Tag: competition

Virgin Galactic delays next Unity suborbital flight until next year

12:18 am

Capitalism in space: Virgin Galactic announced today that it is delaying its next Unity suborbital manned flight until next year so that it can first complete a planned maintenance inspection and overhaul of both Unity and its carrier airplane WhiteKnightTwo.

The company said Oct. 14 that it decided to move directly intended a planned maintenance period after a recent lab test of materials used on the vehicles “flagged a possible reduction in the strength margins of certain materials used to modify specific joints” that “requires further physical inspection.”

…That decision means that the company will delay Unity 23, a mission for the Italian Air Force that had been scheduled for as soon as mid-October, until after the maintenance period is completed next year. That flight had been previously scheduled for late September or early October but postponed to look into a potential manufacturing defect with a component in a flight control actuation system.

The endless delays at Virgin Galactic, stretching out now for almost fifteen years, threaten this company’s competitive standing. With Blue Origin now apparently able to fly commercially and regularly, one wonders why anyone would risk flying on Unity. Of course, people will, once the ship is cleared for commercial flights, but right now the price will likely have to be less than what Blue Origin is charging to garner business.

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China launches eleven satellites on Long March 2D rocket

12:08 am

China today launched eleven satellites using its Long March 2D rocket, with the primary payload a solar observation telescope, designed to observe the Sun in the hydrogen-alpha wavebands.

The hydrogen-alpha wavelength is deep red and is centered at 656.28 nanometers – for comparison, visible light runs from 400 to 700 nanometers. Observing the Sun at the hydrogen-alpha wavelength can reveal structures, evolution, and dynamic processes associated with solar flares and filaments. Hydrogen-alpha observations can also reveal solar wave phenomena, which are precursors to coronal mass ejections, and the dynamics of activity in the Sun’s lower atmosphere.

The rocket’s first stage was also equipped with grid fins similar to those used on SpaceX’s Falcon 9. Their goal at this time is simply to more precisely guide that expendable first stage back to its drop zone in the interior of China, thereby preventing it from crashing into habitable areas.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

35 China
23 SpaceX
17 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman

The U.S. and China are now tied at 35 successful launches in the national rankings. With three more launches expected in the next three days, one by China and two by the U.S., expect these numbers to rise quickly.

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Shatner vs today’s America

9:17 am

Shatner vs everyone else
Shatner, on the left, turns away from Bezos and the spray of champagne.

Capitalism in space: The profound, emotional, and thoughtful reaction of William Shatner to his short suborbital flight yesterday on Blue Origin’s New Shepard space capsule contrasted starkly with the crass, rude, and shallow response of his co-passengers and Jeff Bezos.

You can watch Shatner’s comments right after landing at the video at the link. Watch how he tries to express his thoughts to Bezos immediately, and is almost ignored as Bezos and the others instead want to spritz champagne at each other. Shatner turns away, almost in disgust. The screen capture to the right shows him turning away, not because he doesn’t want to be hit by champagne but because he doesn’t want that shallowness to steal from him the emotions he now feels.

Eventually Bezos realizes Shatner is going to say his peace, and that he better pay attention. Shatner, almost in tears, struggles to note how shocked he was at the relative thinness of the atmosphere. To him, the rocket so quickly zipped out of a blue sky into blackness. As he said,

“This air, which is keeping us alive, is thinner than your skin. It’s a sliver. It’s immeasurably small when you think in terms of the universe.

…”What you have given me is the most profound experience I can imagine. I’m so filled with emotion about what just happened … it’s extraordinary. I hope I never recover, that I can maintain what I feel now. I don’t want to lose it. It’s so much larger than me and life.”

Shatner is an actor. For him, the emotion is the most important thing, as that is what he has specialized in expressing on screen to others for his entire life. At this moment, however, he was not expressing the emotions of a imaginary character he was creating on screen, but his own personal emotions. He managed to do it, in the best way possible. God speed William Shatner. We shall miss you when you are gone.

That Bezos was so unprepared for this moment from Shatner was very unfortunate. It made him look very shallow and foolish, which is a shame because, as Shatner so correctly noted, Bezos was the one who made that moment possible.

Shatner, at ninety years of age, is of a different more civilized generation that believed strongly in applying thought to one’s emotions, rather than letting those emotions rule. The contrast between him and all the younger people in this clip gives us a clear snapshot of an America now gone, replaced by the thoughtless emotional America of today.

