Tag: policy

Another bad indicator relating to the UK’s space effort

2:30 pm

A space junk removal demo mission first proposed in 2024 by the United Kingdom’s space agency has apparently missed a deadline for issuing the final contract award to one of two startups to fly the mission.

The UK Space Agency has missed a deadline to award a £75.6 million contract for the country’s first mission to capture and remove dead satellites from low Earth orbit.

A call for Phase 3 of the mission’s development was published in July 2025, with the contract initially expected to be awarded by 30 March 2026. However, in its final annual report as an independent entity, published on 14 July, UKSA admitted that the contract award had been delayed. The agency is now targeting summer 2026 but has not explained the reason for the delay or provided a more precise timetable.

The two companies are Astroscale (based in Japan with a UK division) and Clearspace, which has been attempting to launch a junk removal mission for the European Space Agency now for almost a decade, with nothing getting off the ground.

This delay should not be a surprise. The Labor government that is presently in power has been in the process of shutting down the space agency, even as it has allocated a half billion dollars for space-related government projects. It has also done nothing to eliminate the red tape that is squelching its private space industry.

It thus makes great sense that this contract hasn’t been issued. For one, the bureaucracy involved is probably in chaos as the Labor government rearranges deck chairs. For another, there is probably little interest by the private sector to do any work in the UK, because the red tape there is stifling, and has already bankrupted two rocket startups and one spaceport. It is very possible both companies declined to bid. Or if they did, the confusion in the government made any decisions impossible.

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India’s government invests approximately $7 million in home-grown satellite company

9:21 am

In a complicated arrangement involving the Indian government and an Indian venture capital firm, the Indian satellite company Dhruva announced last week that it obtained approximately $7 million in private investment.

The money comes out of a government investment fund of just under $200 million — dubbed the Antariksh Venture Capital Fund — established by the agency IN-SPACe but administered by the venture capital company SIDBI Venture Capital Limited. Unlike India’s space agency ISRO — which has for decades run India’s entire space program — IN-SPACe is focused on encouraging a competitive and independent private space sector.

This was the first investment in that government investment fund, coming just before the first successful launch this past weekend by a private Indian rocket company, Skyroot. Besides building satellites, Dhruva appears to also act as a satellite aggregator, obtaining launch services from rocket companies for other satellite companies and then serving to integrate and deploy their satellites. With this investment the company now has $330 million in capital in hand.

It is a bit puzzling why this first investment went to a satellite company, rather than a rocket startup, of which India has several. For India’s space sector to really grow, it needs home-grown commercial rockets. Satellites can’t reach orbit without rockets.

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Russia launches 2nd set of Rassvet satellites

8:51 am

Russia today successfully launched 16 more Rassvet satellites as part of its own Starlink-type internet constellation, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from its Plesetsk spaceport in northeast Russia.

This launch was originally scheduled for April but never occurred. Furthermore, Russia issued multiple flight plans for this launch covering a period of 24 hours, all likely designed to prevent the Ukraine from targeting the actual launch with drones. The Ukraine considers this constellation a direct military threat, and it appears it has attempted to use drones to attack Plesetsk during earlier launches.

With this launch the Rassvet constellation has 31 satellites in orbit. It is being built by Bureau (Buro) 1440, a so-called private company in Russia, which hopes to get the full 700+ satellite constellation in orbit by 2035.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

86 SpaceX
45 China
10 Rocket Lab (plus two suborbital HASTE launches)
10 Russia

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 86 to 80.

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NASA cancels Draper/Ispace unmanned lunar lander contract

12:45 pm

Artist rendering of Ispace's Ultra lunar lander
Artist rendering of Ispace’s Ultra lunar lander

According to a press release from the Japanese lunar lander startup Ispace, NASA last week canceled its contract with Draper for a lunar lander mission in 2030, a mission that Ispace was the main subcontractor.

Ispace technologies U.S., (Ispace-U.S.) an American lunar exploration company and subsidiary of Ispace, inc. (ispace), and Draper, a non-profit research, development and manufacturing company, today announced that Draper has mutually agreed with NASA to end the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) task order CP-12.

