Space

SpaceX Introduces Global Roaming Plan for Starlink Internet Access

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

SpaceX has introduced a “global roaming plan” that allows customers to access the Internet through Starlink from anywhere on land. The plan will require a $200 per month subscription and a $599 upfront fee for the Starlink kit. The kit includes a dish that connects to the Starlink satellite constellation and a WiFi router.

In June 2022, the FCC approved SpaceX’s application to provide Internet access for large vehicles like planes, RVs, and buses. The application indicated that SpaceX planned to serve customers who were frequently on the move. The “global roaming plan” expands on that to accommodate individuals whose lifestyles require them to travel a lot.

Starlink will use the lasers on its upgraded Version 2 satellites to help provide connectivity. Some of the Version 1.5 satellites already have laser communications. SpaceX says the laser communications can help reduce latency to between 10 and 20 milliseconds. It also previously said that the Version 2 satellites will be capable of transmitting data at speeds up to 80 Gbps per satellite.

The Version 2 satellites will also use lasers to communicate with other satellites when there are no ground stations available. Some countries and remote regions like the polar regions have very few, if any, ground stations.

However, SpaceX warns, some places may still have poor connectivity even with the global roaming plan. An email sent to potential customers indicated that it expects connectivity to improve as it begins to launch the Version 2 Starlink satellites. Longtime SpaceX followers may remember that it called Starlink’s beta program the “Better than Nothing Beta,” a reference to the lack of good Internet access options in some remote or low-income regions.

SpaceX says the service is still dependent on gaining regulatory approval from international governments – an occasional headache. SpaceX previously had to refund some potential Indian customers’ deposits after India said Starlink was not authorized to operate in the country. It is also working on gaining regulatory approval in Thailand, Pakistan, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and South Korea.

SpaceX may be working on new ways to monetize Starlink after some back-and-forth about funding Starlink operations in Ukraine. Elon Musk previously said that SpaceX is burning through $20 million a month to provide Starlink service in Ukraine, most of which is probably being used to defend against Russian cyberattacks and jamming attempts, and can’t afford to keep it up forever. (Actually good cybersecurity is EXPENSIVE, especially when one has to fend off attacks by a hostile nation’s military.) It was negotiating with the Pentagon to provide continued funding after previously partially suspending service due to lack of payment.

Outside of gaining funding for keeping Starlink going in Ukraine, SpaceX is looking at a version of Starlink called Starshield, which can be used for military defense. It also worked out deals with airlines to provide in-flight Internet access and activated a plan to provide Internet access for aquatic assets like boats and oil rigs. Royal Caribbean became the first cruise line to take SpaceX up on its Internet service for ships.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk had mentioned that it can be difficult for a satellite Internet provider to avoid bankruptcy. However, SpaceX President Gwynn Shotwell previously expressed confidence that the market is big enough to potentially help fund other SpaceX projects like Starship development once Starlink becomes profitable.

The $200 per month “global roaming plan” could help by providing Internet access to individuals who are often on the move – even to places where they might have difficulty picking up a Wi-Fi signal otherwise. It may still have some gaps in coverage. However, it promises that those gaps are beginning to close.

Space

International Space Station Partners Clear Axiom-2 for Launch

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

NASA has announced that the International Space Station (ISS) partners have cleared Axiom-2 for launch and docking to the ISS.

Axiom-2 will be the second crewed mission to the ISS. Axiom Space’s first mission, Axiom-1, went to the International Space Station in April 2022. It spent 17 days docked to the International Space Station, conducting scientific experiments and commercial activities for Axiom Space. It had to tolerate a delay in its return to Earth due to poor weather at its splashdown site. It was commanded by Michael Lopez-Alegria, who previously served on three Space Shuttle missions and commanded Expedition 14 on the International Space Station.

Peggy Whitson will command the Axiom-2 (Ax-2) mission. According to NASA, Peggy Whitson has the most cumulative time in space of any NASA astronaut. Her previous experience includes three increments, or “Expeditions,” on the International Space Station. She also previously served as the chief of NASA’s Astronaut Office. Whitson is currently Axiom Space’s Director of Human Spaceflight.

“I’m honored to be heading back to the station for the fourth time, leading this talented Ax-2 crew on their first mission,” said Whitson. “This is a strong and cohesive team determined to conduct meaningful scientific research in space and inspire a new generation about the benefits of microgravity. It’s a testament to the power of science and discovery to unify and build international collaboration.”

Why does Axiom Space hire people like Michael Lopez-Alegria and Peggy Whitson for the job? Well, NASA requires that privately organized missions to the ISS be commanded by an experienced NASA astronaut. This is probably for safety reasons, as it would be easy for relative novices to hurt themselves or damage important equipment.

(No, NASA probably didn’t like having Dennis Tito on board the ISS.)

Axiom-2 crew members also include Pilot John Shoffner and Mission Specialists Ali Alqarni and Rayyanah Barnawi. Ali Alqarni and Rayyanah Barnawi are part of Saudi Arabia’s inaugural astronaut program. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia made arrangements with Axiom Space for seats on its spaceflights.

Didn’t somebody else book flights to the ISS on SpaceX’s Crew Dragons…? Well, yes, the United Arab Emirates’ Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre also made arrangements with Axiom Space and SpaceX to have one of its astronauts serve a six-month increment on the International Space Station as part of the Crew-6 mission, which will also launch in Spring 2023.

The fully private Axiom missions are part of Axiom Space’s preparations to add inflatable modules to the International Space Station. The modules will eventually be spun off into one of the first fully privately owned orbiting space stations. It plans to lease space on its space station to organizations like NASA.

“Axiom Space’s second private astronaut mission to the International Space Station cements our mission of expanding access to space worldwide and supporting the growth of the low-Earth orbit economy as we build Axiom Station,” said Michael Suffredini, president and CEO of Axiom Space. “Ax-2 moves Axiom Space one step closer toward the realization of a commercial space station in low-Earth orbit and enables us to build on the legacy and achievements of the station, leveraging the benefits of microgravity to better life on Earth.”

Axiom-2 will launch in Spring 2023. The exact launch date is still to be determined. Its crew will spend ten days conducting scientific experiments and making preparations for Axiom Space’s inflatable modules.

SpaceX Limits Use of Starlink in Ukraine

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

SpaceX blocked Ukraine’s ability to use Starlink’s Internet connectivity to control its offensive capabilities, including its use of drones on the battlefield.

Its reasoning? Starlink’s capabilities were “never, never meant to be weaponized,” according to SpaceX president Gwynn Shotwell. “Ukrainians have leveraged it in ways that were unintentional and not part of any agreement.”

Shotwell made her comments at the 25th annual Federal Aviation Administration Commercial Space Transportation Conference in Washington, D.C. The agenda for this year’s event included panel discussions of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) applications like Starlink’s satellite constellation. Other speakers and panel members included representatives from Axiom Space, Blue Origin, and Virgin Orbit, all of which are working on applications for assets that will reside in Low-Earth Orbit.

This does not mean Starlink couldn’t be used for purposes other than providing Internet access. Somebody found a way to use it to create a GPS-like navigation system by reverse-engineering Starlink satellites’ signals. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk did not seem to approve of the potential application despite some initial interest from executives, saying that SpaceX did not need the distraction.

The decision to block use of Starlink for offensive purposes could put SpaceX in an awkward spot, considering that Ukraine is currently defending against a Russian invasion that began in early 2022. SpaceX initially agreed to provide Starlink terminals to help with communications.

Since then, who pays for Starlink service in Ukraine has been an issue. SpaceX previously cut off service to 1,300 of the 25,000 Starlink terminals in Ukraine due to lack of payment. Since then, it opened negotiations with the U.S. Pentagon to fund continued use of Starlink in Ukraine.

“Negotiations are very much underway. Everyone in our building knows we’re going to pay them,” a Pentagon official told CNN last year.

