Tag: policy

Two more launches completed today

9:40 pm

Since the first two launches earlier today, we have seen two more launches successfully completed.

First Russia placed a classified military payload into orbit, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from its Plesetsk spaceport in northeast Russia. The fairings and first three stages all crashed inside Russia. No word if they landed near habitable areas, though the regions are generally sparsely inhabited.

Then SpaceX completed its second launch today, placing another 20 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California. Of the satellites thirteen were configured for direct-to-cell service. For the second time in the last week the company broadcast did not begin until after liftoff. In both cases the reason might be to avoid revealing any visuals of the rocket’s fairing, suggesting that SpaceX was using something different that it wanted to keep secret.

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

Not surprisingly, two of the launches previously scheduled for today have been postponed. The PSLV launch of a European solar telescope was delayed one day due to an issue detected with the payload’s propulsion system, while the first launch in two years of Arianespace’s Vega-C rocket was delayed because of an unspecified “mechanical issue.” At present Arianespace is targeting a launch for tomorrow.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

126 SpaceX
58 China
16 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 145 to 87, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 126 to 106.

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Trump picks billionaire and private astronaut Jared Isaacman to run NASA

10:50 am

Jared Isaacman
Jared Isaacman

Capitalism in space: In a decision that is certain to send shock waves throughout NASA and the established aerospace industry, President-elect Donald Trump today announced that he has chosen billionaire and private astronaut Jared Isaacman to be his nominee for NASA administrator.

Isaacman quickly accepted the nomination.

Besides being a jet pilot with extensive experience in the aerospace industry, Isaacman has also commanded two space missions, financed out of his own pocket. Both missions used SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Resilience capsule. Both also pointedly avoided any involvement with NASA, spending several days in free Earth orbit instead of docking with ISS. The second mission achieved several major engineering milestones, testing the first privately built spacesuit during a spacewalk while also flying farthest from Earth since the 1970s Apollo missions.

These flights were part of Isaacman’s own long term space program, dubbed Polaris, with two more missions already in planning stages. The first would be another Dragon orbital mission in which Isaacman had tried to get NASA to shape as a Hubble repair mission. NASA declined. The second is intended as a manned mission around the Moon using SpaceX’s Starship.

That program will now likely get folded into NASA’s Artemis program, which we can all expect Isaacman to force major changes. For one thing, this is another blow to the future of SLS and Orion. As a very successful businessman Isaacman will look with great skepticism at this boondoggle.

For another, Isaacman’s markedly different experiences working with SpaceX versus NASA will likely encourage major bureaucratic changes at the space agency. It is almost certain that Isaacman’s manned flights avoided ISS in order to avoid its Byzantine red tape, that would have likely also blocked use of SpaceX’s spacesuit on a private spacewalk. NASA’s decision to reject Isaacman’s proposal to do a simple but very necessary Hubble repair mission will also likely influence his management of the agency. Isaacman is going to force NASA to depend on the private sector more. He is also likely to reduce the agency’s risk adverse mentality that while often reasonable is many times very counter-productive.

Unlike many of Trump’s other radical nominees, I would be very surprised if Isaacman is not confirmed quickly and with little opposition.

Whether Isaacman will still fly his two remaining private Polaris manned missions is at this moment unknown. Practically it would make sense to cancel them, since he will have much bigger fish to fry at NASA. Emotionally and politically however it would be truly spectacular to have NASA’s administrator fly in space, on a mission using no taxpayer funds. That more than anything would demonstrate the ability of freedom and private enterprise to get things done.

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Japan awards $32.5 million contract for lunar GPS-type satellite constellation to startup

9:52 am

Capitalism in space: As part of the multi-billion dollar fund the Japanese government has allocated to encourage private enterprise by new Japanese startups, its space agency JAXA has now awarded a $32.5 million development contract to the startup ArkEdge Space to design and fly a GPS-type satellite in orbit around the Moon, thus demonstrating the technology.

Under the agreement, ArkEdge Space will plan and design the mass production and operation of micro-satellite constellations to lead the development of a next-generation Lunar Navigation Satellite System (LNSS), a vital component to the International “LunaNet” initiative driven by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), European Space Agency (ESA) and JAXA. LunaNet seeks to establish essential infrastructure to support sustainable lunar exploration and foster the growth of the lunar economy.

