Tag: SpaceX

More static fire tests of Starship/Superheavy expected this week

9:35 am

SpaceX appears to be gearing up for more engine tests of both Superheavy prototype #7 and Starship prototype #24 this week, having called for road closures at Boca Chica today with additional options thoughout the week.

The article at the link mostly provides an overview of the changes in both stages that occurred because of the shift from the first version of the Raptor engine to the much more streamlined Raptor-2. The side-by-side image of both versions is quite revealing, showing once again how much SpaceX adheres to Musk’s adage that “the best part is no part.” Raptor-2 is astonishingly simpler and more compact, even though it produces about 25% more power.

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SpaceX launches another 51 Starlink satellites and orbital tug

9:47 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX tonight successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to place 51 more Starlink satellites into orbit, as well as a Sherpa orbital tug built by the commercial company Spaceflight.

The first stage completed its seventh flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The tug was successfully deployed and will carry a Boeing test satellite for a proposed 147 satellite constellation to its planned orbit.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

40 SpaceX
34 China
11 Russia
6 Rocket Lab
5 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 55 to 34 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 55 to 52. SpaceX’s 40 launches matches the U.S.’s entire total in 2020, and was only exceeded by the U.S. six times since the dawn of the space age in 1957.

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Taking Starlink on a vacation sailing trip

11:11 am

A Starlink subscriber to the company’s RV option decided to try it on his sailing boat during a weeklong trip among the Greek islands, and found it worked surprisingly well.

They combined Starlink’s service with cellular connectivity and compared the two while using social media, Google maps, and video streaming. The outcome? Starlink and cellular complimented each other, according to Topolev.

Starlink suffered outages when it was surrounded by other boats’ masts or when the yacht made sharp turns, but worked well at sea, whereas cellular connectivity dropped out when the boat was far from the shore, Topolev said. “It was surprisingly good,” he said. “There were some outages and sometimes we had to manually reboot it … but basically it worked … almost all the time.”

The RV option is specifically for use in moving vehicles, though its use on a boat was not expected to be its prime target customers. Nonetheless, the test suggests strongly that Starlink will work quite well on the big cruise ships, one liner of which, Royal Caribbean, has already signed a deal to make Starlink operational by next year.

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OneWeb lost $229 million when Russia canceled its launches and confiscated its satellites

9:49 am

On September 1, 2022, OneWeb revealed that Russia’s cancellation of the last six or so OneWeb launches as well as Russia’s confiscation of 36 satellites cost the company $229 million.

Russia’s actions were the response by then head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, to sanctions imposed on Russia by the west because of its invasion of the Ukraine. Rogozin’s petty response ended up shooting his space agency in the foot, because it ended up losing billions of dollars in foreign launch business, business that is not likely to return for decades.

OneWeb has since signed contracts with SpaceX, ISRO (India’s space agency), and Relativity for future launches. None of these have been firmly scheduled, though the first by SpaceX is tentatively planned for sometime before the end of the year.

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NASA is paying Boeing twice as much as SpaceX for its manned flights

9:53 am

Capitalism in space: in an excellent analysis of the total amount NASA will pay both SpaceX and Boeing for all their manned flights to ISS before the station retires, Eric Berger at Ars Technica has determined that the agency will essentially pay Boeing twice as much per flight.

In 2014, NASA narrowed the crew competition to just two companies, Boeing and SpaceX. At that time, the space agency awarded Boeing $4.2 billion in funding for development of the Starliner spacecraft and six operational crew flights. Later, in an award that NASA’s own inspector general described as “unnecessary,” NASA paid Boeing an additional $287.2 million. This brings Boeing’s total to $4.49 billion, although Finch told Ars that Boeing’s contract value as of August 1, 2022, is $4.39 billion.

For the same services, development of Crew Dragon and six operational missions, NASA paid SpaceX $2.6 billion. After its initial award, NASA has agreed to buy an additional eight flights from SpaceX—Crew-7, -8, -9, -10, -11, -12, -13, and -14—through the year 2030. This brings the total contract awarded to SpaceX to $4.93 billion.

