Tag: competition

Four astronauts complete 7-month mission and return to Earth

9:54 am

In the early hours of the morning today SpaceX’s Endeavour capsule safely splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico near Pensacola, Florida, bringing three Americans and one Russian back from ISS after seven months in orbit.

After launching March 3 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, as well as Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, spent 232 days aboard the space station.

Recovery teams from NASA and SpaceX quickly secured the spacecraft and assisted the astronauts during exit. The crew now will head to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, while the Dragon spacecraft will return to SpaceX facilities at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida for inspection and refurbishment for future missions.

This completed Endeavour’s fifth flight to ISS, ranging in length from 17 to 235 days in length.

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SpaceX launches reconnaissance satellite for NRO

8:41 pm

SpaceX earlier today successfully launched a reconnaissance satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The first stage completed its 21st flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

104 SpaceX
48 China
11 Russia
11 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 121 to 71, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including American companies, 104 to 88.

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SpaceX rolls out the next Superheavy for sixth test orbital launch

9:59 am

SpaceX in a tweet on October 22, 2024 announced the roll out to the launch tower of the next Superheavy to be used in the sixth orbital test flight, only nine days after that launch tower had successfully caught a Superheavy at the end of the fifth orbital test flight.

Though no launch date has been announced, the company is clearly wants to do it soon. Though its present launch license allows it go when ready, it remains unclear whether it will get that approval from the FAA when requested. FAA upper management has repeatedly indicated a desire to delay its approvals to SpaceX, and until there is a change in the White House — thus forcing a change in that FAA upper management — there is no reason to expect the agency to change its behavior.

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Spaceport startup SUAS Aerospace signs deal to launch small suborbital rocket from west coast of Ireland

9:49 am

SUAS's proposed spaceport plan
Click for original image.

The Irish spaceport startup SUAS Aerospace has now signed a partnership deal with the Netherlands rocket startup T-Minus Engineering to launch a small suborbital rocket from west coast of Ireland in order to demonstrate the viability of Ireland as a potential spaceport location.

According to this report, “T-Minus will provide its Dart rocket for the launch. Dart stands at 3.5 metres and is capable of carrying payloads of up to 3.5 kilograms to a maximum altitude of 200 kilometres.”

Though SUAS has raised €5 million in private investment capital to push its project to build two launch sites within Ireland, it has not made it clear the exact locations of these sites, other than indicating it wants to place them at two locations on Ireland’s west coast, as shown by the company graphic to the right. I suspect it does not yet have rights to the land, and its lobbying effort is largely focused on getting government help to obtain those rights, either on public or private land.

For example, its press release does not provide any details on where this suborbital launch will occur. I am not even sure the company knows. It might simply arrange some coastal location, simply to make possible this demonstration launch, even if that place is not the actual location of its proposed spaceport.

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Boeing forced to take another $250 million charge on Starliner

9:19 am

Because of the continuing problems getting its Starliner manned capsule operational, Boeing has now taken another $250 million charge on the project, raising the total spent of its own money to $1.85 billion.

The company’s original fixed-price contract with NASA to deliver the capsule was $4.2 billion. The bulk of that won’t be paid until Starliner begins flying astronauts commercially, and NASA has now delayed that until 2026 at the earliest. The company’s new CEO, Kelly Ortberg, has now made it clear that he is focused on imposing changes to fix the bankrupt engineering management culture that has caused it so many failures in so many of its recent projects, not just Starlner. In his remarks announcing the company’s third quarter results, he said this:

The trust in our company has eroded. We’re saddled with too much debt. We’ve had serious lapses in our performance across the company which have disappointed many of our customers.

In addressing these issues Ortberg listed a whole range of changes, many of which focused on getting managers more closely involved in design and construction, or as he said, management needs “to be on the factory floors, in the back shops and in our engineering labs.”

Whether he will succeed is unknown. Its factory workers today rejected a new contract offer, continuing their now six-week strike that has halted work on company’s airplane business. In addition, Boeing reported a loss of $6 billion in that third quarter report.

One thing Ortbeg did make clear this week however: Boeing is not walking away from its Starliner contract with NASA. At a minimum it will complete that initial fixed price contract. Whether it will go on to fly more Starliner missions however Ortberg left open. I suspect he remains in negotiation with NASA over this issue.

