Tag: freedom

SpaceX to raise another $750 million in stock sale; earnings rise to $8 billion in ’23

8:49 am

According to anonymous sources, a new stock sale at SpaceX is likely to raise another $750 million because of enthusiasm on Wall Street for the stock due to the company’s growing earnings, which are expected to double to $8 billion this year.

Last week, CNBC reported that Elon Musk’s SpaceX valuation reached nearly $150B following an announcement of a stock sale by existing investors. According to a copy of the purchase offer sent by CFO Bret Johnsen, which CNBC obtained, the company has entered into an agreement with new and existing investors to sell up to $750 million in stock at a price of $81 per share. This represents a 5% increase from the previous secondary sale at $77 per share, which valued the company at approximately $140B. SpaceX has not provided any comments regarding the purchase offer.

Though the article does not say, that revenue comes from two sources, SpaceX’s rocket launches and its Starlink constellation. In the first case the company dominates the launch industry, because its launch price is so much cheaper than everyone else. In the second case, Starlink is producing so much revenue because Elon Musk forced the company to move fast and get its satellites in orbit quickly. Though both SpaceX and Amazon announced their internet constellations at about the same time, Amazon has still not launched any satellites, while SpaceX has more than 4,000 in orbit. This active and operating constellation has allowed SpaceX to grab market share that Amazon is now likely never to get, even when it begins launching.

All this makes SpaceX very appealing to investors, which is why its private stock price has gone up. It is also why it has been able to raise now almost $11 billion in private investment capital for building both Starlink and its Starship/Superheavy rocket.

12 comments

Rocket Lab launches seven satellites; recovers first stage from ocean

6:46 pm

Rocket Lab today successfully used its Electron rocket to place seven smallsats into orbit, lifting off from New Zealand.

The first stage used parachutes to softly splash down in the ocean, where it was recovered for refurbishment and relaunch. As this stage is the first in which this full reuse will be attempted, the ability to refurbish the stage after its salt water swim remains the critical factor. We will not know its state until a complete inspection plus static fire engine tests are completed.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

47 SpaceX
26 China
9 Russia
6 Rocket Lab
5 India

American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 54 to 26, and the entire world combined 54 to 45, while SpaceX alone still leads the rest of the world (excluding other American companies) 47 to 45.

6 comments

SpaceX launches using its second Falcon 9 first stage on its sixteenth flight

9:14 pm

SpaceX tonight successfully launched 54 Starlink satellites into orbit, lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The Falcon 9 rocket used a first stage flying on its sixteenth flight, landing successfully on a drone ship in the Atlantic. That is the second 1st stage in SpaceX’s fleet to complete that many flights. Both first stages completed their sixteen flights in only three years, which means that those two first stages have actually flown more times than the entire United States rocket industry did annually from 2000 to 2019. I don’t have a full count, but I suspect both stages have launched in those three years more satellites then the totals for almost all other nations, excepting possibly Russia and the U.S. Both probably allowed SpaceX to amortize the cost of those launches considerably, possibly as much as 90%.

Just remember: Rocket industry experts were insisting even as late as 2016 that it was impractical to make rocket stages reusable, that to make a profit “a partially reusable rocket would need to launch 35-40 times per year to maintain a sizable production facility while introducing reused hardware into the manifest.” Based on that calculation, these experts determined with utmost certainty that a partly reusable rocket — like the Falcon 9 — could never make a profit.

Elon Musk must have agreed, and decided he needed an extra profit center for the Falcon 9. Starlink has provided that profit center. It not only needs that many launches, and pays for them, its profit stream from its internet customers is already adding to SpaceX’s bottom line.

Regardless, Musk has proved these “experts” utterly wrong. I always thought they were talking through their hat, but had no way to prove it. Thank you Mr. Musk for proving the point.

Note too that the two fairing halves on this flight were also reused, completing their ninth and tenth flights respectively.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

47 SpaceX
26 China
9 Russia
5 Rocket Lab
5 India

American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 53 to 26, and the entire world combined 53 to 45, while SpaceX alone now leads the rest of the world (excluding other American companies) 47 to 45.

And it is doing this with that impractical, unprofitable, and impossible reusable Falcon 9 rocket. Heh.

15 comments

House committee imposes major cuts to Justice, FBI, Commerce

11:15 am

As had been suggested by its decision to not impose any cuts (or increases) to the NASA budget, the House appropriation subcommittee in charge of Commerce, Justice, Science-related agencies imposed all of the 28.8% cuts required by the House leadership on the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the Commerce department.

Overall, the bill appropriates $58.4 billion for programs under the jurisdiction of the committee, a $23.8 billion cut compared to the current fiscal year. It eliminates 14 “diversity, equity and inclusion” programs in the covered agencies, cuts spending on “wasteful” climate change programs, and saves more than $50 million by ending the Biden administration’s plan to replace auto fleets at the Department of Commerce and Department of Justice with electric vehicles.

