Tag: politics

More missions to Apophis when it flies past Earth in 2029?

11:45 am

Apophis' path past the Earth in 2029
A cartoon (not to scale) showing Apophis’s
path in 2029

There were two stories today that heralded the addition of one real and two potential new spacecraft to rendezvous with the potentially dangerous asteroid Apophis when it flies past the Earth on April 13, 2029.

First, the European Space Agency (ESA) awarded a 1.5 million euro contract to the Spanish company Emxys to build a small cubesat that will fly on ESA’s Ramses mission to Apophis. This is the second cubesat now to fly attached to Ramses, with the first designed to use radar to study Apophis’ interior.

The second CubeSat, led by Emxys, will be deployed from the main spacecraft just a few kilometres from Apophis. It will study the asteroid’s shape and geological properties and will carry out an autonomous approach manoeuvre before attempting to land on the surface. If the landing is successful, it will also measure the asteroid’s seismic activity.

Second, American planetary scientists have been lobbying NASA to repurpose the two small Janus spacecraft for a mission to Apophis. These probes were originally built to go to an asteroid as a secondary payload when the Pysche asteroid mission was launched, but when Pysche was delayed they could no longer go that that asteroid on the new launch date. Since then both Janus spacecraft have been in storage, with no place to go.

The scientists say they could easily be repurposed to go to Apophis, but NASA will have to commit to spending the cost for launch, approximately $100 million. NASA officials were not hostile to this idea, but they were also non-committal. I suspect no decision can be made until the new administrator, Jared Isaacman, is confirmed by the Senate and takes office.

Time however is a factor. The longer it takes to make a decision the fewer options there will be to get it to Apophis on time.

At the moment there is only one spacecraft in space and on its way to Apophis, and that is the repurposed Osiris-Rex mission, now called Osiris-Apex. Japan might also send a craft past Apophis as part of its mission to another asteroid.

Learning as much as we can about Apophis is critical, as there is a chance it will impact the Earth sometime in the next two hundred years.

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Space station startup Voyager Technologies about to go public

10:52 am

Starlab design in 2025
The Starlab design in 2025. Click
for original image.

The space station startup Voyager Technologies (formerly Voyager Space) has filed its paperwork for its expected initial public offering (IPO) of stock as it competes for a major contract from NASA to build its Starlab space station.

Voyager filed a preliminary prospectus for its planned initial public offering (IPO) with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission May 16. The company previously confidentially filed plans for its IPO with the SEC. The draft prospectus does not yet disclose how many shares the company plans to sell or the amount the company expects to raise in the IPO. It does, though, offer financial details about Voyager.

The company reported $144.2 million in revenue in 2024 and a net loss of $65.6 million, versus $136.1 million in revenue and a net loss of $25.2 million in 2023. The company also reported revenue of $34.5 million in the first quarter of 2025, and a net loss of $27.9 million.

This story actually made me less confident about this company’s plans, with this quote the most revealing:

The company received a funded Space Act Agreement from NASA to support initial design work on the station, currently worth $217.5 million with $70.3 million yet to be paid. … The NASA award covers only initial work on Starlab, and the company will have to compete for a second phase of NASA’s Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development program that will offer additional funding for station development. Voyager revealed in the prospectus that it projects Starlab to cost $2.8 billion to $3.3 billion to develop.

So far it appears Voyager has built nothing. Instead it has used NASA’s preliminary money to do and redo its on-paper design of Starlab (compare the more recent design concept in the image on the right with this older image from 2022), which as a concept is intended to be launched whole on a single Starship launch. No metal has been cut. The company appears to be following the old big space company approach of investing nothing of its own in development.

This does not mean its station will be a failure, but I expect it will not launch as scheduled in 2029 if it wins that major NASA contract. The company will have to build it all in less than three years, something that I doubt it will be able to do.