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Cyprus signs Artemis Accords

8:57 am

Cyprus today officially became the 46th nation to sign the Artemis Accords, its signing coming one day before the already announced planned signing by Chile tomorrow.

Adding both nations to the list, the American-led Artemis Accords alliance now includes the following 47 nations: Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Peru, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

Should Donald Trump return to the White House it will be very interesting to watch how this alliance evolves in the coming years. The original goal for the accords when started by the Trump administration was to build an alliance with enough clout to overcome the limitations on private property contained by the Outer Space Treaty. Though this alliance is surely now large enough to force those changes, that goal has been mostly pushed aside by the Biden administration. I suspect a new Trump administration will be able to bring it back to life, with added force due to this alliance’s size.

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Dragon Endeavour undocks from ISS to bring 4 astronauts home

8:48 am

After more than a month delay resulting first from the issues with Starliner and then by poor weather in the splashdown zones, SpaceX’s Endeavour capsule today finally undocked from ISS, with a planned splashdown on October 25, 2024 at approximately 3:29 am (Eastern) off the coast of Florida. I have embedded the live stream of that splashdown below.

The capsules brings home three Americans and one Russian after a seven-month-long mission.
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Review of the four private space stations presently under construction

8:41 am

Link here. The review provides a nice summary of the status of all four stations, being built by Axiom, Vast, and consortiums led by Blue Origin (Orbital Reef) and Voyager Space (Starlab).

The article included one piece of new news, based on recent stories suggesting major financial issues at Axiom:

As a result of these issues, the Axiom Station is believed to have been downsized to two modules from the originally planned four. There will be a reduced research capability from this arrangement compared to what was expected. However, it remains to be seen if additional capability can be added after the station becomes operational.

The original plan had been to separate the station from ISS once all four modules were launched. Whether it will be able to do so, flying independent of ISS’s systems with only two modules is unclear.

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SpaceX launches 23 more Starlink satellites

8:34 pm

SpaceX today successfully launched another 23 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The first stage completed its 18th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

103 SpaceX
48 China
11 Russia
11 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 120 to 71, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including American companies, 103 to 88.

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ULA begins stacking Vulcan for military launch, anticipating Pentagon approval

8:56 am

Though the Space Force is still reviewing the nozzle issue on the second flight of ULA’s Vulcan rocket and has not yet certified the rocket for military operational launches, ULA has begun stacking the next Vulcan for an anticipated military launch of a national security satellite.

On Monday [October 21], ULA shared photos of the 109.2-foot-long (33.3 m) booster being hoisted into the Vertical Integration Facility to begin the stacking process. In the days and possibly weeks to come, the 38.5-foot-long (11.7 m) Centaur 5 upper stage will be added along with four solid rocket boosters and the payload fairings.

It appears that the military has accepted Vulcan for this launch because — despite the nozzle falling off of
a strap-on side booster — the rocket was successful in placing its payload in its precise orbit. The Space Force is simply completing the paperwork required for certification.

No date however has been set, but the company hopes to complete two military Vulcan launches in 2024, so it won’t be that far in the future.

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SpaceX asks FCC for license revision for launching nearly 30,000 Starlink satellites

8:51 am

SpaceX on October 11, 2024 submitted a request to the FCC to revise its Starlink satellite license to cover a revised plan for its second generation satellites that includes a request to place 29,988 Starlink satellites in orbit.

SpaceX first requests several amendments to the orbital parameters of its Gen2 system between 340 km and 365km altitude to keep pace with rapidly evolving global demand for high-quality broadband. First,SpaceX amends the inclination of its orbital shell at a nominal altitude of 345 km from 46 degrees to 48 degrees. SpaceX also amends its pending Gen2 application to seek authority to operate satellites in its Gen2 system in two additional orbital shells — at 355 km altitude in a 43-degree inclination and at 365 km altitude in a 28- or 32-degree inclination. The total number of operational satellites will remain 29,988 satellites across the amended Gen2 system.

With the exception of its polar shell at 360 km, which will remain unchanged, SpaceX also amends its application to more flexibly distribute satellites in its shells between 340 km and 365 km than requested in its pending application, specifically, in up to 72 planes per shell and up to 144 satellites per plane. While this reconfiguration will result in two additional shells and a higher maximum number of orbital planes and satellites per plane for all but one shell between 340 km and 365 km, the total number of operational satellites in the Gen2 system will remain 29,988 satellites.

