Tag: engineering

Correction: SpaceX DOES NOT launch 21 more Starlink satellites

10:31 am

CORRECTION: Reader BobT in the comments below noted that this launch is actually nothing more than a duplicate posting of the launch I counted yesterday. Thus, it doesn’t exist, and I have deleted it from my annual count.

As I note below in thanking BobT for noting the error, “This does illustrate something profound. Their launches are now so routine and frequent that it is possible to not realize you are rewatching one you viewed a day earlier. They all sound the same!”

The 2024 launch race thus remains unchanged:

3 SpaceX
1 China

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SpaceX is now targeting January 13, 2025 for 7th Starship/Superheavy test launch

10:21 am

In a tweet yesterday, SpaceX announced that it now intends to fly the seventh test orbital launch of Starship/Superheavy no earlier than January 13, 2025, with a launch window opening at 4 pm (Central).

The launch will test numerous new systems. Superheavy will test the reuse of one of the engines used on the fifth flight, brought back successfully when the booster was successfully caught by the tower chopsticks. It will also test improvements to the launch tower as another chopstick catch will be attempted. As for this Starship prototype, which the company calls Version 2, the upgrades and tests are extensive:

  • New avionics
  • Redesigns in the propulsion system
  • The flaps have been shrunk and shifted in position to prevent heat damage
  • The tiled heat shield system has been further upgraded
  • Deployment test of 10 dummy Starlink satellites
  • An in-orbit Raptor-2 engine relight

The last test is critical for future orbital test flights. On this test Starship will follow the same orbital flight path as the previous flights, low enough that the atmosphere will force it down without action over the Indian Ocean. SpaceX needs to prove that Starship’s Raptor-2 engines can reliably be restarted before it can go to full orbits that will require such a relight to accurately bring the spacecraft down at the right place.

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The biggest members of ESA cut their annual contributions to the partnership

9:43 am

In a continuation of the recent trend to go their own way in space, most of the largest partners in the European Space Agency (ESA) have decided to cut back their annual contributions this year to the agency.

The European Space Agency’s 2025 budget has dropped below its 2024 level after Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom collectively cut their contributions by €430 million.

During his annual press briefing on 9 January, ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher revealed that the ESA budget for 2025 would be €7.68 billion, down from €7.79 billion in 2024. The reduction in the agency’s budget could have been far worse, as all of the ‘big four’ countries, apart from France, significantly reduced their contributions.

Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Belgium, and Spain all reduced their contributions. Except for Belgium, all have instead been recently diverting such funds directly either to space startups in their own country (see here and here), or forgoing contributing to large ESA projects and instead buying the services from other private sources (see here).

In general, it appears the bigger nations in Europe have realized that ESA has not been providing them a good deal. It takes their money, but doesn’t deliver competitive goods. Consider the Ariane-6 rocket. Conceived by ESA and ArianeGroup in 2015, it was five years late in launching. Worse, it was conceived as an entirely expendable rocket — even though SpaceX had just proven in ’15 that re-usability was possible — so that it is now too expensive to compete in today’s rocket market.

ESA also requires its projects to distribute contracts among all the partners, which increases costs and slows development.

In the past five years these countries have been increasingly bypassing ESA, especially when it comes to rocketry. Instead of having all European rockets built and managed by ESA’s commercial arm, Arianespace, these nations are switching to the capitalism model, whereby they each purchase launches from independent competing rocket companies.

The ESA budget cuts reflect this continuing trend. No point in giving cash to this moribund bureaucracy when the money can be better spent elsewhere.

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Graceful beauty found within the mid-latitude glaciers of Mars

1:31 pm

Overview map

Graceful beauty found within the glacial mid-latitudes of Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on October 27, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The red dot on the overview map above marks the location, about 35 miles southwest of the rim of 80-mile-wide Moreau Crater. This location is also deep within the 2,000-mile-long northern mid-latitude strip I label glacier country, as almost every high resolution picture from MRO shows glacial features.

This picture is no different, in that it shows the typical lineated parallel grooves seen on the surface of glaciers both on Earth and Mars, and especially found on glaciers flowing within a narrow canyon, as this glacier is. The parallel grooves are caused by the waxing and waning of the glacier. Each layer represents a past period when ice was being deposited on the surface, with the grooves indicates times when that ice was sublimating away. The graceful curves of the grooves is due to the drift of the glacier itself downhill.