My present rankings for the four proposed commercial stations:

  • Haven-1, being built by Vast, with no NASA funds. The company is moving fast, with Haven-1 to launch and be occupied in 2026 for an estimated 30 days total. It hopes this actual hardware and manned mission will put it in the lead to win NASA’s phase 2 contract, from which it will build its much larger mult-module Haven-2 station..
  • Axiom, being built by Axiom, has launched three tourist flights to ISS, with a fourth scheduled for early June, carrying passengers from India, Hungary, and Poland. Though there have been rumors it has cash flow issues, development of its first module has been proceeding more or less as planned.
  • Orbital Reef, being built by a consortium led by Blue Origin and Sierra Space. Overall, Blue Origin has built almost nothing, while Sierra Space has successfully tested its inflatable modules, including a full scale version, and appears ready to start building its module for launch.
  • Starlab, being built by a consortium led by Voyager Space, Airbus, and Northrop Grumman, with an extensive partnership agreement with the European Space Agency. It recently had its station design approved by NASA, but it has built nothing, and appears unwilling to cut any metal until it wins NASA’s full contract.
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Air Force issues draft approval of second SpaceX launchpad at Vandenberg

9:44 am

Air Force last week issued a draft environmental impact statement approving SpaceX’s plans to rebuild the old Space Launch Complex 6 (SLC-6, pronounced “slick-six”) at Vandenberg that was first built for the space shuttle (but never used) and later adapted for ULA’s Delta family of rockets, now retired.

The plan involves rebuilding SLC-6 to accommodate both Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches, including the addition of two landing pads. With its already operational launchpad at Vandenberg, SLC-4E, the company hopes to increase its annual launch rate from 50 (approved by the FAA earlier this month) to as much as 100.

The estimated launch cadence between SpaceX’s existing West Coast pad at … SLC-4E and SLC-6 would be a 70-11 split for Falcon 9 rockets in 2026 with one Falcon Heavy at SLC-6 for a total of 82 launches. That would increase to a 70-25 Falcon 9 split in 2027 and 2028 with an estimated five Falcon Heavy launches in each of those years.

The draft assessment is now open to public comment through July 7, 2025, with a final version expected to be approved in the fall. It appears the Air Force wants it approved, as it needs this capacity for its own launch requirements. It also appears it no longer cares what the California Coastal Commission thinks about such things, as it has no authority and its members appear motivated not by environmental concerns but a simple hatred of Elon Musk.

An annual launch rate of 100 however exceeds what the FAA approved in May, doubling it. In order to move forward either the FAA will have to issue a new reassessment of its own, or some legislative or executive action will be needed to reduce this red tape. Since Vandenberg is a military base, the military in the end makes all the final decisions. The FAA simply rubber-stamps those decisions.

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China launches communications satellite

9:17 am

China today successfully placed a communications satellite into orbit, its Long March 7A rocket lifting off from this coastal Wenchang spaceport.

SpaceX was supposed to have launched a set of Starlink satellites last night as well, but scrubbed the launch about two and a half minutes before launch. It plans to try again tonight.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

59 SpaceX
29 China
6 Rocket Lab
5 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 59 to 47.

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In telling us why they are fleeing Trump America, three Yale professors prove they are unqualified for their jobs

12:11 pm

What many now label the
The “Poison Ivy League” may have finally
gotten better!

Good riddance! In a New York Times op-ed on May 14, 2025, three former Yale professors attempted to explain why they have quit their jobs at Yale and moved to teach in Canada at the University of Toronto.

Unbeknownst to them, their idiotic and ignorant reasons for leaving demonstrated that they are actually completely unqualified to be college professors, and that Yale (and the United States) will be better off without them.

Professor Stanley is leaving the United States as an act of protest against the Trump administration’s attacks on civil liberties. “I want Americans to realize that this is a democratic emergency,” he said.

Professor Shore, who has spent two decades writing about the history of authoritarianism in Central and Eastern Europe, is leaving because of what she sees as the sharp regression of American democracy. “We’re like people on the Titanic saying our ship can’t sink,” she said. “And what you know as a historian is that there is no such thing as a ship that can’t sink.”

Professor Snyder’s reasons are more complicated. Primarily, he’s leaving to support his wife, Professor Shore, and their children, and to teach at a large public university in Toronto, a place he says can host conversations about freedom. At the same time, he shares the concerns expressed by his colleagues and worries that those kinds of conversations will become ever harder to have in the United States.

As noted in this analysis of their actions, all three say they are doing this because they have studied fascism and thus “equate ‘Make America Great Again’ with Adolf Hitler’s ‘Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer.'”

The analogy is so weak and incoherent as to be laughable. As the essayist in this second link notes, it cheapens the meaning of fascism and in fact suggests these three “professors” don’t have the slightest idea what the word means, despite their claim they have studied it.

