Tag: government

Some space startups threatened by Silicon Valley Bank failure

9:41 am

Link here. The companies mentioned in the article are Astra, BlackSky, Planet, Redwire, Rocket Lab, and Space Perspective.

Rocket Lab has about 8% of its cash assets now trapped by the closure. All the companies had loans from Silicon Valley Bank, some of which were paid off prior to the crash. This quote suggests the situation is critical for some space startups:

“It’s a very serious situation,” said a space sector entrepreneur who asked not to be identified. “Our balance is suddenly only $450. There has been no communication from SVB even after the event became known. Our primary SVB liaison, who has been very attentive in the past, is unreachable by any means. It’s appalling.”

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Today’s blacklisted American: Mother sued by teacher’s union for requesting her child’s kindergarten curriculum

2:14 pm

Nicoletta-Solas
Nicoletta-Solas testifying to Congress

They’re coming for you next: Nicoletta Solas, a Rhode Island mother of a 5-year-old, was harassed by her school board and sued by the National Education Association (NEA), the largest teacher’s union in the nation, for simply requesting her child’s kindergarten curriculum. As she stated bluntly during her testimony at House hearing on March 2, 2023,

If you ask questions about public education, they will come after you. … My school district and my teachers’ union didn’t want to just hide the curriculum from me, they wanted to ruin my life.

Below is video of her full testimony. All she wanted to know was whether the school would be teaching queer theory to her 5-year-old. The ugly and vicious response to this request, by the school, the school board, and the NEA, is striking.
» Read more

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Biden administration proposes more budget increases for NASA

10:25 am

In releasing its proposed federal budget for 2024 with many major spending increases, the Biden administration has also proposed a significant increase in NASA’s budget. the third year in a row it has done so.

The shortened summary version of the Biden budget proposal [pdf] covers its proposals for NASA in two pages, with the most important proposals as follows:

  • A half billion dollar increase in the budget for the Artemis program for a total of $8.1 billion.
  • A commitment to partner on Europe’s ExoMars Franklin rover mission, replacing Russia.
  • $949 million to develop the Mars sample return mission to bring back Perseverance’s core samples.
  • $180 million to begin development of “a space tug” that can de-orbit ISS as well as “be useful for other space transportation missions.”
  • $1.39 billion for developing new space technologies, an increase of $190 million.

The last two items will likely be money offered to many new commercial startups.

Though we can expect some resistance by the Republican House to most of the budget increases in the overall Biden budget proposal, expect Congress to rubber stamp the NASA increases, as it has done routinely in recent years. Congress might shift or reject some of these ideas, but generally, when all is said and done, it will only make superficial changes. NASA will likely more money.

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House subcommittee proposes five bills that would change FCC operations

10:06 am

The House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on March 8, 2023 approved five bills affecting the FCC and how it operates.

The first bill [pdf], Satellite and Telecommunications Streamlining Act, is the most significant, as it appears to try to establish legal limitations and rules specifically designed to address the FCC’s recent effort to expand its power and regulatory authority beyond what its legal authority allows. While most of the bill’s language appears to allow the FCC to do what it wants (including limiting or regulating future space stations and setting lifetime limits on all orbiting spacecraft), it also insists that licenses be approved quickly and adds this caveat:

[T]he Commission may not establish performance objectives that conflict with any standard practice adopted by the Secretary of Commerce.

In other words, the FCC cannot grab the regulatory responsibilities of other agencies, especially the Commerce Department, where Congress in recent years has been trying to shift most commercial regulatory authority.

Nonetheless, this bill appears to mostly endorse the FCC ‘s power grab.

The bills still have to be approved by the full committee, then approved by the full House, then approved by the Senate, and then signed by the president.

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Russia considering bringing Soyuz launched on February 23rd home earlier

9:35 am

According to unnamed sources in the Russian press, Roscosmos officials are considering bringing the Soyuz capsule launched on February 23rd to ISS back to Earth in June rather than September, while moving up the launch of the next Soyuz manned mission.

As noted by space journalist Anatoly Zak:

The existence of such plans indicated that specialists had still been concerned about the possibility of a critical leak in the thermal control system of the fresh crew vehicle similar to those that hit two previous transport ships. Such change in schedule would also debunk the official explanation of previous two accidents by Roskosmos and NASA as caused by meteors rather than production defects.