The real significance of this contract award is that it signals JAXA’s growing shift from designing, building, and owning everything to simply becoming the customer who gets what it needs from the private sector. The Japanese government had established that fund for this express purpose, but JAXA has shown a reluctance to proceed, as it directly threatens its turf. This award indicates that reluctance is finally being pushed aside.

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Orbex gives up on the Sutherland spaceport, switches to SaxaVord

9:27 am

Map of spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea
Spaceports surrounding the Norwegian Sea

In a very sudden decision, the rocket startup Orbex, based in Great Britain, has “paused” its long-delayed work to develop a launch facility at the Sutherland spaceport in northern Scotland and instead decided to launch its first rockets from the competing SaxaVord spaceport on the Shetland islands.

Orbex says it is halting construction work on the £20 million spaceport and instead is mothballing the project, which has received a £14.6 million public investment package. The space company, which was to have made the Sutherland Spaceport its home port, will now launch its rockets carrying commercial satellites from another north spaceport – SaxaVord on Unst, Shetland.

According to the company’s CEO, it will retain its 50-year lease at Sutherland to give it “flexibility to increase launch capacity in the future.”

The company had originally hoped to launch its Prime rocket from Sutherland in 2022, but has been faced with red tape from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), which has still not issued a launch licence, even though the application was submitted almost three years ago. Orbex has also faced lawfare opposition from local activists as well as a major local landowner, billionaire Anders Povlsen, who is also a major investor in SaxaVord.

That last detail might help explain this decision. In private talks Orbex might have learned that the red tape and opposition would disappear if it switched to SaxaVord. The timing is also suggestive, as only a few days ago construction started on a new spaceport in Scotland, located on the island of North Uist.

All told, Orbex might have decided that the stars were aligned against it at Sutherland, and it was better to move. It now hopes to complete the first test launch of its Prime rocket from SaxaVord next year.

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Two launches completed of the seven launches expected in the next 24 hours

9:04 am

Today will be one of the busiest ever at spaceports worldwide. Already we have had two launches, with five more expected by this time tomorrow.

First, China launched a radar satellite, its Kuaizhou-1A solid-fueled rocket lifting off from the Xichang spaceport in the southwest of China. No word on where the rocket’s lower stages crashed in China.

Next, SpaceX placed another 24 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida in the early morning hours. The first stage completed a record 24th flight, the most flights of any Falcon 9 booster so far, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.

And we are only getting started today. If all goes right, by this time tomorrow Russia will have done a military launch from its Plesetsk spaceport, Arianespace will have launched a Vega-C from French Guiana, SpaceX will have completed two more Falcon 9 launches from Vandenberg and Kennedy, and India will have launched its PSLV rocket from its Sriharikota spaceport.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

125 SpaceX
58 China
15 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 144 to 86, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 125 to 105.

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PLD obtains a new loan, this time for $11.6 million

11:45 am

The Spanish rocket startup PLD yesterday announced it has obtained a new $11.6 million loan that it plans to use to build its launch facility at the French-owned French Guiana spaceport.

The loan was issued by the Spanish governmment finance agency COFIDES, which comes on top of an earlier $43.8 million Spanish government grant. In addition, the company has gotten a $2.4 million grant from the European Commission, as well as a $1.37 million grant from the European Space Agency.

The company has also obtained a loan of $34 million from banks in Spain.

All told, the company has raised about $164 million, more than $58 million came from government agencies, with another $34 million from loans.

For whatever reason, PLD has found favor with the various governments in Europe, fueling its work. None of the other European rocket startups from Germany or Great Britain have been as lucky.

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Varda wins $48 million Air Force contract

9:29 am

Varda's space capsule, on the ground in Utah
Varda’s first capsule on the ground in Utah.

The U.S. Air Force last week awarded the reusable orbiting capsule company Varda a four-year $48 million contract for placing experimental hypersonic payloads on the capsule for testing during its re-entry through the atmosphere.

The four-year deal with AFRL [Air Force Research Laboratory], announced on Nov. 26, leverages Varda’s W-Series reentry capsules as platforms to test payloads at hypersonic speeds. The spacecraft are built on Rocket Lab’s Photon satellite bus,

…Varda’s next mission, W-2, is scheduled for early 2025. This mission is designed to showcase the Varda Hypersonic Testbed vehicle. The capsule will carry an AFRL-developed spectrometer payload named OSPREE (Optical Sensing of Plasmas in the Reentry Environment) to collect critical data during atmospheric descent.

