Tag: SpaceX

NASA: No further Artemis Moon landings for at least two years after first in 2025

11:53 am

The tortoise appears to be dying: NASA today announced that there will be a two-plus year pause of Artemis missions to the lunar surface after it completes its hoped-for first manned Moon landing in 2025.

In presentations at a two-day meeting of the NASA Advisory Council’s Human Exploration and Operations Committee Jan. 18 and 19, agency officials said the Artemis 4 mission, the first after the Artemis 3 mission lands astronauts on the moon, will not attempt a landing itself.

Instead, Artemis 4 will be devoted to assembly of the lunar Gateway. The mission will deliver the I-Hab habitat module, developed by the European Space Agency and the Japanese space agency JAXA, to the Gateway. It will be docked with the first Gateway elements, the Power and Propulsion Element and Habitation and Logistics Outpost, which will launch together on a Falcon Heavy in late 2024 and spend a year spiraling out to the near-rectilinear halo orbit around the moon.

Essentially, the Biden administration appears to be switching back to NASA’s original plans, to require use of the Lunar Gateway station for any future lunar exploration, thus delaying that exploration considerably. Do not expect any of this schedule to take place as promised. The 2025 lunar landing will be delayed, as will all subsequent SLS launches for Artemis. The rocket is simply too complicated and cumbersome to even maintain one launch per year, while inserting Gateway into the mix only slows down lunar exploration even more.

NASA officials also revealed that they are limiting their lunar landing Starship contract with SpaceX to only that single planned ’25 Moon mission. For future manned missions to the Moon the agency will request new bids from the entire industry.

NASA’s Human Landing System (HLS) Option A award to SpaceX last year covers only development of a lander and a single crewed flight on Artemis 3. NASA will acquire future landings through a separate effort, called Lunar Exploration Transportation Services (LETS). The goal of LETS is to select one, and possibly more, companies to provide “sustainable” landing services.

The timing of LETS — a draft request for proposals is scheduled for release this spring — means there will be a gap of a couple years before the first landing service acquired through that program would be ready. “It’ll be about two years from the Option A award to the LETS award before we’ll have this sustainable lander,” Kirasich said. “It’s a different lander with more aggressive requirements than Option A.”

It appears that Jeff Bezos’ political lobbying efforts have paid off, and that NASA is now reopening bidding so that his consortium, led by Blue Origin, can once again compete for that lunar lander contract. Whether the Bezos’ team will be able to propose anything comparable to Starship is however very questionable.

None of this really hurts SpaceX. Its contract with NASA helps them develop a Starship lunar lander. Then, while NASA twiddles its thumbs building Gateway, it will be free to fly its own lunar missions, selling tickets on the open market. I suspect that — should NASA succeed in landing humans in ’25 — the next American manned landing on the Moon will be a bunch of SpaceX customers, not that second Artemis mission sometime in the late 2020s.

SpaceX of course will also be able to bid on that second lunar landing competition. And it will be hard for NASA not to award Starship a further contract, even if others are competing against it. Starship will be operational. The others will merely be proposed.

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SpaceX’s Starship gets Air Force point-to-point cargo study contract

10:46 am

Capitalism in space: The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has signed a $102 million five year contract with SpaceX to study the practicality of using its Starship spacecraft as a method for transporting large cargo point-to-point on Earth.

[Program manager Greg] Spanjers said the SpaceX work is focused in four areas: collecting data from commercial orbital launches and landings; exploring cargo bay designs compatible with U.S. Transportation Command containers [TRANSCOM] and support rapid loading and unloading; researching landing systems that can operate on a variety of terrain; and demonstrating the heavy cargo launch and landing process.

The emphasis on landing options and interoperability with TRANSCOM containers and loading processes is an important element of the project, Spanjers noted, because the department’s vision for how the point-to-point capability could be used is broader than just the commercial business case. While companies are primarily interested in delivering cargo to and from established sites, the military wants to deliver supplies and humanitarian aid to locations that may not have spaceports.

This contract is in many ways similar to NASA’s manned Starship lunar lander contract. Both provide SpaceX some cash for developing a different version of Starship, even as the bulk of development money for building Starship comes from the private investment community.

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SpaceX now blocked from Pakistan; OneWeb signs deal to operate in India

9:44 am

Capitalism in space: Two stories this morning suggest that the competition between the internet satellite constellations Starlink and OneWeb is being partly influenced by local politics, with the influence favoring OneWeb and hindering SpaceX.

First, Pakistan ordered SpaceX to stop taking preorders from its citizens for its Starlink system.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said in a Jan. 19 news release that “Starlink has neither applied for nor obtained any license from PTA to operate and provide internet services” in the country. The telecoms regulator advised the general public to refrain from pre-booking the service in Pakistan through Starlink or associated websites.

