Tag: policy

Oman: 1st launch from Duqm spaceport by the end of the year

2:31 pm

Middle East, showing Oman's proposed spaceport

According to an announcement yesterday Oman plans to complete its first launch before the end of 2024 from its proposed new spaceport near the city of Duqm on the Indian coast.

The map to the right indicates its location. Oman has dubbed the spaceport Etlaq, and it is being run by what Oman claims is a private company, the National Aerospace Services Company (NASCOM), but based on what little I can find out, it appears either to be Oman’s space agency, or a variation of the pseudo-companies in China, privately run but very tightly controlled and owned by government officials.

The announcement provided no information about the rocket or launch, which I suspect will be nothing more than a relatively simple suborbital mission, designed to demonstrate they are serious about this spaceport. The news story at the link shows a picture of a very sophisticated rocket resembling India’s GSLV rocket. I think it is a AI image having nothing to do with reality.

This project was first announced in 2023, with more information released in January 2024. It hopes to attract American rocket companies by claiming it is being built to FAA standards.

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Good news: The European Union’s space law is delayed

10:38 am

According to comments by one official of the European Union (EU) at a conference in Italy this week, its proposed space law has been delayed and will not be ready for publication in 2024, as previously promised.

It appears the delay is mostly because of what appear to be complex objections to this law from many of the EU’s many member nations.

Ten of the European Union’s 27 member states “have a full-fledged national space law addressing private-sector operation,” Von der Dunk said. The national laws cover authorization and supervision of commercial activities under Article VI of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.

The EU’s authority to promote scientific progress and the industrial competitiveness of member states comes from the 2007 Lisbon Treaty. That authority is limited, though. “The commission has to make an argument why [space law] should be treated at the EU level, as opposed to the national level,” Von der Dunk said. [emphasis mine]

As I noted in April 2024 when the release of the EU’s space law was pushed back until the summer of 2024 (which by the way did not happen), those member nations do not wish to give the EU that authority, as the EU’s track record in these kinds of matters is heavy regulation and a lot or red tape, all designed to give it power and squelch private enterprise.

It appears those member nations are acting to block this law, and appear to be succeeding. My guess is that Germany, France, Spain, and Italy are the main opponents, all of which have their own space laws in place and are now developing viable private commercial rocket and spacecraft companies. They don’t want the EU’s busy hands anywhere close to these businesses, because they expect it to squash them if it gets the chance.

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Space Force awards SpaceX big launch contract

10:24 am

Space Force yesterday awarded SpaceX a $733 million contract for what appears to be a total of eight future launches of military and national security payloads.

Few details were released about the payloads, including the launch timeline. The deal was issued as part of the military launch contracting system, which in June named SpaceX, ULA, and Blue Origin as its launch providers for the next five years.

However, one official’s comment appeared to suggest this contract award was the military’s expression of disgust at the delays at ULA and Blue Origin in getting their rockets launchworthy.

“In this era of Great Power Competition, it is imperative to not leave capability on the ground,” Brig. Gen. Kristin Panzenhagen, program executive officer for Assured Access to Space, said in an emailed statement on Friday. “The Phase 3 Lane 1 construct allows us to execute launch services more quickly for the more risk-tolerant payloads, putting more capabilities on orbit faster in order to support national security,” Panzenhagen added. [emphasis mine]

In other words, the Space Force wanted to split this contract between the three companies, but it decided to give it all to SpaceX because it expected any launches given to ULA and Blue Origin would not launch on time, and it didn’t want “to leave [that] capability on the ground.”

In the case of ULA, its Vulcan rocket finally made its first two launches this year, four years late, but on the second launch had a failure on one of its solid-fueled strap-on boosters (the nozzle fell off). Though the rocket successfully placed its dummy payload into the correct orbit, the military has either decided that it can’t yet certify Vulcan for military launches, or sees further delays while the investigation and fixes are installed.

As for Blue Origin, its New Glenn rocket is also four years behind schedule, and likely won’t launch until next year. To get it certified will also probably require two launches, and since that company never seems to be in a hurry to do anything (NASA removed its payload from New Glenn’s first launch because the company had failed to meet the required interplanetary launch window), the Pentagon probably decided it can’t give it any contracts at this time.

