Tag: freedom

Northrop Grumman cancelling its NASA space station project?

9:22 am

According to anonymous sources, Northrop Grumman — one of four company partnerships chosen by NASA to build private commercial space stations to replace ISS — is considering cancelling its project for NASA.

At the International Astronautical Congress meeting this week in Azerbaijan, sources report that there is widespread speculation that one of these four companies, Northrop Grumman, is dropping out of the competition. Northrop’s plan had been to leverage its successful Cygnus spacecraft design to build a free-flying space station.

However, Northrop no longer plans to do so. Rather, it will join the venture backed by Voyager Space, which is partnering with Europe-based Airbus to develop a commercial space station. It’s likely that Northrop would provide cargo transportation services, with Cygnus as part of the team. Officials from Voyager and Northrop Grumman declined to comment on the change in strategy, which could be announced soon.

The original four were Axiom, Voyager Space (then called Nanoracks), Northrop Grumman, and Blue Origin. By teaming up with Voyager Space the number would drop to three, with Northrop simply providing freighter service to Voyager’s station.

Nor is this the only rumored change to these station projects. Last week sources suggested that the partnership between Blue Origin and Sierra Space was breaking up. If so, it remains unclear how that would effect its project for NASA.

These changes to the four proposed NASA stations would leave only Axiom’s space station unchanged and on its original course. Meanwhile, another company, Vast, is developing its own independent station, and SpaceX is considering developing a space station version of Starship.

All these shifts and changes are not to be unexpected, nor are they really bad news. They simply indicate the uncertain nature of any new product, even if that product is as unconventional as a private space station.

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Stopgap budget bill includes three-month extension of regulatory “learning-period”

9:00 am

The stopgap 45-day continuing resolution passed by Congress on September 30, 2023 also included a three-month extension of regulatory “learning-period” first established in 2004 and extended several times since then.

Among the provisions in that FAA reauthorization was a three-month extension of the existing restrictions on the FAA’s ability to regulate safety for commercial spaceflight participants. That restriction, often called a “learning period” by the industry, was set to expire Oct. 1 but now runs until Jan. 1.

It must be noted that this so-called limitation on FAA regulation of commercial spaceflight really does not exist any longer, no matter what law Congress passes. The administrative state really runs the show now, and both the FAA and Fish & Wildlife have decided heavy regulations are required, and are imposing such controls over SpaceX’s Superheavy/Starshp test program, while the FAA by itself is imposing strict regulation on Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital spacecraft. The result is a slowdown in launches for both, extending months to a year.

It also appears that this heavy regulation is squelching launches of new rockets. Last year four new rocket startups attempted new launches (Astra, ABL, Firefly, Relativity), some making multiple attempts. This year, such test flights have essentially ceased, with only Firefly completing one launch for the military. Worse, two of those companies (Astra and Relativity) have abandoned their rockets entirely, claiming they are building new bigger versions, but one must now wonder.

The long term historical significance of these facts extends far beyond the space industry. Increasingly the unelected bureaucracy in Washington is taking on powers it is not supposed to have, while Congress (which is delegated those powers) increasingly is irrelevant. The shift in power signals a major reshaping of American governance, in a direction that is not good for freedom or the fundamental concepts that established the country and made it a success.

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SpaceX puts another 22 Starlink satellites into orbit

1:57 pm

SpaceX last night successfully launched another 22 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

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

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

69 SpaceX
44 China
13 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 79 to 44, and the entire world combined 79 to 71. SpaceX by itself now trails the rest of the world combined (excluding American companies), 69 to 71.

Note that this was the 151th successful launch in 2023, all done in the first three quarters, and strongly suggesting the world will complete more than 200 launches this year. This number will top the record of 179 set last year by more than ten percent, and be more than double the number of launches achieved almost every year since Sputnik in 1957.

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Orbital Reef partnership between Blue Origin and Sierra Space in trouble

9:36 am

According to anonymous sources, CNBC reports that the partnership between Blue Origin and Sierra Space to build the private commerical Orbital Reef space station is possibly breaking up.

The companies announced Orbital Reef as a co-led project in 2021, but updates about the project dried up in the past year. The pair of private space companies are now navigating a potential end to the Orbital Reef partnership, according to three people who spoke to CNBC about the situation.