This canyon is about seven miles wide at this point, formed from the confluence of two southerly tributaries to the south. The downward grade is to the north, but the low point is not where you would expect, out into the northern lowland plains. Instead, I have marked the low point in the inset with a white dot, inside the canyon itself. It appears this glacier drains into this low spot, but then this debris-covered ice appears to vanish.

It can’t really vanish, but there is a geological mystery here that involves the alien nature of Mars. For some reason the glacier dies at this point, its material sublimating away. Is there a drainage here that sends the ice to the north by underground passages? Your guess is as good as mine.

The lineated nature of this glacial flow however is no mystery in one respect. It is quite beautiful, as seen from space.

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Oman plans three more suborbital launches in ’25 from its proposed spaceport site

9:59 am

Middle East, showing Oman's proposed spaceport
The Middle East, showing the location of
Oman’s proposed spaceport at Duqm.

Oman is now planning three more suborbital launches from its proposed spaceport site at Duqm on the coast of the Indian Ocean, intended to further sell the location as a viable spaceport for use by others.

The first launch, of which little was revealed, took place in early December. What Oman’s state-run has revealed about the rocket is this:

Measuring 6.72m in length and weighing 123kg when fuelled, the rocket was developed with strict adherence to environmental and safety standards. … The Duqm-1 project involved 15 Omani engineers and technicians, who gained valuable experience in the space industry. While the rocket components were manufactured abroad, assembly took place locally, reflecting Oman’s efforts to transfer and localise advanced technologies.

I suspect the planned launches in 2025 will involve a similar-sized rocket. Though I know through various sources that Oman has been trying to encourage American rocket startups to consider this location, no deals have been made because of the State Department’s strict ITAR rules that are designed to prevent hostile nations from stealing American technology. The location however is a good one, and other Middle Eastern Arab nations might begin to consider it for their own rocket programs.

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Blue Origin fined by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection for using its launch deluge system

9:43 am

Because it conducted a static fire test using its launchpad deluge system in September 2024, before the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) had issued it a permit, the department has now fined Blue Origin $3,250.

The actual permit was subsequently approved in November 2024.

The story is very reminiscent of the red tape treatment SpaceX has been getting at Boca Chica. I am certain Blue Origin’s deluge system uses potable water (confirmed in the comments below), which will do no harm to the environment — proven by decades of government launches at both Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center. Yet, FDEP accuses the company of dumping “untreated industrial wastewater [in]to the environment.”

This story kind of proves that leftist politicians and activists can never stay bribed. Bezos for years has cozied up to the left with major donations to leftist organizations, including many many environmental groups. But when he finally gets ready to launch they are still ready and willing to make his life difficult.

It seems to me that Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida should have a conversation with the officials at FDEP that issued this fine, explaining to them that the real problem was likely that permitting was taking longer than it should, especially when everyone knows such deluge systems cause no harm. The permit should have been approved instantly.

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India appoints a new leader for its space agency ISRO

9:30 am

After two-plus very successful years under the leadership of S. Somnath, the Indian government has now appointed a new chairman for its space agency ISRO, V. Narayanan.

Narayanan’s journey with ISRO began in 1984, and he has functioned in various capacities before becoming Director of the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC), which Narayanan heads, is engaged in the development of liquid, semi-cryogenic and cryogenic propulsion stages for launch vehicles, chemical and electric propulsion systems for satellites, control systems for launch vehicles, and transducers development for space systems health monitoring.

The term for this job in India is never more than three years, which explains this change at what seems a somewhat inappropriate moment, with ISRO gearing up to fly its first manned mission while preparing more missions to the Moon. It means that Narayanan will be in charge during that manned mission in 2026, should it fly on time.

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SpaceX launches more Starlink satellites; delays 7th Starship/Superheavy launch several days

9:14 am

Early today SpaceX successfully launched another 21 Starlink satellites, including 13 with direct-to-cell capabilities, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Kennedy in Florida.

The first stage completed its 3rd flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

Elon Musk also indicated around the same time that the initially scheduled 7th Starship/Superheavy launch on January 10th has been delayed a few days into next week.

