Tag: freedom

Ispace’s Resilience lunar lander completes all maneuvers prior to entering lunar orbit

1:43 pm

Map of lunar landing sites
Landing sites for both Firefly’s Blue Ghost and
Ispace’s Resilience

The Japanese startup Ispace today announced that its Resilience lunar lander — launched on a Falcon 9 to the Moon in January — has now completed all the orbital maneuvers required to send it on a path to enter lunar orbit in early May.

Ispace engineers performed the final orbit maneuver from the Mission Control Center in Nihonbashi, Tokyo, Japan in accordance with the mission operation plan. In total, the RESILIENCE lunar lander has completed 8 orbit control maneuvers. RESILIENCE is now maintaining a stable attitude in its planned orbit and mission operations specialists are now preparing for the Mission 2 milestone Success 7, “Entering Lunar Orbit.” The RESILIENCE lander is expected to enter lunar orbit on May 7, 2025.

The map to the right shows the landing zone, near the top of Moon’s near hemisphere in the region of Figoris Mare. The landing will occur a week or so after orbital insertion, after the company’s engineers have fully assessed the situation.

The rover carries eight commercial payloads, including its own Tenacious mini-rover, as well as a “water electrolyzer” from a Japanese company, a “food production experiment” from another company, and a “deep space radiation probe” from the National Central University of Taiwan.

Resilience’s main purpose however remains to prove the company can build and successfully soft land on the Moon. Its only previous attempt, Hakuto-R1, crashed in Atlas Crater. Despite that failure Ispace has won a contract each from NASA and Japan to launch additional lunar landers, so a success here is critical for the company’s future.

Hat tip BtB’s stringer Jay.

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Viasat wins contract to build ESA lunar communications constellation

1:20 pm

As part of a larger European Space Agency (ESA)) project, Viasat has won an ESA contract to build a communications constellation that will orbit the Moon.

Viasat will be responsible for the design and development of the communication network and will lead the definition of the end-to-end communications services: aiming to provide a communications network for lunar landers, rovers, orbiters, and other technology. Viasat will also be responsible for the communication earth ground infrastructure and communication lunar surface user terminals. Telespazio, as Moonlight program lead, has executed a contract with Viasat for the initial design phase of the communication system. This work will be fully funded by the European Space Agency throughout Phase 1.

The UK Space Agency, as one of the major contributors to ESA’s Moonlight program, selected Viasat to lead the UK ecosystem to deliver the communications capability. Moonlight services will be deployed in phases, targeting initial capability at the end of 2028 with full operations aimed by 2030.

It does seem that there are a lot of competing communications/navigation constellations under development, from China, Europe, and the U.S. It also appears that there is far less coordination between them then there should be.

Hat tip BtB’s stringer Jay.

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A Malaysian state plans spaceport, working in partnership with China

10:00 am

Proposed spaceports in Malaysia
Proposed spaceports in Malaysia

According to an report out of Malaysia yesterday, the Malaysian state of Pahang has initiated a one year study to build a spaceport off its eastern coast near the town of Nensasi, working in partnership with China.

“On April 15, PKNP [Pahang State Development Corporation] signed a letter of intent with China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC) and Lestari Angkasa Sdn Bhd to establish a strategic collaboration in the space technology sector. “Next month, PKNP and Lestari Angkasa will visit Wenchang Space City in Hainan, China, to hold further discussions on the Pahang International Spaceport project,” he said during the Pahang state assembly session today.

This is the second Malaysian state to propose its own spaceport. In January the eastern state of Sabah began its own study, working in partnership with the Ukraine.

The partnership with China is worrisome for the U.S., as it is very likely that China will arrange use of that spaceport for its own purposes. It will also use its presence there to access and steal any technology brought by other western companies or nations should they launch there as well.

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Rocket startup Astra wins $44 million development contract to build its Rocket-4

8:54 am

Having shut down its smaller Rocket-3 rocket operations and then almost going bankrupt, the startup Astra is apparently coming back from the dead, having won a $44 million military development contract to build its larger Rocket-4 rocket.

Chris Kemp, Astra’s chief executive, said in an interview the company intends to leverage its contract with the Defense Innovation Unit to demonstrate point-to-point delivery of about 1,300 pounds of cargo using Rocket 4. The military for years has expressed interest in using rockets for rapid deployment of critical supplies to remote locations, complementing traditional transportation methods.

The company now claims it will do the first test launch of Rocket-4 in 2026.

