Tag: regulation

A new Chicken Little report: The mega satellite constellations are going to destroy the ozone layer!

1:50 pm

The American Geophysical Union, where science is no longer practiced
The American Geophysical Union, where
science is no longer practiced

We’re all gonna die! According to a new paper touted today by the PR department of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), a new study has concluded — based on computer modeling — that the many giant satellite constellations totaling tens of thousands of satellites pose a risk to the ozone layer because the aluminium used in their structures that gets vaporized upon re-entry will interact with the ozone layer and destroy it.

You can read the paper here. From the abstract:

This paper investigates the oxidation process of the satellite’s aluminum content during atmospheric reentry utilizing atomic-scale molecular dynamics simulations. We find that the population of reentering satellites in 2022 caused a 29.5% increase of aluminum in the atmosphere above the natural level, resulting in around 17 metric tons of aluminum oxides injected into the mesosphere. The byproducts generated by the reentry of satellites in a future scenario where mega-constellations come to fruition can reach over 360 metric tons per year. As aluminum oxide nanoparticles may remain in the atmosphere for decades, they can cause significant ozone depletion.

The uncertainties and biases here are hard to count. First, it is a computer model (“Garbage in, garbage out”). Second, the simulations make many assumptions, most of which cannot be confirmed, or are simply absurd. For example, the model is based on a single “typcial, small satellite” coming from a specific orbit and elevation when we know these satellites will have many variations in size, make-up, and orbits. Third, the scientists admit they use “a worst-case scenario” for determining what would happen when the satellite re-enters the atmosphere.

Finally, and most damning, the whole premise of this threat is based on a somewhat implausive chain of chemical actions.
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Paper: Not one government policy during the COVID epidemic accomplished anything to stop the disease’s spread

1:56 pm

The modern scientific method
What governments believe, even when there
is no evidence to justify it.

In reviewing the many different government actions taken during the COVID epidemic aimed at slowing the spread of the virus, scientists have found that none of these policies accomplished anything.

No matter how we approached these questions, the primary finding was lack of definitive patterns that could support claims about governmental policy impacts. About half the time, government policies were followed by better Covid-19 outcomes, and half of the time they were not. The findings were sometimes contradictory, with some policies appearing helpful when tested one way, and the same policy appearing harmful when tested another way. No claims about the relationship between government responses and pandemic outcomes held generally. Looking at stay-at-home policies and school closures, about half the time it looked like Covid-19 outcomes improved after their imposition, and half the time they got worse. Every policy, Covid-19 outcome, time period, and modeling approach yielded a similar level of uncertainty: about half the time it looked like things got better, and half the time like things got worse.

…Yet scientists used these data to make definitive conclusions.

Claims that government responses made Covid-19 worse are not broadly true, and the same goes for claims that government responses were useless or ineffective. Claims that government responses help reduce the burden of Covid-19 are also not true. What is true is that there is no strong evidence to support claims about the impacts of the policies, one way or the other.

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FAA issues launch license for the fourth test orbital launch of Starship/Superheavy

3:10 pm

FAA today issued [pdf] the launch license for SpaceX’s fourth test orbital launch of Starship/Superheavy, effective June 4, 2024, thus allowing the company to proceed with its planned June 6, 2024 launch date.

The two-hour launch window opens at 7 am (Central). SpaceX’s live stream will begin 30 minutes earlier. From SpaceX’s Starship website:

The fourth flight test turns our focus from achieving orbit to demonstrating the ability to return and reuse Starship and Super Heavy. The primary objectives will be executing a landing burn and soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico with the Super Heavy booster, and achieving a controlled entry of Starship.

To accomplish this, several software and hardware upgrades have been made to increase overall reliability and address lessons learned from Flight 3. The SpaceX team will also implement operational changes, including the jettison of the Super Heavy’s hot-stage following boostback to reduce booster mass for the final phase of flight.

Flight 4 will fly a similar trajectory as the previous flight test, with Starship targeted to splashdown in the Indian Ocean. This flight path does not require a deorbit burn for reentry, maximizing public safety while still providing the opportunity to meet our primary objective of a controlled Starship reentry.

This FAA approval is wonderful news, considering the red-tape delays the agency has previously caused to SpaceX’s efforts. It suggests that officials there are trying hard to speed up their paperwork. If so, the gap between this flight and fifth might be shorter than the three month gap seen between the third flight in March and this flight on June 6th.

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SpaceX now targeting June 6, 2024 for Starship/Superheavy launch

8:58 am

Over the weekend SpaceX announced on X that it has now delayed by one day its targeted date for the fourth orbital test flight of its Starship/Superheavy rocket, from June 5th to June 6th.

