Using its Atlas-5 rocket, ULA today successfully launched two Space Force Earth observation satellites.
The 2022 launch race:
3 SpaceX
1 Virgin Orbit
1 China
1 ULA
Capitalism in space: In a video released today, the Space Force announced a new program, dubbed Orbital Prime, that asks commercial companies to bid on a new test program for removing space junk.
More info here.
The initial solicitation, due by February 17th, asks for proposals capable of achieving the ability to rendezvous, dock and service a piece of space junk, either by “repairing, repositioning, refueling, deorbiting, reusing or recycling” it. The solicitation is aiming for orbital test flights in no more than two to four years.
This approach by the military is excellent news, and continues the transition by the space-related agencies of federal government from trying to design and build everything itself to acting merely as a customer and buying what it needs from the private sector.
There are a number of companies who have already launched robots capable of doing exactly this, including Northrop Grumman and Astroscale. By taking this customer approach, the military will likely not only get a junk removal capability sooner, it will do so for far less cost.
It would also seem that the Russian anti-satellite test that produced thousands of pieces of orbital junk that now threatens ISS and a number of military satellites also helped prompt this announcement. The military has clearly recognized that it needs the capability to remove space junk now. It cannot afford to follow its past behavior of taking forever to accomplish such tasks.
Capitalism in space: With the announcement on October 30th that the Space Force has added a third military Falcon Heavy launch for ’22, the rocket is now scheduled to fly five times next year.
The addition of a third national security mission for Falcon Heavy will make for quite a scheduling challenge for SpaceX’s three-core rocket that also is projected to launch in 2022 a Viasat-3 commercial broadband satellite with an Astranis communications satellite as a secondary payload, as well as NASA’s Psyche planetary science mission.
The Space Force missions USSF-44 and USSF-52 both were scheduled to fly in 2021 but have been delayed by payload readiness and range scheduling issues. No target launch dates have been announced yet although the Space Force said they would happen in 2022. Falcon Heavy rockets lift off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
It increasingly looks like 2022 will be a major record-setting year for rocketry.
Biden administration has decided to use capitalism in space in the building and launching of future military reconnaissance and surveillance satellites.
The Intelligence Community (IC) and key policy-makers within the Biden administration are intensifying efforts to reduce regulatory burdens and encourage more competition in the commercial remote sensing satellite marketplace, said Stacey Dixon, deputy director of national intelligence.
While she provided few specifics about plans in her address to the annual GEOINT conference today, she did say that in their deliberations on the way forward, government officials are looking to the model of streamlined space launch licensing practices. Regulatory reform has freed the launch industry in a way that has allowed prices to loft satellites to orbit to drop dramatically, she explained, and there is a thriving ecosystem of American companies competing for business. “It is important to realize and recognize that there’s a growing consensus, not only in the IC but also among policy-makers, that the kind of change that we’ve seen in launch services is the right way to go in other areas,” Dixon said at the conference hosted by the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF).
It appears that the success by SpaceX and others in the rocket industry has finally convinced the Washington swamp community, from both parties as well as within the bureaucracy, to embrace private enterprise and freedom, at least in their efforts to launch their space assets.
Don’t be fooled, however, into thinking the Washington bureaucracy and the Biden administration are now free market capitalists. Hardly, as illustrated by this further statement by Dixon:
“If we don’t adapt, others will set the rules and challenge our new leadership. We should set the rules. We should influence the standards, and do so in a way that is consistent with our democratic values,” Dixon said. [emphasis mine]
The swamp is embracing capitalism because they have realized that if they don’t, they will lose all control as private enterprise runs circles around them. By now supporting capitalism, they can create the illusion that they made things happen, when in truth they have simply hitched their mostly useless covered wagon to a very powerful sports car.
Regardless, this decision is good news, as it shows that the Biden administration will continue the free market policies in space that were established during the Trump administration.
Capitalism in space: The Space Force has announced that because more time is needed to prepare its military payload, the next Falcon Heavy launch, scheduled later this month, will be delayed until ’22.
This is not the first time payload issues have delayed the launch, which had been previously scheduled for July. The Space Force has not announced a new launch date, nor was it very specific in describing the issues that has forced this delay.
As for the Falcon Heavy, though there has been a long delay since its last flight in June 2019, it appears that SpaceX has four launches scheduled for ’22, with another six already contracted and scheduled for later.