Since July 2022, Ispace-U.S. served as a subcontractor to Draper to provide a lunar lander transportation service for NASA’s CLPS task order CP-12. Following the agreement with NASA on the primary contract, Draper and ispace-U.S. expects the mutual termination of the subcontract between the two companies.

For that 2030 mission Ispace was really the main contractor — having already built and launched two failred lunar landers — but as a Japanese company (even with a U.S. division), it needed an American company to act as lead in order to win the NASA contract. Draper fulfilled that purpose.

Draper however has little experience building lunar landers. Ispace was really doing the job. The problem was that Ispace discovered with its two failures that its original lander design was insufficient. The development of a new larger lander, dubbed Ultra, has caused significant delays.

It appears NASA and Draper decided this arrangement was not acceptable. Both were probably uncomfortable with its faux lead position. Ispace’s delays also were likely a factor.

It is certainly possible for Ispace alone to win later contracts. It has said it intends to bid. Moreover, as Japan is both a partner in the Artemis program and a signatory to the Artemis Accords, there really is little reason for NASA or Ispace to play these games. NASA can issue a contract directly to it. It simply has to make sure it issues contracts to American companies first.

Below is the present rough schedule of missions in NASA’s Artemis program, as revised under NASA administrator Jared Isaacman’s leadership, and adjusted to include this cancellation.

NASA’s Artemis mission schedule:
» Read more

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Indian’s private rocket startup Skyroot completes a perfect first launch

9:31 am

Vikram-1's perfect flight path
Click for source.

In a spectacular success, the Indian private rocket startup Skyroot today completed the first launch of its smallsat rocket Vikram-1, placing several payloads into orbit.

The graphic to the right shows the rocket’s flight path from the ground to orbit, overlaid over its nominal planned flight path. The match is precise. During the launch everything worked exactly as intended, an achievement on a first launch almost no rocket company has ever accomplished, including SpaceX.

During the broadcast there were several things I noticed that were of interest. First, Skyroot launched from India’s government spaceport at Sriharikota, operated by the country’s space agency ISRO. During normal ISRO launches the control room is filled with more than a hundred controllers, packed tightly in several rows. For this private launch, however, that control room appeared to have less than third of those numbers, many of which I suspect were ISRO employees tasked with monitoring the launch to protect the agency’s assets. Those controllers who appeared part of Skyroot’s team, in the front row, were few.

Second, in the viewing gallery at the back were several important ISRO managers, including the head of the agency. While everyone else around them cheered the success enthusiastically, they sat quiet, with some having very dour expressions. This could have simply been an effort at professionalism, but I suspect it also had an element of resentment and fear. Skyroot’s launch today of a smallsat private rocket is something ISRO has not been able to do for almost two years. The agency’s PSLV rocket has failed at launch twice in a row, and remains grounded.

In fact, right now Skyroot’s one launch is the only Indian launch of the year.

Moreover, Skyroot represents the future, and ISRO the past. The Modi government has been pushing hard to transition from the present government model, where ISRO owns, runs, and controls the entire Indian space program, to the capitalism model, where the private sector does it, and the government is merely the customer. ISRO has been somewhat resistant to this change, slow-walking many Modi directives.

This success signals the beginning of a new era in India, one in which private enterprise, competition, and freedom fuel innovation and success. It also signals an era where ISRO will become less powerful and important. Those ISRO managers know this, and some clearly didn’t like the prospect.

The leader board for the 2026 launch race remains unchanged.

86 SpaceX
45 China
10 Rocket Lab (plus two suborbital HASTE launches)
9 Russia

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 86 to 79.

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DC government workforce slashed by almost 20% since Trump took office

12:34 pm

The drop in the DC federal workforce under Trump
Click for source.

According to recent data, the number of federal workers in the Washington, D.C. area has now reached a 30 year low, reduced by 60,000, from nearly 376,000 at the start of Trump’s second term to 312,500 in May.

The graph to the right shows how Trump’s arrival instigated the drop.