No reason was given for the delay, though the company notes on its webpage for the mission that it is still awaiting regulatory approval.

Musk underlined the company’s readiness to launch however with his own tweet on June 2, stating simply that “Starship is ready to fly.”

From the FAA however we still have silence.

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Chinese pseudo-company launches five satelites

8:29 am

The Chinese pseudo-company Galactic Energy today successfully launched five satelites, its Ceres-1 rocket lifting off from the Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China.

This was Galactic Energy’s second launch in the past two days. China’s state-run press however made no mention of the company in its report, a lack that is now routine. Apparently the Chinese government recognizes these pseudo-companies might eventually pose a threat to its power, and doesn’t wish to give them any extra publicity.

The report also made no mention of where the rocket’s solid-fueled lower stages crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

57 SpaceX
26 China
8 Russia
6 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the world combined in successful launches, 65 to 40, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including other American companies, 57 to 48.

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Need a kidney transplant? You better be poor according to new DEI proposed rules

12:39 pm

The Biden administration: still dedicated to segregation!
The Biden administration: still dedicated to segregation!

“Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” According to new rules proposed by the Biden administration “to root our racial bias,” a pilot program will favor low-income patients in providing them kidney transplants.

The proposal, which Becerra’s agency announced on May 8, would place 90 of the nation’s 257 transplant hospitals into a pilot program that uses an annual point system to grade participants. Under the system, a successful kidney transplant counts as one point. A transplant furnished to a low-income patient, however, counts as 1.2 points thanks to a “health equity performance adjustment,” thus incentivizing the hospitals to prioritize such patients. At the end of each year, those points are applied to a transplant quota. Hospitals that meet their quota receive as much as $8,000 per transplant; those that don’t may have to pay up to $2,000 per transplant.

While the proposal uses income to categorize patients rather than race, Becerra made clear that the scoring system is meant to address racial concerns. In his statement announcing the proposal, he touted the Biden administration’s “concrete steps to remove racial bias … in the transplant process.”

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South Korea establishes its own version of NASA

9:08 am

The South Korean government today announced the establishment of its own version of NASA, dubbed the Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA), with what appears to be a focus on establishing a long term space program and using this to foster an aerospace commercial sector.

KASA was established under a special law passed by the National Assembly in January to unify government organizations in charge of space policy and projects. Based in Sacheon, South Gyeongsang Province, KASA has an annual budget of 758.9 billion won ($556 million) this year. The agency currently has around 110 employees and will eventually have a total of 293.

In March, the government established the 2024 Space Development Promotion Action Plan and set five major missions — including space exploration, space transportation, space industry, space security and space science.

In line with the government’s policy, KASA will establish a roadmap for Korea’s space exploration and plans to promote reusable launch vehicles, development of the country’s own global positioning system (GPS) and a lunar lander program. In particular, it plans to develop a lunar lander with a goal of landing on the moon in 2032, and to design and develop engines to enter the commercial launch service market.

A second South Korea news report quotes the head of this new agency as follows:

“Until now, the country’s space development projects have been led by the government,” Yoon Young-bin, KASA’s inaugural chief, said earlier. “The most important role of the space agency will be supporting the private sector to lead space development.”

He pointed out that the world’s space industry is moving toward the so-called “new space” era, where private companies are actively leading innovation in space technologies with more economic feasibility. “The global paradigm is shifting,” Yoon said, noting that top space companies, such as SpaceX, have developed reusable space rockets and launched a group of small satellites with capabilities similar to medium- and large-sized satellites.

If KASA maintains this approach, then South Korea’s future as a space power is bright. If instead KASA moves to control all space development, including the design and ownership of its rockets and spacecraft, then that program will be stifled, as America’s was by NASA for forty years after the 1960s space race.

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SpaceX tentatively announces a June 5, 2024 Starship/Superheavy launch date

9:20 am

Starship/Superheavy flight profile
Click for original image at high resolution.

SpaceX today tentatively announced a June 5, 2024 launch date for the fourth Starship/Superheavy orbital test launch.

Before going into any details of the flight plan, as shown in the flight profile above, it is important to quote the first sentence in the announcement:

The fourth flight test of Starship could launch as soon as June 5, pending regulatory approval. [emphasis mine]

SpaceX has not yet gotten a launch permit from the FAA. It is likely it has inside information from the agency suggesting that permit will be issued by this date. It is also likely that SpaceX by making this announcement is applying pressure to the FAA to either get its paperwork done or waive the need so its red tape doesn’t delay the flight unnecessarily.