The House Armed Services committee voted yesterday to postpone the proposed establishment of the Space Force’s headquarters in Alabama.
The House Armed Services Committee on Thursday passed, with bipartisan agreement, Colorado Springs U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn’s amendment to the Fiscal Year 2022’s National Defense Authorization Act — an amendment that would prevent the move of the command to Huntsville, Ala., and work leading up to it, until after the Government Accountability Office and the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General complete their reviews of the decision.
Results of the GAO review, currently underway, are expected to be released in March, Chuck Young, managing director of public affairs for the agency, told The Gazette on Thursday.
This congressional action is not a surprise. The vested interests in Colorado, where a great bulk of the present military space operations are based, were not going to take the shift to Alabama lying down.
Posted still driving north to Las Vegas. (Don’t worry, I’m not doing the driving.)
In an interview ULA’s CEO Tory Bruno revealed that Blue Origin is not going to deliver the first two flightworthy BE-4 engines this summer, as promised, with delivery now probably not until the end of the year.
“I will not get them before the end of the year,” said Tory Bruno, CEO of ULA, in an exclusive Denver Business Journal interview ahead of this week’s Space Symposium industry gathering in Colorado Springs. “It will be shortly into the beginning of the 2022 calendar year, and anywhere in there will support me being able to build up a rocket and have that Vulcan waiting on my customer, Astrobotic.”
…“We’ve actually be been able to accommodate this, but I’ll be straight with you, the dates we’ve set up for them now— we really don’t have the ability to make any big moves after this,” Bruno said. “I need them to diligently work through the plans we have and get done on time.”
ULA needs to launch its new Vulcan rocket twice in order to get approved for its first military launch, now expected in less than 12 months. They thus no longer have any schedule margin.
On Friday former President Donald Trump stated that it was his decision to put the headquarters of the new Space Force in Alabama, not in Colorado where most military related space operations have been located for decades.
“Space Force — I sent to Alabama,” Trump said. “I hope you know that. (They) said they were looking for a home and I single-handedly said, ‘Let’s go to Alabama.’ They wanted it. I said, ‘Let’s go to Alabama. I love Alabama.’”
U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, a Republican who represents Colorado Springs, said Trump’s remarks were “an admission” that the headquarters move “was based solely on politics and personal preference — not the Air Force’s basing criteria or national security.”
When this decision was announced in January, I then believed porkmeister Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) had forced it through, but it appears now that is wrong. It was Trump, but still for reasons of pork.
This was a bad decision, one that from the beginning was going to have both practical and political opposition. For practical reasons Colorado always made better sense as Space Force headquarters because it would require less relocation of assets. For political reasons it was flying in the face of a lot of well-established vested interests in Colorado.
Trump’s admission yesterday will likely provide the final bit of ammunition needed by Colorado politicians to get it overturned.
Capitalism in space: The Space Force announced today that it has added the three smallsat rocket companies ABL, Astra, and Relativity to its program, dubbed OSP-4, to develop rockets that can be launched quickly at a moment’s notice.
OSP-4 is an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract for rapid acquisition of launch services. Vendors compete for individual orders, and have to be able to launch payloads larger than 400 pounds to any orbit within 12 to 24 months from contract award.
The OSP-4 contract vehicle was created in October 2019 and eight companies were selected then: Aevum, Firefly, Northrop Grumman, Rocket Lab, SpaceX., United Launch Alliance, VOX Space [Virgin Orbit], and X-Bow Launch.
There are now 11 vendors in the program that will compete for 20 missions over the next nine years. OSP-4 is authorized up to $986 million for launch contracts over that period.
Of these eleven companies, five have operational rockets (Northrop Grumman, Rocket Lab, SpaceX, Virgin Orbit, and ULA) and five have announced plans to do their first orbital launch this year (Aevum, ABL, Astra, Relativity, and Firefly), with Astra’s first orbital flight scheduled for later this month. The schedule of the remaining X-Bow remains unknown.
Government marches on, to nowhere! The House Appropriations Committee has issued a report strongly criticizing the Air Force and the new Space Force for its failure to reform in any way its contract acquisition management, even though that was the prime reason Congress created the Space Force in the first place.
