Tag: freedom

ESA awards contracts to two companies to build unmanned orbital freighters

10:02 am

The European Space Agency (ESA) today awarded contracts worth 25 million euros each to two European companies — the French startup The Exploration Company and the established Italian contractor Thales-Alenia — to begin development of their own unmanned freighters capable of bringing cargo to and from orbit.

During phase 1 development, the selected companies will mature the design of their respective vehicles, focusing on mission requirements, architectures, technology maturation, and de-risking activities. This phase of development is expected to run from June 2024 to June 2026.

Phase 2 of the initiative will see the companies develop and execute a demonstration mission that must be launched by the end of 2028. However, the commencement of Phase 2 will be subject to decisions and appropriations made at ESA’s next ministerial-level council meeting, which will take place in late 2025.

These contracts only cover phase 1. If successful, these capsules will compete with the cargo capsules that SpaceX, Northrop Grumman, and Sierra Space fly in providing supplies to the four commercial space stations presently being built.

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SpaceX launches NRO reconnaissance satellite(s)

9:44 am

SpaceX last night successfully placed a National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) reconnaissance payload into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California. Because of the classified nature of the flight, it is unclear whether the payload is one or several satellites.

The first stage completed its 16th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. The fairings completed their 12th and 3rd flights respectively.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

53 SpaceX
23 China
7 Russia
5 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the world combined in successful launches, 60 to 36, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including other American companies, 53 to 43.

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Starliner manned launch delayed again; no new launch announced

9:33 am

In a very terse statement that apparently was only sent out by email to some sources, NASA and Boeing announced last night that the May 25, 2024 launch of the first manned Starliner mission on ULA’s Atlas-5 rocket had been postponed, with no new launch date set.

NASA, Boeing, and ULA are foregoing the Saturday, May 25 launch attempt for NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test. The team has been in meetings for two consecutive days, assessing flight rationale, system performance, and redundancy. There is still forward work in these areas, and the next possible launch opportunity is still being discussed.

NASA will share more details once we have a clearer path forward,

The first launch scrub prior to the first launch date of May 6th was due to a valve issue on the Atlas-5 rocket. ULA quickly replaced that valve and the launch was rescheduled for May 17th. Then Boeing engineers detected a helium leak related to one of the attitude thrusters in the capsule’s service module. The launch was first delayed until May 21st, then delayed again until May 25th. Now it is delayed indefinitely.

Whether that helium leak remains the cause of this new delay remains unknown. That no new launch date has been proposed suggests the need to bring the rocket and capsule back to the assembly building to destack it in order to fix the problem. That NASA, Boeing, and ULA are being so coy about revealing any details suggests however that some additional issue might have been uncovered.

Regardless, this new extended delay is very bad publicity for Boeing. While the comparison is somewhat unfair, it continues to make Starliner look like an American version of a Yugo, not the kind of vehicle one would nonchalantly climb into for a flight into space.

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Sierra Space’s Tenacity mini-shuttle arrives at the Cape

9:30 am

Capitalism in space: Sierra Space’s Tenacity Dream Chaser mini-shuttle has finally arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for its final testing and assembly onto ULA’s Vulcan rocket.

Upon arrival at Kennedy, teams moved Dream Chaser Tenacity to the high bay inside the Space Systems Processing Facility, where it will undergo final testing and prelaunch processing ahead of its launch scheduled for later this year.

…The remaining pre-flight activities at Kennedy include acoustic and electromagnetic interference and compatibility testing, completion of work on the spaceplane’s thermal protection system, and final payload integration.

If all goes right, Tenacity’s first mission will last 45 days, delivery about 7,800 pounds of cargo to ISS, and prove out the reusable mini-shuttle for up to seven more flights to ISS.

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ESA narrows Ariane-6 launch date to first two weeks in July

9:24 am

In an announcement today, the European Space Agency (ESA) narrowed the launch window for the first launch of its new Ariane-6 rocket to the first two weeks in July.

It also stated that the final launch date will be revealed in the first week of June, during presentations at an air show in Berlin, Germany.

In the next month the rocket will undergo a full dress rehearsal countdown on the launchpad. It will then be “drained of fuel in preparation” for the actual launch.