As for the flight itself, the flight profile is essentially the same as the previous test flight, with the Starship’s orbit designed for safety to bring it down in the Indian Ocean.

The fourth flight test turns our focus from achieving orbit to demonstrating the ability to return and reuse Starship and Super Heavy. The primary objectives will be executing a landing burn and soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico with the Super Heavy booster, and achieving a controlled entry of Starship.

To accomplish this, several software and hardware upgrades have been made to increase overall reliability and address lessons learned from Flight 3. The SpaceX team will also implement operational changes, including the jettison of the Super Heavy’s hot-stage following boostback to reduce booster mass for the final phase of flight.

All in all, this announcement is good news. SpaceX is ready to launch.

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SpaceX to FAA: Let us launch Starship/Superheavy before you complete the red-tape for the previous flight

9:55 am

Superheavy/Starship lifting off on March 14, 2024
Superheavy/Starship lifting off on March 14, 2024

According to the FAA, SpaceX has officially asked the FAA to allow it to launch the next Starship/Superheavy test orbital launch before the agency officially completes its mishap investigation into the previous flight in March.

In a statement sent to ValleyCentral, the FAA stated that on April 5, SpaceX requested the FAA make a “public safety determination” as part of the Starship flight test mishap. “If the FAA agrees no public safety issues were involved in the mishap, the operator may return to flight while the mishap investigation remains open, provided all other license requirements are met.”

With this modification in place, SpaceX would be able to launch the fourth Starship test flight while the mishap investigation of the third flight is still open.

When these requests are received, the FAA evaluates safety-critical systems, the nature of the consequences of the mishap, adequacy of existing flight analysis, safety organization performance and environmental factors, the statement added. The FAA stated it is reviewing the request and will be “guided by data and safety at every step of the process.”

What does this request tell us? First, as expected SpaceX has completed its own investigation into the March launch and installed the upgrades it considers necessary. Second, the FAA however has not, even though the FAA has absolutely no competence in this matter. It is merely retyping the SpaceX report.

Third, SpaceX now realizes that the FAA will not have finished that retyping when SpaceX is ready to launch sometime in the next three weeks. Rather than sit and wait, as it did on the previous two test launches, it wants the FAA to recognize reality and let it proceed. Why wait when the FAA is literally contributing nothing to the process?

Will the FAA do so? I suspect there are people in the FAA who would very much like to. I also know that there are others both in the FAA and higher up the command chain (mostly in the White House) that like the idea of slowing SpaceX down, mostly for petty political reasons. We should not be surprised if those higher ups use their clout and insist the FAA reject this request.

If so, the fourth test launch of Starship/Superheavy will likely be further delayed, though by how much is unclear. Shortly after the March test launch I predicted that the next flight would occur in the June/July timeframe, not early May as SpaceX was then predicting, and the delay will be mostly because of FAA red tape. It now appears that prediction will be correct.

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ESA narrows Ariane-6 launch date to first two weeks in July

9:24 am

In an announcement today, the European Space Agency (ESA) narrowed the launch window for the first launch of its new Ariane-6 rocket to the first two weeks in July.

It also stated that the final launch date will be revealed in the first week of June, during presentations at an air show in Berlin, Germany.

In the next month the rocket will undergo a full dress rehearsal countdown on the launchpad. It will then be “drained of fuel in preparation” for the actual launch.

This rocket is built and mostly owned by the private consortium ArianeGroup, made up of a partnership of Airbus and Safran, and working in conjunction with ESA. Though Arianespace, ESA’s long time commercial arm, is mentioned as ESA’s “launch service provider” for this launch, it is very clear that it is being pushed aside and will soon become irrelevant. The rocket is four years behind schedule and being entirely expendable it is too expensive to compete in the modern launch market. The member nations of ESA have rejected it, and so they are shifting to a capitalism in space model, whereby they no longer have a government commercial “launch service provider” like Arianespace, but instead buy launch services from competing private European rocket companies.

Europe’s problem is that it will take time to develop these private companies. In the interim it will be forced to use Ariane-6, but likely only for a few years. There are at least five new rocket companies in Europe, with three (Rocket Factory Augsburg, PLD, and Hyimpulse) having already completed their first launch tests.

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China launches four satellites

8:47 am

China early this morning successfully launched four satellites, its Long March 2D rocket lifting off from its Taiyuan spaceport in the northwest of China.

No further information about the satellites was released. Nor did China’s state-run press provide any information about where the rocket’s lower stages, using toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed within the country.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

52 SpaceX
22 China
7 Russia
5 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the world combined in successful launches, 59 to 35, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including other American companies, 52 to 42.

