Tag: freedom

Starship now stacked on launchpad

9:45 am

Starship stacked on top of Superheavy

In preparation for a final wet dress rehearsal countdown followed by its first launch, Starship has now been stacked on top of Superheavy at SpaceX’s launchpad at Boca Chica, Texas.

The picture to the right is a screen capture from a short video Elon Musk posted on Twitter. SpaceX had also tweeted that its “Team is working towards a launch rehearsal next week [April 10-11] followed by Starship’s first integrated flight test ~week later pending regulatory approval.”

At this time the FAA has still not issued the launch license. By announcing its plan to launch the week of April 17th, Musk and SpaceX puts pressure the government bureaucracy to get a move on.

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Axiom sets date for next commercial manned flight to ISS

9:19 am

Axiom and NASA yesterday announced May 8, 2023 as the launch date for the private company’s second commercial flight to ISS, this time carrying three passengers out of a crew of four, two from Saudi Arabia and the third, John Shoffner, completing his second paid flight with Axiom.

Two of its crewmates are Rayyanah Barnawi and Ali AlQarni, members of the first Saudi Arabian astronaut class. Barnawi will become the first Saudi woman ever to reach space, and she and AlQarni will be the first people from the kingdom to travel to the ISS.

Retired NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson will command the mission for Axiom. The Dragon capsule used will be Freedom, making its second flight, lifting off on a Falcon 9 rocket with a new first stage. The plan is to be docked to ISS for ten days, which means for that time period ISS will have three Arab astronauts on board, including the UAE’s astronaut, Sultan Al Neyadi, who is in the middle of a six month mission and is about to do his first spacewalk.

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SpaceX successfully launches Intelsat communications satellite

9:41 pm

SpaceX tonight successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to launch an Intelsat communications satellite into orbit, lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage completed its fourth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The two fairings completed their second and eighth flights.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

23 SpaceX
14 China
6 Russia
3 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads China 26 to 14 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 26 to 24. SpaceX now trails the rest of the world combined, including American companies, 23 to 27.

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Spaceplane startup flies small-scale prototype for the 1st time using new rocket engine

9:31 am

The startup Dawn Aerospace, based in New Zealand, has now successfully flown a small-scale prototype of its proposed spaceplane using for the first time the company’s Aurora rocket engine.

Mk-II Aurora, a scaled down version of the spaceplane Dawn is developing for commercial operations, took to the skies March 29, 30 and 31 from New Zealand’s Gentanner Aerodrome. The initial test campaign validated key flight systems and demonstrated the benefit of rapid reusability, Dawn CEO Stefan Powell told SpaceNews.

During the first flight, the Mk-II Aurora consumed more fuel than anticipated due to a leak in the propellant system. The next day, Dawn engineers removed the Mk-II Aurora engine, took out the oxidizer tank and found the leak.

These rocket-powered test flights are a follow-up of an earlier test program in 2021 using jet engines. You can get a sense of the scale of the prototype from a picture at this article.

The company plans to fly this prototype to as high as twelve miles later this year before moving on to a larger test version. Eventually it hopes to develop a two-stage orbital system. The details however remain vague. The 2021 release suggested it was building a two-stage-to orbit version that will take off from a runway and then launch small satellites into orbit. These new stories suggest it are presently targeting the suborbital unmanned research market, with the eventual ability to do frequent flights to 70 miles altitude. Launching orbital satellites is presently only a distant goal.

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Shetland Spaceport now faces same regulatory hurdles that destroyed Virgin Orbit

9:37 am

The new Shetland spaceport, Saxavord, is right now attempting to get launch approvals from United Kingdom’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the same agency that dithered for six months approving a Virgin Orbit launch, thus causing the bankruptcy of that company.

According to Saxavord’s CEO, the spaceport has two launches aiming to launch before the end of this year, assuming the CAA can get its act together and give its approval. This quote however is worrisom:

The Saxavord spaceport says it is “still on track” to receive its necessary licences from the sector’s regulator before the summer. This relates to applications to the Civil Aviation Authority for range and spaceport licences.

