Tag: spaceflight

Falklands government approves changes that will allow SpaceX to provide Starlink service

3:38 pm

After a small negotiating kerfuffle, the executive committee of the Falklands government has now approved a major licensing fee change that will allow SpaceX to offer its Starlink service to island residences.

The Executive Committee (ExCo) of the Falkland Islands Government has officially approved a considerable reduction in the VSAT licence fee – it is “minded” to slash it from £5,400 to just £180 but it will stay at £5,400 until final agreement in ExCo in early May. This decision paves the way for Starlink to begin providing services in the Falkland Islands, creating a game-changing step towards modernising the Islands’ telecommunications.

It appears that getting this approval required a major grassroots effort, as the government had initially been reluctant to change anything, despite the fact that numerous people were already using Starlink terminals illegally because there were no other options for good internet access, especially because the government’s deal with OneWeb had produced no results.

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A galaxy surrounded by clusters of hot massive stars

8:44 am

A galaxy surrounded by hot massive stars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, reduced and sharpened to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of the galaxy NGC 5042, located about 48 million light years away. The picture combines data from all of Hubble’s available wavelengths from the ultraviolet to the infrared. From the caption:

Perhaps NGC 5042’s most striking feature is its collection of brilliant pink gas clouds that are studded throughout its spiral arms. These flashy clouds are called H II (pronounced “H-two”) regions, and they get their distinctive colour from hydrogen atoms that have been ionised by ultraviolet light. If you look closely at this image, you’ll see that many of these reddish clouds are associated with clumps of blue stars, often appearing to form a shell around the stars.

H II regions arise in expansive clouds of hydrogen gas, and only hot and massive stars [indicated by blue] produce enough high-energy light to create an H II region. Because the stars capable of creating H II regions only live for a few million years — just a blink of an eye in galactic terms — this image represents a fleeting snapshot of life in this galaxy.

The image also includes one star (distinguished by its four diffraction spikes) and a few background galaxies in yellow, the most obvious found in the upper and lower right.

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Russia and SpaceX complete launches

9:34 pm

Two more launches today. First, Russia launched a Glonass GPS-type satellite, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from its Plesetsk spaceport in northern Russia. The rocket’s core stage, four strap-on boosters and upper stage all landed in planned zones within Russia. Whether they crashed near homes is unknown.

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

Note that though some launch sites indicate China also did a launch this weekend of the solid-fueled Kuaizhou-1A rocket built by the pseudo-company Expace, a translation of this French site indicates the launch was a failure.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

26 SpaceX
9 China
3 Russia
2 Rocket Lab

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Astroforge’s Odin spacecraft tumbling and probably be lost

9:09 am

According to a video update by the company’s founder, Matt Gialich, Astroforge’s Odin spacecraft is slowly tumbling, and is likely going to be lost.

Gialich noted that they still have one more possibility to save the spacecraft, but “hope is fading.”

The goal had been to make the first fly-by of an asteroid by a private company, getting data on the M-type asteroid 2022 OB5, thought to be made up largely of nickel-iron which would make it extremely valuable.

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Blue Ghost successfully completes a soft landing

1:46 am

Blue Ghost's shadow on the Moon, with the Earth in the background
Blue Ghost’s shadow on the Moon,
with the Earth in the background.

Firefly tonight became the second private commercial company to land a spacecraft softly on the Moon, its Blue Ghost successfully touching down within Mare Crisium on the northwest quadrant of the visible near side.

At this moment we do not have details about the spacecraft’s condition. Nonetheless NASA bigwigs have come out of hiding to celebrate (if the landing failed they would have likely quietly disappeared). Lots of blather about “important scientific research” but the most important data from this mission is the engineering.

I think the viewers would much rather stay with mission control to hear details about Blue Ghost’s condition. One big unknown is that, of the four landing leg pads, one did not register contact with the ground, though this appears to simply be a failure of the sensor. Just after landing one engineer in mission controler announced the spacecraft was stable, but more information would be of more useful than listening to upper managers from NASA puff themselves. (It is also getting tiresome that the announcers seem incapable of asking anything but “How do you feel?”, one of the most useless questions a journalist can ever ask.)

The first photos are expected shortly. I will update when available.

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Live stream of the lunar landing of Firefly’s Blue Ghost

7:27 pm

Map of lunar landing sites
Landing sites for both Firefly’s Blue Ghost and
Ispace’s Resilience

I have embedded below the live stream from Firefly of tonight’s landing attempt on the Moon of its Blue Ghost lander. The stream goes live at 1:30 am (Central), with the landing targeting 2:45 am (Central).

The map to the right shows the location, in Mare Crisium. For context the map also shows the landing sites for several Apollo missions, as well as the location where Ispace’s first lander, Hakuto-R1, crashed, inside Atlas Crater. Also shown is the landing site of Ispace’s second lander, Resilience, in the north in Mare Frigoris.

Overall Blue Ghost’s nominal mission is engineering, to prove the lander can get to the Moon, touch down softly, and operate on the surface. If all goes well it will operate for about a week plus, during the lunar day. Whether it can survive the 14-day-long lunar night won’t be known until the Sun rises there and ground engineers can see if they can re-establish contact.

» Read more

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FAA issues launch license for 8th Starship/Superheavy test flight

9:12 am

The FAA yesterday announced that it has given SpaceX the launch license for its 8th orbital test launch of Starship/Superheavy, presently scheduled for March 3, 2025 at 5:30 PM (Central).