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NLRB suspends case against SpaceX

9:04 am

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has agreed to suspend one of its cases against SpaceX while the company’s lawsuit challenging the board’s constitutional authority proceeds.

SpaceX alleged that the NLRB’s in-house enforcement proceedings violate its constitutional right to a jury trial. It also said limits on the removal of the NLRB’s board members and administrative judges violates the Constitution. Amazon, Starbucks, and Trader Joe’s have asserted similar claims in recent months.

A second NLRB case has already been suspended by the federal 5th Court of Appeals, for the same reasons.

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Congress passes new authorization bill for FAA that includes short extension of “learning period”

10:05 am

The new FAA authorization bill that that House approved yesterday and was passed previously by the Senate includes a short extension to the end of the year of the so-called “learning period” that is supposed to restrict the agency’s ability to regulate the new commercial space industry.

That limitation was first established in 2004 with a time period of eight years. It has been extended numerous times since then. The most recent extensions however have been very short, suggesting Congress (mostly from the Democrat side of the aile) wants to soon eliminate it. Whether that happens when it comes up for extension again at the end of 2024 will depend greatly on which party is in control after the election.

It really doesn’t matter. Everything the FAA has been doing in the past three years suggests this learning period no longer exists anyway. The agency has been demanding every new American company or rocket or spacecraft meet much higher regulatory requirements, which appears to have slowed significantly the development of those new companies, rockets, or spacecraft in the past two years.

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FAA schedules first three public meetings for Starship/Superheavy impact statement review

8:48 am

The FAA has now scheduled the first three public meetings as part of its new environmental impact statement review of SpaceX’s proposed construction plans at Cape Canaveral.

The in-person open houses will feature information stations where the FAA will “provide information describing the purpose of the scoping meetings, project schedule, opportunities for public involvement, proposed action and alternatives summary, and environmental resource area summary. Fact sheets will be made available containing similar information,” the project website says.

“At any time during the meetings, the public will have the opportunity to provide verbal comments to a court reporter or written comments via a written comment form at one of several commenting stations,” the website says.

It appears that SpaceX is proposing two different options for establishing an additional launchpad for Superheavy/Starship. Its preferred option is to refurbish pad LC-37, which was most recenly used by ULA to launch its Delta-4 Heavy in April. A second option is to develop a new pad entirely, dubbed LC-50.

Though the FAA claims this new impact statement is necessary because SpaceX has upped the planned annual Superheavy/Starship launches from 24 to 44, that claim is bogus. The difference is not that significant, and more important, rockets have been launching from these pads now for almost three-quarters of a century, and the environment has not only not been harmed by that activity, the wildlife surrounding the cape has prospered tremendously by the creation of a large zone where no development can occur.

That history is the real impact statement, and it proves the new red tape is unecessary. What the FAA (and the Air Force) are now doing is simply lawfare against SpaceX.

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Serbia joins China’s lunar base project

12:21 pm

Serbia this week signed an agreement with China to become the eleventh nation to join its International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) lunar base project.

China’s project now has eleven partner nations (Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Russia, Serbia, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, and Venezuela) and eleven academic or governmental bureaucracies.

Except for China and Russia, the other partners are very minor players in space, and will likely contribute relatively little to the lunar base other than providing China some shallow positive PR.

Nonetheless, the two competing alliances in settling the solar system are becoming clear. On one side you have the alliance led by the U.S. under the Artemis Accords, while on the other you have an alliance led by China, under its lunar base project. Both right now appear only interested in establishing government power in space.

In the middle will be ordinary people, dreaming of building new societies to live in on other worlds. Sadly it increasingly appears they will be crushed between these two big government alliances. Though the U.S. alliance was initially established to foster private property and ownership so that those settlers could have as free and as prosperous a life as the Americans who settled the United States, it no longer seems interested in that goal.

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FAA and Air Force initiate new environmental impact statements for Starship/Superheavy launchpads in Florida

12:08 pm

We’re here to help you! Really! Late yesterday, in a typical Friday story dump just before the weekend to reduce any notice, the FAA announced it has begun a new environmental impact statement (EIS) of SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy launchpad infrastructure being built in Florida, working in parallel with a similar environmental impact statement now being conducted by the Air Force.

The EIS will be the second environmental review involving SpaceX’s plans to use LC-39A for Starship launches. NASA completed an environmental assessment (EA) in 2019 of the company’s plans at the time to build launch infrastructure at LC-39A for Starship, finding it would have no significant impact. At the time SpaceX was planning up to 24 Starship launches from that pad annually. A new EIS, the FAA concluded, is needed because of changes in the design of Starship and its operations since the 2019 assessment.

