind schedule, and though it is described as reusable, its first stage landing vertically like a Falcon 9, it is doubtful it will become doing this on its first launches. It needs to prove out its systems first.

5 comments

Las Vegas space-related resort (claiming it will be a spaceport) gets FAA airport license

8:56 am

A project to build a space-related resort near Las Vegas has now obtained an airport license from the FAA.

The Federal Aviation Administration said small aircrafts can take off from the site of the Las Vegas Executive Airport, which is proposed to be built on about 240 acres of rural land about 45 minute drive away from Las Vegas. The plan is to develop the site into a Las Vegas Spaceport, according to a news release.

The FAA approval said it doesn’t oppose an airport at the site, the proposed takeoffs won’t need clearance from air traffic control and won’t operate in FAA-controlled airspace. If the airport wants to change any of its operations, it would need FAA approval.

The project, dubbed the Las Vegas Spaceport, intends to build a hotel and space-related training facilities to attract space geeks, and claims it will eventually add a launchpad, but considering its location, that last claim is very unlikely. The airport license however will allow it to add flight-training to its portfolio.

2 comments

SpaceX launches 20 Starlink satellites

8:27 am

SpaceX early this morning launched another 20 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

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

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

70 SpaceX
29 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the world combined in successful launches, 81 to 44, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including other American companies, 70 to 55.

To get a sense of how incredible SpaceX’s launch pace this year has been, those 70 launches, completed in only days more than first half of the 2024, matches the American record for launches in a entire year, that was set in 1966 and remained the record until 2022.

4 comments

Florida approves expansion of spaceport territories

9:32 am

Map of potential Florida spaceports

The Florida legislature has now approved two new locations in Florida where rocket launches can take place.

Governor Ron DeSantis signed off on a bill that, as of Monday, will add South Florida’s Homestead Air Reserve Base and the panhandle’s Tyndall Air Force Base to Florida’s growing spaceport territories.

The map to the right shows the spaceport locations within Florida. While the state government might now allow launches from these locations, it is unclear if either military facility is entertaining the idea.

Regardless, the Florida government is clearly intent on encouraging and attracting this new industry to its state.

5 comments

Blue Origin expands deal to fly citizens free on New Shepard

9:16 am

Blue Origin, in partnership with a non-profit, has expanded its program to fly citizens free on suborbital flights of New Shepard, adding India and what it calls “the small island developing states (SIDS)” to the recently announced deal to fly a Nigerian.

The non-profit, dubbed Space Exploration and Research Agency (SERA), has purchased one seat on each of the next half dozen flights, and will only charge passengers $2.50 for the ticket.

In an unprecedented move, SERA will allow people around the world to vote on which citizens will take the approximately 11-minute journey. Anyone living in one of the program’s partner nations can apply to secure a seat. Applicants must be proficient in English, at least 18 years of age, and meet Blue Origin’s parameters for height, weight, physical fitness, and citizenship.

Five of the seats will be allocated to specific nations, and candidates will be voted on by citizens of those nations. The sixth will be open to anyone within a SERA-partnered country and chosen through a global vote. Remaining seat assignments will be announced later this year.

Overall, this continues the PR stunt nature of Blue Origin’s suborbital New Shepard, which apparently does not have enough business to fill its passenger manifest, and thus is arranging these give-aways. While the gesture is nice, it would be far better if the company got its orbital rocket off the ground and actually began flying real cargos and passengers into space.

2 comments

PLD pushes for first orbital launch from French Guiana in 2025

10:40 am

The Spanish rocket startup PLD announced last week that it has invested more than $10 million in developing its own launchpad and assembly facility at France’s French Guiana spaceport, and is targeting 2025 for the first orbital launch of its Miura-5 rocket.

The launcher company PLD Space has announced today an investment of 10 million euros in MIURA 5 Launch Complex at Guiana Space Center (CSG), Europe’s spaceport in Kourou (French Guiana), owned by the French Space Agency (CNES) and the European Space Agency (ESA). With the first launch of its rocket at the end of 2025, PLD Space will become the first non-institutional launch operator that will go to orbit from this historical base.

The company is reconfiguring the launchpad used by France to launch its Diamant rocket back in the 1960s and 1970s. It will include “its own launch zone and a preparation area, comprising an integration hangar, a clean room, a control center, and both commercial and work offices.”

Right now it appears that PLD along with several other European rocket startups are going to bypass a number of American rocket startups that had had a significant headstart, but also appear to be stalled in the last year or so because of a new regulatory framework at the FAA.

Leave a comment

New Polish suborbital rocket to be test flown from Andoya spaceport in Norway

10:26 am

Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea
Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea

A new Polish suborbital rocket, dubbed “ILR-33 Amber 2K,” and being developed by the Łukasiewicz Institute of Aviation, will do its next test flight from the Andoya spaceport in Norway.

After four consecutive test missions completed successfully in Poland, the next stage of preparations of the ILR-33 AMBER 2K to reach the edge of space will take place this year in July. Polish technology will be tested in Norway where one of the key European space centers for launching space vehicles is located.