Starlink is mostly used by civilians to access the Internet. Many of them live in areas where there aren’t many good options for reliable access to high-speed Internet. Some of them may benefit from local governments’ willingness to talk with SpaceX to provide Internet access for residents of remote or low-income communities. In May 2022, Starlink passed 400,000 Starlink users and it still has a long waitlist.

Despite Shotwell’s objections to using Starlink for offensive capabilities, SpaceX did come up with a potential use for a Starlink derivative called Starshield. It says Starshield is meant to help with national security issues.

SpaceX estimated that it spends $20 million per month to keep access open to Ukraine, most of which probably goes toward beefing up its security. The advanced cybersecurity needed to keep Starlink up and running despite Russian attempts to interfere with it can’t be cheap.

SpaceX, of course, does not have unlimited amounts of money to spend on it. Considering everything else it has going on, including an important upcoming test of its Starship rocket and planned launches of satellites for paying customers, it may simply be unwilling to bankrupt itself for Ukraine. Elon Musk also indicated that SpaceX may not expect to “recoup past expenses,” but it also can’t burn through money indefinitely to provide communications capability for one country’s defense efforts.

SpaceX already increased Starlink’s ability to resist attempts to jam its signals. This earned some interest from the Pentagon, which would naturally be interested in a communications option that is hard for an enemy to interfere with.

However, SpaceX seems to draw the line at using Starlink for offensive purposes like Ukraine’s possible intention to use it to control its drones on the battlefield. It may have picked an awkward time to make that call, considering that Ukraine is still dealing with the Russian invasion and SpaceX already went public with its Starshield concept.

Space

SpaceX Tests Engines on Starship Booster

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

SpaceX tested more than 30 engines on the Starship booster as part of preparations for a planned orbital test of its biggest spacecraft yet. 31 of the 33 engines performed well in the static test.

According to Elon Musk, technicians turned off one of the engines and the other deactivated on its own. SpaceX said the 31 remaining engines fired for the full duration of the test.

Having that many smaller engines on the heavy lifter can provide extra redundancy in case one or two of them fail. Musk said the Super Heavy booster would have still made it into orbit.

SpaceX has had the orbital test in the works for a while now. It had originally planned to conduct the test during the summer of 2021. However, the test was repeatedly pushed back, primarily due to regulatory red tape. The FAA kept throwing up obstacles like required environmental impact reviews and the sheer number of comments it received about the test – often frustrating Elon Musk, who expressed impatience with the process.

Musk has occasionally aimed barbs at the FAA during its investigations into matters like four Starship prototypes in a row going up in flames. He accused the FAA of using an outdated regulatory model that assumed that most space launches would have been organized by government agencies. SpaceX did eventually manage to conduct a high-altitude test and keep the prototype intact.

SpaceX could launch Starship on its orbital test as early as March 1. The orbital test will involve launching an uncrewed Starship prototype from SpaceX’s Boca Chica test facility on a Super Heavy rocket. If everything goes as planned, the prototype will complete nearly one orbit and splash down just off the Hawaiian coast.

Elon Musk seems to anticipate that there is a high chance that something will go wrong. However, he promised that at least the test won’t be boring.

SpaceX plans to use Starship to launch payloads to other worlds like the Moon and Mars. Musk has said that it could have people on Mars as early as 2030. Of course, one should always add a few years to a Musk timeline.

Starship can also deliver heavier payloads into orbit. It could also potentially deliver critical supplies for humanitarian and military missions to any point on Earth. The Pentagon has showed interest in Starship for providing rapid point-to-point delivery of supplies.

A Starship-derived lunar lander will land astronauts on the lunar surface for NASA’s Artemis Program. Concept art makes it look like a 1950s-era science fiction rocket that could land on another world’s surface and then take off again. (NASA did exactly that for the Apollo program in the late 1960s and early 1970s. However, the Apollo lunar lander looked more like something out of a real-world version of Atari’s “Space Invaders” than a rocket.) NASA plans to include SpaceX’s lunar lander on Artemis III.

Starship will also be available for privately organized missions. Dennis Tito booked a ride to the Moon on one. The dearMoon mission will also use Starship.

SpaceX president Gwynn Shotwell took over management of Starship, likely to troubleshoot some issues that weren’t being publicly aired. The FAA could simply have been one of several obstacles holding it up. The static test of its engines could indicate that it’s beginning to get back on track – of course, assuming that it actually manages to get off the ground in March.

Jury Clears Elon Musk of Liability in Tesla Investor Lawsuit

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

A jury has cleared Elon Musk of liability in an investor lawsuit related to some 2018 tweets about taking Tesla private. Musk had said that the funding was in place to take it private and a deal was “imminent.” Musk had mentioned that he could take Tesla private for $420 a share. The deal would have cost up to $70 billion.

420 is a slang term for use of marijuana – something that Musk famously did during an appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, though he is rarely seen in public smoking a joint.

The investors alleged that the tweets amounted to illegal manipulation of stock value. Musk had even advised not selling Tesla stock under $420 before the deal to take it private went through.

The jury’s ruling does not mean U.S. District Judge Edward Chen, who presided over the trial, did not have some sharp words for Musk. He considered the tweets to be falsehoods, especially considering that Tesla never went private. The stock, which goes by ticker symbol TSLA, is still publicly traded.

As of the evening of February 4, 2023, TSLA was at $189.98 per share after a roller-coaster 2022. Last year’s drama included Musk’s tumultuous takeover of Twitter and increasing doubts about Musk’s ability to even manage a company that had been added to the S&P 500 at one point. Not that Tesla had a terrible year: It finally got its Gigafactories in Texas and Germany open, delivered the first Semis to Pepsico, and continues to stay strong on vehicle deliveries. However, investors might have reason to doubt its CEO’s erratic behavior, which may have started before he closed the Twitter deal.

The investors’ attorney, Nicholas Porritt, expressed disappointment with the ruling: “I don’t think this is the kind of conduct we expect from a large public company. … People can draw their own conclusion on whether they think it’s OK or not.”

Porritt had argued that Musk’s tweets amounted to reckless behavior that encouraged “anarchy” during closing arguments.

However, Musk’s attorneys argued that Musk genuinely believed that he had a commitment from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund despite lack of written proof. This Public Investment Fund is one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in existence, with $430 billion in investments as of October 2021. He may have erred in believing promises made by someone within the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund and making his tweets before he had anything more than a verbal commitment. His lawyers attempted to convince the jurists that he was just looking out for smaller shareholders who don’t have the financial clout of big institutional investors – and might get most of their news from online sources like Twitter.

“He was trying to include the retail shareholder, the mom and pop, the little guy, and not seize more power for himself,” his attorney, Alex Spiro, told jurists. “Just because it’s a bad tweet doesn’t make it a fraud.”

With the verdict in, Musk may be off the hook for billions in dollars in liability. He had sit in on the closing arguments even though his presence was not required. A sketch of Musk created by a courtroom artist showed him wearing a mask and watching stoically. Was it a strategic move when he could have been spending the time working at one of the companies he heads? Well, as formal federal prosecutor Michael Freedman said of his possible influence on jurists, “It shows he has a presence.”

Space

SpaceX Retrofits Crew Dragon to Carry Five People

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

As a response to a query from NASA, SpaceX looked into retrofitting the Crew Dragon currently docked to the International Space Station to carry five crew members in an emergency. The solution: Move a seat from a leaky Soyuz to the Crew Dragon.

The query was the result of a Soyuz spacecraft that lost a considerable amount of its coolant in a leak. Upon analyzing the problem, mission controllers believe the Soyuz got hit by a micrometeoroid.

A similar micrometeoroid caused damage to the International Space Station’s big robotic arm, Canadarm2, in June 2021. The problem is that even small objects like micrometeoroids can cause significant damage when they collide with orbiting assets at high speeds. The International Space Station orbits Earth at about 17,500 miles per hour.