The FAA claims a new assessment is needed because SpaceX is now planning as many as 44 launches. The Air Force has not said why its new assessment is needed. That EIS, which began in March, covers a launchpad previously used by the Saturn-1B and Delta-4 rockets from 1964 to 2022, another pad use by the Air Force’s Titan rocket from 1965 to 2005, as well as a new pad, dubbed SLC-50.

LC-39A meanwhile has been used for launches since the 1960s. The Saturn-5, the space shuttle, and the Falcon 9 all launched from this pad.

The dishonest absurdity of these impact statements can not be overstated. There is zero reason to do new assessments. All the pads have been in use for decades, with all kinds of rockets, some comparable to Superheavy/Starship. The environment and the wildlife refuge at Cape Canaveral have both thrived.

Moreover, to force completely new impact statements because the design and plans for Superheavy/Starship have changed somewhat (but not fundamentally) is even more stupid. This is a new rocket, being developed day-by-day and launch-by-launch. Will the FAA and the Air Force require new EIS’s every time SpaceX changes anything? It seems so.

This is clearly lawfare against Elon Musk and SpaceX by the White House and the administration state. It doesn’t like Musk, and it is now searching at all times for ways to block or damage him.

I confidently predict that neither statement will be completed by the end of 2025. Based on the timeline of most EIS’s, which when politics are involved are almost always slowed by the legal action of activists, the earliest either will be approved will be mid-2026, though likely later.

What is not clear is whether the FAA and Air Force will stop all work while this red tape is being unwound. If so, then the first operational launches of Superheavy and Starship cannot happen out of Cape Canaveral until well into 2027, which means NASA entire Artemis program will be seriously delayed. My previous prediction that the first manned lunar landing can’t happen before 2030 is becoming increasingly too conservative.

And remember this: If Joe Biden and the Democrats remain in power after November, all bets are off. At that point they are certain to ramp up the lawfare against those they see as political enemies, even if their targets are doing great things for the nation and the American people.

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A French rocket startup enters the competition

9:35 am

A new French rocket startup, Hyprspace, has assembled the engine and body of a first stage demonstrator, dubbed Terminator, to be used to test that new engine in preparation for the first suborbital test launch.

On 4 May 2024, the company shared the first glimpse of the Terminator demonstrator at its facility in Le Haillan, France. According to the update, teams had worked through double shifts over a three-week period to prepare the demonstrator for its test firing. The test will be conducted at a Direction générale de l’armement missile test facility in Gironde, France. HyPrSpace has not yet revealed when the test is expected to take place.

This engine will eventually be used in the company’s planned orbital Baguette-1 rocket for launching smallsats.

We now have at least five European rocket startups, three in Germany (Rocket Factory Augsburg, Isar, Hyimpulse), one in Spain (PLD), and one in France (Hyprspace). We also have Avio in Italy taking over ownership from Arianespace of its Vega family of rockets. That company is about to begin static fire testing a Vega-C upper stage, its engine nozzle completely redesigned following a launch failure. It hopes to resume flying by the end of the year.

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Scientists: Restrict all exploration on Mars to protect our future work!

10:52 am

In a paper just published, planetary scientists Australia have proposed strict guidelines for any future exploration on Mars in order to prevent future colonists from doing anything that might interfere with any future research the scientists might want to do.

The thrust of the paper, they comment, is to ensure that locales of geological significance on Mars do not suffer the same damage as many sites on Earth have faced. Sites on the Red Planet can be practically conserved while still allowing science and exploration to continue, they say.

“Geoconservation allows humanity to protect Earth’s story and geological history,” the researchers observe, “so that present and future generations can experience Earth’s aesthetic beauty, conduct scientific research, connect with various cultures, adequately protect and ensure the functioning of Earth’s biology and ecosystems, and learn about the history of our planet.”

Let me translate: “We academics fear allowing others the freedom to explore. We come first. Let’s create rules that will allow us to do what we want, while forcing others to ask us for permission to do what they want.”

Sadly, this mentality now rules throughout all of western civilization’s intellectual community, and its not much different than the totalitarian top-down attitudes of the Russians and Chinese. Those in charge or better educated simply know better than everyone else, and are hell bent on telling everyone what they can and cannot do.

The first few generations of colonists on Mars, the Moon, and the asteroids are going to find their hands badly tied. Freedom will not exist.

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Sunspot update: A minor uptick in sunspot activity in April

12:28 pm

It is that time of the month again. Yesterday NOAA posted its monthly update of its graph tracking the number of sunspots on the Sun’s Earth-facing hemisphere. As I have done now for every month since I began this website in 2010, I have posted this updated graph below, with several additional details to provide some larger context.

