Tag: SpaceX

Senate committee: NASA must choose two companies to build manned lunar lander

5:09 pm

We’re here to help you! Despite offering NASA only $100 million more for the program, the Senate Appropriations committee has directed the agency to award a second manned lunar lander contract, in addition to the one it gave SpaceX in April.

On Tuesday (Oct. 18), the Senate Appropriations Committee — the largest U.S. Senate committee that oversees all discretionary spending legislation in the Senate — released a draft report of nine appropriations bills for the fiscal year 2022 which included funding for NASA, according to SpaceNews.

The appropriators, in the report, state that NASA’s HLS program is not underfunded, despite the agency’s previous claims to the contrary. As shown in the report, the bill includes $24.83 billion for NASA, which is just slightly more than the $24.8 billion that NASA requested, and a $100 million increase in funding for HLS.

“NASA’s rhetoric of blaming Congress and this Committee for the lack of resources needed to support two HLS teams rings hollow,” the report states. The committee added that “having at least two teams providing services using the Gateway should be the end goal of the current development program,” referencing NASA’s Gateway, a planned lunar space station.

It might be possible for the increase in funding to cover a second contract, if that contract was awarded to Blue Origin. Jeff Bezos has made it clear that he would be willing to waive as much as $2 billion of the price for the contract, using his own ample funds to make up the difference. Whether that is enough to build it, with the $100 million the Senate appropriated, is unclear.

This bill of course has to pass the Senate, be approved as written by the House, and then signed by the President. These directives and budget changes thus might not end up in the final appropriations bill.

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First FAA hearing on Starship environmental assessment dominated by supporters

8:48 am

Capitalism in space: The FAA yesterday conducted its first of two virtual public hearings to allow public comment on its proposed environmental assessment that would allow SpaceX to launch orbital Starship missions from Boca Chica, Texas>

According to the story at the link, the comments were dominated by supporters, interspersed with the typical small number of anti-development environmental activists.

Over the course of more than three hours on Monday, members of the public who had registered in advance were given three minutes each to deliver their oral public comments on Starship and the draft. Most were in favor of SpaceX, though many positive comments appeared to originate from outside of Texas. A smaller number of people also voiced concerns about impacts on local ecosystems and species near Boca Chica.

The second hearing is scheduled for tomorrow.

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NASA document: Starship orbital flight in March ’22

9:11 am

Starship orbital flight date?
Click for full image.

According to a NASA proposal to observe and measure the temperatures on Starship’s thermal protection during its return to Earth from orbit, that flight is now tentatively scheduled for March ’22.

The graphic to the right highlights the pertinent language in the poster presentation.

It must be noted that the poster might not be telling us when Starship will first launch, but when the designers of the camera system will be ready to film. The two are different. Still, the slowdown in flight testing at Boca Chica by SpaceX since July suggests there may be some truth to this date. That date also seems more reasonable now in connection with the FAA’s regulatory pace, which still needs to provide the final approval of SpaceX’s environmental reassessment of its Boca Chica launch site.

It also seems to me that the March ’22 date would be very convenient for NASA, as it almost certainly guarantees that Starship will reach orbit after SLS, thus avoiding for the agency a very big public relations embarrassment. I would not be surprised at all if the Biden administration and NASA’s top administrators, led by Bill Nelson, are purposely pressuring the FAA to make sure that Starship orbital flight is delayed until after the first SLS test flight, now expected in the January/February time frame.

There is also the possibility that SpaceX’s targeted launch dates were unrealistically optimistic. The company had a lot of work it needed to do prior to launch on its orbital launch facility at Boca Chica, and that work could not go forward while test flights and static fire tests were taking place. Pausing those tests has allowed the launch facility work to move forward aggressively.

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FAA announces details for SpaceX Boca Chica environmental public hearings

9:20 am

Capitalism in space: The FAA today announced the details for attending its public hearings about the new environmental assessment it wishes to issue for SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy operations in Boca Chica, Texas.