Up until now Varda’s customers have been entirely focused on using the capsule to produce pharmaceuticals in weightlessness for sale back on Earth. This new contract provides it another and initially unexpected way to make money on the capsule’s capabilities.

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China launches communications test satellite

9:19 am

China today successfully launched a communications satellite designed according to its state-run press to test new communication technologies, its Long March 3B rocket lifting off from its Xichang spaceport in southwest China.

No word on where the rocket’s lower stages and four strap-on boosters, all using toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

124 SpaceX
57 China
15 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 143 to 85, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 124 to 104.

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The real proof that the American political scene is about to experience a new revolution

10:27 am

The Democratic Party for the past half century
The Democratic Party for the past half century

While the conservative press is today going ga-ga over Joe Biden’s pardoning of his son Hunter yesterday — noting accurately that Biden’s action proved himself once again to be a liar and a fraud, having spent the last four years insisting he would never do such a thing while also insisting that “no one is above the law” — I think it more instructive to look at what some of the most rabid partisan leftists have been saying, before and after the election of Donald Trump.

You see, some of these partisan leftists are actually doing something I have not seen a partisan leftist do since before Bill Clinton was president — they are showing an ability to have an open mind.

Let’s begin with two members of a leftist podcast group dubbed the Young Turks that for years saw nothing good about any Republican and considering Donald Trump the epitomization of the devil himself. Anything Trump did was wrong. Everything Trump and the Republicans represented was evil and must be opposed blindly. During and after this presidential election campaign however two of the more noted members of this podcast, Ann Kasparian and Cenk Uygar, changed their tune, and did so in an astonishing way.

First there was Kasparian’s announcement in October that she has left the Democratic Party. Watch:
» Read more

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China completes first launch of its Long March 12 rocket

9:19 pm

China today successfully launched for the first time its new Long March 12 rocket, lifting off from its coastal Wenchang spaceport and placing “two technology test satellites” into orbit.

The two-stage rocket, powered by burning kerosene and liquid oxygen, is notable as the first 3.8-metre-wide rocket launched so far by China, said Wu Jialin, an engineer with the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology under CASC, which developed the spacecraft.

Most Chinese rockets have a diameter of 3.35 meters, Wu told a press conference on site shortly after the launch was announced successful. “A wider body means the rocket can hold about 30 per cent more propellant, giving it much enhanced carrying capacity,” he said.

For comparison, the Falcon 9 has a diameter of 3.7 meters, though its payload fairing is wider. China intends to use this new rocket to launch its own large satellite constellations to compete with SpaceX.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

124 SpaceX
56 China
15 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 143 to 84, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 124 to 103.

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Construction begins for 3rd spaceport in Scotland

8:04 am

Map of spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea

Construction of a third spaceport in Scotland has now begun, its location on the northwest coast of the island of North Uist (as shown on the map to the right), with its plans to serve suborbital launches initially.

The Highlands and Islands Enterprise, a Scottish government agency focused on regional development, has allocated £947,000 for the construction of the site’s enabling infrastructure. Additionally, the Comhairle is contributing £675,000 from its 2023-2028 capital programme. The total cost of the enabling works project is estimated to be £2.6 million.

After the construction of the enabling infrastructure is complete, which is expected to occur by Spring 2025, a private sector operator will take over to complete the second phase of construction and manage the spaceport.

According to the Wikipedia page for this area on North Uist, the project was first proposed in 2019, and was then hoping to attract orbital launches. Subsequent opposition by activists slowed development and likely reduced the project from orbital to suborbital, at least for now.

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Russia launches radar satellite

3:36 pm

Russia today successfully launched a new radar Earth-observation satellite, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from its Vostochny spaceport in the far east.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

122 SpaceX
55 China
15 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 141 to 83, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 122 to 102.

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Update on Astroscale’s mission to de-orbit a OneWeb satellite

9:34 am

Link here. Lots of details. The project is now targeting a ’26 launch, and if successful would be the first to capture a spacecraft in orbit and de-orbit it commercially — assuming some other orbital tug company doesn’t do it first.

One tidbit from the article that I had not known:

While the UK Space Agency and European Space Agency have provided around $35 million in funds, … Astroscale is financing “well over 50%” of the mission.

In other words, both the UK and ESA are following the capitalism model. They have left ownership and control of the de-orbit tug to Astroscale, which means they require it to obtain outside private investment capital on its own.

