Tag: freedom

Eutelsat-OneWeb stock plummets

Despite its merger with Eutelsat in 2023, the stock value of the combined Eutelsat-OneWeb satellite company has plummeted in the past year, more than halving the value of the OneWeb portion that was saved from bankruptcy by both the government of the United Kingdom and investors from India in 2020.

The collapse means the UK’s investment is worth €133m (£110m), representing a near £300m paper loss for the taxpayer. … However, while the all-share deal implied a value of €12 per share, Eutelsat’s stock has since imploded. In the past 12 months, it has halved and is trading at record lows of €2.58.

Eutelsat was facing its own collapse before the merger, as its business was geosynchronous communications satellites which are now losing their business to the low-Earth orbit constellations such as SpaceX’s Starlab and OneWeb’s. The merger was the company’s attempt to join this new market.

OneWeb however has had its own repeated problems completing that its constellation, and faced bankruptcy in 2020 because of delays from the COVID panic as well as delays in launching the Ariane-6 rocket. Then Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine in 2022 meant it lost all its remaining planned launches, forcing it to scramble to find other launch providers.

Stock market analysts don’t expect the combined company to begin earning profits for at least the next three to five years, which casts an even greater pall on its future.

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Dubai-based AI/3D printing company successfully test fires an aerospike engine

LEAP71's aerospike test engine
Click for original image.

The Dubai-based startup LEAP71, focused on using AI software to quickly develop rocket engine designs it can then 3D print, has successfully test fired a prototype aerospike engine on December 18, 2024 during a static fire test campaign conducted in the United Kingdom.

Aerospikes are more compact and significantly more efficient across various atmospheric pressures, including the vacuum of space. They forego the conventional bell-shaped nozzle by placing a spike in the center of a toroidal combustion chamber [as shown in the photo to the right]. Since it is surrounded by 3,500ºC hot exhaust gas, cooling the spike is an enormous challenge.

Josefine Lissner, CEO and Co-Founder of LEAP 71, stated: “We were able to extend Noyron’s physics to deal with the unique complexity of this engine type. The spike is cooled by intricate cooling channels flooded by cryogenic oxygen, whereas the outside of the chamber is cooled by the kerosene fuel. I am very encouraged by the results of this test, as virtually everything on the engine was novel and untested. It’s a great validation of our physics-driven approach to computational AI.”

The spike in the center acts as one wall of the nozzle, and the changing pressure of the atmosphere acting as the other side of the nozzle, allowing the nozzle size to change as the rocket rises, thus making its thrust as efficient as possible.

This test was apparently with a small scale prototype, not a full scale engine. LEAP71 engineers are going to have to go though a lot more iterations using their AI software and 3D printing to get to a version usable on a rocket. The company claims that development will go far faster this way. That this company did its testing in the UK but is based in Dubai suggests its capital comes from that Middle Eastern country, which is trying to develop a space industry of its own, but it is mainly relying on British designers — at this point — to get things done.

It will have to do so quickly, since another startup, German-based Polaris Spaceplanes, in November 2024 actually completed the first test flight ever of a prototype using an aerospike engine.

After decades of speculation about the advantages of an aerospike engine but no successful flights, we now have a race between two companies to be the first to fly one, and the effort is going on in Europe.

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SpaceX launches 21 Starlink satellites

SpaceX tonight successfully launched 21 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 lifting off from Kennedy in Florida. Thirteen of the satellites were configured for direct-to-cell capabilities.

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

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

134 SpaceX
64 China
16 Russia
14 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 154 to 96, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 134 to 116.

Tonight’s launch was also the 250th worldwide in 2024, a record that approximately triples the average number of successful launches each year from 1957 to 2017, when SpaceX and China began to ramp up their launch counts.

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NASA awards four companies contracts to provide communications for operations in Earth orbit

Capitalism in space: Rather than continue to build its own constellation of communications satellites, NASA yesterday awarded four companies contracts to provide that service to the agency’s many Earth orbit operations.

The work will be awarded under new Near Space Network services contracts that are firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contracts. Project timelines span from February 2025 to September 2029, with an additional five-year option period that could extend a contract through Sept. 30, 2034. The cumulative maximum value of all Near Space Network Services contracts is $4.82 billion.