Those people, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss nonpublic matters, emphasized that discussions are ongoing and described the situation as fluid. But other development projects with more significant current contracts – such as Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lunar lander and Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser spaceplane – have taken higher priority for both companies, those people said.

To readers of Behind the Black, this possible break-up is not a surprise. In June Sierra’s announcement of its own independent space station based on its LIFE modules suggested it had its own doubts about Orbital Reef. Then in August, when Sierra announced a partnership with Redwire to launch LIFE as an independent station, I wrote this:

What struck me about this deal is the shrinking mention of Blue Origin. Originally that company was listed as one of the major players in building this private space station, dubbed Orbital Reef, in which LIFE is only the first module. In the past year however its participation seems less and less significant in every subsequent press release. It appears to still be part of the project, but it is Sierra Space that is leading the effort, and appears to be making things happen.

But then, the track record of Blue Origin is to not make things happen. It could very well be that events are once again overtaking it. Sierra Space can’t wait for Blue Origin to slowly get its act together. It is finding ways to get things done, even if that means Blue Origin gets left behind.

Today’s CNBC story reinforces this conclusion. So does its timing with the removal of Blue Origin’s CEO, Bob Smith, earlier this week. It could be that the failure of Blue Origin in the Orbital Reef partnership was the final straw for Jeff Bezos.

The problem for NASA in this is that the agency awarded a $130 million contract to the Orbital Reef partnership, with Blue Origin listed as the lead contractor which controls the contract. If that partnership ends, that contract must get renegotiated or cancelled, or gets transferred from Blue Origin to Sierra Space (the most likely outcome).

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Ispace wins $55 million NASA contract for lunar landing mission

9:17 am

The Japanese company Ispace, which is also establishing operations in the U.S., has won a $55 million NASA contract to send a lunar landing plus communications relay satellites to the Moon in 2026.

Ispace’s Hakuto-R1 lander attempted a landing on the Moon in April, but crashed. The company has a second Hakuto-R mission presently targeting launch next year. The NASA contract would the company’s third, which will be built in its new U.S. facility and be called Apex-1.

In today’s briefing, Ispace representatives announced that the primary customer for its upcoming Mission 3 is NASA, which has selected the company as part of its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program (CLPS). Ispace stated during the briefing that it has signed a $55 million contract with NASA for Mission 3 in order to land near the lunar south pole carrying approximately 210 pounds (95 kg) of scientific payloads.

But that’s not all the mission will do. On its way to the lunar surface, Mission 3 will deliver relay satellites that will remain in orbit around the moon to serve as communication relays.

Though it will not be surprising if these launch dates slip, Ispace is in a strong position to succeed, considering it is presently the only private company to launch a Moon lander, and got very close to putting it down on the lunar surface successfully.

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SpaceX’s military version of Starlink wins $70 million Space Force contract

10:08 am

Capitalism in space: The Space Force yesterday awarded SpaceX a $70 million contract to provide it communications and broadband capabilities though the military version of Starlink, dubbed Starshield.

A Space Force spokesperson confirmed that SpaceX on Sept. 1 was awarded a one-year contract for Starshield with a maximum value of $70 million. The award came alongside 18 other companies through a program run by the Space Force’s commercial satellite communications office.

“The SpaceX contract provides for Starshield end-to-end service (via the Starlink constellation), user terminals, ancillary equipment, network management and other related services,” Space Force spokesperson Ann Stefanek told CNBC.

Though this contract is for satellite services, it will increase SpaceX’s need to launch and complete its Starlink constellation. Though it has successfully launched a lot of satellites using the Falcon 9 rocket, it has always said it needs Starship/Superheavy to properly build and maintain the constellation.

Thus, NASA is no longer the only government agency with a strong motive to get Starship/Superheavy launched. Expect both NASA and the Pentagon to apply pressure on the White House to ease up on SpaceX. Expect that pressure to have little influence, unless the public joins in loudly.

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Sierra Space raises another $290 million in private investment capital

2:26 pm

Sierra Space today announced that during its most recent funding round it successfully raised another $290 million in private investment capital, bringing the total capital it has raised to $1.7 billion.

The round is co-led by Japan’s largest bank, MUFG, Kanematsu Corporation, a Japanese trading company and Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance, Japan’s largest property and casualty insurance group with participation from Sierra Space’s existing investors. The companies are already participating in a JAXA (Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency) study to explore how to conduct activities in LEO as the ISS approaches the end of service.