Since we now know how many flights each company will be providing NASA through the lifetime of the International Space Station, and the full cost of those contracts, we can break down the price NASA is paying each company per seat by amortizing the development costs.

Boeing, in flying 24 astronauts, has a per-seat price of $183 million. SpaceX, in flying 56 astronauts during the same time frame, has a seat price of $88 million. Thus, NASA is paying Boeing 2.1 times the price per seat that it is paying SpaceX, inclusive of development costs incurred by NASA.

Despite the larger payments to Boeing, the company could very well lose money on Starliner. The higher cost to NASA from Boeing is due almost entirely because the agency was absorbing more of its initial development cost. SpaceX’s Dragon capsule had already been flying cargo missions to ISS when these manned contracts were awarded. SpaceX merely had to upgrade its manned capsule. Boeing had to design and build it from scratch. Moreover, the contracts were fixed price, which means Boeing had to absorb more than a half billion in additional costs when it had to refly the unmanned demo flight of Starliner.

Finally, because of the delays, Boeing won less NASA business. It also has gotten none of the private commercial manned flights that are going on right now. Those contracts went to SpaceX, including all the profits. Whether Boeing can eventually win some private contracts down the road is unknown. It will certainly have to lower its price to compete with SpaceX.

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Musk tweets that SpaceX wants to complete 100 launches in 2023

10:11 am

Capitalism in space: Elon Musk yesterday tweeted that SpaceX’ is now planning to attempt about 100 launches next year, which will almost double its expected output this year.

To get some perspective of this goal, 100 launches in a single year would be more launches than the entire world completed each year from 1991 (after the fall of the Soviet Union) through 2017 (before the recent resurgence of American commercial rocketry).

This decision probably relates to getting SpaceX’s Starlink constellation operational. Musk had hoped to begin Starship launches of Starlink soon, and now likely recognizes that such launches are probably more than a year away. Moreover, this year SpaceX engineers have demonstrated that the Falcon 9 can launch a lot of these satellites. So far in 2022 it has launched about 50 Starlink satellites per launch, and done so about 25 times. That’s 1,250 satellites in a little more than half a year. With a 100 launches, Falcon 9 could launch about 5,000 satellites alone next year, a pace that will certainly be sufficient in the short run to get Starlink operational.

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SpaceX completes static fire test of three engines on Superheavy prototype #7

9:57 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX yesterday successfully completed the first static fire test of more than one engine on its Superheavy prototype #7, firing three engines for five seconds.

NASASpaceflight livestreamed the test, and its footage suggests that only two engines may have fully lit up, with the third perhaps aborting. Whether or not the third Raptor joined the party, however, it was still the first multi-engine Super Heavy static fire that SpaceX has performed.

I have embedded that footage below. Expect more such tests in the coming days. If all works as planned (something we should not expect as this remains a development program), the tests will culminate in an orbital test flight sending Starship on a one orbit mission around the Earth. At present SpaceX wants that flight to occur before the end of this year.

» Read more

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Axiom gets NASA approval to fly second commercial manned mission to ISS

9:02 am

Capitalism in space: NASA and Axiom have worked out their contract to allow Axiom to fly its second commercial manned mission to ISS, now scheduled for sometime in the spring of 2023.

Through the mission specific order, Axiom is obtaining from NASA services such as crew supplies, cargo delivery to space, storage, and other in-orbit resources for daily use. The order also accommodates up to an additional contingency week aboard the space station. This mission is subject to NASA’s updated pricing policy for private astronaut missions, which reflects the full value of services the agency is providing to Axiom that are above space station baseline capabilities.

The order also identifies capabilities NASA will obtain from Axiom, including the return of scientific samples that must be kept cold in transit back to Earth, the return of a Nitrogen/Oxygen Recharge System (NORS) tank, the capability for last-minute return of two cargo transfer bags, and up to 10 hours of the private astronaut mission commander’s time during the docked mission to complete NASA science or perform tasks for NASA.

