Space station builder Voyager raises $80 million in private investment capital

Capitalism in space: Voyager Space, one of three companies that NASA has provided funds to build a private space station, has now raised $80 million in private investment capital.

The funding includes participation from NewSpace Capital, Midway Venture Partners and Industrious Ventures, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings and other documents viewed by TechCrunch. Seraphim Space also participated, TechCrunch has confirmed. The funding was filed with the SEC on January 27.

The company is building Starlab in partnership with Nanoracks (which is the majority owner of Voyager) and Lockheed Martin, which has already received $160 million from NASA.

Spanish airport to become a rocket spaceport

Teruel airport in Spain, located about 200 miles east of Madrid, has announced plans to expand its operations to make itself a rocket spaceport.

At a recent conference, it was announced that PDL Space plans to operate satellite micro launchers from the little-known airport, located some 300km east of the capital Madrid.

Another company, Sceye, plans to install stratospheric spacecraft at the airport, which, since coming into commission ten years ago, has been used primarily as a maintenance centre for large aircraft.

The airport is located in the eastern interior of Spain. Any orbital launches will have to cross considerable parts of the country, as well as other European and African countries. This however might not be a problem for the moment, as PDL at present appears to be building suborbital rockets.

SpaceX successfully launches 53 Starlink satellites

Using its Falcon 9 rocket, SpaceX early this morning successfully launched from Cape Canaveral another 53 Starlink satellites.

This was the 200th Falcon 9 launch. The first stage, making its fifth flight, landing successfully on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The two fairing halves completed their sixth and seventh flight respectively. At of this writing the satellites themselves have not yet been deployed.

The 2023 launch race:

8 SpaceX
5 China
1 Rocket Lab
1 Japan

American private enterprise now leads China 9 to 5 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 9 to 6.

Is Amazon’s Kuiper Constellation project in trouble, or is it fleeing Seattle?

According to a on-going listing of open space-related jobs in Seattle, Amazon has almost completely ceased hiring in that city, even as it is about to launch the first prototype test satellites in its proposed internet Kuiper satellite constellation.

To see the decline, take a gander at the graph here.

The analyst at the first link also noted in a later tweet this fact about Amazon hiring in Seattle:

…Went from 189 at end of October to 14 yesterday (in WA state, not total). It’s unusual, at least in the nearly 3 years I’ve been monitoring. Could be due largely due to Amazon hiring freeze.

Amazon is required by its FCC license to get over 1,600 Kuiper satellites launched in the next 40 months. The first two are only scheduled for launch on the first Vulcan launch now targeting a late March liftoff. As test prototypes, they will have to be tested for a period of time in orbit, followed by an assessment that might require changes in the design and construction of later satellites. These satellites would then have to be launched at an unprecedented rate, almost faster than anything SpaceX has done with its Starlink constellation.

At the moment it thus seems impossible for Amazon to meet the FCC deadline.

That the company appears to have stopped hiring space-related positions in Seattle at this very moment makes that goal even more impossible. This hiring freeze thus suggests that management has decided that the Kuiper project is untenable and is quietly cutting it off at the knees.

Or it could be that the hiring freeze is instead an indication that Amazon is slowly shifting operations out of leftist and insane Washington state. If so, work on the Kuiper project, including hiring, might be going on elsewhere.

Regardless, the state of the Kuiper project continues to be tenuous and uncertain, at best.

Hat tip to Jay, BtB’s stringer.

Developments at the Houston Spaceport industry park

Link here. The article gives a detailed review of the various space-related businesses (Axiom, Intuitive Machines, Collins Aerospace) that have set up operations at this industry park focused on attracting space companies to the Houston area.

The park in a sense in misnamed, as it isn’t a launch facility. However, it is now building a taxiway that will connect the park directly to Ellington Airport, which for these businesses will help facilitate the transport of large space station modules and lunar landers.

SpaceX successfully launches 49 Starlink satellites and a D-Orbit space tug

SpaceX today successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to launch 49 Starlink satellites as well as a D-Orbit space tug carrying one of its own customer’s satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage successfully completed its seventh flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. The D-Orbit tug with its four payloads has also successfully deployed.