This order follows a similar decree in India. Like India, SpaceX had apparently not been granted a license or permit to take preorders. SpaceX has now been blocked entirely from the subcontinent by the governments of both countries.

Second, OneWeb and Hughes announced a partnership agreement to distribute its internet service in India.

In the statement, OneWeb’s CEO Neil Masterson said the company would partner with Hughes to “offer high-speed, low-latency satellite broadband solutions and contribute to the Digital India vision”. OneWeb’s constellation, he said, would cover the length and breadth of India, from Ladakh to Kanyakumari and from Gujarat to the Northeast and bring secure solutions to enterprises, governments, telcos, airline companies and maritime customers. “OneWeb will invest in setting up enabling infrastructure such as Gateways and PoPs in India to light up the services,” he added.

According to the announcement, OneWeb intends to start offering its service this year.

OneWeb is half-owned by the Indian-based Bharti group. It seems that this connection with India has greased the bureaucratic wheels in that country for OneWeb, allowing it begin offering its services there. It also appears that this same connection with India is likely one reason both India and Pakistan have put a break on SpaceX’s operations.

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Flight dates for SpaceX’s next two manned flights to ISS revised

9:24 am

Capitalism in space: A NASA official yesterday announced that the flight dates for SpaceX’s next two manned flights have been firmed up, with the private commercial Axiom AX-1 flight delayed from February 21st to March 31st, followed two weeks later by NASA’s own manned mission on April 15th.

Axiom has also noted that this commercial flight, piloted by a former NASA astronaut and carrying three passengers, will be its only commercial manned flight in ’22.

…Commanded by former NASA astronaut Michael López-Alegría, Ax-1 will only carry private citizens. Each paying $55 million for the privilege, the mission’s three customers are Larry Connor, Mark Pathy, and Eytan Stibbe – all businessmen who’ve respectively amassed multmillion-dollar fortunes in real estate; entertainment and shipping; and military equipment and venture capitalism.

Their Dragon spacecraft will be Resilience, making its third flight.

Axiom’s next private commercial flight has now been delayed until ’23.

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SpaceX launches another 49 Starlink satellites

7:14 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX tonight used its Falcon 9 rocket to launch 49 Starlink satellites into orbit.

The first stage successfully landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean, completing its 10th flight. SpaceX now has three four first stages that have completed at least ten flights. (The correction comes from a comment by one of my readers below.)

The 2022 launch race:

3 SpaceX
1 Virgin Orbit
1 China

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Philippino presidential candidate meets with SpaceX officials

9:35 am

SpaceX officials have held a virtual meeting with two senators from the Philippines, one of which is running for president, to discuss allowing Starlink service in their country as well as the establishment of a launch site.

TOP executives of SpaceX met with Senators Emmanuel “Manny” Pacquiao and Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel 3rd to discuss the use of low-orbit satellites to provide cheap internet to the Philippines. SpaceX is a space exploration company owned by technology magnate and billionaire Elon Musk.

During the virtual meeting on Saturday, the SpaceX executives also talked about the possibility of setting up a spaceship launch pad in the Philippines.

Pacquiao also proposed projects for Musk’s other companies, Tesla and Boring. He seems enthusiastic about bringing SpaceX to the Philippines. The odds right now of him becoming president however is not great, according to recent polling. This meeting with SpaceX was clearly an effort by him to garner attention and increase his poll numbers.

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SpaceX launches 105 satellites on its third smallsat launch

9:14 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX today successfully placed 105 satellites and other spacecraft into orbit using its Falcon 9 rocket.

The first stage successfully landed at Cape Canaveral, completing its 10th flight. The launch itself was SpaceX’s third launch dedicated to smallsats in its effort to compete against the small rockets of Rocket Lab, Virgin Orbit, and Astra for that the smallsat market.

Of those 105 satellites, I actually know the owners of two. First, Joe Latrell, frequent commenter here on BtB, put his first Pocketqube cubesat into orbit, testing a variety of space sensors that could be used to track global water use. Second, Jeremiah Pate’s first Lunarsonde prototype cubesat was launched. If successful, he hopes to launch a constellation of similar cubesats for detecting Earth mineral resources, with six more launches already scheduled in ’22 with SpaceX, Virgin Orbit, Rocket Lab, Northrop Grumman, and Arianespace.

This was SpaceX’s second launch in ’22. At the moment the company is the only entity worldwide to launch anything this year, though Virgin Orbit is targeting its own launch later today.

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SpaceX pushing to launch 2nd generation Starlink satellites by March

9:36 am

Capitalism in space: In paperwork filed by SpaceX to the FCC, it has announced it is pushing to launch the first second generation Starlink satellites by March, 2022.

While some news reports have suggested that SpaceX intended to launch those upgraded satellites on Starship, this reporting is certainly wrong. As the article at the link correctly notes, SpaceX does not have to state what rocket it plans to use in its paperwork. It could very easily launch these first upgraded satellites on a Falcon 9.