The two previous coolant leaks occurred about three months after launch. Bringing the Soyuz home in June would get it home in about three and a half months, suggesting the Russians are no longer confident their Soyuz and Progress spacecraft can withstand six months in space.

If this plan is adopted it will also put less strain on the crew slated to come home on that Soyuz. Their mission has been planned for six months. Extending it to a full year without any prior preparation risks serious health issues.

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China’s Long March 4C rocket launches two Earth observation satellites

9:23 am

China today used its Long March 4C rocket to launch two Earth observation satellites from one of its interior spaceports.

No word on whether the expendable first stage landed near habitable areas. In related news the upper stage of a Long March 2D rocket, launched in June 2022, burned up over Texas on March 8, 2023. Such upper stage uncontrolled de-orbits are not unusual, and the effort by this news outlet to make a big deal about it is just politics. Unlike the lower stages of China’s rockets that hit the ground right after launch, it is very unlikely any pieces reached the surface, and any that did were small and posed a small risk.

The 2023 launch race:

16 SpaceX
8 China
3 Russia
1 Rocket Lab
1 Japan
1 India

American private enterprise still leads China 17 to 8 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 17 to 13. SpaceX alone still leads the entire world, including American companies, 16 to 14.

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Pushback: Texas A&M to stop favoring minorities in hiring & admission policies

11:56 am

Texas A&M logo
Texas A&M: abandoning its discriminatory
policies?

Bring a gun to a knife fight: Less than a month after Texas governor Greg Abbott ordered all state agencies to cease considering race and gender in hiring, Texas A&M (TAMU) officials announced they were removing all mention of diversity, equity, and inclusion policies from the university’s hiring and admissions practices.

After receiving the Feb. 6 memo, Texas A&M Chancellor John Sharp immediately ordered all A&M System institutions to review their employment and admission practices and confirm their compliance, according to the university. … Sharp directed all universities and agencies within the TAMU system to remove the DEI statements from their employment or admissions practices. The directive also standardizes faculty and staff applications, limiting them to a cover letter, curriculum vitae, statements about research and teaching philosophies, and professional references. It further instructs universities and agencies to make all websites or printed materials dealing with employment and admission practices compliant with the directive, says TAMU.

Will this change anything? It appears that for now, no, not much. » Read more

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Space Force assigns launchpads to four smallsat rocket startups

9:16 am

The Space Force has assigned launchpad space at Cape Canaveral to four different new smallsat rocket startup companies, ABL Space Systems, Stoke Space, Phantom Space, and Vaya Space, none of which have yet launched.

There are currently four active launch complexes on the Eastern Range; Launch Complex 37 for ULA Delta rockets; Launch Complex 40 for SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets; Launch Complex 41 for ULA Atlas rockets; and Launch Complex 39A, which is owned by NASA.

ABL Space Systems, which has the RS1 rocket, has been allocated property at Space Launch Complex 15. ABL’s first orbital attempt in January failed. Stoke Space was allocated property at SLC 14. The launcher is based in Washington state and working to develop a fully reusable rocket. And Phantom Space and Vaya Space were allocated space at SLC 13. Phantom Space is developing the Daytona Launch System and executed a successful hot fire test in November.

This article provides a nice overview of the four companies, of which Vaya is the newest entrant into the smallsat rocket industry.

Space Force officials have made it clear they want to maximize use of their facility at the Cape, while helping to energize this private commercial market.

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ISS maneuvers to avoid satellite

9:02 am

Though a collision was unlikely, Russian engineers fired the engines of a docked Progress freighter on March 6, 2023 to adjust ISS’s orbits in order to guaranteethat an Earth-observation satellite would fly past harmlessly.

At approximately 7:42 a.m. (12:42 GMT), thrusters on the Progress 83 resupply vessel currently docked with the International Space Station (ISS) fired for a little more than six minutes, raising the station’s orbit to prevent the potential collision, NASA said in a blog post (opens in new tab).

The satellite in question appears to have been an Argentinian Earth-observation satellite launched in 2020, according to Sandra Jones, from NASA’s Johnson Space Center. In a tweet, Dr. Jonathan McDowell, astronomer and astrophysicist at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, narrowed the possible candidates down to Nusat-17, noting the constellation’s orbital decay.

