Tag: freedom

India to do 19 launches through March 2025

9:41 am

India's planned launches through March 2025

According to India’s space bureaucracy IN-SPACe, that nation has planned as many as 19 launches through March 2025.

The image to the right shows the manifest that IN-SPACe released. That agency is tasked with encouraging India’s private and independnt space industry, and it claims that 30 missions in total are planned, with half by commercial companies. This number however includes payloads and suborbital test missions, not just orbital launches. Based on the manifest to the right it appears that 19 of these missions are launches, with six being entirely private launches. One of those private launches, the first of Agnikul’s commercial Agnibaan rocket, will be suborbital.

It thus appears that in 2024 India hopes to complete 14 orbital launches. If so, this would double that nation’s previous record of seven launches in a single year. This schedule is very aspirational, with those six entirely commercial launches likely not all happening as planned.

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Vibration testing of Sierra Space’s Tenacity mini-shuttle completed

9:01 am

NASA engineers have now completed vibration testing of Sierra Space’s Tenacity mini-shuttle, set to launch on a Vulcan rocket later this year.

Reading between the blather in the NASA press release at the link, it appears that testing was successful, proving that the Dream Chaser spacecraft can survive the vibrations of launch. This conclusion by me however remains unconfirmed. Engineers are now preparing the mini-shuttle for environmental testing.

Next up, Dream Chaser will move to a huge, in-ground vacuum chamber that will continue to simulate the space environment Dream Chaser will encounter on its mission. The spaceplane will be put through its paces, experiencing low ambient pressures, low-background temperatures, and dynamic solar heating.

Previously the launch date had been targeting April 2024, according to ULA officials. It now appears, from the vagueness of recent reports, as well as the actual testing now in progress, that the launch date has slipped. They appear to be targeting the first half of 2024, but are as yet unwilling to commit to a date.

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Pushback: Fired by Disney for noting Nazis killed Jews, actress sues, her lawyers paid for by X

2:24 pm

Gina Carano's tweet about the Nazi genocide

Bring a gun to a knife fight: Back in February 2021 my daily blacklist column focused on the horrible blackballing of actress Gina Carano by the Disney corporation. It had fired her because of the tweet to the right, in which she had stated some undeniable facts about the Nazis and their compaign to murder the Jews. As a company spokesperson stated falsely at her firing,

[H]er social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.

It was the company’s false and slanderous position — as demonstrated by numerous other actions at the same time — that Carano’s conservative positions on many issues was the equivalent of “denigrating” the queer and black communities, like a Nazi. To Disney, her effort to retell the history of the Holocaust in order to prevent it from happening again was unacceptable, and so it fired her.

Carano is now suing Disney and Lucasfilms for that firing and its subsequent smear campaign against her. You can read her complaint here. It is easy reading, and outlines in great detail the very reasonable positions taken by Carano in public, and the campaign of slanders against her that followed from Disney officials as well as advocates in the BLM and queer communities. Repeatedly Carano made it clear she was not attacking any particular group, and that her goal was to outline actual facts and defend the free speech rights of everyone. The response from Disney and the activists in the BLM and queer communities were slanders, lies, and falsehoods. Her case is strong, as she is suing under California law, which states that
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Freedom capsule undocks from ISS with AX-3 commercial crew

10:06 am

SpaceX’s Freedom capsule today undocked from ISS at 9:20 am (Eastern), carrying three European passengers and one commander, with a planned splashdown in the Atlantic off the coast of Florida at 8:30 am (Eastern) on February 9, 2024.

Ax-3 astronauts Michael López-Alegría, Walter Villadei, Marcus Wandt, and Alper Gezeravci will complete 18 days aboard the orbiting laboratory at the conclusion of their mission. The SpaceX Dragon will return to Earth with more than 550 pounds of science and supplies, including NASA experiments and hardware.

Live stream for that splashdown can be found here. The mission is a private one. Axiom sold the tickets, and purchased from SpaceX the Falcon 9 launch and use of its Freedom capsule. It also rented time on ISS from NASA for its crew and passengers.

