Tag: policy

China launches Tianzhou cargo freighter to its Tiangong-3 space station

8:50 am

China today successfully launched a new Tianzhou cargo freighter to its Tiangong-3 space station, its Long March 7 rocket lifting off from its coastal Wenchang spaceport.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

114 SpaceX
53 China
13 Russia
12 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 132 to 79, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 114 to 97.

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NASA reveals that it and Russia disagree about the danger posed by the airleak on ISS

8:54 am

Figure 3 from IG report
Figure 3 from September Inspector General report, annotated by me to show Zvezda location.

In a public session yesterday by a NASA commission focused on accessing the safety condition of ISS, officials revealed that the commission and Russia disagree about the root causes behind the airleak and cracks in the docking section of the Zvezda module on the Russian half of ISS, as well as the risk of a catastrophic failure. According to the commission’s head, former astronaut Bob Cabana.

The Russian position is that the most probable cause of the PrK cracks is high cyclic fatigue caused by micro vibrations. NASA believes the PrK cracks are likely multi-causal including pressure and mechanical stress, residual stress, material properties and environmental exposures.

The Russians believe that continued operations are safe, but they can’t prove that to our satisfaction. The U.S. believes that it’s not safe, but we can’t prove that to Russian satisfaction that that’s the case. So while the Russian team continues to search for and seal the leaks, it does not believe catastrophic disintegration of the PrK is realistic and NASA has expressed concerns about structural integrity of the PrK and the possibility of a catastrophic failure.

Because of this disagreement American astronauts now close the hatch between the Russian and American halves of ISS whenever a docking to Zvezda is taking place, and apparently keep that hatch closed until unloading of the docked spacecraft is complete. The Russians in turn only open the hatch to the docking section of Zvezda when they need to load or unload material into the freighter docked there, and coordinate with American astronauts whenever they do so.

Engineers from the two nations continue to discuss the issue, and hope to result their disagreement and come up with a joint plan.

Ultimately, this issue indicates the certain end of ISS in the near future, and adds ugency to the need to get some of those commercial space stations operating in orbit.

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Pakistan to fly a small rover on China’s Chang’e-8 lunar lander

8:36 am

In an agreement signed yesterday, the Space and Upper Atmo­sphere Research Comm­ission (Suparco) in Pakistan announced it will collaborate with China to build a small rover that will to fly on China’s Chang’e-8 lunar lander.

The lander is present scheduled to land near the Moon’s south pole in 2030, will be China’s second lander to the south pole region, and will also act to officially establish China’s International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) on the lunar surface. It will also include a “hopper” to explore the nearby surface.

Pakistan had already signed on to China’s space alliance to build the ILRS. China’s present list of partners is as follows: Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Russia, Serbia, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, and Venezuela. That partnership also includes about eleven academic or governmental bureaucracies.

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Denmark joins the Artemis Accords

8:27 am

In a signing ceremony yesterday in Copenhagen, Denmark became the 48th nation to sign the Artemis Accords.

The full list of nations now part of this American space alliance: Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, 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, 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.

With this alliance established, the incoming Trump administration will have great political international leverage, increasing the chances it can finally use the accords to achieve its initial goal, to overcome the legal restrictions on private property imposed by the Outer Space Treaty.

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China and SpaceX complete morning launches

8:16 am

Both China and SpaceX today successfully completed morning launches.

First China launched an environmental satellite to study “ocean salinity,” its Long March 4B rocket lifting off from its Taiyuan spaceport in northeast China.

No word on where the rocket’s lower stages crashed inside China. All use very toxic hypergolic fuels, which can literally dissolve your skin.

Next SpaceX completed another launch of 23 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The first stage completed its eighteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

114 SpaceX
52 China
13 Russia
12 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 132 to 77, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 114 to 95.

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Major court decision could invalidate many federal environmental regulations

1:54 pm

In what could be a major legal ruling [pdf], a two-judge decision this week in the DC Circuit Court ruled that the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), which has for years imposed environmental rules on other federal agencies based on the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), does not have the statutory authority to do so, thus invalidating every regulation so imposed.

All three members of the three-judge panel agreed that the Agencies acted arbitrarily and capriciously in [in this particular case]. However, before reaching that conclusion, the majority analyzed whether the CEQ regulations the Agencies followed in adopting the plan were valid, an argument not raised by any of the parties. The majority held, sua sponte, that because there is no statute stating or suggesting that US Congress has empowered the CEQ to issue rules binding on other agencies, the CEQ has no lawful authority to promulgate such regulations.