When the company’s stock valuation dropped so much in 2022 and was on the verge of shutting down, Kemp and a team of investors purchased that stock and took the company private. Since then it has mostly focused on building attitude thrusters for satellites. Whether this new contract is enough to get this new rocket off the ground remains a big unknown.

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SpaceX launches three payloads

8:44 am

SpaceX yesterday successfully launched three different payloads on its third “Bandwagon” launch, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage completed its third flight, landing back at Cape Canaveral. The fairings completed their second and fifteenth flights respectively.

The rocket’s primary payload was a commercial satellite for a South Korean company. Next was a commercial weather smallsat from the startup Tomorrow.

The third payload was from the European company Atmos, and was intended to test its deployable heat shield designed to protect payloads returning from orbit. According to the company, preliminary data says the deployment and return went as planned.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

46 SpaceX
20 China (with a launch scheduled for this morning)
5 Rocket Lab
5 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 46 to 35.

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Rocket Lab gets two big military contracts, from the Space Force and the UK

9:17 am

Due to its success in quickly redesigning the first stage of its Electron rocket into a hypersonic test vehicle dubbed HASTE, Rocket Lab has now won two very large hypersonic test program contracts from both the American Space Force as well as the United Kingdom.

Rocket Lab has been selected by the U.S. Air Force to participate within its Enterprise-Wide Agile Acquisition Contract (EWAAC), a $46 billion indefinite delivery-indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract designed for the rapid acquisition of innovative technologies, engineering services, and technical solutions that develops the Air Force’s new capabilities. The program has a contracting period through to 2031 and is designed to be broad in scope, flexible in funding, and agile for maximum use to enable the Air Force to quickly procure services and technologies across various domains.

Further, Rocket Lab has also been selected by the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence (UK MOD) for its Hypersonic Technologies & Capability Development Framework (HTCDF), a ~$1.3 billion (£1 billion) framework to rapidly develop advanced hypersonic capabilities for the United Kingdom. As a newly-selected supplier to the HTCDF, Rocket Lab is now eligible to bid to provide services, technologies, and testing capabilities that support the UK’s development of sovereign hypersonic technology.

In both cases Rocket Lab will bid for test contracts using HASTE.

These deals indicate that Rocket Lab has essentially grabbed the business that Stratolaunch had been vying for with its giant Roc airplane and Talon test drop vehicles. Stratolaunch might get some contracts, but it appears the bulk of the work will instead go to Rocket Lab. It also appears that Stratolaunch has also been beaten to this business by the startup Varda, which has also won an Air Force contract for hypersonic testing using its orbital capsules during their return to Earth.

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SpaceX launches cargo Dragon to ISS; Problems with Tenacity?

8:55 am

Early this morning SpaceX successfully launched a cargo Dragon to ISS, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The first stage completed its fifth flight, landing back at Kennedy. The capsule is on its fifth flight, and is carrying significantly more cargo than previous SpaceX cargo missions because it has had to replace much of the cargo that would have been launched on a Cygnus capsule whose launch was cancelled because it had been damaged during transport.

Furthermore, as part of their updates on this mission NASA officials revealed that Sierra Space’s cargo mini-shuttle, Tenacity, is facing more delays, and is now not expected to launch until late this year. This Dream Chaser spacecraft had begun ground testing early in 2024, with a first launch planned for shortly thereafter. For reasons that have not been explained, that ground testing has now been going on for more than a year, and will apparently continue for most of 2025. My guess is that the spacecraft has experienced engineering problems during that testing, and has required fixes that neither Sierra Space nor NASA wishes to reveal.

The result has been that NASA has had a shortage of cargo vehicles to keep ISS supplied. A significant number of science experiments had to be removed from today’s Dragon to make room for consumerables. NASA officials also stated publicly during this update that it is now definitely considering using Starliner as a cargo vehicle on its next flight, a plan that previously had only been hinted at.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

45 SpaceX (with another launch scheduled for later today)
20 China
5 Rocket Lab
5 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 45 to 35.

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Northrop Grumman’s first Mission Extension Vehicle completes first commercial undocking in space

9:50 am

On April 9, 2025 Northrop Grumman’s first Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV-1) successfully undocked from an Intelsat communications satellite five years after attaching itself to it and extending its operational life for that time period.

This was the first autonomous undocking by two commercial spacecraft ever.

MEV-1 has provided five years of life-extension services to IS-901, allowing Intelsat to operate this space-based asset beyond its design life. In 2020, MEV-1 successfully proved docking with IS-901 was possible in the GEO graveyard orbit and brought IS-901 back into operation in GEO. Now that life-extension services are complete, MEV-1 released the IS-901 satellite back into the GEO graveyard and is relocating to the next servicing mission.