The cooling system is critical for keeping its crew alive during return to Earth. NASA is still working with the Russian space agency Roscosmos on possible solutions for the problem. Roscosmos says it can send a replacement Soyuz to the International Space Station but it probably won’t be ready to launch until February 22 at the earliest.

While the space agencies work, the current International Space Station crew moved a seat liner from Soyuz MS-22 to the Crew Dragon named Endurance. The seat liner was designed for NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, who flew to the International Space Station on the Soyuz on September 21, 2022.

The Crew Dragon can normally carry up to four people. With the move of the seat liner, it can hold five – and even that might be an improvised make-do fix until they can get the replacement Soyuz.

This isn’t the first time NASA made plans to use a modified spacecraft to rescue a crew. It once modified an Apollo Command and Service Module to retrieve a crew from the Skylab space station in case they had to evacuate. Luckily, the modified Command and Service Module turned out to not be needed.

The good part, NASA says, is that the move can reduce the heat load on the leaky Soyuz in case they have to evacuate the entire crew before the replacement arrives. Unlike the Crew Dragon, Soyuz spacecrafts tend to be cramped with three people packed so tightly that moving an arm would likely mean bumping another crew member. Besides the “three people packed into the backseat of a small car” level of annoyance, it means things can get a bit stuffy just from radiated body heat without the coolant.

Josh Cassada and Nicole Mann handled the work of installing the seat liner on Endurance. They had launched on the Crew Dragon as part of Crew-5 on October 5, 2022. Crew-5 will return home shortly after the launch of Crew-6, which is scheduled for February 26, 2023.

Until its scheduled return – and hopefully the on-time arrival of the replacement Soyuz – Endurance is equipped to carry five crew members back to Earth in case of an emergency. Hopefully it won’t be needed.

Space

SpaceX Agrees to Have Starlink Avoid Interfering with Astronomical Work

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

SpaceX signed an agreement with the National Science Foundation (NSF) to have its Starlink constellation avoid interfering with astronomical readings. The agreement covers Starlink’s radio transmissions, especially the 10.6 – 10.7 GHz radio band often used by telescopes.

NSF and SpaceX already had an agreement to have Starlink meet international radio astronomy protection standards for that band. The agreement also complied with the terms of a license that the FCC granted for launch of Starlink’s first-generation satellites.

This new agreement updates the understanding between the NSF and SpaceX for the new second-generation Starlink satellites.

These satellites are more capable and might even add the capacity for laser-based communications. As part of the deal with the NSF, SpaceX will study the laser communications’ impact on astronomical readings.

Plans for mitigating interference with ground-based astronomy include dielectric mirror film, solar array mitigations, new black paint that minimizes brightness and glints, and best practices during flight operations. The agreement also calls for the sharing of orbital data so that astronomers can plan their observations with minimal interference from the low-orbiting satellites.

SpaceX will coordinate with the NSF’s Office of Polar Programs to mitigate Starlink’s impact on radio astronomy-related operations at the NSF’s polar posts. NOIRLab will serve as a point of contact for technical communications between NSF and SpaceX.

SpaceX currently has 3,500 Starlink satellites in orbit. The new agreement between NSF and SpaceX may not affect satellites already in orbit beyond making small adjustments to their orbits using their collision avoidance systems. However, the agreement includes provisions for communications between NSF and SpaceX if interference occurs or unforeseen challenges might cause Starlink to interfere with astronomical observations.

Some skywatchers have gotten pictures of strings of the satellites as they passed overhead, indicating that they can be bright enough to be easily spotted from the ground. Like many satellites that aren’t in a geosynchronous orbit, they can show up as rapidly moving specks of light.

Starlink has occasionally been the topic of regulatory challenges on environmental grounds. Competitors questioned whether SpaceX really needs to launch that many satellites, which could clutter up low-Earth orbit.

However, these competitors do not seem to have bothered negotiating with organizations like the NSF to ensure that their satellites do not interfere with science operations. Some of them even come off as far more inconsiderate than SpaceX has been even with its plan to launch tens of thousands of Starlink satellites. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) says AST SpaceMobile’s BlueWalker 3 test satellite is one of the brightest objects in the sky, which could fake out astronomers. BlueWalker 3 has a highly reflective 693-foot communication array. A statement from the IAU expressed concern about AST SpaceMobile’s plan to launch dozens of similar satellites.

Despite the environmental concerns, Starlink provides Internet access to more than 600,000 locations and still has a long list of potential customers who are awaiting their Starlink kit. (Apparently, SpaceX can only manufacture them so fast.) SpaceX has marketed it as a way for populations who lack access to affordable, reliable high-speed Internet to get up to speed and backed that up by making a few deals with national or local government entities to provide Internet access to low-income or isolated communities.

Business

Elon Musk Files Bid to Move Shareholder Fraud Trial to Texas

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

To support his acquisition of Twitter, Elon Musk sold billions of dollars’ worth of Tesla stock. He also took out loans using Tesla stock as collateral. This had the predictable effect of causing a sharp decline in Tesla stock prices.

Shareholders filed a lawsuit in a Californian court alleging that Musk may have committed fraud while selling the shares. However, that seems to have little to do with Musk’s recent selloff of stock to help fund the Twitter deal, which was also partially backed by the cryptocurrency exchange Binance and venture capital company Andreessen Horowitz. Instead, they allege that tweets that Musk had made in August 2018 amounted to illegal price manipulation.

Elon Musk’s 2018 tweets said that he had secured funding to take Tesla private and said part of the funding came from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign fund. His tweets caused price swings in the Tesla stock price but turned out to be false. The shareholders allege that it cost them money.

Elon Musk and Tesla previously settled with the SEC over the offending tweets, though the SEC has alleged that Musk violated the settlement by failing to follow an order to have a lawyer vet his tweets since then. The SEC complaint landed in front of a Manhattan judge.

Now Elon Musk wants the case moved out of San Francisco to a court in Texas. He alleges that potential jury pools in California are likely to be biased.

Twitter is based in the San Francisco area. Elon Musk laid off a lot of the employees that hadn’t already resigned before he closed the deal to take Twitter private. His lawyer says many potential jurors probably know somebody who was laid off, which could taint sentiment in the case.

Musk also made a dramatic exit from California, including selling his Californian homes and moving Tesla’s headquarters to Texas. He blamed California’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which he said hurt Tesla’s ability to keep up with demand for its electric vehicles.

Tesla still has one Gigafactory in California and is building another factory to manufacture batteries for its vehicles. Tesla says it currently employs 47,000 people in the Fremont area. During the tug of war between Musk and California, the State of California declared Tesla an “essential business” that could keep its factory open.

According to the paperwork filed as part of the motion to move the trial, “To be clear, this motion is not being brought simply because Mr. Musk has been the subject of negative news coverage. Mr. Musk has been a public figure for more than a decade and recognizes that being the subject of negative and even unfair media attention comes with the territory. The local media and political establishment have attempted to depict Mr. Musk as personally responsible for causing material economic harm to the significant number of potential jurors impacted by the layoffs and to the City of San Francisco as a whole.”

Musk’s legal team says he is more likely to get a fair trial in the Western District of Texas, where he has been subjected to less vitriol coming from the media and there are fewer people who might have been negatively impacted by the layoffs. The Western District includes the Austin area, where Tesla opened the Gigafactory where the electric Semis are manufactured in April 2022. Elon Musk estimated that Gigafactory Austin would add 10,000 jobs in the area and called for more housing in the area. SpaceX also started building a manufacturing facility in the area in March 2021.

California likely won’t be the friendliest place for Elon Musk right now, considering that he moved Tesla’s headquarters out of the state and laid off a lot of Twitter’s employees – though he hasn’t made noise about moving Twitter’s headquarters yet. His legal team is simply requesting a move away from a potentially unfriendly San Francisco-area court to a place that may be less hostile to Elon Musk.