In the company’s previous request for this number of satellites, the FCC had approved only 7,500, the full request still pending. We can expect objections from the other big satellite constellations to this request. The FCC’s response remains unclear. There could be legitimate reasons to limit SpaceX request, but it is also possible politics will enter the decision as well, for illegitimate reasons.

Meanwhile, astronomers are already whining about the problems these Starlink satellites will cause to their ground-based telescopes. It seems these so-called brilliant scientists can’t get it through their heads that astronomy from Earth will become increasingly difficult in the coming years — with hundreds of thousands of satellites planned from many satellite constellations, not just SpaceX — while astronomy from space has always been a better choice anyway. Rather than demand regulation or restrictions on these new satellite constellations, they should be pushing hard to developing new orbiting telescopes, now, for launch as quickly as possible.

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China launches three radar satellites

8:33 am

China today successfully launched three radar satellites, its Long March 6 rocket lifting off from Taiyuan spaceport in northeast China.

The news report from China’s English state-run press made believe this launch was only one satellite, in contrast to its Chinese language press. It also did not provide information on where the rocket’s first stage crashed within China, nor whether any upgrades have been done to the Long March 6’s upper stage to prevent it from breaking apart and scattering low Earth orbit with space junk, as has now happened four times previously.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

102 SpaceX
48 China
11 Russia
11 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 119 to 71, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including American companies, 102 to 88.

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Intelsat satellite breaks up in geosynchronous orbit

12:09 pm

An Intelsat communications satellite launched in 2016 has broken up in its high geosynchronous orbit, scattering into as many as 57 pieces of debris.

“U.S. Space Forces-Space (S4S) has confirmed the breakup of Intelsat 33E (#41748, 2016-053B) in GEO on October 19, 2024, at approximately 0430 UTC,” states an alert posted on SpaceTrack, the U.S. Department of Defense’s space-tracking platform. “Currently tracking around 20 associated pieces – analysis ongoing. S4S has observed no immediate threats and is continuing to conduct routine conjunction assessments to support the safety and sustainability of the space domain.”

Douglas Hendrix, CEO of ExoAnalytic Solutions, said the U.S.-based space-tracking company identified 57 pieces of debris Oct. 21 associated with the breakup. “We are warning operators of any spacecraft that we think are at risk of collision,” Hendrix said via email.

This satellite, which served Europe, Africa, and parts of Asia, has had thruster issues since launch, suggesting the breakup might have been caused by similar issues.

At the moment is is unclear whether the debris will threaten other satellites in geosynchronous orbit.

The break-up once again highlights the profit potential for companies capable of removing such space junk. Communications companies like Intelsat as well as others in close orbits would certainly be willing to pay someone to clean things up, for many reasons.

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Oman: 1st launch from Duqm spaceport by the end of the year

2:31 pm

Middle East, showing Oman's proposed spaceport

According to an announcement yesterday Oman plans to complete its first launch before the end of 2024 from its proposed new spaceport near the city of Duqm on the Indian coast.

The map to the right indicates its location. Oman has dubbed the spaceport Etlaq, and it is being run by what Oman claims is a private company, the National Aerospace Services Company (NASCOM), but based on what little I can find out, it appears either to be Oman’s space agency, or a variation of the pseudo-companies in China, privately run but very tightly controlled and owned by government officials.

The announcement provided no information about the rocket or launch, which I suspect will be nothing more than a relatively simple suborbital mission, designed to demonstrate they are serious about this spaceport. The news story at the link shows a picture of a very sophisticated rocket resembling India’s GSLV rocket. I think it is a AI image having nothing to do with reality.

This project was first announced in 2023, with more information released in January 2024. It hopes to attract American rocket companies by claiming it is being built to FAA standards.

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SpaceX successfully launches twenty OneWeb satellites

11:33 pm

SpaceX tonight successfully launched twenty OneWeb satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The first stage completed its seventh flight, landing back at Vandenberg. The fairing halves completed their eleventh and thirteenth flights respectively.

SpaceX has done several launches for OneWeb, the chief competitor to its own Starlink constellation. It won the contract when Russian invaded the Ukraine and — in response to new sanctions imposed by Europe — refused to launch a planned OneWeb launch while confiscating the satellites. OneWeb responded by cancelling its last six Soyuz launches, worth as much as a billion dollars, and signed SpaceX and India’s space agency ISRO instead.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

102 SpaceX
46 China
11 Russia
11 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 119 to 69, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including American companies, 102 to 86.