According to this report, this rocket has a core stage with a hybrid-fueled engine plus two strap-on solid-fueled boosters, a configuration rare for suborbital rockets. After this test flight it will then begin operational suborbital flights, run by a Polish company Thorium from 2025 to 2027.

This deal is another competitive blow to the Saxaford and Sutherland spaceports in the United Kingdom. Both started commercial operations years ahead of either Andoya or Esrange, but because of red tape nothing has been yet allowed to launch from either. This Polish deal one of several for both the Andoya and Esrange spaceports that might have gone to the UK otherwise.

4 comments

SpaceX studying changes to de-orbit procedures for Dragon service module

10:09 am

Because it appears the trunk section of the service module of SpaceX’s Dragon capsules actually survives re-entry, the company is now studying changes to its de-orbit procedures so that it can guarantee that trunk will not crash on land, as has happened now three times in the past two years.

The solution [a NASA official] said NASA and SpaceX are looking at involves changing deorbiting procedures. Currently, the trunk is released before the capsule performs its orbit burn. That means the trunk can remain in orbit for months before making an uncontrolled reentry.

Instead, [that NASA official] said engineers are examining doing the deorbit burn and then releasing the trunk. That would provide more control of where the trunk reenters, ensuring that any debris that survives reentry lands in unpopulated regions.

To make this new procedure work they need to recalculate the fuel requirements for doing the de-orbit burn. It also requires them to figure out when to detach the trunk after the burn. I expect SpaceX to successfully implement these changes before the next Dragon launch, whether manned or unmanned.

5 comments

Ispace’s Resilience lunar lander completes thermal vacuum testing

10:01 am

The Japanese startup Ispace announced late last week that its second lunar lander, formerly names Hakuto-R2 and now dubbed Resilience, has successfully completed thermal vacuum testing and is on schedule for a launch before the end of this year.

The testing was completed at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Tsukuba Space Center in Tsukuba, Japan, where the agency operates a large testing facility. The flight model was assembled at the facility and all payloads or testing models were integrated into the lunar lander before testing began. All test success criteria were met; ispace engineers are now reviewing the detailed data that RESILIENCE collected during the ten-day testing regime. The results will allow engineers to optimize the spacecraft thermally for spaceflight as well as improve flight operation procedures.

Thermal vacuum testing is conducted in a large chamber that allows the lunar lander to experience conditions similar to what it will face during its journey through outer space including extreme temperatures in a vacuum environment. Initial test results indicated successful operation of power systems, guidance, navigation and control (GNC) equipment, radio communications, and thermal control of the lander while simulating an actual spaceflight. During testing in the chamber, ispace operators utillized the lander’s onboard radio to assess connections, send commands to, and receive telemetry from the lander, further simulating actual flight operations.

This lander will also carry a mini-rover, and will be launched by a Falcon 9 rocket. The company’s press materials don’t name a location for the lunar landing spot, though one must have been chosen. I suspect, as this mission is a precursor to Ispace’s first NASA lunar landing mission set for 2026, it will be sent to the same location as Ispace’s first Hakuto-R1 test mission, which got to within three miles but then crashed because sensors thought it was just above the surface and shut off the engines prematurely.

Leave a comment

Japan’s H3 rocket launches successfully for the second time

9:24 pm

Japan’s space agency JAXA today successfully completed the second successive launch of its new H3 rocket, placing an Earth observation satellite into orbit.

This was the third launch of the H3, with the first in May 2023 a failure, and the second a success in February 2024.

I have embedded the video of the launch below, cued to T-15 seconds. This was Japan’s third launch in 2024, exceeding last year’s total of two and matching its total from 2024.

The leader board for the 2024 launch race remains unchanged:

69 SpaceX
29 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the world combined in successful launches, 80 to 44, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including other American companies, 69 to 55.
» Read more

One comment

Chinese first stage breaks free during static fire test; launches, crashes

10:08 am

The first stage of Chinese pseudo-company Space Pioneer’s new Tianlong-3 rocket, intended for its first launch this summer, crashed and burned today during a static fire test when the equipment holding it down failed.

Video of this spectacular failure is embedded below. The rocket is essentially a copy of SpaceX’s Falcon 9, with that first stage designed to eventually become reusuable in the same way.

This pseudo-company recently announced it had raised $207 million in private investment capital, bringing the total it has raised to $552 million. It was also the first Chinese pseudo-company to launch an orbital rocket using liquid fuels, successfully doing so with its Tianlong-1 rocket in April 2023.

Though static fire engine tests have failed before, this appears to be the very first ever to actually break free and launch itself. Fortunately, according to both government and Space Pioneer officials, no one was hurt.

What impact this will have on China’s pseudo-private rocket industry is unknown. This incident isn’t the first, with a tank test by pseudo-company Landspace in January 2024 injuring three.

Moreover, there are hints that the Chinese government might be repossessing control from these companies (as I have expected from the start). Landspace, as well as two other pseudo-companies, Expace and Ispace, have been testing methane-fueled rockets, with Landspace having completed one orbital launch in December 2023 and all three successfully completing hop tests of their first stages.