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Pushback: Help send 9-year-old KC Chiefs fan, slandered as bigot by media, to Super Bowl

3:17 pm

Holden (R) with his father Bubba
Holden (R) with his father Bubba, being interviewed
on television following the slander. Click for video.

Bring a gun to a knife fight: A fundraiser has been started to send 9-year-old KC Chiefs fan, Holden Armenta, to the Super Bowl, in defiant response to the ugly effort by one racist reporter, Carron Phillips, and his media outlet, Deadspin, to slander the boy as a bigot because he attended a game wearing facepaint with the red and black colors of the Chiefs.

Phillips had unjustly accused the child of wearing blackface, and Deadspin helped Phillips push this lie by printing a picture that only showed the black side of Armenta’s face. A head-on shot showed his facepaint had nothing to do with blackface, but was a typical example of what many football fans do, paint their faces with the colors of their team. The right side of the boy’s face was painted black, the left side red.

What made the slander even more egregious is that Holden is an American Indian, with his grandfather, Raul Armenta, on the board of the Chumash Tribe in Santa Ynez, California.
» Read more

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SpaceX’s revenue estimate for 2024 is $13.3 billion

10:56 am

According to an independent analysis of SpaceX’s announced launch plans for 2024, the company’s revenue in 2024 is predicted to be somewhere around $13.3 billion, including earnings from Starlink subscribers.

This independent estimate is less than SpaceX’s own projection of $15 billion, but what is important is that the revenue in 2024 equals approximately the total amount of investment capital that SpaceX has raised for Starship/Superheavy and Starlink. Add to this the estimated revenues from 2023, $8 billion, and it appears SpaceX is in a very healthy position to complete the construction of Starship and begin flying it regularly for profit.

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A pin falls off Virgin Galactic’s mother ship during most recent passenger flight

9:14 am

Virgin Galactic has notified the FAA that a pin fell off its Eve mother ship, carrying its SpaceShipTwo Unity suborbital spacecraft, during most recent passenger flight on January 26, 2024.

Virgin Galactic said the alignment pin fell from its VMS Eve mothership aircraft, the plane that carries VSS Unity aloft. The pin is used to ensure Unity is aligned to Eve when mated during preflight preparations. After takeoff, the pin helps transfer drag loads from Unity into the pylon and center wing section of the aircraft. The alignment pin detached after Unity separated from Eve, although the company did not state how long afterwards the pin came off. The pin, along with a separate shear pin fitting assembly, do not play a role in flight activities after the release of the spaceplane.

The FAA states it will do an investigation before permitting more flights, but we know from a recent GAO report that it does no such thing. It simply observes the investigation by the company involved, and then rubber stamps it afterward. Nor is this wrong, as no one at the FAA is qualified to do such investigations, unlike the engineers at the company.

The investigation however might impact the next flight. The company has said it intends to end flights using Unity after then next three, and then stand down as it replaces it with its next generation spacecraft. This incident might force that stand-down to occur sooner.

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Weather stops everything by SpaceX in the last 24 hours

9:00 am

SpaceX found itself stymied in the past 24 hours due to poor weather conditions on both coasts, with two launches and the return of a Dragon capsule from space all scrubbed.

First a Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg of 22 Starlink satellites was scrubbed, the launch pushed back from yesterday to tonight at 5.39 pm (Pacific).

Then a launch of a NASA climate satellite on a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral was scrubbed shortly thereafter, the launch rescheduled for 1:33 am (Eastern) tonight.

Finally, the return of Axiom’s Ax-3 commercial passenger flight to ISS was scrubbed today because of poor weather conditions.

NASA, Axiom Space, and SpaceX are standing down from the Tuesday, Feb. 6, undocking opportunity of Axiom Mission 3 from the International Space Station. Mission teams will continue to review weather conditions off the coast of Florida, which currently are not favorable for return, and set a new target opportunity for space station departure and splashdown of the Dragon spacecraft and Axiom crew members.