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Good news: The European Union’s space law is delayed

10:38 am

According to comments by one official of the European Union (EU) at a conference in Italy this week, its proposed space law has been delayed and will not be ready for publication in 2024, as previously promised.

It appears the delay is mostly because of what appear to be complex objections to this law from many of the EU’s many member nations.

Ten of the European Union’s 27 member states “have a full-fledged national space law addressing private-sector operation,” Von der Dunk said. The national laws cover authorization and supervision of commercial activities under Article VI of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.

The EU’s authority to promote scientific progress and the industrial competitiveness of member states comes from the 2007 Lisbon Treaty. That authority is limited, though. “The commission has to make an argument why [space law] should be treated at the EU level, as opposed to the national level,” Von der Dunk said. [emphasis mine]

As I noted in April 2024 when the release of the EU’s space law was pushed back until the summer of 2024 (which by the way did not happen), those member nations do not wish to give the EU that authority, as the EU’s track record in these kinds of matters is heavy regulation and a lot or red tape, all designed to give it power and squelch private enterprise.

It appears those member nations are acting to block this law, and appear to be succeeding. My guess is that Germany, France, Spain, and Italy are the main opponents, all of which have their own space laws in place and are now developing viable private commercial rocket and spacecraft companies. They don’t want the EU’s busy hands anywhere close to these businesses, because they expect it to squash them if it gets the chance.

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SpaceX launches 21 more Starlink satellites

4:39 pm

SpaceX today successfully launched another 21 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

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

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

101 SpaceX
46 China
11 Russia
11 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 118 to 69, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including American companies, 101 to 86.

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ULA recovers nozzle debris that fell off during second Vulcan launch

9:05 am

ULA has recovered some of the debris that fell to earth after the nozzle on one of Vulcan’s two solid-fueled strap-on boosters fell off during the early stages of the rocket’s second launch on October 4, 2024.

Julie Arnold, a ULA spokesperson, confirmed to Ars that the company has retrieved some of the debris. “We recovered some small pieces of the GEM 63XL SRB nozzle that were liberated in the vicinity of the launch pad,” Arnold said. “The team is inspecting the hardware to aid in the investigation.”

The booster was built by Northrop Grumman. Vulcan can use from from two to six on each flight (in pairs), depending on the mass of its payload and the mission requirements. At the moment ULA has 35 of these boosters in storage awaiting future flights. It is expected that once the company has an idea of the root cause of the failure, it will have to inspect each booster to avoid a repeat of the problem.

Though ULA has not announced any changes in its plans to launch twice more before the end of the year, both for the Pentagon, that schedule is now uncertain due to this problem. For example, there as yet is no word on whether the military is willing to certify the launches. It had required ULA to complete two test flights of Vulcan before doing so, and the nozzle issue has cast a cloud on that plan.

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NASA assembles two new panels to review its Mars Sample Return mission plans

10:38 am

NASA yesterday announced that it has assembled two new panels to review its Mars Sample Return mission plans, dubbed the strategy review and the analysis team, to be done in conjunction with the proposals the agency has already received from the private sector.

The team’s report is anticipated by the end of 2024 and will examine options for a complete mission design, which may be a composite of multiple studied design elements. The team will not recommend specific acquisition strategies or partners.

The strategy review team has been chartered under a task to the Cornell Technical Services contract. The team may request input from a NASA analysis team that consists of government employees and expert consultants.

The analysis team also will provide programmatic input such as a cost and schedule assessment of the architecture recommended by the strategy review team.

The first panel contains a mixture of NASA officials and scientists, while the second is mostly made up of NASA managers.

Whatever these panels decide, it is very clear that major changes are required to this project in order to get the Perseverance core samples on Mars back to Earth within a reasonable amount of time and at an acceptable cost. The present project design is chaotic, confused, and running significantly overbudget and behind schedule, with no indication anything will change in the near future.

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Musk: We will attempt to catch Starship like Superheavy, “hopefully early next year”

10:23 am

According to a tweet by Elon Musk on October 15, 2024, SpaceX is targeting early 2025 for the first attempt to recover Starship after launch, and to do it the same way it recovered Superheavy, by catching it with a set of launch tower chopsticks.