The flight, dubbed Ax-2, will carry four Axiom passengers, three of whom will be paying passengers. It will be launched by SpaceX on its Falcon 9 rocket, carrying one of SpaceX’s four reusable manned Dragon capsules.

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NASA awards SpaceX new $1.4 billion contract to launch its astronauts

8:56 am

Capitalism in space: NASA yesterday awarded SpaceX a new $1.4 billion contract to buy five more passenger flights to ISS, using SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon manned capsules.

This follows a similar contract extension in February that awarded SpaceX three more NASA passenger flights.

For Boeing, this contract award must hurt. If its Starliner manned capsule wasn’t years behind schedule, with numerous engineering errors slowing development, some of the cash from these two new SpaceX contracts would have certainly gone to Boeing. Instead, the company has had to spend more than $400 million of its own money trying to get Starliner fixed and operational.

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Starlink experiences major outage lasting hours

9:32 am

For what appears to be the first time, SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation yesterday experienced a major outage, covering users across the entire world and lasting hours.

Apparently, users in the U.S., New Zealand, the Netherlands, and Mexico reported issues.

The global outage lasted for a few hours for most users, but connectivity returned with a “Degraded Service” message that meant it wasn’t fully operational. Some users on Reddit also reported that their connection kept going from degraded to offline. “Our team is investigating and will resolve as soon as possible,” the Starlink service message read. However, the company hasn’t released a public message acknowledging the outage.

Based on how this system is designed, it seems that only a software issue could cause an outage that affected so many users in so many different places. Even then, such an issue would have to impact multiple independent orbiting satellites, or multiple independent terminals, and do so all at once, an event which seems difficult if not impossible.

This all suggests that someone hacked the system and sabotaged it. Recently a professional hacker demonstrated that it was possible to hack into a single Starlink terminal. From there, it may be possible to access the software on board the satellites and sabotage that.

If so, SpaceX has a very serious problem.

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SpaceX signs deal with Royal Caribbean to use Starlink on its cruise ships

9:21 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX has won a contract with the Royal Caribbean cruise line to provide broadband internet service to its passengers using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation.

Deployment of the Starlink technology across the fleet will begin immediately, leveraging the insights obtained from the trial onboard Freedom of the Seas, which has received tremendous positive feedback from guests and crew. The installation is slated to be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2023.

The apparent success of Starlink on Royal Caribbean’s ships suggests it will quickly start appearing on other cruise lines shortly.

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SpaceX launches another 46 Starlink satellites into orbit

10:50 pm

Capitalism in space: Using its Falcon 9 rocket, SpaceX tonight successfully placed another 46 Starlink satellites into orbit, launching from Vandenberg Space Force Base.

The first stage successfully completed its seventh flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. The two fairings also completed their third flight.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

39 SpaceX
33 China
11 Russia
6 Rocket Lab
5 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 54 to 33 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 54 to 51.

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SpaceX launches 54 Starlink satellites into orbit

8:52 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX tonight used its Falcon 9 rocket to put another 54 Starlink satellites into orbit.

The flight’s fairings completed their third flight. The first stage successfully completed its second flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. That stage however had an interesting first flight:

Known as B1069, the booster was damaged during recovery on a drone ship Dec. 21 after launching its first mission, sending a Dragon cargo ship toward the International Space Station. The rough recovery damaged the rocket’s engines and landing legs, causing the rocket to return aboard the drone ship to Port Canaveral on a tilt. The damage forced SpaceX and NASA to switch to a backup Falcon 9 booster for the launch of four astronauts to the space station in April. That launch was originally supposed to use B1069, which has been refurbished with new engines and other components.

In the past, rocket companies and NASA would have automatically thrown out this stage after being damaged. SpaceX however now treats these first stages like airplanes, repairable for reflight, even if damaged. Tonight’s flight proved the robustness of this strategy, and it did it carrying the most mass of any previous Falcon 9 launch.

