Tag: spaceflight

Billionaire who fought Sutherland spaceport now owns at least half of competing Saxavord spaceport

9:46 am

Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea
Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea

Anders Povlsen, the Danish billionaire who aggressively fought the establishment of the Sutherland spaceport on the north coast of Scotland, where he owns lots of land, has increased his holding of the competing Saxavord spaceport on one of the Shetland Islands, raising his share of ownership there to at least 50%.

Danish billionaire Anders Povlsen has increased his stake in Shetland Space Centre via his company, Wild Ventures Ltd, which now owns more than half of its shares. New filings with Companies House also show that Lise Kaae, the chief executive of Mr Povlsen’s investment firm, Heartland, has been appointed as a director at the spaceport.

Mr Povlsen, who made his fortune in retail fashion and is reported to be Scotland’s largest landowner, has been involved in the spaceport since 2020 when Wild Ventures Ltd invested £1.5m.

Povlsen had for years aggressively opposed Sutherland, expressing that opposition with repeated lawsuits that caused years of regulatory delays. Those delays in turn impacted Sutherland’s biggest customer, the rocket startup Orbex, which had a fifty year lease on a launchpad and had hoped to start launches of its Prime rocket in 2022. In December 2024, with no sign it would get a launch license from the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority anytime soon, Orbex essentially gave up on Sutherland, announcing suddenly it was switching launch operations to Saxaford.

It now appears Povlsen’s lawfare effort has born fruit, which I think explains why he has now suddenly increased his ownership share in Saxavord

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New observations reduce odds of asteroid 2024 YR4’s 2032 Earth impact to practically zero

9:26 am

The uncertainty of science: According to a short update from NASA late yesterday, new ground-based observations have now reduced the odds that asteroid 2024 YR4’s will hit the Earth in 2032 to only 0.28 percent.

Observations made overnight on Feb. 19 – 20 of asteroid 2024 YR4 have further decreased its chance of Earth impact on Dec. 22, 2032, to 0.28%. NASA’s planetary defense teams will continue to monitor the asteroid to improve our predictions of the asteroid’s trajectory. With this new data, the chance of an impact with the Moon increased slightly to 1%.

Expect these numbers to change again in March, when the Webb telescope tracks the asteroid. And do not assume Webb will confirm these numbers. There remains great uncertainty in all these calculations, especially because there is great uncertainty about the size, mass, and make-up of 2024 YR4. It could be anywhere from 130 feet to 320 feet in diameter, and that difference makes these calculations uncertain.

In other words, it remains essential that work should begin on putting together a mission to visit and study this asteroid, now. Though it isn’t large enough to cause a worldwide extinction, it is big enough to do very significant damage, depending on where it hits.

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German rocket startup Isar Aerospace completes ground testing of Spectrum rocket

9:07 am

Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea
Proposed spaceports surrounding Norwegian Sea

The German rocket startup Isar Aerospace today announced that it has completed its static fire engine test program for both stages of its new Spectrum rocket, and is now readying that rocket for its first orbital launch “as soon as possible”.

Satellite launch service company Isar Aerospace is preparing for its first test flight, having successfully completed static firings of both stages of its launch vehicle ‘Spectrum’. The first flight will take place from Andøya Spaceport in Norway as soon as possible following Norwegian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) approval and licensing.

Based on how fast Norway’s bureaucracy has moved so far, that licensing process should not take that long. Expect this first launch to take place within months, even weeks. If so, Isar will have won the race to reach orbit among the half-dozen or so new European rocket startups that have popped up in the past three years, while Norway’s Andoya Spaceport will have won the race to initiate orbital spaceport operations, beating out the spaceports in the United Kingdom and Sweden.

Isar also notes that its next two rockets are already in production, which means it wants its orbital test program to move quickly to operational commercial flights.

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Spanish rocket startup PLD signs deal for a second launch site at Oman’s proposed spaceport

3:36 pm

Middle East, showing Oman's proposed spaceport
The Middle East, showing the location of
Oman’s proposed spaceport at Duqm.

The new colonial movement: The Spanish rocket startup PLD announced today that it has signed an agreement with Oman to use that nation’s proposed spaceport at Duqm for future launches.

From its strategic location in Duqm (Oman), we address the proximity flight needs of our clients, especially in the Middle East.

With our Launch Complex at the European CSG spaceport (Kourou, French Guiana), we cover the Western market, and now with Etlaq, we’re covering the Eastern one too. This strengthens our position as global pioneers.

The company also said in 2026 it plans to add a third launch site. BtB’s stringer Jay, who sent me this story, thinks it will be in the Pacific somewhere.

