Tag: policy

China launches five satellites to test the design of a planned laser communications constellation

9:41 am

China today successfully placed the first five satellites of a planned satellite constellation called the “High Speed Laser Diamond Constellation,” its Long March 2D rocket lifting from the Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China.

The satellites are apparently intended to test the engineering of using lasers for communications. China’s state-run press provided little further information. Nor did it say where the rocket’s lower stages, using toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.

128 SpaceX (with a launch scheduled for later today)
60 China
16 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 147 to 92, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 128 to 111.

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Part 2 of 2: De-emphasize a fast Moon landing and build a real American space industry instead

10:41 am

In part one yesterday of this two-part essay, I described the likelihood that Jared Isaacman, Trump’s appointment to be NASA’s next administrator, will push to cancel NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and its Orion capsule, deeming them too expensive, too unsafe, and too cumbersome to use for any viable effort to colonize the solar system.

I then described how the Artemis lunar landings could still be done, more or less as planned, by replacing SLS with Starship/Superheavy, and Orion with Starship. Such a change would entail some delay, but it could be done.

This plan however I think is short-sighted. The Artemis lunar landings as proposed are really nothing more than another Apollo-like plant-the-flag-on-the-Moon stunt. As designed they do little to establish a permanent sustainable human presence on the Moon or elsewhere in the solar system.

Isaacman however has another option that can create a permanent sustainable American presence in space, and that option is staring us all in the face.

And now for something entire different

Capitalism in space: I think Isaacman should shift the gears of Artemis entirely, and put a manned Moon landing on the back burner. Let China do its one or two lunar landing stunts, comparable to Apollo but incapable of doing much else.
» Read more

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Land-locked Zimbabwe wants a spaceport, and is asking the Russians to help build it

9:47 am

According to the head of Zimbabwe’s space agency, Painos Gweme, the land-locked African country hopes to build its own spaceport and launch its own rocket sometime in the next ten years, and is in negotiations the Russians for aid.

In an interview published on Tuesday, Gweme told TASS that his country has begun negotiations with Russia’s national spaceflight corporation, Roscosmos, about the planned projects, including connecting Zimbabwe to Moscow’s cosmonaut training system. “We expect that with the assistance of our Russian colleagues, we will be able to launch our own rocket into space within the next 10 years,” he said, according to the news agency.

“We hope that our first rocket will be launched from our own cosmodrome. We have already begun working on plans, selecting a location whose natural conditions would be best suited for creating a launch complex,” Gweme added.

Any launches that take place from Zimbabwe will have to cross either South Africa or Mozambique, so expect their to be some objections from those quarters.

I also suspect that if Russia is considering this, it is doing so with the intention of building that Zimbabwe spaceport for its own uses. Zimbabwe certainly doesn’t have the capability to do this, even in ten years. Because of Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine in 2022 it was banned from its launch site in French Guiana, operated in partnership with the European Space Agency. Roscosmos might be hunting for another international site to give it more options, as well as some good international publicity.

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Part 1 of 2: What NASA’s next administrator should do if SLS and Orion are cancelled

2:29 pm

When George Bush Jr. first proposed in 2004 an American long term effort to return to the Moon that has since become the Artemis program, he made it clear that the goal was not to simply land in 2015 and plant the flag, but to establish an aerospace industry capable of staying on the Moon permanently while going beyond to settle the entire the solar system.

The problem was that Bush proposed doing this with a government-built system that was simply not capable of making it happen. Though this system has gone through many changes in the two decades since Bush’s proposal, in every case it has been centered on rockets and spacecrafts that NASA designed, built, and owned, and were thus not focused on profit and efficiency. The result has been endless budget overruns and delays, so that two decades later and more than $60 billion, NASA is still years away from that first Moon landing, and the SLS rocket and Orion capsule that it designed and built for this task are incapable of establishing a base on the Moon, no less explore the solar system.

The real cost of SLS and Orion
The expected real per launch cost of SLS and Orion

For one thing, SLS at its best can only launch once per year (at a cost of from $1 to $4 billion per launch, depending on who you ask). There is no way you can establish a base on the Moon nor colonize the solar system with that launch rate at that cost. For another, Orion is simply a manned ascent/descent capsule. It is too small to act as an interplanetary spacecraft carrying people for months to years to Mars or beyond.

These basic design problems of both SLS and Orion make them impractical for a program to explore and colonize the solar system. But that’s not all. Orion has other safety concerns. Its heat shield has technical problems that will only be fixed after the next planned Artemis-2 manned mission around the Moon. Its life support system has never flown in space, has issues also, and yet will also be used on the next manned flight.