The hearings will be on Monday, October 18, 2021, 5:00 p.m. (Central Time) and Wednesday, October 20, 2021, 5:00 p.m. (Central Time). Both will be virtual. If you want to participate you need to register first and follow these instructions:

VIRTUAL PUBLIC HEARING REGISTRATION: Please register to attend a virtual public hearing and indicate if you would like to provide an oral comment:

http://spacexbocachicapublichearings.eventbrite.com/?s=144095269

VIRTUAL PUBLIC HEARING INSTRUCTIONS: Connect using the Zoom link below. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88394232774 Password: FAA2021 Please only use the telephone number provided below if you are not going to connect using the Zoom Link. 1-833-548-0276 Meeting ID: 883 9423 2774 Meeting Password: 4300505

ONLINE MEETING TIPS: Prior to the meeting, please access the Zoom link above and download any needed software. This may take a few minutes, so it is best to download software in advance of the meeting. When logging-on to the meeting, please indicate your organization name in parentheses after your last name, if you represent one. If you registered to speak, this is how you will be identified during the meeting. Please also provide your email address. All lines will be muted during the meeting. To hear audio when connecting through the Zoom link, please make sure the volume on your computer speakers is on and that you do not have any programs with audio features (e.g., Skype, Spotify, YouTube) open that may interfere with the online meeting audio.

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Starship/Superheavy update

8:43 am

Link here. SpaceX is moving on several fronts in preparation for the next Starship/Superheavy tests:

  • Engines have been installed in Starship prototype #20 which will be tested this week
  • A new Raptor engine factory is under construction
  • Launch tower construction continued
  • Future prototypes continue to be built

Lots of details and videos at the link. Based on road closures, the prototype #20 static fire test will occur today, and will be the first such test on a Starship using orbital Raptor engines.

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SpaceX now valued at $100 billion, the world’s 2nd most valuable private company

10:40 am

Capitalism in space: Because of the high price that some of its investors were able to get selling their private shares of SpaceX, the company’s valuation was reassessed upward from $74 to $100 billion and making it the second most valuable private company in the world.

The stock sale did not raise money for SpaceX as it was a secondary sale by these investors to get a profitable return on their initial investment. Regardless, the stock price they were able to get increased the company’s value.

The high price also illustrates objectively what investors think of SpaceX’s value. No matter what the critics may say, when the time comes to lay the money on the table, those willing to do it are convinced SpaceX is going to be successful in cashing in on its various space projects.

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Astronauts name next new Dragon capsule to fly “Endurance”

6:33 am

The astronauts who will fly on SpaceX’s new Dragon capsule at the end of this month have named it “Endurance”, for a variety of reasons.

“First off,” said [mission commander Raja Chari], “it is a tribute to the tenacity of the human spirit as we push humans and machines farther than we ever have, going both to stay and extended stays in low Earth orbit, opening it up to private companies and private astronauts and knowing we will continue our exploration to go into even further and continue.”

“Also, it is a nod to the development teams, production teams [and] training teams that got us here, who have endured through a pandemic,” he said.

…Lastly, there was a historical connection — one that spoke to the mission they are about to embark on and the skills it will take for it be successful.”I go straight to the Shackleton voyage,” said Marshburn, referring to Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 expedition to cross Antarctica. Shackleton’s ship, the Endurance, was trapped in ice and he and his crew endured months of hardship before being rescued.

SpaceX’s fleet of manned capsules now includes Endeavour, Resilience, and Endurance. A fourth capsule is scheduled to fly in April ’22, but no name as yet has been announced.

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SpaceX to double its fleet of reusable manned Dragon capsules

11:07 am

Capitalism in space: Based on the launch plans now announced, SpaceX will double its fleet of reusable manned Dragon capsules from two to four.

The upcoming October 30th launch of a new crew to ISS will use a new as yet unnamed Dragon capsule. In addition, the April ’22 flight will use another new capsule.

The four previous manned Dragon flights used Resilience (twice) and Endeavour (twice).

At the moment SpaceX appears to be reserving Resilience for non-ISS tourist flights. It was used in September in this way for the Inspiration4 private mission, and I expect it will be used again for the December Space Adventures tourist flight. For these non-ISS flights SpaceX removed Resilience’s docking port, replacing it with a large window.

The result will be that a private American company will own its own fleet of manned spaceships, three of which can dock with ISS, and one of which aimed at just orbiting the Earth. That’s a private company, not a nation. And that private company made it happen in just a little over a decade.

Who knows what wonders capitalism and freedom could accomplish, if we simply had the courage to let it?

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Advocacy group in India calls for criminal prosecution of Musk and Starlink

10:56 am

A non-profit advocacy group in India, dubbed Telecom Watchdog, has demanded that the Indian government prosecute Elon Musk and Starlink because it asks for and gets $100 deposits from customers without guaranteeing a specific delivery date for its Starlink internet service.