The companies are Intuitive Machines, SSC Space, Viasat (based in Georgia), and the Norwegian company Kongsberg Satellite services.

Not only will these companies provide a better service faster and at less cost than the NASA TDRS satellite constellation, that there are four of them provides redundancy as well as fosters competition.

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Defunct Pentagon weather satellite breaks up

According to the Space Force as well as two commercial space tracking companies, a defunct military weather satellite launched in 1997 has broken up into more than fifty pieces.

The satellite, dubbed DMSP-5D2 F14, was in a sun-synchronous orbit over the poles. What makes the break-up significant is that it is not the first of this design of weather satellites to do so.

DMSP-5D2 F14 is part of a family of spacecraft that have suffered breakups in orbit. The F12 satellite broke up in October 2016, following the breakup of F13 in February 2015. In 2004, the F11 spacecraft broke up, creating 56 pieces of tracked debris. All the satellites had a battery assembly with a design flaw that made them vulnerable to explosion.

A similar spacecraft design was used for a line of civilian polar-orbiting weather satellites operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The NOAA-16 satellite broke up in November 2015, followed by NOAA-17 in March 2021.

Overall the military launched nine satellites of this design, while NOAA launched three. Of these twelve satellites six have now broken apart. We should expect a large percentage of the remaining six to also break up.

This story explains why in the last ten years a number of companies have appeared attempting to develop the technology to remove space junk. There is a desperate need in the satellite industry for this capability, and those space junk companies are aiming to make profit from this need.

Note I do not expect or want the government to take the lead in this. This issue is mostly a need of the satellite industry, of which the world’s governments are merely just one more participant. This industry should band together to set up a fund to pay for this work, with those governments joining as just one more partner.

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Liechtenstein signs the Artemis Accords

The tiny nation of Liechtenstein in Europe yesterday became the 52nd nation to sign the Artemis Accords.

The full list of nations now part of this American space alliance: Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Panama, Peru, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

There has been a flurry of new nations signing the accords since the November election of Trump. I suspect his coming encouraged these nations to sign, knowing the moribund leadership of Biden will soon be replaced with something more robust. It is also likely that these nations see a renewal of Trump’s original goals for the Artemis Accords, to create an international alliance, led by the United States, with the goal of overcoming the Outer Space Treaty’s limitations on private property.

I hope this turns out to be true. This alliance gives Trump a powerful lobby he can wield to force change.

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SpaceX and Rocket Lab complete two launches overnight

Though one SpaceX launch early last night had a launch abort, both SpaceX and Rocket Lab completed additional launches later in the evening.

First, SpaceX completed its second Bandwagon in which 30 payloads were sent to mid-inclination orbits, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California. The first stage flew its twenty-first flight, landing successfully back its landing site at Vandenberg. The two fairings completed their 14th and 18th flights.

Next, Rocket Lab completed its sixth launch of sixteen for the commercial satellite company Synspective, its Electron rocket lifting off from one of its two launchpads in New Zealand. This was the 14th successful launch for Rocket Lab in 2024, a significant increase from the nine and eight launches it flew in 2022 and 2023.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

133 SpaceX
64 China
16 Russia
14 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 153 to 96, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 133 to 116.

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SpaceX experiences a launch abort at T-0

During a launch attempt tonight from Cape Canaveral in Florida, SpaceX experienced a launch abort at T-0 seconds for reasons that have not yet been determined but apparently were complex enough that mission control decided to scrub for the evening. No new launch has been scheduled as yet.

The launch was to have placed four smallsats into geosynchronous orbit. The satellites were built by the satellite company Astranis, which appears to be the first to launch smallsats to geosynchronous orbit. It had already placed one in orbit, and these four satellites expand its constellation.

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Oh no! The sonic booms of SpaceX are coming!

Superheavy after its flight safely captured at Boca Chica
Superheavy after its flight, safely captured at Boca Chica
on October 13, 2024.

When the current (but soon to step down) administrator of the FAA Mike Whitaker testified before Congress in September 2024 and attempted to explain his agency’s red tape that have significantly slowed development of SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy rocket, he claimed that the sonic booms produced when Superheavy returned to land at the launchpad posed a “safety issue” that needed a detailed review.