The article at the link includes a nice graph showing the number of times per year engineers have had to do this since 1999. The number of such maneuvers ranges from 0 to 5 per year, with no clear trend up or down. That lack of a trend suggests the constant howls claiming that space junk is a growing problem might be a bit overstated. This is not to say it isn’t a problem, merely that the problem might not be as severe as some claim.

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America’s blacklist culture: Survey finds almost half of America’s major corporations are eagerly willing to blacklist others

1:00 pm

1792 Exchange: Exposing oppression in corporate America
1792 Exchange: Exposing blacklisting in
corporate America

They’re coming for you next: A survey by the non-profit 1792 Exchange has found that almost half of a list of 1,000+ major corporations, from Google to Kroger, are very willing and eager to “cancel a contract or client, or boycott, divest, or deny services based on views or beliefs.”

Of these, 160 companies were found to be “high risk” for blacklisting. For example, its report [pdf] on high-risk Coca-Cola found the following:

Coca-Cola Co. has demonstrated a willingness to terminate relationships with organizations based on ideology and require unconstitutional diversity mandates from vendors and suppliers. It lacks policies to prevent viewpoint discrimination, while it denounced local legislative efforts to reform election security and protect the unborn. Coca-Cola will not give to faith-based charities but gives to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Based on its policies and past practices, Coca-Cola Company receives a “High Risk” rating.

Note that Pepsi was also considered “high-risk”, even though it was slightly less willing to blacklist. According to the survey’s report of Pepsi [pdf]:
» Read more

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ISRO successfully de-orbits defunct satellite

9:09 am

Last orbit of MT1

ISRO announced today that it successfully de-orbited the defunct Earth observation MT1 satellite on March 7, 2023, bringing it down over the Pacific Ocean.

The map to the right shows the timing of the last two de-orbit burns during the satellite’s last orbit.

MT1’s orbit was high enough so that it would have remained in space for about 100 more years, with a lot of fuel that might have caused an explosion and the release of many pieces of space junk. ISRO managers decided to allocate the funds to use that fuel to de-orbit it, as a test for making this a routine part of any satellite end-of-mission.

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Post-Artemis-1 report: heat shield ablated more than expected; power system issued unexpected commands; damage to launchpad

8:56 am

In a March 7, 2023 briefing, NASA officials provided an overall report of what happened during the first SLS launch, noting that there were some minor engineering issues but none that appeared to them significant.

The biggest issue of note was the Orion heat shield.

Howard Hu, Orion program manager at NASA, said that material on the heat shield had ablated differently than what engineers expected from ground tests and computer models. “We had more liberation of the charred material during reentry than we had expected,” he said. Engineers are just beginning detailed analysis of the heat shield to determine why it behaved differently than expected.

The amount ablated was well within safety margins, but engineers still do not understand why the material behaved differently than expected.

Engineers are also trying to understand why the power system of the Orion service module issued unplanned commands, several times opening what officials called a “latching current limiter.” This action caused no problems to the capsule’s operations, but it is concerning it occurred.

The launch also did more damage to the mobile launcher tower than expected.

According to NASA officials, none of these issues will delay the planned November 2024 launch date for the Artemis-2 mission, the first intended to carry humans.

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America’s blacklist culture: Republican in Florida proposes bill to regulate speech

1:09 pm

Jason Brodeur: Republican politician in love with restricting free speech
Jason Brodeur: Republican politician in love with
restricting free speech

They’re coming for you next: The desire of people in our culture today to control and regulate the behavior of everyone else is not a partisan thing. Though the Democrats and their leftist allies have certainly led the way in blacklisting, censoring, and destroying anyone who disagrees with them, Republican politicians are just as likely to try to use their power to squelch opposition, and should never be trusted either.

Today we have a perfect example of this non-partisan lust for power. On March 7, 2023, Florida Republican state senator Jason Brodeur introduced a bill that would amend state law to require all websites to register with the government if they made any money reporting on government actions.