The story however does provide this interesting tidbit about the FCC’s treatment of SpaceX in this licensing process:

SpaceX filed the first unmodified Gen2 Starlink application with the FCC in May 2020, requesting permission to launch an unprecedented 30,000 satellites. While the size of the proposed constellation is extraordinary, the FCC has also been exceptionally slow to process it. Only five months after SpaceX submitted its Starlink Gen2 modification request and nineteen months after its original Gen2 application did the FCC finally accept it for filing, which means that it has taken more than a year and a half to merely start the official review process. [emphasis in original]

In other words, the FCC stalled SpaceX for more than a year and a half. If the DC bureaucracy can play such games with Starlink, this suggests it might very well be doing the same with the approval of the environmental reassessment for SpaceX’s Boca Chica facility, which the FAA has now delayed repeatedly since last year. There are many people in Washington, both in the Biden administration and in the established and permanent bureaucracy, who do not like SpaceX’s success or its independence, and wish to use government power to squelch it. This story provides us some evidence that such misuse of government power in the FAA is very likely occurring.

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Starlink temporarily backs out of India due to regulatory snafu

9:38 am

Capitalism in space: Starlink in India has stopped taking new preorders and is refunding all previous preorders of its internet service because it had failed to get the proper regulatory permits for selling its service.

India’s Ministry of Communications issued a Nov. 26 statement instructing SpaceX to “refrain from booking/rendering” Starlink services “with immediate effect” because the company did not have a license to operate in the country.

In the days that followed, SpaceX appeared to be still accepting $99 preorder deposits via Starlink’s website for addresses in India.

But the website now tells prospective subscribers: “Starlink is not yet available in your area due to pending regulatory approval. As we receive approvals our coverage area will continue to expand, so please check back for future availability in your area.”

The head of Starlink India also announced his resignation today. It appears he not only did not get the proper permissions, he ignored that November 26 order from the government.

SpaceX apparently is now reviewing the legal situation, which is very unclear and might even block the company from selling its services in India entirely. No timeline is presently known for restarting its operations there.

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Update on Starship/Superheavy development

9:30 am

Link here.

The article first provides a detailed review of the past year’s effort, which leads to laying out the possibilities for 2022. Key quote:

With the FAA citing its plans to issue the Final Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) for the SpaceX Starship / Super Heavy project no earlier than the end of February, SpaceX can claim the review process is the schedule driver. However, [Superheavy] Booster 4 [intended for Starship’s first orbital flight] has yet to conduct a Static Fire test, likely including an eventual full 29 engine firing. Further evolutions of the Ship and Booster are yet to come online, with a plan to go to nine engines on Ship and 33 engines on the Booster, all moving to the Raptor 2 variant.

In other words, there is a lot of work that needs to be done before SpaceX can actually fly that first orbital flight of Starship/Superheavy, and that even if the FAA rubberstamped the approval of its environmental reassessment of the Boca Chica site today, SpaceX would likely not be able to launch that orbital flight for several months anyway.

The article also suggests that SpaceX has made big progress in rethinking the Raptor manufacturing process, and has aimed those changes for the production of the Raptor-2 engine, which will also be about 20% more powerful than the Raptor engines presently being installed.

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SpaceX raises another $337 million in investment capital

9:45 am

Capitalism in space: In an SEC filing yesterday SpaceX revealed that it has raised another $337 million in investment capital.

The company raised in 2021 a total of $1.85 billion, and over the last six years has raised close to $7 billion total. While some of that capital is being used to finance its Starlink internet constellation of satellites, most is being funneled into the development of its totally reusable heavy lift Starship/Superheavy rocket.

The eagerness of investors to put money behind SpaceX is a strong vote of confidence in the company, coming from totally independent sources.

Adding in the $2.9 billion dollar contract from NASA for building a lunar lander version of Starship, SpaceX has raised about $10 billion total for building this rocket.

Whether that will be enough of course is not yet known. Based on SpaceX’s past work it should be. That however assumes the federal government’s bureaucracy doesn’t throw a serious wrench in the process, something it right now appears to be doing by stalling the orbital test flight of Starship/Superheavy.

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Starship prototype #20 completes another static fire launchpad test

9:40 am

Capitalism in space: Despite being blocked by the federal government bureauceacy from launching its Starship/Superheavy rocket on its first orbital flight, SpaceX yesterday successfully completed another static fire launchpad test of the 20th prototype of Starship.

It appears that this was the second static fire test that used all six of prototypes’s Raptor engines.