“I think the sonic boom analysis [related to returning Superheavy back to Boca Chica] is a safety related incident.”

The sudden introduction of this issue was somewhat out of the blue. While loud, the sonic boom of a rocket launch is hardly a concern. The space shuttle produced the same for decades when it landed, and that was always considered a fun plus to watching the landing. And even if SpaceX begins launching its rockets once a day from any spaceport, that added noise does nothing to hurt anyone. In fact, it is a local signal of a thriving economy.

Since then it appears the leftist “intellectual elitists” that don’t like it when they don’t run everything — which is one reason they now hate Elon Musk — have run a full court press trying to make these rocket sonic booms a cause celebre that can be used to block SpaceX launches.
» Read more

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Pushback: Blacklisted doctor gets lawsuit reinstated by higher court

What apparently passes for medical treatment at the Hennepin Healthcare system
The kind of policies advocated by Hennepin Healthcare system
that Gustilo criticized

Fight! Fight! Fight! Back in August 2021, I reported the horrible blacklisting of Tara Gustilo, a biracial physician from the Philippines, who had been demoted and experienced a $150K cut in salary at the Hennepin Healthcare system in Minnesota simply because she had posted criticisms of the racist Black Lives Matter movement as well as the critical race theory policies, now known as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), that Hennepin was pushing.

In addition to filing a discrimination complaint with the federal government, Gustilo sued, represented by the Minnesota-based Upper Midwest Law Center (UMLC). You can read her lawsuit here [pdf].

That lawsuit however had been dismissed by a lower court. Last week however the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals threw out that decision, reinstating the lawsuit.

The court’s decision can be read here. The court specifically noted that Gustilo’s right to free speech appeared to have been violated, and that fact must be considered by a jury.
» Read more

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Vast signs deal with SpaceX for two ISS tourist missions

Depending on whether it gets NASA contractual approval, the space station startup Vast has now signed a deal with SpaceX for flying two tourist missions to ISS.

These two missions expand Vast’s launch manifest with SpaceX, which includes the company’s Falcon 9 rocket delivering Haven-1 to low-Earth orbit and a subsequent Dragon mission to fly crew to the commercial space station. Haven-1 will also be supported by Starlink laser-based high-speed internet.

Axiom, which has flown three tourist missions to ISS and has a fourth planned, is also bidding for the next two tourist slots NASA has made available for ISS in the coming years. It is not clear who will get those slots. Axiom has the advantage it has done it before, but the rumors that it lost money on those flights and now has a cash shortage work against it. Vast hasn’t yet flown, but it is moving fast to fly and occupy Haven-1 next year. NASA might want to give it at least one of those slots to balance the scales.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay.

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Activists sue Texas commission for allowing SpaceX to use its Superheavy deluge launch system

The same activist groups that have repeatedly used lawfare to try to block SpaceX’s operations at Boca Chica have now sued the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) for allowing SpaceX to use its deluge launch system during Starship/Superheavy launches, claiming that dumping potable drinking water into the ground somehow damages the environment.

The groups — the South Texas Environmental Justice Network, along with the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas, and Save RGV — filed the lawsuit Monday after the agency decided last month to allow SpaceX to continue its operations for 300 days or until the company obtained the appropriate permit.

These three groups represent only a very tiny handful of people in the Rio Grande Valley. The people the media interviews from Save RGV always includes the same persons, suggesting that few people in south Texas support it. The “Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas” in turn is a fake Indian tribe. It no longer exists, and when it did it existed in Mexico, not Texas. Finally, the “South Texas Environmental Justice Network” is simply an umbrella organization created on top of other two to make it appear they have more support than they do.

The real question that local journalists should be asking is where are these groups getting their money for all their lawsuits? I suspect it comes from outside the region, from leftist political organizations whose goals have nothing to do with the environment.

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Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander wins its fourth lunar NASA contract

Peregrine landing site

NASA yesterday awarded the rocket startup Firefly a $179.6 million contract to carry six NASA science instruments to the Moon on its Blue Ghost lunar lander, the third lander contract the company has won and the fourth Moon contract overall.