More important however are the three quirks of personality illustrated by their position and actions that signify why their are unqualified to be professors to begin with.
» Read more

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Chinese pseudo-company completes another launch from sea platform

8:42 am

The Chinese pseudo-company Galactic Energy today successfully placed four communications satellites into orbit, its solid-fueled Ceres-1 rocket lifting off from a sea platform off the eastern coast of China.

To prove how pseudo this company is, China’s state run press did not even mention its existence in the report at the link. The solid fuel of the rocket tells us that it was derived from missile technology, and there isn’t a chance in hell that a private independent company in China could do so without the strict supervision and control from that country’s government.

Nonetheless, this was its 19th successful launch, and its fifth from a sea platform. The rocket has only failed once since since its first launch in 2020.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

59 SpaceX
28 China
6 Rocket Lab
5 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 59 to 46.

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Third stage of India’s PSLV rocket fails during launch

9:36 pm

India’s PSLV rocket today (May 18 in India) experienced a launch failure in attempting to place an Earth observation satellite into orbit, with the failure occurring during the engine firing of the rocket’s third stage.

The link is cued to just before the tracking screen began showing the third stage drop from its planned trajectory. The suddenness of the loss of data as well as the drop in the trajectory suggests the engine exploded during firing, but that is pure speculation. Regardless, the launch, only the second India has attempted in 2025, was a failure.

Moreover, the first launch this year was a failure also, though the GSLV rocket in that launch performed as expected and deployed the satellite in its planned transfer orbit. At that point however the Indian-built satellite’s thrusters failed to operate, stranding the satellite in the wrong orbit , which soon decayed. UPDATE: According to a more recent report, it has remained in orbit but provides little service.

Thus 2025, which ISRO had predicted to be India’s most active year ever, is so far not turning out so well. ISRO hopes to begin launching its first unmanned test flights of its Gaganyaan capsule later this year, using its Heavy Lift Vehicle Mark 3 rocket (HLV-M3), an upgraded version of its GSLV rocket. One wonders if these issues will impact that schedule.

These failures by the space agency could however help the Modi government shift the balance of power away from ISRO and to its emerging private rocket sector. If the agency can’t get it done, maybe the private sector should be given the chance to do it. For example, the government has been pushing to have the ownership and management of the PSLV rocket transferred from ISRO to a private rocket company since in 2016. In the nine year since, there however has been little sign of this shift happening.

Part of the problem has been that none of India’s private rocket startups are really ready to take over these operations. The transfer is further made less likely by the strong resistance to change within ISRO’s bureaucracy. These failures provide political ammunition to push back against that resistance.

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Two launches last night, by China and Rocket Lab

10:23 am

The high pace of rocket launches this year continued last night, but in a rare exception this time it had nothing to do with SpaceX.

First, the Chinese pseudo-company Landspace successfully placed six radar satellites into orbit, its upgraded version of its Zhuque-2 rocket lifting off from the Jiuquan spaceport in China’s northwest.

No word on where the rocket’s lower stages crashed inside China. Unlike its larger Zhuque-3 rocket, which has not yet flown but is being designed as a copy of a Falcon 9 with its first stage able to return to Earth vertically, the Zhuque-2 has no such ability.

Next, Rocket Lab successfully placed a commercial radar satellite into orbit, its Electron rocket lifting off from one of the company’s two launchpads in New Zealand. This launch was the third by Rocket Lab for the satellite company iQPS, and is the second in an eight-satellite launch contract with the company.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

59 SpaceX
27 China
6 Rocket Lab
5 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 59 to 45.

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FAA issues revised launch window and flight restrictions for future Starship test flights

11:00 am

Flight path for Starship's ninth test flight

Due to the breakup of Starship over the Atlantic during its last two test flights, the FAA today issued [pdf] revised launch window and flight plan restrictions for future flights, in an attempt to placate somewhat the concerns of the United Kingdom.

The map to the right, taken from the FAA assessment, shows in red the area where air traffic is impacted by the next Starship/Superheavy launch, now tentatively planned for next week. Note how the path threads a line avoiding almost all land masses, thus limiting the worst impact to just the Bahamas, the Turks & Caicos Islands. Though the launch will effect 175 flights and require one airport on these islands to close during the launch window, to minimize the impact the FAA has required that the launch window be scheduled outside peak travel periods.

At the same time, the FAA after discussions with the governments on these islands has approved this flight plan, noting that “no significant impacts would occur” due to the ninth flight.