Meanwhile SaxaVord CEO Frank Strang said the company is also on track for two rocket launches this year – “albeit they have moved slightly to the right”. [emphasis mine]

The delays could be coming from the rocket companies themselves. One of those companies is the German startup, Rocket Factory Augsburg, which has leased exclusive use of one launchsite. The other is the American startup ABL, which has had one launch attempt from the U.S. that failed.

Based on the CAA’s track record however the delays are just as likely coming from it. The CAA began this licensing process in November 2022, and is not done yet six months later.

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FAA issues travel advisory for Boca Chica for April 10, 2023 Starship launch

10:30 am

Though the FAA has not yet issued the launch license to SpaceX, allowing it to do the first orbital launch test of its Superheavy/Starship rocket, the agency today did issue a travel advisory for the Boca Chica area for April 10-11, 2023, in connection with this launch.

The FAA advisory is here. Scroll down to see the space activities section, which includes this information:

SPACEX STARSHIP SUPERHEAVY BOCA CHICA, TX
PRIMARY: 04/10/23 1310-1745Z
BACKUP(S): 04/11-12/23 1310-1745Z

Based on this information, we should expect the FAA launch license to be publicly announced any moment.

Hat tip BtB’s stringer Jay, who trolls Twitter so I don’t have to.

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English company buys land in Ohio for astronaut training facility

9:04 am

Blue Abyss, an English company focused on establishing “extreme environment research, test, and training centres,” has purchased twelve acres in Ohio where it plans to build an astronaut training facility.

The property, which is near Cleveland’s NASA Glenn Research Center, will include a 164-foot deep pool, microgravity center, astronaut training center, and a hotel. Brook Park Mayor Edward Orcutt described the facility as a “boot camp for astronauts.”

It appears the company is expecting there to be a lot of commercial astronauts in the coming years who will need training, and anticipates that NASA will not be capable of or interested in providing the service.

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Starship and Superheavy readied for orbital flight

10:22 am

With Superheavy prototype #7 already on the launchpad at Boca Chica, Texas, SpaceX engineers yesterday moved Starship prototype #24 beside it in preparation for stacking the orbital spacecraft on top of Superheavy for a launch now expected no earlier than April 10, 2023.

As the article notes, when Superheavy lifts off, it will set a new record for the most powerful rocket, having twice the thrust of either of NASA’s Saturn-5 or SLS rockets. And this record will be achieved by a privately built and owned rocket whose development has been funded almost entirely by private investment capital. Note too that the development took about six years, from concept to first launch, a few years less than it took NASA to build the Saturn-5 in the 1960s, and about one third the time it NASA to do the same thing with SLS in the 2000s, the 2010s, and the 2020s.

The orbital mission, it successful, will have Superheavy lift off, separate from Starship and then land controlled in the Gulf of Mexico. Starship will continue into orbit, and then attempt a controlled vertical splashdown in the Pacific Ocean northwest of the big Island of Hawaii.

At the moment, it appears the only obstacle to launch remains the FAA, which after many months has still not issued the launch license. This new activity at Boca Chica however suggests SpaceX expects that approval to occur momentarily.

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SpaceX and Chinese pseudo-company complete launches

9:46 am

Two launches today. First, a new Chinese pseudo-company, dubbed Space Pioneer, completed the first launch of its liquid kerosene-fueled Tianlong-1 rocket, putting a military surveillance satellite into orbit.

Space Pioneer is the third Chinese pseudo-company to achieve orbit, but the first to do it with a liquid-fueled rocket. The previous two, Ispace and Galactic Energy, used solid-fueled rockets based on military missile technology. All of these Chinese companies follow a private model. An individual or a group of individuals creates the company, obtains private investment capital, and then wins contracts from the Chinese government. What makes them pseudo is that they do not work independently and freely, and really do not own their products. The Chinese government supervises and approves everything, and can take over at any time.

The second launch today was by SpaceX, using its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California to put a new smallsat constellation of ten military satellites, designed to test the quick development (under two years) of such smallsats for use by the military.

The first stage successfully completed its second flight, landing back at Vandenberg. The fairings completed their fourth and sixth flights, respectively.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

22 SpaceX
14 China
6 Russia
3 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads China 25 to 14 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 25 to 24. SpaceX by itself trails the entire world, including American companies, 22 to 27.