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“Toxic smell” at Progress hatch was hypergolic fuel

9:24 am

Figure 3 from September Inspector General report
Figure 3 from September Inspector General report, annotated to show Zvezda and Poisk locations.

According to information obtained by Anatoly Zak at RussianSpaceWeb.com, the “toxic smell” detected by Russian astronauts immediately after opening the hatch to unload the newly docked Progress at ISS was actually a small but very dangerous amount of hypergolic fuel left over from the previous Progress freighter.

[T]he working hypothesis was that the ground control failed to perform a routine purging of propellant lines between the station and Progress MS-27 before its undocking. As a result, highly toxic residue of hypergolic propellant remaining in the lines could easily spill into the main cavity of the docking mechanism on Poisk, once Progress MS-27 undocked from the module, an industry source told RussianSpaceWeb.com. After the arrival of Progress MS-29, the interior of the docking mechanism between the space station and the cargo ship was re-pressurized trapping the propellant residue and letting it into the station after opening of the hatches. [emphasis mine]

If true, this incident indicates a shocking level of incompetence, sloppiness, or even malice at Russian mission control. How can mission controllers forget to do a “routine purging” of hypergolic fuel, especially when it is known that this very dangerous fuel — which can dissolve skin if you allow yourself to get in contact with it — can “easily spill” into the docking port where people will travel?

The Russian government pays its top-level engineers very little, even as those engineers watch often bungling managers rake in big bucks through legal deal-making as well as bribery and embezzlement (only rarely caught and punished). These circumstances have been suggested as behind the various suspicious leaks in Soyuz and Progress capsules as well as the new Nauka module. In the case of the Soyuz, it was clearly caused by someone drilling a hole on the ground before launch and then fixing it with a makeshift patch that was certain to fail during the mission in space. Both the Progress and Nauka leaks also suggested a similar cause. The Russians told NASA its investigation discovered who drilled that Soyuz hole, but never revealed what it had found. As for the Progress and Nauka leaks, no investigation results were ever even discussed.

There is something distinctly rotten within Roscosmos, a rottenness that it appears Russia is doing little to fix. More likely it can’t really fix it, because the Putin administration in the late 2000s made Russia’s aerospace industry a remake of the Soviet Union, a single government-run corporation that owns everything and blocks all competition. Since then it has shown a steady decline in its ability to accomplish much and the steady growth of problems such as this.

The sooner Americans no longer have to partner with Russia the better. We must hope that NASA can at least get to 2030 and its planned retirement of ISS without a major failure. This leak occurred within the Poisk docking module that is attached to the larger Zvezda module where air is leaking from the station due to serious stress fractures in its hull. Each docking puts more stress on Zvezda, risking a catastrophic failure, so much so that it is now NASA policy to close the hatch between the American and Russian halves of the station whenever such dockings take place.

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UPDATE: Launch did not occur

3:15 pm

UPDATE: Thanks to my readers (see below), we can now confirm that the launch listed below did not occur as indicated at the link I provided, and is rescheduled for a few days hence. I have therefore removed this launch from Russia’s totals for 2024.

The corrected leaders in the 2024 launch race:

122 SpaceX
55 China
14 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 141 to 82, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 122 to 101.

The original post, minus the launch totals:
————————
Russia yesterday apparently launched a classified military payload, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from its Plesetsk spaceport in northwest Russia.

This launch however remains unconfirmed by any other sources. No information about its launch or payload appears available on line, except for the link I provide above. Though I am adding it to Russia’s launch totals, I will remove if if further information proves it did not happen.

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Trump’s picks to run all the federal health agencies guarantees major change is coming

1:02 pm

Trump defiant after being shot
Trump defiant

Fight! Fight! Fight! The announcement late yesterday that president-elect Donald Trump has picked Jay Bhattacharya, the director of Stanford University’s Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging, to head the National Institutes of Health (NIH) underlined quite forcefully the certainty that the outsider nature of all of Trump’s picks to head all the health-related agencies in the federal government will led to major changes in how those agencies operate.

Bhattacharya had been blacklisted for his very vocal opposition to the government’s lockdown and mandate policies during the COVID epidemic. He along with Martin Kulldorff, one of the world’s foremost experts on vaccines and who was also blacklisted during the epidemic, co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration that strongly criticized the policies of imposed by these health agencies, calling instead for a return to the standard response to infectious diseases that had been followed successfully for more than a century.