The report dedicates an entire page to detailing the committee’s dissatisfaction with what it sees as foot-dragging on space acquisition reform — which was one of the primary congressional rationales for the creation of the new space service in the first place. Indeed, the [appropriations committee] reiterates: “The Committee believes the Space Force was established to bring greater attention and focus to fixing its acquisition issues because previous attempts to do so did not produce lasting results.”
The [committee’s] concerns include that that Department of the Air Force — which oversees the Space Force much as the Navy oversees the Marine Corp — still has no clear plan for creating a separate management chain for space acquisition. Similar concerns were voiced at a May hearing by both the chair and ranking members of the HAC defense subcommittee, Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., and Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif., respectively.
None of this should be a surprise. The reason the Space Force was advocated by some reformers was to get it out from under Air Force control and allow it to decide for itself what it needed. The belief was that this would streamline contracting and project development.
The fear, which I expressed repeatedly, was that the swamp in Washington would instead use this as an opportunity not to streamline operations but to create a whole new bureaucracy. That is standard operating procedure for government bureaucracies. Any time Congress has mandated a new agency designed to reduce bureaucracy it has for more than a century instead led to a larger bureaucracy, with nothing streamlined.
It appears the latter is what is now happening with the Space Force.
Capitalism in space: SpaceX today successfully launched a new GPS satellite for the Space Force.
As I post this the second stage has not yet deployed the satellite, though it is in orbit. UPDATE: As expected the satellite has been successfully deployed into its proper orbit.
This was the first Space Force launch using a reused Falcon 9 first stage. The stage, making its second flight, successfully landed on the drone ship, broadcasting the absolutely best video ever of such a landing, with the cameras on both the stage and the drone ship working without distortion throughout the landing to touchdown. The live stream is embedded below the fold, with that landing at 8:34 minutes after launch.
The two fairing halves are new but their pick up method for reuse has been streamlined:
For this mission, a new vessel has joined SpaceX’s oceangoing recovery fleet. HOS Briarwood will attempt to recover Falcon 9’s payload fairing halves after they splash down in the Atlantic Ocean. Similar in size to Shelia Bordelon, the previous temporary fairing recovery vessel, HOS Briarwood can be booked as a “flotel” and features an enormous crane, along with seemingly just enough deck space to support two recovered fairing halves.
Apparently, allowing the halves to land directly on the ocean surface and act as floating boat hulls until the ship can pick them up on a single ship, using a crane, is now the recovery method. There is also the hint that SpaceX might also be planning to sell tickets on this ship for people who wish a vacation watching that fairing recovery operation.
The leaders in the 2021 launch race:
19 SpaceX
17 China
8 Russia
3 Northrop Grumman
The U.S. now leads China 27 to 17 in the national rankings. Note: The average number of American launches per year during the 21st century (from 2000 to 2020) was 22. The U.S. has now topped that average by five launches, and the year is not even half over.
» Read more
Early this morning Northrop Grumman’s Pegasus rocket successfully launched a military satellite under a program aimed at demonstrating a quick launch capability.
This was the first Pegasus launch since 2019, and only the fifth in the past twelve years. According to the article, Northrop Grumman significantly lowered its price for this launch, charging the Space Force $28.1 million, about half of what it charged NASA for that 2019 flight. Whether this is an effort to make the rocket more competitive, or is simply Northrop Grumman selling off its inventory, will remain to be seen.
The leaders in the 2021 launch race:
18 SpaceX
16 China
8 Russia
2 Rocket Lab
2 ULA
2 Northrop Grumman
The U.S. now leads China 25 to 16 in the national rankings.
Because the development of ULA’s new Vulcan rocket is behind schedule, the Space Force has agreed to allow the company to replace it with an Atlas 5 rocket on a ’22 launch.
That mission, known as USSF-51, was awarded to ULA in August 2020 and is scheduled to launch in late 2022. The company had bid its newly developed Vulcan to fly that mission but the vehicle is not going to be ready on time. As a result, the Space Force agreed to allow ULA to launch USSF-51 on the company’s legacy vehicle the Atlas 5.
…Switching vehicles financially penalizes ULA. According to the company, the Atlas 5 is more expensive than Vulcan. Phase 2 provisions allow ULA to change vehicles but at no cost penalty to the government.
This story however is important because of what it tells us about the state of Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket engine, required by both Vulcan and Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket.