In April the number of sunspots on the Sun went up somewhat, the count rising to the highest level since the count hit its peak of activity last summer. The sunspot number in April, 136.5, was however still significantly less than the 2023 peak of 160. Thus it appears the Sun is likely still the middle saddle of a doubled-peaked relatively weak solar maximum, with the Sun doing what I predicted in February 2024:
» Read more

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ESA is taking the Vega rockets away from Arianespace and giving it to the company that builds it

9:47 am

Capitalism in space: The European Space Agency (ESA) is in the process of taking control of the Vega family of rockets away from its commercial arm, Arianespace, and returning that ownership to the Italian company, Avio, that builds those rockets.

In late 2023, ESA member states agreed to allow Avio to market and manage the launch of Vega C flights independent of Arianespace. When the deal was initially struck, 17 flights were contracted through Arianespace to be launched aboard Vega vehicles. While these missions are still managed by Arianespace, Avio is working with the launch provider to strike a deal that would allow the Italian rocket builder to assume the management of all Vega flights.

The article’s focus is on a new contract that ESA has just awarded to Vega through Arianespace. noting that this contract will likely be shifted to Avio before launch in 2025.

This decision continues the process of slowly killing off Arianespace. Instead of relying on this government entity to build and market its launch operations, ESA is instead going to become a customer only, relying on competing commercial rocket companies for its launch services. When Avio completes its takeover of Vega, Arianespace will only be responsible for the Ariane-6 rocket, which is built by ArianeGroup and essentially owns it as well. Expect that rocket to be shifted completely to ArianeGroup. At that point Arianespace will no longer have any reason for existing, and will be shut down.

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Why the release of the EU’s own space law has been delayed

10:47 am

In the fall of 2023 officials of the European Union (EU) announced that they expected to release the Union’s own space law, that would regulate the individual space laws of all member nations. Since then the release of that law has been put back several times, and in early April its release was delayed until the summer, after the EU elections in June.

This article published today provides the likely reasons why it has been delayed. Apparently, individual members of the EU have objected to the law as interfering with their own space laws as well as imposing regulations they don’t want or need.

The EU Space Law will need to overcome several obstacles to become a functional and beneficial piece of legislation. Several EU Member States already have national space legislation and are actively engaged in space activities, while an increasing number are adopting domestic frameworks and expanding their presence in the space sector. In a heavily regulated environment, where countries have long established and enforced national laws, the practical implementation of a space law at the EU level may be contested.

The article then lists three reasons for these objections. First, the EU has no experience or stake in this matter. It launches nothing and thus can only pose an additional obstacle to the growing commercial space industries in member countries. Second, an EU space law is certainly going to conflict with the space laws of member countries. Third, this law’s implementation could significantly interfere with the legal timelines established by individual member countries.

The article also lists three reasons why the EU law might be good, but these reasons really can be summed up as attempting to justify the EU’s power grab over the space efforts of the member countries.

In the end, this analysis tells us that the EU’s power grab has been met by significant opposition behind the scenes, and could very well die because of that opposition. Germany, Italy, Spain, and more recently even France have begun to encourage the development of independent competing rocket companies, and all likely fear this EU space law will only get in the way.

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German rocket startup Hyimpulse’s first suborbital rocket arrives in Australia

9:32 am

Australian commercial spaceports
Australia’s commercial spaceports. Click for original map.

The German rocket startup Hyimpulse today announced that its first suborbital rocket, the SR75, had arrived in Australia for its planned first test launch.

On 28 February, Southern Launch, the commercial outfit that manages the Koonibba Test Range, revealed that a launch attempt of the suborbital SR75 rocket would occur between late April and early May. This likely gives the team little room for the unexpected as it prepares for launch.

Those launch dates depend on whether Australia’s government will issue the launch licenses on time. So far its ability to do so in a timely manner has been difficult if not impossible. For example, the rocket startup Gilmour, which wants to launch from Bowen at about the same time, has been waiting more than two years to get its approval, delaying its first orbital test launch by more than a year.

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Update on SpaceX’s preparations for the 4th test flight of Superheavy/Starship

11:10 am

Link here. The article is definitely worth reading, as it tells us that SpaceX is pushing hard to be ready to launch in early May, as Musk has promised. The article also thinks SpaceX will be able to ramp up later launches to one every two months.

The article however is I think being naively optimistic about this timeline, because it naively assumes the FAA will quickly approve the launch licenses to meet that schedule. I guarantee the FAA won’t, as it has taken it one to four months after SpaceX was ready to launch to approve the licenses for the previous launches. The length of that approval process has shrunk each time, but FAA still made Space X wait each time, for no reason.