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Russia launches another 36 OneWeb satellites

8:37 am

A Russian Soyuz-2 rocket today successfully launched 36 more OneWeb satellites, raising the total of the satellite constellation in orbit to 358.

The launch was from Russia’s new spaceport Vostochny. As with all launches from Russia, the expendable first stage core and strap-ons landed inside Russia within designated drop zones. And as usual, no word from Russia on whether they landed on anyone’s head.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

34 China
23 SpaceX
17 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman

The U.S. still leads China in the national rankings, 35 to 34. With launches scheduled by both countries (two by the U.S. and one by China) over the next three days, these numbers will continue upward.

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Australia to build unmanned lunar rover for NASA

7:06 am

NASA and Australia have signed a deal whereby Australia will provide an unmanned lunar rover on which NASA will put its science instruments, with the package taken to the Moon by a commercial lander.

As part of the agreement, a consortium of Australian businesses and research organizations will develop a small rover that can operate on the lunar surface. The rover would have the ability to pick up and transfer lunar regolith (broken rock and dust) to a NASA-operated in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) system on a commercial lunar lander. Such a rover could fly to the Moon as early as 2026.

While this agreement helps widen the competition in the commercial unmanned planetary aerospace industry, it does so by helping the industry of another country. This policy fits the general philosophy of the Democratic Party and the Biden administration, which generally focuses on aiding other countries before the U.S.

Posted on the road to Phoenix.

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Watching the New Shepard suborbital flight with William Shatner

10:44 pm

I have embedded the live stream of the Blue Origin suborbital flight today of its New Shepard spacecraft, carrying four passengers including William Shatner.

The launch is presently scheduled for 7 am (Pacific). The live stream will start about 5:30 am (Pacific).

As I have noted previously, the announcers for Blue Origin tend to blather quite a bit, hyping the situation to a point of nausea. Hopefully during the flight they will shut up and allow the voices of the passengers to take center stage.

I meanwhile will be on the road during the flight. I will try to post updates as well as my normal news stories, but both might have to wait until I return home in the early afternoon. Regardless, the live stream is below for you to enjoy.

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Shetland spaceport gets 10-year launch contract from new British rocket company

8:50 am

Capitalism in space: The new spaceport in Shetland, Scotland, has signed a 10-year launch contract from the new British rocket company, Skyrora.

Rocket company Skyrora has agreed a multi-launch deal with the SaxaVord spaceport on Unst, the most northerly of the Shetland Islands, as it moves closer to launching its XL rocket in 2022. This is the first agreement Skyrora has made with a Scottish Spaceport. If successful, this could be the first rocket to go to space from the UK.

The deal with SaxaVord [the new name for the Shetland spaceport] will run for the next decade, giving Skyrora the ability to build towards its target of 16 launches a year by 2030.

The XL rocket is designed to launch smallsats, and will compete with companies like Astra and Rocket Lab. If Skyrora is success, it will not only be the first rocket to launch from the UK, it will be the first British-built rocket to launch since October 1971.

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Starship/Superheavy update

8:43 am

Link here. SpaceX is moving on several fronts in preparation for the next Starship/Superheavy tests:

  • Engines have been installed in Starship prototype #20 which will be tested this week
  • A new Raptor engine factory is under construction
  • Launch tower construction continued
  • Future prototypes continue to be built

Lots of details and videos at the link. Based on road closures, the prototype #20 static fire test will occur today, and will be the first such test on a Starship using orbital Raptor engines.

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Astra schedules next launch attempt

8:36 am

Capitalism in space: The new smallsat rocket company Astra has completed its investigation of its launch failure on August 28th and scheduled its next launch attempt for no earlier than October 27th.

During liftoff, kerosene fuel and liquid oxygen both leaked from the propellant supply system adjacent to the rocket. This system is designed to quickly disconnect and seal when the rocket launches. When LV0006 lifted off, these leaked propellants mixed and became trapped beneath the interface between the rocket and the ground equipment.

These mixed propellants were subsequently ignited by the exhaust of the first stage engines, which caused an over-pressurization that severed the electrical connection which controls the fuel pump. This caused the shutdown of one Delphin on the first stage less than one second after liftoff.

The company has revised its system to prevent further leaks, and shifted the fuel lines so that even if there is a leak, the propellants can no longer mix.

