Tag: freedom

Firefly raises $175 million in new private investment capital

9:19 am

The rocket startup Firefly has now raised another $175 million of private investment capital, during a new round of funding, on top of another $300 million raised previously.

Firefly Aerospace has raised $175 million in a round led by a new investor to support production of launch vehicles and spacecraft with an increased focus on responsive space capabilities.

The company announced Nov. 12 it raised what it described as an oversubscribed Series D round led by RPM Ventures. Several other existing and new ventures also participated in the round, which values Firefly at more than $2 billion.

That valuation is an increase from the $1.5 billion the company reported in November 2023 when it closed the final tranche of a Series C round. The company did not disclose the size of that earlier round but said then it had raised about $300 million since February 2023.

It appears RPM likes how the company has focused on providing the military launch services, which can also be profitable for private satellite customers. This money will be used to help increase the production of Firefly’s Alpha rocket.

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Polaris completes first inflight ignition of its aerospike engine

12:08 am

In what appears to be a first, Polaris Spaceplane on October 29, 2024 successfully completed the first ever inflight ignition of an aerospike engine, using its Mira-2 unmanned engineering prototype.

Later in the day on 29 October, MIRA II took off from Peenemünde Airport on the coast of the Baltic Sea with a takeoff mass of 229 kilograms, which represented a reduced propellant load. The vehicle flew to the ignition point over the Baltic Sea, approximately 3 kilometres away from the ground station, and once there, completed a short three-second burn of its AS-1 aerospike engine. During the short burn, MIRA II experienced an acceleration of 4 m/s².

According to the company, the engine operated at a reduced chamber pressure during the three-second burn, resulting in a fuel-rich combustion.

There have been several attempts in the past to develop the aerospike engine, none of which ever completed any test flights, as far as I am aware. The concept is that the thrust is released in a string of openings, with only one wall forming the nozzle shape and the atmosphere used to complete the nozzle on the other side. As the atmospheric density changes the nozzle shape thus changes its shape, producing the most efficient thrust throughout the engine’s entire flight.

More test flights will be required before the company will be able to begin work on its full scale Aurora spaceplane.

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SpaceX launches 20 Starlink satellites

11:22 pm

SpaceX tonight launched another 20 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

Of the 20 satellites, 13 were the direct-to-cellphone version. The first stage completed its eleventh flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

110 SpaceX
49 China
13 Russia
12 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 128 to 75, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including American companies, 110 to 93.

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Sierra Space announces plans to build a second Dream Chaser cargo spaceplane

2:58 pm

With the first launch of Sierra Space’s first Dream Chaser reusable unmanned cargo mini-shuttle, Tenacity, now scheduled for May 2025, the company has announced that it is beginning work on a second cargo spaceplane, dubbed Reverence, along with a mission control center to operate its fleet in orbit.

Sierra Space spokesperson Alex Walker shared the new May 2025 estimate and said work on Reverence, also known as DC-102, will resume once the team returns to Colorado — but declined to clarify when that would happen. At that point, Walker said, it will likely be another 18 months before the second spaceplane is complete. In addition to the fleet of cargo-carrying craft, Sierra Space is also working on a crewed variant of the vessel, labeled the DC-200 series, and a national security DC-300 variant.

Company officials say each mini-shuttle is good for 15 flights, so having both vehicles gives the company a total of 30 flights to sell to various space station and orbital customers.

Selling to others outside NASA may be necessary, because Tenacity is four-plus years behind schedule. By the time it begins flying ISS will already be approaching retirement in only a few short years.

The company intends these new Dream Chaser projects to work in tandem with its LIFE inflatable modules, which are presently being developed as part of the Blue Origin-led Orbital Reef space station. And while much of work on the rest of that station appears moribund, it appears that Sierra is developing everything needed for its own space station. We should therefore not be surprised if Sierra decides to bid on NASA’s next space station funding round independent entirely of the Orbital Reef partnership.

It certainly is assembling all the pieces needed for a station, without any help from Blue Origin.

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Vast signs astronaut agreement with Czech government

8:57 am

The space station startup Vast has announced it has now signed an agreement with the Czech government to possibly fly one of its astronauts to the company’s Haven space stations, either the smaller Haven-1 or the full size Haven-2 to follow.

Any future mission with Vast could see Aleš Svoboda, one of 12 reserve astronauts selected by the European Space Agency in November 2022, become the second Czech astronaut. Svoboda has been a focal point for the Czech government’s efforts to stimulate growth in the Czech space industry and inspire the country’s young people to pursue STEM careers, crystallized by the launch of the Czech Journey to Space project in June 2024.

In September 2024 the Czech government had signed a similar agreement with Axiom. Under that agreement, Svoboda would fly to ISS. This new deal opens the possibility he will fly elsewhere.

It is very possible the Czechs want to do both, and are covering their bets by signing both agreements. In either case, no mission dates have been set.

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SpaceX launches 23 Starlink satellites

4:27 pm

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

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

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

109 SpaceX
49 China
13 Russia
12 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 127 to 75, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including American companies, 109 to 93.

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Next Starship/Superheavy test flight now targeting November 18th

12:19 pm

SpaceX today announced its plan to fly the next and sixth orbital test flight of its Starship/Superheavy rocket on November 18th, less than two weeks from today.

The next Starship flight test aims to expand the envelope on ship and booster capabilities and get closer to bringing reuse of the entire system online. Objectives include the booster once again returning to the launch site for catch, reigniting a ship Raptor engine while in space, and testing a suite of heatshield experiments and maneuvering changes for ship reentry and descent over the Indian Ocean.