The 2023 launch race:

7 SpaceX
5 China
1 Rocket Lab
1 Japan

American private enterprise leads China 8 to 5 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 8 to 6.

German rocket startup Isar Aerospace gets first American customer

The German rocket startup Isar Aerospace, which hopes to complete the first launch of its Spectrum rocket this year, has signed its first launch contract with an American company, the satellite broker and space tug company Spaceflight.

U.S.-based launch services provider Spaceflight said Jan. 25 it has booked a dedicated launch in 2026 from Isar Aerospace, the German rocket developer aiming to perform the first test flight of its Spectrum vehicle this year. The mission is slated to lift off from Isar’s launchpad in Andøya, Norway, to sun-synchronous orbit (SSO).

Their agreement also includes an option for an additional dedicated launch in 2025, which Isar chief commercial officer Stella Guillen told SpaceNews could also use a launchpad it is developing at the Guiana Space Center near Kourou, French Guiana.

Spaceflight has been scrambling to find rockets for its tugs, since SpaceX announced in March 2022 it would no longer carry them. It signed a deal with Arianespace to fly on its Vega rocket, but launch failures have delayed its launch.

Isar is one of three German rocket startups vying for business. The race to be the first to launch remains very tight.

SpaceX successfully launches a record 56 Starlink satellites

SpaceX early today successfully launched a record 56 Starlink satellites on a single Falcon 9 rocket, which also carried a record mass for the rocket.

The first stage successfully landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic, completing its 9th flight. The fairing halves completed the 6th and 7th flights.

The 2023 launch race:

6 SpaceX
5 China
1 Rocket Lab
1 Japan

American private enterprise now leads China 7 to 5 in the national ranks, and the entire world combined 7 to 6.

Arianespace’s chief condemns the idea of independent private European rocket companies

Stéphane Israël, the head of Arianespace, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) commercial rocket division, yesterday strongly condemned the idea of allowing independent private European rocket companies to develop and compete with his government operation.

“It is not possible to copy-paste the US model,” he said. “It is not possible. The level of space spending in the United States is five times higher than in Europe, and the private capital is not the same. So if the answer is to say let’s do what the US has done, I think we will not manage to do it.”

Moreover, Israël said the European Space Agency must resist supporting microlaunchers to the point where these companies might compete with the existing capabilities.

“A huge mistake would be that this focus on microlaunchers destabilizes Ariane 6 and Vega C—it would be a historic mistake,” he said. “Microlaunchers can be of support to boost innovation. But we should not make any confusion. This launcher will never give autonomous access to space to Europe. They’re on a niche market representing maybe 10 percent of the market, and less than that when it comes to European needs.”

He said this in Brussels at the 15th European Space Conference, where it appears he was trying to convince the ESA to block any competition with Arianespace.

Israël might say this, but not only has his track record in predicting the success of commercial space in the U.S. been bad, other European governments are not taking his advice. Both Germany and the United Kingdom have several rocket startups gearing up for their first launches this year, with others in Spain and France not far behind. Moreover, Israël doesn’t have much to offer in competition. Arianespace’s Vega rocket, intended to be a low cost option, has failed on three of its last eight launches. The Ariane 6 rocket is years behind schedule, and has not yet launched. And both are overpriced and cannot compete, not only with the American rocket startups but with India’s government rockets.

Moreover, those European governments have in recent years been taking control and power away from Israël and Arianespace. Unlike earlier rockets, the Ariane 6 rocket is not controlled or owned by Arianespace. Instead, it belongs to ArianeGroup, the partnership of Airbus and Safran that is building it. Arianespace’s role in operating it will be greatly limited, once it begins flying.

Stacked Starship and Superheavy complete first full wet dress rehearsal countdown

SpaceX yesterday successfully completed a full wet dress rehearsal countdown of its stacked Starship prototype #24 and Superheavy prototype #7, fueling both completely and taking the countdown down to T-0.