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Washington Post slams Blue Origin

9:18 am

Capitalism in space: In a long article today the Washington Post — owned by Jeff Bezos — harshly criticized the management at Bezos’s space company Blue Origin, confirming earlier stories last week (here and here) and published by other news sources that accused the company of poor management and an unhealthy corporate culture. From the Post’s article:

The new management’s “authoritarian bro culture,” as one former employee put it, affected how decisions were made and permeated the institution, translating into condescending, sometimes humiliating, comments and harassment toward some women and a stagnant top-down hierarchy that frustrated many employees.

Though the story strongly confirms those earlier reports, I found it somewhat hilarious in that it seemed far more interested in “woke” issues than Blue Origin’s inability to get anything actually built.

However, that Jeff Bezos allowed the Washington Post to publish it suggests strongly that Bezos is getting ready to take harsh action at Blue Origin, and is laying the groundwork through his newspaper. If so, this is excellent news, as it might mean this very disappointing company might finally get back on track.

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Weather delays New Shepard’s Shatner launch one day

8:56 am

Capitalism in space: Because of high winds predicted for tomorrow, Blue Origin has delayed its next suborbital flight of New Shepard, carrying four private citizens including William Shatner, for one day to October 13th.

The launch is scheduled for 9:30 am (Eastern), with live coverage beginning at 8 am (Eastern) on Blue Origin’s website. Be warned, however. If you watch with the sound on you will likely have to listen to a lot of hype and blather from the company’s announcers, who routinely can’t keep their mouths shut and have to tell us over and over and over again how “spectacular” and “breath-taking” and “historic” this all is.

If they do pause in their hyperbole, however, listening to Shatner during the flight will likely be worth it. The man has wit and knows how to use it.

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OneWeb to use India’s rockets for satellite launches

8:44 am

Capitalism in space: OneWeb today announced that it has signed a deal with India to use its rockets for satellite launches.

Low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite communications company OneWeb has announced its plans to collaborate with the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), to utilise indigenously built Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and the heavier Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-MkIII) as likely platforms to launch OneWeb’s satellites in India from next year.

This is not good news for either Russia or Arianespace. Up to now these entities pretty much were launching all of OneWeb’s satellites. Now some of that business is being shifted to India.

The deal was revealed at a press conference that announced the formation of an Indian commercial trade organization, the Indian Space Association (ISpA), that partnering with the government will use the government’s space assets to develop private commercial space resources.

The Indian Space Association (ISpA) will be headed by Jayant Patil, senior executive vice president – Defence, L&T-NxT as its chairman, and Bharti Airtel’s chief regulatory officer Rahul Vatts as its vice-chairman, while Lt Gen. A.K. Bhatt (Retd.) has been appointed as the director-general of the association.

Among its early members include Bharti Airtel, Larsen & Toubro, Nelco (Tata Group), OneWeb, Mapmyindia, Walchandnagar Industries and Ananth Technology Limited.

Bharti is the company that invested $500 million to bring OneWeb out of bankruptcy, partnering with the United Kingdom.

The key question is whether these private companies will invest in developing private rockets, or will simply continue to launch using ISRO’s rockets. Based on this announcement, it appears the latter, but since the whole goal here of the Modi government of India appears to be to encourage a private sector, this could soon change.

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Putin reduces budget for Roscosmos by 16%

9:06 am

The Putin government has significantly cut the budget for Roscosmos, reducing it by 16% for each of the next three years.

For 2022, the state budget for space activities will be set at 210 billion rubles ($2.9 billion), a cut of 40.3 billion rubles ($557 million) from the previous year. Similar cuts will follow in subsequent years. The most significant decreases will be in areas such as “manufacturing-technological activities” and “cosmodrome development.” Funding for “scientific research and development” was zeroed out entirely.

The publications say Russian President Vladimir Putin is unhappy with the performance of Russia’s space program. At a space industry meeting on September 29, they report, Putin criticized the industry’s failure to fulfill directives on long-term goals in the space sphere. In 2020, for example, Roscosmos failed to hit 30 of the 83 stated goals of the national space program.

Putin’s dissatisfaction is quite justified. Since his government consolidated all of Russia’s aerospace industry into a single corporation run by Roscosmos, the space agency has made many promises but achieved little. It is clear that he hopes these cuts will force it to get its act together.