The Department of Education took the heaviest blow, with nearly 40 percent of its workforce slashed in 2025 as Trump made clear his goal: to dismantle the agency outright. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Treasury weren’t far behind, each shedding roughly a quarter of their staff, with the IRS bearing the brunt as the administration moved to gut tax enforcement.

Beyond those, USAID, Agriculture, HHS, the VA, and the Department of Labor all saw double-digit percentage losses in their workforce, with USAID and the USDA especially targeted.

What must also be noted is the lack of any significant consequences resulting from these reductions. It has had no impact on life in general. In fact, all economic indicators — which say the U.S. economy is generally doing well — suggest its only impact has been free up Americans and let them get on with their lives.

This however is only a start. A lot more non-workers in DC should get their walking papers. They contribute little or nothing, while squelching the freedom of the rest of us.

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Mauritius signs Artemis Accords

8:52 am

On the same day Serbia officially signed the Artemis Accords, the island nation of Mauritius (located in the Indian Ocean) also joined, becoming the 70th nation within this American space alliance.

Serbia’s decision to join had been announced earlier this week, with the official signing today.

As Mauritius lies about thousand miles east of Africa, we could say it is part of that continent, thus raising the number of nations in that continent to have signed the accords to seven. Angola, Botswana, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Senegal are the others. For a variety of reasons, not many African nations have signed on.

The full list of nations in this American space alliance is as follows:

Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Botswana, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Morocco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

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India restricts the ability of space agency employees to leave due to recent exodus

9:08 am

The effort of India's government to defeat private enterprise
The effort of India’s government to defeat private enterprise

Turf war! In what will eventually be a useless and counter-productive dictatorial action, the Indian government has issued a directive restricting the ability of employees of its space agency ISRO from retiring or resigning, an action taken due to a recent exodus of between 100 and 120 engineers, scientists, and managers, many of whom left to take jobs in India’s nascent but growing private space sector.

In a memorandum issued on July 14, the Department of Space (DoS) directed major ISRO centres, including the UR Rao Satellite Centre (URSC) and the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), not to routinely approve resignation or voluntary retirement requests from Group ‘A’ scientific and technical personnel associated with the Gaganyaan mission and other “important missions/projects”. Instead, such requests will require scrutiny by the Department of Space before a final decision is taken.

…Under the new directive, all resignation and voluntary retirement requests from scientific and technical personnel, including those at and below the rank of scientist and engineer, must be forwarded to the Department of Space along with “clear recommendations” from the respective centre directors, who will no longer have the authority to routinely clear such requests.

Multiple news reports from India today cite a recent spate of resignations and retirements, with many of those exiting employees getting jobs in private industry, with the most notable that of former ISRO chairman S Somanath, who has taken a position on the board of directors of the rocket startup Agnikul, which hopes to launch its own reusable rocket at some point in the future.

The government claims it has taken this action to make sure it doesn’t lose critical ISRO employees needed for its Gaganyaan and space station government projects, both of which are facing delays and technical challenges.

This directive will likely fail, however, for two reasons, both of which might in the long run be beneficial to India. First, young people just out of college will see it and decide it is better to get jobs in the private sector right off the bat. Why work for someone who will try to turn you into a serf who can’t leave? Second, it will guarantee an even greater exodus over time, as ISRO employees who want to leave will now take aggressive action to get out, as soon as they can. In both cases, the directive will encourage people to work for private industry, not the government.

At the same time, this directive suggests the government and ISRO is now taking action to squelch that new private sector. This order will limit the commercial industry’s ability to hire experienced ISRO people, thus slowing its development.

Similar actions were taken by NASA in the 2000s and 2010s when the agency began its transition to the capitalism model. There was great resistance within the government to ceding power to the private sector, resistance that still exists and showed itself again during the Biden administration. That government effort in the U.S. however has largely failed, because the public has elected a government (Trump and the Republicans in Congress) that favors the private sector, and because the private sector is getting the job done.

How things will play out in India remains unknown. Its administrative state is much more powerful, and its cultural traditions are not grounded as much in private enterprise, as is the U.S.

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South Africa makes deal with Amazon for Leo internet service

8:42 am

Amazon Leo logo

While SpaceX has still not made a deal with South Africa to provide Starlink service to its citizens, Amazon yesterday announced it has finalized its own agreement to allow a South Africa telecommunications operation to sell its Leo satellite internet service there.