This rocket is built and mostly owned by the private consortium ArianeGroup, made up of a partnership of Airbus and Safran, and working in conjunction with ESA. Though Arianespace, ESA’s long time commercial arm, is mentioned as ESA’s “launch service provider” for this launch, it is very clear that it is being pushed aside and will soon become irrelevant. The rocket is four years behind schedule and being entirely expendable it is too expensive to compete in the modern launch market. The member nations of ESA have rejected it, and so they are shifting to a capitalism in space model, whereby they no longer have a government commercial “launch service provider” like Arianespace, but instead buy launch services from competing private European rocket companies.

Europe’s problem is that it will take time to develop these private companies. In the interim it will be forced to use Ariane-6, but likely only for a few years. There are at least five new rocket companies in Europe, with three (Rocket Factory Augsburg, PLD, and Hyimpulse) having already completed their first launch tests.

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Solar storms are simply no longer a threat

3:39 pm

The sunspot cycle as of May 2024
The sunspot cycle as of May 2024. Click
for full details.

Today’s Chicken Little Report: When NOAA predicted on May 9, 2024 that a powerful solar flare had erupted from the Sun and was aiming a major solar storm directly at the Earth, the scientists at the federal government’s Space Weather Prediction Center could not help underlining the disaster potential, and were ably aided by the mainstream press. This CNN report was typical:

“Geomagnetic storms can impact infrastructure in near-Earth orbit and on Earth’s surface, potentially disrupting communications, the electric power grid, navigation, radio and satellite operations,” according to the Space Weather Prediction Center. “(The center) has notified the operators of these systems so they can take protective action.”

The center has notified operators in these areas to take action to mitigate the potential for any impacts, which include the possibility of increased and more frequent voltage control problems. Other aspects operators will monitor include a chance of anomalies or impacts to satellite operations and frequent or longer periods of GPS degradation.

And as always, the news report has to end with this warning of doom:
» Read more

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Pushback: NJ gym wins total victory in court after refusing to obey illegal COVID mandates

10:45 am

Bring a gun to a knife fight: The owners of the New Jersey gymnasium announced on May 18, 2024 that they have now won a total victory in court against the numerous citations and penalties the state government attempted to impose upon them and their operation because they refused to obey any of the insane and illegal COVID mandates imposed by New Jersey governor Phil Murphy.

ALL OF THE 80+ municipal citations of violations of a governor’s order, public nuisance, disturbing the peace, and operating without a license against us have been dropped by the courts WITH prejudice. This means the State has NO ability to revisit or refile these charges.

This victory opens the battlefield again and gives us options to continue to push back and bring justice to the treasonous actions of Phil Murphy and his lackies.

The first paragraph above suggests the owners now have legal grounds to sue Murphy and the state for illegal harassment and false prosecution. The second paragraph says that they intend to.

The owners in 2022 had already gotten their business license reinstated. In the interim they had managed to keep the gym functioning by asking, and getting, donations from those who used it.

I pray they proceed in court with as many lawsuits as possible against all the government officials involved in this bad behavior, including the local police, who at one point changed the locks on their building and boarded up the gym, thus allowing the plumbing to back up.

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Blue Origin resumes manned suborbital New Shepard flights

9:09 am

Blue Origin yesterday flew its first suborbital New Shepard flight since a failure during an unmanned flight in 2022, flying six passengers on a short ten-minute jump.

This suborbital flight got a lot of press yesterday and today, but I consider these suborbital tourist flights somewhat old news. Had they occurred two decades ago, in the 2000s as promised, they could have helped trigger the commercial space industry. Instead, both Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic took another two decades to get started, and by that time orbital tourist flights were taking place.

There might be money to be made in suborbital hops like this, but the future of space exploration lies elsewhere.

As for Blue Origin, this flight confirms that the company has fixed the nozzle issues that caused the September 2022 launch failure. During ascent just after launch the spacecraft’s abort system activated, sending the New Shepard capsule free from the first stage booster, which subsequently crashed. The capsule landed safely with parachutes.

The investigation then stretched out over more than two years. It remains unclear why it took so long, though the FAA’s regulatory burden appears to have been one factor, with Blue Origin’s own sluggish pace of operations another.

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NLRB suspends case against SpaceX

9:04 am

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has agreed to suspend one of its cases against SpaceX while the company’s lawsuit challenging the board’s constitutional authority proceeds.