The 2024 launch race:

3 SpaceX
1 China

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BepiColombo to fly past Mercury again on January 8, 2025

12:57 pm

BepiColombo will do its sixth close fly-by of Mercury on January 8, 2025, zipping by its surface by only 183 miles.

It will use this opportunity to photograph Mercury, make unique measurements of the planet’s environment, and fine-tune science instrument operations before the main mission begins. This sixth and final flyby will reduce the spacecraft’s speed and change its direction, readying it for entering orbit around the tiny planet in late 2026.

BepiColombo is more than six years into its eight-year journey to planet Mercury. In total, it is using nine planetary flybys to help steer itself into orbit around the small rocky planet: one at Earth, two at Venus, and six at Mercury. Making the most of this sixth close approach to the small rocky planet, BepiColombo’s cameras and various scientific instruments will investigate Mercury’s surface and surroundings.

Once the spacecraft arrives at Mercury two years hence it will split into two orbiters in complementary orbits, the Mercury Planetary Orbiter built by Europe and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter built by Japan.

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NASA is considering two options for getting Perseverance’s Mars samples to Earth

12:48 pm

The previous plan for Mars Sample Return
The previous plan for Mars Sample Return

In a press briefing today, NASA officials announced it is considering two options for getting Perseverance’s Mars samples to Earth sooner and what it hopes will for less money.

In the first option, NASA would use already available and operational rockets to launch a larger rover to Mars, landing using a sky crane similar but larger than the one used successfully by both Curiosity and Perseverance. This rover would also have nuclear power system used by those rovers, as well as an arm similar to theirs, simplifying the design process. Under this option it appears NASA is abandoning the use of a helicopter for retrieval, as had previous been considered.

In the second option, NASA would rely on what administrator Bill Nelson called “the heavy-lifte capability of the commercial sector.” He specifically mentions SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy and Blue Origin’s New Glenn, but added that they are looking at the capabilities of the entire private sector right now.

In both operations, the retrieval rover would clean on Mars the outside of the cores to prevent them from contaminating Earth with Martian particles. Previously that cleaning process was to take place in space on the way back. They claim this change also simplifies things.

The final decision on which option to choose is now scheduled for 2026. NASA likely wishes to see more progress with getting Starship/Superheavy as well as New Glenn operational before deciding.

Note that at this press conference very little was said about the Mars ascent rocket, presently supposedly being built by Lockheed Martin. This is essentially building a full scale rocket only slightly less powerful that Earth-based rockets by a company that has never done it before. It seems the second option is likely going to include other options and other rocket companies for this task. The lack of mention suggests NASA was uncomfortable with mentioning this possibility.

In general, this project still feels incomplete and poorly thought out. Major components — such as the ascent vehicle — have not been worked out properly. The officials claimed these changes would make it possible to bring the samples back in the ’35-’39 time frame but I don’t believe it. What it does do is guarantee a large cash influx to NASA, something administrator Bill Nelson lobbied for during the conference, for the next decade-plus. And I think that was the real goal.

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The members of Trump’s NASA transition team

11:11 am

We now have the names of the individuals that are reviewing NASA’s future under the Trump administration:

  • Charles Miller: A member of the first Trump administration’s transition team, Miller is a former NASA official who is now the chairman of Lynk, a direct-to-device satellite company that is struggling to go public through a merger with a SPAC backed by baseball star Alex Rodriguez.
  • Greg Autry: A longtime advocate for commercial space, Autry is a professor at the University of Central Florida who also worked on the 2016 Trump NASA transition and was nominated to serve as NASA’s CFO, though Congress failed to approve his nomination. He’s signing his emails “DOGE/NASA Transition.”
  • Ryan Whitley: A NASA engineer who was detailed to the National Space Council during Trump’s previous term, Whitley last worked on the Artemis HLS program before spending just over a year at ispace, the Japanese lunar company.
  • Lorna Finman: A Stanford PhD who worked on the Star Wars program at Raytheon back in the day, Finman’s LinkedIn says she has been advising the Heritage Foundation on space policy since 2023.
  • Jim Morhard: The NASA deputy administrator during Trump’s first term, Morhard was a longtime GOP senate staffer.