Amazon Leo has entered into an agreement with Herotel, South Africa’s largest fixed internet service provider, to bring satellite internet to South Africa through a new service called evry, powered by Amazon Leo. Under the agreement, Herotel will use Amazon Leo’s technology as part of Herotel’s new service evry. Evry is expected to launch commercially in 2027 to connect residential customers in South Africa. This is the first Amazon Leo agreement of this kind in Africa.

SpaceX initially refused to agree to the South African government’s demands that the company sell some ownership of its company to locals under a racial quota system that favored blacks. That racial quota system however was lifted in December 2025. For some reason however SpaceX has not worked out a deal since then (possibly because it refused to pay bribes), and so Amazon apparently moved in and grabbed the business.

Whether SpaceX can work something out as well is not known. Regardless, the competition is good, as it is always better to have more than one option in any product field.

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Serbia to sign Artemis Accords

10:24 am

European members of Artemis Accords

NASA today announced that Serbia tomorrow will become the 69th nation to sign the Artemis Accords.

With this signing, almost every European nation has now joined this American alliance, as shown in blue on the map to the right. Russia is indicated by red, illustrating also how its former Soviet bloc has almost completed joined this American space alliance. The only remaining exceptions are Belarus, Moldova, and several nations formed out of Yugoslavia. The signing of Serbia tomorrow, which joins Slovenia as two former Yugoslavia regions now part of the accords, suggests those other regions will soon sign on as well.

The full list of nations in this American space alliance is as follows:

Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Botswana, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Morocco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

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Russia agrees to extend ISS partnership through 2030

9:32 am

Russia today announced that it will extend its operations at ISS through 2030, including agreeing to continue the barter exchange of astronaut flights as long as the station is operational.

Russian-American crews will continue conducting seat-swap flights to the International Space Station (ISS) as long as the orbital outpost remains operational, Russian State Space Corporation (Roscosmos) Director General Dmitry Bakanov said. “We have agreed in principle on extending the terms (for the ISS – TASS) until 2030, and of course, since the ISS has a Russian and an American segment, seat-swap flights involving Russian cosmonauts and NASA astronauts will also continue,” he said at a press conference following the Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft’s docking with the ISS.

Bakanov added, however, that it was too early to say when a formal legal agreement would be signed.

The present Russian plans to transition from ISS to its Russian Orbital Station
Russia’s plan for launching its new station.
Click for full resolution image.

These agreements come from meetings between Bakanov and NASA administrator Jared Isaacman in Russia this week. Isaacman’s visit is the first by a NASA administrator in about eight years. As part of the discussions, Russia also agreed to “begin more detailed coordination of satellite operations to prevent collisions.”

Isaacman likely had a very easy time getting Russia to agree to these items, as Russia’s ability to launch its own planned new Russian Orbital Station (ROS) is becoming increasingly difficult due to the war in the Ukraine and the overall decline in its industrial capabilities in the past two decades. Bakanov knows ROS will almost certain not launch on time. The present public plan — as shown in the graphic to the right — says its first module will launch sometime in the next four years, but don’t bet on it.

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Thailand proceeding with plan to establish its own commercial spaceport

9:07 am

Thailand
Click for source.

In a follow-up to a 2025 proposal, the Thailand government is now putting together a plan to build a commercial spaceport for use by international rocket companies.

The Thai government is preparing to anchor itself in the global space race with a blueprint to develop a domestic spaceport. By deploying a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) framework, the state aims to attract international investment and ease the burden on the national budget.

The article claims Thailand’s location gives it a natural launch advantage, but the map to the right says otherwise. It has no easy clear launch path to the east (for equatorial launches) or south (for polar launches). Unless the rocket 1st stages are reusable, launches from Thailand will risk dropping stages on Indonesia, the Philippines, Laos, or Vietnam.

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NASA switches launch provider from ULA to SpaceX for its SunRise solar mission

8:39 am

NASA yesterday announced that it has switched the rocket it will use to launch its SunRise six-cubesat mission to study the Sun’s corona, from ULA’s Vulcan rocket to SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, becoming a secondary payload on a Space Force launch.