And so, more launches and profits for SpaceX. While it is great for that company, with revenue that will likely aid in developing Starship/Superheavy, this is not a healthy situation for the American space industry. As a nation we need more than one launch provider. We need these other companies to stop dithering around and get the job done. That’s the true American way. Have they forgotten how to do it?

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GAO: Next SLS Artemis launches will almost certainly be delayed

10:52 am

SLS's two mobile launchers, costing $1 billion
NASA’s bloated SLS mobile launchers

According to a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released yesterday, NASA’S continuing delays and technical problems building the various ground systems required for the next few Artemis launches will almost certainly cause those launches to be delayed.

The schedule at present is as follows:

  • September 2025: Artemis-2 will be the program’s first manned mission, taking four astranauts around the Moon.
  • September 2026: Artemis-3 will complete the first manned lunar landing.
  • September 2028: Artemis-4 will send four astronauts to the Lunar Gateway station in orbit around the Moon, and then complete the second manned lunar landing.

The GAO report notes at length that modifications to the mobile launch platform SLS will use on the first two missions is taking longer than planned. It also notes that the problems completing the second mobile launcher continue, with the budget growing from $383 million to $1.1 billion, and the work years behind schedule with no certainty it will be completed in time for the 2028 mission. These issues are the same ones noted by NASA’s inspector general in August 2024.

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

This report focused exclusively on the scheduling delays for the ground systems that will be used by SLS for each launch. It did not address the serious questions that remain concerning the serious heat shield damage experienced by the Orion capsule when it returned to Earth on its first unmanned mission in late 2022. NASA has been studying that problem now for two years, and as yet has not revealed a solution.

I continue to predict that the first manned landing, now scheduled for 2026, will not occur before 2030, six years behind the schedule first proposed by President Trump but actually fifteen years behind the schedule initially proposed by President George Bush Jr in 2004. All in all, it will take NASA almost a third of a century to put American astronauts back on the Moon, assuming the landing occurs in 2030 as I now predict. Compare that with the development time of SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy. Proposed in 2017, it is already flying, and will almost certainly complete its first private manned lunar mission and its first test missions to Mars by 2027. The contrast is striking.

More and more the entire part of Artemis run by NASA is proving to be the failed disaster I predicted it would be in 2011. No wonder former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg wrote an op-ed yesterday calling for its cancellation. Like most politicians, reality is finally percolating into his thick skull, though several decades late.

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Commerce loosens regulations, allowing American space companies easier use of international facilities

9:42 am

The Commerce department today announced that it has issued three new rulings that will ease the regulations and licensing procedures that American rocket and satellite companies have to go through in order to launch from international facilities.

The first rule will ease licensing for launches from Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. This will make it easier for American rocket companies to launch from the new spaceports being built in these nations, as well as allow satellite and orbital tug companies to launch their spacecraft from these nations using non-American rockets.

The second rule, still in its interim stage of approval, would ease the export licensing for satellites and spacecraft “to over 40 allies and partners worldwide, reducing licensing requirements for the least sensitive components for most destinations, and broadening license exceptions to support additional National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) cooperative programs.” It appears this ruling focuses specifically on the countries who have signed the Artemis Accords, joining NASA’s Artemis program.

The third rule, which is at present only proposed, will remove from the State Department’s strict ITAR regulations many space-related defense technology, transfering their licensing to the much more relaxed Commerce department. This ruling appears aimed at helping the new burgeoning orbital tug, refueling, and satellite servicing industry, which uses rendezvous and proximity technology that was previously considered military in nature.

While it appears this easing of regulation goes against the Biden administration general policy of tightening regulations, the changes make sense if we recognize that these regulations also loosen access to American technology for many international partners, something this administration favors.

All in all, however, the changes are thoughtfully worked out, and will likely help energize the American space industry without releasing important technology to the wrong nations.

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ESA awards OHB Italia a preliminary contract to build Ramses probe to Apophis

9:22 am

The European Space Agency (ESA) yesterday awarded the company OHB Italia a €63 million preliminary contract to begin work on mission dubbed Ramses that will launch in 2028 and rendezvous with the potentially dangerous asteroid Apophis when it flies past the Earth on April 13, 2029 at a distance of less than 20,000 miles.

The contract award is preliminary because the entire project still has to be approved by the ESA ministral council of nations, meeting in 2025. Because of the short development time, however, ESA’s management found funds from its existing budget to begin work.