The company did not name the satellite for MEV-1’s next servicing mission. Meanwhile the company’s second MEV remains docked to another Intelsat communications satellite, its contract extended to double the amount of time it will provide service to the satellite.

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SpaceX launches another classified satellite for National Reconnaissance Office

9:34 am

SpaceX early this morning successfully launched a classified reconnaissance satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The first stage completed its twelfth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

44 SpaceX
20 China
5 Rocket Lab
5 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 44 to 35.

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Two different states in India announce space policies

11:15 am

Map of India

Capitalism in space: In another indication that India’s governments are going full bore for private enterprise in space, two different Indian states this week announced new space policies designed to attract private investment and space startups.

Those two states, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, are shown on the map to the right. Tamil Nadu announced its new space industrial policy hopes to attract more than a billion dollars in space companies to the state. Gujaret in turn announced its own space policy aimed at attracting $5 billion in investment and 25,000 jobs over the next five years.

It is not surprising that Tamil Nadu has issued this policy, considering that it is the state where India’s new second spaceport, Kulasekarapattinam, is located, and is being built as a launch site for commerical operations. Gujaret is at first glance less obvious, but it houses a major facility of India’s space agency ISRO. It is also one of India’s most industrialized states.

Both however illustrate the impact of the Modi government because of its policy to encourage private enterprise and de-emphasize government control. Not only is the federal government pushing capitalism, the country’s individual states are joining in.

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NASA’s useless safety panel suddenly notices that there are leaks on ISS

9:52 am

My regular readers will know that I consider NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) to be less than useless, repeatedly showing strong biases that allow it to miss major safety issues while causing headaches where no safety problems exist. Those biases consistently favor NASA and the older big space companies while attacking the new space companies like SpaceX.

This week the panel held its quarterly public meeting, and illustrated their uselessness and bias once again. Suddenly they have noticed that ISS has a serious chronic air leak problem due to the stress fractures in the Russian Zvezda module. They also came to the brilliant discovery that ISS is big, and that its de-orbit will have to be done carefully.

Oh my! Will wonders never cease!? These facts have only been documented at length and frequently by numerous inspector general reports and NASA updates over the past half decade. NASA has in fact contracted SpaceX to build a specialized de-orbit spacecraft, larger than a Dragon capsule, to dock with the station and conduct the de-orbit.

NASA didn’t need this safety panel to tell it the obvious.

Meanwhile, the panel suddenly decided it must chime in on budget issues and the possibility of there being major cuts at NASA, something that is entirely outside its area of responsibility. And to no one’s surprise it announced that budget cuts are bad!

Nor did the panelists see any safety issues with putting astronauts in an Orion capsule and flying them around the Moon on the next Artemis launch, even though NASA and its inspector general have both determined that the capsule’s heat shield is unreliable. The panel also had no problem with flying humans in this capsule the very first time its environmental system is tested.

To these political hacks, they see “we see no showstoppers at this time” for this SLS/Orion manned mission.

Instead, as always, the panel focused its criticism and concerns on SpaceX and Starship, labeling its development “the biggest risk” in NASA’s program to get Americans back to the Moon.

The most hilarious aspect of the panelists’ public comments is that they had nothing to say about Boeing’s Starliner, a pattern the panel has followed since Boeing and SpaceX got contracts a decade ago to transport astronauts to and from ISS. Consistently the panel has seen phantom safety risks with SpaceX — where none existed — while ignoring or completely missing Boeing myriad failures. That pattern continues.

NASA does face budget cuts. It would certainly help the agency if every dime wasted on this panel could be funneled into more useful purposes.

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An American government program to get to the Moon is simply not necessary; If we let them Americans will do it on their own

12:08 pm

As a historian I often bring to any discussion of modern politics and our American space effort a perspective that is very alien to modern Americans. I see things as they once were in the United States back before we had a big overbearing federal government that everyone looked to for leadership. Instead, I see the possibilities inherent in a free nation led by the people themselves, not the government, as America was for its first two centuries.

This sadly is not how America functions today, and it is for that reason that as a nation we can no longer get great things accomplished routinely, as we once did.

Norwegian Amundsen, first to reach the south pole
Norwegian Amundsen, first to reach the south pole.

To understand how different the American mindset once was, consider just one example, the 19th century effort by numerous nations and individuals to plant their flag at both the north and south poles. While a handful of private American citizens mounted their own expeditions to reach the north pole, none attempted to do so in Antarctica. At both poles the bulk of the effort was done by other nations, sometimes on expeditions privately funded, and sometimes by expeditions with extensive government aid.