Making that schedule even more unlikely is SpaceX’s desire to do as many as nine test launches per year at Boca Chica. While the company could certainly do this, the environment reassessment issued in 2022 limits it to only five launches per year. It needs a waiver from the FAA and the Biden administration,
a waiver no one should expect considering the Biden administrations hostility to Musk.

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FAA to now require that reentry spacecraft get landing license before launch

4:05 pm

We’re here to help you! The FAA is now going to require that any company planning to launch a payload or spacecraft into orbit to get both its launch and landing licenses before launch, in order to avoid the situation that occurred last year when Varda launched its capsule and then had difficulties getting its landing license approved due to red-tape confusion between government agencies.

In a notice published in the Federal Register April 17, the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation announced it will no longer approve the launch of spacecraft designed to reenter unless they already have a reentry license. The office said that it will, going forward, check that a spacecraft designed to return to Earth has a reentry license as part of the standard payload review process.

In the notice, the FAA said that decision was linked to safety concerns of allowing spacecraft to launch without approvals to return. “Unlike typical payloads designed to operate in outer space, a reentry vehicle has primary components that are designed to withstand reentry substantially intact and therefore have a near-guaranteed ground impact as a result of either a controlled reentry or a random reentry,” it states.

While this seems to fall directly under the FAA’s basic authority, to make sure launches and landings pose no risk to the general public, I guarantee it is also going to slow the growth of the new space manufacture industry. I fear that with time approvals will be delayed, some so much that companies will go bankrupt waiting for approval. The FAA will never be able to guarantee perfection in this matter, and as bureaucrats tend to be cautious, expect it to increasingly oppose re-entries by new companies.

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LA Times: Can California’s coastal commission stop SpaceX launches from Vandenberg?

9:48 am

Link here. This article is a follow-up on the story I posted yesterday, about a meeting of the California Coastal Commission where locals demanded and the commission considered measures for attempting to limit an increase in launches from Vandenberg.

The article provides many more details about this political battle. It appears the military, out of courtesy, was letting the commission know that it wants to raise the number of launches to accomodate not just SpaceX but other private companies. It can do so without the commission’s permission, but wishes to work with it.

The commission and the ten or so people at the meeting complaining were exploring ways to block this increase. Though the meeting postponed any action until the next meeting in May, it was clear its commissioners will use the next few months to explore ways to expand their control, including looking for funding sources for initiating court actions.

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Switzerland to sign Artemis Accords

8:56 am

NASA revealed today that Switzerland will become the 37th nation to sign the Artemis Accords in an official ceremony on April 15, 2024.

With this signing, these are the members of the American alliance: Angola, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Columbia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay.

The NASA press release is revealing about the goals of this alliance, under the Biden administration, both by what it says and what it does not say:

The Artemis Accords reinforce the 1967 Outer Space Treaty as well as the commitment by the United States and partner nations to 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.

When established by the Trump administration, the accords were not intended to “reinforce the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.” The accords were intended to create an alliance that would have the political clout to overcome that treaty’s limitations on establishing a private property legal framework in space. Right now the treaty seriously impairs investiment because no company has any assurance it will own any piece of ground it occupies.

The press announcement makes no mention of private enterprise, and implies that the Biden administration is aggressively working to eliminate that goal, and instead use the accords as a way to strengthen government control in space.

Under these circumstances, I wonder why China and Russia haven’t signed on as well.

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Australian spaceport on sourthern coast prepares for launch

11:06 am

Australian commercial spaceports
Click for original map.

According to a report today, the first suborbital launch from a new commercial spaceport on the sourthern coast of Australia is now expected by the end of April or early May.

New launch facilities at the Koonibba Test Range, South Australia’s first permanent spaceport, are almost complete ahead of the impending inaugural launch. Located northwest of Ceduna, the range is a partnership between Southern Launch and the Koonibba Community Aboriginal Corporation. It is the largest commercial testing range in the Southern Hemisphere.

Space Industries Minister Susan Close is today visiting the site ahead of the sub-orbital test launch of German manufacturer HyImpulse’s SR75 rocket, which, subject to final regulatory approval, will go ahead at the end of April or early May. The rocket will reach an altitude of 50 kilometres before parachuting back to Earth where it will be recovered for testing.

Southern Launch, marked on the map to the right, is on south coast of Australia. Two other Australian commercial spaceports also under development are noted on the northern and eastern coasts.

We shall see if this suborbital launch occurs as planned. Recently the evidence has suggested that Australia’s regulatory state is as bad as the United Kingdom, taking forever to issue licenses for private launches.