The organisation further asked the telecom regulator to take effective steps to ensure refund with interest, and reprimand the telecom department (DoT) officials of “inaction” on the prevailing issue. [It also] said that the firm was cheating consumers by accepting pre-orders with a deposit of Rs 7,500 ($100) for yet-to-be-launched service.

It is unclear who funds Telecom Watchdog. I would not be surprised if it is backed by those in India who have also have vested interest in SpaceX’s chief competitor, OneWeb. The Indian company, Bharti Enterprises Ltd, has invested $500 million to OneWeb, which plans to initiate service to India next year. Starlink poses a serious financial threat to that roll-out.

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NASA shifts Starliner crew to Dragon to get them in space

9:54 am

NASA announced yesterday that it is is changing the launch assignments of two astronauts from Boeing’s long delayed Starliner capsule to SpaceX’s Dragon capsule, thus allowing them to get into space sooner.

Astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada were supposed to be among the first human passengers on Starliner during its first crewed flights in the coming years. Now, they’ll fly together on SpaceX’s fifth crewed mission to the International Space Station, which is slated to take place in the fall of 2022.

Both had been assigned to Starliner in 2018, but the delays at Boeing have left them stranded on the ground while others are flying. Worse, it is now unclear when Starliner will launch, as Boeing has not yet resolved the serious valve issue that scrubbed the launch of Starliner’s second unmanned demo mission in August.

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Space Force payload problems force delay until ’22 of next Falcon Heavy launch

9:18 am

Capitalism in space: The Space Force has announced that because more time is needed to prepare its military payload, the next Falcon Heavy launch, scheduled later this month, will be delayed until ’22.

This is not the first time payload issues have delayed the launch, which had been previously scheduled for July. The Space Force has not announced a new launch date, nor was it very specific in describing the issues that has forced this delay.

As for the Falcon Heavy, though there has been a long delay since its last flight in June 2019, it appears that SpaceX has four launches scheduled for ’22, with another six already contracted and scheduled for later.

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Italy switches from Arianespace to SpaceX for launch contract

9:05 am

Capitalism in space: Because of the two recent launch failures of Arianespace’s Vega rocket (built mostly in Italy), the Italian space agency (ASI) has decided to take the launch of an Earth observation satellite from Arianespace and award the launch contract instead to SpaceX.

The article at the link describes in detail the history and politics that make this decision significant. Essentially, because Arianespace in the past decade has failed to meet the challenge of SpaceX, so that its launches continue to be more expensive, this government-subsidized business has tried to force nations in the European Space Agency (ESA) to use Arianespace rockets via political agreements.

With this decision Italy is defying that pressure, which in turn is going to increase the pressure on Arianespace to finally step up its game, or die from lack of business. For example, when the ESA agreed to have Arianespace build its next generation rocket, the Ariane 6, it failed to require it to be reuseable. The Ariane 6 rocket was therefore designed as an expendable rocket, which meant that right from the start it could not compete with SpaceX’s Falcon 9. It has therefore failed to win launch contracts.

Expect the Ariane 6 to continue to fade as the years pass, simply because the bureaucrats in ESA and Arianespace refused to take their competition seriously.

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FAA extends comment period for SpaceX Starship/Superheavy environmental reassessment

11:11 am

Capitalism in space: The FAA today announced that it has extended the comment period for its environmental reassessment of SpaceX’s operations at Boca Chica, Texas two weeks until November 1st.

From the email announcement:

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has received requests for an extension of the public comment period for the Draft Programmatic Environmental Assessment for the SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy Launch Vehicle Program at the SpaceX Boca Chica Launch Site in Cameron County, Texas (Draft PEA). In consideration of these requests, the FAA is extending the public comment period.

The agency has also changed the dates for the two public hearings it will hold to October 18 and October 20. It will announce more information on those hearings on October 15th.

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Hazygreyart – All SpaceX Launches From KSC in 4 Minutes 20 Seconds

6:01 pm

An evening pause: The video covers all launches through the beginning of this summer, when SpaceX paused for two months. Watch how the pace steadily picks up. If you watch closely you can also see boosters landing in the background.

I lot of people like to talk. Elon Musk likes to do. I’ll take his approach any day.

The song is Audionautix by Opus One.

Hat tip Martin Kaselis.