SpaceX alleged that the NLRB’s in-house enforcement proceedings violate its constitutional right to a jury trial. It also said limits on the removal of the NLRB’s board members and administrative judges violates the Constitution. Amazon, Starbucks, and Trader Joe’s have asserted similar claims in recent months.

A second NLRB case has already been suspended by the federal 5th Court of Appeals, for the same reasons.

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SpaceX launches another 23 Starlink satellites

10:50 pm

This bunny never stops. SpaceX today successfully launched 23 more Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage set a new record for reflights, completing its 21st flight after landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The company has said it is upgrading these stages to last for 40 launches instead of 20, and this launch clearly is the first step in that direction.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

52 SpaceX
21 China
7 Russia
5 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the world combined in successful launches, 59 to 34, while SpaceX by itself still leads the rest of the world, including other American companies, 52 to 41.

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Starliner launch delayed again, to May 25, 2024

3:36 pm

Boeing, ULA, and NASA have decided to delay the first manned flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule another four days to 3:09 pm (Eastern) on May 25, 2024.

The additional time allows teams to further assess a small helium leak in the Boeing Starliner spacecraft’s service module traced to a flange on a single reaction control system thruster. Pressure testing performed on May 15 on the spacecraft’s helium system showed the leak in the flange is stable and would not pose a risk at that level during the flight. The testing also indicated the rest of the thruster system is sealed effectively across the entire service module. Boeing teams are working to develop operational procedures to ensure the system retains sufficient performance capability and appropriate redundancy during the flight.

It appears they simply want to give themselves extra time to review their data thoroughly, with no rush, before lighting the rocket.

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A Catholic threatened with blacklisting because he gave an unapologetic Catholic speech at a Catholic university to a class of Catholics: How dare he!

2:47 pm

Harrison Butker committing leftist heresy
Harrison Butker committing leftist heresy
by simply stating his basic Christian beliefs

They’re coming for you next: This week’s blacklisting kerfuffle centers on a graduation speech given by football player and Super Bowl champ Harrison Butker at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas on May 11, 2024.

It appears a lot of leftists and advocates of the queer agenda didn’t like what he had to say, and are pushing to have the Kansas City Chiefs fire him. A petition at change.org has already collected nearly 200,000 signatures to have the “Kansas City Chiefs management … dismiss Harrison Butker immediately for his inappropriate conduct.” On social media and within the media the outrage was just as sharp. Several tweets on X attempted to dox both Butker and his family, with one (immediately deleted) coming from the office of the mayor of Kansas City.

It got so bad that the NFL disavowed Butker, stating publicly that “his views are not those of the NFL as an organization. The NFL is steadfast in our commitment to inclusion, which only makes our league stronger.”

But what did Butker do that was so terrible? You can find out for yourself by reading the full text of his speech here. I can sum it up however quite simply: » Read more

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NASA signs new agreement with ESA to partner on Franklin Mars rover

9:41 am

NASA yesterday signed a new agreement with the European Space Agency (ESA) that confirmed its previous commitment to help land ESA’s Franklin rover on Mars.

With this memorandum of understanding, the NASA Launch Services Program will procure a U.S. commercial launch provider for the Rosalind Franklin rover. The agency will also provide heater units and elements of the propulsion system needed to land on Mars.

Previously NASA had committed $30 million to pay for that launch provider, as yet undetermined. It now wants $49 million for the Franklin mission, with the extra money likely to pay for the new additional equipment outlined in this agreement.

Whether NASA gets this money from Congress however remains unknown. It has not yet been appropriated.

This overall European project has been fraught with problems. It was first designed as a partnership with NASA. Then Obama pulled NASA out in 2012, and ESA switched to a partnership with Russia, which was to provide the rocket and lander. Then in 2022 Russia invaded the Ukraine and Europe broke off all its partnerships with Russia.

Since then ESA has signed a deal with the company Thales Alenia to build the lander.

As these political foibles were going on, the rover also had parachute issues that forced ESA to cancel its original launch date in 2022, using the Russian rocket.

It is likely Congress will approve this additional funding, though it seems to me that Europe should be able to afford paying for its own launch, especially if it is buying that service from the much cheaper U.S. market.

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NASA versus Isaacman/SpaceX on upgrading Hubble

12:19 pm

Link here. The NPR article is a long detailed look at NASA on-going review of the proposal by billionaire astronaut Jared Isaacman and SpaceX to to do a maintenance mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.