Putting Bhattacharya in charge of NIH is incredibly ironic. When he along with Kulldorff had come out opposed to the lockdown and jab mandates advocated by Francis Collins, then-head of the NIH, Collins in league with Anthony Fauci, then head of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), put together a back-room campaign to have Bhattacharya, Kulldorff, and many others blacklisted across social media. This campaign also had Kulldorf removed as a member of the CDC’s vaccine safety advisory committee.

Two years later, Collins is now gone, is being sued for his actions, and Bhattacharya has replaced him.

Trump’s defiant choice of Bhattacharya however is only one of many similar decisions, beginning last month with the choice of Robert Kennedy Jr. to run the Department of Health and Human Services.
» Read more

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NASA: forcing it to fly VIPER would cause it to cancel funding to 1 to 4 other commercial lunar landers

10:31 am

VIPER's planned route on the Moon
VIPER’s now canceled planned route at the Moon’s south pole

According to a response by NASA to a House committee and obtained by Space News, if Congress forces the agency to fly its canceled VIPER moon rover NASA would have to cancel funding to one to four other commercial lunar landers being built by private companies as part of NASA’s CLPS program.

In one scenario, NASA assumed VIPER would launch on Astrobotic’s Griffin lander as previously planned in September 2025. The agency estimated it would need to spend $104 million to prepare VIPER itself, $20 million of which had already been allocated for activities in fiscal year 2024, along with $20 million in “additional risk mitigation activities” for Griffin. “NASA estimated that these additional funding requirements would lead to cancellation of one CLPS delivery and delay of another delivery by a year,” it stated.

A second scenario anticipated a one-year slip in VIPER’s launch to September 2026. NASA projected an additional $50 million in costs for VIPER and $40 million for Griffin. That would have resulted in two canceled CLPS task orders and a one-year delay to two others.

NASA also revealed it considered “alternative delivery means” for VIPER other than Griffin. NASA did not disclose details about those alternatives, calling them “highly proprietary” but which would have delayed the launch of VIPER beyond 2026 “and would still include significant uncertainty about the reliability of delivery success.” NASA projected total costs of $350 million to $550 million with this scenario, resulting in the cancellation of four CLPS task orders and delaying three to four more by two years.

NASA preferred option is for a private company to take over VIPER. At the moment the agency is reviewing eleven proposals put forth by such companies that has “enough spaceflight experience and technical abilities to conduct the VIPER mission.”

Congress has gotten involved because the science community has lobbied hard to save it. The project itself has been a problem for NASA since its first iteration as Resource Prospector, when NASA would have built both the rover and lander. It has consistently gone over budget and behind schedule, even after NASA gave the lander portion to a private company, Astrobotic. At present the rover is 3X over budget with more overages expected, which is why NASA cancelled it.

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Judge dismisses lawsuit against SpaceX by activists

9:41 am

A federal judge has now thrown out a lawsuit that had been filed by anti-Musk activists in an attempt to halt all launches by SpaceX of its Starship/Superheavy rocket at Boca Chica.

U.S. District Judge Rolando Olvera issued his ruling last Thursday in response to the request filed by Save RGV on Oct. 9. The group has alleged that SpaceX’s water deluge system is releasing untreated industrial wastewater during launches and sought to halt the launches.

The water deluge system is designed to dampen the effects of Starship’s rocket engine blasts during liftoff and static fire engine testing.

“At the beginning of the Starship-Super Heavy Launch System’s development, it became evident that a deluge water system was necessary to protect the launch site and surrounding areas during launches,” Olvera wrote in the order. “A deluge water system sprays large quantities of potable water at the base of the spacecrafts during launch to prevent fires and reduce dispersal of dust and debris.

“Because of these dangers, Defendant cannot launch its spacecrafts without the deluge water system.”

SpaceX had argued that environmental reviews by both federal and state agencies had determined that the deluge system caused no harm. Olvera concurred, and also noted that to block launches would do significant harm to SpaceX and NASA’s entire lunar program.

This activist group, which represents almost no one in southern Texas, has no real interest in the environment. It filed this and other lawsuits simply as lawfare to try to stymie SpaceX for political reasons, knowing that we have more than seven decades of data at spaceports in Florida and California that prove rocket launches and deluge systems cause no environmental harm. In fact, they help wildlife by creating a large refuge where that wildlife can thrive.