Space

SpaceX to Raise $750 Million at $137 Billion Valuation

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

SpaceX is planning a funding round to raise $750 million at a $137 billion valuation. The round is being organized by Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm that is better known as the digital asset startup-supporting company “a16z.” Andreessen Horowitz also has a $400 million stake in Twitter now that it has been taken private.

SpaceX raised $2 billion in previous funding rounds in 2022. Its most recent funding round valued the company at $127 billion.

The space launch side of SpaceX’s business saw a busy year with 61 launches, almost double the 31 launches it conducted in 2021. According to company statistics, 92% of its launches reused a Falcon 9 first stage booster. Landing, refurbishing, and relaunching the first stage boosters is one major factor in SpaceX’s ability to stay competitive as a space launch company.

SpaceX bolstered its image as a company that can launch hardware for international organizations with its final launch of 2022, which sent an Israeli satellite into orbit. It also launched a robotic lunar mission for the UAE and Japan last year.

SpaceX showed a willingness to treat satellite Internet competitor OneWeb like just another customer despite past disputes by stepping up to launch some of OneWeb’s satellites. OneWeb was one of a few European organizations that were left scrambling for alternative launch services after Europe slapped sanctions on Russia for invading Ukraine.

Elon Musk previously said that SpaceX aims to conduct as many as 100 launches in 2023. It got an early start with the launch of Transporter-6, a “rideshare” mission that sent 114 satellites into a sun-synchronous orbit for a wide variety of private companies and government organizations. Transporter-6 saw the 15th use of a first stage booster for the second time in SpaceX’s history.

SpaceX also has more than 1 million subscribers to its Starlink satellite Internet service, which starts at $110 a month. It frequently launches satellites for the Starlink constellation, which currently has more than 3,000 functional satellites in orbit. The ambitious constellation could grow into the tens of thousands, which has caused some controversy over the possibility of contributing to the orbiting “space junk” problem.

Starlink satellites can maneuver to avoid collisions but the past dispute with OneWeb involved an alleged close call. OneWeb claims one of its satellites nearly collided with a Starlink satellite while being launched, which SpaceX disputed.

It can deliver Internet service to remote or low-income regions that previously did not have reliable Internet infrastructure. SpaceX has shown a willingness to negotiate with school districts and governments to provide Internet services to populations that are not easy to reach or may not be able to afford Internet service on their own.

SpaceX president Gwynn Shotwell previously said Starlink will be an important part of funding trips to Mars.

Despite an impressive 2022, SpaceX has faced challenges like difficulty getting approval from the FAA for an orbital test of the Starship/Super Heavy stack. Hangups include a required environmental review and the sheer number of public comments that the FAA received. SpaceX recently appointed Gwynn Shotwell as Starship’s manager, perhaps hoping to iron out some of the wrinkles that may be holding up progress with Starship development.

SpaceX means for Starship to be the heavy hitter of its operational rocket models. Proposed uses include delivering critical cargo like humanitarian supplies to any point on Earth quickly. NASA chose SpaceX to develop a Starship-derived lunar lander for the Artemis Program. Elon Musk previously said that Starship will be important for sending people and equipment to Mars.

The $750 million that SpaceX plans to raise could be used for Starship development. Just don’t count on getting in on it unless you’re an accredited investor. Any outside party offering SpaceX shares is probably a scammer.

Space

NASA Considers SpaceX Crew Dragon to Evacuate International Space Station

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

In mid-December 2022, control teams for the International Space Station noticed a bad leak in a Soyuz spacecraft designated to bring three crew members back to Earth. Analysis showed that it might have gotten hit by a micrometeroid and leaked onboard coolant.

The International Space Station can maneuver to avoid man-made debris and has dodged old rocket stages and defunct satellites. However, mission planners can’t always plan for natural space objects like meteoroids. A similar meteoroid caused damage to the robotic arm Canadarm2 in May 2021.

A planned EVA had to be canceled for safety reasons after the discovery of the Soyuz leak. However, that might not be the worst of it. With a leaky Soyuz, the three crew members – Russian Cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio – might not have a ride home now. For the moment, though, the crew is fine.

Now NASA and SpaceX are considering the feasibility of using a Crew Dragon to bring the entire crew home. According to SpaceX documentation, the Crew Dragon is rated for up to four passengers. The International Space Station’s Expedition 68 currently has seven crew members. The Crew Dragon for Crew-5 launched last October, bringing Nicole Mann, Josh Cassada, JAXA astronaut Koichi Wakata, and Russian Cosmonaut Anna Kikina to the International Space Station.

One option might be McGyvering a way to add more seats to the Crew-5 Crew Dragon. However, it’s more likely that NASA will have to arrange with SpaceX to send another Crew Dragon to the International Space Station. It’s not like it would be the first time there were two Crew Dragons docked to the space station.

NASA says it will also attempt to work with Roscosmos to determine whether the Soyuz is still safe to use. The diplomatic relationship between Russia and the United States has been strained since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which started in March 2021. However, work with Roscosmos is hopefully going more smoothly now that Russia essentially fired the often-abrasive former Roscosmos Director General, Dmitry Rogozin. His bluster has historically included insulting the United States’ space program and threatening Elon Musk.

Roscosmos could also send a replacement Soyuz if the leaky one attached to the International Space Station is now unsuitable for use. However, it would have to be remotely controlled from launch to docking with the International Space Station – something that the Soviet/Russian space program had problems with when its “Mir” space station was still active. However, the International Space Station has had better luck with automated dockings, including using Canadarm2 to “grab” an approaching Cargo Dragon to maneuver it to a docking port.

NASA expects to have a solution to the problem of the leaky Soyuz by next month. Until then, the International Space Station will have to hang tight without a spacecraft meant to bring three crew members back to Earth.

SpaceX Launches Surface Water and Ocean Topography Satellite

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

SpaceX has launched the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) radar satellite for NASA on December 16, 2022. Data from SWOT will be used to study how oceans absorb atmospheric heat and carbon dioxide.

In a move that rapidly became standard procedure for SpaceX, it landed the first stage booster of the Falcon 9 rocket and can refurbish it for another mission. This move helps SpaceX keep costs down as opposed to simply discarding rocket stages in the ocean after each launch – something that SWOT’s backers might appreciate because it reduces space launch-related litter in the ocean.

Current estimates show that oceans absorb 90% of the heat trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases. This has helped keep temperatures under control despite the amount of greenhouse gases pumped into the atmosphere by industrial activity.

Scientists have expressed concern about a possible “tipping point” at which oceans would begin to release the heat trapped within them rather than absorbing heat. SWOT will help them make more accurate predictions about where that tipping point is.

SWOT is capable of conducting radar sweeps of most of Earth’s surface twice every 21 days. The data produced will help make ocean circulation models more accurate. It will also improve the accuracy of weather forecasts and assist with managing the water supply in regions impacted by drought. SWOT can also measure small differences in surface elevations where smaller currents and eddies exist. Scientists believe that a lot of the oceans’ heat absorption happens in these small currents and eddies.

Combined with data from other satellites, data from SWOT can also assist studies of the impact of changing ocean levels on coastal areas.

SWOT can also take measurements of more than a million lakes and reservoirs on Earth’s surface. It will also take measurements of rivers that are wider than 100 meters (330 feet). These measurements will provide data to scientists studying seasonal fluctuations of lake and river levels and the impact of harsh weather events on lakes and rivers.

Unlike most satellites, SWOT is capable of taking measurements through cloud cover and map them in two dimensions. Previous satellites could only take measurements at specific points and map them in a single dimension.

The SWOT team has plans for a three-year mission for the satellite. It will send down the first research data within months.

The NASA-funded Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) built most of the components for SWOT. Canada and Britain also contributed to the SWOT mission. France’s space agency, CNES, helped track SWOT’s deployment and reported receiving the expected first signals from the satellite, indicating that it is fully operational.