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Stratolaunch’s Roc airplane completes another test flight

9:31 pm

Stratolaunch today announced that it has successfully completed the third capture-carry test using its giant Roc airplane, carrying an engineering test version of its Talon vehicle, designed to do hypersonic flight tests for the Air Force.

The flight was the tenth for the company’s launch platform Roc and marks the beginning of routine flight operations in Vandenberg Space Force Base’s Western Range off California’s central coast. The flight, which lasted a total of five hours, performed risk reduction by practicing a variety of separation profiles and confirming telemetry between Roc and Talon-A vehicles and Vandenberg Space Force Base’s communication assets, assuring that back-up telemetry data collection will occur during future flight tests.

Pending results of post-flight data analysis, the team will progress toward a separation test in the coming weeks, enabling the company to perform its first hypersonic flight in 2023.

There is a lot of potential test capability for Roc and Talon, not just with hypersonic missiles and aircraft. If Stratolaunch succeeds in fulfilling this Air Force contract, it will likely garner a good amount of additional business.

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Lunar rover startup signs deal to send rover to the Moon using Starship

9:25 pm

The lunar rover startup Astrolab has signed a deal with SpaceX to send its FLEX rover to the Moon’s south pole region using a lunar lander version of Starship.

Jaret Matthews, founder and chief executive of Astrolab, said in an interview that the mission, which will include 1,000 kilograms of customer payloads, will be the first flight of the FLEX rover. It will be a rideshare payload on a Starship mission landing somewhere in the south polar region of the moon.

“Because our rover can traverse up to a couple thousand kilometers in a given year, we’re less sensitive to exactly where we land,” he said. “’It is definitely optimized for the south polar region because that’s fundamentally where we think that the bulk of the activity is going to be.”

The company unveiled a full scale prototype of its rover one year ago, when it made it clear it intended to compete for the rover contract in NASA’s Artemis program, competing against several big established players. Since then there has been little news. The story today sadly reeks to me of a lot of blarney. For example, the company has only 20 employees. Astrolab might have signed this deal, but I suspect it is a very tentative deal, easily canceled by either party at no cost.

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Virgin Orbit shuts down

5:12 pm

Unable to secure new funding, the managers of Virgin Orbit have shuttered the company, possibly forever.

Virgin Orbit is ceasing operations “for the foreseeable future” after failing to secure a funding lifeline, CEO Dan Hart told employees during an all-hands meeting Thursday afternoon. The company will lay off nearly all of its workforce. “Unfortunately, we’ve not been able to secure the funding to provide a clear path for this company,” Hart said, according to audio of the 5 p.m. ET meeting obtained by CNBC.

The layoffs include all but 100 positions, about 85% of its workforce.

The company was killed because the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) took an extra six months approving a launch license, during which the company could launch nothing and thus make no money. Lacking revenue, it ran out of cash. If the company goes into bankruptcy, this detail is most intriguing:

Branson has first priority over Virgin Orbit’s assets, as the company raised $60 million in debt from the investment arm of Virgin Group.

In other words, Branson will be able to walk off with everything, and even resurrect the company as his own, for pennies on the dollar. If he does, I guarantee our bankrupt mainstream press will shower him with praise, calling him a hero.

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New startup unveils 3D printer for making rocket tanks and fairings

10:02 am

Rosotics, a new startup focusing on providing manufacturing components for rocket companies, has now unveiled a prototype of its proposed 3D printer, dubbed Mantis, for making rocket tanks and fairings.

Mesa, Arizona-based Rosotics plans to begin delivering the Mantis in the third quarter of 2023 to customers who place $95,000 deposits and sign hardware-as-a-service contracts. After delivery, Rosotics “will install, maintain and upgrade your hardware over time without any cost to you,” LaRosa said.

While the Mantis can be configured for various tasks, the starting point is a one printhead to additively manufacture aluminum or steel structures ranging in size from 1.5 to 8 meters in diameter.

The idea is sell this manufacturing capability to rocket companies as well as other manufacturers who need large structures built. Rather than machining these large structures themselves, or have outside machining companies do it for them, the companies would buy Mantis to do it in-house instead.