The problem is that Putin has done nothing to change the root cause that has fueled this failure, the government aerospace monopoly that Putin himself created. Without competition and a willingness to allow new Russian aerospace companies to succeed — in direct competition with Roscosmos — there is little chance of reform. Roscosmos will struggle on, and it might even begin to show a bit of success, but in the end its best prospect is to become one of many competitors in the new commercial space market. And its market share will be small, because the competitive private companies in the west will easily beat it in cost and innovation.

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SpaceX now valued at $100 billion, the world’s 2nd most valuable private company

10:40 am

Capitalism in space: Because of the high price that some of its investors were able to get selling their private shares of SpaceX, the company’s valuation was reassessed upward from $74 to $100 billion and making it the second most valuable private company in the world.

The stock sale did not raise money for SpaceX as it was a secondary sale by these investors to get a profitable return on their initial investment. Regardless, the stock price they were able to get increased the company’s value.

The high price also illustrates objectively what investors think of SpaceX’s value. No matter what the critics may say, when the time comes to lay the money on the table, those willing to do it are convinced SpaceX is going to be successful in cashing in on its various space projects.

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Update on Boeing’s investigation into Starliner valve issue

10:10 am

NASA yesterday issued an update on Boeing’s investigation into Starliner valve issue, noting that progress is being made.

Boeing has demonstrated success in valve functionality using localized heating and electrical charging techniques. Troubleshooting on the pad, at the launch complex, and inside the Starliner production factory at Kennedy Space Center has resulted in movement of all but one of the original stuck valves. That valve has not been moved intentionally to preserve forensics for direct root cause analysis.

Most items on the fault tree have been dispositioned by the team including causes related to avionics, flight software and wiring. Boeing has identified a most probable cause related to oxidizer and moisture interactions, and although some verification work remains underway, our confidence is high enough that we are commencing corrective and preventive actions. Additional spacecraft and component testing will be conducted in the coming weeks to further explore contributing factors and necessary system remediation before flight.

…Boeing has identified several paths forward depending on the outcome of the testing to ultimately resolve the issue and prevent it from happening on future flights. These options could range from minor refurbishment of the current service module components to using another service module already in production. [emphasis mine]

The announcement also confirmed that the next launch attempt of the unmanned demo mission is now being targeted for “the first half of 2022, pending hardware readiness, the rocket manifest, and space station availability.”

The highlighted words raise a very serious question. How is it possible for “oxidizer and moisture interactions” to cause this problem now on Starliner, when the environmental conditions at Cape Canaveral for spacecraft have been understood for better than sixty years? Though this problem might have uncovered a previously undetected fundamental engineering issue related to valves, I am very skeptical. It seems more likely that some quality control issue occurred during this capsule’s assembly. That they are considering using a different Starliner capsule for the demo flight strongly confirms this, suggesting again that the valve issue is not systemic to all valves but is specifically linked to the assembly of this capsule.

If this speculation is correct, it suggests there are some some very disturbing quality control problems in Boeing’s Starliner design and assembly processes. First they missed about sixty software issues that forced the premature landing of the capsule in the first demo flight, issues that should have been fixed during design and construction. Now it appears they have discovered assembly problems with the capsule’s valves, and only did so mere hours before launch.

Boeing has got to get these issues fixed, or it is going to have a serious public relations problem garnering private customers outside NASA once Starliner begins commercial flights.

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Astronauts name next new Dragon capsule to fly “Endurance”

6:33 am

The astronauts who will fly on SpaceX’s new Dragon capsule at the end of this month have named it “Endurance”, for a variety of reasons.

“First off,” said [mission commander Raja Chari], “it is a tribute to the tenacity of the human spirit as we push humans and machines farther than we ever have, going both to stay and extended stays in low Earth orbit, opening it up to private companies and private astronauts and knowing we will continue our exploration to go into even further and continue.”

“Also, it is a nod to the development teams, production teams [and] training teams that got us here, who have endured through a pandemic,” he said.

…Lastly, there was a historical connection — one that spoke to the mission they are about to embark on and the skills it will take for it be successful.”I go straight to the Shackleton voyage,” said Marshburn, referring to Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 expedition to cross Antarctica. Shackleton’s ship, the Endurance, was trapped in ice and he and his crew endured months of hardship before being rescued.