SWOT was one of 15 NASA missions listed as priorities by the National Research Council when mission planners started working on it twenty years ago. The National Research Council regularly updates its priorities, which are often consistent with the U.S. government’s current science-related policies.

Space

SpaceX Launches Lunar Mission for Japan, UAE

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

SpaceX successfully launched a lunar mission for Japan and the UAE. The UAE provided Rashid, a nearly 10-kilogram lunar rover that will operate on the Moon for 10 days. Japan sent the HAKUTO-R Mission 1 robotic lander. HAKUTO-R is currently rolled up in the shape of a ball and will unroll when it reaches the Moon.

Hakuto is the Japanese word for “white rabbit.” According to Japanese folklore, a white rabbit lives on the Moon. HAKUTO-R is funded by a company called ispace, which also has plans to fly follow-up missions to the Moon in 2024 and 2025.

Hardware included in the joint UAE-Japan mission also includes a solid-state battery provided by a Japanese company, an AI computer that will study geological features for the mission, and 360-degree cameras provided by a Canadian company.

NASA hitched a ride with a laser experiment for a separate mission bound for the lunar south pole. The explorations of the Moon’s south pole are part of preparations for a potential permanent presence on the Moon that could follow the Artemis Program’s first crewed lunar landings.

HAKUTO-R and Rashid will land on the Moon in five months. SpaceX had initially planned to launch it on November 30. However, it delayed the launch twice to allow for additional checkouts of the Falcon 9 rocket.

Ispace originally planned Hakuto as a contender for the Google Lunar XPRIZE, which would have awarded $20 million to the first private company to successfully land a robotic probe on the Moon. It managed to complete a rover demonstration for the XPRIZE. However, its primary spacecraft failed to complete its mission.

An Israeli nonprofit organization called SpaceIL nearly managed to win the $20 million prize with its Beresheet lander, but the lander crashed on the Moon during descent to the lunar surface. The deadline for the Google Lunar XPRIZE expired in 2018 with no award given.

Despite missing the deadline for the Google Lunar XPRIZE, ispace did not give up. The “R” in the HAKUTO-R name stands for “Reboot.” Its goals include building the capacity for high-frequency, low-cost transportation services to the Moon. Its current operations include work on one of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services contracts as part of a team lead by Draper. The contract includes putting a lander on the far side of the Moon by 2025.

Ispace also has contracts to collect lunar regolith samples for NASA and test a method for extracting water on the Moon. The ability to harvest water on the Moon will be critical for a sustainable presence on the lunar surface.

Ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada expressed enthusiasm about the future of lunar exploration, which he anticipates will have economic benefits.

“This is the dawn of the lunar economy,” Hakamada said during SpaceX’s livestreamed video of the launch. “Let’s go to the moon.”

The launch used one of SpaceX’s previously flown Falcon 9 first stage boosters. The Falcon 9 landed at a designated landing site not far from the launchpad and could be used again for another mission.

Space

SpaceX Launches 40 OneWeb Satellites

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

SpaceX launched 40 OneWeb satellites on a Falcon 9 rocket on December 8, 2022. The launch was part of OneWeb’s reshuffling of launch contracts amid Europe’s sanctions against Russia. It had previously planned to launch the satellites on a Russian Soyuz rocket.

In a move that must seem routine by now, SpaceX landed the first stage booster. This was the fourth flight for this particular booster. Previous launches included a Cargo Dragon carrying valuable cargo for the International Space Station, a communications satellite for EutelSat, and some of SpaceX’s own Starlink satellites. (That last was not likely to be a way to rub the bigger Starlink constellation in OneWeb’s face, though.)

Some of SpaceX’s first stage boosters launched as many as eleven times. The Falcon 9 set a record for the highest number of launches of a single rocket model in a calendar year in October 2022, when SpaceX launched its 48th mission for 2022. With the launch of the OneWeb satellites, SpaceX has conducted 55 launches this year, one of them being a Falcon Heavy launch with a classified payload for the USSF.

SpaceX had previously disputed a report that a Starlink satellite nearly caused a collision during a prior launch of OneWeb satellites. Starlink satellites are capable of maneuvering to avoid collisions with other assets or pieces of “space junk.” Despite the past dispute, SpaceX promised to treat OneWeb like any other customer.

Unlike Starlink, which already has more than 3,000 satellites in orbit, OneWeb only plans to launch 648 Internet-providing satellites. With this launch, OneWeb has now successfully deployed more than 500 satellites. This was OneWeb’s first deployment of satellites from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

OneWeb was not the only European organization to have to reshuffle its plans in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Europe’s sanctions. The European Space Agency (ESA) had to suspend plans to launch the Mars probe ExoMars on a Russian rocket. ESA also tapped SpaceX as one of a few international launch providers that could launch hardware. It selected SpaceX to launch the Euclid Space Telescope and a follow-up mission for NASA’s DART, which tested a method for redirecting potentially dangerous asteroids.

Russia and Roscosmos reacted poorly to the sanctions against the Russian aerospace industry, threatening to deorbit the International Space Station and even threatening Elon Musk. Musk responded by trying to joke about it — a joke that seemed to fall flat with his mother.

Russia also threatened Starlink satellites and actually did attempt to jam or conduct cyberattacks against them. However, SpaceX has beefed up their security enough to impress the Pentagon.

Former Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin has since been removed from his position, possibly indicating that the Russians had issues with him besides his pattern of bluster aimed at Musk and NASA. However, Russia may not be happy with the fact that it does not have a monopoly on launching hardware for paying clients that include OneWeb and the ESA.

Space

Yuzaku Maezawa Announces Crew for dearMoon Mission

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

The Japanese fashion mogul Yuzaku Maezawa finally announced the crew of the dearMoon mission, which he promotes as a candidate for the first civilian mission to go to the Moon and back.

As expected, most of the crew work in the arts. They include:

  • DJ & producer Steve Aoki
  • Youtube creator Tim Dodd
  • Artist Yemi A.D.
  • Photographer Karim Iliya
  • Photographer Rhiannon Adam
  • Filmmaker Brendan Hall
  • Actor Dev Joshi
  • Musician T.O.P. (Choi Seung Hyun)

Backup crew member include Kaitlyn Farrington and Miyu. The crew and backup crew include individuals from around the world, including the United States, Ireland, Japan, South Korea, and the Czech Republic.

According to its official website, dearMoon could launch on Starship as early as 2023. This naturally depends on how soon Starship can become operational. It has faced delays in planned testing, primarily due to the slowness of FAA approval.

This has caused frustration for SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, and likely customers like Yuzaku Maezawa who are interested in flying on Spaceship. Former aerospace professional Dennis Tito has also expressed interest in flying around the Moon on Starship — many years after becoming the first private citizen to pay Russia for a flight to the International Space Station.

NASA crews may also fly on a Starship-derived lunar lander that SpaceX is working on for the Artemis Program.

Maezawa has been planning the dearMoon flight since 2018. He famously caused a bit of controversy after floating the idea of a The Bachelor–like competition to have a romantic partner fly on dearMoon as well. The competition would have aired on TV as a show titled Full Moon Lovers. He nixed that idea after some serious backlash.

Despite having to drop that idea, he says he got applicants for the dearMoon mission from more than 249 countries.

“It is unfortunate that I cannot take all of you with me,” he said in a statement on dearMoon’s website.

The dearMoon may expect to begin training for the flight soon. Their training is likely to include emergency protocols, operation of Starship systems, and familiarization with a sleek-looking future spacesuit model developed by SpaceX.

Space

SpaceX Unveils “Starshield” for Military Use

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

Earlier this week, SpaceX unvieled “Starshield,” a Starlink derivative for military use. Starshield can be used to “support national security efforts,” including spying on Earthbound targets and hosting government and military payloads.