Thus, it is very likely that when Jared Isaacman, Trump’s appointee for NASA administrator, takes over running the agency, he will call for the cancellation of both SLS and Orion. How can he ask others to fly on such an untested system?

When he does try to cancel both however the politics will require him to offer something instead that will satisfy all the power-brokers in DC who have skin in the game for SLS/Orion, from elected officials to big space companies to the bureaucrats at NASA. Isaacman is going to have to propose a new design for the Artemis program that these people will accept.

Artemis without SLS and Orion

Before I propose what Isaacman should do, let’s review what assets he will have available within the Artemis lunar program after cancelling these two boondoggles.
» Read more

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NSF punts on its two big telescope projects

10:50 am

Because it presently does not have sufficient funds to build both the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) in Chile and the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) in Hawaii, the National Science Foundation (NSF) asked an independent panel to look at both projects and give recommendations on which project it should go with.

That report [pdf] has now been released, and its conclusions essentially take the advice of former Yankee catcher Yogi Berra, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” From the report’s executive summary:

Both GMT and TMT have strong leadership, partnership and financial commitments but require $1.6 billion in NSF funding to proceed. Without this support, significant delays or project cancellations may result. The panel emphasized the critical need for congressional support, noting that without additional appropriations, NSF may face challenges balancing these projects with other national priorities, risking U.S. competitiveness in fundamental research. [emphasis mine]

If you dig into the report however you find that TMT is a far more uncertain project. GMT is already being built, while TMT is stalled because it has been unable to get political approval to build in Hawaii on Mauna Kea, even though it initially wanted to start construction almost a decade ago.

Clearly, this report was created simply as a lobbying ploy by the NSF to Congress. NSF didn’t want the report to make a choice. It wanted it to endorse both telescopes so that — rather than bite the bullet and fund one telescope with the money it has already been given by Congress — NSF could use the report to demand more funding so that it can fund both.

Though Congress is now controlled by more fiscally-minded Republicans, don’t expect them to be anymore responsible on this issue than Democrats. These guys really don’t understand basic economics, and think they have a blank check for anything they wish to do. I anticipate Congress will give NSF the extra cash for both telescopes.

The problems for TMT remain, however, and even with that cash it remains very doubtful the telescope will be built. But gee, that won’t be a problem for NSF. Who wouldn’t like getting an extra billion or two to spend as one wishes?

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Two congressmen demand FAA streamline its launch licensing process

10:22 am

In a letter [pdf] sent to the FAA on December 6, 2024, two congressmen have called for the FAA to fix what it calls its Part 450 launch licensing process, established in 2021, that has been choking off rocket development in the U.S.

The congressmen, Sam Graves (R-Missouri) and Rob Wittman (R-Virginia), specifically focused on the problems these new regulations have imposed during what the FAA calls its “pre-application review.” From the letter:

In November of 2024, the FAA indicated that 98 percent of applications are met within the statutory 180 day timeline. However, this timeframe does not include the months, and oftentimes years, of pre–application review that create extensive delays for companies seeking a launch and reentry license. [emphasis mine]

Consider the implications of this one quote. The FAA is proud of the fact that it approves license applications within six months — an ungodly long time for a startup — but doesn’t mention that the approval process is actually far longer because it requires new applications to be reviewed at length, before they can even be submitted.

In November, a week after Trump’s election victory, the FAA announced that it was forming a committee made up of people from the launch industry as well as academia to review Part 450. In their letter the congressmen approved of this new committee, but noted its work would not be completed until mid-2025, and that “the system is broken and must be fixed” immediately.

We, however, urge the FAA to act now and ensure that all actions short of rulemaking that can help mitigate the deficiencies of the part 450 regulation are taken in advance of any necessary regulatory changes to ensure that the commercial space industry does not have to wait years for relief.

I suspect we shall see some real action at the FAA come January 20, 2025, after Trump takes office.

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Superheavy to be used on next test flight completes 15-second static fire test

10:04 am

SpaceX has successfully completed a launchpad 15-second static fire test of the 33 engines on the Superheavy booster that will be used on the next test flight (the seventh) of its Starship/Superheavy rocket.

The video at the link is remarkable in that it appears all 33 Raptor-2 engines fired for the entire test with no problems either to the rocket or launchpad, despite producing more thrust in that time than any rocket ever in the history of space exploration.

According to this report, it appears SpaceX is targeting January 11, 2025 for that seventh test flight.