These Japanese partnerships act to strengthen Sierra’s already strong links to Japan, including ongoing negotiations to land its Dream Chaser reusable mini-shuttes at Oita Airport, as well as partnership deals with Kanematsu, Japan Airlines and Mitsubishi.

This successful fund-raising round suggests strongly that the company’s plans to finally have its first Dream Chaser cargo shuttle, Tenacity, ready to fly in December might actually happen. Or at least, that plan acted to convince these investors to pony up some cash.

Hat tip to Jay, BtB’s stringer.

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SpaceX donates used Merlin engine and Falcon 9 grid fin to Smithsonian

9:10 am

A SpaceX used Merlin engine and a Falcon 9 grid fin will go on display at the Smithsonian Air & Space museum when it reopens its east wing after a major renovation.

In addition to the 2019 launch of SpaceIL’s “Beresheet” moon lander, which entered lunar orbit but crashed into the moon’s surface, the donated Merlin engine was one of nine that flew on the first stages of two other Falcon 9 rockets. In 2018, it was launched twice from Vandenberg Air Force Base (today Space Force Base) in California, helping to loft commercial communications satellites (Iridium-6) and an Argentinian Earth-observation satellite (SAOCOM 1A). The latter stage was the first to land on land on the U.S. West Coast, as opposed to using one of SpaceX’s ocean-going droneships.

The grid fin flew only once, on the 2017 launch that placed a South Korean communications satellite in orbit.

From an engineering perspective, one can’t help wondering why SpaceX chose to donate these items in particular. Why for example did the grid fin fly only once? And why was the Merlin engine retired?

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SpaceX launches 21 Starlink satellites from Vandenberg

11:43 am

SpaceX early this morning successfully launched another 21 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California shortly after midnight.

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

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

68 SpaceX
43 China
13 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 79 to 43, and the entire world combined 79 to 69. SpaceX by itself now trails the rest of the world combined (excluding American companies) by only 68 to 69.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay. I had missed this launch last night, until he reminded me of it.

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SpaceX launches 22 Starlink satellites, flying its second booster for a 17th time

9:09 pm

SpaceX tonight successfully launched 22 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral using a first stage booster flying for the seventeenth time.

The booster landed successfully on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The company now has two boosters that have flown that many times, plus at least one that has flown fifteen times.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

67 SpaceX
43 China
13 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 78 to 43, and the entire world combined 78 to 69. SpaceX by itself now trails the rest of the world combined (excluding American companies) by only 67 to 69.

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House speaker Kevin McCarthy proposes bill to extend “learning period” for rocketry

9:52 am

The speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy (R- California) today introduced what he calls the STAR act, which would extend the learning period that exempts the new human commercial space industry from heavy regulation from its impended expiration this year for eight more years, to 2031. From his statement:

The STAR Act would extend the learning period by 8 years to provide sufficient time for the FAA and commercial space industry to develop consensus standards for human safety in space flight. The bill’s proposed 8-year extension corresponds with the lengths of the original learning period — from 2004 to 2012—and the extension by Rep. McCarthy’s SPACE Act (P.L. 114-90) — from 2015 to 2023.

More information here. That McCarthy has introduced this bill suggests its chances of passage are high, assuming a very divided and partisan Congress can manage to pass anything in the coming weeks.

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SpaceX shows off a Raptor-2 engine during local Texas parade

12:13 pm

During the annual Founders Day parade in McGregor, Texas, SpaceX participated by including on its float a Raptor-2 engine, used by Starship and Superheavy.

Outside of an unannounced display of an engine in town one day, SpaceX, known for it’s secrecy, hasn’t had a public showing like this before. Residents waved as the engine passed by while SpaceX employees and their families waved and tossed candy from the trailer hauling the engine.

McGregor, whose population is only 6,000, is the location of SpaceX’s engine facility, where it builds and tests its rocket engines. Very clearly this parade proves this evil capitalist company is doing harm to these poor rural Texans and the environment that surrounds them. The hate that emanates from these citizens is truly overwhelming!

Hat tip to Robert Pratt of Pratt on Texas.

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NASA requests proposals from private industry for deorbiting ISS

9:21 am

NASA on September 18, 2023 sent out a request for proposals from private industry for methods for deorbiting the International Space Station (ISS), with a deadline for such proposals of November 17, 2023.