SpaceX already beefed up Starlink’s ability to resist attacks by enemy governments in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, although it refused to block Russian propaganda websites. SpaceX’s Starlink helps provide critical communications for Ukraine’s defense forces.

Starshield will likely have improved security as well. SpaceX hasn’t revealed many details about what the satellites will look like. However, it says the communications capacity will include “additional high-assurance cryptographic capability to host classified payloads and process data securely.” It will also include laser communications between satellites that may be similar to the proposed lasers on the Starlink v2 satellites.

Although Starshield was criticized as a way for SpaceX to entrench itself as a defense contractor, it already launches military satellites, many of them classified payloads. It also launched unclassified payloads like GPS satellites and a laser communications experiment.

SpaceX may simply regard the U.S. military as just another customer, like NASA and civilian satellite owners like OneWeb. SpaceX plans to launch some OneWeb satellites today (December 8, 2022) despite some previous back-and-forth sniping between OneWeb and SpaceX. It also plans to launch a lunar lander and rover for Japan and the United Arab Emirates over the weekend.

Starshield wouldn’t be the first proposed “alternative” use for Starlink satellites. Researchers also found a way to use Starlink satellites as an alternative to the GPS constellation. The Air Force funded the research. Some SpaceX executives showed interest in the work and may have cited GPS-enabled technologies’ $146.4-billion-per-year market, but Musk passed on the opportunity, saying that “we can’t afford any distractions.” Despite Musk’s lack of support, the researchers found ways to reverse-engineer Starlink’s beacon signals.

Starshield may be a response to the Pentagon’s previous interest in Starlink’s improved security, which can now fend off military-style jamming attacks. The Air Force backed that up by awarding SpaceX a $1.9 million contract to provide Starlink access in Europe and Africa.

It’s good, but it’s expensive. Elon Musk previously complained about spending $20 million a month on providing Starlink-based communications to Ukraine, most of which probably goes toward its high-end cybersecurity defenses.

If Starshield becomes a reality, it will provide an alternative to using Starlink, which was meant for civilian use, for military purposes.

Space

FCC Authorizes Launch of 7,500 Starlink v2 Satellites

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

The FCC authorized SpaceX to launch up to 7,500 Starlink v2 satellites.  SpaceX had initially applied to launch 30,000 satellites. However, the FCC expressed concern that launching that many satellites would clutter up low Earth orbit and deferred a decision on launching the rest of the full 30,000.

SpaceX has already begun manufacturing the Starlink v2 satellites. Elon Musk says they will be bigger and more capable than the existing v1 satellites.

The v2 satellites are nearly five times as massive as the v1 satellites, potentially making them unsuitable for launch on SpaceX’s workhorse, the Falcon 9 rocket. Musk plans to launch them on Starship as soon as it becomes operational – which is taking longer than Musk originally planned due to likely bureaucratic hangups with the FAA.

(Yes, Musk has previously blistered the FAA for its seemingly sulky attitude toward regulating space operations.)

The FCC placed some conditions on launching the 7,500 Starlink v2 satellites. SpaceX has to coordinate with other satellite operators, NASA, and the National Science Foundation to protect assets and prevent interference with science missions.

SpaceX already has a memorandum of understanding with NASA to exchange data on assets in orbit. NASA’s important orbiting assets include iconic projects like the International Space Station and Hubble Space Telescope. It also has several Earth-observation satellites in orbit.

Competitors like ViaSat have lodged their own challenges to the FCC’s prior approvals of Starlink satellite launches, claiming that the proposed launch of that many satellites fails to consider environmental concerns. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk seemed somewhat dismissive of their complaints, implying that they just disliked competition.

However, their complaints failed to slow down SpaceX’s frequent launch of new Starlink satellites. It can add to its Starlink constellation as often as once every other week. It currently has 3,500 Starlink satellites in orbit and more than 500,000 Starlink subscribers.

Despite the often-fierce tug-of-war, SpaceX can unbend enough to launch a competitor’s satellites. SpaceX will launch 40 OneWeb satellites as early as December 6. OneWeb selected SpaceX for the job amid European aerospace companies’ and space agencies’ scramble to find alternative launch providers due to diplomatic tensions with Russia. Upon successful launch of the satellites, OneWeb’s constellation will be 80% complete.

The FCC may have been unimpressed by the competitors’ complaints, considering that it gave SpaceX the green light to at least get started with launching the Starlink v2 satellites. It may not have been everything that SpaceX wanted. However, it’s progress toward Starlink’s goal of a massive Internet-providing constellation.

Space

SpaceX Launches EutelSat Satellite, Reschedules ISS Resupply Mission

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

SpaceX launched a EutelSat for the European satellite Internet company EutelSat Communications on November 22, 2022. Like SpaceX’s Starlink constellation, EutelSat provides Internet connectivity for airplanes and ships in regions that are difficult for “normal” land-based high-speed Internet services to reach.

Unlike Starlink, EutelSat’s satellites reside in a geosychronous orbit that keeps each one over the same region on Earth. This provides reliable service for that specific region, but comes at the cost of higher latency since the satellites reside much farther from Earth. The most recently launched satellite will go to an orbit about 22,000 miles from Earth’s surface.

EutelSat provides Internet access in the North Atlantic, parts of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Thales Alenia Space, an aerospace company based in France and Italy, manufactures the Internet satellites.

The Falcon 9 booster used to launch the latest EutelSat satellite was in use since 2018. Previous flights included the launch of two communications satellites for Intelsat earlier this month. The EutelSat launch was the final launch for this booster, and it splashed down into the Atlantic Ocean. SpaceX did not try to retrieve it.

This is the fourth EutelSat satellite that SpaceX has launched. SpaceX previously had to delay the EutelSat launch by a day due to weather.

CRS-26 Delayed by Weather

It also had a resupply mission to the International Space Station, CRS-26, scheduled for November 22, but had to scrub that one due to poor weather as well. SpaceX has CRS-26 tentatively rescheduled for November 26.

Like most resupply missions, CRS-26 will deliver valuable supplies and scientific experiments to the International Space Station. One experiment will have the space station crew grow a variety of dwarf tomato as part of a study of how the light spectrum affects plant growth. The principle investigator behind this experiment, Gioia Massa, implied that the astronauts on the ISS will get a chance to taste-test the tomatoes.

“We are testing tomatoes, looking at the impacts of light spectrum on how well the crop grows, how delicious and nutritious the tomatoes are, and the microbial activity on the fruit and plants,” Massa said in a statement issued by NASA.

NASA is also testing a mini-microscope that could help with medical diagnoses during long-duration space missions and a method for manufacturing long and thin structures in microgravity. One biomedical experiment will study astronauts’ ability to adapt to different gravity levels during a space mission.

The CRS-26 cargo also includes new solar panels for the International Space Station to supplement its power supply. Unlike the ISS’s first solar panels, the new ones are thin ones that can be unrolled like a sleeping bag when they are deployed.

If CRS-26 launches on November 26, it will dock with the ISS on November 27.

Complaint Over Elon Musk’s $56 Billion Pay Package from Tesla Goes to Trial

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

Tesla shareholder Richard Tornetta’s legal complaint over Elon Musk’s 2018 pay package from Tesla went to trial last week. The complaint alleges that the $56 billion pay package was excessive and dictated largely by Musk. Tornetta also alleges that Tesla’s board of directors were too quick to go along with Musk’s demands and misled shareholders.

Last week, a Delaware judge heard five days’ worth of testimony, including three hours of testimony from Elon Musk. Musk and individuals who were members of Tesla’s board of directors at the time defended the pay package, saying that it was justified by Tesla’s rapid growth.

“It was a great deal for the shareholders,” said former board member Antonio Gracias.