Expect further similar lawsuits, all of which will be summarily dismissed afterward.

What I wonder is who is paying for this lawfare? SaveRGV likely doesn’t have the resources.

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Two launches early today

9:11 am

China and SpaceX successfully completed launches early today.

First, the Chinese pseudo-company Landspace launched a new version of its Zhuque-2 methane-fueled rocket, lifting off from the Jiuquan spaceport in the northwest of China. The mission placed two test satellites into orbit, but more important, the launch tested the rocket’s new fuel-loading systems that copies SpaceX’s, loading the fuel quickly and cooling it to a lower temperature to increase its density and thus allow more to be packed into its tanks.

No word on where the rocket’s first stage crashed inside China.

SpaceX then placed 24 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The first stage completed its fifteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

122 SpaceX
55 China
14 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 141 to 82, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 122 to 101.

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Engine for Japan’s new Epsilon-S rocket explodes during static fire test

9:36 am

For the second time in a row an engine for Japan’s new Epsilon-S rocket has exploded during a static fire test.

The test was conducted inside of the restricted area at Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center in southwestern Japan, and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is investigating, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters.

An Epsilon project manager, Takayuki Imoto, told an online press conference from Tanegashina that the explosion occurred 49 seconds into the planned two-minute test, causing fire and scattering broken parts of the engine and damaging the facility.

The Epsilon-S is being built by Japan’s space agency JAXA. It is intended to replace the solid-fueled Epsilon rocket that was initially conceived in 2013 to lower launch costs and provide JAXA with a rocket that could complete with the many new smallsat rocket startups worldwide. That rocket however only launched six times and never achieved its goals. JAXA had been targeting March for the first launch of Epsilon-S, but that is now unlikely, especially considering these two engine failures during tests.

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France to resume suborbital launches at French Guiana

9:14 am

Now that France’s space agency CNES has taken the management of its French Guiana spaceport back from the European Space Agency’s Arianespace government company, it has been moving to make the spaceport more attractive to multiple future launch customers. Previously it announced that it is offering launchpads to multiple new rocket startups. Now it has announced that has signed a contract with the French startup Optus Aerospace to reopen its closed suborbital launchpad for the first time in decades.

Officially inaugurated in 1968, the Ensemble de Lancement Fusées-Sondes (ELFS) launch complex hosted the Guiana Space Centre’s first launch on 9 April 1968, with a Véronique sounding rocket that reached an altitude of 113 kilometres. Between 1968 and 1992, more than 350 sounding rockets were launched from the facility.

On 25 November, CNES announced that it had signed a contract with Opus Aerospace to use the ELFS facility for the launch of its Mésange rocket.

In other words, under the control of a government entity, Arianespace, which also controlled all European launches for decades, the variety of launches declined. As soon as control was lifted from this government monopoly however the possibilities expanded quickly.

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Italy to resume use of its San Marco spaceport off the coast of Kenya

9:21 am

Italy's offshore San Marco spaceport
Click for full map.

Italy has now decided to re-open its long unused San Marco spaceport facility off the coast of Kenya, resuming launches from its off-shore launch platform.

During its active life beginning in 1967 a total of eight launches occurred from this site, with the last flight occurring in 1988.

In late 2023, the Minister of Enterprise and Made in Italy, Adolfo Urso, first proposed reopening the facility for rocket launches. While unsubstantiated by other sources, local publication MalindiKenya.net reported at the time that the move would be used to create an “ideal launch base for the Italian Vega launcher, thus avoiding paying France for the use of the French Guiana base.”

In October 2024, during a presentation just before the 75th International Astronautical Congress kicked off, Minister Urso explained that the country had decided to move ahead with its plans to once again launch rockets from the Luigi Broglio Space Center.

The present plans will have the site managed by the Kenya Space Agency, established in 2017, with Italy providing the rockets and satellites, all of which are expected to be smallsats. It appears that the rocket company Avio, which builds the Vega-C rocket, might be aiming to use this site as an commercial launchpad, thus allowing it to bypass the French-run French Guiana spaceport. Located close to the equator and on the coast, this site would offer satellite companies a very wide range of orbits.

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Launches galore in the past twelve hours

8:49 am

The past twelve hours was quite busy at spaceports worldwide, with two American companies completing three different launches from three different spaceports, while China added one of its own.

