Tag: Falcon 9

Isaacman’s next private mission to space now scheduled for March ’23

9:53 am

Jared Isaacman’s next private mission on a Dragon capsule, dubbed Polaris Dawn, has now been scheduled for March ’23, during which the first spacewalk by a private citizen will occur.

The mission is planned to last five days, will have a crew of four led by Isaacman, and will also attempt the highest Earth orbit flown by any manned mission. From the mission’s webpage:

At approximately 700 kilometers above the Earth (434 miles), the crew will attempt the first-ever commercial extravehicular activity (EVA) with SpaceX-designed extravehicular activity (EVA) spacesuits, upgraded from the current intravehicular (IVA) suit.

It is not clear if one or all four of the crew members will participate in that spacewalk. At a minimum, all four must be in suits that can work during a spacewalk, since their Dragon capsule does not have an airlock.

The mission will also be used as to raise funds for St. Jude Children’s Hospital, as was done during Isaacman’s first flight, Inspiration4, in the fall of 2021.

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Both the Pentagon and Europe are looking for ways to fund Starlink for the Ukraine

9:13 am

According to an article in Politico today, both the U.S. military and the European Union (EU) are investigating ways in which either could fund the cost for providing Starlink to the Ukraine, rather than remaining a voluntary donation by SpaceX.

The most likely source of funding, several government and industry officials said, would be the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which has been used to acquire a range of weapons and services for the Ukraine war effort.

The Starlink issue also came up during a meeting of the European Union’s foreign ministers on Monday, as the countries discussed whether to contribute funding to ensure Ukrainians keep their access to the service. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told POLITICO after the meeting that EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell raised the subject of paying to keep the service running in Ukraine, but the effort is still in its early stages.

It also appears there are discussions to find a back-up to Starlink. At the moment however the only possible option would be OneWeb, and it is not clear its design would work for the soldier in the field.

Regardless, considering the amount of cash being thrown at military contractors for the war — much of which is likely worthless and simply pork — it seems entirely reasonable to devote some to Starlink, a technology that has actually made a difference.

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ESA looking to SpaceX to launch Euclid space telescope

9:02 am

Capitalism in space: Having lost its Soyuz launch vehicle for its Euclid space telescope because of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, the European Space Agency (ESA) is now looking at SpaceX as a possible option.

At a meeting of NASA’s Astrophysics Advisory Council, Mark Clampin, director of the agency’s astrophysics division, said his understanding is that the European Space Agency was leaning towards launching its Euclid mission on a Falcon 9 in mid to late 2023.

NASA is a partner on Euclid, a space telescope that will operate around the Earth-sun L-2 Lagrange point 1.5 million kilometers from Earth to study dark energy, dark matter and other aspects of cosmology. The 2,160-kilogram spacecraft was to launch on a Soyuz rocket from French Guiana in 2023.

Europe has for years used its own rockets for its science missions. However, right now the Falcon 9 appears the only option. The last launches of Europe’s Ariane-5 rocket are already assigned, and the new Ariane-6 rocket has not yet flown, is behind schedule, and its early launches are also already reserved.

Nor does ESA have other options outside of SpaceX. Of the rockets powerful enough to do the job, ULA’s Atlas-5 is also being retired, and the Vulcan rocket is as yet unavailable. Blue Origin’s New Glenn is years behind schedule, with no clear idea when it will finally launch.

A final decision is expected soon. ESA could either go with SpaceX, or simply delay several years until Ariane-6 is flying.

If SpaceX gets the job however it will once again demonstrate the value of moving fast in a competitive environment. While its competitors have dithered and thus do not have their rockets ready, SpaceX has been flying steadily for years, so it gets the business.

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SpaceX successfully launches communications satellite

10:32 pm

SpaceX tonight successfully launched a Eutelsat communications satellite using its Falcon 9 rocket.

The first stage completed its third mission, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The fairings completed their fourth flight.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

47 SpaceX
44 China
14 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 67 to 44 in the national rankings. It now leds with the entire world combined 67 to 66.