All appear to have deep roots in either Washington or academic, but all also appear to have deep roots in the conservative side of the political spectrum. Several have even moved from NASA positions to the private sector. That latter fact explains the radical changes at NASA that this team has been considering, including canceling SLS and Orion and re-orienting the entire Artemis program using the private sector. In addition they are considering consolidating several NASA centers as well shrink staffing at NASA headquarters.

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Sierra Space CEO suddenly announces retirement

10:34 am

The CEO of Sierra Space, Tom Vice, revealed yesterday his decision to retire at the end of 2024, providing no reasons for the decision.

Vice had not previously announced any plans to retire from Sierra Space, where he had been chief executive since mid-2021. When the company issued the statement about his retirement, Vice was still listed on Sierra Space’s website in his roles as chief executive and a member of the company’s board of directors.

Sierra Space said that the chairman of the board of Sierra Space, Fatih Ozmen, would serve as interim chief executive while the company looks for a permanent replacement. He is chief executive and co-owner of Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), the company from which Sierra Space was spun out in 2021.

The coming year is going to be critical for Sierra, as it will finally launch Tenacity to ISS after years of delays. Should it fail, the company will face huge hurtles to survive. Maybe Vice, who is 61, decided it was time to actually retire. He also likely didn’t want take on that risk.

Overall Vice’s leadership had been good for Sierra. The company’s work accelerated significantly after it was spun off from Sierra Nevada.

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China completes its first launch in 2025

11:36 pm

SpaceX is no longer the only entity that has launched a successful orbital launch this year. Early today China successfully placed an “experimental” satellite into orbit, its Long March 3B rocket lifting off from the Xichang spaceport in southwest China.

No word on where the rocket’s lower stages, using very toxic hypergolic fuels crashed within China. As for the satellite, China’s state run press merely said that it “was built by its subsidiary Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology and is tasked with verifying orbital refueling and life-extension technologies.”

The 2025 launch race:

2 SpaceX
1 China

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SpaceX launches 24 more Starlink satellites

1:53 pm

SpaceX today completed its second launch in 2025, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral carrying 24 Starlink satellites.

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

At the moment SpaceX is the only one to complete any launches in 2025, two, though China was supposed to launch its Long March 3B rocket today as well.

I must add that I am very much under the weather today, which explains the limited posting.

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Trump administration considering major positive changes at NASA

8:45 am

According to a report two weeks ago by Eric Berger at Ars Technica and reviewed today by Mark Whittington at The Hill, the transition team for the Trump administration is reviewing a number of very major positive changes at NASA. The transition team has set up a five-person committee to review the following:

  • canceling the costly Space Launch System rocket and possibly the Orion spacecraft
  • Redesigning the entire Artemis program to make it more cost effective
  • Set a new goal to put humans on the Moon by 2028
  • consolidating three NASA centers into one to reduce overhead
  • Reducing the size of NASA headquarters

The first two recommendations would be doing what I have been recommending since 2011. SLS is an over-priced boondoggle that is too cumbersome and expensive. It can never do the job of establishing a lunar base, NASA’s prime goal. The same applies to Orion, which NASA for years touted as an interplanetary spaceship, an utter lie. It is merely an overweight ascent/descent capsule, nothing more.

The third recommendation is mostly for photo op purposes, since it is unlikely a manned landing can occur that quick, especially if the entire Artemis program is redesigned, replacing NASA’s the SLS rocket with SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy. At the same time, if Trump shuts down the FAA’s red tape, we might be seeing many test flights of this rocket in the next two years, accelerating its development considerably.

The last two recommendations match the only recommendation from my 2017 policy paper, Capitalism in Space [free pdf here] that NASA has not yet embraced. I had recommended NASA reduce its overhead and bureaucracy, since it widely known in the business that its many agencies do relatively little for their cost. The rumored proposal under consideration is to consolidate the Goddard center in Maryland, the Ames center in California with the Marshall center in Alabama, with the new combined center in Alabama.

Getting this done however remains difficult. The centers exist because elected officials want them in their states and congressional districts. Expect strong resistance in Congress.

That the Trump administration is considering it anyway suggests these big changes are coming, regardless. And if so, I say Hallelujah!

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Italy’s military negotiating with SpaceX to use its Starlink constellation for communications

8:14 am

In what would be a five year deal costing $1.56 billion, Italy’s military is presently negotiating with SpaceX to use its Starlink constellation for communications, rather than wait for the European Space Agency’s (ESA) IRIS2 constellation, which is years from launch and likely to experience delays, as do all of ESA’s projects.