According to the GOP summary, the Commerce Department would see a $1.4 billion cut in discretionary funding, and the Department of Justice would see a $2 billion cut. Federal science agencies together would face a $1.1 billion cut under the bill.

The FBI’s budget is to be cut $1 billion, or 9% (an actual cut, not a reduction in the increase in spending), with $400 million of that coming from salaries and expenses. It also forbids the agency from spending a dime on its planned dream of a new posh and palatial headquarters in the DC suburbs, twice the size of the Pentagon and costing more than $3 billion.

This is exactly what Republicans should have been doing for decades, and were too cowardly to attempt. If an agency of unelected employees in the executive branch abuses its power and causes harm to innocent citizens, something the FBI and the Justice Department have been eagerly doing since Trump became president, then it is the responsibilty and obligation of Congress to use its power of the purse to cut those agencies’ funding.

Even now, however, no one should be confident these cuts will end up in the final bill. This is only the recommendations of one subcommittee. There are still many Republican cowards in the full House, and even more in the full Senate, who will gladly team up with the Democrats (who are all in favor of the abuse of power and the harm to innocent citizens) to reinstate the cuts.

Nonetheless, this is a start. It indicates that we might finally have turned a real political corner towards reform.

8 comments

UK government reluctantly admits its space regulatory framework is a problem

9:36 am

According to a report issued by a committee formed by a number of members of the United Kingdom’s parliament, the regulatory licensing framework for its space launch industry is a problem that needs fixing, and in a hurry.

The report also expressed concern about the licensing delays that led to the Virgin Orbit launch being postponed. Virgin Orbit and some of its satellite customers were critical of the UK regulatory process, which was led by the Civil Aviation Authority.

But the committee concluded there was no evidence that the regulatory system contributed to the failure of the Virgin Orbit. The report did state, however, that there is “insufficient co-ordination between the large number of regulatory bodies involved in licensing launches, and this continues to place unnecessary burdens of complexity and administration on companies”.

The MPs [members of parliament] are calling on the Government to take steps to improve the licensing system of UK satellite launch.

It is amusing how these politicians speak from both sides of their mouths. First they say the regulatory system did not contribute to Virgin Orbit’s failure, but then admit the regulatory system is so complex and messy that anyone can see that it certainly did contribute to that failure. It took that system fifteen months to approve the launch, even though Virgin Orbit expected that approval to come in half that time.

Whether this MP report will force action remains unclear. As I noted earlier this week, Orbex applied for a launch license seventeen months ago for a launch it hopes to complete at the Sutherland Spaceport before the end of this year, and it is as yet unclear if any license has been issued. The UK’s two spaceports cannot compete if it is going to take one to two years for each launch license to be approved

3 comments

Rocket Lab gets two-launch deal with Japanese satellite company

9:27 am

Rocket Lab today announced that it has signed a two-launch deal with the Japanese satellite company Synspective, bringing to six total the number of Synspective satellites its Electron rocket will place in orbit.

Rocket Lab has been launching for Synspective since 2020 when the Company deployed the first satellite in Synspective’s synthetic aperture radar (SAR) constellation, which is designed to deliver imagery that can detect millimetre-level changes to the Earth’s surface from space. Since that first mission, Rocket Lab has been the sole launch provider for Synspective’s StriX constellation to date, successfully deploying three StriX satellites across three dedicated Electron launches. Including the two new missions, Rocket Lab is now scheduled to launch three missions for Synspective beginning in late 2023 from Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand.

This deal illustrates Rocket Lab’s continuing strong position in the launch market, while simultaneously illustrating the lack of any Japanese presence. Japanese Synspective might prefer to work with a Japanese rocket, but none exists that can compete with Rocket Lab.

0 comments

ULA officially admits first Vulcan launch is delayed to end of year

9:19 am

Though the announcement was not news or unexpected, ULA’s CEO Tory Bruno yesterday officially confirmed that the first Vulcan launch will not occur before the fourth quarter of this year, not this summer as hoped.

In a call with reporters July 13, Tory Bruno, president and chief executive of ULA, said the changes to the Centaur upper stage stemmed from an investigation into a test mishap in March, where hydrogen leaked from a Centaur test article and ignited, damaging both the stage and the test rig. The company announced June 24 that it would delay the launch to make “minor reinforcements” to the Centaur.

Bruno also poo-pooed the significance of a failure of a Blue Origin BE-4 engine during a static fire test in mid-June, a failure that had been kept secret until this week.

“This doesn’t indict the qualification at all,” he said, noting that BE-4 engines have more than 26,000 seconds of cumulative runtime. “We’re very confident in the design and the workmanship of the assets that have passed acceptance. This is not unexpected.”

Forgive me if I don’t take him entirely at his word. I guarantee his engineers are looking at that failure very closely to make absolutely sure it doesn’t indicate issues with the two engines on that first Vulcan rocket. It is very likely this is part of the reason that first launch is now delayed until the end of the year.