[The four contracts include] three lunar landers as well as one to provide radio frequency calibration services from orbit to support a radio science payload on the second lander mission.

The first mission, Blue Ghost 1 or “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” is scheduled for launch in mid-January, with a landing in the Mare Crisium region of the near side of the moon about 45 days after launch. Blue Ghost 2 will follow in 2026, landing on the lunar farside. That mission will also deploy ESA’s Lunar Pathfinder communications satellite into orbit. Both the second and third Blue Ghost missions will use Firefly’s Elytra Dark as an orbital transfer vehicle, delivering the landers to lunar orbit. Those vehicles will remain in lunar orbit to provide communications services.

This new contract will have Blue Ghost land in the Gruithuisen Domes region, as shown on the map to the right. This had been the landing target for the Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander when it launched in January 2024, but that mission failed when it developed a fuel leak shortly after launch. Astrobotic was able to operate the spacecraft through most of its trip to and from the Moon, but had to cancel the landing.

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ESA awards Avio three contracts worth $372 million for its Vega rockets

Capitalism in space: The European Space Agency (ESA) yesterday awarded the Italian rocket company Avio three different contracts worth $372 million to further develop its Vega family of rockets.

The first two contracts subsidize work on upgrading the Vega-C launch site at the French Guiana spaceport as well as developing the company’s planned new rocket, Vega-E.

The third contract is more significant, because it signals the coming end of Arianespace, ESA’s commercial arm. Instead of going through that government-run agency — as ESA has done for a quarter century — ESA simply bought a Vega-C launch from Avio directly, the first time it has obtained launch services directly from a European company. The contract is to place in orbit an ESA climate research satellite.

The end of Arianespace was further signaled today by the announcement that Arianespace’s chief executive since 2013, Stephane Israel, is stepping down. It was Israel who in 2015 discouraged ESA from making Ariane-6 reusable. It was Israel who for years poo-pooed competition and free enterprise, lobbying continuously that ESA should do its launches through Arianespace exclusively.

Now, more than a decade later, ESA has finally rejected Israel’s arguments, and is eliminating the middle-man Arianespace entirely, purchasing launch contracts directly from the rocket companies while having its member nations as well as itself encourage the development of many private rocket companies across Europe.

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Axiom to speed up assembly of its space station

Axiom's new module assembly sequence
Axiom’s new module assembly sequence

Capitalism in space: In order to be able to fly its space station independent of ISS more quickly, Axiom has rearranged the order it will launch some modules.

Originally, the plan was to attach Habitat 1 (AxH1) first, before the power and thermal module. Now, the on-orbit assembly sequence will start with the Payload Power Thermal Module (AxPPTM), followed by AxH1, an airlock, Habitat 2 (AxH2), and finally the Research and Manufacturing Facility (AxRMF). “The result – free-flight capability after the launch and berthing of PPTM,” [Mark Greeley, Axiom Space COO and station program manager,] explained, “[will allow] us to add modules while on orbit once we have separated from station. Our goal is to ensure a smooth transition from a government to a commercial platform, maintaining a continuous human presence on orbit to serve a community of global customers and partners, to include NASA.”

The AxPPTM primary structure will be built by Thales Alenia Space in Turin, Italy, and then relocated to Houston no earlier than fall 2025, where the integration of the internal structure and systems will take place at Axiom Space facilities.

The new sequence is shown in the graphic above. This change will allow Axiom to fly free two years sooner than previously planned, in 2028. It appears NASA pushed for this change possibly because it considers remaining attached to ISS until 2030 a risk that should be avoided. NASA apparently is increasingly concerned about the state of Russia’s Zvezda module, and fears it might have a catastrophic failure due to the stress fractures in its hull. The sooner Axiom can get free of ISS the better.

This modification also appears to include some major changes from previous Axiom graphics. It appears the airlock module and its solar panels have undergone a major design change.