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Ispace targets November 9-15 launch window for first commercial lunar lander

9:07 am

The private Japanese company Ispace has now scheduled the launch of its commercial lunar lander Hakuto-R on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for a November 9-15, 2022 launch window.

Though the lander’s primary goal is to see if this lander will work, it also includes several customer payloads, the most significant of which is the Rashid rover from the United Arab Emirates. Rashid, which is about the size of a Radio Flyer red wagon, will operate for one lunar day, about two weeks. While its main mission is to test the engineering and to train the engineers who built it, it will have two cameras for taking pictures. In addition, on its wheels are test adhesive patches of different materials, designed to see how each material interacts with the Moon’s abrasive dust.

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SpaceX launches two Intelsat communications satellites

4:17 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX today successfully launched two Intelsat communications satellites using its Falcon 9 rocket.

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

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

46 SpaceX
42 China
12 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 66 to 42 in the national rankings, and the entire globe combined 66 to 62.

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Important Roscosmos official endorses continuing cooperation with US in space

12:28 pm

In a clear sign of the distinct change in atmosphere since the removal of Dmitry Rogozin as head of Roscosmos, the executive director of human space flight programs at Roscosmos, Sergei Krikalev, yesterday endorsed the longstanding cooperation between the U.S. and Russia in space.

Krikalev’s comments came after the launch yesterday of Endurance with one Russian astronaut as part of its four-person crew.

At a briefing after the Oct. 5 launch of the Crew-5 mission from the Kennedy Space Center, Sergei Krikalev, executive director of human space flight programs at Roscosmos, emphasized long-running cooperation between the United States and Russia in civil space, cooperation that has been strained since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.

“We just continue what we started many years ago in 1975 when the Apollo-Soyuz crew worked together, and now we continue our cooperation,” he said after mentioning a “new phase of cooperation” with the exchange of seats between NASA and Roscosmos.

To understand the importance of Krikalev’s comments, you must also understand the context. First, Krikalev is a very significant figure in the history of Russia. He was called the last Soviet citizen, having been stranded on Mir an extra few months when the Soviet Union fell in 1991. Then he was the first Russian to fly on the shuttle, followed later by being on the first mission to ISS, when it was only two modules.

Since his retirement as an active astronaut, he has become the man in charge of Russia’s manned program, where he clashed with Rogozin several times over policy. His opposition to Rogozin almost certainly was a factor in Rogozin’s removal.

Krikalev’s endorsement of continuing the U.S-Russian partnership only cements that partnership, especially because Krikalev himself is a dyed-in-the-wool communist at heart. At least, he said so emphatically when I interviewed him at length in 2003 for Leaving Earth. I doubt his mind has changed in this matter, though his relentless honesty as an engineer has probably shaken his dedication to that failed ideology in subsequent years.

Nonetheless, his standing in Russia gives any statement he makes great weight. Expect more efforts by the Russians to ease tensions with the U.S., though their chances of success will be limited as long as Russia is continuing its unprovoked invasion of the Ukraine.

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Satellite about to burn up because Sherpa orbital tug has done nothing

8:46 am

Capitalism in space: A Boeing cubesat satellite launched last month is about to burn up as it returns to Earth because the Spaceflight Sherpa orbital tug that was supposed to raise its orbit has as yet done nothing.

Spaceflight planned to use a chemical propulsion system on the Sherpa, provided by Benchmark Space Systems, to raise the orbit of the vehicle to an altitude of 1,000 kilometers. The Sherpa payload, initially not disclosed by Spaceflight, is a V-band communications demonstration by Boeing called Varuna.

However, tracking information from the U.S. Space Force shows that Sherpa has yet to raise its orbit. Atmospheric drag has caused that orbit to gradually decay, and the spacecraft was most recently tracked in an orbit of 283 by 296 kilometers. That raised concerns that the spacecraft could reenter in a matter of weeks if it does not start firing its thrusters.

Spaceflight officials explain the lack of action is because they are still “commissioning” the tug, whatever that means. It also appears that problems was this same propulsion system caused SpaceX to ban Spaceflight in March as a customer on future rideshare launches.