At this moment ULA is saying that the first launch of Vulcan is still scheduled for late this year, launching Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander to the Moon. However, for that launch to happen the rocket requires working BE-4 rocket engines for its first stage. In January Blue Origin announced it had finally completed a full throttle test of that engine after problems lasting several years, and would soon be delivering flight-worthy engines to ULA.
It is now late May, and the article at the link revealed this very significant and somewhat shocking detail buried in the text:
Blue Origin in 2020 delivered pathfinder engines for ground tests but has yet to provide a flight-qualified engine for Vulcan’s first flight. A spokeswoman for Blue Origin said May 20 the company is “on track to deliver BE-4 engines this year.” [emphasis mine]
It seems completely impossible for ULA to launch that lunar lander on Vulcan this year if it does not yet have any flight-worthy engines on hand to incorporate and test in the rocket. Worse, it appears that Blue Origin might not deliver those engines for months yet.
This story thus suggests that we will not see launches of either ULA’s new Vulcan rocket or Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket for a considerable time.
Screen capture from ULA’s live stream.
Capitalism in space: ULA successfully launched a Space Force military reconnaissance satellite using its Atlas 5 rocket. It also deployed two cubesats.
This was the first Atlas 5 launch in 2021. The satellite has now been deployed into its transfer orbit taking it to its final geosynchronous orbit.
The leaders in the 2021 launch race:
15 SpaceX
12 China
7 Russia
2 Rocket Lab
2 ULA
The U.S. now leads China 21 to 12 in the national rankings. Note also that though we are still six weeks short of the year’s halfway point, the U.S. is already more than halfway to its total from all of 2020, 40 launches. If this pace continues the U.S. has a good chance of reaching launch totals that were only routine during the mid-1960s, at the height of the beginnings of the space race.
Show trials: What America’s Space Force apparently wants.
Blacklists are back and the military’s got ’em: Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier, a fourteen year veteran of the Air Force who became one of the first officers in the Space Force, has been fired by his superiors because he wrote a book criticizing Marxism and compounded that sin by repeating the criticisms, along with criticisms of the undeniable bigotry of critical race theory, on a public podcast.
From a military pr officer:
“This decision was based on public comments made by Lt. Col. Lohmeier in a recent podcast,” a Space Force spokesperson said in an email. “Lt. Gen. Whiting has initiated a Command Directed Investigation on whether these comments constituted prohibited partisan political activity.”
Lohmeier’s temporary assignment in the wake of his removal was not immediately clear. [emphasis mine]
In addition, Amazon has decided to shadow ban Lohmeier’s book, Irresistible Revolution.
Irresistible Revolution has debuted in a strong position and as of this writing, it is #2 and #3 in military policy on Amazon, despite the fact that within hours of Lohmeier being relieved of his command, the book was no longer searchable on the publishing giant’s website. Only a direct link to the book’s page works at this time. It is available at Barnes & Nobles and other online booksellers such as Hudson and AbeBooks.
Lohmeier notes that he wrote the book entirely on his own time. He also informed the military of its existence and offered to have them review it before publication. The Pentagon said such a review was not required.
So what exactly did Lohmeier say that made his superior, Lt. Gen. Steven Whiting, believe he was participating in “partisan political activity”? From the Military.com come article:
» Read more
The U.S. Space Force’s X-37B mini-shuttle, presently in orbit for more than 300 days, is testing technology for capturing solar energy and beaming it back to Earth for use in the electricity grid.
Most of the robotic space drone’s duties on this mission, known as Orbital Test Vehicle-6 (OTV-6), are a tightly held secret. However, one known bit of research that the craft carries is the Photovoltaic Radio-frequency Antenna Module Flight Experiment, or PRAM-FX.
PRAM-FX is a Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) experiment that’s investigating transforming solar power into radio frequency (RF) microwave energy. PRAM-FX is a 12-inch (30.5 centimeters) square tile that collects solar energy and converts it to RF power.
Paul Jaffe, the innovation power beaming and space solar portfolio lead at NRL, said that PRAM-FX is not beaming microwave energy anywhere. Rather, the experiment is gauging the performance of sunlight-to-microwave conversion. To be measured is how the PRAM is performing from an efficiency standpoint and also from a thermal performance stance, he said.
The first results from PRAM were released in January, and showed an “8% total module efficiency,” which I think means it was able to beam down 8% of the solar energy that it gathered. This might seem poor, but if solar panels can provide that much of their energy for Earth use the pay-off could be quite large.