The leaders in 2022 launch race:

38 SpaceX
33 China
11 Russia
6 Rocket Lab
5 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 53 to 33, and the entire world combined 53 to 51.

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Federal court rejects lawsuit by Dish/Viasat against Starlink

9:11 am

A U.S. appeals court has rejected a lawsuit by Starlink competitors Dish and Viasat that had claimed a plan by SpaceX to deploy some satellites in a lower orbit would have “potential environmental harms when satellites are taken out of orbit; light pollution that alters the night sky; orbital debris; collision risks that may affect Viasat; and because ‘Viasat will suffer unwarranted competitive injury.'”

This decision was the second time the courts have rejected this lawsuit, which by Viasat’s own words above is expressly designed mostly to block a competitor, not protect the environment or reduce space junk.

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FCC commissioner questions legality of FCC cancellation of SpaceX’s $900 million subsidy

9:15 am

On August 24th one of the four FCC commissioners, Brendan Carr, questioned the legality of FCC’s decision on August 10th to cancel the $900 million subsidy it had awarded SpaceX for providing internet capability to rural communities using Starlink.

The Federal Communications Commission denied Starlink nearly $900 million in rural broadband subsidies “without legal justification,” one of the regulator’s four commissioners said Aug. 24.

While the FCC was obligated to review subsidies provisionally awarded for SpaceX’s broadband service in December 2020, Commissioner Brendan Carr said the agency exceeded “the scope of that authority” when it rejected them nearly two years later.

…Carr said he was surprised to learn about the decision from a press release while he was on a work trip to Alaska, adding that it was made without a vote or authorization from the FCC’s Commissioners. [emphasis mine]

Carr also noted that the reasoning used by the FCC in its cancellation notice made no sense. For example, the FCC had referenced the cost SpaceX charges customers for buying the Starlink terminal, $599, in justifying the cancellation. Carr noted that “the FCC is not authorized to deny winning RDOF bids based on the price of equipment, ‘let alone based on an arbitrary one selectively applied to one winner.'”

When the cancellation was announced, I wrote that my first instinct was that it was solely political in nature, and that it stemmed from the growing animus in the federal bureaucracy and in the Biden administration to Elon Musk, combined with a lobbying effort by SpaceX’s competitors against Starlink. I think Carr’s statements this week confirm my instincts entirely. The cancellation was purely political.

Nonetheless, I think it a good thing the FCC cancelled this subsidy, which is really nothing more than welfare for big corporations. SpaceX doesn’t need it. The federal government doesn’t have the money. And the program itself is now clearly corrupt. The taxpayer would be better off if the entire subsidy program was shut down.

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T-Mobile and Starlink to team up

9:10 pm

SpaceX and T-Mobile today announced that sometime next year T-Mobile cell phones will use the Starlink satellite constellation to fill in any dead zones in its cell coverage.

T-Mobile says it’s getting rid of mobile dead zones thanks to a new partnership with SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet, at an event hosted by T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert and Elon Musk. With their “Coverage Above and Beyond” setup, mobile phones could connect to satellites and use a slice of a connection providing around 2 to 4 Megabits per second connection (total) across a given coverage area.

That connection should be enough to let you text, send MMS messages, and even use “select messaging apps” whenever you have a clear view of the sky, even if there’s no traditional service available. According to a press release from T-Mobile, the “satellite-to-cellular service” will be available “everywhere in the continental US, Hawaii, parts of Alaska, Puerto Rico and territorial waters.” The service is scheduled to launch in beta by the end of next year in “select areas,” and Sievert says he hopes it will someday include data.

The system will require Starlink’s second generation satellites, which right now also require SpaceX’s big Starship for launch. Once operational however it will work on the cell phones customers already own.

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SpaceX remounts Superheavy prototype #7 on launchpad

11:05 am

Superheavy #7 lifted onto launchpad

Capitalism in space: Using its giant launch tower crane that Elon Musk has dubbed Mechazilla, SpaceX engineers yesterday remounted the seventh Superheavy prototype onto the orbital launchpad in preparation for more engine tests leading to its first flight.