Below is my present ranking for the launch of the four space stations being designed and built:

  • Haven-1, being built by Vast, with no NASA funds. The company is moving fast, and plans to launch and occupy it in 2025 for a 30 day mission. It will then build its mult-module Haven-2 station.
  • Axiom, being built by Axiom, which has also launched three tourist flights to ISS. Though there are rumors it is experiencing cash flow issues, today’s announcement suggests those rumors might be unfounded.
  • 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.
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SpaceX launches reconnaissance satellite

SpaceX yesterday launched a National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) satellite, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The first stage completed its 22nd flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. The two fairings completed their ninth and tenth times respectively.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

132 SpaceX
62 China
16 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 151 to 94, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 132 to 113.

Hat tip to reader Geoffrey Carman. I had missed this launch and he let me know.

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New manned Dragon capsule forces NASA to shuffle ISS crew launch and return schedules

In order to give SpaceX more time to complete work on a new manned Dragon capsule, raising its fleet of capsules to five, NASA has shuffled its springtime ISS crew launch and return schedules.

The change gives NASA and SpaceX teams time to complete processing on a new Dragon spacecraft for the mission. The new spacecraft is set to arrive to the company’s processing facility in Florida in early January. “Fabrication, assembly, testing, and final integration of a new spacecraft is a painstaking endeavor that requires great attention to detail,” said Steve Stich, manager, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.

…NASA and SpaceX assessed various options for managing the next crewed handover, including using another Dragon spacecraft and manifest adjustments. After careful consideration, the team determined that launching Crew-10 in late March, following completion of the new Dragon spacecraft, was the best option for meeting NASA’s requirements and achieving space station objectives for 2025.

This decision however impacts the return of the Dragon crew presently on board ISS, including the two astronauts launched in June on Boeing’s Starliner capsule and whose stay was extended from its initial length of one-to-eight weeks to more than six months when NASA made the decision to bring Starliner home unmanned. Instead of returning in February 2024, that crew will now have to return after the next crew arrives in late March.

Most of the press has focused on this two month extension to the Starliner crew, but to me the real news is that SpaceX is building a fifth manned capsule, as yet unnamed. Having five reusable capsules will give the company greater flexibility. I suspect SpaceX decided to build this additional capsule because, in addition to its ISS missions for NASA, it is going to be flying in 2025 both an Axiom mission to ISS as well as a 30-day mission to Vast’s Haven-1 space station. That latter mission will tie up one manned capsule for many months both before and after that long flight.

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Second launch attempt by Japanese rocket startup fails about 90 seconds after liftoff

Japanese spaceports
Japanese spaceports

The second orbital launch attempt by Japanese rocket startup Space One of its Kairos rocket failed about 90 seconds after liftoff when the rocket started to spiral out of control and mission controllers were forced to destroy it.

The link above starts just before launch. You can see the rocket begin to fly out of control, and start spiraling. Shortly thereafter it disappears from view.

The map to the right shows the location in Japan of its private launch facility, dubbed Spaceport Kii. The spaceport of Japan’s space agency JAXA, where all of the country’s previous launches have taken place, is at Tanegashima on a island in the south of Japan.

Space One’s first orbital attempt failed in March when the rocket blew up mere seconds after lift-off.

The company has some major Japanese investors, including Canon Electronics and Mitsubishi, so I would expect it will have the finances to try again.

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FAA issues license for SpaceX’s seventh test flight of Starship/Superheavy

My, what a difference an election makes! FAA today proudly announced that it has issued the launch license for SpaceX’s seventh test flight of Starship/Superheavy at Boca Chica, now tentatively set for mid-January.

I say “proudly” because of this quote in the announcement:

“The FAA continues to increase efficiencies in our licensing determination activities to meet the needs of the commercial space transportation industry,” said the Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation Kelvin B. Coleman. “This license modification that we are issuing is well ahead of the Starship Flight 7 launch date and is another example of the FAA`s commitment to enable safe space transportation.”

For the past three years it was like pulling teeth to get the FAA to issue these licenses for Starship/Superheavy test flights. Every time SpaceX had to wait from one to six months extra, and would only get the license mere hours before launch. During that time the FAA made no effort to “increase efficiencies” in its licensing process. Instead it found more ways to slow things down, not just for SpaceX but for the entire launch industry.