A much larger demonstration project will fly three different spacecraft in ’23 and ’24, each testing different components of the system.
Capitalism in space: On March 9th the Space Force announced that it has awarded four new launch contracts, two each to ULA and SpaceX, for a total cost of just under $400 million, all to launch in ’23.
Under the task orders issued March 9, ULA and SpaceX will each launch two missions. ULA was awarded $225 million to launch and integrate the USSF-112 and USSF-87 missions on its Vulcan Centaur rockets while SpaceX was awarded $160 million to launch and integrate USSF-36 and launch NROL-69 on its Falcon 9 rockets.
Based on these numbers it appears ULA is charging about $113 million per launch for its new Vulcan Centaur rocket, while SpaceX is charging about $80 million using its Falcon 9.
For ULA, that is less that what it would charge using its Atlas 5 rocket, but not by much. For SpaceX this price is high, probably because the military might be demanding the company use new boosters for its launches.
These high prices for both are to me a sign of how little our federal government cares about saving any money for the taxpayer. While the competition brought on by SpaceX’s arrival is saving the military money, the way these contract awards are structured, with both ULA and SpaceX guaranteed to win them, neither company has an incentive to reduce its prices. Instead, they can overcharge and the military can do nothing about it.
In a more sane world the military would use the competition in the launch market to get an ever better deal. Instead, our federal government sees its budget as a blank check, and they are using it.
The Space Force, having chosen SpaceX and ULA as its sole launch providers, officially ended on December 31, 2020, its rocket development contracts with Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman.
The Air Force awarded Launch Service Agreements to Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman and United Launch Alliance. These were six-year public-private partnerships where both the government and the contractors agreed to invest in rocket development and infrastructure required to compete in the National Security Space Launch program.
The plan from day one was to discontinue the LSAs with companies that did not win a National Security Space Launch procurement contract. Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman lost to ULA and SpaceX, which were selected in August 2020. The Space and Missile Systems Center confirmed in a statement to SpaceNews that the LSAs with Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman ended in Dec. 31, 2020.
From October 2018 through December 2020, Blue Origin was paid $255.5 million. The original six-year agreement was worth $500 million. Northrop Grumman got $531.7 million over that same period, nearly two-thirds of the total value of the LSA which was $792 million.
This whole deal stinks to high heaven. First, it never made any sense for the military to restrict bidding on future launches to just two companies. Such a restrictions smells of a cartel deal designed to play favorites, something the government should not do. It also ends up costing the government more, as it limits competition.
Second, the money handed out sure looks like nice pay-offs to all these big companies, designed to pay company salaries rather than real design work. SpaceX chose not to take it, because it did not want to be beholden to the military’s bureaucracy in how it developed Starship/Super Heavy. That choice has proven wise, as the deal slowed development of both Blue Origin’s New Glenn and ULA’s Vulcan rockets by at least a year, while SpaceX Starship development has moved forward far quicker.
Moreover, its seems very inappropriate for ULA to still be getting this government cash while SpaceX does not. In truth, neither should get a dime unless they actually sign a contract to launch something for the Space Force. Otherwise it is just a form of kickback and a misuse of the taxpayer’s money.
Not that my complaining here will change anything. The big aerospace industry has been addicted to these kind of government payoffs for decades, and apparently will continue to be so addicted for the foreseeable future.
In awarding ULA and SpaceX exclusive launch rights for all launches through 2026, the Air Force also decided to end prematurely the development contracts to ULA, Blue Origin, and Northrop Grumman aimed at helping these companies develop new rockets.
An issue at hand is the termination of the Launch Service Agreement contracts that the Air Force awarded in October 2018 to Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman, as well as to ULA. The purpose of the agreements was to help Phase 2 competitors pay for launch vehicle development and infrastructure. Blue Origin received $500 million; Northrop Grumman $792 million and ULA $967 million. The funds were to be spread out through 2024, and the Air Force from the beginning said the LSAs would be terminated with those companies that did not win a Phase 2 procurement contract.
Despite political pressure to not end the LSAs, the agreements will be terminated, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition Will Roper said Aug. 7 during a video conference with reporters. “We will work with those two companies to determine the right point to tie off their work under the LSA agreements,” Roper said. The intent of the LSAs “was to create a more competitive environment leading into Phase 2,” he said. “The point is not to carry them indefinitely.”