Whether this model will work depends on price and operations. Is it cheaper and quicker to use this 3D printer to make large rocket parts, or traditional methods? Obviously, Rosotics thinks it is. We will find out if others think so if Rosotics survives.

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H3 failure delays Japan’s entire space program

9:53 am

According to one official of Japan’s space agency JAXA, the failure of the first launch of its new H3 rocket in early March now threatens the schedule of much of Japan’s entire space program, even those missions being launched on the older H2A rocket.

The investigation into the launch failure, when the upper stage of the H3 rocket failed to ignite, remains unfinished with no word when it will be completed.

The H3 upper stage uses an engine designated LE-5B-3 developed by MHI [Mitsubishi Heavy Industries] and similar to the LE-5B engine used on the existing H-2A rocket. That is putting launches of the H-2A on hold while the investigation continues.

That may delay the upcoming launch of two science missions sharing an H-2A. The X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM), an X-ray astronomy spacecraft, and the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM), a lunar lander, were scheduled to launch together as soon as May on an H-2A.

The article notes that XRISM replaces a 2016 Japanese X-ray telescope that failed immediately after launch. That failure then was bad, but just as bad is the seven years it has taken JAXA to have a replacement ready.

The H3 failure also threatens a JAXA Mars mission scheduled for launch in 2024, during the next launch window to Mars.

Japan’s space program more and more resembles Russia’s. It is controlled entirely by the government, which it appears does not allow competition within Japan, as all major rocket work is apparently confined to Mitsubishi. There have been unending quality control problems, within many probes as well as in the development of both the H3 and the Epsilon rockets. And the pace of operations is slow, much slower than other nations or companies.

It seems a major reform is needed, and it should start with Japanese government officials reading Capitalism in Space. They need to open up competition and release their space program from the control of JAXA, especially because JAXA is not doing a very good job. Like NASA, it would be better if JAXA stopped being a designer and builder, and become merely a customer obtaining products from many different competing private companies.

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In U.S. sales of dumb phones are up

4:00 pm

It appears that American users of mobile phones are shifting every so slightly away from smart phones, with sales of simple flip-phones lacking a screen rising in the past year.

In the U.S., feature flip phone sales were up in 2022 for HMD Global, with tens of thousands sold each month. At the same time, HMD’s global feature phone sales were down, according to the company.

In 2022, almost 80% of feature phone sales in 2022 came from the Middle East, Africa and India, according to Counterpoint Research. But some see that number shifting, as a contingency of young people in the U.S. revert back to dumb or minimalist phones. “In North America, the market for dumb phones is pretty much flatlined,” said Moorhead. “But I could see it getting up to 5% increase in the next five years if nothing else, based on the public health concerns that are out there.”

Companies like Punkt and Light are catering to the trend, selling devices geared toward those with a desire to spend less time on their phones and social media. On YouTube, you will find a slew of influencers touting these phones.

It is not clear if this is a real trend, or merely a bit of press release salesmanship by HMD and others. If it is however I think it is a good trend. Smart phones do very little to make people smarter. Instead, they foster a shallow thinking process focused on emotion. The more people who get away from them the better.

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Boeing & NASA; 1st Starliner manned mission to now launch on July 21

3:34 pm

In a update posted by NASA today, agency and Boeing officials announced that they are now aiming to launch Boeing’s Starliner capsule on July 21, 2023 on its first manned mission to ISS.

The new target date provides NASA and Boeing the necessary time to complete subsystem verification testing and close out test flight certification products and aligns with the space station manifest and range launch opportunities.

The specifics behind this somewhat meaningless press release jargon can be found at this twitter thread. Apparently Boeing & NASA want to do more ground tests of the capsule’s parachute system as well as its flight software. There also appears to be some issue relating to the capsule’s batteries.

Boeing is also mulling a redesign of Starliner’s batteries for after this delayed crewed flight test. It also expects to redesign Starliner’s smart initiator system, which separates the crew from service module. NASA’s paying $24 million for that redesign amid added requirements

Though Boeing has a fixed price contract with NASA, if NASA demands redesigns or changes it has to pay for them. That Boeing and NASA are finding these issues at this late date, four years after Starliner was first supposed to launch, does not speak well of Boeing’s workmanship and quality control systems.