The NPR spin is subtly hostile to the mission, because it would be funded privately and run entirely by private citizens, not the government. Like all modern leftist news outlets, it can only imagine the government capable of doing such things properly.

Reading between the lines, however, what I instead sense is that NASA and the scientific community is generally quite enthusiastic about this proposal, but wants to make sure it not only is done safely but does nothing to harm Hubble in any way, both completely reasonable concerns. While there appear to be some individuals who are opposed for purely political and egotistically reasons — a desire to keep control of this turf no matter what — I don’t see that faction having much influence long term.

Whether this project can go forward I think will be largely determined by the success or failure of Isaacman’s next manned flight, dubbed Polaris Dawn and scheduled for this summer. On it he will attempt the first spacewalk by a private citizen, using SpaceX’s Resilience capsule and EVA spacesuit. If that spacewalk is a success, and he can demonstrate the ability to accomplish some complex tasks during the EVA, it will certainly ease the concerns of many about a follow-up repair mission to Hubble.

If it does proceed, the goal appears to be to attach new gyroscope hardware to the outside of Hubble, rather than replace the failed gyroscopes already in place. Such an approach will be simpler and more in line with the capabilities of a Dragon capsule, compared to the repair work the astronauts did on the space shuttle.

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AST SpaceMobile makes deal with ATT to use its cell-to-satellite constellation

11:59 am

AST SpaceMobile, which launched in 2022 its first satellite for direct cellphone-to-satellite communications and has been successfully testing it since, has now signed a deal with ATT, which wants to use the company’s planned constellation of five such satellites, scheduled for launch this summer.

Nor is this the only satellite company launching such satellites. SpaceX has already launched several dozen Starlink satellites adapted for direct cell-to-satellite service. In addition, it appears that all the companies making smart phones are adding features to their phones that would allow this capability in the future.

Once operational, these satellites will act as orbiting cell towers, and will thus eliminate most of the dead zones in all the populated regions on Earth.

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Private satellite snaps picture of ISS in orbit

10:37 am

ISS as seen by HEO Robotics satellite
Click for original image.

One of the satellites in the commercial satellite constellation run by the Australian company HEO Robotics to monitor objects in space successfully took a picture of ISS this week as it zipped by only 43 miles away.

That picture is to the right, reduced to post here. The relative speeds between the satellite and ISS was about 3.7 miles a second. The station’s main truss, which holds up its solar panels and heat radiators, is the vertical structure going from upper left to lower right. The habitable modules cross this at right angles, with what appears to be the Russian section on the right with a Soyuz or Progress docked to the port at the end. A Dragon capsule can be seen at the opposite end, docked to the American section on the left.

The company’s satellites have previously provided imagery of other objects in orbit, including the ERS-2 satellite just before it was de-orbited as well as China’s Tiangong-3 space station during its assembly.

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Congress passes new authorization bill for FAA that includes short extension of “learning period”

10:05 am

The new FAA authorization bill that that House approved yesterday and was passed previously by the Senate includes a short extension to the end of the year of the so-called “learning period” that is supposed to restrict the agency’s ability to regulate the new commercial space industry.

That limitation was first established in 2004 with a time period of eight years. It has been extended numerous times since then. The most recent extensions however have been very short, suggesting Congress (mostly from the Democrat side of the aile) wants to soon eliminate it. Whether that happens when it comes up for extension again at the end of 2024 will depend greatly on which party is in control after the election.

It really doesn’t matter. Everything the FAA has been doing in the past three years suggests this learning period no longer exists anyway. The agency has been demanding every new American company or rocket or spacecraft meet much higher regulatory requirements, which appears to have slowed significantly the development of those new companies, rockets, or spacecraft in the past two years.

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Why are so many conservatives such downers?

4:07 pm

Frankly, for the Joe Biden campaign these numbers are an absolute disaster
“Frankly, for the Joe Biden campaign these numbers
are an absolute disaster.” Click for full video.

In the past two weeks I have noticed two political trends within the United States, one that seems quite hopeful and another that depresses me to the bottom of my soul.

The hopeful trend has to do with the left and what appears to be a growing collapse of its political support. The pro-Hamas riots on college campuses and elsewhere have not had the impact of the 2020 Antifa and BLM riots, where those disruptions struck fear into ordinary Americans while instilling them with a deep unfounded guilt that paralyzed them into either inaction or endorsing the foolish racist policies of that BLM movement.