To do this will require getting that second launch tower at Boca Chica operational. It will also require SpaceX to successfully restart Starship’s Raptor engines in space, something it has not yet done. Once this is demonstrated to work, the company would also have to do another orbital test where Starship is put in a full orbit and then de-orbited precisely to a point over the ocean, demonstrating that such a return can next be done reliably over land.

In other words, a tower catch can only happen after at least two more test flights. Thus, to do it early next year means SpaceX will have to establish a test launch pace of a launch every one or two months. This is actually something Musk has said repeatedly he wants to do, but has been stymied repeatedly by FAA red tape from doing it.

I suspect Musk’s tweet is expressing his unstated hope that a Trump victory in November will force the FAA to ease its bureaucratic interference.

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Rocket Lab wins launch contract to launch quickly, within two months

10:11 am

Rocket Lab yesterday announced that it has scheduled a new Electron launch for October 19, 2024, based on a contract it signed with a “confidential commercial customer” only two months ago.

The expedited mission will be Rocket Lab’s fastest turnaround to date: from signed contract to launch date in less than two months.

If successfully, it will also be the company’s 12th launch in 2024, completed in the year’s first 10 months. Its previous record for successful launches in a single year, nine, was set in 2022, and that took the entire year to accomplish. Though this record is certainly impressive, it appears at this time that the company will not meet its goal of 20 launches in 2024, though it might not miss it by much.

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Sierra Space wins NASA contract to develop trash compactor for use in space

9:47 am

Sierra Space yesterday announced that it has won a NASA contract to develop trash compactor for use in space and test it on ISS by 2026.

The system’s goals will not only be to reduce the volume of waste, but to recover all the water contained within it.

Current primary waste systems in space cannot reclaim water or effectively reduce the volume of trash in a manner necessary for long-term space travel. The TCPS [Sierra’s compactor] is being developed to recover nearly all the water from the trash for additional use. This capability may be vital not only for deep space exploration but also for commercial orbital facilities or extraterrestrial bases. As a stand-alone system, TCPS only requires access to power, data, and air-cooling interfaces and it provides a simple user interface to facilitate crew interactions.

The key to this development is that it isn’t being developed by NASA solely for ISS. Sierra will own the product, and design it to be used on any in-space operation, from space stations to lunar bases.

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NASA to phase out its government-built communications satellite constellation, rely on commercial services

9:41 am

Capitalism in space: NASA yesterday announced that beginning on November 8, 2024 it will begin the phase out of its government-built TDRS communications satellite constellation, requiring all future missions to use commercial services for communications and data transmission.

As of Friday, Nov. 8, the agency’s legacy TDRS (Tracking and Data Relay Satellite) system, as part of the Near Space Network, will support only existing missions while new missions will be supported by future commercial services.

…While TDRS will not be accepting new missions, it won’t be retiring immediately. Current TDRS users, like the International Space Station, Hubble Space Telescope, and many other Earth- and universe-observing missions, will still rely on TDRS until the mid-2030s. Each TDRS spacecraft’s retirement will be driven by individual health factors, as the seven active TDRS satellites are expected to decline at variable rates. 

NASA in 2022 already issued contracts to six commercial communication companies to provide these services, Inmarsat, Kuiper Government, SES, SpaceX, Telesat, and Viasat. Yesterday’s annoncement involves NASA’s long term plan to retire the TDRS constellation.

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SpaceX sues California Coastal Commission

9:30 am

Wants to be a dictator
Wants to be a dictator

As promised by Elon Musk, SpaceX has now filed suit against California Coastal Commission, and its commissioners, accusing it of violating Musk’s first amendment rights and using its regulatory power against the company simply because those commissioners disagree with Musk’s political positions.

You can read SpaceX’s lawsuit filing here [pdf]. From its introduction:

[The Commission has engaged in naked political discrimination against Plaintiff Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) in violation of the rights of free speech and due process enshrined in the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. Rarely has a government agency made so clear that it was exceeding its authorized mandate to punish a company for the political views and statements of its largest shareholder and CEO. Second, the Commission is trying to unlawfully regulate space launch programs—which are critical to national security and other national policy objectives—at Vandenberg Space Force Base (the Base), a federal enclave and the world’s second busiest spaceport.