SpaceX’s fleet of manned capsules now includes Endeavour, Resilience, and Endurance. A fourth capsule is scheduled to fly in April ’22, but no name as yet has been announced.

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Chang’e-5 lunar samples youngest ever found

6:28 am

The uncertainty of science: The lunar samples returned to Earth by China’s Chang’e-5 lander have been found to be the youngest ever found, about two billion years old and a billion years younger than any other previous sample, with a composition that confirms the material in this area was also the youngest volcanism so far found on the Moon.

Collecting young lunar rocks was one of the main objectives for the Chang’e-5 mission, which sent a lander to the Moon in December 2020. The craft grabbed 1.7 kilogram (4 pounds) of lunar regolith from the vast volcanic plain of Oceanus Procellarum and flew back to Earth within the month. Observations from lunar orbit had identified this mare to be younger than other areas by its paucity of craters, which suggested that the lava there had flowed more recently. By dating the samples returned to Earth, the scientists confirm that volcanism occurred later in Oceanus Procellarum than other areas of the Moon.

Many news stories are claiming that the young age of these samples is a surprise, but this isn’t true. It was expected, as the quote above indicates.

However, the composition of the rocks did not match what was expected. Though created by volcanism, it appears the material did not have kind of composition seen in other lunar volcanic rocks. This is now a new puzzle for scientists.

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SpaceX to double its fleet of reusable manned Dragon capsules

11:07 am

Capitalism in space: Based on the launch plans now announced, SpaceX will double its fleet of reusable manned Dragon capsules from two to four.

The upcoming October 30th launch of a new crew to ISS will use a new as yet unnamed Dragon capsule. In addition, the April ’22 flight will use another new capsule.

The four previous manned Dragon flights used Resilience (twice) and Endeavour (twice).

At the moment SpaceX appears to be reserving Resilience for non-ISS tourist flights. It was used in September in this way for the Inspiration4 private mission, and I expect it will be used again for the December Space Adventures tourist flight. For these non-ISS flights SpaceX removed Resilience’s docking port, replacing it with a large window.

The result will be that a private American company will own its own fleet of manned spaceships, three of which can dock with ISS, and one of which aimed at just orbiting the Earth. That’s a private company, not a nation. And that private company made it happen in just a little over a decade.

Who knows what wonders capitalism and freedom could accomplish, if we simply had the courage to let it?

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Advocacy group in India calls for criminal prosecution of Musk and Starlink

10:56 am

A non-profit advocacy group in India, dubbed Telecom Watchdog, has demanded that the Indian government prosecute Elon Musk and Starlink because it asks for and gets $100 deposits from customers without guaranteeing a specific delivery date for its Starlink internet service.

The organisation further asked the telecom regulator to take effective steps to ensure refund with interest, and reprimand the telecom department (DoT) officials of “inaction” on the prevailing issue. [It also] said that the firm was cheating consumers by accepting pre-orders with a deposit of Rs 7,500 ($100) for yet-to-be-launched service.

It is unclear who funds Telecom Watchdog. I would not be surprised if it is backed by those in India who have also have vested interest in SpaceX’s chief competitor, OneWeb. The Indian company, Bharti Enterprises Ltd, has invested $500 million to OneWeb, which plans to initiate service to India next year. Starlink poses a serious financial threat to that roll-out.

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Biden administration to streamline regulations for commercial military satellites

10:09 am

Biden administration has decided to use capitalism in space in the building and launching of future military reconnaissance and surveillance satellites.

The Intelligence Community (IC) and key policy-makers within the Biden administration are intensifying efforts to reduce regulatory burdens and encourage more competition in the commercial remote sensing satellite marketplace, said Stacey Dixon, deputy director of national intelligence.

While she provided few specifics about plans in her address to the annual GEOINT conference today, she did say that in their deliberations on the way forward, government officials are looking to the model of streamlined space launch licensing practices. Regulatory reform has freed the launch industry in a way that has allowed prices to loft satellites to orbit to drop dramatically, she explained, and there is a thriving ecosystem of American companies competing for business. “It is important to realize and recognize that there’s a growing consensus, not only in the IC but also among policy-makers, that the kind of change that we’ve seen in launch services is the right way to go in other areas,” Dixon said at the conference hosted by the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF).

It appears that the success by SpaceX and others in the rocket industry has finally convinced the Washington swamp community, from both parties as well as within the bureaucracy, to embrace private enterprise and freedom, at least in their efforts to launch their space assets.