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Arizona city shuts down church program that fed the hungry for the last 25 years

2:43 pm

Nieves Riedel, mayor of San Luis, Arizona
Nieves Riedel, mayor of San Luis, Arizona, and
very hostile to churches feeding the hungry

They’re coming for you next: In 2022 a new mayor and administration arrived in San Luis, Arizona, and immediately thereafter the food program of Gethsemani Baptist Church in San Luis, Arizona, came under harassment, with repeated citations and bureaucratic demands that it limit its operations, to a point that the threatened fines (more than $4,000) and potential jail terms for its pastor forced the church stop the program, despite operating peaceably and acceptably for a quarter of a century.

After new officials took over in San Luis, the city sent a letter last fall ordering the church to stop using semi-trucks for food delivery at its property. Attempting to resolve the order, the church offered to use smaller trucks. The city denied the request and told the church it must stop the food ministry entirely. These limitations make it functionally impossible to carry out the ministry in the same way.

Since receiving the city’s letter, Pastor Jose [Castro] had to significantly cut back on the food ministry. He’s tried to continue feeding the hungry as best he can under these limitations. But this wasn’t enough for the city of San Luis and its new Mayor, Nieves Riedel. Just a few weeks ago, while Pastor Jose passed out emergency food supplies to a small group of people at the church, a city code enforcer showed up unannounced and issued him four citations. Less than a week later, when a third party parked a truck in front of the church for just five minutes, the code enforcer returned and issued Pastor Jose four more citations. Not only will Pastor Jose have to pay fines in municipal court, each future violation may result in criminal charges.

These aggressive tactics have now forced Gethsemani to pause its ministry, as the church and Pastor Jose cannot afford the heavy fines or to relocate. Because of the City and Mayor Riedel’s intimidation tactics, the church cannot feed the hungry. That means people are going hungry right now.

» Read more

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UK Space Agency proudly grows

9:27 am

The United Kingdom Space Agency today announced that it is opening four new offices in four different cities, giving it a brand new headquarters as well as a total of five regional offices.

The new HQ at Harwell is due to open in June, while offices at William Morgan House in Cardiff and Space Park Leicester will open in April, with the office at Queen Elizabeth House, in Edinburgh, opening later in the summer.

In addition, the agency will retain its offices in London and Swindon.

Will this expansion alleviate the serious red-tape issues in the United Kingdom that killed Virgin Orbit and have delayed launches at its two new spaceports in Scotland? I have my doubts. The licensing problems in the UK have centered on the number of different agencies and offices that must issue approvals to private space companies. While it might make sense for the UK Space Agency to hire more people, if anything it should be streamlining its operations to one central place.

It appears instead that this bureaucracy is doing what all government bureaucracies do, expanding and growing at the cost of private enterprise. I don’t see how opening many different small offices can possibly help make the licensing procedure faster or easier.

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SpaceX’s next Superheavy/Starship launch, according to SpaceX

10:06 am

According to SpaceX’s CEO, Gwynne Shotwell, the company hopes to be ready to fly its fourth orbital test flight of Superheavy/Starship in about six weeks, and will not attempt to deploy any Starlink satellites, as I speculated earlier this week.

“We’ll figure out what happened on both stages,” she said, not discussing what may have gone wrong with either, “and get back to flight hopefully in about six weeks,” or early May. She added that the company doesn’t expect to deploy Starlink satellites on the next Starship launch, as some had speculated. “Things are still in trade, but I think we’re really going to focus on getting reentry right and making sure we can land these things where we want to land them.”

The story however provided one very important tidbit of information about the launch license process from the FAA. Kelvin Coleman, FAA associate administrator for commercial space transportation, noted that after the second test flight in November 2023 “the company completed that report in several weeks.”

That statement confirms my conclusion in late December that SpaceX had been ready to launch in early January, but couldn’t do it because the FAA had to spend another two months rewriting SpaceX’s investigation report.

We should therefore not be surprised if the same thing happens on the next test flight. Shotwell says SpaceX hopes to be ready to launch in early May. That means it will likely submit its report to the FAA around then. Expect the agency to then spend at least one to two months retyping the report, as it has done now after both the first and second flights.

Based on this information, we should now expect the fourth flight to occur sometime in the June-July timeframe, with July more likely.

I am sure that the people at the FAA want to move as quickly as possible. I am also sure their bosses in the White House are demanding they dot every “i” and cross every “t”, with meticulous care, so that things cannot move as fast as desired. That has been the pattern since Joe Biden took office, and I have seen no evidence of that changing now.

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