SpaceX has not yet announced a launch date for Starship’s seventh test flight, but the company appears to be eyeing Jan. 11; an email sent by NASA to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration identifies that date as the target. (According to that email, NASA plans to deploy a Gulfstream V jet to observe the upcoming flight.)

This date however has not yet been confirmed by SpaceX. Nor has the FAA indicated it will issue a license. The FAA’s approval will depend on the flight plan SpaceX chooses for the test. If similar to the previous two test flights, then that approval will be fast. If not, the red tape will likely cause several more months of delays.

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AST SpaceMobile’s satellite-to-cell constellation gets its second contract

9:46 am

AST SpaceMobile, which is building a constellation of satellites that act as orbiting cell towers and can provide service where ground-based cell towers are unavailable, has now won its second contract, signing a 10-year deal with Vodafone, a European cell company which provides service there as well as across Africa and the Middle East.

AST’s first contract is with AT&T in the U.S. It already has five satellites in orbit, and plans to begin launching its second generation and larger BlueBird satellites next year, with the goal to begin service in the U.S. first.

All it needs really is an FCC license, which it has applied for but not yet received. Its main competitor, Starlink, has received its FCC license, so expect this red tape to evaporate relatively quickly, especially with the coming change in presidents.

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One of Australia’s proposed spaceports moves

9:37 am

Australia's spaceports
Australia’s spaceports

“I’m from the government and I’m here to help!” Because of its inability to get the proper permissions from a local council, the management of Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA) has abandoned its original spaceport location on the Gove peninsula in the Northwest Territory of Australia and shifted east to a new location on the York peninsula in Queensland.

On the map to the right the “X” shows the old location, with the new location near the town of Weipa on the west coast of the peninsula. The change was forced on the company when it could not get proper approvals from the Northern Land Council (NLC), which manages the Arnhem Land Aboriginal Land Trust where the original site was located.

In a statement late on Monday, ELA said its most recent attempt to finalise a lease for the expansion of the ASC in October had been unsuccessful, following three other failed attempts in the last 12 months. In each case, it said the NLC had “failed to meet its own specified deadline for the approval of the Head Lease” or “provide any official reason for the delay”, despite pleas from the NT government and the Gumatj Aboriginal Corporation.

Because ELA has a launch contract with a South Korea rocket startup Innospace that intends to launch next year, it decided the switch had to occur now to make sure it could meet its obligations under this launch contract.

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Panama and Austria to sign Artemis Accords

9:18 am

NASA yesterday announced that both Panama and Austria will sign Artemis Accords tomorrow, bringing the total number of nations in the alliance to fifty.

The full list of nations now part of this American space alliance: Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Panama, Peru, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

The accords were created by the first Trump administration with the goal to create an alliance with enough clout to overcome the Outer Space Treaty’s restrictions on private property. Under the Biden administration, the goal has been rewritten to accomplish the exact opposite, as noted by NASA yesterday:

The Artemis Accords are grounded in the Outer Space Treaty and other agreements including the Registration Convention, the Rescue and Return Agreement, as well as best practices and norms of responsible behavior that NASA and its partners have supported, including the public release of scientific data.

With Trump back in charge, expect him to bring the accords back to its original goal. Unlike his first term, the alliance is now large, and he can use it to quickly apply pressure on the international community to overcome the Outer Space Treaty’s limitations on private property.

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Ten stupid academic studies funded by the federal government

9:18 am

Campus Reform last week posted a list of ten academic studies funded by federal government that any sane person would not only consider stupid, but an utter waste of money.

Number 1 on the list was a grant of almost a half million dollars to researchers at Reed College in Oregon to study the gambling habits of pigeons. The researchers claimed the study would shed light on human gambling behaviors, but if you believe that then you would likely also fork over your life savings to buy the Brooklyn Bridge.

Of the ten studies listed, the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded four each, while the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Cancer Institute funded one each.

National Cancer Institute’s study is surely going to help cure cancer, as it gave $7 million to the con artists faking as researchers at Stanford University to build an AI toilet equipped with cameras to scan the user’s waste and backside.

The studies were done at a range of other major universities, including Cornell, the University of California, the University of Illinois, and the University of Connecticut. Most are publicly funded institutions.

This list demonstrates clearly the bankruptcy of the government agencies involved and justifies any effort to slash their budgets by significant amounts. It does more however. It shows us the bankruptcy of the academic community as well. If scientists at major universities think this drivel is valid research, then we know they are teaching their students garbage as well. The public funding to these colleges should be slashed also.