By negotiating a five-year deal with SpaceX, Italy may be aiming to bridge the gap until Europe’s IRIS2 system becomes operational. With the ongoing war in Eastern Europe, the country’s Armed Forces likely view secure military communications as an urgent priority. However, critics may argue that the €1.5 billion price tag represents 14.15% of the total IRIS2 budget for just five years of service. For context, Italy is the third-largest contributor to the European Union, with its €18.6 billion contribution in 2023 accounting for roughly 10% of the EU’s total budget.

This story illustrates the good business sense of Elon Musk. He moved to get Starlink in orbit ahead of anyone else, and now is reaping the cash awards because he can provide services while others cannot.

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ISRO delays its unmanned docking in orbit two days

8:08 am

India’s space agency ISRO today announced that it has decided to delay the attempted unmanned autonomous docking of its two orbiting Spadex spacecraft two days, from January 7 to January 9.

“The docking process requires further validation through ground simulations based on an abort scenario identified today (Jan 6),” Isro said Monday. Multiple sources told TOI that “there was nothing concerning” with the Space Docking Experiment (SpaDeX) satellites and that the additional simulations are being carried out to validate the docking process.

This follows the pattern at ISRO since its present head, S. Somanath, took over in 2022. He pushes hard to get missions launched, but simultaneous demands caution and testing along the way to make sure the mission is a success. For example, when he took over he quickly added a number of unmanned test flights for India’s Gaganyaan manned capsule, to take place before the manned mission.

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SpaceX successfully completes the first launch in 2025

11:10 pm

SpaceX tonight successfully launched a commercial communications satellite for the United Arab Emirates (UAE), its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The first stage completed its 20th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The two fairings completed their 16th and 19th flights respectively.

As this was the first launch in 2025, SpaceX is the only rocket company or nation on the leader board. This will not last long, as there are a lot of launches coming in the next few weeks, including the first launch attempt of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, the seventh test orbital launch of SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy, the first launch of China’s Long March 8 rocket, a launch of India’s GSLV rocket, and a number of SpaceX Falcon 9 launches, including one that will send Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander on its way to the Moon.

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Mars gives us another “What the heck?” image

11:59 am

Another
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on October 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The science team labels this “layered rock.” I label it another one of my “What the heck is that?” images on Mars. If I didn’t know this was an orbital image looking down at an alien planet, I’d think it was a paisley pattern on a piece of dark fabric.

The converging “streams” suggest flows, but there really is no clear downhill grade, the landscape generally flat. The lighter patches suggest either higher terrain the flows went around, or places where something bubbled up from below. Or maybe the “flows” are actually cracks that the bubbling material filled as it rose.

I have no idea if any of these theories is right.
» Read more

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Parker confirms it gathered science data during its record-breaking solar fly-by on December 24th

9:06 am

Parker flight plan
The flight plan for Parker. Click for original.

Engineers have now confirmed that during its record-breaking close fly-by of the Sun on December 24, 2024 all of its science instruments functioned as planned and were able to collect data as to that previously unexplored near-solar environment.

Breaking its previous record by flying just 3.8 million miles above the surface of the Sun, Parker Solar Probe hurtled through the solar atmosphere at 430,000 miles per hour — faster than any human-made object has ever moved. A beacon tone, received in the mission operations center at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, late in the evening of Thursday, Dec. 26, confirmed the spacecraft had made it through the encounter safely.

The telemetry (or housekeeping data) that APL began receiving on Jan. 1 provided more detail on the spacecraft’s operating status and condition. It showed, for example, that Parker had executed the commands that had been programmed into its flight computers before the flyby, and that its science instruments were operational during the flyby itself.

A full download of this data will occur later this month, after the spacecraft further retreats from the Sun and gets in a better position to transmit it.

This ain’t the end, however. Parker has two more similar close-up fly-ups coming in March and June. Neither will break December’s records, but both will be almost as close to the Sun. After this the probe’s primary mission will be complete. At the moment there is no word if it will get extended should the probe survive intact after those fly-bys.

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India and SpaceX announce their planned launch goals for 2025

1:21 pm

We now have predictions from both India and SpaceX on the number of times each will attempt orbital launches in 2025.