Booster 7 has been atop this launch mount before. Earlier this month, SpaceX conducted two “static fire” tests with Booster 7, firing the vehicle up while it remained attached to the mount.

Both of those tests — which occurred on Aug. 9 and Aug. 11, respectively — lit up just a single Raptor engine (apparently, a different one each time). And Booster 7 wasn’t fully outfitted at the time, sporting just 20 of its 33 engines (opens in new tab) (the vast majority of which stayed dormant during the tests).

After the Aug. 11 test, SpaceX lifted the Super Heavy prototype off the mount and hauled it back to a processing bay at Starbase. Technicians installed the remaining 13 Raptors and got it ready for Tuesday’s move back to the pad.

The picture above was sent out by Musk on his Twitter feed. Note the number of engines at the base. The tower itself, acting as a crane, has also simplified and speeded up operations. SpaceX can now quickly move the rocket back and forth from the assembly building, without the need of separate cranes.

The company is still targeting early September for the first orbital launch, though it also still needs to stack Starship prototype #24 (seen in the background) on top of Superheavy, and then do more tests.

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NASA describes Starship’s first unmanned test lunar landing

9:28 am

In a briefing focused on the science that could be placed on the mission, a NASA official yesterday provided a status update of SpaceX’s first unmanned test flight by Starship to the Moon.

First, the official revealed that NASA is only requiring SpaceX to demonstrate a successful landing. Take-off will not be required. Also,

Starship is not designed to fly directly to the Moon like NASA’s Space Launch System, however. Instead, the first stage puts it only in Earth orbit. To go further, it must fill up with propellant at a yet-to-be-built orbiting fuel depot. Other Starships are needed to deliver propellant to the depot.

Watson-Morgan described the Concept of Operations for Starship’s Artemis III mission, starting with launch of the fuel depot, then a number of “propellant aggregation” launches to fill up the depot, then launch of the Starship that will go to Moon.

Previously SpaceX suggested that the ship would be directly refueled by subsequent Starships, with no middle-man fueling depot. It could be either engineering had made the depot necessary, or NASA politics have insisted upon it.

Finally, the talk outlined the elevator SpaceX is developing to lower the astronauts and equipment to the ground from Starship’s top.

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SpaceX to use both Falcon 9 and Starship to launch 2nd gen Starlink satellites

9:06 am

Capitalism in space: In a letter sent to the FCC, SpaceX has revealed that it has revised its plans for launching the second generation of Starlink satellites, and has decided to launch them with both Falcon 9 and Starship rockets.

SpaceX has decided to use a mix of Falcon 9 and Starship rockets to launch the 30,000 satellites in its proposed second-generation Starlink broadband constellation. Launching some of the satellites with SpaceX’s “tested and dependable Falcon 9” will accelerate the constellation’s deployment to improve Starlink services. SpaceX director of satellite policy David Goldman wrote in an Aug. 19 letter to the Federal Communications Commission. Goldman did not say when SpaceX could start launching the second-generation constellation, which remains subject to FCC approval.

Previously the company’s plan had been to use Starship only, essentially retiring Falcon 9 once Starship was flying. This change could be for two fundamental reasons. First, the company has been launching Starlinks on Falcon 9 like clockwork this year, at a pace that could launch as many as 2,500 Starlink satellites in 2022 alone. With about 70% of that rocket reusable, it might now seem cost effective to continue to use it, even after Starship is flying.

The second reason is more worrisome, and has to do with Starship itself. SpaceX officials might now realize that the delays being imposed by the federal regulatory leviathan on Starship development might be significant enough that it won’t be ready when they need it for the full deployment of Starlink’s second generation constellation. If the FCC approves that deployment (an approval that is presently pending), SpaceX will have to launch at least half the full constellation of 30,000 satellites by around 2024 (thought that date might have been revised slightly).

It now might be necessary to use Falcon 9, because the federal government under Biden is standing in the way of Starship development.