You can review the request here. According to the press release at the first link, the bulk of any contract will be fixed price.

To maximize value to the government and enhance competition, the acquisition will allow offerors flexibility in proposing Firm Fixed Price or Cost Plus Incentive Fee for the Design, Development, Test and Evaluation phase. The remainder of the contract will be Firm Fixed Price.

That the development phase might be cost-plus allows a lot of room for budget growth, however, especially since the companies most likely to want such a contract are the old big companies (Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman) that routinely go overbudget and behind schedule.

The full proposal is more than 600 pages long, so I have not reviewed it in its entirety. I wonder therefore if NASA would entertain proposals that include salvaging any ISS modules for use on other space stations.

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German space plane company completes test program of prototype

10:37 am

The German space plane company Polaris Spaceplanes had now completed a 15-flight test program of the small prototype of its planned orbital and suborbital spaceplane.

The test-flights took place over the course of three days, between Aug. 22 and Sep. 8, and were meant to demonstrate the vehicle’s aerodynamics and flight control systems in preparation for a larger-scale spaceplane prototype the company plans to equip with a linear aerospike rocket engine.

MIRA-Light measures just 8.2 feet (2.5 meters) long, and flies using four electric fans. For 10 of MIRA-Light’s 15 flights, the mini-spaceplane was equipped with a mock aerospike engine to simulate its impact on vehicle performance. In total, the prototype accumulated about 40 total minutes of flight time, according to a report from European Spaceflight.

What makes this project interesting is its use of an aerospike engine, a rocket-engine concept that has been around for decades but never successfully implemented. If successful here, it will make the engines of Polaris’ spaceplane very efficient.

The company now plans a series of test programs using prototypes of increasing size, leading to flying its full-scale hypersonic space plane Aurora on commercial suborbital and orbital flights in ’26 or ’27.

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Environmentalists appeal dismissal of their lawsuit against the FAA and SpaceX

10:14 am

The two environmentalist groups and Indian tribe that sued to get SpaceX’s Boca Chica spaceport shut down have now appealed the dismissal of their case by a Texas judge.

Two environmental groups and an Indigenous tribe on Wednesday will present appeals in their lawsuit over the repeated closures of a border beach to allow neighboring SpaceX to conduct test flights and other activity. The Sierra Club, Save RGV, and the Carrizo Comecrudo Nation of Texas are scheduled to present oral arguments before the 13th Court of Appeals on Wednesday morning in Edinburg.

Last summer, the groups filed a lawsuit accusing the state of not upholding the Texas Open Beaches Act, but a district court judge in Brownsville ruled against their lawsuit, saying they couldn’t sue the Texas General Land Office or Cameron County, where the popular beach and SpaceX are located. The Texas Constitution grants the public rights to all public beaches. At issue, however, is whether private groups have a constitutional right to sue.

Though I am not surprised that the lawsuit was dismissed because these groups have no standing, this the first I had heard of that dismissal. I suspect their appeal will fail as well, especially as the hearing is being held in the state courts, which are generally very sympathetic to SpaceX and the economic rebirth it has brought to south Texas.

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Update on Blue Origin’s New Glenn

10:04 am

Link here. Based on this detailed update, the long delayed launch of Blue Origin’s orbital New Glenn rocket appears to finally be visible on the distant horizon.

Most of the work described involves building supporting facilities, such as a new building for refurbishing rockets after launch. However, this quote suggests the company might finally be getting close to doing something real:

During a panel at the World Satellite Business Week, Blue Origin’s Jarrett Jones stated Blue Origin has four boosters in various stages of production, and testing is going well.

In addition to the production of New Glenn, Blue Origin has continued to prepare LC-36 [the launchpad] to support the testing of the hardware currently being manufactured. In recent months, Blue Origin has conducted a number of tests with both the main transporter erector, which will be used to support a fully stacked New Glenn, as well as a smaller transporter erector, which appears to be used to test New Glenn’s second-stage on the launch pad. A second-stage simulator has already been observed on this transporter erector.

Though encouraging, the article at the link still left me with a feeling that a lot of work is being done on everything but the rocket itself. Hopefully this feeling will dissipate soon with the appearance of that first rocket on the launchpad. Right now Blue Origin officials have said they are aiming for that first launch next year, but they have made that same promise now for three straight years.