On this rehearsal however the Superheavy engines were not fired. From two SpaceX tweets:

Starship completed its first full flight-like wet dress rehearsal at Starbase today. This was the first time an integrated Ship and Booster were fully loaded with more than 10 million pounds of propellant

Today’s test will help verify a full launch countdown sequence, as well as the performance of Starship and the orbital pad for flight-like operations

Next step: Another full wet dress rehearsal countdown that includes a short static fire test of all 33 Superheavy Raptor-2 engines. Once that is done successfully, the company will be ready for that first orbital launch.

Meanwhile, SpaceX awaits its launch license from the FAA. I remain pessimistic that it will be issued on a timely manner, as there are clear signs the Biden administration wants to use its power against Musk, whom it now sees as an enemy.

Rocket Lab successfully completes first launch from the U.S.

Using its Electron rocket, Rocket Lab yesterday placed three smallsats into orbit, launching for the first time from Wallops Island in Virginia.

The company now has three launchpads, one in Wallops and two in New Zealand. Expect its launch pace in 2023 to ramp up to, at a minimum, once per month.

The 2023 launch race:

5 China
5 SpaceX
1 Rocket Lab

In the national rankings, the U.S. leads China, 6 to 5. No one else has yet launched, though Japan plans a launch today.

First Vulcan rocket arrives at Cape Canaveral

ULA’s first Vulcan rocket has now arrived at Cape Canaveral in preparation for its planned inaugural launch before the end of March.

This first mission for Vucan will fly in a VC2S configuration. “VC” stands for “Vulcan Centaur.” The number, in this case “2,” represents the number of solid rocket boosters needed and the final letter stands for the payload fairing length.

VC2S will use a 51-foot-long Standard payload fairing. Nestled inside will be a few different payloads. This mission will send the first two Kuiper prototype satellites into Low Earth Orbit (LEO), Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander to the Moon and a Celestis Memorial Spaceflight payload into deep space. The remains of several people connected to the original Star Trek series will be launched on what Celestis dubbed the “Enterprise Flight,” including show creator Gene Roddenberry along with actors Nichelle Nichols and Jackson DeForest Kelley.

This first Vulcan launch will also be the first of two flights required by the Pentagon in order to certify Vulcan for military launches. Since ULA already has contracts for seven Vulcan military launches, it very much wants to get these two launches off this year, as soon as possible. According to the article at the link, ULA is thus aiming to fly this year those two test flights, followed quickly by the first military launch.

Whether it can complete three Vulcan launches in 2023 is quite uncertain. For example, it will need to get four more BE-4 engines from Blue Origin for the second and third launches, and there is no indication at this time that Blue Origin is close to delivering.

Then there is the delays and risks involved with this first launch. Though ULA has decades of experience building and launching rockets, the first launch of a rocket almost always experiences delays during testing. We should expect the same with Vulcan.

Assuming this schedule holds, however, this means ULA is targeting 10 launches in 2023, five Atlas-5 launches, two Delta Heavy launches, and three Vulcan launches. That would be the most launches by this company in a year since 2016.

First launch from Shetland Islands predicted for the fall

According to an official at the SaxaVord spaceport in the Shetland Islands in Scotland, its first orbital satellite launch is now expected before the end of this year.

Scott Hammond, director of operations at SaxaVord spaceport, acknowledged there is often uncertainty around timetables for private space launches. However, he said a recent agreement with a German company, Rocket Factory Augsburg, would see them begin testing their engines in the summer ahead of a launch later in the year.

He told the Press Association: “Probably in July, we’re going to start full stage testing. That will be the full, first stage, nine engines all firing for about three minutes. So that’ll be really, really impressive. I expect about four months or so of that depending on success. And then we’re looking with Rocket Factory to launch towards the end of the year, for the orbital launch.”

I would not bet a lot of money on this schedule. Rocket Factory is a German rocket startup that has never launched before, and the first launch from such startups are routinely delayed months to years. What Hammond is really doing is creating buzz for SaxaVord, even as a rival spaceport in Sutherland, Scotland, is getting built.