Last week however a Chinese government agency successfully completed a 10-kilometer hop test of its own methane-fueled first stage. I wonder how much of its design was developed independently, or taken from these three pseudo-companies by the government. I suspect the latter, since none of these companies are really privately owned. They might seem so, but the communists can confiscate everything they have at any moment, and clearly supervises and dictates what they do, step-by-step.
» Read more

8 comments

France awards contract to French startup to launch two robotic satellite servicing missions

10:03 am

Capitalism in space: France has awarded the French startup Infinite Orbits a contract to launch two robotic satellite servicing missions, one to attach itself to a still-unnamed satellite to extend its life, and a second to test rendezvous and proximity maneuvers near a defunct and thought-to-be tumbling weather satellite.

The key tidbit however is that the contract award is part of a French government program to encourage commercial space:

The France 2030 initiative is a €54 billion investment programme that aims to transform sectors of the French economy with technological innovation.

I was unaware of this French government program. It appears it signals a shift in financial support from the European Space Agency’s commercial entity Arianespace to new competitive French companies. If so, this is a very good sign for its aerospace industry.

2 comments

SpaceX and China complete launches

9:44 am

Both SpaceX and China completed launches in the past 12 hours. First, SpaceX last night launched a package of National Reconnaissance Office reconnaissance satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California. The first stage completed its eighth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. The two fairings completed their seventh and thirteenth flights respectively.

Then, early today China launched a new communications satellite, its new Long March 7A rocket lifting off from its coastal Wenchang spaceport. Video of the liftoff can be seen here.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

69 SpaceX
29 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the world combined in successful launches, 80 to 43, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including other American companies, 69 to 54.

10 comments

New update on SpaceX’s preparations for future Starship/Superheavy test launches

10:06 am

Link here. Lots of progress described, all suggesting SpaceX continues to target late July for the next test orbital flight. Very much worth reading.

The article repeatedly suggests the work to prepare the launch tower at Boca Chica to catch a returning Superheavy means the next launch will attempt such a catch, but in truth there is no evidence such a thing is planned, other than a single tweet by Elon Musk. As the article finally admits in its next-to-last paragraph,

Starship can now fly missions that have very similar profiles to Flight 4 with the existing FAA license, but a license modification is needed for any catch attempt. If Flight 5 does indeed proceed with a catch attempt at the tower for Booster 12, additional paperwork will need to be filed for this license modification.

I continue to expect SpaceX to propose such a catch on a later flight. The tower work at Boca Chica could be the company doing the necessary work to prove to the FAA that a amended launch license process should be issued, but not for the next flight.

12 comments

Indonesia government offering proposed launch site to SpaceX and others

9:57 am

Indonesia proposed spaceport on Baik

As part of its effort to promote a long term space industry development plan, Indonesian officials have repeatedly been offering a proposed launch site to SpaceX and others on government land on the island of Biak off the coast of New Guinea.

The map to the right shows the location. First SpaceX and China were offered use of Baik. Neither has accepted. Then,

As recently as 2023, BRIN officials promoted their spaceport plans at the G20 Space Economy Leaders’ Meeting and Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum. China, Russia, Japan, South Korea and India were invited as potential partners, but none signed on.

Meanwhile, the article says Indonesia hopes to launch 19 satellites in 2025, using a variety of commercial launchers.

6 comments

European weather satellite company cancels launch contract with Ariane-6, switches to SpaceX

9:37 am

We now know the reason why an Arianespace official on June 26th demanded new legislation requiring all European payloads to launch on European rockets. Today it was revealed that the European weather satellite company Eumetsat has canceled a launch contract on an Ariane-6 rocket and instead switched to SpaceX’s Falcon 9.

Late yesterday, French news outlet Le Monde reported that the executive committee of Eumetsat, the European meteorological satellite agency, had asked the agency’s board of directors to cancel a contract it signed with Arianespace four years ago to launch its Meteosat MTG-S1 satellite. The mission would have been flown aboard the third Ariane 6 flight, which is expected to be launched in early 2025. The satellite will now be launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

Not surprisingly, another French official today — Philippe Baptiste, the head of France’s CNES space agency — once again demanded action to require European companies to use European rockets. In his whining however he revealed an amazing inability to understand why this decision was made.

“How far will we, Europeans, go in our naivety. … I am impatiently waiting to understand what reasons could have led Eumetsat to such a decision at a time [when] all major European space countries as well as the European Commission are calling for launching European satellites on European launchers.”

The reasons why are quite obvious, and if this guy can’t recognize them then there is little hope the European Ciommision will ever figure out how to compete. Not only is the cost for a Falcon 9 launch likely one third that of an Ariane-6, it is a proven launcher. Ariane-6, four years behind schedule, won’t make its first launch until July 9, 2024, assuming all goes as planned. Eumetsat officials probably decided they couldn’t afford the extra cost and risk.

3 comments
1 … 35 36 37 38 39 … 291