At the time, Musk mostly split his time between SpaceX, Tesla, and the Boring Company. The defense said the pay package was a way to ensure that Musk paid proper attention to Tesla during a critical phase in the company’s history. Tesla nearly went bankrupt in 2017 when it faced issues that included problems with manufacturing the Model 3. The pay package was structured to provide opportunities to buy Tesla stock at a discount when Tesla met escalating performance and financial goals. If it didn’t meet those goals, Musk got nothing.

Tesla hit 11 of the 12 predetermined goals. Musk could sink the pay into his ultimate vision of making humans a multi-planetary species.

Just in the past couple of years, Tesla set a series of company records for quarterly vehicle deliveries and opened Gigafactories near Berlin, Germany, and Austin, Texas.

Major setbacks included delays in the opening of the German Gigafactory caused mostly by regulatory bureaucracy and lawsuits from German environmentalist groups. It had to close the Gigafactory in China for a while due to the Chinese government’s COVID-19 lockdowns.

Like most major automakers, Tesla had to issue recalls on a regular basis, with the latest recall involving more than 320,000 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles to resolve a software glitch affecting their taillights. The NHTSA has a VIN lookup tool you can use to see if your vehicle might be subject to a recall regardless of which company made your vehicle.

Tornetta’s legal team asked for the plan to be rescinded and Musk’s stock to be returned to Tesla. He alleges that the board of directors concealed important information about the plan and overstated how difficult it would be to reach three of the performance goals. The plaintiff presented the board of directors as mostly consisting of Musk’s friends or business partners and downplayed conditions conceded by Musk.

The concessions included the best method for granting the stock grants and a requirement to hold the stock awarded under the plan for at least five years.

The legal teams in this case wrapped their arguments up on Friday. Columbia Law School professor Eric Talley has been following the case and says judge is likely to rule for the defense.

“My sense is that even though it went all the way to trial, a ruling is going to favor Mr. Musk,” he said. He also cited the difficulty in keeping Musk’s attention, saying that “he’s like a Labrador retriever. He sees a ball and he runs after it. You could almost make an argument they didn’t pay him enough because he ran off after Twitter.”

Even so, a ruling could take months. The case can be appealed to Delaware’s state supreme court.

Space

SpaceX to Launch Last New Cargo Dragon on Next ISS Resupply Mission

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

SpaceX will launch its latest addition to the fleet of Cargo Dragons on t resupply mission CRS-26 to the International Space Station on November 22. This will also be the last time a brand-new Cargo Dragon is launched.

The launch slipped from its original date of November 21 due to a leak in the Cargo Dragon’s thermal control system. The necessary troubleshooting and repairs “put us a shift behind” the original schedule, says SpaceX mission management director Sarah Walker.

Cargo that will go up on CRS-26 include new hardware like solar arrays and valuable science experiments. The new solar arrays are an upgraded version that can be “rolled out” like you would roll out your sleeping bag on a camping trip (assuming, of course, that you are wearing an EVA suit and floating in weightlessness while doing it).

Researchers are sending an experimental new mini-microscope kit that could be used for medical diagnoses on future interplanetary space missions. The International Space Station crew will also grow dwarf tomatoes to test how light conditions and fertilizers affect fruit production in microgravity.

Weather forecasts for the Space Coast predict a 30% chance of favorable weather for launch on November 22 – something that is, of course, out of NASA’s and SpaceX’s control. If SpaceX and NASA have to delay it again, the next available launch windows will be on November 26 and November 27. If NASA and SpaceX do launch on November 22, they will livestream the launch in the below video.

SpaceX typically reuses its spacecraft and first stage rocket boosters with a little refurbishing between missions. This helps bring the cost of each launch down, making it competitive against long-standing aerospace contractors like Boeing and Northrop Grumman.

Its operational fleet includes four Crew Dragons and (now) three Cargo Dragons. SpaceX had been alternating between two Cargo Dragons with the serial numbers C208 and C209 for its Commercial Resupply Services 2 contract.

SpaceX anticipates that each Cargo Dragon capsule could fly as many as 15 times. Some parts will, of course, be replaced as necessary between flights.

SpaceX recently decided to build one more Crew Dragon. At a press conference, Walker cited increased demand for missions using the Crew Dragon as a major reason for the decision.

NASA added several missions to SpaceX’s Commercial Crew contract to compensate for delays in Boeing’s Starliner and ensure continued access to the International Space Station in the wake of diplomatic tensions with Russia. Demand for private spaceflight that will use the Crew Dragon includes a series of flights to the ISS organized by Axiom Space and the Polaris Program.

The Polaris Program will involve a Gemini Program-like series of flight tests that will test new EVA suits and send the Crew Dragon to altitudes that take them “above” the International Space Station’s altitude. Inspiration4’s Jared Isaacman will command the first mission, called Polaris Dawn.

SpaceX is currently the only American private company that has a crew-rated spacecraft. (Boeing, probably: “We’re trying, we’re trying!”)

If the weather cooperates, it will get CRS-26 to the International Space Station before everyone goes home for Thanksgiving.

Former SpaceX Employees Allege Labor Violations in New Lawsuit

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

Eight former SpaceX employees filed a lawsuit alleging that SpaceX violated National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) regulations when SpaceX fired them. They claim that the firings amounted to retaliation for asking management to condemn Elon Musk’s “harmful” public statements on Twitter.

They allege that the request, plus an open letter condemning Musk’s behavior, are covered by NLRB regulations protecting “concerted protected activities.” Their letter called Musk’s controversial tweets a “frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us.”

They claim that Musk’s public statements contributed to a toxic workplace environment. Elon Musk previously called allegations that he exposed himself to a female flight attendant on a private plane “untrue.” He also has a bad habit of making poorly considered sexual jokes and throwing around baseless accusations like calling one rescuer a “pedo” during a dramatic rescue of a sports team trapped in a cave.

The former employees allege that they were subjected to what one of the plaintiffs, Paige Holland-Thielen, described as “ongoing mistreatment, harassment, and abuse.” Their initial letter also accused senior management of unevenly enforcing SpaceX’s famous “no assholes” policy.

SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell described the “no assholes” policy this way at a commencement speech at Northwestern University: “These kinds of people — assholes — interrupt others; they shut down or co-opt conversation; and they create a hostile environment where no one wants to contribute. … Embrace the ideas of your fellow workers, especially when they differ greatly from yours.”

Shotwell criticized the process by which the now-fired employees attempted to collect signatures for their letter to management, saying that it made employees feel “uncomfortable, intimidated and bullied.” She alleged in a company-wide email that they were pressuring employees to sign something they disagreed with.

The eight employees say that they are also filing a formal complaint with the NLRB, which will launch its own investigation. The NLRB previously took action against Tesla for attempting to forbid employees to wear shirts with labor union logos at work and ordered Musk to take down an anti-union tweet. A judge also ruled that Tesla improperly fired pro-union activities.

SpaceX did not issue a public statement about the lawsuit brought by the eight former employees. Neither SpaceX nor Tesla have media relations departments.

An attorney representing the plaintiffs, Laurie Burgess, had this to say about it:

“It’s shocking that SpaceX appears to believe that its mission of getting humans to Mars justifies turning a blind eye to workers’ basic civil rights. I’m proud to represent the brave employees who stepped up to challenge SpaceX’s conduct by collectively advocating for basic workplace protections.”

In the meantime? Well, maybe Elon Musk would benefit from running his tweets past a lawyer first like a judge in a previous case against his companies required him to do. Meanwhile, it would be reasonable to assume that his tweets don’t reflect the views of the employees working for his companies.

Space

SpaceX Appoints Gwynn Shotwell as New Starship Manager

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

SpaceX reshuffled the personnel in charge of development for the Starship rocket, appointing president Gwynn Shotwell and vice president Mark Juncosa as its new overseers. They will take a more direct role in managing Starship-related facilities and operations.

Gwynn Shotwell and Mark Juncosa are two of SpaceX’s longest-serving senior employees. With the reshuffling, they will now oversee the Boca Chica test facility, which SpaceX calls “Starbase.”