Investment in space dropped 58% in 2022

According to a new report by Space Capital, a New York venture capital firm, overall investment in space dropped 58% in 2022, dropping from the $47.4 billion peak in 2021 to $20.1 billion in 2022.

Space Capital, a New York-based venture capital firm, published its Space Investment Quarterly Jan. 19 for the fourth quarter of 2022. The report notes that early-stage startups fared better than later-stage and growth companies.

One exception was SpaceX, which raised $2 billion in 2022, or 32 percent of the total 2022 private investment in space infrastructure. SpaceX was also in the minority because it raised capital in both 2021 and 2022. Only 38 percent of the space infrastructure companies that raised capital in 2021 sought additional funding in 2022.

Essentially, if you remove SpaceX from the picture, major investment in space startups largely came to a halt in 2022. Furthermore, the report states that it also expects further investment in 2023 to be parsimonious. Apparently the venture capital community has realized how risky many of these space startups are (as seen by the loss of stock value for companies like Virgin Galactic, Astra, and Virgin Orbit), and is becoming more careful where it puts its money.

SpaceX completes first Starlink launch of 2023

Using a new first stage, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched 51Starlink satellites into orbit this morning from Vandenberg Space Force Base, the first Starlink launch of 2023.

The first stage successfully landed on a drone ship in the Pacific.

At present, SpaceX and China are tied for the lead in the 2023 launch race, each having completed 5 launches so far this year. No one else has launched as yet.

The COVID jab: An emerging health disaster whose name cannot be spoken

Sudden collapse
One of many sudden collapses. Click for full video.

While from the beginning it appeared that the various COVID shots from different pharmaceutical companies were relatively safe to take, time is proving this assumption to be very false, with the data increasingly suggesting that the jab not only poses a significant, dangerous, and immediate health risk to young people, its long term effects on everyone who either chose to get it or was forced to by government mandate could very well be disastrous.

First the immediate risks. The numbers of individuals who have died suddenly and abruptly after getting the jab has been horrifying and shocking. Never in my life have I seen so many young and healthy people suddenly keeling over in public situations and dying. This story underlines the horror of the situation:

Such occurrences were unheard of prior to 2021. As noted at the link, “In fact, 500% more soccer players in the EU are dropping dead from heart attacks than just one year ago.” To capture the real horror of these events you need only watch the short video at this link. The thread that follows provides further documentation of this epidemic of “sudden death” and its apparent connection to the COVID shots.

Still, the actual medical link of these sudden heart failures to the COVID shots remains somewhat tentative, though more and more research is tying the two together.

From the last link:
» Read more

Hakuto-R completes five of ten milestones on test flight

Ispace’s private commercial lunar lander, Hakuto-R, has now completed five of the ten milestones the company had established before launch as its goals on this first test flight to the Moon.

The first five milestones completed are:

  • Completion of launch preparations
  • Completion of launch and deployment
  • Establishment of a Steady Operation Status
  • Completion of the first orbital control maneuver
  • Completion of stable deep-space flight operations for one month

The next five milestones involve entering final lunar orbit and landing successfully, the most difficult milestones of all.

SpaceX to build five Starship/Superheavy prototypes in 2023

According to Elon Musk, SpaceX intends to build five Starship/Superheavy prototypes in 2023 for flight testing.

Assuming they can get launch permits, these five rockets should provide the company ample launch testing capability for at least the next two years, especially if it succeeds in landing these units and can consider reusing them in test flights.

At this moment, the launch permits from the federal government appears the main obstacle to getting this heavy lift reusable rocket tested and operational.

SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches Space Force satellites

SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket today successfully launched a Space Force communications satellite plus a secondary military payload.

The two side boosters completed their second flight, landing at Cape Canaveral. The core stage was not recovered, as planned. Actual deployment of the satellites will not occur for another six hours.

At this moment China leads SpaceX 5 to 3 in the 2023 launch race. No one else has as yet launched successfully.