The undocking is now tentatively set for tomorrow morning, but this remains unconfirmed. The three passengers and the Axiom commander have so far spent 18 days in orbit. The original plan was for a 14 day mission, most of which to be spent on ISS, but weather can always extend such plans.

The launch scrubs illustrate the challenge SpaceX faces in reaching its stated goal of 150 launches in 2024. It appears the company is now capable of technically meeting that goal. To do it however it needs to launch almost every other day, and weather simply might not allow a pace like this during some parts of the year in both Florida and California. Whether the company can make-up for these delays with multiple daily launches at other times remains unknown. If it does, it will be another feather in the cap for SpaceX.

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Collins Aerospace tests its new spacesuit on the Zero Gravity airplane

9:37 am

On January 30, 2024 Collins Aerospace, one of two companies that NASA has contracted to design and build new spacesuits for its future missions, successfully tested its new spacesuit on the Zero Gravity airplane, where it was able to have a person use the suit in short but weightless conditions.

Collins is designing its suit in collaboration with ILC Dover and Oceaneering. Former NASA astronauts, John “Danny” Olivas and Dan Burbank, each donned the suit and performed a series of test objectives while onboard a Zero Gravity plane that’s able to perform parabolic maneuvers to simulate microgravity for short bursts. They were surrounded by several support personnel who were gathering data about the suit performance.

In total, they performed 40 parabolas during the flight. Collins said the primary goals included “evaluation of the suit’s pressure garment system fit and functionality, use of International Space Station tools and interfaces, and reviewed performance of the new Extravehicular Mobility Unit, or EMU, against the current design.”

The two spacesuit contracts (the second is with Axiom) are costing NASA about $335 million total to get the suits designed, built, and certified for use in spacewalks and ground operations on the Moon. Both companies appear on schedule to deliver those suits in less than three years.

Previously, NASA had tried to build new spacesuits on its own, and had spent a billion dollars over fourteen years while building nothing. The contrast in this story between the government and private enterprise should be clarifying to everyone.

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Texas state court rules in favor of activist lawsuit against SpaceX

9:00 am

The activists who sued SpaceX and local authorities, claiming the beach closures required during tests and launches at Boca Chica violate the Texas constitution, have had their lawsuit reinstated by a higher state court after a lower court had dismissed it.

Texas’ 13th district court of appeals ruled in favor of SaveRGV, the Sierra Club and the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas in suits alleging that a 2013 state law allowing beach closures for space flight activities goes against the Open Beaches Amendment to the Texas Constitution.

In July 2022, Cameron County’s 445th District Court dismissed the coalition’s lawsuit, saying the organizations lacked standing in their complaint against Texas Land Commissioner Dr. Dawn Buckingham, the Texas Land Office, Cameron County and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

The appeals court reversed that decision Thursday, allowing the lawsuit to proceed.

The lawsuit still must be litigated, so these activists have not yet won their case. However, this decision might prevent further beach closures while the case plays out in the courts, which would essentially shut down any further tests or launches at Boca Chica. If so, it will not matter if the FAA finally finishes its paperwork and approves a third test launch of Starship/Superheavy later this month. The launch will not be possible.

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Update on Jared Isaacman’s upcoming Polaris Dawn manned mission

9:37 am

Link here. Bottom line is that they still hope to launch on a five day orbital mission in SpaceX’s Resilience Dragon capsule later this year, during which they will do the first privately funded non-government spacewalk.

Developing new spacworthy spacesuits remains the biggest task before the mission can fly.

In a series of social media updates on Friday and Saturday, Isaacman answered some questions from the public about the progression of the suit development and the mission overall. He stated that over the past week, they “spent a lot of time pressurized in the EVA suits working contingencies.”

Isaacman clarified as well that, unlike missions to the International Space Station chartered by either NASA or Axiom Space, the crew members of the Polaris Dawn mission won’t launch and land while wearing IVA suits. He said because they are limited with space on this flight, they will only have their EVA suits.

No launch date has yet been set.

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