In the U.S. however there was no government program to compete in this race. Nor was their the slightest desire by Americans to create one. The attitude of Americans then was very straightforward. They found the race to get to the poles exciting and fascinating, and thoroughly supported the efforts of the explorers both intellectually and emotionally. They however had no interest in their government committing one dime of their tax dollars on its own campaign.

You see, they did not feel a need to establish American prestige in this manner. So what other nations got to the poles first? What mattered to Americans then was what each American wanted to do, and what Americans wanted to do in the 19th century was to settle the west and build their nation into a prosperous place to raise their children.

And so, the south pole was first reached by a Norwegian, followed mere weeks later by an Englishman. Americans played no major role in that early exploration. Nor did it harm America’s prestige in the slightest that it did not compete there. The nation was growing in wealth and prosperity, its citizens were completely free in all ways to follow their dreams, and everyone worldwide knew it.

America might not be the leader in far-flung exploration, but the world knew it was the leader in something as important if not more so, the idea that a nation and a government could be built on the premise that the citizen is sovereign, and that all law should be based on making that citizen’s life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness primary in all things.

And in the end, it did not really matter that the U.S. did not compete in that race to the poles. » Read more

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Oman announces aggressive ’25 launch schedule and public viewing area at its new Duqm spaceport

9:59 am

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

Oman yesterday announced that it has added a viewing area so that the public can view the planned half dozen launches that are presently planned for the rest of 2025 at its new spaceport in Duqm.

A three-day fan experience in the free-of-charge zone, called Etlaq FX, will feature a series of activities for different age groups, including a robotics competition.

“It is an interactive area within the spaceport, so we can give the public an opportunity to see the launch and engage them with educational activities,” said Zainab Alsalhi, business development manager for Etlaq, during a webinar this month.

The announced launch schedule is of course the real story, as it involves five launches from two different commercial companies as well as from Kuwait.
» Read more

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Northrop Grumman launches reconnaissance satellite

8:40 am

Northrop Grumman yesterday successfully launched a National Reconnaissance Office surveillance satellite, its Minotaur-4 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

This was the company’s first launch since 2023. Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket has been out of commission since the company used up its Ukrainian-built first stages, waiting for Firefly to complete its replacement. The repurposed Minotaur-4 missile does not have the capability to replace it.

The leader board for the 2025 launch race remains unchanged:

43 SpaceX
19 China
5 Rocket Lab
5 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 43 to 33.

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The Bahamas suspends further Falcon 9 1st stage landings pending environmental report

12:15 pm

The government of the Bahamas has suspended any further Falcon 9 1st stage landings within its territorial waters until SpaceX completes and submits a full environmental report that proves the one previous drone ship landing in February caused no environmental changes at all.

This quote from the article explains everything:

Addressing calls from environmentalists for an EIA, Mr Dontchev [SpaceX’s vice president of launch] said officials heard their feedback. He added that SpaceX hopes to complete the EIA by the end of summer and resume landings thereafter.

The economic impact of space tourism in The Bahamas has also come into focus. [Deputy Prime Minister Chester] Cooper said the February landing could have sparked a greater interest among students inspiring them to pursue STEM studies. SpaceX also announced its $1m donation to the University of The Bahamas in support of STEM education. [emphasis mine]

First, anti-Musk activists, using the environment as a ploy, made enough noise that the Bahamas government felt forced to bow to them. Second, SpaceX is making sure that government will bow more to it by contributing a lot money to its government educational programs.

Expect more landings soon, as SpaceX predicts.

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German rocket startup Rocket Factory Augsburg replaces its CEO

9:27 am

Screen capture of test failure
Screen capture from video of test failure in August 2024.
Note the flame shooting out sideways.

In a major managerial shake-up as it preps for its first launch attempt later this year, the German rocket startup Rocket Factory Augsburg has replaced its CEO, switching from someone with more general business experience to a CEO with a lot of direct experience in the space industry itself.

In an April 11 statement not widely publicized by the company, RFA announced that Stefan Tweraser, who had been chief executive since October 2021, had been replaced by Indulis Kalnins.

The announcement did not give a reason for the change, but it suggested that the company was seeking someone with expertise in the aerospace industry to lead the company. Kalnins is on the aerospace faculty of a German university, Hochschule Bremen, and has been managing director of OHB Cosmos, which focused on launch services.