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SpaceX launches another 52 Starlink satellites

4:19 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX this afternoon successfully completed its second Falcon 9 launch of the day, placing 52 Starlink satellites into orbit from Vandenberg..

The seven hour gap between launches was a record for the shortest time between two SpaceX launches. The first stage landed successfully on a drone ship in the Pacific, completing its fifth flight.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

45 SpaceX
41 China
12 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 64 to 41 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 64 to 61. The U.S. total, 64, ties the total from 1965, the second most active year in American rocketry. The record of 70 successful launches, set in 1966, will almost certainly be broken sometime in the next month.

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SpaceX successfully launches astronauts to ISS

9:40 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX this morning successfully launched two NASA astronauts, one Japanese astronaut, and one Russian astronaut into orbit for a mission to ISS, with the docking scheduled for tomorrow.

The capsule, Endurance, is making its second flight. This was SpaceX’s eighth manned launch. The first stage, making its first fight, landed successfully on the drone ship in the Atlantic. This was the first new first stage launched since May 2022, and only the second this year. All other launches in 2022 were completed using SpaceX’s existing fleet of boosters. The company also continues to hold to the pattern of last year for maintaining that fleet, by adding two new boosters each year.

That this achievement is now becoming as routine as SpaceX’s unmanned launches proves the company’s success. And SpaceX did it in less than a decade, something NASA with its government-built shuttle was never able to accomplish.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

44 SpaceX
41 China
12 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 63 to 41 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 63 to 61.

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SpaceX to upgrade 2nd Kennedy launchpad for manned launches

10:13 am

In order to create some increased redundancy, SpaceX and NASA have agreed to upgrade the company’s second launchpad at Cape Canaveral, LC-40, so that both it and pad LC-39A can launch manned Dragon capsules.

This plan grew out of concern by NASA that the new Starship orbital launchpad was too close to LC-39A, and could possibly damage it during a launch. Should that happen, and no back-up launchpad was available, the agency would have no way to get astronauts up to ISS, since Boeing’s Starliner is not yet operational. Because of that concern, NASA made it clear that no Starship launches could occur in Florida until this issue was resolved.

The solution? Make LC-40 a manned launchpad too.

Nothing is known about the nature of the modifications that LC-40 will require. But more likely than not, NASA will require SpaceX to develop something similar to Pad 39A’s facilities. That would involve building a new crew access tower, crew access arm, escape system (39A uses baskets and ziplines), and an on-site bunker for astronauts.

It is also likely that no Starship launches at Kennedy will occur until this work is done and a manned launch from LC-40 takes place. Though this could delay Starship somewhat, I expect not significantly. Before SpaceX is ready to launch operationally in Florida, it still has to do a lot of testing and development of Starship/Superheavy in Boca Chica, work that could take several years. I also suspect that it will get the launchpad work done relatively quickly, especially if NASA agrees to pay for it.

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SpaceX successfully launches 52 Starlink satellites

4:42 pm

Capitalism in space: Using its Falcon 9 rocket SpaceX today successfully put another 52 Starlink satellites into orbit.

The first stage successfully landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic, completing its fourth flight. The two fairing halves each completed their fourth and fifth flights, respectively.

Note: The Biden administration yesterday gave SpaceX the okay to activate Starlink in Iran, in order to provide that country’s citizens an option for obtaining information blocked by its government.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

43 SpaceX
38 China
12 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
6 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 60 to 38 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 60 to 58.

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Two launches from U.S. set for this afternoon

10:29 am

Both ULA and SpaceX have planned launches this afternoon a little over an hour apart, at 2:53 pm and 4:10 pm Pacific time respectively.

The ULA launch is first, and is the last Delta rocket launch from Vandenberg Space Force base. The company is slowly phasing this rocket out as it transitions to its not-yet-launched Vulcan rocket. The payload today is a spy satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office, using ULA’s biggest rocket, the Delta Heavy.

SpaceX will follow with another Falcon 9 Starlink launch, placing another 52 Starlink satellites into orbit.