You can read the bill here. The underlined portions are the sections that Brodeur wishes to add to the law. The key paragraphs state the following:
» Read more

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Fuel spill cleanup begins at Space Force telescope facility in Maui, Hawaii

9:52 am

The cleanup of the diesel fuel spill that occurred on January 29, 2023 at Space Force telescope facility on the top of the dormant volcano Haleakala on the island of Maui in Hawaii began last week.

Samples of the soil will be sent for testing to determine that it has been excavated to a depth that captures all the diesel fuel, the Air Force said. All the soil from those test samples, as well as the mass of earth removed, will be stored, cleaned and returned to the ground, according to the approved plan.

Hawaiians regard Haleakala’s summit as sacred and that no soil or stones should be removed from the site.

The facility is used by the U.S. military to track orbiting objects, from satellites to space junk.

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UK awards $1.9 million in development grants to universities and private companies

9:44 am

The space agency of the United Kingdom today announced the award of nearly $1.9 million in grants to six universities and two private companies to do a variety of space engineering research.

The stated goal of the grants is to encourage the growth of a private space sector in the UK, as stated by one official in the press release:

Today’s funding is part of the government’s strategy to use our £5 billion investment in space science and technology to grow our £16.5 billion commercial space sector to create the businesses, jobs and opportunities of tomorrow, and the space clusters from Cornwall to Scotland.

The university research from these grants will thus hopefully produce viable products that the researchers can then use to establish private space companies.

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South Korea commits $38 million to support space startups

9:33 am

The South Korean government has now established a space investment fund committed to raising $38 million to support startups in its nascent private space industry.

It will be interesting to see which management companies are selected to operate the fund and how the investment process will work. This initiative can potentially create exciting new opportunities for startups, entrepreneurs, researchers, and other stakeholders in the space industry and position South Korea as a leader in this field.

…The Korean Ministry of Science and ICT plans to invest 5 billion won [$3.8 million] this year to create a fundraising fund. The goal of creating a total fund of more than 50 billion won [$38 million] by 2027 is ambitious and demonstrates the government’s commitment to promoting private investment in the space industry.

It is very unclear what this project entails. Will the government budget the investment capital, or is it establishing a private venture capital investment firm that will in turn seek out the money from the private sector?

Either way, it appears the South Korean government wants to encourage the growth in a private commercial space industry.

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Japan’s new H3 rocket’s second stage fails during first launch

7:10 pm

Japan’s new H3 rocket failed today on its first launch when something went wrong at second stage ignition, after separation from first stage.

Once controllers realized the rocket would not reach orbit, they initiated a self-destruct sequence, ending the mission.

This is very bad news for Japan’s space effort. Right now it does not have a viable competitive commercial rocket industry. All rocket construction is supervised and controlled by its space agency JAXA, which almost exclusively uses Mitsubishi to build what it wants. With the H3 failing (built by Mitsubishi) and the H2A and H2B (both also built by Mitsubishi) slated for retirement, JAXA does not have a rocket it can use for future missions.

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A blacklist victory? Professor wins million dollar settlement for being blacklisted

1:37 pm

Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, blacklisted for being Jewish
Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, blacklisted for being
white, Jewish, and willing to speak the truth.

Today’s blacklist story is a followup on one from April 2022, in which Jewish English professor at Linfield University in Oregon, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, was fired without due process because he reported the sexual misconduct of four of the university’s ten trustees. Before they fired him however school officials, including its university president and chair of the board of trustees Miles Davis, spewed anti-Semetic comments against him, including joking about sending Jews to gas chambers.

Pollack-Pelzner has now gotten some financial satisfaction in the courts, though hardly justice.

Linfield University has agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by former Professor Daniel Pollack-Pelzner for $1,037,500 in compensation for emotional distress, lost wages, and attorney fees.

The University insists that it is not admitting guilt and only wants to avoid further loss of “time and energy from the mission of the institution.” If so, it found a weird way of doing it. They have litigated this weak case for two years and were compelled to reach a seven figure settlement.

» Read more

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ISRO attempting controlled reentry of old satellite originally lacking in such plans

9:54 am

India’s space agency ISRO has been attempting the controlled reentry of an old India-French climate satellite that had originally been placed in a high enough orbit that de-orbit was not expected.