Trump gets elected and now suddenly the agency is interested in reducing red tape? What you are seeing instead a lot of bureaucrats desperately trying to convince the incoming administration that the delays for the past three years were not their fault, that they were really against red tape!

Or to put it more bluntly: “Please don’t fire us!”

I hope Trump doesn’t fall for this. A major house-cleaning in management and regulations is necessary at the FAA, and it must be done fast.

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Using a new first stage booster, SpaceX launches two communications satellites

In what has become a rare event, SpaceX today used a brand new first stage to successfully place two SES communications satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Kennedy in Florida.

The first stage landed safely on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The two fairing halves completed their second and twenty-second flights respectively.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

131 SpaceX
62 China
16 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 150 to 94, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 131 to 113.

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Ranking the four private space stations under construction

the proposed Starlab space station
the proposed Starlab space station

Yesterday NASA posted an update on the development of Starlab, one of the four private space stations under development or construction, with three getting some development money from NASA. According to that report, the station had successfully completed “four key developmental milestones, marking substantial progress in the station’s design and operational readiness.”

As is usual for NASA press releases, the goal of this announcement was to tout the wonderful progress the Starlab consortium — led by Voyager Space, Airbus, and Northrop Grumman — is making in building the station.

“These milestone achievements are great indicators to reflect Starlab’s commitment to the continued efforts and advancements of their commercial destination,” said Angela Hart, program manager for NASA’s Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development Program. “As we look forward to the future of low Earth orbit, every successful milestone is one step closer to creating a dynamic and robust commercialized low Earth orbit.”

I read this release and came to a completely opposite conclusion. » Read more

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Starlink revenue in 2025 now projected to be $11.8 billion

Capitalism in space: According to one industry market research firm, SpaceX is expected to earn $11.8 billion in revenue in 2025 from its Starlink satellite constellation, a gigantic increase from its estimate for 2024.

SpaceX’s satellite internet service Starlink is projected to reach $11.8 billion in revenue next year, driven by strong consumer demand and growing U.S. military contracts, according to a new market analysis. The forecast, released by the market research firm Quilty Space, represents a substantial increase from the estimated $7.7 billion in revenue for 2024, highlighting Starlink’s rapid growth trajectory in the satellite communications market.

The rise in revenue has been fueled by two factors, the growth in consumer subscribers to the system, and the addition of Space Force contracts that use SpaceX Starshield version of its Starlink satellites.

These numbers are quite spectacular. In the past seven years SpaceX had raised about $12 billion in private investment capital to build both its Starlink constellation and its Starship/Superheavy rocket. Starlink now produces that amount of money for the company each year.

In other words, SpaceX no longer needs NASA as a customer. It has the resources to complete development of Starship, in all its iterations, without any government help. If it wishes to funnel some of this income back into Starship and Superheavy to launch its own missions to Mars, it can.

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T-Mobile initiates direct-cell-to-satellite texting using Starlink

As expected after the most recent Starlink launch, T-Mobile has now begun offering its customers beta registration for using Starlink satellites for texting in areas where no cell towers exist.

The free beta program is available to all T-Mobile customers with compatible devices and postpaid voice plans, the telco announced Dec. 16, although first responders will receive priority access due to limited initial capacity. The company declined to detail capacity and device restrictions but said the beta program would gradually expand to more devices via software updates. “Spots are limited but the service will be available in most areas and most of the time,” a T-Mobile spokesperson said.

The goal right now is to test the system and get user feedback.

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Thailand signs the Artemis Accords

Thailand yesterday became the 51st nation to sign the Artemis Accords, joining the American alliance in space.

The full list of nations now part of this American space alliance: Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Panama, Peru, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

Trump created the accords with the goal to create an alliance with enough clout to overcome the Outer Space Treaty’s restrictions on private property. Biden rewrote the goal to accomplish the exact opposite, as NASA states in all recent press releases about new nations joining:

The Artemis Accords are grounded in the Outer Space Treaty and other agreements including the Registration Convention, the Rescue and Return Agreement, as well as best practices and norms of responsible behavior that NASA and its partners have supported, including the public release of scientific data.

I expect there to be a shift back to the original goals in the second Trump administration.