Meanwhile, Superheavy prototype #4 sits on the orbital launchpad, where similar static fire tests were expected but have not yet occurred. Either SpaceX engineers found they needed to additional revisions of the prototype before attempted such a test, which could fire as many as 29 Raptor engines at once, or the company has decided to hold back its testing because the FAA has not yet approved the environmental reassessment for the Boca Chica launch site. Firing the engines on Superheavy before that approval could be used by SpaceX’s environmental enemies as a public relations weapon to help kill the approval entirely.

Personally I think the answer is the former. It is not Elon Musk’s way to cower in fear of others. In fact, he is more likely to push forward, knowing that the publicity from a successful Superheavy static fire test will almost certainly be mostly positive and enthusiastic, thus helping to force politicians to force the bureaucracy to sign off its approval.

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FAA delays final approval of Starship environmental reassessment till Feb 28th

11:42 am

The FAA has now made it official and announced that the final approval of Starship environmental reassessment will not occur before the end of February, thus preventing any Starship orbital test flights until the spring, at the earliest.

As previously announced, the FAA had planned to release the Final PEA in on December 31, 2021. However, due to the high volume of comments submitted on the Draft PEA, discussions and consultation efforts with consulting parties, the FAA is announcing an update to the schedule. The FAA now plans to release the Final PEA on February 28, 2022.

When the rumors of a delay were first noted last week, I predicted that “Starship’s first orbital flight will not happen until the latter half of ’22, if then.” That prediction is now almost certainly confirmed.

Nor I am not confident the FAA’s environmental reassessment of SpaceX’s launch facility in Boca Chica will be ready even in February. The problem appears to be that the FAA needs to also get the approval of both NOAA and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife agencies, and both appear to be very hostile to SpaceX’s efforts.

In fact, this is beginning to look like the situation in Hawaii with the Thirty Meter Telescope. There protesters blocked the start of construction, and the government, controlled by Democrats, worked with those protesters to step by step keep that obstruction active and working. If so, SpaceX faces a very dangerous situation, as it appears the Biden administration is about to do the same thing to it.

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China attacks SpaceX, claiming Starlink satellites threaten its space station

9:16 am

China earlier this month submitted a complaint against SpaceX to the UN, claiming that the company’s Starlink satellites have twice forced it to adjust the orbit of its space station to avoid a collusion.

The note said the incidents “constituted dangers to the life or health of astronauts aboard the China Space Station”.

“The U.S. … ignores its obligations under international treaties, posing a serious threat to the lives and safety of astronauts,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a routine briefing on Tuesday.

The story became news today because there was suddenly a flurry of outrage against SpaceX on Chinese social media, responding to Lijian’s statement, with much of it very likely astroturf posts prompted by the Chinese government itself.

This announcement likely signals that China is getting ready to launch the next module to that station. During that launch the large core stage of the Long March 5B rocket will reach orbit, but only for a few days. It will then crash uncontrolled somewhere on Earth. The Chinese government knows it is going to get a lot of bad press because of this fact, and is likely making this complaint to try to excuse its own bad actions.

The two issues however are not the same. Satellite orbits are very predictable, and any maneuvers required by China to avoid Starlink satellites were very routine. Moreover, if necessary SpaceX can adjust its own satellite orbits to avoid a collusion.

The crash of the Long March 5B core stage however is due entirely to a bad design that does not allow for any controlled maneuvers. Once the stage’s engines shut down after delivering the station module into orbit, they cannot be restarted, as designed. The stage must fall to Earth in an unpredictable manner, threatening every spot it flies over during that orbital decay.

At this time the actual launch date for that Long March 5B launch, carrying the next station module, has not been announced. The astronauts on the station just completed their second spacewalk, doing work to prepare for the arrival of the next module. Its arrival can’t be too far in the future, and this complaint by China today suggests it will be sooner rather than later. When it happens China will face a flurry of justified criticism, and the Xi government likely plans to use this UN complaint then to deflect that criticism.

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FAA’s approval of SpaceX’s Starship operations delayed at least a month

9:45 am

The FAA has now had to delay the final approval of its environmental reassessment of SpaceX’s Starship facility and operations at Boca Chica for at least one month because NOAA has refused to approve the plan.

That puts NOAA’s generic review of Rocket Landing and Launches back to at least the end of January, with the much more complex and contentious USFWS [Fish and Wildlife] review also pending (this one is habitat and species review of impacts to bird and wildlife populations specific to Boca Chica).

The earliest approval by the FAA (which again, is far from a sure thing) should be projected into February. And the actual launch license process can’t be started until then. March is absolutely the earliest even the giddiest optimist could expect for Starship’s Maiden Orbital Flight.

It appears that the bureaucrats in NOAA are hostile to the launch site, and are looking for reasons, mostly environmental, to either block it or slow it down.

It also appears that a second Department of the Interior agency must sign off, and it is also hostile.

Based on this story, it looks like Starship’s first orbital flight will not happen until the latter half of ’22, if then. Nor can we expect any help from the Biden administration. Unlike Trump, the Democrats now running the executive branch of government do not like private enterprise and business, and generally look for excuses to regulate and even block it, especially if they think there is the slightest chance it might harm some formerly unknown species somewhere.