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SpaceX launches another 56 Starlink satellites

1:19 pm

SpaceX today successfully launched another 56 Starlink satellites, using its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

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

Russia was also launching at almost the exact same time a classified military satellite, using its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from Plesetsk spaceport in northern Russia, but at the moment there is no word on whether that launch was a success.

For the moment then the leaders in the 2023 launch race are as follows:

21 SpaceX
11 China
5 Russia (with a planned launch today)
3 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads China 24 to 11 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 24 to 20. SpaceX now trails the rest of the world, including other American companies, 21 to 23.

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Hakuto-R1 snaps first picture of Moon from lunar orbit

9:18 am

Hakuto-R1's first released image from lunar orbit
Click for original image.

The science team for Ispace’s Hakuto-R1 privately-built lunar orbiter/lander earlier this week released the spacecraft’s first picture of the Moon since entering lunar orbit on March 20, 2023.

That image is to the right, cropped and reduced to post here. The photo resolution is quite good. It also demonstrates that the spacecraft’s attitude control systems for pointing the camera are working correctly.

Launched on December 11, 2022 by a Falcon 9 rocket, Hakuto-R1 will land in Atlas Crater on the northeast quadrant of the Moon’s visible hemisphere sometime in April, making it the first successful private commercial planetary lander to reach another world. If successful, it will then release the United Arab Emirates Rashid rover, that nation’s first planetary lander but its second planetary mission, following the Mars orbiter, Al-Amal, now circling Mars.

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Virgin Orbit extends pause in operations, having failed to get new financing

9:11 am

Virgin Orbit has extended its worker furlough and pause in operations now that a $200 million deal with a Texas investor has fallen through.

Reuters reported last week that Texas-based Matthew Brown had been in talks to invest $200 million in the company. Those talks have collapsed, said two people familiar with the discussions who asked not to be identified. Brown declined to comment on Monday.

Virgin Orbit, teetering on bankruptcy after a January rocket failure and struggles to raise funds, furloughed nearly all its 750 employees on March 15 while it sought a financial lifeline that would allow it to focus on upgrading its launch business.

This is very bad news for the company, because it indicates that there might not be a financial savior for it.

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German rocket startup raises $168 million in private investment capital

9:02 am

The German rocket startup Isar Aerospace has raised $168 million in new private investment capital, bringing the total it has raised to $310 million.

At present the company is targeting the second half of this year for the first launch of its Spectrum rocket, lifting off from a new spaceport in Norway.

Isar is one of three German rocket startups, with the other two Rocket Factory Augsburg and HyImpulse Technologies. Both Isar and Rocket Factory are getting close to launch.

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Are launch prices up, or is the demand continuing to be high?

8:58 am

According to a Space News yesterday, high demand and inflation have resulted in an overall increase in launch prices in recent months.

At the recent Satellite 2023 conference, industry officials said they saw evidence of growing prices in the last year. Growing demand along with a constrained near-term supply that some have dubbed a “global shortage” is a factor, they say, along with inflation that has remained historically high for more than a year.

The only evidence of this increase that the article presents however is a 10% increase in SpaceX’s launch price, which the company claims is almost entirely due to inflation, not demand. Furthermore, this increase still leaves SpaceX’s launch prices well below the lowest prices that other launch companies can yet offer, which means the competition can’t really raise its prices significantly.

The important take-away from the article is not that the cost of rockets has gone up, but that the demand remains very high, which bodes well for the new startups trying to enter the market. For example, the article notes that the next SpaceX smallsat launch opportunity is 2025. There thus remains plenty of business for the many new rocket companies trying to enter the market in the next two years.

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Momentus reports successful use of its new water-based thrusters on its orbiting Vigoride-5 tug

8:55 pm

The orbital tug startup Momentus on March 23, 2023 reported the successful use of its new water-based thrusters on its orbiting Vigoride-5 prototype tug, proving the design works.