3 comments

July 12, 2023 Quick space links

4:28 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

  • China unveils proposed plan for first manned lunar mission before 2030

    • The plan calls for separate rockets, one for the manned ascent/descent Earth capsule, and the second for the lunar lander/ascent spacecraft. The two will rendezvous and dock in lunar orbit. This is all engineering by powerpoint at this point, though based on China’s track record I’d give it more credence than most of NASA’s recent promises.

 

1 comment

Blue Origin BE-4 rocket engine explodes during test

4:03 pm

This failure has been kept very quiet, but on June 11, 2023 during a static fire engine test of a Blue Origin BE-4 rocket engine, it exploded 10 seconds into the test.

During a firing on June 30 at a West Texas facility of Jeff Bezos’ space company, a BE-4 engine detonated about 10 seconds into the test, according to several people familiar with the matter. Those people described having seen video of a dramatic explosion that destroyed the engine and heavily damaged the test stand infrastructure. The people spoke to CNBC on the condition of anonymity to discuss nonpublic matters.

The engine that exploded was expected to finish testing in July. It was then scheduled to ship to Blue Origin’s customer United Launch Alliance for use on ULA’s second Vulcan rocket launch, those people said.

The story is based on anonymous sources, but if true it means another serious setback for both ULA’s Vulcan rocket and Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket. Vulcan has the BE-4 engines it needs to launch its first Vulcan, but it might feel forced to delay that launch until it receives the analysis of this failed test.

It also means that even after more than a decade of development, Blue Origin has still not worked out all the kinks in its BE-4 engine. This inability does not speak well for the company. Are they not testing enough? Are they not questioning their designs enough?

32 comments

Pushback: Parents in droves reject the queer agenda and bad education of the public schools in Iowa

2:10 pm

At the start of this year the Iowa legislature passed a law that made state funds available to parents who wished to use it to pay tuition at a private school, rather than have their kids attend public schools.

The legislature also budgeted $107 million for the program in its first year, assuming about 14,000 students would apply.

Hah! The state received 25,000 applications, almost twice what was expected. It appears parents don’t want their children learning about queers or watching transvestites performing sex acts in the classroom. More importantly, based on the failed and bankrupt reaction of the public schools to COVID, parents also realized that these public schools are failing to provide even a basic education, and want to pick alternatives.

Nor is this phenomenon unique to Iowa.

Many states responded by increasing their school choice options. At least 20 states have enacted new or expanded school choice policies since 2021.

Arizona saw a similar explosion of applications last year when the state massively expanded its school voucher program to every K-12 student. Republican Governor Doug Ducey signed a bill allowing every student to get a taxpayer-funded Empowerment Scholarship Account of about $6,500 per child. In just the first two weeks after Arizona began accepting applications, the state saw about 6,800 new students apply for the school vouchers.

The public schools are bankrupt and dying. The sooner we put them out of their misery and get all kids out of them, the sooner the quality of education in the United States will go up, while ending the left’s use of the schools to indoctrinate little children. It isn’t hard to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. Too bad the public schools decided in the past few decades to abandon that fundamental responsibility.

Sidebar note: I continue to be under the weather, so I will post more of these short pieces rather than the longer essay I had planned to write today. No energy for the harder work, even though this is a terrible time to have to reduce my output, during my fund-raising campaign.

2 comments

To raise cash Astra will sell off some of its stock

10:15 am

Short of cash, Astra officials have now decided to sell about $65 million worth of the company’s existing stock.

In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission published after the markets closed, Astra said it had signed a sales agreement with Roth Capital Partners under which it will sell up to $65 million of its stock in an “at-the-market” offering, where shares are sold at the going market rate.

Net proceeds from the stock sale, the company said, would go towards working capital and general corporate purposes. That includes development of its next-generation launch vehicle, Rocket 4, as well as continued production of its Astra Spacecraft Engine electric thrusters.

The stock sale comes as the company was running low on cash. Astra reported having $62.7 million in cash as of the end of the first quarter, with a net loss of $44.9 million. The company reported no revenue in the first quarter.

The $65 million figure is based on the present value of the stock. If the market price drops, a good possibility, the company will raise less.

2 comments

NASA awards new spacesuit contracts

9:50 am

NASA yesterday issued two relatively small spacesuit contracts to the two companies it already has hired to develop different spacesuits, one for the Moon (Axiom) and the other for orbital spacewalks (Collins).

The new contract awards provides each company $5 million to begin design work for adapting their suits for the other tasks, with the goal aimed at having two different suits for Moonwalks and spacewalks, from two different companies. For the companies, having suits that work both in orbit and the Moon will enhance their product. For Axiom, it will also allow it to develop its own suit it can use on its own space station.

The original contracts awarded Axiom $228.5 million for its Moonsuit, and Collins $97.2 million for a new orbital suit. NASA has previously spent about a billion dollars and fourteen years trying to build its own new orbital spacesuit, and had failed to create anything.

2 comments
1 … 189 190 191 192 193 … 683