To speed work, the project is also using as its design basis the Hera asteroid spacecraft, which was recently launched to study the binary asteroids Didymos-Dimorphos. That mission was also built remarkably fast for a European space project, going from contract to launch in just four years.

NASA has already re-tasked its OSIRIS-REx asteroid mission to head for Apophis, renaming it OSIRIS-APEX for reasons that baffle me. The mission had successfully delivered samples from the asteroid Bennu, but after completing that mission had sufficient fuel and was well placed to do this additional rendezvous as well.

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ULA recovers nozzle debris that fell off during second Vulcan launch

9:05 am

ULA has recovered some of the debris that fell to earth after the nozzle on one of Vulcan’s two solid-fueled strap-on boosters fell off during the early stages of the rocket’s second launch on October 4, 2024.

Julie Arnold, a ULA spokesperson, confirmed to Ars that the company has retrieved some of the debris. “We recovered some small pieces of the GEM 63XL SRB nozzle that were liberated in the vicinity of the launch pad,” Arnold said. “The team is inspecting the hardware to aid in the investigation.”

The booster was built by Northrop Grumman. Vulcan can use from from two to six on each flight (in pairs), depending on the mass of its payload and the mission requirements. At the moment ULA has 35 of these boosters in storage awaiting future flights. It is expected that once the company has an idea of the root cause of the failure, it will have to inspect each booster to avoid a repeat of the problem.

Though ULA has not announced any changes in its plans to launch twice more before the end of the year, both for the Pentagon, that schedule is now uncertain due to this problem. For example, there as yet is no word on whether the military is willing to certify the launches. It had required ULA to complete two test flights of Vulcan before doing so, and the nozzle issue has cast a cloud on that plan.

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Sinwar’s elimination is merely one small win in Israel’s new quest for total victory

1:39 pm

Hamas vs Israel
The obvious reasons why killing the leaders
of Hamas and Hezbollah is a good thing.
Courtesy of Doug Ross.

The confirmation today that Israel had finally killed Hamas leader Yahha Sinwar, considered the main architect behind the October 7, 2023 murder, rape, and torture of more than a thousand Israeli men, women, children, and babies near Gaza is good news, but it only is one small victory in what is now clearly Israel’s decision to go for nothing less than total victory against the terrorists who have been hounding and killiing its citizens wantonly for decades.

You see, since the 1973 Yom Kippur war, all of Israel’s responses against terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah have been limited and targeted, and ended quickly with fake ceasefires that allowed those terrorist groups to not only regroup, but actually expand their capabilities.

The most blatent and best example of this what happened in connection with Israel’s 2006 month-long invasion of Lebanon, launched in an attempt to defeat Hezbollah. The invasion bogged down, and as a result Israel and Hezbollah ended up agreeing to UN resolution 1701, which had Israel evaculate southern Lebanon and the UN take on the task of keeping the peace. The agreement also created a demilitarized zone in southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah was forbidden.

That agreement was an utter failure. Neither the UN nor Lebanon had the ability or even the desire to limit Hezbollah, and so before long it had made that demilitarized zone a launchpad for rocket attacks into Israel. In Israel’s most recent campaign to clear out that zone, it has also discovered tunnels and large weapons caches clearly designed for Hezbollah’s own planned October 7th-type invasion.

After October 7th, what I labeled Israel’s Pearl Harbor, Israel was clearly no longer going to accept this failed piecemeal and limited negotiating approach, administered by dishonest third parties like the UN and even the United States. Instead, it decided to go by an old American concept of “unconditional surrender,” first made plain by Grant during the Civil War and then underlined by Eisenhower and Roosevelt in their insistence on “total victory” in World War II.

In other words, Israel would only accept a ceasefire or peace treaty if it involved the surrender and capture of the leadership of Hamas and Hezbollah. If they refused to do this, then Israel resolved to kill them.

It has now demonstrated its ability to do so, with gratifying success.

Israel’s military actions since October 7th however also illustrate a major change in strategy and tactics. » Read more

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NASA assembles two new panels to review its Mars Sample Return mission plans

10:38 am

NASA yesterday announced that it has assembled two new panels to review its Mars Sample Return mission plans, dubbed the strategy review and the analysis team, to be done in conjunction with the proposals the agency has already received from the private sector.