An uninhabited area in the Pacific Ocean between 5°S to 14°S latitude and 119°W to 100°W longitude has been identified as the targeted re-entry zone for the [Megha-Tropiques-1 (MT1)]. Since Aug 2022, 18 orbit manoeuvres have been performed to progressively lower the orbit and on March 7 the ground impact is expected to take place between 4.30 p.m. and 7.30 p.m. IST.

The satellite, once no longer able to do its primary function, still had a lot of fuel left that left it a threat. ISRO managers decided to use that fuel to lower the high orbit — where MT1 was expected to remain for at least 100 years — so that the satellite could be brought down safely now.

The real story here is ISRO’s decision to commit funds to pay for this work. Until recently, most satellites are launched without any funding to remove them once launched. SpaceX changed this with its Starlink constellation, with deorbit always included as part of each satellite’s operational plan.

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AGs from 22 states blast Biden’s attempt to illegally insert racial quotas and climate change into federal contracting law

1:56 pm

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Joe Biden imposes Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s
Green New Deal on all federal contractors

In May 2021 President Biden signed an executive order [pdf] requiring federal agencies to make climate change and helping “disadvantaged communities and communities of color” a major priority in all their work.

That executive order, which in many ways was simply a rewording of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s communist and bigoted Green New Deal, required agencies to do things like reconsider where their pension funds were invested and to change those investments — not to get the best return on the dollar as required by law — but to protect them from “the threats of climate-related financial risk.”

The executive order also demanded that the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council (FARC) require federal contractors to:

…publicly disclose greenhouse gas emissions and climate-related financial risk and to set science-based reduction targets; and (ii) ensure that major Federal agency procurements minimize the risk of climate change, including requiring the social cost of greenhouse gas emissions to be considered in procurement decisions and, where appropriate and feasible, give preference to bids and proposals from suppliers with a lower social cost of greenhouse gas emissions. [emphasis mine]

» Read more

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ESA attributes Vega-C launch failure to faulty nozzle from the Ukraine

8:49 am

The European Space Agency (ESA) has concluded that the launch failure of the second stage of Arianespace’s Vega-C rocket on December 20, 2022 was caused by a faulty nozzle produced by a company in the Ukraine.

[T]he Commission confirmed that the cause was an unexpected thermo-mechanical over-erosion of the carbon-carbon (C-C) throat insert of the nozzle, procured by Avio in Ukraine. Additional investigations led to the conclusion that this was likely due to a flaw in the homogeneity of the material.

The anomaly also revealed that the criteria used to accept the C-C throat insert were not sufficient to demonstrate its flightworthiness. The Commission has therefore concluded that this specific C-C material can no longer be used for flight. No weakness in the design of Zefiro 40 has been revealed. Avio is implementing an immediate alternative solution for the Zefiro 40’s nozzle with another C-C material, manufactured by ArianeGroup, already in use for Vega’s Zefiro 23 and Zefiro 9 nozzles.

The press release goes to great length to reassure everyone that these Ukrainian nozzles are still flightworthy, that the fix is merely changing the material used in the nozzle’s throat insert.

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JAXA reschedules first H3 rocket launch following investigation

8:39 am

Japan’s space agency JAXA has rescheduled its second attempt to launch its new H3 rocket for March 6, 2023, following the completion of its investigation into the launch abort at T-0 on February 16, 2023.

As a result of the investigation, it is estimated that the first-stage flight controller malfunctioned due to transient fluctuations in the communication and power lines that occurred during electrical separation between the rocket and the ground facilities.

As a result, the solid rocket strap-on boosters did not ignite as planned, and the rocket’s computer, sensing this anomaly, shut down its main engines. The press release says they are installing “countermeasures” but provides no other information.

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Denial in the post-COVID era

2:47 pm

For too many, it is too difficult to enter the Truth booth
For too many, it is too difficult to enter the Truth booth

The stream of new data about the failures of all the policies imposed on free Americans during the Wuhan panic has become so consistent and repetitive that, to a certain extent, I have become bored reporting it — especially because I have been reporting these facts over and over again since March 2020.

Nonetheless, it is important to do so. When the next new flu-type strain appears, and the power-hungry thugs that run our government try to fear-monger us all to gain power, it will help the general citizenry resist that fear-mongering by having more knowledge.