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French startup The Exploration Company wins major contract from Germany

9:39 am

Germany’s space agency, DLR, announced today that it has signed a major contract with the French startup The Exploration Company to use its Nyx reusable capsule, still under development, for in-orbit weightlessness research.

On 20 February, during its DLR TecDays in Bonn, the German aerospace agency announced that it had signed a contract with The Exploration Company and would serve as an anchor customer for its microgravity research service. The contract secures space for 160 kilograms of scientific payloads aboard the inaugural flight of the Nyx Earth capsule in 2028. “We are supporting a startup that provides services that will be particularly valuable in a post-ISS era,” explained Dr. Walther Pelzer, Head of the German Space Agency at DLR.

Nyx’s main customer base was originally to serve as a cargo freighter for all of planned commercial space stations, having already been chosen by the European Space Agency as one of two European companies (the other being Thales-Alenia) to fly cargo demonstration missions to ISS in 2028.

This new contract illustrates the wider possibilities for profit for these capsules that has appeared in the past two years. If you can launch a returnable capsule to bring cargo, why not launch it to do in-orbit research and manufacturing? Varda in the U.S. has already demonstrated this possibility. Others apparently are now recognizing it as well.

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The man who has been running NASA’s manned Artemis program resigns

9:31 am

Late yesterday NASA officially announced that Jim Free, who has been running NASA’s manned Artemis program for the past year, has decided to resign.

Only a month or so ago the people at NASA had assumed that Free would take over as the agency’s acting administrator during the transition from Bill Nelson, appointed by Biden, and Jared Isaacman, appointed by Trump. Instead, Trump’s transition team gave this job to Janet Petro, who had been head of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Free has been seen as a headquarters guy who has for years favored the old big space companies like Boeing and who also has favored SLS and Orion and the old way of doing things, whereby NASA designs, builds, and controls everything instead of simply buying what it needs from the private sector.

There have also been reports that “three key officials” at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama have also submitted their retirement papers. This would suggest that the earlier proposals by Trump’s NASA transition team to shrink or eliminate many of NASA’s numerous centers scattered across the country are being seriously discussed, and possibly being implemented.

Many news sources have concluded that the decision by the Trump administration to delay its major layoffs at NASA was because the Trump administration was reconsidering these major changes. I disagree. I think it is holding off because the new administrator has not yet been confirmed by the Senate, and it decided he should have a say in these reductions and changes. The retirement and resignation of these old school NASA management types further tells us that major changes are coming.

Overall, my guess is that a major reorganization of NASA — including the elimination of many of its centers — could reduce its overhead by $5 to $10 billion per year. Part of those savings could be used to reduce the deficit, but some could also be used to increase the amount of money available for all of NASA’s goals. I made this point fourteen years ago, and nothing has changed since then except that NASA has wasted billions over that time accomplishing nothing with SLS and Orion.

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Boeing announces a new round of layoffs related to its SLS NASA contract

9:02 am

Boeing yesterday announced that it will layoff another 71 employees in connection with its SLS NASA contract, based on rumored changes in NASA’s entire Artemis lunar program, including the increasingly real possibility that SLS will be canceled entirely by the new Trump administration.

The defense contractor was already in the midst of reducing its workforce, including in Alabama. But today, the company told AL.com that changes to its contract with NASA to develop the Space Launch System program sparked the need for some of the 71 layoffs. “As Boeing and NASA continue to finalize contract revisions for Boeing’s work on the Space Launch System program, we have successfully mitigated a majority of the previously announced workforce reductions,” a Boeing spokesperson said in an email to AL.com.

The news article at the link actually suggests that the total number of layoffs is now half that predicted by the company a few weeks ago, so it remains very unclear if these layoffs are because NASA is considering cancelling SLS, or because Boeing is simply shifting SLS management from development (which requires more people) to routine operations.

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The uncertainty of science: Astronomers keep changing the odds of asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting the Earth in 2032

8:53 am

In the past three days three different reports from both NASA and the European Space Agency have given three different percentages for the chances that asteroid 2024 YR4 will hit the Earth in 2032.

On Tuesday, NASA calculated that the space rock had a 3.1% chance of hitting Earth in 2032, while the European Space Agency’s risk assessment sits at 2.8%.

The narrow difference is due to the two agencies’ use of different tools for determining the asteroid’s orbit and modeling its potential impact. But both percentages rise above the 2.7% chance of collision once associated with an asteroid discovered in 2004 called Apophis, making 2024 YR4 the most significant space rock to be spotted within the past two decades.

However, another update shared by NASA on Wednesday showed that 2024 YR4 has a 1.5% chance of colliding with Earth in December 2032, based on new observations now that the full moon has passed. Astronomers have anticipated that such fluctuations are possible as they gather more observational data.