…Tweraser, by contrast, came from outside the space industry. He joined RFA after past work that included being a consultant at McKinsey & Company, country director for the DACH (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) region at Google and executive at music streaming company Deezer. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted phrase provides I think the explanation for the change. The company had hoped to launch last year, but had a major failure during a static fire engine test on the launchpad, destroying the rocket first stage. The company has probably decided it needed someone in charge who had some hands-on experience with launchpad operations.

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Blue Origin completes ground simulation of Orbital Reef space station

9:16 am

Artist rendering of Orbital Reef design, as of April 2025
Artist rendering of Orbital Reef design, as of
April 2025. Click for original image.

According to a NASA press release today, Blue Origin has successfully completed a ” human-in-the-loop test” in a ground mock-up of the commercial Orbital Reef space station.

The human-in-the-loop test scenarios utilized individual participants or small groups to perform day-in-the-life walkthroughs in life-sized mockups of major station components. Participants provided feedback while simulating microgravity operations, including cargo transfer, trash transfer, stowage, and worksite assessments.

…The milestone is part of a NASA Space Act Agreement originally awarded to Blue Origin in 2021 and focused on the design progress for multiple worksites, floors, and translation paths within the station. This ensures a commercial station can support human life, which is critical to advancing scientific research in a microgravity environment and maintaining a continuous human presence in low Earth orbit.

Though this test might be providing useful information, it leaves me cold. While Blue Origin’s partner in this project, Sierra Space, has been testing real hardware for its LIFE inflatable module (as seen on the left side of the artist’s rendering above), Blue Origin itself appears to have built nothing real. Instead, it is following the old big space paradigm of companies like Boeing that invest none of its own money in development. Instead, the company uses NASA’s development money solely for PR mockups, in the hope the PR will convince NASA to give it the full contract, worth billions. Only then will the real work begin.

Boeing did this with Starliner, and we can all see now how well that turned out.

It also appears that the overall scale of Orbital Reef has been reduced significantly when comparing the current design above with the earlier artist renderings.

Based on this new information, I have dropped Orbital Reef to the bottom in my rankings of the four private space stations presently under development. While Starlab has built as little (following the same play-it-safe paradigm), the company has at least gotten its final design approved. It has also signed a partnership with the European Space Agency, giving it a powerful government backer in addition to NASA.

  • Haven-1, being built by Vast, with no NASA funds. The company is moving fast, with Haven-1 to launch and be occupied in 2026 for a 30 day mission. It hopes this actual hardware and manned mission will put it in the lead to win NASA’s phase 2 contract, from which it will build its much larger mult-module Haven-2 station..
  • Axiom, being built by Axiom, has launched three tourist flights to ISS, with a fourth scheduled for this spring, carrying passengers from India, Hungary, and Poland. Though there have been rumors it has cash flow issues, development of its first module has been proceeding more or less as planned.
  • Starlab, being built by a consortium led by Voyager Space, Airbus, and Northrop Grumman, with an extensive partnership agreement with the European Space Agency. It recently had its station design approved by NASA.
  • Orbital Reef, being built by a consortium led by Blue Origin and Sierra Space. Overall, Blue Origin has built almost nothing, while Sierra Space has successfully tested its inflatable modules, including a full scale version, and appears ready to start building its module for launch.
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Maybe it finally is time we actually made these major budget cuts at NASA

12:05 pm

Chicken Little rules!

This past weekend the pro-government propaganda press has been in an outraged uproar concerning unconfirmed rumors and anonymous reports that the Trump administration is considering major cuts to NASA’s many science divisions and projects, cuts so large that several space missions, such as Mars Sample Return and the Roman Space Telescope, would have to be canceled. Here are just a few examples, with the first few the ones that broke the story:

Of this list, the Politico story is the most amusing. Suddenly this leftwing news outlet loves Musk again, since he is expressing opposition to these cuts. Just days before he was the devil incarnate because of his partnership with Trump in cutting government waste. Now that he might oppose these NASA budget cuts will lefties start buying Teslas again? Who knows? The depth of their thinking is often quite shallow and divorced from rationality.

As is typical of the propaganda press, all these stories focused on quoting only those opposed to the cuts, from Democrats in Congress to leftist activist organizations. Very few offered any alternative points of view. These reports were thus typical of the propaganda press and the Washington swamp whenever anyone proposes any cuts to any government program: We are all gonna die! Civilization is going to end! Only evil people would dare propose such ideas!