This essay is also partly inspired by my own doctor, Robert Lending, M.D., who since 2020 has been sending out periodic email updates on the state of the epidemic. From the beginning Lending tried to be as neutral as possible, avoiding any political battles or taking sides. He was not against lockdowns or mask mandates, but he also respected those that opposed them. Thus, he did not insist his patients where masks, especially when they had health reasons to not do so, unlike almost all other doctors. Nor did he ever require the jab to see his patients. His updates simply reported on the research and situation at the time, based on real data.

His most recent update, #107, however was different. It began with this blunt headline: “Should we start renaming COVID-19 to Pfizer-23?” and continued like so:
» Read more

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UK’s bureaucracy blasted for delaying Virgin Orbit launch

10:10 am

At parliamentary hearings yesterday, the United Kingdom’s Cival Aviation Authority (CAA) was heavily criticized by commercial satellite companies for delaying the launch Cornwall launch by Virgin Orbit by six months.

The harshest words came from a manager at Space Forge, that lost a satellite on that launch when Virgin Orbit’s rocket failed to reach orbit.

Patrick McCall, non-executive director at Space Forge, told MPs on the Science and Technology Select Committee, that if the company sought to launch again in the UK it would be given “short shrift” by investors. “I think unless there is a seismic change in that approach the UK is not going to be competitive from a launch perspective,” he said. “There is no chance that Josh Western [the Space Forge CEO] would win the argument to do the next launch in the UK. Even if the UK came and said you can do it for free, I would say don’t do that.

“I don’t think it’s deliberate, I think people at the CAA want to make it happen, but it’s not working, and either we change that with a seismic shift or we save the money and spend it on other things which are achievable.”

The delay also caused Virgin Orbit serious financial problems, as it prevented it from doing any other launches in 2022, resulting in a significant loss of income.

The committee chair, MP Greg Clark, underlined the testimony afterward:

“It’s a disaster isn’t it?” he said: “We attempted to show what we are capable of, and the result is it’s now toxic for a privately funded launch. We had the first attempted launch but the result is that you as an investor in space are saying there is no chance of investors supporting another launch from the UK with the current regulator conditions.”

During the hearings CAA officials justified their actions, and appeared unwilling to consider any changes.

There are two spaceports now being built in Scotland. If the CAA is not forced to change, it is very likely that commercial satellite companies will find other places in Europe to launch, such as the new Esrange spaceport being developed in Sweden.

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Today’s blacklisted Americans: Pro-lifers banned from the Washington Monument because it is a “First Amendment-free zone”

12:41 pm

banned by the Biden administration
Banned apparently by the Biden administration

They’re coming for you next: As part of the annual pro-life March for Life demonstration in DC on January 20, 2023, volunteers running a food table were forced to move away from the Washington Monument because, as one park ranger told them, they were in a “First Amendment-free zone.”

The women were setting up a table to provide some fellow pro-life supporters with bagels and coffee when a park ranger told them they were in a “First Amendment-free zone” and had to move out of the granite plaza surrounding the famous obelisk. They relocated on the grass, inches next to the plaza, with the approval of the park ranger. Later, a police officer approached the ladies and told them they were allegedly “getting complaints” about their table being on the path. Police told them they had to leave, and the women complied.

These women had set up the same table at the same spot the year before, with no problems.

Though the granite plaza itself is considered a “restricted zone” where “Activities may only occur within these areas on specified dates to maintain the contemplative and respectful environment of the memorial,” these women were only running a craft service table, an activity that the park service only the year before did not consider a violation of this rule.

Furthermore, we know this was not the reason the ranger and police officer moved to remove them. By his own words, the ranger called this area a “First Amendment-free zone,” thus telling them that they were not allowed to express their opinions there and had to leave, even though the park website itself specifically contradicts this ranger, proudly stating that.
» Read more

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UK bureaucracy provisionally clears Viasat-Inmarsat merger

9:40 am

We’re here to help you! The United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has now provisionally approved the merger deal between the two communications satellite companies Viasat and Inmarsat by admitting the obvious, that the deal will do nothing to reduce competition in the presently thriving communications satellite industry.

Over the past 4 months, an independent CMA panel has gathered and scrutinised a wide range of evidence in order to better understand the sector, as well as the potential impact of the deal. This included internal documents from Viasat and Inmarsat, as well as the companies’ competitors (including their plans for future expansion); evidence from airlines; the CMA’s own analysis of sector conditions – and how these could change.