Don’t be fooled, however, into thinking the Washington bureaucracy and the Biden administration are now free market capitalists. Hardly, as illustrated by this further statement by Dixon:

“If we don’t adapt, others will set the rules and challenge our new leadership. We should set the rules. We should influence the standards, and do so in a way that is consistent with our democratic values,” Dixon said. [emphasis mine]

The swamp is embracing capitalism because they have realized that if they don’t, they will lose all control as private enterprise runs circles around them. By now supporting capitalism, they can create the illusion that they made things happen, when in truth they have simply hitched their mostly useless covered wagon to a very powerful sports car.

Regardless, this decision is good news, as it shows that the Biden administration will continue the free market policies in space that were established during the Trump administration.

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NASA shifts Starliner crew to Dragon to get them in space

9:54 am

NASA announced yesterday that it is is changing the launch assignments of two astronauts from Boeing’s long delayed Starliner capsule to SpaceX’s Dragon capsule, thus allowing them to get into space sooner.

Astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada were supposed to be among the first human passengers on Starliner during its first crewed flights in the coming years. Now, they’ll fly together on SpaceX’s fifth crewed mission to the International Space Station, which is slated to take place in the fall of 2022.

Both had been assigned to Starliner in 2018, but the delays at Boeing have left them stranded on the ground while others are flying. Worse, it is now unclear when Starliner will launch, as Boeing has not yet resolved the serious valve issue that scrubbed the launch of Starliner’s second unmanned demo mission in August.

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Honda developing reusable rocket

9:45 am

Capitalism in space: As part of a larger plan to diversify its product line, Japanese car manufacturer Honda announced on September 30th that it is developing a reusable rocket comparable to Rocket Lab’s Electron.

Honda’s press release can be found here. In it the company also proposes to develop technologies for use by colonies on the lunar surface.

All of these proposals so far appear to be nothing more than PowerPoint presentations, but according to the first link above, the company says it will spend about $9 billion per year for the next five years on all these projects, which also include developing a robot and an electric plane that takes off and lands vertically. (The dollar amount seems much too high, but it is based on a conversion from the announced $5 trillion yen total Honda says it is going to spend in next five years for this research and development.)

According to the announcement, the rocket won’t launch until 2030, which will get it into the game very late. It better be revolutionary or it won’t garner much business by then.

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Military satellite imagery to be obtained from competitive commercial market

9:18 am

Capitalism in space: The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) is shifting how it gets the government’s military satellite surveillance imagery so that instead of having a long term contract with one company, multiple satellite companies will compete to provide the data.

Under this new imagery procurement, the NRO plans to buy products from multiple vendors and move beyond the current single-supplier arrangement that the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency signed more than a decade ago with DigitalGlobe, which is now Maxar Technologies. The NGA in 2017 turned over responsibilities for commercial imagery procurement to the NRO, while the NGA remains the primary buyer of commercial geospatial data analytics.

The NRO is expected to select at least three U.S. suppliers and structure the program with onramps for new providers. The agency also will require vendors to sign “end user license agreements” so imagery can be shared across government agencies without additional licensing fees.

This change illustrates how other government agencies are following NASA’s lead and shifting from controlling everything to buying the needed product from the open market. While NRO was getting imagery before from a commercial company, Maxar, depending on a single vendor limited competition and innovation while raising costs.

Buying the data from multiple companies means that NRO will get more choice for less cost.

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2018 review by Blue Origin suggested changes that were not adopted

10:52 am

Capitalism in space: Shortly after Bob Smith took over as CEO of Blue Origin he hired a consulting firm to review the company’s corporate culture and management policies, then had a top management briefing to review what that analysis had found.

Notes from that meeting by Blue Origin’s management have now become available, and suggest that the company’s management recognized it needed to make some changes in how it operated in order to better compete with SpaceX. Blue Origin had become hidebound, timid, and structured in a manner that made the creation of cost-effective engineering difficult. For example,

“Traditionally Blue team has not been focused on producibility and cost when designing,” another executive commented.