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News flash! Union lobbyists wants to influence Biden against non-union SpaceX

9:41 am

In the past two days probably a dozen of my readers have sent me a link to this story at the Washington Examiner,
The Anti-SpaceX lobbying campaign casts new light on Elon Musk’s Biden beef.

The story reveals some private emails between a union lobbyist and a vice president at ULA, outlining their mutual effort to discredit Elon Musk and SpaceX because of its long term success in preventing its workforce from unionizing.

Everyone who has sent me this story somehow thinks it reveals a major breaking story.

I think this story is a tempest in a teapot. It reveals nothing newsworthy. All it shows is that a union lobbyist is trying to influence the Biden administration against SpaceX, a decidedly non-union company. Why should these actions surprise anyone? Unions always go after non-union companies, and they often do it by exerting their political clout.

Nor should be we surprised that one of SpaceX’s biggest competitors is partnering with the union in this effort. There is nothing newsworthy about this. Competitors compete, and that competition can sometimes be quite cut throat.

Furthermore, nothing in these emails appears illegal. The lobbyist’s claims against SpaceX are spurious and shallow, but so what? Unions have the right to lobby politicians, and they have the freedom to make whatever arguments they want, even if those arguments are silly or false.

Finally, to think it is a news story that Biden might be receptive to union lobbyists is kind of silly. Biden is a modern Democrat. In almost all matters he is going to genuflect to the unions. I don’t need to read the private emails of a union lobbyist to find this out.

However, the evidence in the past ten months shows that this lobbying effort has so far been incredibly ineffective. While I certainly do not trust the Democrats running the Biden administration, and fully expect them to take actions eventually to squelch private enterprise, this White House’s actions regarding space has so far generally continued the capitalist policies begun during the Trump administration. Note too that these are the same policies first begun at the end of the Bush Jr. administration, and encouraged strongly throughout the Obama administration. It certainly appears that — in space at least — the Democrats are as much for capitalism as the Republicans.

And these emails have apparently done nothing to change that. Thus, there is no news here.

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SpaceX schedules likely first static fire tests for orbital Starship and Superheavy

9:01 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX has scheduled a weeklong series of road closures at Boca Chica, beginning next week, suggesting they are about to begin the first static fire tests for the orbital prototypes of both Starship (#20) and Superheavy (#4).

The company has been installing or replacing engines on both prototypes, with the installation apparently now complete on Starship #20.

Starship’s current design features three gimballing sea-level Raptors and three vacuum-optimized variants with much larger nozzles – all in close proximity inside a 9m-wide (30 ft) skirt. As such, the first Starship static fire with any combination of Raptor Center and Raptor Vacuum engines will be a significant milestone for SpaceX. Eventually, that will likely culminate in the first static fire(s) of a Starship (likely S20) with all six Raptors installed – a test that will effectively qualify that prototype for its first orbital launch attempt.

As for Superheavy #4, they have been replacing some of its 29 engines while it sits on the launchpad, for reasons that are not clear.

It appears the company is aiming to get all of its ground-testing completed while the FAA’s approval process for the permit for the orbital flight is ongoing. This will make it possible to launch as soon as approval is obtained.

This strategy carries some risk. As long as the testing proceeds smoothly it will provide positive coverage during the FAA’s public comment period, running until mid-October. Should a test fail dramatically, however, the explosion could generate the wrong response during that comment period. Not surprisingly, SpaceX is willing to accept that risk.

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SpaceX targeting 6 commercial manned flights per year

9:06 am

Capitalism in space: With the successfully completion of its first manned orbital private space, SpaceX officials announced yesterday that they are expecting to fly about six such commercial manned flights per year.

Benji Reed, SpaceX’s senior director for its human spaceflight program projected as many as a half a dozen flights a year. “There’s nothing really that limits our capability to launch,” he said. “It’s about having rockets and Dragons ready to go and having everything in the manifest align with our other launches.”

…“The reality is the Dragon manifest is getting busier by the moment,” Reed said, noting the planned flight in early 2022 of four passengers for customer Axiom Space that will actually fly to and stay on the ISS for a few days. “It just goes on from there. We have a number of NASA missions that we’ll do, and we also have a growing backlog of commercial astronaut missions that we’re looking forward to perform.” [emphasis mine]

The highlighted words are most intriguing, suggesting that SpaceX might have an already signed line-up of customers ready to pay the ticket price to fly on a Dragon capsule.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk announced late yesterday that he has decided to donate $50 million of his own money to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, in celebration of the completion of the Inspiration4 flight.