I have embedded the live streams of both launches below.
» Read more

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Confirmed: Saudi Arabia buys two seats on next Axiom commercial flight to ISS

8:59 am

Capitalism in space: Saudi Arabia’s official press yesterday confirmed an earlier Reuters story that it has purchased two seats on an Axiom commercial flight to ISS, using a SpaceX Dragon capsule.

The twist is that the Saudi government says one of those astronauts will be a woman, and the mission should fly in 2023. It will include Axiom’s pilot, two Saudi passengers, and a fourth passenger, all as-yet unnamed.

The mission is part of what the Saudi government calls a new astronaut training program.

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Saudi Arabia buys two seats on Dragon for Axiom commercial flight to ISS

9:43 am

Capitalism in space: According to an as-yet unconfirmed story today by Reuters, Saudi Arabia has purchased two seats on a SpaceX Dragon capsule as part of an Axiom commercial flight to ISS.

The sources for the story are all anonymous, and no one from Axiom or SpaceX or Saudi Arabia has confirmed it. Nonetheless, it seems entirely plausible, since Saudi Arabia has made it clear it is considering such a mission and Axiom and SpaceX are eager to sell tickets.

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SpaceX launches 54 Starlink satellites on Falcon 9

10:53 pm

After four scrubs on four consecutive days, SpaceX tonight finally successfully put 54 Starlink satellites into orbit.

The first stage successfully completed its sixth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The fairings halves completed the third and fourth flights, respectively.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

42 SpaceX
37 China
11 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
5 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 58 to 37 in the national rankings, and the entire globe 58 to 56. At 58 successful launches, 2022 is now the third most active year in the entire history of the United States, with only 1965 and 1966 having more launches.

This post is late because I spend the weekend in the mountains, caving. Twas a much needed break.

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SpaceX launches 34 Starlink satellites plus commercial satellite for AST Mobile

6:30 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX today successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to launch 34 additional Starlink satellites into orbit. It also launched another customer’s communications satellite, AST Mobile’s BlueWalker-3.

The first stage successfully completed its record 14th flight, the most times a Falcon 9 first stage has been reused. It landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic. In addition, the two fairing halves completed their 4th and 5th flights, respectively. As of this writing, the satellites have not yet deployed from the upper stage.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

41 SpaceX
36 China
11 Russia
6 Rocket Lab
5 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 56 to 36 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 56 to 55. That U.S. lead stands a good chance of increasing this weekend, as tomorrow SpaceX plans another Starlink launch, but more significantly, Firefly will make the second attempt to complete the first launch of its Alpha rocket, almost a year after the first failed attempt.

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SpaceX launches another 51 Starlink satellites and orbital tug

9:47 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX tonight successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to place 51 more Starlink satellites into orbit, as well as a Sherpa orbital tug built by the commercial company Spaceflight.

The first stage completed its seventh flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The tug was successfully deployed and will carry a Boeing test satellite for a proposed 147 satellite constellation to its planned orbit.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

40 SpaceX
34 China
11 Russia
6 Rocket Lab
5 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 55 to 34 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 55 to 52. SpaceX’s 40 launches matches the U.S.’s entire total in 2020, and was only exceeded by the U.S. six times since the dawn of the space age in 1957.

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Taking Starlink on a vacation sailing trip

11:11 am

A Starlink subscriber to the company’s RV option decided to try it on his sailing boat during a weeklong trip among the Greek islands, and found it worked surprisingly well.

They combined Starlink’s service with cellular connectivity and compared the two while using social media, Google maps, and video streaming. The outcome? Starlink and cellular complimented each other, according to Topolev.

Starlink suffered outages when it was surrounded by other boats’ masts or when the yacht made sharp turns, but worked well at sea, whereas cellular connectivity dropped out when the boat was far from the shore, Topolev said. “It was surprisingly good,” he said. “There were some outages and sometimes we had to manually reboot it … but basically it worked … almost all the time.”

The RV option is specifically for use in moving vehicles, though its use on a boat was not expected to be its prime target customers. Nonetheless, the test suggests strongly that Starlink will work quite well on the big cruise ships, one liner of which, Royal Caribbean, has already signed a deal to make Starlink operational by next year.