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China and SpaceX complete launches

Two launches today. First China launched four Earth observation radar satellites, its Long March 2D rocket lifting off from its Taiyuan spaceport in northeast China. No word where the rocket’s lower stages, using very toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed within China.

SpaceX then launched a GPS-type satellite for the Space Force, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral. Little was released about the payload and what information was released was not very informative. The first stage completed its fourth flight, landing softly on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

130 SpaceX
62 China
16 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 149 to 94, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 130 to 113.

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Another American rocket startup gets a multi-launch contract

The American rocket startup Vaya Space announced today that it has been awarded a multi-launch contract to use its proposed Dauntless rocket to place up to 250 small satellites in orbit for the satellite startup Space Telecommunications.

Vaya has been around since 2017, has won contracts with the Air Force in connection with developing its hybrid-solid-fueled rocket, and in 2022 completed a test suborbital launch. It hopes to launch Dauntless for the first time in 2026.

This contract is probably like most launch contracts awarded to rocket startups. It allows the company to claim progress, while giving the satellite company the right to go elsewhere at no cost should the rocket not launch on time.

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Ispace awarded $5.83 million loan from Japanese government

Ispace landing map

The planetary lander startup Ispace today announced that it has been awarded a $5.83 million loan from the Japan Finance Corporation, a government corporation designed to issue loans to encourage Japanese businesses.

The money will be issued this month, and Ispace will have ten years to pay it back. Depending on whether the company is profitable or not, the interest rate will be either 0.5% or 4.15%.

Ispace’s one lunar landing attempt so far, Hakuto-R1, was a failure when its software thought it was close to the ground at three miles altitude and shut off its engines. The company however is going to try again, with the launch of its second lander, dubbed Resilience, scheduled for a January 2025 launch. It will also carry the company’s own Tenacious micro-rover, and will hopefully land as shown in the map to the right, in the north of the Moon’s near side.

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SpaceX launches more Starlink satellites

SpaceX today successfully launched 22 Starlink satellites, 13 of which were for its direct-to-cell constellation. The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Vandenberg in California, its first stage completing its ninth flight by landing successfully on a drone ship in the Pacific.

According to a tweet by SpaceX at the end of October, only five more launches were necessary to complete the first version of its direct-to-cell Starlink constellation. Today’s launch meets that criteria. Since the FCC has approved the constellation’s license, this means T-Mobile can start offering the service to customers, filling in all dead spots worldwide.

What makes this launch even more unique is that for the first time in quite awhile there was a four-day-plus gap between SpaceX launches. The company has been launching so often that it has been rare for more than two days to pass this year without a launch.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

129 SpaceX
60 China
16 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 148 to 92, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 129 to 111.

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Rocket startup Stoke Space completes static fire test of first stage engine

Stoke's Nova rocket
Stoke’s Nova rocket

The rocket startup Stoke Space revealed yesterday that it has completed a static fire test of the first stage engine it will use on its Nova rocket, shown in the graphic to the right.

The test, which was not the first for this engine, proved out several new technologies.

Stoke Space called the test significant for several reasons. It’s the first hotfire of the company’s Block 2 (flight layout) stage 1 engine, and this engine architecture — called full-flow staged combustion (FFSC) — is considered particularly challenging. Only two entities in the world — Stoke and SpaceX — have successfully developed FFSC engines. … Stoke’s stage 1 engine is a liquified natural gas/liquid oxygen engine capable of producing 100,000 pounds of thrust. The duration of the test was not revealed.

It was the first time Stoke has tested on its new vertical test stand in Moses Lake. The company’s testing philosophy is that you must “test like you fly,” and it believes vertical testing is key to engine development.

Nor is the first stage engine the only technological innovation. Nova’s second stage uses a radical design whereby the engine releases its thrust through a ring of small nozzles on the outside perimeter of the stage, rather than a single central nozzle. This design is what the company hopes will allow it to return that upper stage intact for reuse.

The four year old company has raised $100 million in investment capital, but has also faced environmental red tape from the Space Force for its launch facility at Cape Canaveral. It had previously targeted 2025 for the first test flights of Nova, but that schedule appears unlikely because of this red tape.

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