The agency has not yet actually issued the launch license, but it will almost certainly do so in time for SpaceX’s planned launch date. Since the advent of the Trump administration the FAA has no longer been slow walking these approvals in order to retype the results of SpaceX’s investigation. Instead, as soon as SpaceX states it has satisfactorily completed its investigation, the FAA has accepted that declaration and issued a launch license. Expect the same this time as well.

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Kazakhstan denies rumors that Russia plans to abandon Baikonur

10:01 am

In response to reports in its local press that Russia was going to pull out of the Baikonur spaceport in the next three years, two decades before its lease expires in 2050, the Kazakhstan government yesterday issued a denial.

Local media in Kazakhstan have reported that Russia could exit the lease between 2026 and 2028 as it pulls back from international space cooperation, including a planned withdrawal from the International Space Station (ISS) as early as 2028.

“The question of early termination of the lease, or transfer of the city of Baikonur to the full control of the Kazakh side, is not being considered at this time,” Kazakhstan’s Aerospace Committee told AFP.

There rumors however could have real merit. Once ISS is retired, the Russians will have little reason to use Baikonur. It is almost certain it will not have launched its own replacement station by then, and Baikonur’s high latitude location will make its use with any other station difficult if not impossible. Moreover, the effort to switch to its Angara rocket favors launches from the Vostochny and Plesetsk spaceports, both of which have launchpads built for that rocket.

Finally, Russia has not had the cash to upgrade the launchpads at Baikonur, so much so that it has often been late paying Kazakhstan its annual $115 million rental fee, delays which at one point caused Kazakhstan to seize the launchpad Russia was upgrading for its proposed new Soyuz-5 rocket.

In fact, Russia might not be able to afford Baikonur at all, based on its present finances and the cost of its stupid war in the Ukraine.

We shall not get clarity on this story for at least a year or so, but stay tuned. Nothing is certain.

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Gilmour scrubs launch attempt today

9:51 am

The Australian rocket startup Gilmour Space has scrubbed its first attempt to launch its Eris rocket from its own Bowen spaceport on the eastern coast of Australia.

Our team identified an issue in the ground support system during overnight checks. We’re now in an extended hold to work through it. Our next target is the Friday morning launch window.

The company has a two week launch window extending through the end of the month. If it can’t launch in that window then it will try again in the second half of June, assuming the bureaucracy of the Australian Space Agency issues a revised licence. It took that government three years to issue this license, so assuming it will work quickly to issue a revision is a dangerous thing.

The company is not providing a live stream of the launch, though it has said it will release a full video after the fact.

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Norway signs the Artemis Accords

9:37 am

Norway today became the 55th nation to sign the Artemis Accords, the second nation to do so since Donald Trump assumed the presidency.

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

Unlike previous announcements, the only official public announcement (so far) was from the State Department. NASA has not yet issued its own statement. Also, and maybe far more important, unlike the previous announcement in April when Bangladesh signed, the text of the announcement made no mention of the Outer Space Treaty, as had been routinely stated during the Biden administration.

When Trump in his first term had created the Artemis Accords, the goal had been to create an American alliance of nations that supported private property and capitalism, which could also become strong enough to either get around the Outer Space Treaty’s restrictions on these concepts, or work to revise that treaty entirely to allow nations to establish such laws on other worlds. During Biden’s term that goal was abandoned. NASA announcements of new signatories would always state bluntly the exact opposite, that the accords were designed to support the Outer Space Treaty, using this language:

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.

Today’s State Department announcement makes no mention of the Outer Space Treaty at all, instead placing the focus on the accords’ principles of private enterprise.

With an alliance now of 55 nations (which is also likely to grow), the present Trump administration is well positioned to force some action on changing or eliminating the Outer Space Treaty’s limitations on private property and the ownership of territory on other worlds. Obviously this is not the most important item on Trump’s plate, but it does need to be addressed if Americans (and everyone else) are to have the freedom to establish colonies on other planets, protected by the same laws that protect Americans on Earth.

Hopefully the subtle language change seen today in this State Department press announcement is a signal that the Trump administration intends to do so.

UPDATE: It appears that NASA still wants this alliance to uphold the Outer Space Treaty. Late today it released its own press release announcing Norway’s signing, and included the boilerplate that I quote above that it began using during the Biden administration.

I wonder when (or if) Marco Rubio or any of the higher ups in the Trump administration (including Trump) will ever take an interest in this issue. So far it does not appear they have.

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