The team’s report is anticipated by the end of 2024 and will examine options for a complete mission design, which may be a composite of multiple studied design elements. The team will not recommend specific acquisition strategies or partners.

The strategy review team has been chartered under a task to the Cornell Technical Services contract. The team may request input from a NASA analysis team that consists of government employees and expert consultants.

The analysis team also will provide programmatic input such as a cost and schedule assessment of the architecture recommended by the strategy review team.

The first panel contains a mixture of NASA officials and scientists, while the second is mostly made up of NASA managers.

Whatever these panels decide, it is very clear that major changes are required to this project in order to get the Perseverance core samples on Mars back to Earth within a reasonable amount of time and at an acceptable cost. The present project design is chaotic, confused, and running significantly overbudget and behind schedule, with no indication anything will change in the near future.

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Musk: We will attempt to catch Starship like Superheavy, “hopefully early next year”

10:23 am

According to a tweet by Elon Musk on October 15, 2024, SpaceX is targeting early 2025 for the first attempt to recover Starship after launch, and to do it the same way it recovered Superheavy, by catching it with a set of launch tower chopsticks.

To do this will require getting that second launch tower at Boca Chica operational. It will also require SpaceX to successfully restart Starship’s Raptor engines in space, something it has not yet done. Once this is demonstrated to work, the company would also have to do another orbital test where Starship is put in a full orbit and then de-orbited precisely to a point over the ocean, demonstrating that such a return can next be done reliably over land.

In other words, a tower catch can only happen after at least two more test flights. Thus, to do it early next year means SpaceX will have to establish a test launch pace of a launch every one or two months. This is actually something Musk has said repeatedly he wants to do, but has been stymied repeatedly by FAA red tape from doing it.

I suspect Musk’s tweet is expressing his unstated hope that a Trump victory in November will force the FAA to ease its bureaucratic interference.

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NASA to phase out its government-built communications satellite constellation, rely on commercial services

9:41 am

Capitalism in space: NASA yesterday announced that beginning on November 8, 2024 it will begin the phase out of its government-built TDRS communications satellite constellation, requiring all future missions to use commercial services for communications and data transmission.

As of Friday, Nov. 8, the agency’s legacy TDRS (Tracking and Data Relay Satellite) system, as part of the Near Space Network, will support only existing missions while new missions will be supported by future commercial services.

…While TDRS will not be accepting new missions, it won’t be retiring immediately. Current TDRS users, like the International Space Station, Hubble Space Telescope, and many other Earth- and universe-observing missions, will still rely on TDRS until the mid-2030s. Each TDRS spacecraft’s retirement will be driven by individual health factors, as the seven active TDRS satellites are expected to decline at variable rates. 

NASA in 2022 already issued contracts to six commercial communication companies to provide these services, Inmarsat, Kuiper Government, SES, SpaceX, Telesat, and Viasat. Yesterday’s annoncement involves NASA’s long term plan to retire the TDRS constellation.

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SpaceX sues California Coastal Commission

9:30 am

Wants to be a dictator
Wants to be a dictator

As promised by Elon Musk, SpaceX has now filed suit against California Coastal Commission, and its commissioners, accusing it of violating Musk’s first amendment rights and using its regulatory power against the company simply because those commissioners disagree with Musk’s political positions.

You can read SpaceX’s lawsuit filing here [pdf]. From its introduction:

[The Commission has engaged in naked political discrimination against Plaintiff Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) in violation of the rights of free speech and due process enshrined in the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. Rarely has a government agency made so clear that it was exceeding its authorized mandate to punish a company for the political views and statements of its largest shareholder and CEO. Second, the Commission is trying to unlawfully regulate space launch programs—which are critical to national security and other national policy objectives—at Vandenberg Space Force Base (the Base), a federal enclave and the world’s second busiest spaceport.

The lawsuit stems from the comments made by the commissioners when then voted against the military’s plan to allow SpaceX to increase its launch rate at Vandenberg spaceport to up to 50 launches per year. In those comments, the commissioners made it clear that the main reason they were voting against the motion was because they were offended by Elon Musk and his political positions, not because the company was doing anything wrong. In fact, the commissioners knew SpaceX was doing nothing wrong. As noted at the first link above:
» Read more

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