Tag: policy

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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