This is America today, no longer free. Rather than you making the decision freely, as an American citizen, un-elected federal government officials now decide whether you can do anything, or not.

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SpaceX begins testing of launch procedures for Superheavy prototype #4

8:50 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX began this week the testing of the fueling and launch procedures it will follow for launching the first orbital Superheavy, prototype #4, presently mounted on the orbital launchpad at Boca Chica.

On December 17th, SpaceX subjected Super Heavy B4 to a cryogenic proof test about twice as ambitious as B3’s, filling the booster maybe a sixth of the way with a few hundred tons of liquid nitrogen (LN2). What isn’t clear is if that test also raised the booster’s propellant tanks to flight pressures (6-8 bar or 90-115 psi). If Booster 4 did reach those pressures, the test is even more significant – partially proving that the rocket is ready for flight. On December 21st, SpaceX performed a similar series of cryogenic tests, again partially filling Booster 4 with about the same amount of liquid nitrogen but doing so two or three times in a row. Again, the Super Heavy survived the several-hour ordeal without any obvious issues. Still, a number of additional tests – some even more important – are still in front of SpaceX and Super Heavy B4.

The most obvious is simple enough: SpaceX needs to fully fill a Super Heavy booster for the first time. Depending on the storage situation, that process will likely begin by filling Booster 4 with about 2500 tons (5.5M lb) of liquid nitrogen (LN2) – about two-thirds full. If SpaceX also temporarily fills one of the orbital tank farm’s liquid oxygen (LOx) or methane (LCH4) tanks with nitrogen, it could fully load Booster 4 with around 3500 tons (7.7M lb) of nitrogen. At least according to SpaceX’s own website, that’s about the same weight as the propellant (3400t/7.5M lb) Super Heavy is designed to lift off with. If that full cryoproof goes well, SpaceX will then likely perform one or several wet dress rehearsals, ultimately filling Booster 4 with approximately 2900 tons (6.4M lb) of cryogenic oxygen and 500 tons (1.1M lb) of cryogenic methane.

At some point the company will need to not only fill the booster, it will need to do at least one static fire test of its 29 engines. If all goes well, SpaceX will then mount Starship on top, with the first orbital flight to follow. Musk has said they are aiming for a January launch, but no one should be surprised if it slips to February.

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Oh no! 132 SpaceX employees in California come down with colds!

11:16 am

Chicken Little update: The California press today is in a panic of doom because 132 SpaceX employees in its Hawthorne facility have been diagnosed with some form of COVID.

From the KABC news division, a typical example:

In the largest recent Los Angeles County workplace outbreak, at least 132 workers at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne have been infected with COVID-19, according to new county data. The county’s latest compilation of outbreaks at workplaces that don’t include residential facilities puts the rocket company at the top of the list, far ahead of the 85 cases at the FedEx facility near Los Angeles International Airport. The list includes 37 workplaces with a total of 452 cases.

…The outbreak comes as COVID-19 cases are once again rising in California and throughout the country, amid increased holiday travel and gatherings, and the spread of the omicron variant. Los Angeles County recently reported its highest number of daily cases since August.

California this week is marking 75,000 deaths from COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.

And health officials are concerned as omicron has now become the dominant strain of the coronavirus. Hospitals are reporting once again being strained to the limit of their resources as the holiday season gets underway, with increased transmission linked to family gatherings and air travel.

O no! We’re all gonna die!

NOT! As is usual for the mainstream press, working as operatives of the Democratic Party, they fail to mention that this new “outbreak” of COVID-19 appears to be mostly from the new omicron strain, which to this date has killed only about fourteen people worldwide, most of whom were in the UK and sick with other illnesses.

All the evidence shows that more than 99.9% of everyone else experiences very mild symptoms from Omicron, comparable to an ordinary cold, and is better in a few days. Since most of SpaceX’s employees are young and healthy, I predict they will all be back at work with the coming of the new year.

None of these facts matter however to the fear-driven and ignorant press and the political leadership in states controlled by the power-hungry Democratic Party. Instilling fear is their goal, and instill it they will.

Meanwhile, most ordinary people nationwide are increasingly realizing that COVID-19 was never the plague it has been touted as, and are going back to normal life. More important, they are finally realizing that the politicians, health officials, and the mainstream press are simply idiots crying wolf endlessly, and should be ignored.

SpaceX for example during this entire fake “pandemic” has not slowed its operations down in the slightest. It has not required vaccines, it hasn’t even asked its employees what their status is. The result is the company has experienced no harm at all, while it forged ahead of all of its competition.

