Tag: competition

SpaceX and ORBCOMM have now set Friday, June 20, as the date for next commercial launch of the Falcon 9.

8:49 am

SpaceX and ORBCOMM have now set Friday, June 20, as the date for next commercial launch of the Falcon 9.

The article is interesting in that it is somewhat critical of SpaceX’s overall failure so far to meet its launch manifest schedules. The point is well taken, but it seems to me that most of the delays were related to getting the upgraded Falcon 9 into operation. Now that this has happened, I expect SpaceX’s launch rate will continue to accelerate.

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On Monday ULA signed contracts with several American companies to begin development of an engine to replace the Russian built first stage engine used by the Atlas 5.

8:43 am

The competition heats up: On Monday ULA signed contracts with several American companies to begin development of an engine to replace the Russian built first stage engine used by the Atlas 5.

The commercial contracts between ULA and prospective U.S. engine builders cover technical feasibility analyses, high-fidelity planning, schedule, cost and technical risk assessments, and cost estimates, ULA said in a statement released Monday. … ULA did not identify which companies will undertake the engine studies. Jessica Rye, a ULA spokesperson, also declined to say how many companies signed the contracts with the launch provider. The contracts are for early-stage studies of a hydrocarbon-fueled engine optimized for first stage propulsion with “aggressive recurring cost targets,” according to ULA.

All the engine concepts will support a first launch by 2019, and ULA expects to select a future concept and engine supplier by the fourth quarter of this year, the company said. ULA will evaluate the feasibility of the new engine concepts for both private investment and the potential for government-industry investment.

For the American rocket industry this is good. The only negative I can see is the possibility that Congress will allocate a lot of cash and requirements for building the new engine, which will increase its cost, slow its development, and make it less competitive. If they instead do it like NASA has done with its commercial crew development and let companies compete to build it, they will get it sooner and cheaper, and the industry will develop more options.

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Getting the Russian Soyuz capsule prepped to take two tourists around the Moon.

8:59 am

More capitalism: Getting the Russian Soyuz capsule prepped to take two tourists around the Moon.

The key detail in this story is not so much that they are beginning to figure out the engineering upgrades necessary to fling a Soyuz capsule around the Moon but that Space Adventures has apparantly finally gotten two passengers who have put down deposits for the lunar flight. For years they have said they had one ticket holder, suspected to be James Cameron, but without a second passenger the flight could not go forward. It now appears that they have gotten a deposit from that second person.

Posted on the road in New Mexico.

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The competition heats up: European aerospace companies Airbus and Safran have signed an agreement to merge their rocket divisions.

8:24 am

The competition heats up: European aerospace companies Airbus and Safran have signed an agreement to merge their rocket divisions.

The companies said the joint-venture would combine Airbus Group’s launch systems with Safran’s propulsion systems, but hinted at broader integration of public and private activities in an effort to duplicate the success of planemaker Airbus. Europe’s Ariane 5 space launcher dominates the market for large commercial satellites but faces growing concerns over its future due to competition from Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), run by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk.

To respond to the threat, Airbus and Safran aim to lead a drive towards an integrated European launch firm drawing on the lessons of Airbus’s planemaking unit, which was spurred into turning itself from being a consortium into a single company by the merger of transatlantic rivals Boeing and McDonnell Douglas in 1997. [emphasis mine]

The article, like practically every other report about Europe’s space effort in the past two years, singles out the competitive threat being made to their market share by SpaceX. Increasingly, the price reductions being offered by Musk’s company combined with its repeated success in launching payloads into orbit is forcing Europe to cut its own costs and become more efficent, something they have not bothered to do in decades. As result access to space is about to get signigicantly cheaper.

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After successfully completing its standard prelaunch static fire, SpaceX has delayed the Sunday Falcon 9 commercial launch at the request of its customer which wishes to do further tests of the six satellites on board.

5:42 pm

After successfully completing its standard prelaunch static fire, SpaceX has delayed the Sunday Falcon 9 commercial launch at the request of its customer which wishes to do further tests of the six satellites on board.

A new launch date is yet to be determined.

Posted from Durango, Colorado.

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Sierra Nevada has announced that it plans to do additional test flights in 2014 of its prototype Dream Chaser engineering test vehicle

4:51 pm

Sierra Nevada has announced that it plans to do additional test flights in 2014 of its prototype Dream Chaser engineering test vehicle.

This is the same test vehicle that skidded off the runway during its first flight when one of its landing legs did not deploy. The company has never released any images of that smashup, but has said the craft was salvageable. I imagine this announcement is part of the continuing lobbying campaign by all the companies (SpaceX, Boeing, Sierra Nevada) competing in NASA’s commercial manned program. NASA is supposed to down select to two companies, maybe only one, by the end of the summer.

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For half a billion dollars Google has purchased satellite company Skybox Imaging.

10:25 am

The competition heats up: For half a billion dollars Google has purchased satellite company Skybox Imaging.

Google plans to use Skybox’s satellites to make better maps with “up-to-date imagery,” the company said in a statement. “Over time, we also hope that Skybox’s team and technology will be able to help improve Internet access and disaster relief—areas Google has long been interested in.” Skybox has only a single satellite in orbit right now but plans to fly a fleet of them to cover the entire globe at all times. Constantly updated satellite images would be of interest to everyone from agricultural companies and hedge funds to hardware stores. A demonstration earlier this year showed how Skybox satellites could be used to monitor oil reserves from space.

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