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Iran launches its Simorgh orbital rocket

11:11 am

Iran today announced it has successfully placed several small payloads into orbit, its Simorgh rocket lifting off from its interior Semnan spaceport.

The Simorgh carried what Iran described as an “orbital propulsion system,” as well as two research systems to a 400-kilometer (250-mile) orbit above the Earth. A system that could change the orbit of a spacecraft would allow Iran to geo-synchronize the orbits of its satellites, a capability Tehran has long sought.

It also carried the Fakhr-1 satellite for Iran’s military, the first time Iran’s civilian program is known to have carried a military payload.

This was Iran’s fourth launch in 2024, doubling the launch record it had set in 2023.

The leader board for the 2024 launch race remains unchanged:

127 SpaceX
59 China
16 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 146 to 91, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 127 to 110.

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ESA to provide ground station communications support for India’s manned Gaganyaan missions

10:07 am

The new colonial movement: The European Space Agency (ESA) has now signed an agreement with India’s space agency ISRO whereby ESA will provide ground station communications support for India’s manned Gaganyaan missions.

The first unmanned test flights are planned for next year, with the first manned Gaganyaan mission targeting 2026.

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Japan’s space agency admits first launch of its new Epsilon-S rocket will be delayed

10:01 am

Japan’s space agency JAXA yesterday admitted that the first launch of its new Epsilon-S rocket — intended to be cheaper and competitive with the new rockets being developed worldwide — will be delayed because of the explosion that occurred during a static fire test on November 26, 2024.

The news reports in the Japanese press don’t provide much information. It appears the investigation into the explosion is still on-going, and that the cause of the failure has not yet been identified. Because of this, JAXA has been forced to cancel the planned March 2025 date for Epsilon-S’s inaugural flight.

JAXA should get out of the business of building rockets, as its track record is really horrible. The Japanese government has already told it to do so, but it is clearly dragging its feet, not wanting to give up the turf it has controlled for decades.

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Why Orion’s heat shield problems give Jared Isaacman the perfect justification to cancel all of SLS/Orion

9:43 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”

In yesterday’s press conference announcing new delays in NASA’s next two SLS/Orion Artemis missions to the Moon, agency officials were remarkably terse in providing details on why large chunks of Orion’s heat shield material broke off during its return to Earth in 2022 during the first Artemis mission. That damage, shown to the right, is one of the main reasons for the newly announced launch delays.

All they really said was that the damage was caused during re-entry, the atmosphere causing more stress than expected on the heat shield.

Today NASA finally released a more detailed explanation.

Engineers determined as Orion was returning from its uncrewed mission around the Moon, gases generated inside the heat shield’s ablative outer material called Avcoat were not able to vent and dissipate as expected. This allowed pressure to build up and cracking to occur, causing some charred material to break off in several locations.

…During Artemis I, engineers used the skip guidance entry technique to return Orion to Earth. … Using this maneuver, Orion dipped into the upper part of Earth’s atmosphere and used atmospheric drag to slow down. Orion then used the aerodynamic lift of the capsule to skip back out of the atmosphere, then reenter for final descent under parachutes to splashdown.

[Ground testing during the investigation showed] that during the period between dips into the atmosphere, heating rates decreased, and thermal energy accumulated inside the heat shield’s Avcoat material. This led to the accumulation of gases that are part of the expected ablation process. Because the Avcoat did not have “permeability,” internal pressure built up, and led to cracking and uneven shedding of the outer layer.

In other words, instead of ablating off in small layers, the gas build-up caused the Avcoat to break off in large chunks, with the breakage tending to occur at the seams between sections of the heat shield.
» Read more

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Europe’s Vega-C rocket returns to flight after being grounded for more than two years

3:47 pm

Europe’s Vega-C rocket, built by the Italian company Avio but presently still managed by the European Space Agency’s commercial arm Arianespace, today successfully completed its first launch in two years, lifting off from French Guiana carrying a European Earth observation satellite. As of posting the satellite had not yet been deployed.

The rocket was first grounded when its upper stage failed during a December 2022 launch. The investigation pinpointed the problem as the design of the stage’s engine nozzle. However, the first redesign also failed, requiring a second redesign.

This was the eighth launch worldwide in the past 48 hours, the most ever accomplished in such a short time. All told, five nations completed launches (United States 3, China 2, India 1, Russia 1, Europe 1) from eight different spaceports, with all three American launches completed by SpaceX.

Because this was only the third launch by Europe this year, the leader board for the 2024 launch race remains unchanged:

127 SpaceX
59 China
16 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 146 to 90, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 127 to 109.