The same will happen now. In two weeks these employees will be back at work, and SpaceX will continue operations as normal. And if the various state and local California governments try to force restrictions on it, Elon Musk will tell them to go to hell, and move even more of his company’s operations out of California.

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SpaceX launches cargo Dragon to ISS using new 1st stage

9:39 am

Capitalism in space: In what will likely be its last launch in 2021, SpaceX early this morning successfully launched a reused Dragon cargo capsule to ISS.

This was the company’s 31st launch in 2021, extending its record for the most launches in a single year by a private company. The launch’s big news however was that the company used a new first stage booster, only the second time in 2021 that it needed to do so (the first was in May). The first stage successfully landed on the drone ship in the Atlantic, completing SpaceX’s 100th successful recovery.

The first such vertical landing had occurred in December 2015, and now six years later and after a hundred vertical landings, SpaceX remains the only orbital rocket entity in the world with such a capability. A very small handful of companies have performed tests with smaller scale prototypes, but that so much time has passed and no one has pushed forward to meet SpaceX’s challenge with even some full scale preliminary test flights does not reflect well on the innovative culture of the world’s rocket industry.

As for SpaceX’s yearly record, 31 launches actually exceeds the number of launches the entire U.S. rocket industry generally managed each year from 1970 through 2017. During much of that time the launch industry was run by NASA in a Soviet-style top-down system that stifled competition and innovation. Beginning in 2008, when SpaceX won its first contract with NASA, that system was abandoned by NASA, switching instead to capitalism and competition, whereby NASA was merely a customer buying its launches from the open market. The positive results from that change have been breath-taking, proving once again that freedom, competition, and private enterprise will win every single time over government programs and communist/socialist ideology.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

48 China
31 SpaceX
22 Russia
6 Europe (Arianespace)
5 ULA
5 Rocket Lab

The U.S. and China are now tied 48 to 48 in the national rankings. This was the 127th launch in 2021, tying it with 1976 for the second most successful year in rocketry in the history of space exploration. With five more announced launches on the schedule, there is a chance that this year could tie the record year, 132 in 1975.

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SpaceX completes 2nd launch in less than 16 hours

9:33 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX tonight successfully completed its second Falcon 9 launch in less than 16 hours (the company’s shortest time between launches), putting the communications satellite Turksat-5B into orbit.

The first stage successfully landed on the drone ship, completing its third flight. Both fairings flew their second flight.

More important, this was the 30th successful launch for SpaceX in 2021, which not only continues to extend its record for the most launches ever in a single year by a private company, it also exceeds the company’s prediction of 29 launches for ’21.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

48 China
30 SpaceX
22 Russia
6 Europe (Arianespace)
5 ULA
5 Rocket Lab

China now leads the U.S. 48 to 47 in the national rankings. This was the 126th successful launch in 2021, putting it in a tie for the third best year in rocketry since Sputnik.

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SpaceX in launch of 52 Starlink satellites reuses a 1st stage for the 11th time

9:27 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX early this morning successfully launched another 52 Starlink satellites into orbit, reusing a Falcon 9 first stage for a record-setting 11th time.

The booster landed successfully on a drone ship in the Pacific, and can now be used again. This success adds weight to the company’s claim a few years ago that the final iteration of the Falcon 9 first stages have the potential for as many as 100 launches. SpaceX has now proven that the stage can fly more than ten times, and still be reused.

This launch also extended SpaceX’s record for the most launches ever by a private company in a single year.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

48 China
29 SpaceX
22 Russia
6 Europe (Arianespace)
5 ULA
5 Rocket Lab

China now leads the U.S. 48 to 46 in the national rankings. However, the race to see which country will end up with the most launches is getting tighter. SpaceX has another two launches scheduled in the next three days, with a Virgin Orbit launch following the next day.

This launch was the 125th in 2021, making it the sixth most active year in rocketry since Sputnik. Should those four launches above all succeed, it will be the second most active year, with an outside chance of beating the record of 132 launches from 1975.

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SpaceX accused of sexual harassment by same “Woke” venue that accused Blue Origin

10:40 am

SpaceX this week was accused of sexual harassment by one named former employee and several anonymous accusers, published in same venue that back in September had published similar anonymous accusations against Blue Origin.

No need to go into the details. The accusations are as light weight and as petty as those against Blue Origin, which the FAA dismissed last week as having no merit because the anonymous accusers refused to identify themselves while the only named accuser’s allegations were deemed meritless. From CNN’s report:

[I]nvestigators had to rely on current and former Blue Origin employees voluntarily coming forward to offer information. But “no technical experts have reached out to us or provided any specific documentation regarding the safety allegations.”

CNN of course spins this in favor of the accusers, claiming that they don’t have any legal whistle-blower protections. I say balderdash. If such people won’t go public, such accusations are worthless. Blue Origin has the right to be faced in public by its accusers.