In 2024 the pro-Hamas riots are doing the exact opposite. They are antagonizing everyone, and highlighting the racism and violence that is presently very inherent within the modern policies of the Democratic Party. Who wants to support a party whose base justifies and supports the work of terrorist organizations like Hamas, that torture, rape, and murder of innocents, including women, children, and babies?

On top of those ugly riots, Biden’s administration in almost all things has proven to be a disaster. Inflation has been terrible, the economy has doing poorly, the illegal immigration is out-of-control and impacting not just Republican border states but the Democratically-controlled inner ciites. Internationally Biden’s weak and indecisive leadership has led to wars in the Ukraine and Middle East, with tensions rising in many other places.

The result has been disastrous polls for Joe Biden — across the board — suggesting that not only will Donald Trump win the November election, he will do so with such strong numbers it will be impossible for even the worst vote tampering by the Democrats to overthrow that victory. Those polls also suggest that the Republicans will gain a large majority in the Senate, and likely a larger renewed majority in the House.

The disaster that is Joe Biden and the viciousness of the Democratic Party base has become so evident that even some previously knee-jerk Democrats are beginning to admit to it, and are attempting to change it. They don’t seem to be succeeding, but that effort illustrates further these hopeful trendlines. If even Democrats can no longer stand what their party stands for, then there is a good chance we might finally see that party clean up its act, or die and be replaced with something more laudable.

You must then wonder: What trend could possibly exist at this time that could be depressing me to the bottom of my soul?
» Read more

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FAA schedules first three public meetings for Starship/Superheavy impact statement review

8:48 am

The FAA has now scheduled the first three public meetings as part of its new environmental impact statement review of SpaceX’s proposed construction plans at Cape Canaveral.

The in-person open houses will feature information stations where the FAA will “provide information describing the purpose of the scoping meetings, project schedule, opportunities for public involvement, proposed action and alternatives summary, and environmental resource area summary. Fact sheets will be made available containing similar information,” the project website says.

“At any time during the meetings, the public will have the opportunity to provide verbal comments to a court reporter or written comments via a written comment form at one of several commenting stations,” the website says.

It appears that SpaceX is proposing two different options for establishing an additional launchpad for Superheavy/Starship. Its preferred option is to refurbish pad LC-37, which was most recenly used by ULA to launch its Delta-4 Heavy in April. A second option is to develop a new pad entirely, dubbed LC-50.

Though the FAA claims this new impact statement is necessary because SpaceX has upped the planned annual Superheavy/Starship launches from 24 to 44, that claim is bogus. The difference is not that significant, and more important, rockets have been launching from these pads now for almost three-quarters of a century, and the environment has not only not been harmed by that activity, the wildlife surrounding the cape has prospered tremendously by the creation of a large zone where no development can occur.

That history is the real impact statement, and it proves the new red tape is unecessary. What the FAA (and the Air Force) are now doing is simply lawfare against SpaceX.

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Ispace gets a new payload for its first NASA lunar landing mission

1:33 pm

Capitalism in space: The Japanese company Ispace has won a contract with the European company Control Data Systems (CDS) to place CDS’s precise localization instrument on Ispace’s APEX lunar lander, its first NASA mission.

CDS’s technology, which combines precision localization with telecommunications, uses Ultra-Wideband for determining precise positions and was developed specifically for space applications with support from the European Space Agency. The lack of a GPS-like system on the Moon, makes the technology ground-breaking for future applications related to lunar exploration.

The agreement … also represents the first Romanian payload to be delivered to the lunar surface. The technology will be integrated into the APEX 1.0 lunar lander as part of ispace technologies U.S. (ispace-U.S.) Mission 3, currently scheduled for 2026. A lunar rover will transport the CDS equipment on the surface to test the localization technology using an antenna that will remain on the APEX 1.0 lander.

Though Ispace is based in Japan, it has divisions in both the U.S. and Europe, which is allowing it to sign contracts with NASA and companies in both locations.

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Atlas-5 launch of Starliner slips to May 21, 2024

1:25 pm

While ULA has successfully replaced the valve in the upper stage of the Atlas-5 rocket, the first manned launch of Boeing’s Starliner capsule has slipped another four days, to May 21, 2024, because a newly discovered helium leak in the capsule’s service module.