NASA’s SunRISE (Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment) mission will launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, shifting from its original ride into space aboard a United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur vehicle. NASA will share updated launch timing in the near future. The heliophysics mission will fly as a rideshare sponsored by the United States Space Force’s Space Systems Command.

The launch was originally supposed to take place now, in the summer of 2026, but at present the Vulcan rocket is grounded due to problems with its solid-fueled strap-on boosters. NASA apparently decided it would be better to switch to the Falcon Heavy launch, even though as a secondary payload it loses control over exactly when it can launch, and at present the Space Force’s next Falcon Heavy launch is scheduled for 2027.

The switch means a loss of more income for ULA due to its inability to get Vulcan launching regularly and reliably. It also suggests Vulcan repairs remains stalled, and that it will not resume regular launches until next year.

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FAA seeking comments on SpaceX’s request to expand Starship’s landing zones

4:43 pm

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) today released its draft environmental reassessment [pdf] that would allow SpaceX to both expand add landing zones for bringing its Starship spacecraft back from orbit.

From the introduction:

Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) is seeking to obtain a modification of its existing vehicle operator license from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to account for Starship reentry contingency operations in the Pacific Ocean as well as an additional Starship reentry trajectory for landing at the Boca Chica Launch Site in Starbase, Texas (TX). SpaceX must obtain a license modification from FAA to land the Starship vehicle in the Northern Pacific Basin (south of the Aleutian Islands), as well as information for airspace closures for an additional trajectory which includes landing at the Boca Chica Launch Site in Starbase, TX. SpaceX also intends to expand the previously evaluated landing areas in the Hawaii and Central Pacific Basin (southwest of the Hawaiian Islands) and the Southeast (SE) Pacific (off the coast of Chile) as additional contingency landing locations for Starship.

Starship flight path over the Pacific for landing at Boca Chica
Starship flight path over the Pacific for landing at Boca Chica

The map to the right shows Starship’s proposed flight path for returning to Boca Chica.

The key quote however is in the FAA’s conclusion, after reviewing all the typical potential issues:

FAA has concluded that no significant impacts would occur as a result of SpaceX’s Proposed Action.

At this stage of the reassessment the FAA is seeking public comment through July 26, 2026. Expect the typical protests from the left, hostile to anything new (especially if Elon Musk is involved). Based on past rulings in these matters by the FAA (even when Biden was president), expect this expansion of landing sites to be approved. Under Trump expect the decision to be made more quickly, especially because this landing site expansion is crucial for allowing the company to begin routine orbital flights of Starship in preparation for NASA’s Artemis lunar landing.

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Voyager completes purchase of Astrobotic; obtains $250 million credit line

9:15 am

Starlab design as of December 2025
Starlab design as of December 2025

The space station startup Voyager Technologies — the lead company in the consortium building the Starlab space station — has in the past week made major moves to solidify its financial situation as well as diversify its holdings.

First, it announced it had “closed a $250 million credit facility led by J.P. Morgan.”

The upsized facility expands Voyager’s financial flexibility, providing liquidity at scale to support accelerating customer demand across the company’s space, defense and national security portfolio.

I don’t claim to understand the jargon of the banking business, but I think this translates into a $250 million credit line with J.P. Morgan, giving Voyager access to cash when it needs it. The collateral for this credit line is probably based on the undisclosed capital investment the company obtained in January and May 2026. It also provides us a good indication of the amount of capital obtained in those earlier announcements.

Next, Voyager announced today that it has completed its acquisition of the lunar lander startup Astrobotic, first revealed in early June. In doing so, it also noted the new $298 million contracts NASA had issued to Astrobotic on June 30, 2026 for two more Peregrine lunar landers.

The Astrobotic subsidiary will now operate under the name Voyager Lunar Systems.

These announcements once again strengthen the position of Voyager and its Starlab station in the competition to win a construction contract under NASA’s station program.