In response to the Avascent’s report on SpaceX’s cost focus, Blue Origin officials also acknowledged that they did not have an effective means of estimating costs before beginning a project. “Blue is riddled with poor estimating,” one executive wrote, specifically citing the New Glenn rocket. “The estimates barely cover the spot cost buy of that material based on market price, let alone the entire part material purchase. How did SpaceX keep to their target cost? They probably did a good job estimating. How they accomplished such good estimating is beyond me right now, but they did it somehow for their early years.” [emphasis mine]

As noted at the link, however, there is no evidence the company every made any of the suggested changes:

Whatever Bob Smith hoped to glean from the Avascent study, it’s not clear that the work has had a salutary effect on Blue Origin’s culture.

In the nearly three years since the report’s completion, SpaceX has gone on to launch more than 60 rockets, including four human missions, into orbit. SpaceX also has leaped ahead on a number of other fronts, including winning a multi-billion contract from NASA to build a Human Landing System for the Artemis Moon Program.

Blue Origin, by contrast, has succeeded in launching a single human flight on its New Shepard system—carrying Bezos into space for a few minutes in July. The company’s first orbital flight likely remains about three years away. Far from embracing openness, it remains more opaque than ever. And there are emerging questions about the company’s culture.

I would be more blunt. Prior to Bob Smith’s arrival in 2017 Blue Origin’s management style appeared somewhat similar to SpaceX’s, with regular almost monthly test flights of New Shepard. After he arrived everything slowed down, with the management style becoming all the things the 2018 Avascent study found wrong. And in the three years since that report and management meeting, it appears Smith did nothing to change anything. Blue Origin appears to remain a hidebound company going nowhere.

The company has vast resources due to the cash that Jeff Bezos has poured into it. It needs some good courageous leadership however. The main question will be whether Bezos can provide that.

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Space Force payload problems force delay until ’22 of next Falcon Heavy launch

9:18 am

Capitalism in space: The Space Force has announced that because more time is needed to prepare its military payload, the next Falcon Heavy launch, scheduled later this month, will be delayed until ’22.

This is not the first time payload issues have delayed the launch, which had been previously scheduled for July. The Space Force has not announced a new launch date, nor was it very specific in describing the issues that has forced this delay.

As for the Falcon Heavy, though there has been a long delay since its last flight in June 2019, it appears that SpaceX has four launches scheduled for ’22, with another six already contracted and scheduled for later.

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Russia imposes new restrictions on any reporting of Roscosmos

9:08 am

According to this report of today’s launch by Russia of a movie crew to ISS, Putin’s government has just passed new restrictions on reporting of its space effort by Russian citizens, either in or out of Russia.

The new regulations, which took effect on September 29, 2021, essentially prohibit Russians from reporting on the Russian space program outside of Russia. Violators of these regulations will be classified as “foreign agents” — which would create numerous legal issues for Russian citizens.

Specifically, the new regulations target the field of military and technical activities that are not related to or connected in any way with state secrets but which, with vague language, “can be used against Russia.” Most of the activities on the newly released list by the FSB specifically focus on Roscosmos. Prohibited topics of reporting regarding Roscosmos now include information on investigations conducted by the agency, the organization’s financials, condition of rockets and ground support equipment, development plans for Roscosmos vehicles, Roscosmos’ cooperation with other nations for space activities, and new technologies.

These rules essentially forbid Russian citizens from publishing almost anything that Roscosmos itself does not publish. If they do so without permission from outside the country, returning to Russia will become very problematic.

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UAE to launch probe to asteroid belt

9:01 am

The new colonial movement: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) today announced that it is planning an unmanned probe to visit a number of asteroids in the asteroid belt.

The project targets a 2028 launch with a landing in 2033, a five-year journey in which the spacecraft will travel some 3.6 billion kilometers (2.2 billion miles). The spacecraft would need to slingshot first around Venus and then the Earth to gather enough speed to reach an asteroid some 560 million kilometers (350 million miles) away.

It appears they have not yet chosen their targets in the belt.

The big question will be how much of this project will be built in the UAE, and how much they will have to farm out to others. For their Al-Amal Mars orbiter, the satellite was mostly built by U.S. universities, as they trained UAE engineers, who now run the mission entire.

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Russia launches movie director and actor to ISS

8:40 am

Capitalism in space: Early today Russia successfully used its Soyuz-2 rocket and Soyuz capsule to launch a movie crew to ISS to begin a twelve day visit where they will film scenes for a science fiction movie.