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SpaceX launches 22 Starlink satellites, flies a first stage for a record 17th time

8:48 pm

SpaceX tonight successfully placed 22 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral using a first stage flying for its seventeenth time, a new record.

That first stage successfully landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

By amortizing the cost for building and flying that first stage, the cost per launch for SpaceX has likely been reduced more than 90%, significantly raising the company’s profit margins, especially when it is launching its own Starlink satellites. Note too that SpaceX has two other boosters that have flown 16 and 15 times, plus others with more than ten flights. And of course, this success once again makes ridiculous the engineers and managers who for more than a half century said such reusability of a rocket first stage was either impossible, or financially impractical, and thus never tried it.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

66 SpaceX
43 China
13 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 77 to 43, and the entire world combined 77 to 69. SpaceX by itself now trails the rest of the world combined (excluding American companies) 66 to 69.

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SpaceX launches another 22 Starlink satellites

9:22 am

SpaceX last night successfully launched another 22 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

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

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

65 SpaceX
42 China
13 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 76 to 42, and the entire world combined 76 to 68. SpaceX by itself now trails the rest of the world combined (excluding American companies) 65 to 68.

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Virgin Galactic sets Oct 5th launch date for its fifth commercial suborbital flight in ’23

4:47 pm

Virgin Galactic today announced that the launch window for its fifth commercial suborbital flight this year and ninth overall will open on Oct 5th.

The flight will include three private passengers, two Americans and one Pakistani, and a crew of five Virgin Galactic employees.

At this point I don’t consider these suborbital flights to be very newsworthy. However, I decided to highlight this news release because of its stark contrast with Blue Origin. Even before last year’s mishap that grounded Blue Origin’s own suborbital spacecraft, New Shepard, it never flew this frequently. Virgin Galactic took far too long to begin flying (two decades), but it does appear that is now wasting no time trying to catch up.

Blue Origin meanwhile continues to drift along, accomplishing little and appearing to do even less with time.

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Germany signs Artemis Accords

9:26 am

Germany today finally signed the Artemis Accords, becoming the 29th nation to do so. More important, its signing puts most of Europe within the accords, as well as all of the major players in space except for China and Russia.

The full list of signatories to the Artemis Accords is now as follows: Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Canada, Columbia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, and the United States.

We now can essentially see the alliance that will compete with China, Russia, and the handful of third world leftist nations such as Venezuela and South Africa. Though there are some nations on this list that have not flown in space and have a very weak infrastructure for space (Nigeria, Romania, and Ecuador for example), most of the signatories have major aerospace industries with a strong space component. More important, while the Biden administration has been deemphasizing the original conception of the accords, aimed at strengthening property rights in space, the members of the alliance are still mostly capitalist countries, with legal systems that support individual rights.

On the other side are nations that have traditionally or are now pushing for communism and strong authoritarian rule.

Thus, we can now see the rough outline of the political competition that will exist as the solar system is explored and colonized in the coming centuries.

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23 Indian companies bid for ownership of ISRO’s SSLV rocket

10:39 am

In the Modi government’s push to transition its aerospace industry from one controlled by its space agency ISRO to one that is controlled by no one and is instead a competitive commercial market owned by private companies, it had recently proposed transferring ownership of ISRO’s SSLV rocket to a private company, and requested applications from private companies interested in doing so.

It now appears that twenty-three Indian companies have entered their names in the hat.

Chairman of Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) Pawan K Goenka said that they are keen to see how the private sector uses the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) technology. “There has been a tremendous response, 23 companies have (so far) shown interest in applying for this technology. Of course only one of them will get it,” he said.

IN-SPACe, an autonomous nodal agency under the Department of Space (DOS), formed in 2020 to promote, enable, authorise and supervise non-government entities (NGEs) to undertake space activities, had in July floated an Expression of Interest (EoI) for transfer of technology (ToT) of SSLV with the last date to respond to it being September 25.

“Technology transfer is something we are working on very aggressively, because we really want to see how ISRO’s technology is leveraged by private sector. A lot is happening in that area and the biggest one is of course SSLV technology transfer, where we are transferring the launch vehicle lock, stock, and barrel completely to the private sector,” Goenka said.

As there is still several weeks left before the deadline, it is possible other companies will submit offers. Whichever company gets the rocket will immediately become a significant player in the global launch market, able to offer a very cost effective rocket for commercial launches. It will certainly be able to match Rocket Lab right off the bat.