…Although this decision does not explicitly vacate any action taken by the CEQ, it does establish a precedent that CEQ rules lack statutory authorization, and therefore that other agency actions taken under the CEQ framework are at risk of being vacated. If this decision is not overturned by the full appellate court sitting en banc or by the US Supreme Court, it has the potential to completely change the landscape of NEPA review.

The case is complicated, partly because the Byzantine nature of the federal bureaucracy and the many agencies involved. (It is almost as if these agencies created that complexity to confuse and protect themselves.)

The heart of the decision is that CEQ was apparently first created as an “advisory” body to help other federal agencies follow the intent of NEPA in their own rule-making, but instead soon became a “regulatory” body whose rulings other agencies were required to follow. As that authority was never given it by Congress, CEQ exceeded its authority by making its rulings mandatory.

This court decision will likely leave many agencies on their own in establishing environmental regulations, based on NEPA. However, even that regulatory ability faces limitations, based on the Supreme Court’s recent Chevron decision, which said that government agencies do not have right to promulgate new regulations that are not specifically described in congressional law.

In other words, Chevron says that the bureaucracy cannot make things up, based on its own vague opinions.

The trend of all these court rulings appears aimed at limiting the power of the federal bureaucracy. It will however take some time to determine how much that power is limited, as lawsuits begin to percolate through the courts. If there are lot of lawsuits (which does appear to be happening) we should therefore expect that power to be limited significanly.

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The dim future of SLS indicated at space business symposium

9:37 am

At a symposium in DC yesterday, a panel of past managers — all of whom had been involved in previous government transitions at NASA — attempted to predict what the consequences will be for NASA with the new Trump administration.

Most of the opinions were pure guesses, some better than others. The real moment of truth came when the entire panel was asked to predict the future of SLS and Orion. The question was put forth by one of the panelists, Lori Garver, who had been NASA’s deputy administrator during the Obama administration, and seemed to have the best understanding of how much the arrival of Trump will likely shake things up significantly.

At one point in the discussion, she asked the panel if they thought the Space Launch System and Orion programs would continue in the next administration. None of the panelists raised their hands. [emphasis mine]

Several of these panelists were big supporters of SLS. Their lack of confidence in its future tells us that SLS and Orion no longer have strong political backing in Washington. Both stand on thin ice.

I predict both will be shut down within the next year, before the next Artemis flight, the first to be manned, to be replaced with a entirely different manned space exploratory program to the Moon and Mars. The decision will be a smart one, but tragically late in coming. SLS should have been dumped years ago. If it had, the U.S. effort to return to the Moon would have been better off, moving forward with a better plan years earlier. Instead, this late decision will once again delay any manned lunar missions for years more.

The change however will be good in the long run, because I expect the new program will be better designed, more efficient, cost less, and be able to do what SLS promised but could never deliver. And it will be based on what private enterprise can accomplish, not a government designed behemoth designed mostly as pork.

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JPL to layoff 5% of its workforce, the third major layoff this year

9:10 am

JPL in California announced today a layoff of 325 workers, about 5% of its workforce, the third major layoff imposed this year.

The JPL press release indicates the layoffs are because of NASA budget cutbacks, but does not provide any specificity. The cause centers mostly around NASA’s decision to pause its Mars Sample Return project, which JPL was leading. From this report:

This is the third round of layoffs at JPL this year, a reduction spurred primarily by major budgetary cuts to the Mars Sample Return mission, which is managed by JPL. NASA directed $310 million this year to the effort to bring Mars rocks back to Earth, a steep drop from the $822.3 million it spent on the program the previous year.

In January, 100 on-site contractors at JPL were let go after NASA instructed the lab to reduce spending in anticipation of a much tighter budget. In February, the lab laid off 530 employees — approximately 8% of its workforce — and another 40 contractors.

It increasingly appears that JPL’s place in the redesigned mission could be significantly reduced.

The press release also makes it sound like these cutbacks are the end of the world. As JPL has mostly functioned for decades as a private institution attached to NASA almost like a government agency, no one there ever expects to get laid off. In the real world however layoffs such as this happen all the time, especially when a company fails to deliver. JPL in recent years has had budget and management problems, epitomized by the problems now seen with that sample return mission, so it should not be surprised by these cutbacks from NASA.