Starliner teams are working to resolve a small helium leak detected in the spacecraft’s service module traced to a flange on a single reaction control system thruster. Helium is used in spacecraft thruster systems to allow the thrusters to fire and is not combustible or toxic.

NASA and Boeing are developing spacecraft testing and operational solutions to address the issue. As a part of the testing, Boeing will bring the propulsion system up to flight pressurization just as it does prior to launch, and then allow the helium system to vent naturally to validate existing data and strengthen flight rationale.

The prevous launch scrub was entirely due to the ULA’s rocket, not anything related to Boeing. This delay however is a Boeing issue, and it only reinforces the general uneasiness everyone feels about Boeing’s quality control work.

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SpaceX launches 20 more Starlink satellites

12:01 pm

SpaceX last night successfully placed another 20 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The first stage completed its eighteenth launch, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

51 SpaceX
21 China
6 Russia
5 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the world combined in successful launches, 58 to 33. SpaceX by itself now leads the rest of the world, including other American companies, 51 to 40.

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Air Force sends letter of concern about Vulcan to ULA

10:21 am

According to a report yesterday [behind a paywall], the Air Force has sent a letter of concern to ULA and its joint owners, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, about the long delays getting its new Vulcan rocket operational.

When the military chose in 2021 ULA and SpaceX to be its two launch providers for the first half of the 2020s, it expected ULA to complete 60% of the launches and SpaceX 40%. It also expected Vulcan to being launching within a year or two, at the latest.

Instead, the first launch of Vulcan did not occur until 2024, and its second launch — required by the military before it will allow Vulcan to launch its payloads — won’t occur until late this year. Worse, the military has a large backlog of launches it has assigned to Vulcan that need to launch quickly.

“I am growing concerned with ULA’s ability to scale manufacturing of its Vulcan rocket and scale its launch cadence to meet our needs,” [Air Force Assistant Secretary Frank] Calvelli wrote. “Currently there is military satellite capability sitting on the ground due to Vulcan delays. ULA has a backlog of 25 National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 2 Vulcan launches on contract.”

These 25 launches, Calvelli notes, are due to be completed by the end of 2027. He asked Boeing and Lockheed to complete an “independent review” of United Launch Alliance’s ability to scale manufacturing of its Vulcan rockets and meet its commitments to the military. Calvelli also noted that Vulcan has made commitments to launch dozens of satellites for others over that period, a reference to a contract between United Launch Alliance and Amazon for Project Kuiper satellites.

ULA says that once operations ramp up, it plans to launch Vulcan twice a month. The Air Force doubts about whether that will be possible however are well founded. To meet that schedule ULA will need delivery per month of at least four BE-4 engines from Blue Origin, and so far there is no indication the Bezos company can meet that demand. Delays at Blue Origin in developing that engine are the main reason Vulcan is so far behind schedule in the first place.

In order to get Vulcan operational, ULA needs to fly a second time successfully. The second launch of Sierra Space’s Tenacity mini-shuttle is booked for that flight, and was originally supposed to launch this spring. Tenacity however was not ready, as it is still undergoing final ground testing. The launch is now set for the fall, but both ULA and the Pentagon are discussing replacing it with a dummy payload should Tenacity experience any more delays.

The source of all of these problems points to Blue Origin. Not only has it been unable to deliver its BE-4 rocket engine on schedule — thus blocking Vulcan — the long delays in developing its own New Glenn orbital rocket (which uses seven BE-4 engines) has given the military fewer launch options. As a result the military has been left with only one rocket company, SpaceX, capable of launching its large payloads.

To put Blue Origin’s problems in perspective, for Blue Origin to finally achieve its many promises and get both Vulcan and New Glenn flying regularly, it will need to begin producing a minimum of 50 to 150 BE-4 engines per year, with two-thirds for its own New Glenn rocket. Right now all evidence suggests the company is having problems building two per year.

In other words, the Pentagon might send a letter of concern to ULA, but it should instead be focusing its ire on Blue Origin.

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The left begins recognizing Biden is going to lose

1:08 pm

Frankly, for the Joe Biden campaign these numbers are an absolute disaster
“Frankly, for the Joe Biden campaign these numbers
are an absolute disaster.” Click for full video.

The conservative press this past weekend went gaga over a number of CNN reports that were shockingly negative about Joe Biden’s chances of winning re-election as president.