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OneWeb lost $229 million when Russia canceled its launches and confiscated its satellites

9:49 am

On September 1, 2022, OneWeb revealed that Russia’s cancellation of the last six or so OneWeb launches as well as Russia’s confiscation of 36 satellites cost the company $229 million.

Russia’s actions were the response by then head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, to sanctions imposed on Russia by the west because of its invasion of the Ukraine. Rogozin’s petty response ended up shooting his space agency in the foot, because it ended up losing billions of dollars in foreign launch business, business that is not likely to return for decades.

OneWeb has since signed contracts with SpaceX, ISRO (India’s space agency), and Relativity for future launches. None of these have been firmly scheduled, though the first by SpaceX is tentatively planned for sometime before the end of the year.

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NASA is paying Boeing twice as much as SpaceX for its manned flights

9:53 am

Capitalism in space: in an excellent analysis of the total amount NASA will pay both SpaceX and Boeing for all their manned flights to ISS before the station retires, Eric Berger at Ars Technica has determined that the agency will essentially pay Boeing twice as much per flight.

In 2014, NASA narrowed the crew competition to just two companies, Boeing and SpaceX. At that time, the space agency awarded Boeing $4.2 billion in funding for development of the Starliner spacecraft and six operational crew flights. Later, in an award that NASA’s own inspector general described as “unnecessary,” NASA paid Boeing an additional $287.2 million. This brings Boeing’s total to $4.49 billion, although Finch told Ars that Boeing’s contract value as of August 1, 2022, is $4.39 billion.

For the same services, development of Crew Dragon and six operational missions, NASA paid SpaceX $2.6 billion. After its initial award, NASA has agreed to buy an additional eight flights from SpaceX—Crew-7, -8, -9, -10, -11, -12, -13, and -14—through the year 2030. This brings the total contract awarded to SpaceX to $4.93 billion.

Since we now know how many flights each company will be providing NASA through the lifetime of the International Space Station, and the full cost of those contracts, we can break down the price NASA is paying each company per seat by amortizing the development costs.

Boeing, in flying 24 astronauts, has a per-seat price of $183 million. SpaceX, in flying 56 astronauts during the same time frame, has a seat price of $88 million. Thus, NASA is paying Boeing 2.1 times the price per seat that it is paying SpaceX, inclusive of development costs incurred by NASA.

Despite the larger payments to Boeing, the company could very well lose money on Starliner. The higher cost to NASA from Boeing is due almost entirely because the agency was absorbing more of its initial development cost. SpaceX’s Dragon capsule had already been flying cargo missions to ISS when these manned contracts were awarded. SpaceX merely had to upgrade its manned capsule. Boeing had to design and build it from scratch. Moreover, the contracts were fixed price, which means Boeing had to absorb more than a half billion in additional costs when it had to refly the unmanned demo flight of Starliner.

Finally, because of the delays, Boeing won less NASA business. It also has gotten none of the private commercial manned flights that are going on right now. Those contracts went to SpaceX, including all the profits. Whether Boeing can eventually win some private contracts down the road is unknown. It will certainly have to lower its price to compete with SpaceX.

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Musk tweets that SpaceX wants to complete 100 launches in 2023

10:11 am

Capitalism in space: Elon Musk yesterday tweeted that SpaceX’ is now planning to attempt about 100 launches next year, which will almost double its expected output this year.

To get some perspective of this goal, 100 launches in a single year would be more launches than the entire world completed each year from 1991 (after the fall of the Soviet Union) through 2017 (before the recent resurgence of American commercial rocketry).

This decision probably relates to getting SpaceX’s Starlink constellation operational. Musk had hoped to begin Starship launches of Starlink soon, and now likely recognizes that such launches are probably more than a year away. Moreover, this year SpaceX engineers have demonstrated that the Falcon 9 can launch a lot of these satellites. So far in 2022 it has launched about 50 Starlink satellites per launch, and done so about 25 times. That’s 1,250 satellites in a little more than half a year. With a 100 launches, Falcon 9 could launch about 5,000 satellites alone next year, a pace that will certainly be sufficient in the short run to get Starlink operational.