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Update on the status of Vulcan, Ariane-6, and New Glenn

9:48 am

Link here. This excellent article is focused on whether these three new rockets, none of which has yet completed its first test flight, will be able to meet their launch contract obligations with Amazon, which needs to launch at least 1,600 satellites of its Kuiper broadband constellation by July 2026 to meet its FCC license requirements. Those requirements also obligate Amazon to have the full constellation of about 3,200 satellites in orbit by July 2029.

The launch contracts to these three untried rockets was the largest such contract ever issued, involving 83 launches and billions of dollars.

To sum up where things stand in terms of the first test launch of each rocket:
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New Shepard remains grounded, a year after launch failure

9:24 am

More than five months after completing its mishap investigation of the New Shepard launch failure one year ago, Blue Origin’s suborbital spacecraft remains grounded, with no clear indication when it will fly again.

In March, Blue Origin announced the results of its anomaly investigation: The nozzle on the first stage’s single BE-3PM engine suffered a “thermo-structural failure,” which caused a thrust misalignment and brought the mission to a premature end.

In its March 24 announcement, Blue Origin said that it had begun implementing some corrective actions, “including design changes to the combustion chamber and operating parameters, which have reduced engine nozzle bulk and hot-streak temperatures.” The company also stressed that it expected to return to flight “soon,” with a re-launch of those same 36 research payloads.

Almost six months later, that “soon” has translated into “someday.” It seems the slow pace of everything Blue Origin does has now taken over its one successful operational product. It has released no information about a new flight schedule, or even the present status of the spacecraft.

The result? Even though Blue Origin was flying commercial suborbital flights regularly about two years earlier that Virgin Galactic, the latter company has now completed more flights. This slow pace is not how a commercial company driven to earn profits and compete successfully operates. In the end it drives away customers, while ceding market share to competitors.

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Starlink and SES team up to provide broadband service to cruise lines

8:53 am

SpaceX’s Starlink constellation and SES’s satellites in higher orbits are forming a partnership to provide cruise ships better global coverage for broadband.

The SES Cruise mPowered + Starlink service would mostly use SpaceX’s low Earth orbit network (LEO) and satellites in medium Earth orbit (MEO) from SES. In northern and southern regions, apart from the poles where there is no service, SES vice president of product management for maritime products Gregory Martin said their joint offering would leverage its geostationary satellites.

SES would sell and manage the multi-orbit service when it becomes operational later this year and SpaceX would get a cut of the sales, Martin told SpaceNews in an interview.

It appears by partnering their services, the two companies make the deal better for cruise companies.

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SpaceX launches 21 Starlink satellites

9:38 am

SpaceX last night launched 21 Starlink satellites from Vandenberg in California, using its Falcon 9 rocket.

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

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

64 SpaceX
42 China
12 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

In the national rankings, American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 74 to 42. It also now leads the entire world combined, 74 to 67, while SpaceX by itself now trails the rest of the world (excluding American companies) only 64 to 67.

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Real pushback: Defiance from all sides to New Mexico’s unlawful suspension of the 2nd amendment

1:27 pm

Michelle Lujan Grisham

When New Mexico’s Democratic Party governor Michelle Lujan Grisham suddenly declared on September 8, 2023 that she was unilaterally suspending the second amendment by outlawing for 30 days the right to carry firearms by any citizens in Albuquerque and its surrounding Bernalillo county, no one should have been surprised.

All Grisham was doing was following the many precedents set during the COVID epidemic, where nationwide governors routinely made unilateral and unlawful declarations violating the Constitutional rights of citizens, with no pushback at all. Grisham was merely following those precedents. To her, it was now okay for a governor to routinely declare a “health emergency” for any reason under the sun (in this case the violent shooting death of an innocent eleven-year-old boy), and declare any law she didn’t like to be null and void.

Grisham was simply demonstrating forcefully the worst lessons learned from the COVID panic. It taught power-hungry politicians that they could get away with any abuse of power they conceived, as long as they dressed that power grab as part of some sort of “health emergency.”

You see, power is very habit-forming, and when you find you suffer no pain for abusing it it is then very easy to abuse it again, and again and again.