Of course, it is possible that the engineering challenge of building Starship might be another reason. SpaceX might have realized that the rocket will be delayed anyway, and thus needs Falcon 9 to meet its timetable as promised to the FCC.

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NASA lists 13 candidate landing sites for Artemis-3 manned mission

11:09 am

Candidate landing sites for Artemis-3
Click for original image.

NASA yesterday revealed its first preliminary list of thirteen candidate landing sites for the Artemis-3 manned mission, the first manned mission the agency wants to send to the Moon in 2026.

The image to the right, reduced, enhanced, and annotated by me to post here, shows these thirteen zones in blue. I have added the red dot to mark what I understand to be the planned landing zone of Viper, an unmanned rover that NASA hopes to launch by ’23 at the latest. From the press release:

The team identified regions that can fulfill the moonwalk objective by ensuring proximity to permanently shadowed regions, and also factored in other lighting conditions. All 13 regions contain sites that provide continuous access to sunlight throughout a 6.5-day period – the planned duration of the Artemis III surface mission. Access to sunlight is critical for a long-term stay at the Moon because it provides a power source and minimizes temperature variations.

Note that this mission will land a Starship with crew at this South Pole region. That spacecraft’s large payload capacity likely means that it could conceivably leave behind supplementary supplies for a follow-up next mission, and thus speed up development of the first lunar base.

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SpaceX and China complete launches

12:51 pm

Two launches have just occurred in the 2022 launch race. First, SpaceX today successfully launched another 53 Starlink satellites, using its Falcon 9 rocket.

The first stage successfully landed on its drone ship in the Atlantic, completing its ninth flight.

China in turn used its Long March 2D rocket to launch three military reconnaissance satellites, at what was the early morning hours of August 20, 2022, China time. The launch path took the rocket over China’s interior as well as Taiwan, with the first stage crashing somewhere in China.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

37 SpaceX
31 China
11 Russia
6 Rocket Lab
5 ULA

American private enterprise still leads China 52 to 31 in the national rankings, and the entire world 52 to 49. The 52 launches so far this year is now the fifth best total for the U.S. since the launch of Sputnik in 1957.

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Starship gets its first communications satellite customer

9:38 am

Capitalism in space: Sky Perfect JSAT, a Japanese satellite communications company, today awarded SpaceX a launch contract using its giant Starship/Superheavy rocket to put its Superbird-9 communications satellite into orbit in 2024.

Superbird-9 will be launched by SpaceX’s Starship launch vehicle in 2024 to geosynchronous transfer orbit. SpaceX’s Starship is a fully reusable transportation system that will be the world’s most powerful launch vehicle. SKY Perfect JSAT and SpaceX will continue to work together ahead of the launch of Superbird-9 Satellite.

Sky Perfect is the first communications satellite company to choose Starship for a satellite launch. It is however the rocket’s fourth signed customer. Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa made a deal in 2018 for a flight around the Moon, while NASA chose Starship in 2021 as the manned lunar lander in its Artemis program. UPDATE: SpaceX also has a second private manned customer, Jared Isaacman, whose present deal with SpaceX calls for two Dragon flights followed by a Starship flight.

Sky Perfect is not a new company, with sixteen satellites already in orbit providing communications, broadband, and entertainment to Japan and the Far East. It likely made this deal because it got a very good launch price, with options to back out if the rocket’s on-going development gets delayed by too much. It also made the deal because it helps to solidify Starship’s future, something Sky Perfect probably sees as a win considering the significant reduction of launch costs expected from Starship/Superheavy.

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August 16, 2022 Quick space links

2:06 pm

Tiangong-3 in orbit
Click to see full image.

Some quickie stories worth noting, most provided by stringer Jay:

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August 14, 2022 Quick space links

1:06 pm

Some weekend news from BtB’s top stringer, Jay.