Stratolaunch’s Roc airplane completes 2nd captive-carry test flight

Stratolaunch’s giant Roc airplane, the largest in existence, successfully completed its second captive-carry test flight, carrying a Talon-A (TA-0) hypersonic test vehicle under its central fuselage during take-off and landing.

The flight set a new duration record lasting a total of six hours and reached a maximum altitude of 22,500 ft., representing another important step forward in the company’s near-term goal of completing separation testing with TA-0. Primary test objectives included flight outside of the local Mojave area for the first time and evaluation of the separation environment. Roc and TA-0’s onboard data systems provide critical information on the aerodynamic loads and moments prior to release of TA-0, helping to ensure safe separation of the vehicle from Roc. The flight team also practiced chase formation and communication sequencing for the upcoming separation test.

The company has a contract with the Air Force to use the operational Talon-1 spacecraft, released from Roc, to do hypersonic test flights, hopefully in the first half of 2023.

Sweden cuts ribbon on Esrange spaceport

Sweden yesterday officially inaugurated a new commercial launch site at the Esrange spaceport that the ESA had used previously for suborbital tests.

The site is an extension of the Esrange Space Centre in Sweden’s Arctic, around 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the town of Kiruna. Around 15 million euros ($16.3 million) have been invested in the site, which is expected to serve as a complement to Europe’s space hub at Kourou in French Guiana. It will also provide launch capabilities at a time when cooperation with Russia and the Baikonur launch site in Kazakhstan has been curtailed by the war in Ukraine.

Esrange’s state-owned operator, the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC), aims to launch its first satellite from the site “in the first quarter of 2024”, a spokesman told AFP on Friday.

At this moment, there are three commercial rocket spaceports racing to complete the first orbital launch from Europe. Esrange in Sweden and the two UK spaceports, Spaceport Sutherland in Scotland and SaxaVord in the Shetland Islands. Cornwall in the UK is an airport, so it can only launch rockets that use an airplane, which essentially limits its launch customers to Virgin Orbit.

Touring the largest organ in the world

An evening pause: Specifically, this tour takes us from the bottom to the top of the largest pipe, and then shows us what comes out when you play it.

Hat tip Judd Clark, who provides this additional information:

Constructed between May 1929 and December 1932, the Main Auditorium Organ is the “Poseidon”, built by the Midmer-Losh Organ Company, and is the world’s largest pipe organ. Also included in this organ are pipes operating on 100 inches of pressure, the Grand Ophicleide being the loudest and also most famous. The instrument has an estimated 33,113 pipes and requires approximately 600 horsepower (450 kW) of blowers to operate.

FCC votes to create its own space bureaucracy, despite lacking statutory authority

On January 9, 2023 the commissioners of the Federal Communications Commission FCC voted [pdf] to create its own space bureaucracy designed to regulate the lifespan of new satellites, despite lacking legal authority to do so.

As noted almost as an aside by this news article,

In order for the planned changes to go into effect, the FCC will first have to obtain congressional approval for the reorganization and place a notice in the Federal Register.

This vote pushed forward the plan announced in November that attempts to expand the regulatory power of the FCC beyond its legal authority. Expect Congress to push back somewhat, but right now most power in Washington is held by unelected bureaucracies like the FCC, not the elected legislators as defined by the Constitution. The FCC will continue to push hard, and mostly win in this power game. Congress right now is too divided and weak to fight back.

The result will be new regulations on satellite construction made by non-engineers and paper-pushers in the FCC, not engineers and managers in the companies actually building the satellites.

German rocket startup signs deal with UK spaceport

Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA), a German rocket startup, has signed a deal with the SaxaVord spaceport in the Shetland Islands of Scotland to fly its first launch from there later this year.

Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA) has signed a multi-year deal with the SaxaVord spaceport, being built in Unst, for the first launch of its satellite-carrying rockets. After testing at the site in mid-2023, it hopes to launch to a 500km orbit by the end of the year.

Because of the failure of the Virgin Orbit launch from Cornwall earlier this week, the honor of being the first orbital launch from within the United Kingdom remains ungrabbed. Both SaxaVord and Spaceport Sutherland, also in Scotland but at a different location, are now competing for that honor. Both now have planned launches this year, assuming the Civil Aviation Authority of the UK can issue a permit in less than fifteen months.