“This brings tears to my eyes,” wrote Inspiration4 medical officer Hayley Arceneaux, a St. Jude physicians assistant and survivor of childhood bone cancer, of Musk’s donation. “Thank you Elon Musk for this generous donation toward our $200 million dollar fundraising goal for St. Jude!!!”

Isaacman also thanked Musk and reminded the public that the fundraiser is still underway. Isaacman donated $100 million of his own money to the fundraising goal, then donated the three other seats on Inspiration4 to raise awareness for St. Jude. Arceneaux was selected by St. Jude to fill the “Hope” seat on the crew.

If you wish to make your own donation to St. Jude, you can do so here. You can donate cash directly, or you can bid to win one or more of a variety of items that were carried on the flight.

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Inspiration4 passengers scheduled for return to Earth tonight

9:01 am

The first entirely private manned orbital mission to space is now scheduled to return to Earth tonight, with splashdown set for 7:06 pm (eastern).

The SpaceX live stream of the landing will begin approximately 4:30 pm (eastern).

Yesterday the passengers released some videos, including a conversation with children who are cancer patients at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. They also provided a video update to the general public.

As I noted yesterday, the primary goal of this flight is to raise money for St. Jude. If you wish to send a donation to St. Jude as part of the Inspiration4 spaceflight, you can do so here. You can donate cash directly, or you can bid to win one or more of a variety of items that are on the flight now.

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FAA now taking public comments on the licensing of SpaceX to launch Starship/Superheavy from Boca Chica

10:59 am

Capitalism in space: The FAA today announced by email that it is now taking public comments on the “Draft Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA)” it requires from SpaceX before it can issue a launch license at Boca Chica, Texas for Starship/Superheavy orbital launches.

From the email:

The FAA invites interested agencies, organizations, Native American tribes, and members of the public to submit comments on all aspects of the Draft PEA. Public comments are due on Monday, October 18, 2021. Comments or questions on the Draft PEA can be addressed to Ms. Stacey Zee, SpaceX PEA, c/o ICF, 9300 Lee Highway, Fairfax, VA 22031. Comments may also be submitted by email to SpaceXBocaChica@icf.com. Before including your address, phone number, e-mail address, or other personal identifying information in your comment, be advised that your entire comment – including your personal identifying information – may be made publicly available at any time. While you can ask us in your comment to withhold from public review your personal identifying information, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to do so.

The FAA will also hold two public hearings on October 6th and 7th, though it provided no information yet on where those hearings will be held.

This announcement means that the Starship/Superheavy orbital test flight cannot occur any earlier than October 18, 2021, and will actually occur at least several weeks or months later, based on the schedule outlined on slide 32 of this FAA presentation [pdf]. Once the 30-day public comment period ends the FAA must then hold “an industry workshop” reviewing the comments and then issue an update of the PEA, or a rejection of it.

Though the chances of the FAA rejecting SpaceX’s permit are practically nil, I fully expect this process to be slow-walked by the FAA under orders of the Biden administration in order to do whatever it can to prevent this orbital flight occurring before SLS’s first launch, now expected in early ’22.

I hope I am wrong, and that the FAA surprises me. We can only wait and see.

Update: If you think I am crazy thinking that the politics of the Biden administration will cause a slowdown in the FAA’s process, just read this story about the FAA suddenly imposing flight restrictions at the southern border to block drone flights by media outlets that show the illegal immigrant crisis there.

“We’ve learned that the FAA just implemented a two week TFR (Temporary Flight Restrictions) over the international bridge in Del Rio, TX, meaning we can no longer fly our FOX drone over it to show images of the thousands of migrants,” Fox News reporter Bill Melugin tweeted. “FAA says ‘special security reason.’”

Fox’s report resulted in a quick lifting of this flight restriction on their drone, but the action by the Biden administration shows that it is quite willing to interfere with normal aviation regulations for its own political reasons.

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Inspiration4 has raised $130 million so far for St. Jude out of $200 million goal

9:50 am

Capitalism in space: Inspiration4, the first privately launched manned orbital mission has so far raised about $130 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, still short of the $200 million goal that Jared Isaacman had set when he bought the flight from SpaceX.

A portion of the money came from 72,000 entrants in a sweepstakes that offered the chance to win a seat on the flight. Entrants were encouraged, but not required, to donate to St. Jude, according to the contest rules, which estimated the retail value of the space flight at $2.21 million.