First China launched two radar-mapping satellites, its Long March 2C rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China. No word on where its lower stages, that use very toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China. Though this launch was first, it actually took place in the early morning of November 25th, in China.

Next, Rocket Lab completed two launches, though one was not an orbital flight. First it completed its second of four planned launches of its HASTE suborbital version of its Electron rocket, lifting off from Wallops Island in Virgina. HASTE had been quickly improvised by the company when it realized there was a real market for hypersonic suborbital testing, and Electron could be refitted for that purpose. This launch actually occurred prior to the Chinese launch.

Then Rocket Lab launched five more satellites for the satellite company Kineis, the third of five, its Electron rocket lifting off from one of its two launchpads in New Zealand.

Finally, SpaceX in the early morning of November 25th launched 23 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The first stage completed its thirteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

121 SpaceX
54 China
14 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 140 to 81, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 121 to 100.

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ESA and JAXA sign agreement to increase cooperation and accelerate development of Ramses mission to Apophis

10:18 am

The new colonial movement: The European Space Agency (ESA) and Japan’s own space agency JAXA on November 20, 2024 signed a new cooperative agreement to increase their joint work on several missions, the most important of which is the proposed Ramses mission to the potentially dangerous asteroid Apophis during its 2029 close fly-by of Earth.

Two agencies agreed to accelerate to study potential cooperation for ESA’s Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety (RAMSES) which aims to explore the asteroid Apophis that will pass close to our planet on 13 April 2029, including but not limited to provision of thermal infrared imager and solar array wings as well as possible launch opportunities.

The two countries are already working together on two different planetary missions, the BepiColombo mission to Mercury and the Hera mission to the asteroid Dymorphos. Both are on their way to their targets. This new agreement solidifies the commitment of both to make sure Ramses is funded, built, and launched in the relatively short time left before that 2029 Earth fly-by. At the moment the ESA has still not officially funded it fully.

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NASA once again gambling on the lives of its astronauts for political reasons

10:07 am

Orion's damage heat shield
Damage to Orion heat shield caused during re-entry in 2022,
including “cavities resulting from the loss of large chunks”

NASA this week began the stacking one of the two strap-on solid-fueled boosters that will help power SLS on the Artemis-3 mission, still officially scheduled for September 2025 and aiming to send four astronauts around the Moon.

A NASA spokesperson told Ars it should take around four months to fully stack the SLS rocket for Artemis II. First, teams will stack the two solid-fueled boosters piece by piece, then place the core stage in between the boosters. Then, technicians will install a cone-shaped adapter on top of the core stage and finally hoist the interim cryogenic propulsion stage, or upper stage, to complete the assembly.

At that point the rocket will be ready for the integration of the manned Orion capsule on top.

The article at the link sees this stacking as a good sign that NASA’s has solved the Orion capsule’s heat shield issue that occurred during the unmanned return from the Moon on the second Artemis mission. The image to the right shows that heat shield afterward, with large chunks missing. Though it landed safely, the damage was much much worse than expected. At the moment NASA officials have said it has found the root cause, but those officials also refuse to say what that root cause is, nor how the agency or Orion’s contractor Lockheed Martin has fixed it.
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The next two Vulcan launches for the Pentagon slip to 2025

9:14 am

Both the Space Force and ULA have now admitted that the next two Vulcan launches, which both had hoped to launch before the end of this year, have now been delayed until 2025, and that Vulcan remains uncertified as yet by the military for its launches.

The United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan will not be able to conduct two planned national security missions on its launch manifest for this year after delays with certifying the heavy-lift rocket. The comments came hours after a Space Force official cast doubt that the missions could be completed before the end of 2024.

ULA launched its second certification flight in October, roughly a month behind schedule, following a first flight in January that was nearly four years behind schedule. The Space Force is still assessing data from the October launch in partnership with ULA.

The military had said if ULA completed two Vulcan successful launches it would approve Vulcan for these launches. Though the second launch got its payload to its correct orbit, during launch the nozzle on one of its strap-on solid-fueled boosters fell off. Though officials keep saying they expect certification anyway, that certification has not happened. It appears right now that the military won’t do so until the investigation into the problem is completed and a fix is installed.

At the moment the only rocket company that can launch large payloads for the Pentagon is SpaceX. Though that company has not gouged the military in bidding (though it it could) this is not a good situation. The military wants options and redundancy, not simply to save money, but to give it flexibility. It needs ULA and Blue Origin to finally deliver their rockets.