…The CMA’s investigation into the Viasat/Inmarsat deal has provisionally found that, while the companies compete closely in the aviation sector – specifically in the supply of satellite connections for onboard wifi – the deal does not substantially reduce competition for services provided on flights used by UK customers.

Duh. In other words, these bureaucrats spent four months determining what is self-evident to every person who pays any attention to the business of space. Furthermore, both companies are badly threatened by the new players in this industry, like OneWeb and Starlink. This dithering by bureaucrats threatens their survival, as these older companies want to merge to give them the resources to better compete. Being forced to sit and wait only increases the chances that both will go bankrupt, thus reducing competition, the very thing this government agency is supposed to encourage and protect.

Not that the CMA has come to any real decision yet. As its press release notes so nobly, “Today’s findings are provisional, and the CMA will now consult on its findings and listen to any further views before reaching a final decision.”

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A Russian Mars airplane?

9:26 am

According to Russia’s state run press, a team of engineers at the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI), working in partnership with engineers from India, are developing a fixed-wing robotic airplane for use on Mars.

The work on the Marsoplane began in April 2022 after the funding request was approved by the Russian Science Fund. Karpovich believes that the team of scientists will be able to successfully test the technology demonstrator by the end of next year. “By the end of 2024, the Russian side will have to publish ten articles, build and successfully test the technology demonstrator,” she said. [emphasis mine]

It would be nice if this project succeeded but do not get your hopes up. Note the emphasis on the number of papers published. This indicates the goal of this project is not actually building this airplane, but to maintain the careers of its engineers here on Earth. In fact, the whole article has this feel, which by the way is consistent with almost all Russian space projects for the past two decades. Lots of talk, some engineering tests, but nothing real ever gets built that actually flies.

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Today’s blacklisted American: University tells student it will block her speech, even off campus and on her private time

1:56 pm

Elisa Carroll: censored by Villanova
Villanova student Elisa Carroll

They’re coming for you next: Villanova University recently told one of its students, Elisa Carroll, that it has the right to stop her from distributing pro-choice literature or contraceptives, even if she is doing it on a public sidewalk off campus and on her own time.

Carroll, recognizing that as a religious college Villanova would not provide contraceptives for its students, wanted to make them available anyway. She also recognized that she should not do it on campus, in order to respect the university’s stance. Instead, she decided to set up an unaffiliated organization that would offer such things close to but off-campus.

The university decided this was still unacceptable, and moved to forbid it.

Villanova Director of Student Involvement JJ Brown told Carroll the university would prevent her from distributing the contraceptives on a public sidewalk near campus. Brown told her that given the sidewalk’s proximity to campus and because Carroll is a Villanova student, the university could prevent her from promoting any contraceptive advocacy organizations there, including by handing out contraceptives.

In response, Carroll asked for help from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which immediately fired off a letter to Villanova, telling it in no uncertain terms the illegality as well as the immorality of its threat.
» Read more

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ESA invites private companies to build lunar satellites for communications and navigation

9:47 am

Capitalism in space: The European Space Agency (ESA) has now invited European and Canadian companies to build the lunar communications and navigation satellites that will be needed to serve the many future manned and unmanned missions presently being planned by the U.S. and Europe.

Under its Moonlight programme, ESA is inviting space companies to create these lunar services.

By acting as an anchor customer, ESA is enabling space companies involved in Moonlight to create a telecommunication and navigation service for the agency, while being free to sell lunar services and solutions to other agencies and commercial ventures.

Once Moonlight is in place, companies could create new applications in areas such as education, media and entertainment – as well as inspiring young people to study science, technology, engineering and maths, which creates a highly qualified future workforce.

According to the press release, almost 100 companies have already expressed interest.

It is however unclear how much freedom the companies will have in designing and creating these satellites, based on ESA’s own descriptions of the project. It appears that ESA wants to design them, and is simply looking for private companies to build them. Under this arrangement, ownership will not belong to the companies, even if they are given the freedom to make money selling the capability to others. In fact, past history suggests that in the end, ESA will eventually retract this part of the deal, because of its desire to fully control the satellites it designed.

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