First CNN’s Fareed Zakaria reviewed the overall situation and bluntly concluded, “The trendlines are not working in Biden’s favor.” Then CNN had several reports outlining Biden’s very bad polling numbers:

The right saw these reports as confirmation from the left — which CNN represents as an operative of the leftist Democratic Party — that the campaign is not going well for Joe Biden, that the momentum right now is for Donald Trump.

What I see is something even more fundamental. The left, for the first time in almost a decade, is accepting the possibility of defeat, and these reports are an almost unprecedented effort by the left to process this possibility.
» Read more

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SpaceX launches 23 more Starlink satellites

8:41 pm

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

This was the 50th successful launch by SpaceX this year, in only a little more that five months. Reaching the company’s goal of 150 launches in 2024 (six of which were planned to be Starship/Superheavy test launches) remains a challenge, but if the company reaches even 80% of that goal (120) it will have set a record for launches greater than what the entire world achieved for every year of the space age until 2020.

This was also the 15th launch of the rocket’s first stage, landing successfully on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

50 SpaceX
21 China
6 Russia
5 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the world combined in successful launches, 57 to 33. SpaceX by itself now leads the rest of the world, including other American companies, 50 to 40.

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FAA and Air Force initiate new environmental impact statements for Starship/Superheavy launchpads in Florida

12:08 pm

We’re here to help you! Really! Late yesterday, in a typical Friday story dump just before the weekend to reduce any notice, the FAA announced it has begun a new environmental impact statement (EIS) of SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy launchpad infrastructure being built in Florida, working in parallel with a similar environmental impact statement now being conducted by the Air Force.

The EIS will be the second environmental review involving SpaceX’s plans to use LC-39A for Starship launches. NASA completed an environmental assessment (EA) in 2019 of the company’s plans at the time to build launch infrastructure at LC-39A for Starship, finding it would have no significant impact. At the time SpaceX was planning up to 24 Starship launches from that pad annually. A new EIS, the FAA concluded, is needed because of changes in the design of Starship and its operations since the 2019 assessment.

The FAA claims a new assessment is needed because SpaceX is now planning as many as 44 launches. The Air Force has not said why its new assessment is needed. That EIS, which began in March, covers a launchpad previously used by the Saturn-1B and Delta-4 rockets from 1964 to 2022, another pad use by the Air Force’s Titan rocket from 1965 to 2005, as well as a new pad, dubbed SLC-50.

LC-39A meanwhile has been used for launches since the 1960s. The Saturn-5, the space shuttle, and the Falcon 9 all launched from this pad.

The dishonest absurdity of these impact statements can not be overstated. There is zero reason to do new assessments. All the pads have been in use for decades, with all kinds of rockets, some comparable to Superheavy/Starship. The environment and the wildlife refuge at Cape Canaveral have both thrived.

Moreover, to force completely new impact statements because the design and plans for Superheavy/Starship have changed somewhat (but not fundamentally) is even more stupid. This is a new rocket, being developed day-by-day and launch-by-launch. Will the FAA and the Air Force require new EIS’s every time SpaceX changes anything? It seems so.

This is clearly lawfare against Elon Musk and SpaceX by the White House and the administration state. It doesn’t like Musk, and it is now searching at all times for ways to block or damage him.

I confidently predict that neither statement will be completed by the end of 2025. Based on the timeline of most EIS’s, which when politics are involved are almost always slowed by the legal action of activists, the earliest either will be approved will be mid-2026, though likely later.

What is not clear is whether the FAA and Air Force will stop all work while this red tape is being unwound. If so, then the first operational launches of Superheavy and Starship cannot happen out of Cape Canaveral until well into 2027, which means NASA entire Artemis program will be seriously delayed. My previous prediction that the first manned lunar landing can’t happen before 2030 is becoming increasingly too conservative.

And remember this: If Joe Biden and the Democrats remain in power after November, all bets are off. At that point they are certain to ramp up the lawfare against those they see as political enemies, even if their targets are doing great things for the nation and the American people.

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Update of the reusable cargo capsule by the French company, The Exploration Company

9:51 am

Link here. The article provides a detailed look at the development of the company’s second demonstrator capsule, dubbed Mission Possible, which it hopes to fly in an orbital test sometime in ’25.

Beforehand a smaller demonstrator capsule, dubbed Mission Bikini, will fly on the first launch of the Ariane-6, set for this summer.