My updated ranking of the five American space stations presently under development:
» Read more

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ISRO completes more ground tests of its Gaganyaan capsule, confirming launch delay

8:47 am

Artist rendering of India's Gaganyaan capsule
Artist rendering of India’s Gaganyaan capsule

India’s space agency ISRO yesterday announced it has successfully completed three qualification tests of engineering required by its manned Gaganyaan capsule during re-entry and splashdown.

First, it successfully tested the system that will disconnect the electrical and fuel lines between the crew module and its service module just before re-entry. Next it tested the structural integrity of the capsule during the release of its parachute cover and deployment of the parachutes during descent. Finally, it tested the balloon system that will inflate upon splashdown to make sure the capsule stays upright.

That ISRO is only testing these items now confirms what was rumored in December 2025 and in February 2026. Though government officials in January 2026 claimed the first unmanned test flight of Gaganyaan would take place in March 2026, apparently the agency’s management had already decided further testing and redesign was necessary after drop tests in late 2025, and that such unmanned test flights would be delayed at least a year, with the manned flight probably pushed back to 2028.

Once again, the problem here is not the required redesign and new testing. It is good they are doing the right due diligence to make sure everything works. The problem is the lack of transparency and the refusal to say honestly the present state of the schedule. All we get are contradictory hints that only serve to cause distrust, which in turn serve to discredit the agency.

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SpaceX officials attend Louisiana government event outlining its effort to reduce red tape

10:53 am

Pecan Island SpaceX facility?

Though everyone continues to say “No comment” when asked about the rumors that SpaceX is about to buy a 200+square-mile parcel of land on the Louisiana coast near the unincorporated village of Pecan Island (see map to the right), two SpaceX officials attended in late June a Louisiana government event outlining its effort to reduce red tape in coastal areas.

The meeting on June 26 was primarily aimed at discussing ways to speed permitting and other regulatory steps for projects, which often require [Army Corps of Engineers] involvement and approval. The meeting included a broad range of attendees from government agencies, ports, contractors, industry associations and relevant nonprofits.

Two SpaceX representatives involved in governmental and regulatory matters participated, including one, Owen McDonough, who specialized in water and wetlands issues for the Environmental Protection Agency during President Donald Trump’s first term.

Michael Hare, executive director of the state’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, said he invited McDonough because he knew him from previous work and believed he could provide valuable insight into regulations surrounding water and wetlands issues. The other SpaceX representative, Brandon Conroy, was involved in required environmental mitigation efforts related to the company’s “Starbase” industrial and launch facility near Brownsville, Texas.

It sure appears as if the Louisianan government knows something about SpaceX’s intentions and is working hard to get it to sign on the dotted line. In May the Louisiana state legislature passed laws expressly designed to encourage SpaceX to come to the state, limiting the ability of activists to file frivolous lawsuits while providing tax breaks for “aerospace flight entities”.

At the same time, nothing concrete has come from SpaceX. It has submitted no permit applications with the Corp of Engineers, and its only comment about the rumors was vague and non-committal, saying merely that it is continuously exploring potential new launch sites for Starship.

Regardless of whether SpaceX actually buys this land, the effort by the Republican Louisianan government to encourage new industry in its state contrasts quite sharply with that of Democrats nationwide, who are routinely opposed to any new or old industry, seeing it as evil that must be shut down as quickly as possible.

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Democrat running for Texas attorney general wants to investigate Musk if elected

10:32 am

The Democratic Party in proper perspective
The Democratic Party, in proper perspective

They’re coming for you next: A Texas Democrat, Nathan Johnson, running for that state’s attorney general position, yesterday announced in an interview that he intends to investigate Elon Musk and SpaceX if elected, claiming the almost $110 million grant given to the company for its Starlink rural service was favoritism and corruption.

Not surprisingly, the Democrat sprinkled his accusations with a lie.

Johnson, who won the Democratic primary runoff for attorney general in May, said the award by Texas Republicans of 99% of the available grant funds to a company led by billionaire Musk, a Donald Trump ally, was lopsided. [emphasis mine]

The problem with Johnson’s claim is that it is utterly false. Texas awarded $1 billion in total grants to 17 different internet providers, with SpaceX getting a grant in the middle of the pack and only 11% of the total awarded. Other companies got far more, for doing far less.