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Professional software hacker demonstrates how to hack Starlink terminals

10:49 am

A professional software hacker not only recently succeeded in hacking the terminals SpaceX sells customers to use its Starlink satellite internet service, he first got a bounty from SpaceX for doing so, then made his technique freely available on the web for everyone else.

[Lennert] Wouters is now making his hacking tool open source on GitHub, including some of the details needed to launch the attack. “As an attacker, let’s say you wanted to attack the satellite itself,” Wouters explains, “You could try to build your own system that allows you to talk to the satellite, but that’s quite difficult. So if you want to attack the satellites, you would like to go through the user terminal as that likely makes your life easier.”

The researcher notified Starlink of the flaws last year and the company paid Wouters through its bug bounty scheme for identifying the vulnerabilities. Wouters says that while SpaceX has issued an update to make the attack harder (he changed the modchip in response), the underlying issue can’t be fixed unless the company creates a new version of the main chip. All existing user terminals are vulnerable, Wouters says.

Starlink says it plans to release a “public update” following Wouters’ presentation at Black Hat this afternoon, but declined to share any details about that update with WIRED prior to publication.

Wouters is a researcher at the Belgian university KU Leuven.

While it can certainly help SpaceX to figure this out, by publishing the hack to the world Wouters looks like a blackmailer unsatisfied with his payoff who is now following through with his blackmail threat. One also wonders why SpaceX, as part of its bounty payment, did not require Wouters to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

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SpaceX launches 46 more Starlink satellites

2:49 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX today used its Falcon 9 rocket to launch another 46 Starlink satellites into orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage completed its 10th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. It was also the fourth flight for both fairing halves. During the live stream the announcer also mentioned that because SpaceX has recently switched to using Starlink for transmitting its launch video feeds, the loss of picture signal that use to occur during the landing of the first stage on the drone ship has almost completely vanished.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

36 SpaceX
30 China
11 Russia
6 Rocket Lab
5 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 51 to 30 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 51 to 48.

I should also add that the United States has now matched the number of launches achieved in 1962, the nation’s fifth highest total of successful launches in a single year.

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Another and this time longer static fire tests for Superheavy prototype #7

9:02 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX engineers yesterday conducted a second static fire engine test of the 7th prototype of its Superheavy first stage booster, firing a different engine for 20 seconds.

The action ramped up on Thursday (Aug. 11) for Booster 7, which conducted a much longer static fire on Starbase’s orbital launch mount. The burn, which occurred at 3:48 p.m. EDT (1948 GMT), lasted for 20 seconds, SpaceX said via Twitter (opens in new tab).

The long-duration burn aimed to “test autogenous pressurization,” according to a tweet posted by Musk (opens in new tab) shortly before Booster 7 fired up.

Expect these engine tests to occur on a regular basis over the next few weeks, as engineers ramp up their operations in preparation for the first orbital flight of both prototype #7 with Starship prototype #24 stacked on top.

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FCC cancels $900 million award to Starlink

3:07 pm

The FCC today canceled a $900 million subsidy it had awarded to SpaceX in December 2020 as part of a federal program to help establish broadband service in rural communities.

The reasoning for canceling the award given at the link is very unclear. However, since the award a lobbying effort by Starlink’s competitors — teamed up with Democrats in Congress — to cancel the award has been on going. It now seems to have succeeded.

Another clue to explaining this cancellation is timing. The award was announced at the end of the Trump administration, when his appointees controlled the FCC. The cancellation took place during the Biden administration, with the FCC now controlled by Democrats who are increasing revealing themselves to be very hostile to private commercial space in general and Musk and SpaceX in particular.

Nonetheless, it seems absurd to give SpaceX any such subsidy, regardless of the politics. As I said in February 2021:

No one, including SpaceX, should get these funds. SpaceX is proving they aren’t necessary to get the job done (bringing fast internet service to rural communities). Moreover, the federal government really doesn’t have the cash, deep in debt as it is.

Sadly, just because the FCC cancelled its award to SpaceX we should not expect as modern taxpayers that the money won’t be spent. Expect the Biden administration to instead dole it out to its preferred vendors.

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