“After completing the required and comprehensive safety review, the FAA determined the SpaceX Starship vehicle can return to flight operations while the investigation into the Jan. 16 Starship Flight 7 mishap remains open,” the FAA’s emailed statement reads. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted phrase reveals much. There is a new boss in Washington now who will not tolerate unnecessary red tape that stymies private enterprise unnecessarily. SpaceX is the only entity qualified to investigate the loss of Starship in the seventh flight, and it has completed its investigation. All the FAA can really do in its own “investigation” is retype SpaceX’s conclusion. It might have some clean-up work of its own relating to clearing the air space after Starship was destroyed, but even there SpaceX’s conclusion note that the plan worked out before launch between the company and the FAA worked perfectly.

Under Biden the FAA would have made SpaceX wait while that retyping took place, likely assigned to someone who can only hunt and peck at an old manual typewriter. No more.

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Perseverance looks to the far west

12:43 pm

Panorama taken by Perservance, February 28, 2025
Click for original image.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Cool image time! The panorama above, rotated, cropped, and enhanced to post here, was taken today by the left navigation camera on the Mars rover Perseverance. It gives us the first really good high elevation view of the mountainous terrain to the west of Jezero Crater

The overview map to the right provides the context. The blue dot marks the rover’s present position, with the white dotted line its past travels and the red dotted line its future planned route. The yellow lines are my approximate guess as to the area covered by the panorama above.

Neither the rover team nor the team running Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) that provides the high resolution images of this region have as yet updated the interactive map to show this western region in high resolution. My guess as to why is that the planned route is not yet heading that way (as indicated by the red dotted line). When Perseverance has finished its exploration of the outer slopes of the rim of Jezero Crater and heads west, this fuzzy area on this map will likely be replaced with high resolution data, similar to the rest of the map.

Nonetheless, if you look close, you can distinguish several geological features seen in the panorama, such as the large crater to the right and the ridge line to the left. Beyond are mountain chains and valleys, as well as many additional craters. This is truly a barren and alien place, though it has enormous potential for eventually becoming a friendlier environment.

All that is required is for humans to live there, with the natural desire to make it so.

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Polaris Spaceplanes wins contract to develop “a fully reusable hypersonic research vehicle”

9:50 am

The European startup Polaris Spaceplanes, which has been doing tests of an aerospike engine for use in its proposed Aurora orbital re-usable spaceplane, has now won a contract from the German military to develop “a fully reusable hypersonic research vehicle”.

The contract describes the vehicle as a hypersonic testbed and experimental platform for defence-related applications, as well as scientific and institutional research. A secondary role of the vehicle will be to serve as a small satellite launch system when equipped with an expendable upper stage.

While not directly named in the update, this contract will likely kick off the development of AURORA. The contract’s initial scope is limited to the design of the vehicle. However, POLARIS revealed that the contract also includes provisions for follow-on initiatives to manufacture and flight-test the full-size vehicle.

The company has also done a series of test flights using smaller engineering test vehicles. It appears these tests convinced the German military to issue the company this contract.

This contract award also underlines Germany’s enthusiastic embrace of capitalism in space. It not only encouraged the establishment of the most rocket startups ahead of any other European nation, it is now taking action to encourage other aerospace startups as well.

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SpaceX reschedules the 8th Starship/Superheavy orbital test flight to March 3, 2025

9:40 am

SpaceX has rescheduled the 8th Starship/Superheavy orbital test flight from today to March 3, 2025, with the launch window opening at 5:30 pm (Central).

The company gave no reason for the delay, but it also indicated that the FAA has still not closed out the investigation of the Starship failure on the last test in January, nor issued the launch license.

That SpaceX is pushing for this quick launch date suggests it either expects the FAA to issue the permit momentarily, or it is purposely highlighting continuing delay tactics and is applying pressure on the agency. Unlike the Biden administration, which was very hostile to Musk and SpaceX and worked to harass it with lawfare, Trump will not take kindly to such tactics. By making such tactics patently obvious Musk and SpaceX will force Trump to step in.

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Rocket Lab unveils its modified barge its Neutron rocket will use for ocean landings

9:26 am

Neutron landing platform
Graphic showing the barge after modification
with Neutron landing

Rocket Lab today unveiled a modified barge that it will use as a drone ship for ocean landings of the first stage of its new Neutron rocket.

‘Return On Investment’ is a 400 ft (122 m) modified barge that will be customized to enable landings at sea for its reusable Neutron rocket. Modifications will include autonomous ground support equipment to capture and secure the landed Neutron, blast shielding to protect equipment during Neutron landings, and station-keeping thrusters for precise positioning. The Company has acquired the barge and construction of ‘Return On Investment’ will take place throughout 2025, with expectations of being ready to enter service in 2026.

The name appears to be a dig against the stock market analyst who gave the company a negative report a few days ago, predicting Neutron won’t launch for the first time in 2025 — as Rocket Lab continues to predict — but in 2026.

At the same time, not having the landing platform ready until 2026 means that the first few launches will have to attempt a return to land or that first launch is delayed to 2026.

Meanwhile, Rocket Lab’s just released quarterly report appears to defy that negative assessment as well.

Rocket Lab founder and CEO, Sir Peter Beck, said: “2024 was a record-setting year for Rocket Lab, with our highest annual revenue ever posted of $436.2 million and a record Q4 2024 revenue of $132.4 million – a 382% increase compared to Q4 2021, our first full quarter following our debut on the Nasdaq as a publicly-traded company. Top achievements across launch and space systems include a record number of 16 launches for Electron in 2024 (a 60% increase in launch cadence compared to 2023) and more than $450 million in newly-secured launch and space systems contracts.”

More and more it appears to me that this stock market analyst was simply attempting to lower the stock price so as to garner profits when the price rebounded back to its proper value.

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