In a tweet from India’s space agency ISRO today, the agency announced it plans ten launches in 2025. This count includes one launch of its man-rated Heavy Lift Vehicle-Mark 3 (HLVM3) rocket in March, testing its unmanned Gaganyaan manned capsule, one launch of its slightly smaller LVM3 rocket, four launches of its older GSLV rocket, three of its even smaller PSLV rocket, and one of its smallest new rocket, the SSLV. The last two the Indian government hopes to transfer to the private sector. (Note: The tweet says nine launches, but the graphic shows ten.)

This prediction does not include any additional orbital launches that India’s two private rocket startups, Agnikul and Skyroot, might attempt. Both have said they hope to do their first launches in 2025.

SpaceX meanwhile is hoping to smash its own record in 2024. According to comments made by the company’s CEO Gywnne Shotwell in mid-December (comments that I missed at the time), the company is planning 175 to 180 launches in 2025. This increase will likely come from two sources. First, it is my understanding that the company is adding another drone ship to its recovery fleet, allowing for more Falcon 9 launches. Second, it is probably going to be able to conduct Starship/Superheavy launches much more frequently, because the Trump administration is almost certainly going to eliminate much of the FAA regulatory red tape that has stymied the entire American rocket industry these last four years.

In the coming weeks I expect more nations and companies will announce their intended launch targets for 2025.

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Sunspot update: Is this sunspot maximum over, or will it become another doubled peaked maximum?

12:43 pm

Well, after almost fifteen years it had to happen at last. In preparing to do my monthly sunspot update today, which I had done every month since I started Behind the Black in 2010, I discovered that I had completely forgotten to do the update in December. Sorry about that.

No matter, the changes from month-to-month are not often significant, and fortunately that turned out to be the case in November and December of 2024. Since my last update at the beginning of November 2024, sunspot activity on the Earth-facing hemisphere of the Sun has been relatively stable, based on NOAA’s monthly graph tracking that activity. In November the activity dropped slightly, only to recover a small amount in December.
» Read more

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A detailed look at SpaceX’s investors and its stock valuations

8:52 am

Link here. The article provides a good review of some of SpaceX’s major investors as well as the recent rounds whereby employees who hold common stock are allowed to sell some shares as a bonus.

Secondary sales like this remain one of the only ways that employees have to sell their shares. Another bit of good news for employees in this sale [in December] was that the $70 per share price was an improvement over the previous tender of $56 when adjusting for the stock split, Bloomberg reported at the time. And Bloomberg also reported last month that the next tender offer may be as high as $108 to $110 apiece.

SpaceX remains a private company however. This is not stock that can be traded on the stock market, but privately issued (under strict rules) to raise money without giving stock-holders rights to operate the company.

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An apparent rocket part falls in Kenya

10:00 am

What appears to have been a rocket stage separation ring fell in Kenya on December 30, 2024, and local officials from Kenya’s space agency are attempting to confirm and identify the source.

The pictures of the ring show a lot of details, so it should not be hard to identify what rocket it came from, assuming the owner is willing to come forward. While most will do so, China might not.

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Seventh Starship/Superheavy test launch now targeting January 10, 2025

9:55 am

Based on a single word tweet by Elon Musk as well as the FAA’s license approval, it now appears that SpaceX is targeting January 10, 2025 for the seventh Starship/Superheavy test orbital launch.

According to the FAA license, the launch window that day opens at 4 pm (Central), with backup launch opportunities each day through January 15th.

Reading that license is very illuminating. The depth in which the FAA now demands compliance from SpaceX is beyond daunting, and illustrates the mission creep the agency has used to grow its power. Based on a recent Supreme Court ruling, the company likely has grounds to sue and win, correctly claiming that Congress never gave it such power over so many things, and that its regulatory oversight is unconstitutional.

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A strange dune in the high southern latitudes of Mars

2:56 pm

A strange dune in the high latitudes of Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on October 24, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). I have also rotated the image so that north is to the top.

The scientists label this a “dune with seasonally persistent light-toned features.” As the location is in the high southern latitudes, only about 800 miles from the south pole, light-toned features should vary by seasons, as such features usually signal the coming and going of frost, whether it be water ice or dry ice. In this case however the light tones remain from season to season, which suggests the lighter colors are intrinsic to the ground and possibly signal some interesting geology or mineralogy.