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If ordinary people don’t show up at those upcoming FAA Starship/Superheavy public meetings they WILL be screwed

1:24 pm

Starship splashing down vertically
Starship splashing down vertically in the
Gulf of Mexico on November 19, 2024

Yesterday radio host Robert Pratt sent me a news story from a Texas newspaper, the Texas Tribune, which attempted quite surprisingly to capture fairly the local response to the most recent Starship/Superheavy test launch out of Boca Chica on November 19, 2024.

The reporter, Bernice Garcia, clearly made it a point to talk to a lot of people, especially those who came out to see the launch. As a result, she showed that in general, no matter what people felt about Donald Trump or Elon Musk, the local population was almost entirely in favor of SpaceX’s efforts there. For example:

Sanchez was slightly concerned about [the rocket’s sonic booms] but believed the benefits of jobs created by SpaceX was worth the risk. “They know what they’re doing,” Sanchez said.

But his favorable opinion of Musk’s company did not extend to Trump. A naturalized citizen who gained amnesty under the Reagan administration, Sanchez didn’t view Trump’s immigration policies as logistically sound. “If you throw those people out, who’s going to work?” Sanchez said. “You don’t see a white man laboring out in the sun. On the other hand, Mexicans, foreigners, people from other countries –– that’s why they come here, to work.”

While the story found locals with a whole range of opinions about Trump, both positive and negative, it only quoted one person who was hostile to SpaceX, and that quote and person tells us a great deal about the bankrupt nature of that opposition:
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ESA gives its big space rocket company, ArianeGroup, a big subsidy

10:29 am

On November 19, 2024 I noted that in awarding four new rocket startups development contracts worth a total of 44 million euros, the European Space Agency (ESA) had not given any of that grant money to its biggest and most established rocket company, ArianeGroup, which not only owns and builds the Ariane-6 rocket but also has a subsidiary called MaiaSpace that is developing its own smallsat partly reusable rocket, in direct competition with those four small startups.

The exclusion of ArianeGroup in that announcement suggested to me that ESA had decided ArianeGroup’s smalsat rocket subsidary could manage without any additional aid, since its owner is a well-financed big space contractor.

I was wrong. Today the ESA awarded ArianeGroup a much big pile of cash, totaling 230 million Euros, to further finance the development of a reusable demonstration rocket, dubbed Themis, that also uses ArianeGroup’s Prometheus rocket engine. The Themis hopper project has been under development since 2018 initially under the management of Arianespace, has seen many delays in that time, and is now three years behind schedule.

Because of these delays, ESA pulled it from Arianespace in 2022 and gave full control of the project to the builder, ArianeGroup. This new contract award appears to be cementing this new arrangement, and is in addition to previous awards for this project exceeding 224 million euros.

The award also apparently includes funds for ArianeGroup’s MaiaSpace smallsat rocket startup, though the exact amount has not been specified.

The bottom line is that ESA is still dumping lots of cash to its older big space companies. Despite its clear shift to promoting independent rocket startups instead of a single government-controlled commercial entity (Arianespace), it is still favoring the big space contractors like ArianeGroup it has used for decades under that old Soviet-style system.

It will be interesting to see how this unbalanced system plays out in the coming years. Europe might get a competitive rocket industry of many companies, but then it might not, considering its space agency is putting its thumb on the scale to favor the already-established players.

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The space agencies of India and Australia agree to cooperate in recovering Gaganyaan

9:23 am

India’s space agency ISRO yesterday announced that it has signed an agreement with the Australian Space Agency (ASA) to work together in doing ocean recovery of India’s Gagayaan manned capsule.

The IA [Implementation Agreement] enables the Australian authorities to work with Indian authorities to ensure support for search and rescue of crew and recovery of crew module as part of contingency planning for ascent phase aborts near Australian waters.

Apparently ISRO anticipates the possible need for capsule ocean recovery near Australia should there be a launch abort shortly after liftoff.

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Russia and SpaceX complete launches

9:16 am

Both Russia and the American company SpaceX successfully completed launches this morning. First, Russia sent a new Progress freighter on its way to ISS, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan. The cargo ship is planned to dock with ISS in two days.

Next SpaceX put another 24 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The first stage completed its 20th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

119 SpaceX
53 China
14 Russia
12 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 137 to 80, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 119 to 98.

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