The response to Grisham’s unlawful abuse of power however suggested strongly that things are no longer going to follow the script of the COVID panic, when the public meekly went along. Instead, the uproar in the past three days has been astonishing, not so much from the ordinary citizens defying the ban, but from politicians and pundits from across the entire political spectrum.
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The actual truth behind the so-called “hidden figures” of the early space race

9:57 am

It is Monday, and thus the news in the morning is somewhat slim. With this in mind I offer my readers some worthwhile history, a long review dubbed “The Portrayal of Early Manned Spaceflight in Hidden Figures: A Critique. The actual review is available here [pdf].

The review uses primary source material, the actual words of the engineers and managers who worked next to black mathematician Katherine Johnson at NASA in the 1960s (both new and old writings and interviews), assessing the historical accuracy of Margot Shetterly’s book Hidden Figures, which essentially claimed that Johnson was a central figure making possible the entire American effort land on the Moon, and whose credit was purposely squelched because she was black, and a woman.

Not surprisingly, you will find that claim to be absurdly false. Not only was Johnson only one of many who did the work, she was treated then fairly and with respect. If anything, her place at NASA was proof that the agency was a forceful part of the civil rights movement, working to give qualified people of all races a fair chance.

Thus, the effort of modern leftist revisionists, led by Barack Obama when he gave Johnson the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015, to smear America and NASA in the 1960s as racist and bigoted in supposedly suppressing Johnson’s participation is not only unfair, it is an outright lie. If anything, her magnification to star status by today’s politicians, historians, and the entertainment industry has acted to discredit the work done by the many others who worked side-by-side with her, as co-workers.

If you’ve got the time, read the critique. It will not only teach you something about the behind the scenes effort that made the lunar landing possible, it will help you recognize the bigoted dishonesty that is so rampant in today’s intellectual and political culture.

Hat tip to reader Chris Dorsey for letting me know of this review.

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Two launches today, one by ULA and one by China

10:16 am

Today there were two successful launches. First China launched a remote sensing satellite using its Long March 6 rocket that lifted off from its Taiyuan spaceport in the south of China.

No word on where the rocket’s lower stages and four strap-on boosters crashed inside China.

Shortly thereafter, ULA used its Atlas-5 rocket to place a reconnaissance satellite into orbit for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

For ULA, this was only its second launch in 2023. The leaders in the 2023 launch race are now as follows, with China’s total corrected:

63 SpaceX
42 China
12 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

In the national rankings, American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 73 to 42. It also now leads the entire world combined, 73 to 67, while SpaceX by itself now trails the rest of the world (excluding American companies) only 63 to 67.

CORRECTION: Hat tip to reader John Foley (see his comment below), who noted that China’s total appeared to be one short. I went back and discovered I had missed a March 22, 2023 launch of a Kuaizhou 1A rocket from the Jiujian spaceport, placing four weather satellites in orbit. I have now added that launch to China’s total, and corrected the other numbers.

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SpaceX launches 22 Starlink satellites

8:22 pm

SpaceX tonight successfully launched another 22 Starlink satellites, lifting off from Cape Canaveral using its Falcon 9 rocket.

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

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

63 SpaceX
40 China
12 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India

In the national rankings, American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 72 to 40. It also now leads the entire world combined, 72 to 65, while SpaceX by itself now trails the rest of the world (excluding American companies) only 63 to 65.

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Targeted layoffs at Blue Origin

8:55 am

It appears that the upper management at Blue Origin has finally realized that a large Human Resource (HR) department contributes no real productive quality to a company, and in fact usually acts to reduce the company’s productive capabilities. According to reports from some company employees, it has begun to downsize this division.

Micah Thornton, a production control specialist at Blue Origin, wrote on LinkedIn that “several people from the Blue Origin Space Human Resource/Talent Acquisition team have been let go due to downsizing.” Several other employees wrote that they were laid off on Tuesday and are seeking new roles elsewhere.

This could be a very good sign for Blue Origin, or it could mean nothing. Other than periodically flying its reusable New Shepard suborbital spacecraft, the company’s main accomplishment since its formation more than two decades ago has been to establish a reputation as an unfocused operation unable to get its most important projects completed on time. Having a big HR department likely helps explain that history, and getting it reduced suggests management might be trying to get the company focused on its real mission.

Or not. HR employees are not engineers. Shifting them to other positions (which it appears the company is doing) simply rearranges the deck chairs on the Titanic.

We shall have to wait and see what transpires next. But then, that is all we have been doing in connection with Blue Origin for the past seven years.

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