Not surprising, both sources in the propaganda press, The Guardian and The Dallas Morning News, accepted this lie blindly, proving that neither has the slightest interest in reporting the news or any real facts, and are in fact more interested in acting as PR firms for the Democrats. Neither outlet spent even one nanosecond checking up on the Texas grant program. Its press release outlining the awards was remarkably transparent about the awards.

This story nicely exemplifies the modern ugly nature of both the Democratic Party and its supporters. They lie, are filled with envy, and are quite eager to use the power of government to destroy anyone who opposes them. No wonder the party has had no problem nominating and electing rapists, Nazis, and perverts as its candidates and officials.

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Japan’s space agency JAXA test flies and vertically lands a prototype first stage

9:27 am

Japan’s space agency JAXA today successfully completed a 40-second vertical take-off and landing of a small scale prototype Grasshopper first stage.

At its Noshiro testing center in Akita Prefecture, northeastern Japan, the RV-X test rocket slowly landed after rising about 11 meters and moving horizontally while maintaining a vertical position during its 40-second flight. JAXA found no major issues with the test rocket after the landing.

…The 7.3-meter-long, 1.8-meter-diameter test rocket, which uses liquid hydrogen fuel, is a prototype of the reusable first stage of future large rockets. [emphasis mine]

This is a typical government test program, like many at NASA. Private companies in general have moved away from the use of hydrogen as a fuel because of the difficulty of obtaining and managing it, moving instead to methane. Thus, this project is not tied to any specific financial goals, and will likely dies stillborn once it is complete.

It also illustrates how far behind Japan has fallen when compared to China. China is building multiple reusable rockets, has tested three with one landing successfully. Japan at present is struggling to get any of its three government and one private rockets off the ground.

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BepiColumbo’s team prepares for arrival at Mercury in the fall

12:36 pm

The arrival plan for BepiColombo
Click for original graphic.

After eight years of travel through the inner solar system to get to Mercury, the European/Japanese dual orbiter mission BepiColombo is finally getting close to arrival at Mercury in the fall, and the science team has been doing rehearsals to prepare for that orbital insertion.

Teams must align timelines, verify readiness criteria and maintain a common understanding of what constitutes a ‘go’ or ‘no-go’ decision. During one recent simulation, controllers were confronted with an anomaly that forced them to abort and re-schedule a planned separation scenario. “It generates continuous discussions and iterations between the different teams,” Nacho adds.

The exercise highlighted an essential aspect of Mercury arrival: success depends not only on operating the spacecraft, but on ESA and JAXA working together as one team.

That arrival is made more complicated in that BepiColombo is not a single orbiter. It is made up of the following parts:

  • The Mercury Transfer Module (MTM), which provided the service module and ion engines for the journey, including six fly-bys of Earth, two ofVenus, and six of Mercury
  • The Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) from the European Space Agency (ESA)
  • The Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (Mio) from Japan’s space agency JAXA
  • The Mio Sunshield and Interface Structure (MOSIF), which protected everything during its journey in the inner solar system close to the Sun

The graphic to the right outlines the arrival plan. First the MTM must separate. Then the two orbiters enter Mercury orbit. Next Japan’s Mio separates and is deployed in its own orbit. Then the sunshield is ejected from Europe’s orbiter and it moves into its planned orbit.

As the spacecraft uses ion engines, with low but continuous thrust, these maneuvers can take weeks.

Both orbiters have complementary orbits to study different aspects of the planet. Europe’s orbiter will orbit closer to get a better look at the planet, while Japan’s Mio’s orbit is highly elliptical, to study the planet’s magnetic field.

During the journey to Mercury BepiColombo overcome several problems. First, the Covid panic threatened operations by limiting staffing and preventing normal behavior. Next the solar panels failed to produce the expected power, a problem that appears to still exist but which has not prevented operations. Finally, its thrusters produced less thrust than expected during a mid-course correction in 2024, causing an eleven month delay in arrival.

It is now however about to arrive. Let us hope that arrival proceeds as planned.

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