All in all, the allegations against both companies reek of modern “woke” politics, aiming to smear and slander successful companies because some people are filled with leftist rage and hate and want to destroy anyone who doesn’t obey their every command. I expect the charges against SpaceX will evaporate as well because the anonymous accusers will also refuse to go public, while the actual accusations from the one person willing to go public read like the whining of a mentally unstable person (admitted to in her own statement) who simply can’t handle a modern competitive work environment where you are expected to perform.

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SpaceX proposes new launchpads for Starship at Kennedy

10:12 am

Long term Land Use map for Kennedy Space Center
From NASA’s long term road map for Kennedy,

Capitalism in space: SpaceX has submitted a new proposal for building several launchpads at the Kennedy Space Center for its Starship heavy lift rocket, including rebuilding one old pad (LC-39A) and building another at a new site (the never used LC-49).

The project for LC-49 comes in addition to the previously announced work that SpaceX began within the perimeter of Launch Complex 39A, the K Environmental Program Office said. In September 2019, an environmental assessment was completed and a finding of “no significant impact” was issued.

Musk confirmed via Twitter on Dec. 3 that construction of SpaceX’s Starship orbital launch pad at LC-39A was underway. “Construction of Starship orbital launch pad at the Cape has begun”.

The KEP [Kennedy Environmental Program] office noted that this new proposed expansion would allow for not only redundancy with launches of Starship, but also “allow SpaceX to increase the flight rate of Starship and minimize potential disruptions to Falcon, Falcon Heavy and Dragon missions at LC-39A.”

LC-49 is a 175 acre area just north of LC-39B, the launchpad NASA plans to use for its SLS rocket.

It also appears that SpaceX plans on creating a new Starship orbital launchpad at LC-39A that will not impact the use of that site by Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, though in the long run launches of those latter rockets will decrease as Starship becomes operational.

All these plans will need a full environmental assessment, but according to the article at the link, the process will be different than at Boca Chica in Texas.

The [environmental assessment]process likely won’t involve live discussions with the public, according to [Don Dankert, the technical lead for the Kennedy Environmental Planning Office], but the public will get comparable information, like with an EIS [Environmental Impact Statement]. “We will put out the same information,” Dankert said. “We’ll put out an informational packet with a .PDF chart, a description of the project and instructions on how to provide comments back to us and SpaceX.”

Engler said there may also be some lessons learned from the process of getting the launch facilities at Starbase approved for an orbital launch, but how that crossover would work has yet to be determined.

Sounds to me that this is all a pointless paperwork dance. The construction will be approved, no matter what, because Florida and Cape Canaveral desperately wants this new business and the jobs and tax dollars it will bring to the state.

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Superheavy prototype #4 installed on orbital launchpad

9:06 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX has now installed its fourth Superheavy prototype on the orbital launchpad at Boca Chica, with the possibility of the first static fire test of Superheavy possibly occurring in the next week or so.

Around 10am CST (UTC-6), SpaceX began retracting more than a dozen clamps that hold the 69m (~225 ft) tall Super Heavy – the largest booster ever built – to its transport and work stand. By 11:30am, Booster 4 was safely extracted from the stand and hovering above it as the lift team crossed their Ts and dotted their Is before proceeding. SpaceX’s newest Starbase crane then spun around and crawled a short distance to the orbital launch mount, where it lifted Booster 4 above the mount.

In a process that this particular Super Heavy prototype is thoroughly familiar with, SpaceX then very carefully lowered B4 down into the center of the donut-shaped orbital launch mount, where 20 separate clamps – each capable of deploying and retracting – form a support ring and giant hold-down clamp.

The booster has 29 Raptor engines total, with 20 in the outer ring, 8 in the inner ring, and 1 in the center. It will be quite amazing to watch all these engines finally fire and lift the entire rocket, with Starshp, off the launchpad.

As for the upcoming static fire tests, road closures have been announced starting today through the end of this week.

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SpaceX launches NASA X-ray telescope

9:17 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX early this morning successfully launched NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), a small X-ray telescope designed to black holes and neutron stars.

The first stage, making its fifth flight, successfully landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

This launch, SpaceX’s 28th for 2021, extends once again the company’s all time record for the most launches in a year by a private company.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

46 China
28 SpaceX
21 Russia
6 Europe (Arianespace)
5 ULA
5 Rocket Lab

China’s lead over the U.S, in the national rankings has now shrunk to 46 to 45. The launch was the 121st in 2021, making this year tied as the seventh most active year in the history of space, a ranking that is sure to go up before the end of the year.

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SpaceX begins construction of Starship launchpad in Florida

9:48 am

Capitalism in space: Elon Musk yesterday announced that SpaceX has begun the construction of a Starship launchpad at its facility at Cape Canaveral, though no launch scheduled was revealed.