The lawsuit stems from the comments made by the commissioners when then voted against the military’s plan to allow SpaceX to increase its launch rate at Vandenberg spaceport to up to 50 launches per year. In those comments, the commissioners made it clear that the main reason they were voting against the motion was because they were offended by Elon Musk and his political positions, not because the company was doing anything wrong. In fact, the commissioners knew SpaceX was doing nothing wrong. As noted at the first link above:
» Read more

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Axiom unveils its spacesuit design

2:57 pm

Axiom's moonsuit
Click for original image.

Axiom today unveiled its proposed spacesuit for NASA’s Moon missions, designed in partnership with the fashion company Prada.

The graphic to the left, cropped and reduced to post here, shows the suit. The letters refer to detailed descriptions contained in the full image.

The suit accommodates a wide range of crewmembers, including males and females from the first to 99th percentile (anthropomorphic sizing). It will withstand extreme temperatures at the lunar south pole and endure the coldest temperatures in the permanently shadowed regions for at least two hours. Astronauts will be able to perform spacewalks for at least eight hours.

The AxEMU incorporates multiple redundant systems and an onboard diagnostic system to ensure safety for crewmembers. The suit also uses a regenerable carbon dioxide scrubbing system and a robust cooling technology to remove heat from the system. It includes advanced coatings on the helmet and visor to enhance the astronauts’ view of their surroundings, as well as custom gloves made in-house featuring several advancements over the gloves used today. The spacesuit architecture includes life support systems, pressure garments, avionics and other innovative systems to meet exploration needs and expand scientific opportunities.

It appears the suit follows the design concept of the Russian Orlan suit, with access in and out using the backpack as the access hatch.

Axiom had won the $228 million contract to build this suit in 2022. In two years it is now testing the suit as it nears what it calls “the final development stage.” Compare that with NASA’s failed effort over fourteen years and a billion dollars to create its own suit, never getting much past powerpoint presentations.

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Airbus to eliminate 2,500 jobs in its space and defense divisions

12:00 pm

Airbus has decided that through 2026 it will eliminate 2,500 jobs in its space and defense divisions.

The Airbus cuts come just months after it said in its second-quarter earnings report that the space division was affecting its financial performance. In those earnings, it took a charge of 989 million euros ($1.08 billion) against the space business, relating to an audit of costs in the division and projected lower revenues.

According the company’s press release, the cuts will be targeting what appears to be a bloated management structure.

Intended measures will include creating a more effective and efficient organisational structure for the Division, especially with regard to headquartered functions.

The company does not plan to lay off anyone against their will. Instead, it will work out a buy-out program, the details of which are not yet known, that will encourage employees to leave voluntarily.

The issues here are probably related to the failure of the Ariane-6 rocket, which though now operational is too expensive to compete effectively in the modern launch market. Though it is built by ArianeGroup, a joint partnership of Airbus and Safran, its losses will percolate back to Airbus itself. That the cuts will target upper management also makes sense. Why does Airbus’s space division need a large payroll at its headquarters if it has shifted its space operations to the subsidiary ArianeGroup?

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Proposed commerical spaceport in Nova Scotia signs launch deal with rocket startup Reaction Dynamics

10:50 am

UPDATE: My first version of this post was fundamentally incorrect. I had confused the new Canadian rocket startup Reaction Dynamics (RDX) with the renamed Raytheon (RTX). Because some of the content relating to Raytheon and the comments is still relevant, I have placed that content below the fold so that readers will understand the context of those comments..

Maritime Launch Services, the company that has been trying to build a commerical spaceport in Nova Scotia since 2016, has now signed a launch deal with a small new Canadian rocket startup, Reaction Dynamics, to do a suborbital test launch.

This new partnership between the two Canadian space companies will begin with a pathfinder launch designed to reach the edges of space. The low impulse launch will push the limits toward a future orbital launch by reaching the Karman Line, the internationally recognized edge of Space.

Under the terms of the MOU, Maritime Launch and Reaction Dynamics [RDX] will work towards a Pathfinder mission that will enable a first ever orbital launch of a Canadian vehicle from Canadian soil on the coast of Nova Scotia. These missions will be supported by RDX’s patented, cutting-edge hybrid rocket technology. Building on the success of the first launch, both companies will work toward the first commercial missions of the Aurora vehicle.