The Reaction Control System operates using the same propellant and tank with water as the Vigoride spacecraft’s primary MET propulsion system. The MET is designed to use water as a propellant and produce thrust by expelling extremely hot gases through a rocket nozzle. Unlike a conventional chemical rocket engine, which creates thrust through a chemical reaction, the MET is designed to create a plasma and thrust using microwave energy. When operational, the MET will be used to raise the orbital altitude and inclination of Vigoride-5.

Essentially this is a variation of an ion engine. The thrust will be low, but very efficient. The thrusters can therefore fire for a very long time, building up accelerations infeasible for chemical engines, and thus allowing the tug to significantly change the orbits of satellites in ways that was previously impossible.

This release came out the day before NASDAQ announced that Momentus has six months to raise the price of its stock above one dollar or be delisted from the stock exchange. Since its release, the stock price rose from $0.54 to $0.63, still below a dollar but going in the right direction, despite the NASDAQ announcement.

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NASDAQ gives two more space companies delisting warning

10:25 pm

NASDAQ yesterday told the space companies Momentus and Spire they have six months to get their stock price over $1 or the stock exchange will delist each.

Small satellite builder and data specialist Spire Global received a notice from the New York Stock Exchange, while spacecraft delivery company Momentus received a notice from the Nasdaq. Under the respective exchanges’ compliance rules, the companies have 180 days, or about six months, to get their stock prices back above $1 a share.

Spire’s stock closed at 69 cents a share on Friday, having first slipped below $1 a share on Mar. 7. Momentus’ stock closed at 63 cents a share, slipping below $1 a share on Feb. 7.

Both companies now join Astra under the same threat. Both also have indicated they will consider a reverse-stock split, combining stocks to reduce the total number in order to bring the price above one dollar.

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The invulnerability of today’s academic blacklist culture

2:22 pm

Tirien Steinbach: in favor of censorship and mob rule
Stanford’s Tirien Steinbach:
in favor of censorship and mob rule

They’re coming for you next: In order to best understand how difficult it will be to regain the free and open society that was once the United States, we need only look at recent events at the Stanford Law School.

On March 9, 2023 a mob of students and faculty, led by Tirien Steinbach, the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion dean, shouted down U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Kyle Duncan when he tried to give a lecture about the law for the school’s chapter of the Federalist Society.

You can watch a video of this mob action at the link, where Steinbach actually took the podium away from Duncan to order to give a speech defending the mob and agreeing with their effort to silence him.

The story has gotten ample coverage in the press, including the general reaction from outside the school. For example, in Texas and in California action has been proposed to bar the students involved from getting law licenses.

The law school itself initially responded very weakly, simply sending a letter of apology to Duncan.
» Read more

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Blue Origin releases results of investigation into New Shepard flight failure

11:04 am

Blue Origin today released by email its results of its investigation into the New Shepard flight failure that occurred in September 2022, when the launch abort system activated soon after launch and released the capsule early so that it could return safely to Earth.

[T]he MIT [investigation team] determined the direct cause of the mishap to be a structural fatigue failure of the BE-3PM engine nozzle during powered flight. The structural fatigue was caused by operational temperatures that exceeded the expected and analyzed values of the nozzle material. Testing of the BE-3PM engine began immediately following the mishap and established that the flight configuration of the nozzle operated at hotter temperatures than previous design configurations. Forensic evaluation of the recovered nozzle fragments also showed clear evidence of thermal damage and hot streaks resulting from increased operating temperatures. The fatigue location on the flight nozzle is aligned with a persistent hot streak identified during the investigation.

The MIT determined that design changes made to the engine’s boundary layer cooling system accounted for an increase in nozzle heating and explained the hot streaks present. Blue Origin is implementing corrective actions, including design changes to the combustion chamber and operating parameters, which have reduced engine nozzle bulk and hot-streak temperatures. Additional design changes to the nozzle have improved structural performance under thermal and dynamic loads.

In other words, the company had made some design changes to the engine prior to launch, and these caused the hot spots that destroyed the nozzle.

The company’s email says it is fixing this issue and plans to launch “soon”, but issued no date.