The truth is that there are many ample and rational reasons to consider major budget cuts to most of NASA programs. Like the rest of our bloated federal government, NASA is no longer the trim efficient government agency it was in the 1960s.
» Read more

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Italy awards Italian company contract to design constellation of radio telescopes orbiting the Moon

8:45 am

Capitalism in space: The Italian Space Agency has awarded the Italian company Blue Skies Space a contract to design a constellation of radio telescopes orbiting the Moon and designed to map the universe’s earliest radio emissions.

The project, named RadioLuna, aims to uncover whether a fleet of small satellites in a lunar orbit could detect faint radio signals from the universe’s earliest days—signals that are nearly impossible to pick up on Earth due to man-made radio interference. These signals, in the FM radio range, come from a time before the first stars formed, when the universe was mostly hydrogen gas. By listening from the far side of the Moon, free from Earth’s radio noise, scientists could use the satellites to uncover a missing piece of the puzzle in our understanding of the cosmic “dark ages.”

The study will establish the viability of operating simple and cost-effective CubeSats equipped with commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components orbiting the Moon and will be led by Blue Skies Space Italia S.r.l., a subsidiary of UK-based Blue Skies Space Ltd. Project partner OHB Italia will be responsible for the definition of a viable platform in a Moon orbit.

The contract is another example of Italy (and Europe) shifting to private enterprise in space. Rather than design this project in-house, its space agency is contracting it out to private companies.

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SpaceX launches more Starlink satellites

9:54 pm

Continuing its relentless launch pace, SpaceX this evening successfully launched another 27 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The first stage completed its 27th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. This is a new record for flights by a Falcon 9 booster, exceeding the space shuttle Endeavour’s record of 25 by two, and trailing the space shuttle Columbia by only one. The record for most reflights by a spacecraft is presently 39 by the space shuttle Discovery, followed by the shuttle Atlantis at 33. Expect several Falcon 9 boosters to exceed these numbers in the next two years.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

43 SpaceX
19 China
5 Rocket Lab
5 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 43 to 33.

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SpaceX completes two launches today

8:29 pm

SpaceX continued its relentless launch pace today, launching twice from opposite coasts.

First the company placed a National Reconnaissance Office surveillance satellite into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California. The first stage completed its 24th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

Next SpaceX launched another 21 Starlink satellites, including 13 configured for direct-to-cell capabilities, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Kennedy in Florida. The first stage completed its 10th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

42 SpaceX
19 China
5 Rocket Lab
5 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 42 to 33.

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Is the Democratic Party even losing ground in their hardcore strongholds?

10:42 am

Nationwide voting trends from 2020 to 2024
Click for original.

The graph to the right was posted today at a aggregate conservative website that I frequently check for news. The post asked with puzzlement, “What is going on in Colorado and Utah?”, both of which appear to be moving leftward to support the Democratic Party.

I however saw something far more significant in the voting trends nationwide, especially in almost all hardcore Democratic Party strongholds, such as California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, and all of New England. I hope you notice it too.

In all these very hardcore blue states, where violence, censorship, and blacklisting against conservatives is routine and pervasive (suggesting leftwing politics dominate), the voting trends have moved to the right since 2020. The trends in both California and Massachusetts are especially stunning, with practically every single county, even in urban areas, shifting to the right. Only one county in these states, in California, showed any leftward trend, but that county shifted less than 1%.

In other words, the left’s violence, censorship, and blacklisting has been doing exactly the opposite of its intended goals. Leftists do this to intimidate and make others agree with them. Instead, their bullying is turning off ordinary people, and causing their votes to shift rightward.

This is merely one data point. Moreover, I was unable to locate the source for the map, so its data should be viewed with some skepticism. Nonetheless, this data fits with other trends, including the election victory of Trump whereby he won all of the so-called battleground states.

It seems ordinary low-information voters nationwide (except in Utah and Colorado) are beginning to notice the bankruptcy of the Democratic Party, and respond at the voting booth appropriately.

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New Trump executive order requires Pentagon to “prioritize commercial solutions”

9:24 am

A new Trump executive order signed on April 9, 2025 now requires the space divisions in the Defense Department to “prioritize commercial solutions” in all its future space projects.

The executive order, called “Modernizing Defense Acquisitions and Spurring Innovation in the Defense Industrial Base,” referenced commercial technology multiple times, including call to utilize existing authorities to “expedite acquisitions throughout the Department of Defense, including a first preference for commercial solutions” and “the restructuring of performance evaluation metrics for acquisition workforce members to include the ability to demonstrate and apply a first consideration of commercial solutions.”