LSA funds supported the development of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket and Northrop Grumman’s OmegA launch vehicle. ULA will continue to receive funds for its Vulcan Centaur vehicle.
Almost immediately after the award of these contracts was announced in 2018, ULA and Blue Origin announced one year delays in the development of Vulcan and New Glenn. Apparently, meeting the additional requirements of military’s bureaucracy in exchange for getting the cash slowed development.
Now they won’t be getting a large part of that cash, making the decision to take it a deal with the devil. The delay in development has definitely hurt both companies in their competition with SpaceX. First, it likely has raised the cost and complexity of their new rockets, making it harder to compete in price. Second, the delay has given SpaceX more time to grab more customers while improving its own rockets.
SpaceX initially protested not getting a share of this development money, but has subsequently chosen to no longer pursue such government money for Starship because it doesn’t want itself hampered by obtuse government officials and their mindless requirements.
Meanwhile, Northrop Grumman’s Omega rocket is almost certainly dead. That company took the old big space company approach, structuring development around government cash. Without it there is no R&D money at Northrop Grumman to continue work. Furthermore, Omega was designed to serve only once customer, the military. Without any launch contracts there are no customers for Omega, especially because it likely has too high a launch price.
Capitalism in space: The state government of California has signed an agreement with the U.S. Space Force to expand private launches facilities at Vandenberg Space Force Base
It appears that the Space Force is aggressively trying to encourage new private launch operations to take flight out of Vandenberg. The article however is very unclear about exactly what this new agreement accomplishes. I could not find its actual text, and from the story all we get is typical government blather:
[Chris Dombrowski, acting director of the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development] said the organizations under the [agreement] will develop a “master plan that identifies the required infrastructure, human capital development, governance and financing necessary to support the United States Space Force mission and position California as a leader in the future of the commercial space industry.”
“This MOU serves as a critical investment in California’s innovative economy as we work to safely recover from the COVID-19 induced recession,” he said.
If anything, it appears that California’s Democratic and very power-hungry government is using this agreement to take control of any new private operations, so that it can dictate how they operate, according to its whims. If so, don’t expect much private enterprise to prosper at Vandenberg.
The Department of Defense yesterday withdrew the small contracts it had given to six small rocket companies on June 16 using funds allocated to help companies impacted by the Wuhan flu panic lock downs.
According to multiple industry sources, the selection of the six companies drew widespread criticism because it was unclear how these suppliers were selected over others. When contracts are awarded without an open competition, DoD by law has to file a “Justification & Approval” document explaining why an award was sole-sourced. No J&A documents were filed in this case.
This certainly appears fishy, as there are far more than six startups trying to capture market share in the smallsat launch market. Defense could now allow companies to competitively bid on this money, estimated to be about $115 million total, but it is unclear whether it will.
The new Space Force has restructured and reduced the former Air Force command structure as it begins to take over military space operations from the latter agency.
The USSF field organization will consist of three echelons of command, where the Air Force currently is organized into five echelons. USSF’s organizational structure will initially consolidate and align all organize, train and equip mission execution from former Air Force space-related units.
…In order of hierarchy, the USSF field echelons are named field commands, deltas and squadrons. There will be three field commands aligned with specific mission focuses: Space Operations Command, Space Systems Command, and Space Training and Readiness Command. SpOC and SSC will be led by three-star general officers, and STARCOM will be led by a two-star general.
Deltas will be O-6 led and will be organized around a specific function – operations, installation support, training, etc. Within the deltas will be squadrons focused on specific tactics. When the field command structure is fully implemented, it will eliminate one general officer echelon and one O-6 echelon of command. Functions formerly performed at the eliminated echelons will be realigned where appropriate within the USSF.
This sounds good, but we shall see. New government agencies proposed by our federal government to streamline bureaucracies somehow always end up bloating those bureaucracies instead. The Space Force was created with this laudable goal. This press release at least suggests they are trying to achieve it.
Capitalism in space: ULA’s Atlas 5 rocket this morning successfully launched one of the military’s two X-37B reusable mini-shuttles into orbit.
I have embedded the video of the launch below the fold, with the launch occurring at 23:50.
As has been standard procedure during all previous X-37B missions, only a few details about the payloads have been released, though the military has said it wishes to be a bit more open this time.