Musk implied that the Starship orbital launchpad is being built at Launch complex 39A. If so, it will pose some scheduling issues for SpaceX, as the company also uses that site for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches. In fact, it is the only one it uses for Falcon Heavy.

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NASA buys more Dragon manned flights

9:41 am

Capitalism in space: To give it some coverage because of continuing delays in Boeing’s Starliner manned capsule, NASA announced yesterday that it has awarded SpaceX contracts for three more manned Dragon manned flights to ISS.

NASA issued a contract notification announcing its plans to issue a sole-source award to SpaceX for three missions. Those missions would be in addition to the six “post-certification missions,” or PCMs, that SpaceX won as part of its $2.6 billion Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contract in 2014. The announcement did not state the price of those three new missions.

This is money that would have gone to Boeing, if it had gotten its act together and gotten Starliner flying on schedule. Instead, SpaceX is making the profits.

There has been no updates from Boeing since October on the valve issue that now stalls Starliner. While Boeing claims it is aiming for an unmanned demo flight to ISS in early ’22, this remains entirely speculative at this moment.

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SpaceX completes Starlink/BlackSky Falcon 9th launch

11:10 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX tonight successfully launched 48 Starlink satellites and 2 BlackSky commercial Earth observation satellites using its Falcon 9 rocket.

This was the 27th successful launch by SpaceX, extending its record this year for the most launches in a year by any private company ever. The first stage made its ninth successful flight, landing successfully on the drone ship in the Atlantic. The fairings were new, but were expected to be recovered and reused.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

45 China
27 SpaceX
20 Russia
5 Europe (Arianespace)

China’s lead of the U.S. in the national rankings is now 45 to 42.

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Musk shakes up Raptor engine development

11:16 am

Capitalism in space: Based on all the reports I’ve read, Elon Musk this past weekend did a major shake-up of the management that was running the Raptor engine development, apparently focused on the need to be able to mass produce these engines at a very high rate to allow numerous test flights in the coming year.

More here, including this company email from Musk:

Unfortunately, the Raptor production crisis is much worse than it had seemed a few weeks ago. As we have dug into the issues following the exiting of prior senior management, they have unfortunately turned out to be far more severe than was reported. There is no way to sugarcoat this.

I was going to take this weekend off, as my first weekend off in a long time, but instead, I will be on the Raptor line all night and through the weekend.

The management shakeup was as follows:

This ‘senior management’ that left is likely referring to Will Heltsley, former SpaceX senior vice president of propulsion. As CNBC reported, he left Raptor production due to a lack of progress. In addition, former SpaceX vice president of mission and launch operation Lee Rosen and senior director of mission and launch operations Rick Lim have left the company. Raptor engine production is now being led by Jacob Mackenzie, who has been with the company for over six years.

The reports imply that the engine itself is in trouble, but I do not think that is the issue. Instead, as Musk has said many times, more important than developing new technology is developing the efficient manufacturing processes that will allow the company to take advantage of that technology. It appears the manufacturing part of Raptor had not been covered well by the now disposed management.

SpaceX not only needs a working reliable Raptor engine, it needs to be able to mass produce them in the hundreds, quickly. This is the challenge that apparently the previous management failed to face. Musk is now refocusing Raptor development around this need.

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SpaceX successfully launches NASA asteroid mission

8:58 am

Last night SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched NASA’s DART asteroid mission.

The first stage landed successfully, completing its third flight. This was SpaceX’s 26th launch in 2021, setting a new record for the company and in fact for any private company ever.

DART’s mission is to test one method for changing an asteroid’s orbit.

After launch tonight, DART will take aim on an asteroid called Dimorphos. The spacecraft will strike Dimorphos at nearly 15,000 mph (about 6.6 kilometers per second).

The primary science goal of the mission is to measure how the high-speed collision next September, which will destroy the DART spacecraft, disrupts the orbit of Dimorphos around nearby Didymos. The data could help plan a future mission to deflect an asteroid on a course to hit Earth.

Dimorphos and its larger companion Didymos pose no near-term threat to Earth, but the asteroids will be close enough to our planet next year for astronomers to observe DART’s impact using ground-based telescopes. The asteroids orbit the sun in an elongated path that occasionally bring them into Earth’s neighborhood. That makes them potentially hazardous asteroids, although scientists say there is no near-term threat from the pair.

No space mission has ever explored Didymos and Dimorphos, but scientists who have observed them through telescopes say the asteroids are about a half-mile (780 meters) and 525 feet (160 meters) in diameter, respectively.

An Italian cubesat is also on board, and will separate from DART about ten days before impact so that it can observe the impact with two camera.

The leaders in 2021 launch race:

43 China
26 SpaceX
18 Russia
5 Europe (Arianespace)

China now leads the U.S. 43 to 41 in the national rankings. For the U.S. SpaceX’s launch last night topped the U.S. total from last year, which was this country’s highest launch total since the 1960s.

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