Crew member Chris Sembroski, a 42-year-old data engineer and U.S. Air Force veteran from Everett, Wash., entered the lottery by donating. He didn’t win, but a friend did and gave him the slot, according to the Associated Press.

If you wish to send a donation to St. Jude as part of the Inspiration4 spaceflight, you can do so here. You can donate cash directly, or you can bid to win one or more of a variety of items that are on the flight now.

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NASA awards small design lunar lander contracts to five companies

9:58 am

In what appears to be an effort by NASA to placate the losers in the bidding for the manned lunar lander contract, won by SpaceX’s Starship, the agency this week awarded small design contracts related to future lunar lander construction to five different companies, totaling $ 146 million and with the large bulk of the cash going to those losers.

The contracts were as follows:

  • Dynetics (a Leidos company) of Huntsville, Alabama, $40.8 million.
  • Lockheed Martin of Littleton, Colorado, $35.2 million.
  • Northrop Grumman of Dulles, Virginia, $34.8 million.
  • Blue Origin Federation of Kent, Washington, $25.6 million.
  • SpaceX of Hawthorne, California, $9.4 million.

From the press release:

The selected companies will develop lander design concepts, evaluating their performance, design, construction standards, mission assurance requirements, interfaces, safety, crew health accommodations, and medical capabilities. The companies will also mitigate lunar lander risks by conducting critical component tests and advancing the maturity of key technologies.

While the distribution of the money suggests NASA wishes to provide the most support to the companies that lost the bid, it also gives us a hint of what the agency presently thinks of those losers. Of the losers, Blue Origin received the least, suggesting that NASA remains skeptical of that company’s effort. It also might be NASA’s signal to Blue Origin that endless lawsuits and protests — rather than actual construction — is not a good way to make friends and influence people. This conclusion is reinforced by the fact that Dynetics received the most cash, even though like Blue Origin it has yet to launch anything into orbit.

This distribution of money is also part of the typical pattern of DC crony capitalism, designed almost like pay offs to capture these companies and make them partners in the Washington swamp.

One big space company, Boeing, however received nothing. The company might not have submitted a proposal, but I suspect that if it did, NASA dismissed it outright based on the agency’s decision last year to eliminate Boeing from such contract considerations because of the incredible weakness of its recent bids. I think that Boeing will remain on the outs until it finally gets Starliner flying and operational.

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SpaceX leases several large facilities in Brownsville, Texas

9:36 am

Capitalism in space: In a clear sign that SpaceX plans to expand its Starship/Superheavy operations in Boca Chica, Texas, it has now leased several large facilities in nearby Brownsville.

Earlier this month, the company signed leases with the Brownsville South Padre Island Airport (BRO) for 46,000 square feet of warehouse space and a neighboring private industrial park owned by PacVentures for 60,000 square feet of warehouse space. Francisco Partida, the airport’s special projects manager, said talks with SpaceX about leasing the former Taylorcraft building at 2100 Les Mauldin Road began in mid-July.

The company was looking for 100,000 square feet of warehouse, which the airport couldn’t supply, though SpaceX found the additional square footage it needed in the privately owned industrial park at 1900 Billy Mitchell Blvd., he said.

SpaceX has also committed about a half million dollars to repairing and refurbishing the airport warehouse.

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The real human exploration of the solar system began on September 15, 2021

11:26 pm

Falcon 9 at T+13 seconds

Capitalism in space: First the news: On September 15, 2021 SpaceX successfully placed four civilians into orbit using its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule.

Thus began the first private manned orbital mission in space, planned to last three days and reach an altitude of 595 kilometers or 370 miles, the highest any person has flown in space in decades.

The first stage, on its third flight, successfully landed for reuse. The Dragon capsule, Resilience, was on its second manned flight. The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

31 China
23 SpaceX
15 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman

The U.S. now leads China 34 to 31 in the national rankings.

Now the significance: There was one moment about five minutes after lift off that revealed the fundamental difference between this real flight into space and the short suborbital hops that Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic did in July.

The three most critical moments of any launch had just been completed. The first stage engines had cut off, the first stage had separated successfully, and the single upper stage engine had ignited. It was now lifting the capsule towards orbit, with the only major technical task left were its engine cut off and the separation of the Dragon capsule.