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Next two Artemis missions delayed again, with the future of SLS/Orion hanging by a thread

1:22 pm

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”

In a press conference today, NASA officials admitted that their present schedule for the next two Artemis missions will not be possible, and have delayed the next mission (sending four astronauts around the Moon) from the end of 2025 to April 2026, and the next mission (landing astronauts on the Moon) to a year later.

It must be noted that when first proposed by George Bush Jr in 2004, he targeted 2015 for this manned landing. Should the present schedule take place as planned, that landing will now occur more a dozen years late, and almost a quarter century after it was proposed. We could have fought World War II six times over during that time.

Several technical details revealed during the conference:

  • It appears a redesign of Orion’s heat shield will take place, but not until the lunar landing mission. For Artemis-2 (the next flight), engineers have determined they can make the shield work safely by changing the re-entry path. They have also determined that the design itself is still insufficient, and will require redesign before Artemis-3.
  • Though Orion’s life support system will still be flown for the first time on Artemis-2, the first to carry humans, they have been doing extensive ground testing and have resolved a number of issues. They are thus confident that it will be safe to fly with people on its first flight.
  • Though SLS’s two solid-fueled strap-on boosters will be stacked for more than one year when Artemis-2 launches in April 2026, they are confident based on data from Artemis-1 that both will still be safe to use.

The political ramifications that lurked behind everything however are more significant.
» Read more

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Yuma competing for up to $160 million in an NSF grant to establish its own spaceport

10:16 am

Yuma spaceport

Arizona wants its own spaceport! The city of Yuma, located in Arizona’s southwest corner, is now a finalist in a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant program that could award it up to $160 million to establish a spaceport there.

The city is one of two Arizona applicants, the other being the University of Arizona, which wants to use the grant money “to make the state a proving ground for transformative mining technologies.” There are in addition 69 other applicants to the NSF grant.

This announcement is mostly PR, since Yuma not only does not yet have a spaceport licence from the FAA, it does not yet have approval from Mexico to fly missions over that country. Yuma is not on the coast, so launches must cross land. And if not over Mexico, launches would have to cross other U.S. states, something that would need approval as well.

This proposal has been in the works for many years, as having a spaceport in Arizona would draw a lot of space business to the state. It could happen, but to do so will require a lot of approvals from a lot of government agencies.

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Republican California state legislator introduces bill to overturn California Coastal Commission’s effort to block SpaceX

9:46 am

Wants to be a dictator
Wants to be a dictator

Republican state assemblyman Bill Essayli has now introduced a bill that would overturn the decision by the California Coastal Commission to reject SpaceX’s request to increase its launch rate at Vandenberg spaceport, a decision the commissioners readily and publicly stated was made not to protect the state’s beaches (the commission’s prime function) but because they did not like Musk’s political positions.

“AB 10 will reverse the politically-motivated decision by the California Coastal Commission to restrict SpaceX launches for the Space Force due to their hatred of Elon Musk. This dangerous and illegal decision threatens our national security and erodes the public trust we place in our officials to act in the best interest of the people — not politics,” Essayli said in a statement this week.

SpaceX has already sued the commission and its commissioners for violating Musk’s first amendment rights as well as exceeding their statutory authority.

The bottom line however is that the commission’s decision carries no legal weight. Vandenberg is an federally operated military base, and thus this state commission has no authority to dictate what happens there. The Space Force has simply tried to work with it in the past.

Thus, if the commission’s fangs are not pulled by Essayli’s legislation as well as SpaceX’s lawsuit, the military will likely just ignore it.

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Airbus cuts almost 500 jobs in Great Britain

9:30 am

As part of a larger planned belt-tightening that is expected to reducing staffing by more than 2,000, Airbus has now begun eliminating 477 jobs in its British operations.

The cuts are expected to hit the workforce in Stevenage and Portsmouth, where Airbus’s UK space operations are concentrated, while Newport in south Wales may also be impacted. The Stevenage site is also building Europe’s first Mars rover for a mission designed to search for signs of past or present life on the planet that’s due for launch in 2028.

Airbus said that only “overhead positions” – such as management support – will be hit, with nobody assigned to individual programmes or projects affected.

The company claims these cuts are due to SpaceX grabbing a large part of market share in the satellite business. It is also because Airbus is likely overstaffed, its operations shaped by the European Space Agency past requirement that it spread those operations to as many member nations as possible. These cuts in Great Britain are likely an attempt to reduce that spread.

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