According to Pentagon officials, this order simply underlines what they have been doing. Maybe so, but the reason the Pentagon has been moving in this direction is not because it wanted to, but because of two factors in the past decade that forced action. First, for the past three decades the Pentagon has increasingly failed to get much accomplished in space. Under Air Force leadership (before the creation of the Space Force) the military focused on designing its own big satellites, creating projects that generally went overbudget and behind schedule. That general failure demanded change.

Second, to institute change Trump created the Space Force in his first term with the express desire to shift the military from building its own gold-plated satellites to buying them from the private sector. And despite the four years when Biden was president, the Pentagon maintained that shift, which is why this new Trump executive order will do little to disturb its present space plans.

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Indian satellite thruster manufacturer opens American factory

9:09 am

Capitalism in space: The Indian satellite company Bellatrix, which up-to-now has manufactured electrical attitude thrusters for satellites built by India’s space agency, has now opened a factory in Delaware in order to attract business from American satellite companies.

Bellatrix hired Chris MacDonald, a former business development director at rocket developer Astra and satellite provider Terran Orbital, to lead its recently created U.S. subsidiary, headquartered in Delaware. The manufacturing facility would support localized production, testing and delivery of propulsion systems to enable faster turnaround times and closer collaboration with U.S.-based customers, MacDonald said via email.

Founded in 2015, Bellatrix’s electric hall effect thruster has been used in a handful of missions for India’s space agency in recent years.

Bellatrix is not the only foreign space company to open offices in the U.S. for similar reasons. The Japanese startups Astroscale and Ispace have done the same, as well as several other companies listed in the article at the link. It appears the new American launch industry, which has significantly lowered the cost to orbit, is attracting orbital business from across the world.

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Vast signs three more customers to fly payloads on its first space station

8:58 am

Haven-1 with docked Dragon capsule
Haven-1 with docked Dragon capsule

The space station startup company Vast has now signed up three more customers to fly payloads on its first space station, Haven-1, due to launch now in the spring of 2026 on a 30-day-long private commercial manned mission.

Vast announced April 8 that Japan Manned Space Systems Corporation (JAMSS), Interstellar Lab and Exobiosphere will fly research payloads on the Haven-1 station launching no earlier than May 2026. They join Redwire and Yuri as payload partners for the station.

JAMSS, which has supported research on Japan’s Kibo module on the International Space Station, will provide a multi-purpose payload facility for microgravity research on Haven-1. Interstellar Lab, a French company, will provide an advanced life sciences research facility called Eden 1.0 that will be used for experiments such as plant growth. Exobiosphere, based in Luxembourg, will fly a biotechnology payload to perform pharmaceutical and healthcare experiments.

The company says it still has one or two payload racks available for additional customers, suggesting that it is finding enough demand to justify profitable commercial operations.

Below are the four private space stations presently under development, with those I consider the most advanced in development ranked first:

  • Haven-1, being built by Vast, with no NASA funds. The company is moving fast, with Haven-1 to launch and be occupied in 2026 for a 30 day mission. It hopes this actual hardware and manned mission will put it in the lead to win NASA’s phase 2 contract, from which it will build its much larger mult-module Haven-2 station..
  • Axiom, being built by Axiom, has launched three tourist flights to ISS, with a fourth scheduled for this spring, carrying passengers from India, Hungary, and Poland. Though there have been rumors it has cash flow issues, development of its first module has been proceeding more or less as planned.
  • Orbital Reef, being built by a consortium led by Blue Origin and Sierra Space. Though Blue Origin has apparently done little, Sierra Space has successfully tested its inflatable modules, including a full scale version, and appears ready to start building the station’s modules for launch.
  • Starlab, being built by a consortium led by Voyager Space, Airbus, and Northrop Grumman. It recently had its station design approved by NASA.
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Congress: Let’s throw some more astronaut lives away so we can preen for the camera!

2:48 pm

Jared Isaacman
Jared Isaacman

Here we go again: As I noted yesterday, the hearing this week of Jared Isaacman, Donald Trump’s nomination to become NASA’s next administrator, revealed almost nothing about what Isaacman plans to do once confirmed by the Senate. He very carefully kept his options open, even while he strongly endorsed getting Americans on the Moon as fast as possible in order to beat the Chinese there. When pressed by senators from both parties to commit to continuing the SLS, Orion, and Lunar Gateway projects to make that happen, Isaacman picked his words most cautiously. He noted that at the moment that plan seemed the best for getting to the Moon first. He also noted repeatedly that this same plan is years behind schedule and overbudget.