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Axiom gets NASA approval to fly second commercial manned mission to ISS

9:02 am

Capitalism in space: NASA and Axiom have worked out their contract to allow Axiom to fly its second commercial manned mission to ISS, now scheduled for sometime in the spring of 2023.

Through the mission specific order, Axiom is obtaining from NASA services such as crew supplies, cargo delivery to space, storage, and other in-orbit resources for daily use. The order also accommodates up to an additional contingency week aboard the space station. This mission is subject to NASA’s updated pricing policy for private astronaut missions, which reflects the full value of services the agency is providing to Axiom that are above space station baseline capabilities.

The order also identifies capabilities NASA will obtain from Axiom, including the return of scientific samples that must be kept cold in transit back to Earth, the return of a Nitrogen/Oxygen Recharge System (NORS) tank, the capability for last-minute return of two cargo transfer bags, and up to 10 hours of the private astronaut mission commander’s time during the docked mission to complete NASA science or perform tasks for NASA.

The flight, dubbed Ax-2, will carry four Axiom passengers, three of whom will be paying passengers. It will be launched by SpaceX on its Falcon 9 rocket, carrying one of SpaceX’s four reusable manned Dragon capsules.

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NASA awards SpaceX new $1.4 billion contract to launch its astronauts

8:56 am

Capitalism in space: NASA yesterday awarded SpaceX a new $1.4 billion contract to buy five more passenger flights to ISS, using SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon manned capsules.

This follows a similar contract extension in February that awarded SpaceX three more NASA passenger flights.

For Boeing, this contract award must hurt. If its Starliner manned capsule wasn’t years behind schedule, with numerous engineering errors slowing development, some of the cash from these two new SpaceX contracts would have certainly gone to Boeing. Instead, the company has had to spend more than $400 million of its own money trying to get Starliner fixed and operational.

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SpaceX launches another 46 Starlink satellites into orbit

10:50 pm

Capitalism in space: Using its Falcon 9 rocket, SpaceX tonight successfully placed another 46 Starlink satellites into orbit, launching from Vandenberg Space Force Base.

The first stage successfully completed its seventh flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. The two fairings also completed their third flight.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

39 SpaceX
33 China
11 Russia
6 Rocket Lab
5 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 54 to 33 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 54 to 51.

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SpaceX launches 54 Starlink satellites into orbit

8:52 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX tonight used its Falcon 9 rocket to put another 54 Starlink satellites into orbit.

The flight’s fairings completed their third flight. The first stage successfully completed its second flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. That stage however had an interesting first flight:

Known as B1069, the booster was damaged during recovery on a drone ship Dec. 21 after launching its first mission, sending a Dragon cargo ship toward the International Space Station. The rough recovery damaged the rocket’s engines and landing legs, causing the rocket to return aboard the drone ship to Port Canaveral on a tilt. The damage forced SpaceX and NASA to switch to a backup Falcon 9 booster for the launch of four astronauts to the space station in April. That launch was originally supposed to use B1069, which has been refurbished with new engines and other components.

In the past, rocket companies and NASA would have automatically thrown out this stage after being damaged. SpaceX however now treats these first stages like airplanes, repairable for reflight, even if damaged. Tonight’s flight proved the robustness of this strategy, and it did it carrying the most mass of any previous Falcon 9 launch.

The leaders in 2022 launch race:

38 SpaceX
33 China
11 Russia
6 Rocket Lab
5 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 53 to 33, and the entire world combined 53 to 51.

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T-Mobile and Starlink to team up

9:10 pm

SpaceX and T-Mobile today announced that sometime next year T-Mobile cell phones will use the Starlink satellite constellation to fill in any dead zones in its cell coverage.

T-Mobile says it’s getting rid of mobile dead zones thanks to a new partnership with SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet, at an event hosted by T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert and Elon Musk. With their “Coverage Above and Beyond” setup, mobile phones could connect to satellites and use a slice of a connection providing around 2 to 4 Megabits per second connection (total) across a given coverage area.