“This sixth mission is a big step for the X-37B program,” said Randy Walden, director and program executive officer for the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office. “This will be the first X-37B mission to use a service module to host experiments. The incorporation of a service module on this mission enables us to continue to expand the capabilities of the spacecraft and host more experiments than any of the previous missions.” The service module is attached to the aft end of the X-37B spaceplane, providing additional capacity for experiments and payloads. The X-37B itself, measuring more than 29 feet (8.9 meters) long, also has a cargo bay inside its fuselage.
Secretary of the Air Force Barbara Barrett said Wednesday that the Air Force’s Rapid Capabilities Office is partnering with the U.S. Space force and the Air Force Research Laboratory on the next X-37B mission. … “This important mission will host more experiments than any prior X-37B flight, including two NASA experiments,” Barrett said Wednesday. “One is a sample plate evaluating the reaction of select significant materials to the conditions in space. The second studies the effect of ambient space radiation on seeds.”
The X-37B also carries a space-based solar power experiment. “A third experiment designed by the Naval Research Laboratory transforms solar power into radio frequency microwave energy, then studies transmitting that energy to Earth,” Barrett said.
Once in orbit, the X-37B will also release a small satellite named FalconSat 8. Developed by Air Force Academy cadets in partnership with the Air Force Research Laboratory, the small satellite carries five experimental payloads. It will be operated by by the Air Force Academy’s Cadet Space Operations Squadron
They have not said how long this X-37B will remain in orbit.
The leaders in the 2020 launch race:
8 China
6 SpaceX
6 Russia
6 Europe (Arianespace)
3 ULA
The U.S. now leads China 11 to 8 in the national rankings, and will likely increase that lead very early tomorrow in the next day or so when SpaceX completes its next scheduled Falcon 9 Starlink launch. (Because of weather they have pushed back one day.
» Read more
Garbage in, garbage out: An Air Force commissioned RAND study released yesterday has confirmed the Air Force’s desire to restrict the award of launch contracts for the next decade to only two companies.
“We asked RAND to independently double check the assumptions we used to build our acquisition strategy,” said Col. Robert Bongiovi of the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center in California. “What we found was that our acquisition strategy encompasses RAND’s recommendations as we are already making prudent preparations for a market that will only sustain two providers with our phase two contract structure.”
…Part of the RAND report also recommended that the military closely watch companies over the coming years to see which are the most stable. “The U.S. Space Force should make prudent preparations for a future with only two U.S. providers of NSS-certified heavy lift launch, at least one of which may have little support from the commercial marketplace,” RAND Corporation said of its first main recommendation.
Though the report does suggest that the military continue its development program to help three companies through 2023, it reiterates the military’s belief that there simply isn’t enough business to support more than two companies.
For this reason, the Air Force space division, now the Space Force, had wanted to restrict bidding in the 2020s on its future satellite launches to only two companies out of the four (ULA, SpaceX, Northrop Grumman, Blue Origin) that hope to compete for this business. This report is their attempt to justify that decision.
However, the decision has been repeatedly delayed, partly because of a protest of the plan by Blue Origin and partly because a lot of political pressure in the background from those four companies, none of which want to be excluded from future bidding. It was originally going to be made last year, and is now delayed to later this year.
With the release of the report, the military also suggested that if Congress gives it more money, it might be able to open up bidding to more companies. How typical. Instead of trying to trim costs by allowing competition, the Space Force is now maneuvering elected officials to pump up its budget so that these companies all get more cash while picking the pockets of the taxpayer.
This is the same thinking that caused Boeing and Lockheed Martin to merge their launch operations into ULA and for the Air Force to give that new company a monopoly on launches in 2005. The Air Force assumed then that there wasn’t enough launch business for both companies. Rather than compete to lower costs so that both the Air Force and the private sector could afford more launches, the two companies agreed with this Air Force conclusion and teamed up with the Air Force to form a cartel to control the bulk of the U.S. launch market, while charging the Air Force $200-$500 million per launch.
Then SpaceX comes along and proves them completely wrong. It not only gets more than enough business to make a lot of money (in the billions), it charges only $60 million per launch. When the Air Force tried to deny it the right to bid against ULA for military launches, SpaceX sued, and won.
Now the Space Force wants to do the same thing in the 2020s, limiting to two the number of companies that can bid on contracts. All this will do is raise launch costs, and limit competition.