At that moment John Insprucker, principal integretion engineer for SpaceX and frequent host during its launch live streams, made a quick comment that was clearly meant to illustrate the vast difference in achievement between this flight and those two July suborbital flights. He said,
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Watching the first all-private commercial manned orbital spaceflight

11:20 pm

Liberty and freedom enlightening the world
Liberty and freedom enlightening not only the world,
but the entire solar system.

Bumped: I will be out on a cave trip for most of today, September 15, 2021, so I’ve moved this post to the top of the page, as it clearly will be the most important space news today. I should be back before launch, but if not, enjoy!

Original post:
————————
Capitalism in space: Let’s begin by underlining one fundamental fact about the Inspiration4 manned Dragon orbital space mission, targeted for a September 15th launch tomorrow evening, that makes it different from every other orbital space mission ever flown since Yuri Gagarin completed the first manned mission in 1961:

The government has nothing to do with it.

The launch facilities, the rocket, the capsule, the drone ship where the rocket’s first stage will land, and the entire recovery operation in the ocean are all controlled and owned by SpaceX. The passengers are private citizens, one of whom purchased the flight directly from SpaceX.

It is was organized by 38-year-old billionaire and entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, who is also a highly-capable jet warbird aircraft pilot. When he found out from SpaceX he could be the first to fly an all-commercial mission in Crew Dragon, he fronted $100 million to $200 million required and partnered with St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in a campaign to give away two of the missions seats and raise $200 Million for children’s cancer research.

Every person you will see in mission control, at the launchpad, and on the recovery ships are also private citizens, working for a private company that just happens to be in the business of flying rockets, spaceships, and humans into space. None are government employees, and I would suspect that most don’t want to be.

Not only is this mission privately run, its goals are completely different. While all past space launches were flown for purposes decided by the government, this mission’s goals have been determined by the free participants themselves. SpaceX is making money on the flight, Isaacman and his passengers are getting the chance to fulfill their long-held personal dream of going into space, and Isaacman is also using this flight to raise money for cancer research, a personal passion of his.

The flight itself will be unusual. It will be the first manned mission in more than a decade, since the last shuttle repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, to not go to an orbiting space station. Instead, the capsule will spend three days free-flying in orbit around the Earth. To enhance the flight for the passengers, SpaceX removed the docking port on Resilience (the capsule) and replaced it with a viewing port with large windows.

The orbit itself will in a sense push the envelope, as SpaceX plans to loft the capsule to an altitude of about 370 miles, considerably higher than ISS’s orbit of about 260 miles and about 35 miles higher than the mission to Hubble. In fact, the Inspiration4 crew will be the farthest from the Earth’s surface than any human in decades, possibly going back as far as the Apollo era.

For watching this flight I have embedded SpaceX’s live stream below, which you can also find here. You will also be able to find that stream at SpaceX’s YouTube page, where the company is also airing preflight videos.

This mission illustrates the fundamentals that built the United States of America. Give humans freedom, don’t try to tell them what to do, and they will do astonishing and magnificent things, on their own.
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Utilizing a commercial lunar probe to reach geosynchronous orbit around the Earth

8:56 am

Capitalism in space: The commercial startup SpaceFlight Inc has purchased payload space on Intuitive Machines’ second lunar landing mission to the Moon late in ’22 in order to test its Sherpa Escape space tug’s ability to use that flight path to place a satellite into geosynchronous orbit around the Earth.

The tug will also carry the payload of another company, GeoJump, which will test in-space fueling technology developed by another company, Orbit Fab.

Sounds complicated, eh? It isn’t when you think about it. When NASA gave up ownership and design of its lunar landers and instead began buying such products from the private sector, it freed up that private sector to sell its spare payload capacity to anyone who wanted it. On this particular flight Intuitive Machines sold that spare capacity to SpaceFlight, which in turn provided GeoJump and Orbit Fab the space tug for getting their experimental payloads to geosynchronous orbit.

This is a win-win for everyone. Not only are two companies (Intuitive Machines and Spaceflight) making money by selling their capabilities to others, two other companies (GeoJump and Orbit Fab) are now able to test their own space innovations at a much lower cost, and much more quickly than had they depended on a government launch from NASA.

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SpaceX successfully launches another 51 Starlink satellites

9:15 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX tonight successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to launch another 51 Starlink satellites into orbit.

At publication, the deployment of the satellites is still about 25 minutes away. [Update: deployment successful.] SpaceX now has about 1,500 working Starlink satellites in orbit.