That connection should be enough to let you text, send MMS messages, and even use “select messaging apps” whenever you have a clear view of the sky, even if there’s no traditional service available. According to a press release from T-Mobile, the “satellite-to-cellular service” will be available “everywhere in the continental US, Hawaii, parts of Alaska, Puerto Rico and territorial waters.” The service is scheduled to launch in beta by the end of next year in “select areas,” and Sievert says he hopes it will someday include data.

The system will require Starlink’s second generation satellites, which right now also require SpaceX’s big Starship for launch. Once operational however it will work on the cell phones customers already own.

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SpaceX to use both Falcon 9 and Starship to launch 2nd gen Starlink satellites

9:06 am

Capitalism in space: In a letter sent to the FCC, SpaceX has revealed that it has revised its plans for launching the second generation of Starlink satellites, and has decided to launch them with both Falcon 9 and Starship rockets.

SpaceX has decided to use a mix of Falcon 9 and Starship rockets to launch the 30,000 satellites in its proposed second-generation Starlink broadband constellation. Launching some of the satellites with SpaceX’s “tested and dependable Falcon 9” will accelerate the constellation’s deployment to improve Starlink services. SpaceX director of satellite policy David Goldman wrote in an Aug. 19 letter to the Federal Communications Commission. Goldman did not say when SpaceX could start launching the second-generation constellation, which remains subject to FCC approval.

Previously the company’s plan had been to use Starship only, essentially retiring Falcon 9 once Starship was flying. This change could be for two fundamental reasons. First, the company has been launching Starlinks on Falcon 9 like clockwork this year, at a pace that could launch as many as 2,500 Starlink satellites in 2022 alone. With about 70% of that rocket reusable, it might now seem cost effective to continue to use it, even after Starship is flying.

The second reason is more worrisome, and has to do with Starship itself. SpaceX officials might now realize that the delays being imposed by the federal regulatory leviathan on Starship development might be significant enough that it won’t be ready when they need it for the full deployment of Starlink’s second generation constellation. If the FCC approves that deployment (an approval that is presently pending), SpaceX will have to launch at least half the full constellation of 30,000 satellites by around 2024 (thought that date might have been revised slightly).

It now might be necessary to use Falcon 9, because the federal government under Biden is standing in the way of Starship development.

Of course, it is possible that the engineering challenge of building Starship might be another reason. SpaceX might have realized that the rocket will be delayed anyway, and thus needs Falcon 9 to meet its timetable as promised to the FCC.

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SpaceX and China complete launches

12:51 pm

Two launches have just occurred in the 2022 launch race. First, SpaceX today successfully launched another 53 Starlink satellites, using its Falcon 9 rocket.

The first stage successfully landed on its drone ship in the Atlantic, completing its ninth flight.

China in turn used its Long March 2D rocket to launch three military reconnaissance satellites, at what was the early morning hours of August 20, 2022, China time. The launch path took the rocket over China’s interior as well as Taiwan, with the first stage crashing somewhere in China.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

37 SpaceX
31 China
11 Russia
6 Rocket Lab
5 ULA

American private enterprise still leads China 52 to 31 in the national rankings, and the entire world 52 to 49. The 52 launches so far this year is now the fifth best total for the U.S. since the launch of Sputnik in 1957.

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SpaceX launches 46 more Starlink satellites

2:49 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX today used its Falcon 9 rocket to launch another 46 Starlink satellites into orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage completed its 10th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. It was also the fourth flight for both fairing halves. During the live stream the announcer also mentioned that because SpaceX has recently switched to using Starlink for transmitting its launch video feeds, the loss of picture signal that use to occur during the landing of the first stage on the drone ship has almost completely vanished.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

36 SpaceX
30 China
11 Russia
6 Rocket Lab
5 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 51 to 30 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 51 to 48.

I should also add that the United States has now matched the number of launches achieved in 1962, the nation’s fifth highest total of successful launches in a single year.

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