The color strip down the center of the dune is an effort to decipher this question. According to the explanation about the colors [pdf] provided by the science team, the orange and light green probably indicates fine dust, while the greenish area along the ridge’s rim as well as its eastern slope suggests frost. Thus, based on the superficial information available to the public, the colors tell us little.
» Read more

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Italian government awards former Ukrainian startup a $1.14 million development loan

10:07 am

A former Ukrainian startup, Kurs Orbital, has won a $1.14 million loan from Italy’s National Agency for Investment Attraction and Business Development (Invitalia) in order to build and sell its module providing rendezvous and docking capabilities for satellites.

Kurs Orbital was founded in 2021 by the former director of Ukraine’s space agency, Volodymyr Usov. After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the company relocated to Turin, Italy. The company is currently developing its ARCap system, a rendezvous and proximity operations module that can be integrated with a wide range of vehicles, including satellites, orbital transfer vehicles, and even cargo or crew spacecraft. Possible applications for the technology include satellite life extension missions, in-orbit servicing, and space debris removal.

On 30 December, the company announced that it had secured a €1.1 million soft loan from Italy’s National Agency for Investment Attraction and Business Development (Invitalia). A soft loan provides the borrower with more favourable terms than traditional lenders typically offer. The loan was awarded through the agency’s Smart&Start programme, which focuses on supporting the growth of innovative startups by providing financing of between €100,000 and €1.5 million.

The Kurs rendezvous and docking system was first developed in the Ukraine for the Soviet-era space stations. When the Soviet Union broke up it continued to sell them to Roscosmos, but over time the Putin government increasingly worked to block these deals as it tried (and generally failed) to develop the capabilities within Russia. The Ukrainian companies then began marketing their products, with some success, in the west. Following Russia’s 2022 invasion of the Ukraine those companies have either died, or done what Kurs Orbital did, move to the west.

While this story might resemble the actions of the Chinese government as described in my previous post, there is one very fundamental difference. In Italy the law protects the property rights of this company. The Italian government might provide it loans and assistance, like the Chinese, but it does not have the power or right to take it over, at its whim, as the Chinese communists can.

The story also illustrates the foolishness of Russia’s power-hungry policies. It not only has wasted its youth and industry on a useless war, it has driven away companies and technology that formerly gave it capabilities it now lacks.

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SpaceX launches another set of Starlink satellites

10:48 pm

SpaceX tonight completed its last launch of 2024, successfully placing 21 Starlink satellites into orbit, including 13 with direct-to-cell capabilities, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Kennedy in Florida.

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

Though there is always a chance that China will fly one more unannounced mission in the next day, it looks like the numbers below will be the final totals in the leader board for the 2024 launch race:

137 SpaceX
65 China
17 Russia
14 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 157 to 98, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 137 to 118.

My full annual global launch report, showing the full set of launches in 2024, will be posted later this week.

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India gets nine bids involving 30 companies on proposal to build satellite constellation

4:01 pm

Capitalism in space: India’s space agency in charge of promoting commercial space, In-Space, has received nine different bids involving 30 Indian companies on its proposal that an Earth observation satellite constellation be built by a private company, not by the country’s space agency ISRO.

The regulator had sought “expressions of interest” (EoI) in July to build home-grown satellite constellations as part of a broader strategy to monetize the sector and ensure data sovereignty.

India is doubling down on its small satellite and data services market to carve out a leading role in the global commercialization of space. The market for such services, increasingly key for industries ranging from telecoms to climate monitoring, is projected to reach $45 billion by 2030.

The applicants for IN-SPACe’s latest effort in this regard include startups such as Google-backed Pixxel and Baring Private Equity-backed SatSure, as well as larger entities like Tata Group’s Tata Advanced Systems. The companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

This is all part of the Modi government’s effort to shift from a government-run space program, controlled by ISRO, to the capitalist model where private companies compete for business and there is no “program” at all, at least not one that controls everything. The government becomes nothing more than one of many customers, buying services and products from the private sector to achieve its “program”. The companies in that sector then follow their own goals, and profit and innovation dictate who succeeds best. The result under this freedom model is always more development faster for less cost.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay.

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