Meanwhile, Rocket Factory is competing with two other German startups for the honor of being the first commercial private European rocket company to reach orbit.

Saudi Arabia withdraws from Moon Treaty

On January 5, 2023, Saudi Arabia submitted its official withdrawal [pdf] from Moon Treaty, to be effective one year later.

The 1979 Moon Treaty is not the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which almost all space-faring nations have signed. The Moon Treaty has been signed by almost no one because its language literally forbids private ownership.

In a sense, the Artemis Accords, which Saudi Arabia recently signed, is in direct conflict with the Moon Treaty, and no nation can really honor both. The Artemis Accords were designed by the Trump administration to get around the less stringent restrictions on private enterprise imposed by the Outer Space Treaty. That it has encouraged the Saudis to leave the Moon Treaty, however, suggests that the Artemis Accords might eventually cause a major abandonment of the Outer Space Treaty as well. To withdraw from such treaties up until now has been considered taboo. Saudi Arabia might have broken that spell.

If so, this action by the Saudis could be the best news for the future exploration and settlement of the solar system that has occurred in years, even more significant than that first vertical landing of a Falcon 9 rocket. It might finally force a major revision in the Outer Space Treaty so that each nation’s laws can be applied to its own colonies.

World View gets new lease from Pima County

Because the original lease was ruled unconstitutional under the Arizona state constitution, Pima County yesterday approved a new lease for the high altitude balloon company World View.

The original deal had the county build the building. World View would lease it for 20 years, guarantee employment of 400 people, and then buy the facility for $10 at the end of the lease. This was ruled unconstitutional.

Lesher said [the new lease] will give the county more flexibility and a safeguard when it comes to those terms and they’ll be able to base the appraisal price on a percentage of the fair market value. Another big change – the employee benchmark has been significantly lowered. In the original contract, World View was required to hire 400 workers, now that’s down to 125.

Until more details are provided, it is unclear what has changed to make the new deal acceptable to the courts. I suspect the big change is that World View will not have an option to buy for $10.

ABL’s first launch attempt fails

The first launch of ABL’s RS1 rocket failed yesterday when the first stage engines shut down right after liftoff so that the rocket fell back onto the launchpad and exploded.

The company said in subsequent updates that the nine engines in its first stage shut down simultaneously after liftoff, causing the vehicle to fall back to the pad and explode. The company did not disclose when after liftoff the shutdown took place or the altitude the rocket reached. The explosion damaged the launch facility but no personnel were injured.

This rocket startup has raised several hundred million dollars, with its chief investor Lockheed Martin, which has also signed a contract for as many as 58 RS1 launches.

Starlink and National Science Foundation sign deal coordinating spectrum use

SpaceX and the National Science Foundation (NSF) today signed an agreement coordinating the use of radio spectrum so that Starlink satellites will not interfere with radio astronomy.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) and SpaceX have finalized a radio spectrum coordination agreement to limit interference from the company’s Starlink satellites to radio astronomy assets operating between 10.6 and 10.7 GHz. The agreement, detailed in a statement released by NSF today, ensures that Starlink satellite network plans will meet international radio astronomy protection standards, and protect NSF-funded radio astronomy facilities, including the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) and the Green Bank Observatory (GBO).

This deal was part of a larger negotiation with the entire astronomy community to limit the problems caused to astronomy by the 3,000-plus Starlink satellites presently in orbit. These other actions include

…continuing to work to reduce the optical brightness of their satellites to 7th visual magnitude or fainter by physical design changes, attitude maneuvering, or other ideas to be developed; maintaining orbital elevations at ~700 km or lower; and providing orbital information publicly that astronomers can use for scheduling observations around satellite locations.

This agreement demonstrates again that SpaceX has tried hard to be a good citizen in this matter. It also illustrates once again that ground-based astronomical observations is becoming increasingly impractical. Astronomers have to go to space, and if Starship flies as SpaceX desires, the company will provide them a way to do it.

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