Like any smart businessman, Isaacman knows he cannot make any final decisions about SLS, Orion, or Gateway until he takes office and can aggressively dig into the facts, as administrator. He also knew he could not say so directly during this hearing, for to do so would antagonize senators from both parties who want those programs continued because of the money it pours into their states. So he played it coy, and the senators accepted that coyness in order to make believe they were getting what they want.

But what do these senators want? It appears our politicians (including possibly Trump) want NASA to launch humans to the Moon using SLS and Orion and do so as quickly as possible, despite knowing that both have real engineering issues of great concern. Instead, our elected officials want politics to determine the lunar flight schedule, instead of engineering, the same attitude that killed astronauts on Apollo 1 in 1967, on Challenger in 1986, and on Columbia in 2003. The engineering data then said unequivocally that things were not safe and that disaster was almost guaranteed, but NASA and Congress demanded the flights go on anyway, to serve the needs of politics.

With SLS and Orion it is now the same foolishness all over again. » Read more

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Anti-Musk terrorists damage Musk statue in Brownsville

9:23 am

In another demonstration of their intolerance and willingness to commit violence and vandalism, anti-Musk terrorists have damaged a bust of Elon Musk in Brownsville that had been placed there by a French entrepreneur.

A 9-foot-tall statue depicting a bust of tech billionaire Elon Musk has been vandalized in South Texas. According to multiple posts across social media, the statue of the SpaceX CEO was vandalized not far from where the company’s Starbase facility sits near Boca Chica Beach.

“The recently installed Elon Musk statue, known as ‘Elonrwa,’ has been damaged. Visible patches of the outer layer appear to have been peeled off the face,” a Facebook user who goes by RGV.me said in an April 8 Facebook post. The Facebook post is accompanied by a photograph showing two areas where it appears a top layer of material has been stripped from the statue, revealing a white or pale gray layer underneath.

This senseless hate of Musk, almost certainly committed by supporters of the Democratic Party — which has been encouraging this violence because it sees Musk as an opponent — must end. And if the fools perpetrating this vandalism don’t come to their senses and stop voluntarily, they should be stopped by force and imprisonment. Just because you disagree with someone on policy does not give you the right to break the law.

And if you doubt this vandalism isn’t being spurred on eagerly by the leadership of the now vile and wholly evil Democratic Party, you need only watch that party’s Senate leader, Senator Charles Schumer (D-New York), practically endorse it when asked:
» Read more

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Isaacman’s nomination hearing reveals nothing of note

10:00 am

Jared Isaacman
Jared Isaacman

The Senate committee on commerce, science, and transportation has just concluded its hearing on the nomination of Jared Isaacman as NASA administrator. Several take-aways:

First, there was little opposition to Isaacman on either side of the aisle. He will be confirmed easily.

Second, Isaacman was very careful to say nothing that might commit him to keeping all present Artemis programs (such as SLS, Orion, or Gateway) unchanged. He instead made it clear his goal is for NASA to attempt a parallel programs to establish a permanent American presence on both the Moon and Mars. This enthusiasm suggests he sees Starship as the vehicle capable of making those parallel programs possible.

In other words, he kept his options open. His goal is to get the Artemis program functioning more efficiently, and will do whatever is necessary to do so. He repeatedly made it clear that too many of NASA’s projects, including specifically Artemis, are routinely overbudget and behind schedule, and this must be fixed.

At the same time he said his goal is to get Americans back to the Moon ahead of the Chinese, and suggested that the present plan using SLS and Orion is likely the fastest way to do so. The technical issues that might make that program very unsafe for the astronauts however were never mentioned.

We shall see whether Isaacman as administrator will be so sanguine about sending Americans around the Moon within an Orion capsule with a questionable heat shield.

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Firefly wins Space Force contract to test orbital maneuvers with its Elytra space tug

12:33 pm

Firefly yesterday announced it has been awarded a Space Force contract to use its Elytra space tug to test orbital maneuvers designed for military purposes.

As part of the mission, Elytra will host a suite of government payloads, including optical visible and infrared cameras, a responsive navigation unit, and a universal electrical bus with a payload interface module. Firefly’s Elytra Dawn configuration will utilize common components from the company’s launch vehicles and lunar landers, including the avionics, composite structures, and propulsion systems, to enable on-demand mobility, plane changes, and maneuvers with high delta-V capabilities and reliability.

Though unstated, the inclusion of cameras suggests the Pentagon wants to test Elytra’s ability to maneuver close to other satellites and photograph them.

This contract further illustrates Firefly’s effort to diversify its space products. Like Rocket Lab, it is not relying solely on its rocket division to make money, but is also developing and selling a range of space products, from lunar landers to orbital tugs to satellite equipment.

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