Both demonstrators will lay the groundwork fo the launch of the company’s Nyx capsule, designed to provide freighter services to any one of the four private space stations presently being built.

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German startup loses prototype of aerospike spaceplane during test

9:44 am

The prototype aerospike test spaceplane of the German startup Polaris Spaceplanes was destroyed recently during its first test flight.

The MIRA I, from German aerospace startup Polaris Raumflugzeuge, was traveling at approximately 105 mph during takeoff when a “landing gear steering reaction” plus a side wind caused a “hard landing event,” rendering the space plane inoperable and it’s fiberglass airframe damaged beyond repair.

Its subsystems remained mostly intact – however, rather than attempt to repair the prototype spaceplane, Polaris has opted to decommission 13.9-foot-long MIRA I to go ahead with the identically shaped 16 foot MIRA II and III design.

Had it flown, it would have been the first flight test ever of an aerospike nozzle. Such a nozzle has been proposed by engineers for decades to take full advantage of the changing atmospheric pressure as a rocket lifts off. Traditional nozzles can only be shaped for one specific air pressure, and lose efficiency as the pressure changes. By using the air pressure to form one wall of the nozzle, an aerospike uses that changing pressure to always function at the highest efficiency.

The company hopes to use this design to eventually create a spaceplane that will take off from a runway, reach orbit, and then return to a runway, all without any additional stages.

Neither of the upcoming prototypes however will be able to do this. Their purpose will mostly be to test the aerospike engine at various altitudes. The company hopes to fly its full scale spaceplane, dubbed Aurora, in ’26 or ’27.

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Pentagon: SpaceX effectively blocking Russian illegal use of Starlink

9:26 am

According to one Pentagon official, SpaceX has effectively blocked Russia’s illegal use of captured or illegally purchased Starlink terminals.

Plumb declined to elaborate on what tactics, techniques or procedures are being used to stem Russia’s use of the highly portable communications terminals that connect to SpaceX’s fleet of low-orbiting satellites. Ukrainian government officials had no immediate comment.

Starlink terminals continue to be advertised for sale in Russia on platforms such as e-commerce site Ozon. Their sellers say they function through subscriptions taken out in the name of residents of European countries where the technology is licensed, and they say that connections work — not within Russia’s heartlands but near border regions such as Ukraine’s occupied territories.

This week, however, users complained of unprecedented connectivity issues. On the messaging app Telegram one of the sellers recommended transferring onto a more expensive global service plan. Bloomberg hasn’t been able to independently verify whether those workarounds restore connectivity for illicit Starlink use in Russia.

The official tried to make it sound as if the Pentagon was an equal partner with SpaceX in accomplishing this work, but that’s absurd. The military is without doubt helping SpaceX anyway it can, but the bulk of the technical work is almost certainly being done by SpaceX.

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Starlink revenue in 2024 estimated at $6.6 billion

9:18 am

According to an independent analysis of the state of SpaceX’s Starlink constellation, the company will generate $6.6 billion in revenue in 2024.

The independent analysis was done by the market research firm Quilty, and was based largely on extrapolating out from Starlink’s 2.7 million known subscribers.

“We’re projecting a revenue jump from $1.4 billion in 2022 to $6.6 billion in 2024.”

To put that in perspective, the combined revenue of the two largest geostationary satellite operators, SES and Intelsat, which recently announced a merger, is around $4.1 billion. “The answer lies in their subscriber base,” explained Quilty. Viasat and Hughes, two dominant players in the consumer GEO satellite internet market for over 20 years, peaked at a combined 2.2 million subscribers in 2020. Starlink surpassed that number in just a few years, he said.

The financial outlook is equally impressive. Quilty Space estimates Starlink’s EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes,depreciation, and amortization) to reach $3.8 billion in 2024, a significant leap from negative $128 million in 2022.”We expect Starlink to achieve positive free cash flow for the first time in 2024,” said Quilty.

This revenue number is even more astonishing when you compare it with the $12 billion in private capital the company has raised from investors since 2017. Next year alone SpaceX’s returns will cover half that investment, practically guaranteeing a generous profit in the coming years for those investors.

Even more significant, these revenues mean SpaceX now has a very healthy cash stream for completing construction of Starship/Superheavy, or in fact practically anything the company decides to build.

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