The Falcon 9’s first stage successfully landed on its drone ship, the tenth flight of this stage, tying the record for the most reuses. Both fairings were also reused. This was also the first Starlink launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base. SpaceX intends to do monthly Starlink launches from Vandenberg for the rest of the year.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

31 China
22 SpaceX
14 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman

The U.S. now leads China 33 to 31 in the national rankings.

SpaceX will also launch in two days the first ever entirely private orbital mission to space, whereby it has been hired to carry four private astronauts for three days on the highest orbit since the 2009 last shuttle mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.

That flight will inaugurate a schedule of almost monthly private manned commercial missions to orbit, extending into next year and possibly forever. The present schedule:

  • September 15, 2021: SpaceX’s Dragon capsule flies four private citizens on a three day orbital flight
  • October 2021: The Russians will fly two passengers to ISS for 10 days to shoot a movie
  • December 2021: The Russians will fly billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and his assistant to ISS for 12 days
  • cDecember 2021: Space Adventures, using a Dragon capsule, will fly four in orbit for five days
  • January 2022: Axiom, using a Dragon capsule, will fly four tourists to ISS
  • 2022-2024: Three more Axiom tourist flights on Dragon to ISS
  • 2024: Axiom begins launching its own modules to ISS, starting construction of its own private space station
  • c2024: SpaceX’s Starship takes Yusaku Maezawa and several others on a journey around the Moon.
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Roscosmos declares film crew fit for launch to ISS

11:56 am

Capitalism in space: Roscosmos last week announced that the actress and director who plan to fly to ISS in October to film scenes for a science fiction movie are fit to fly.

Director Klim Shipenko and actor Yulia Peresild got the thumbs-up after a meeting of the Chief Medical Commission at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center near Moscow, Russia’s federal space agency Roscosmos announced last week.

Cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov, who is scheduled to launch toward the orbiting lab with Shipenko and Peresild aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft on Oct. 5, also got final medical clearance. So did the backups for the mission: cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev, director Alexey Dudin and actor Alena Mordovina.

The movie script itself, about an astronaut who gets a heart attack while on a spacewalk and then has to have surgery in space before returning to Earth, actually sounds quite good and — most refreshing — well grounded in reality. American space films tend to go in absurd directions, often because the filmmakers are ignorant and have no interest in learning anything about the subject they are writing about.

So far, the schedule of upcoming space tourist flights appears on track to happen, as announced:

  • September 15, 2021: SpaceX’s Dragon capsule flies four private citizens on a three day orbital flight
  • October 2021: The Russians will fly two passengers to ISS for 10 days to shoot a movie
  • December 2021: The Russians will fly billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and his assistant to ISS for 12 days
  • cDecember 2021: Space Adventures, using a Dragon capsule, will fly four in orbit for five days
  • January 2022: Axiom, using a Dragon capsule, will fly four tourists to ISS
  • 2022-2024: Three more Axiom tourist flights on Dragon to ISS
  • 2024: Axiom begins launching its own modules to ISS, starting construction of its own private space station
  • c2024: SpaceX’s Starship takes Yusaku Maezawa and several others on a journey around the Moon.
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The boom in commercial space continues

10:50 am

Starship on an early test flight
Modern rocketry soaring under freedom

Capitalism in space: In the last two days there have been so many stories about different space companies winning new contracts I think it is important to illustrate this in one essay, rather than in multiple posts. Below is the list:

The last two stories are possibly the most significant, because both show that the shift in space from government-built to privately-built, as I advocated in my 2017 policy paper, Capitalism in Space, is spreading to other countries. » Read more

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Update on status of first orbital Starship/Superheavy

10:02 am

Capitalism in space: The first planned orbital Superheavy booster, prototype #4, has been moved back to the orbital launch site, this time with all of its 29 engines fully installed.

It appears SpaceX engineers are about to begin an extensive test campaign of this booster and its engines. They need to test the fueling of all 29 engines. They need to test fire the engines as a unit. And they need to do a full static fire of them all to see if they will work together as planned.

All these tests, which based on SpaceX’s past pace, will likely take about three to four weeks, which means that the orbital test flight cannot occurr before the end of September, as previously guessed. More likely they will not be ready to fly before the end of October, at the soonest.

That schedule is also impacted by the FAA’s bureaucracy, which still needs to approve the environmental assessment required before any Starship orbital flight. That approval process has been ongoing, but could still take several more months, especially if the effort by some fearful environmentalists to stop the flight gains political momentum.

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