An actress Yulia Peresild and a movie director Klim Shipenko arrived at the International Space Station aboard the Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft on Oct. 5, 2021, for a 12-day visit to shoot scenes of a sci-fi drama. They were accompanied by a professional cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov, who had to switch to manual control during the final approach to the station due to a failure of the Kurs automated rendezvous system aboard Soyuz. Shkaplerov will remain aboard the station for nearly six months.

This is the second in a steady string of passenger commercial spaceflights that have been purchased by various people from either Roscosmos in Russia or SpaceX in the U.S. We shall see two more such flights in December, and another early in ’22, with additional flights to be scheduled beyond that. The full list, at this time:

  • September 15, 2021: SpaceX’s Dragon capsule flew four private citizens on a three day orbital flight
  • October 2021: The Russians launch two passengers to ISS for 12 days to shoot a movie
  • December 2021: The Russians will fly billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and his assistant to ISS for 12 days
  • cDecember 2021: Space Adventures, using a Dragon capsule, will fly four in orbit for five days
  • January/February 2022: Axiom, using a Dragon capsule, will fly four tourists to ISS
  • 2022-2024: Three more Axiom tourist flights on Dragon to ISS
  • 2024: Axiom begins launching its own modules to ISS, starting construction of its own private space station
  • c2024: SpaceX’s Starship takes Yusaku Maezawa and several others on a journey around the Moon.

Expect this list to grow. There appears to be plenty of demand for such commercial manned spaceflights, and with more flights and more competition (once Boeing’s Starliner enters the game) the cost will certainly drop.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

34 China
23 SpaceX
16 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman

With this launch Russia has now exceeded the number of launches it completed last year. If they complete all their presently scheduled launches for ’21, Roscosmos will have its best year since 2015.

The U.S still leads China 35 to 34 in the national rankings.

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Worldview to once again develop stratospheric tourist balloon flights

8:55 pm

Capitalism in space: The Tucson-based high altitude balloon company Worldview has now announced that it is going to once again develop tourist balloon flights.

World View, based in Tucson, Ariz., announced Oct. 4 it is developing a passenger capsule that will be carried aloft by balloons to altitudes of about 30 kilometers. The Explorer Space Capsule will host eight passengers and two crew for flights lasting 6 to 12 hours, giving people a view of the Earth the company argues resembles that seen from space.

Tickets will cost $50,000 per person, with World View providing what it calls “flexible financing options.” The company expects the first flight no earlier than early 2024, with the nonprofit organization Space for Humanity, which offers spaceflight experiences for those who cannot afford tickets, buying the inaugural flight….

This project is a return to World View’s origins nearly a decade ago. The company originally said it would develop a stratospheric balloon system called Voyager for carrying people, offering them an aspect of the spaceflight experience without actually going to space. However, several years later the company shifted its attention to uncrewed balloons called “stratollites” that carry imaging and communications payloads into the stratosphere for weeks at a time.

The company’s CEO said they are hoping to pick up business from the suborbital market by offering a near-space experience that lasts hours for about one tenth the cost.

Worldview is now in direct competition with Space Perspectives, based in Florida and intending to fly passengers on high altitude balloon flights by ’24, but for $125k per ticket. That company was founded by the same people that founded Worldview.

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Italy switches from Arianespace to SpaceX for launch contract

9:05 am

Capitalism in space: Because of the two recent launch failures of Arianespace’s Vega rocket (built mostly in Italy), the Italian space agency (ASI) has decided to take the launch of an Earth observation satellite from Arianespace and award the launch contract instead to SpaceX.

The article at the link describes in detail the history and politics that make this decision significant. Essentially, because Arianespace in the past decade has failed to meet the challenge of SpaceX, so that its launches continue to be more expensive, this government-subsidized business has tried to force nations in the European Space Agency (ESA) to use Arianespace rockets via political agreements.

With this decision Italy is defying that pressure, which in turn is going to increase the pressure on Arianespace to finally step up its game, or die from lack of business. For example, when the ESA agreed to have Arianespace build its next generation rocket, the Ariane 6, it failed to require it to be reuseable. The Ariane 6 rocket was therefore designed as an expendable rocket, which meant that right from the start it could not compete with SpaceX’s Falcon 9. It has therefore failed to win launch contracts.

Expect the Ariane 6 to continue to fade as the years pass, simply because the bureaucrats in ESA and Arianespace refused to take their competition seriously.

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