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Sierra Space pops another inflatable test space station module

9:56 am

Proposed Orbital Reef space station
Proposed Orbital Reef space station

Sierra Space announced yesterday that it had successfully completed its fourth test to failure of a one-third scale prototype inflatable space station module, dubbed LIFE, with work on the full scale module expected to begin next year and leading to the launch of its private commercial space station sometime later this decade.

In February, Sierra Space performed a month-long Accelerated Systematic Creep (ASC) test on LIFE – the first milestone in its 2023 testing campaign. Engineers loaded a one-third-scale version of the inflatable habitat with a sustained amount of pressure over an extended period until it failed. Per NASA’s recommended guidelines for inflatable softgoods certification, the test reached its goal of generating an additional data point – pressure and time to burst – which can be used to estimate the life of the primary pressure shell structure.

“Our testing campaign has demonstrated that our LIFE habitat pressure shell design has a predicted life of far greater than 60 years – or 525,600 hours – based on Sierra Space’s 15-year on-orbit life requirement and the applied 4x safety factor,” said Sierra Space Chief Engineer for LIFE, Shawn Buckley. “We are obviously simulating pressures well in excess of the norm.”

You can view video of the test here. The failure was so intense that it also blew up the test shack.

Sierra Space is part of a partnership with Blue Origin and others to build the Orbital Reef space station, one of four such stations with contracts with NASA. Sierra Space is building the station’s modules, while Boeing is providing the Starliner capsule for transportation. Blue Origin is supposed be providing larger modules and the New Glenn rocket for transportation, but the development of both continues to lag.

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Starliner’s first manned mission to ISS delayed again

9:36 am

According to a tweet by a NASA official, the first manned mission to ISS of Boeing’s Starliner capsule, carrying two NASA astronauts, has been delayed again, from the planned late April launch to sometime during the summer.

No reasons for the delay were given, as yet. The second link notes however that a schedule conflict at ULA, which is launching Starliner on its Atlas-5 rocket, might be part of the reason.

A launch in late April [of Starliner on the Atlas-5] would have put it in conflict with the inaugural launch of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur rocket, currently scheduled for as soon as May 4. Vulcan and Atlas use the same launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, and ULA has been conducting tests of the Vulcan rocket on that pad. It has not shared updates on the status of the Atlas 5 used for Starliner.

This conflict might also explain why Starliner itself has not yet been fueled, since Boeing officials have said they want to do this within 60 days of launch to avoid the same kind of valve leaks that delayed the second unmanned demo mission for almost a year.

Starliner itself is years behind schedule, a long delay that has cost Boeing an enormous amount of income. First, the problems during the first unmanned demo flight in December 2019 forced the company to do a second unmanned demo flight, on its own dime costing about $400 million. That second flight was then delayed because of those valve issues. All the delays next cost Boeing income from NASA, as the agency was forced to purchase many manned flights from SpaceX that it had intended to buy from Boeing.

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Rocket Lab and SpaceX successfully launch

9:10 am

There were two launches since yesterday, both American, both launching commercial satellites.

First, Rocket Lab put two Black Sky commercial Earth observation smallsats into orbit, using its Electron rocket launching from New Zealand. This was Rocket Lab’s second launch in less than a week.

Next, SpaceX put 56 Starlink satellites into orbit, launching from Cape Canaveral. The Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage completed its 10th flight, landing successfully in a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

20 SpaceX
11 China
5 Russia
3 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads China 23 to 11 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 23 to 18. SpaceX in turn trails the entire world combined, including American companies, by only 20 to 21.

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SpaceX might get investment capital from Saudi and UAE investors

10:23 am

According to several reports in the business press, SpaceX is presently negotiating with investment companies in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to possibly provide additional investment capital to the company.

Citing two individuals reportedly familiar with the matter, The Information noted that Saudi Arabia’s Water and Electricity Holding Company, Badeel, and the United Arab Emirates’ Alpha Dhabi are participating in the funding round. Morgan Stanley is reportedly organizing the investment effort.

At present it is unknown how much would be invested. It is also unclear if this foreign investment in an American rocket company can pass muster with the U.S. State Department.

SpaceX has already raised about $10 billion in private investment capital as well as $4 billion from NASA for the development of Starship/Superheavy.

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