The success of the first catch attempt demonstrated the design feasibility while providing valuable data to continue improving hardware and software performance. Hardware upgrades for this flight add additional redundancy to booster propulsion systems, increase structural strength at key areas, and shorten the timeline to offload propellants from the booster following a successful catch. Mission designers also updated software controls and commit criteria for the booster’s launch and return.

As noted earlier, the FAA has made it clear that no new license is required since this flight plan is essentially the same as the fifth flight.

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Freedom: What Trump’s election will mean for America’s space policy

2:24 pm

The resounding landslide victory by Donald Trump and the Republicans yesterday is going have enormous consequences across the entire federal government. As a space historian and journalist who has been following, studying, and reporting on space policy for decades, this essay will be my attempt to elucidate what that landslide will mean for NASA, its Artemis program, and the entire American aerospace industry.

The cost of SLS
The absurd cost of each SLS launch

The Artemis Program

Since 2011 I have said over and over that the government-designed and owned SLS, Orion, and later proposed Lunar Gateway space station were all badly conceived. They all cost too much and don’t do the job. Fitting them together to create a long term presence in space is difficult at best and mostly impractical. Their cost and cumbersome design has meant the program to get back to the Moon, as first proposed by George Bush Jr. in 2004, is now more than a decade behind schedule and many billions over budget. Worse, under the present program as currently contrived that manned lunar landing will likely be delayed five more years, at a minimum.

For example, at present SLS is underpowered. It can’t get astronauts to and from the Moon, as the Saturn-5 rocket did in the 1960s. For the first manned lunar landing mission, Artemis-4, SLS will simply launch four astronauts in Orion to lunar orbit, where Orion will rendezvous and dock with the lunar lander version of Starship. That Starship in turn will require refueling in Earth orbit, using a proposed fuel depot that has been filled by multiple earlier Starship launches.

Once Starship is docked to Orion the crew will transfer to Starship to get up and down from the Moon, and then return to Earth in Orion.

You think that’s complicated? » Read more

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Ghana approves a government space policy

9:55 am

In a process that began in 2018, Ghana has finally approved a new government space policy that shifts bureaucratic control from a government agency not specifically focused on space to a new Ghana Space Agency.

Though Ghana officials repeatedly claim this is to encourage a commercial industry, all this policy decision has done is to create a new government agency to run things. It also appears that to make this change took years of negotiation among all the various government agencies involved, so that everyone could protect their own interests.

Don’t expect much from Ghana in the near future. All this policy does is concentrate power within its government.

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FCC issues first deep space communications license to private asteroid mining company

9:44 am

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on October 18, 2024 issued the first deep space communications license to the private asteroid mining startup company Astroforge for its planned Odin mission to an asteroid.

Asteroid prospecting company AstroForge has been awarded the first-ever commercial license for operating and communicating with a spacecraft in deep space, ahead of its Odin mission that’s set to launch and rendezvous with a near-Earth asteroid in early 2025.

The license, granted by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Oct. 18, pertains specifically to setting up a communication network with radio ground stations on Earth, to enable commands to be sent up to Odin and data to be transmitted back to Earth. In this case, deep space is defined by the International Telecommunications Union as being farther than 2 million kilometers (1.2 million miles) from Earth.

Other private companies have sent missions to the Moon, but this will be the first to go beyond. Odin will orbit and map the asteroid — not yet chosen — in advance of a larger AstroForge spacecraft, dubbed Vestri, that will land on the asteroid.

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The first cubesat launched using wood for its side panelling

9:29 am

One piece of cargo carried by the cargo Dragon to ISS earlier this week is the first cubesat ever to use wood for its side panelling.

Made by researchers in Japan, the tiny satellite weighing just 900g is heading for the International Space Station on a SpaceX mission. It will then be released into orbit above the Earth. Named LignoSat, after the Latin word for wood, its panels have been built from a type of magnolia tree, using a traditional technique without screws or glue.

Researchers at Kyoto University who developed it hope it may be possible in the future to replace some metals used in space exploration with wood. “Wood is more durable in space than on Earth because there’s no water or oxygen that would rot or inflame it,” Kyoto University forest science professor Koji Murata told Reuters news agency. “Early 1900s airplanes were made of wood,” Prof Murata said. “A wooden satellite should be feasible, too.”

The satellite’s frame is still metal, but by using wood for its side panelling the engineers hope to test the feasibility of wood as a in-space construction material.

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Expect fewer and less violent protests should Trump win

11:46 am

Nazi brown shirts destroying Jewish businesses on Kristallnacht
No more American Kristallnachts

Based on recent events, I am willing to predict that we shall see much less violence than expected in the days after the election should Donald Trump win. And if those protests occur, they will mostly be concentrated in Democratic Party strongholds where the protesters feel reasonably confident they can get away with it.

I base this optimistic prediction on the trends we have been seeing. As I first noted in April 2024, the strength of these leftist protests has clearly lost steam in the last four years. While in 2020 the protests and looting and violence occurred almost everywhere, destroying many inner cities, in the last year those protests have mostly been confined to college campuses, and have resulted in relatively little damage in comparison.

The reasons have been two fold. First, the authorities, while still generally treating these protesters too gently, have still responded more aggressively. Violent protesters are now arrested. Some face prison terms. Faced with real consequences, this violent leftist protest movement can no longer get the same numbers to turn out.

Second, the protests and violence has declined because of the utter failure of these protests to work. If anything, the looting and destruction has convinced vast numbers of Americans to oppose the left and to now vote with even greater energy against the politicians who support it.

Thought trends have been obvious for months, recently we have had even more evidence that the protests and violence will be less should Trump win. And that evidence is striking.
» Read more

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