This Nova Scotia spaceport has had a complex and difficult history. Initially it was going to offer launches using a Ukrainian-built rocket, but that plan fell through with Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine. It then opened the spaceport to any rocket company, but it appears it has gotten few takers. Now it is working with Reaction Dynamics to once again provide its own launch services. We shall see how this plays out.
» Read more

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NASA appears to be about to drop Boeing’s Starliner from its manned mission schedule in 2025

10:17 am

In a short announcement outlining its planned two manned ISS missions for 2025, NASA by omission revealed that it now does not expect Boeing’s Starliner capsule to be ready for the second manned flight in July 2025, as previously planned.

Previous updates had noted what capsule would launch the astronauts, with the plan to have Dragon launch the February 2025 crew and Starliner the July 2025 crew. It was assumed in those earlier updates that Starliner would be certified for operational use after the completion of its first manned demo this past summer. This new update does not provide this capsule information, instead saying the following:

The timing and configuration of Starliner’s next flight will be determined once a better understanding of Boeing’s path to system certification is established. This determination will include considerations for incorporating Crew Flight Test lessons learned, approvals of final certification products, and operational readiness.

Meanwhile, NASA is keeping options on the table for how best to achieve system certification, including windows of opportunity for a potential Starliner flight in 2025.

It appears NASA is pulling back from that certification, based on the various technical issues experienced by Starliner during that demo mission, issues that eventually forced NASA to return the capsule unmanned. As such, this announcement yesterday suggests that there is serious negotiations going on between Boeing and NASA as to what will happen next. It appears the agency wants Boeing to fly another demo mission — on Boeing’s dime — before putting astronauts on board and paying for a mission. The Starliner contract was fixed price, and until Boeing successfully completes that manned demo mission NASA is not obligated to pay it any additional funds.

I suspect Boeing is telling NASA it can’t afford to do this, and if NASA doesn’t pony up some bucks for that demo flight it will simply not do it, and NASA will be stuck with just SpaceX as its manned ferry to ISS.

Unconfirmed reports had suggested NASA was considering issuing Boeing a separate contract to do a cargo mission to ISS using Starliner, thus allowing it to pay the company to fly a test mission outside of the fixed price contract. This NASA update yesterday suggests these negotiations are on going, but likely cannot be completed until after the election. A new administration might balk at such a deal.

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Astrolab unveils small prototype unmanned rover

9:50 am

Astrolab, one of three companies with NASA design contracts to develop a manned lunar rover, yesterday unveiled a small prototype unmanned rover that the company has designed to test on the Moon and actually hopes to launch on Astrobotic’s Griffin lander.

In a presentation at the International Astronautical Congress here Oct. 15, Astrolab announced plans to build the FLEX Lunar Innovation Platform, or FLIP, rover for launch as soon as the end of 2025. The half-ton rover will have a payload capacity of 30 to 50 kilograms.

A key purpose of FLIP is to test key systems for its larger FLEX, or Flexible Logistics and Exploration, rover, maturing their technology readiness levels (TRLs). “We want to raise the TRL of our technologies ahead of our other missions,” said Jaret Matthews, founder and chief executive of Astrolab. FLIP will test the same battery modules that the larger FLEX will use and has the same tires as FLEX. Other technologies Astrolab plans to test on the smaller rover include actuators, power systems and communications.

Though no deal has been announced, FLIP was clearly designed to match the fit of NASA’s now canceled VIPER rover that was to be launched on Astrobotic’s Griffin lander. Griffin is still being prepped for its lunar mission to be launched in 2025, but no longer has that prime payload. It is very obvious that Astrolab is vying to make FLIP that prime payload.

If so, the company will have once again demonstrated the advantages of private enterprise. NASA spent almost a billion on VIPER, going so much over budget and behind schedule that the agency had to cancel it. Astrolab has now come up with a replacement in almost no time at all, for likely pennies on the dollar. It is for sure simpler, but it also is likely to fly and test engineering, while VIPER will not.

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China launches “Earth observation satellite”

8:56 am

China today successfully launched what its state-run press described as an “Earth observation satellite,” its Long March 4C rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China.

No word on where the rocket’s first stage, using very toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China. As for the satellite, it was described as something to “be used in a variety of fields including land surveys, urban planning, road network design, crop yield estimation and disaster relief.”

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

100 SpaceX
47 China
11 Russia
11 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 117 to 70, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including American companies, 100 to 87.

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