In the end, I doubt seriously if the Space Force effort here will work. All four companies are developing rockets, and all four should have the right to bid on all future launches. If the military tries to exclude any, they will sue, as SpaceX did, and win. Moreover, the military’s assumption that all four companies cannot survive because it doesn’t have enough business for all four is patently false. SpaceX proved them wrong. All these companies have to do is what SpaceX did, keep their launch costs low enough so that other private customers can buy their services.
There will then be more than enough business to go around, for all.
Capitalism in space: Rocket Lab has signaled the completion of new launchpad at Wallops Island in the U.S. by the first roll out of an Electron rocket.
The actual launch of a Space Force test satellite is set for sometime in the summer.
Meanwhile, the company is ready to resume launches in New Zealand, but is stymied by the Wuhan panic.
Beck tells the Herald that his company’s Mission Control centre in Auckland is now fully operational with NZ’s move to level 3.
However, its “Don’t Stop Me Now” mission from Launch Complex 1 on the Mahia Peninsula – originally planned for March 24 – is still on hold, with no estimated launch date. “We’re now ready to launch, but currently border restrictions are preventing specialists from entering the country, which is having a negative impact. Our team is on standby to launch as soon as those restrictions are eased,” Beck says.
I hope the company has the resources to weather these government-imposed delays.
Capitalism in space: Virgin Orbit yesterday was awarded a Space Force contract to launch three satellites with its LauncherOne rocket.
The total contract is for $35 million, with the first launch tentatively scheduled for October 2021.
The Space Force yesterday announced that it is delaying the April launch by SpaceX of a GPS satellite until June, though they say in their announcement that they also still intend to get all three GPS launches off this year, as originally planned.
It seems they decided that since the in-orbit constellation is operating well, with lots of redundancy, they could afford to wait two months to launch this new upgraded GPS satellite.
Capitalism in space: United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 rocket today successfully placed into orbit the first military satellite officially under the U.S. Space Force’s command.
The satellite is the fifth of a constellation designed to provide communications for all military operations.
The leaders in the 2020 launch race:
6 China
5 SpaceX
4 Russia
2 Europe (Arianespace)
2 ULA
The U.S. now leads China 9 to 6 in the national rankings.
Capitalism in space: According to ULA’s CEO, Tory Bruno, the company is on track to transition as planned from its Atlas 5 and Delta rockets to its new Vulcan rocket.
Just five Delta IV Heavy launches remain on the manifest, all NRO launches procured under the block buy Phase 1 methodology. Bruno expects the final Delta launch to occur in 2023 or 2024.
The workhorse of the ULA fleet, Atlas V, is expected to retire on a similar timeframe. Bruno says the launcher could be “done as early as 2022, or as late as 2024.” Atlas V will have to continue operations until its replacement, Vulcan, can be human-rated to launch the Boeing Starliner spacecraft.
…The first flight of Vulcan Centaur is on track for early 2021, with the first flight vehicle under construction, and more vehicles in flow, in ULA’s factory in Decatur, Alabama. Vulcan’s debut launch will carry the Astrobotic Peregrine lander to the moon for NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. A second launch is currently planned for later that year, which will satisfy the Air Force certification requirement for Vulcan to launch military missions.
Bruno’s report is also good news for Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, since both will use Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine in their first stage. If ULA is on schedule, than Blue Origin also likely to be on schedule, meaning that come 2021 or so the U.S. will have at least three companies (including SpaceX) capable of putting large payloads into orbit. Moreover, Northrop Grumman is developing its OmegA rocket, which will compete for the same business.
The article also talks about the military’s launch procurement program, which supposedly will pick two of these launch companies to provide all military launches through the 2020s. That program however is certain to fail, as it will blacklist all other viable companies from bidding on military launches. I expect those companies will successfully sue and force the Space Force to accept bids from more than two companies.
And that is as it should be. Why the military wishes to limit bidding makes no sense, and is probably illegal anyway. As long as a company has a qualified rocket, its bids should be welcome.
Capitalism in space: Northrop Grumman yesterday successfully executed a static fire test of the second stage of its OmegA rocket, set for first launch next year.
The first two stages are solid rockets, based on the solid rockets used by the space shuttle. They still have to test the liquid-fueled third stage.
The rocket’s development has essentially been funded by the military, and will thus be used mostly by them to launch national security payloads.