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A defunct satellite is now in an unexpected orbit, and no one knows how it got there

3:56 pm

Skynet-1A, a British satellite launched in 1969 and out of commission since the 1970s, has now been found in an unexpected location in geosynchronous orbit, and no one knows how it got there.

Launched in 1969, just a few months after humans first set foot on the Moon, Skynet-1A was put high above Africa’s east coast to relay communications for British forces. When the spacecraft ceased working a few years later, gravity might have been expected to pull it even further to the east, out over the Indian Ocean.

But today, curiously, Skynet-1A is actually half a planet away, in a position 22,369 miles (36,000km) above the Americas. Orbital mechanics mean it’s unlikely the half-tonne military spacecraft simply drifted to its current location. Almost certainly, it was commanded to fire its thrusters in the mid-1970s to take it westwards. The question is who that was and with what authority and purpose?

The article attempts to suggest the orbit change was done for some nefarious purpose, but the most likely explanation is that at some point the British engineers who operated it ordered the required engine burns, but the records of that work are now lost.

Though the present location poses some problems for other geosynchronous satellites, Skynet-1A also now offers a great opportunity for a mission demonstrating a way to clean up junk in these orbits.

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China launches four remote-sensing satellites

3:47 pm

China today successfully launched four new remote-sensing satellites, its Long March 2C rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China.

No word on where the rocket’s lower stages, which use very toxic hypergoic fuels, crashed.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

110 SpaceX
50 China
13 Russia
12 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 128 to 76, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including American companies, 110 to 94.

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Sierra Space announces plans to build a second Dream Chaser cargo spaceplane

2:58 pm

With the first launch of Sierra Space’s first Dream Chaser reusable unmanned cargo mini-shuttle, Tenacity, now scheduled for May 2025, the company has announced that it is beginning work on a second cargo spaceplane, dubbed Reverence, along with a mission control center to operate its fleet in orbit.

Sierra Space spokesperson Alex Walker shared the new May 2025 estimate and said work on Reverence, also known as DC-102, will resume once the team returns to Colorado — but declined to clarify when that would happen. At that point, Walker said, it will likely be another 18 months before the second spaceplane is complete. In addition to the fleet of cargo-carrying craft, Sierra Space is also working on a crewed variant of the vessel, labeled the DC-200 series, and a national security DC-300 variant.

Company officials say each mini-shuttle is good for 15 flights, so having both vehicles gives the company a total of 30 flights to sell to various space station and orbital customers.

Selling to others outside NASA may be necessary, because Tenacity is four-plus years behind schedule. By the time it begins flying ISS will already be approaching retirement in only a few short years.

The company intends these new Dream Chaser projects to work in tandem with its LIFE inflatable modules, which are presently being developed as part of the Blue Origin-led Orbital Reef space station. And while much of work on the rest of that station appears moribund, it appears that Sierra is developing everything needed for its own space station. We should therefore not be surprised if Sierra decides to bid on NASA’s next space station funding round independent entirely of the Orbital Reef partnership.

It certainly is assembling all the pieces needed for a station, without any help from Blue Origin.

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NASA denies press reports that Sunita Williams on ISS has health issues

9:12 am

After the Daily Mail in the UK reported that it appeared that Sunita Williams on ISS appeared “gaunt” in recent pictures and might have health issues due to her unexpectedly long stay in space, NASA today issued a denial, stating unequivocally that she “is in good health.”

The pictures used to suggest she is “gaunt” are mostly based on the shape of her face, but this means nothing. Weightlessness shifts things about. The Daily Mail report used the analysis of those photos by a doctor in Seattle.

While the two have put on a positive front in their public comments and interviews, a recent photo tells a different story, according to Dr Vinay Gupta, a pulmonologist and veteran in Seattle. Dr Gupta told DailyMail.com: “What you’re seeing there in that picture is somebody that I think is experiencing the natural stresses of living at a very high altitude, even in a pressurized cabin, for extended periods. Her cheeks appear a bit sunken – and usually it happens when you’ve had sort of total body weight loss,” Dr Gupta added.

“I think what I can discern by her face and her cheeks being sunken in is that [she] has probably been at a significant [calorie] deficit for a while.”

As a general rule, it is considered to be unethical for a doctor to make any diagnosis from a distance based on press reports. Gupta might be right, but more likely he is basing these opinions on very incomplete data. In this case I would generally trust NASA’s denial, especially becauase Williams is a very experienced astronaut who has done previous long missions on ISS.

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