While the media has generally focused mostly on the higher numbers in their knee-jerk “We’re all gonna die” approach to everything, all these different numbers simply illustrate is the generally limited nature of our data about the asteroid’s orbit and its future path. For example because such asteroids are so small, it isn’t just gravity that influences their flight path through the solar system. The Sun’s light pressure can actually have an impact, but to determine how much you need to know the exact size, shape, and rotation of the object. Right now 2024 YR4’s size is estimated to range from 130 to 320 feet in width, determining this effect is presently impossible. Nor is this the only such variable.

At the same time, the data continues to suggest that the chances of this asteroid hitting the Earth are not trivial. The sooner we can find out everything about it the better. Getting a mission to it quickly would be the best way, but so far I have heard little from NASA or anyone about such an idea.

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Australian rocket startup Gilmour Space appears to have finally gotten its launch license

3:29 pm

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

According to two news reports (here and here) as well as an update today on the company’s website, the Australian rocket startup Gilmour Space has gotten its last government approval allowing it to finally do the first orbital test launch of its Eris rocket from its private Bowen launch site on the east coast of Australia.

Though the company has not yet announced a launch date, the news reports and previous announcements suggest it will occur in late March. This document [pdf] provides excellent details about the launch, including the range limitations and flight path. No live stream will be provided on this first launch attempt.

I expect more information to be announced either later today or tomorrow. If this is confirmed, it will have been a long time coming. Gilmour first applied for its launch license in April 2022, with the intention of launching that year. Unfortunately, Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) appears as slow and as difficult to work with as the United Kingdom’s Civil Aviation Authority. It took CASA almost three years to issue this license (assuming it has been issued). With that kind of red tape, I don’t know how Gilmour is going to become profitable. It certainly can’t wait three years between each launch.

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The broken edge of Mars’ largest volcanic ash field

12:54 pm

The broken edge of Mars' largest volcanic ash field
Click for original image.

Overview map

Cool image time! The picture above, reduced and rotated to place north to the left, was taken on November 5, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The science team labeled it “Stepped Features in Tartarus Skopulus”. The white dot on the overview map to the right marks the location, right at the equator on the northern edge of the Medusae Fossae Formation, the largest volcanic ash field on Mars, about the size of the subcontinent of India. As I wrote in a post in 2024:

It is believed that most of the planet’s dust comes from this ash field. It is also evident that the ash is a leftover from the time period more than a billion years ago when the giant volcanoes that surround this field were erupting regularly. The eruptions laid down vast flood lava plains that coat the surface for thousands of miles.

The ash either came from the eruptions themselves, or was created as the thin Martian wind eroded those flood lava plains, slowly stripping ash from the top. The ash then gathered within the black-outlined regions on the map.

In that 2024 post the cool image showed another location on the north edge of Medusae. In that case the prevailing wind had carved long parallel ridges as it pulled ash from the field.

Here, the wind appears to play no part, or if it did, it produced a very different terrain. At first glance it appears the stepped terraces formed as the ash field began to slide downhill to the north, spreading to crack along the curved lines. The inset especially suggests this explanation.

A closer look instead suggests these terraces each represent a different layer of ash placed down by a sequence of eruptions. Over time the prevailing winds, which here appear to generally blow to the south, stripped off the top of each layer, creating this stair-step landscape.

I however have no guess as to why the terraces are curved. Regardless, it is all strange, but quite beautiful in its own way.

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Alaskan spaceport sues insurance company over delayed rocket clean-up claims

11:06 am

The Alaskan spaceport in Kodiak has now sued the insurance company of the rocket startup ABL (now out of the orbital rocket business) because it has not responded to the spaceport’s claims for cleaning up the mess caused by a failed static fire engine test.

According to the spaceport, the cost of the damages and cleanup totals about $3.1 million.

The corporation claims ABL Space Systems was required to carry insurance that covered the spaceport, and had a policy for up to $50 million through the U.S. Aircraft Insurance Group (USAIG) to cover the damages.

But after sending three emails to USAIG asking for a copy of its policy and status on a filed claim, which allegedly existed but was never confirmed by the insurance group, Alaska Aerospace’s lawyer Cook with Birch Horton Bittner & Cherot sent a final follow up email last month on Jan. 8.

Having still not gotten a response, the spaceport has now sued. Delays and suits like this are not unusual in the insurance business, because insurance companies often stall when it comes to paying out large claims.

The failure during the static fire test was the final blow in ABL’s effort to enter the orbital launch market. After one failed launch and this static fire test failure it abandoned the market to instead focus on building missiles for the military.

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