Starship’s previous manager, Shyamal Patel, is moving to a position that will take him to Cape Canaveral in Florida, where SpaceX launches a lot of important hardware and NASA astronauts on its Falcon 9 rockets. It recently launched a classified payload for the U.S. military on its Falcon Heavy at Cape Canaveral – the first flight of SpaceX’s most powerful operational rocket in nearly three years.

A former Tesla operations manager named Omead Afshar is also moving over to SpaceX to serve as VP of Starship production.

According to sources familiar with the matter, Juncosa previously visited Starbase as part of a two-week review of development progress for Starship. Regulatory red tape was blamed for delays in a planned orbital test of the Starship/Super Heavy stack that has now dragged on for over a year. The FAA wanted an environmental review and also received an enormous number of public comments that needed to be reviewed. (Not a bad thing – it means the public is paying attention to SpaceX even if some of the comments might have been motivated by disliking Elon Musk rather than the technical aspects of Starship-related testing.)

Now Juncosa’s findings seem to indicate that conditions in the company may push the orbital test back even farther. NASA had said SpaceX told it that the orbital test could happen as early as December.

The conditions may include the 75 environmental-related issues that the FAA demanded that SpaceX address when it completed the environmental review in June. SpaceX has been fairly closed-mouthed about progress on resolving these issues.

Elon Musk also reported issues with producing the Raptor rocket engines. The vice president in charge of the Raptor was removed from management of manufacturing the engines and left the company. SpaceX now manufactures one Raptor engine per day. Last year, Elon Musk announced “breaking ground” on a new factory near Starbase that will manufacture the engine, which he says could help get those numbers up to 2 to 4 Raptor engines per day.

Starship will be critical for SpaceX’s future plans. It already has contracts to develop a Starship-derived lunar lander for NASA’s Artemis Program and send Dennis Tito around the Moon in a Starship spacecraft. SpaceX and Elon Musk have floated applications for Starship ranging from rapid point-to-point delivery of cargo on Earth to sending people to Mars.

Elon Musk is, of course, busy trying to figure out Twitter, which may be distracting him from SpaceX and Tesla right now. It might seem a little like watching a train wreck right now. However, things could get interesting, considering that Twitter recently filed a regulatory application to create a subsidiary that will serve as what regulators call a “money transmitter” – basically a payment processor like PayPal or Stripe. (Not financial advice, of course, but the Dogecoin community will be watching that like hawks – or vultures.)

So it may make sense that he wants executives he can trust to watch over things while he’s busy. Long-standing executives like Gwynn Shotwell and Mark Juncosa are most likely to be the people he trusts most to keep things moving with Starship.

Technology

SpaceX Removes Hyperloop “Test Track” at California Headquarters

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

SpaceX removed a Hyperloop in front of its Hawthorne, California, headquarters at the city’s request. The Hyperloop had been used for testing of experimental transportation solutions.

According to city officials, SpaceX may still have some cleaning up to do after removing the test tube at its Hawthorne facility, including removing a barricade and some plastic cones and getting rid of an unauthorized parking lot. They also expressed curiosity about whether SpaceX was still working on an underground tube.

Hawthorne’s residents had complained to the city that the test tube blocked pedestrian access to a sidewalk. It also blocked the eastbound lane going toward Crenshaw Avenue, which could cause traffic flow complications during busy periods like the morning “rush hour” of people going to work.

It also caused safety issues, including several cases of SpaceX employees getting hit by vehicles while crossing the street. To solve the issue, SpaceX built a pedestrian bridge between its parking garage and the main headquarters complex.

SpaceX still has a mile-long underground test tube, though city officials could not confirm whether that tube is still in use. They say they will give the matter closer scrutiny. Hawthorne City Attorney Robert Kim mentioned that SpaceX faces a requirement to backfill the underground test tube when testing is complete.

As normal for SpaceX (and Tesla), it did not issue a statement on the removal of the test Hyperloop tube or reply to media requests for comment. However, there have been reports that Hyperloop has been “permanently shelved.”

SpaceX previously pulled out of a tunnel project that could transport passengers between the Rancho Cucamonga Metrolink station and Ontario International Airport. Local officials say the project will continue without SpaceX.

SpaceX also dropped a proposal to build a Hyperloop in Los Angeles after a lawsuit alleged that the city violated state law by attempting to exempt it from a required environmental review.

Last year, Elon Musk suggested having the Boring Company drill a tunnel between SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas, rocket testing facility and an area just south of Saint Padre Island. Several employees live on the island and Musk suggested that such a tunnel would make it easier for them to reach the test facility.

Officials were also considering acquiring a ferry to provide transportation between Saint Padre Island and a beach close to the facility. They said they couldn’t provide any funding for the proposed project – understandable since tunneling can be expensive. Since then, Elon Musk appeared to have forgotten the matter.

A 1.7-mile Hyperloop installation in Las Vegas cost $47 million to build. Its test riders said it could be pretty bumpy. Virgin Hyperloop also invested in a 500-meter underground track in Las Vegas that could transport passengers in a pod at up to 172 miles per hour. (Just make sure you’re securely fastened in when it starts and stops. Acceleration can throw you if you let it.) Since then, Virgin Hyperloop distanced itself from the Virgin Group with a name change to Hyperloop One when the Virgin Group expressed a desire to focus on cargo transport instead of passenger transport.

However, not everyone is giving up. Hardt recently signed a deal with Posco International, which will provide steel for a pod development and testing hub named European Hyperloop Center (EHC).

SpaceX once promised that a Hyperloop could cut the trip between San Francisco and Los Angeles to 35 minutes – a big deal for people who regularly commute between them. Now it seems to be backing away from the Hyperloop.

SpaceX Puts Data Restrictions on High-Volume Starlink Users

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

SpaceX announced that it will put data restrictions on high-volume Starlink users, including reducing upload and download speeds for users that use more than one terabyte of data per month. It promises that the throttling will only happen during peak hours.

Individual Starlink plans come in two tiers: “Priority Access” with faster speeds, and the cheaper but slower “Basic Access.” Once individuals on the “Priority Access” plan reach the data limit, their access will be scaled back to the “Basic Access” plan unless they agree to pay a per-gigabyte fee for the amount of data over the one-terabyte cap.

SpaceX had not originally planned to have tiered access for Starlink, but apparently changed its mind. It had also floated the idea of having a cheaper service tier for low-income customers. Starlink also offers an “enterprise-level” plan, as well as plans for Starlink access on boats and large vehicles like RVs. (If you must have Starlink for your vehicle, please don’t mount the terminal on the hood of your car.)

SpaceX blamed the decision on “a small number of users consuming unusually high amounts of data” in an email to customers. It says the change is expected to impact up to 10% of Starlink — presumably the ones that use the most data.

Could be people like…

  • People who work from home, who might want to consider sacking out at their favorite cafe or their local library instead.
  • Gamers, who won’t like to be told to cut back on their gaming.
    • People who have a live-streaming gaming channel on Twitch or something similar too.
  • “Influencers” who do a lot of videos.
  • Podcasters

…Though, really, it’s easy to use more data than you think you are. Even just using an audio streaming service can eat up your data.

Starlink has thousands of satellites in orbit and SpaceX frequently launches 50+ more Starlink satellites on each Falcon 9 launch dedicated to Starlink. However, this decision implies that there are limits to even Starlink’s growing capacity.

The Starlink website calls the satellite Internet service “a finite resource that will continue to grow as we launch additional satellites.” The service had more than half a million users in June 2022 and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk previously bragged about a long waitlist. SpaceX also made deals with countries like Brazil and Chile to provide Starlink service for remote communities that are hard for “traditional” ISPs to reach.

Starlink may be a bigger resource suck than anyone outside of SpaceX suspected. Its selling points include low latency, speeds that are comparable to “landline” broadband, and ability to reach areas that previously didn’t have access to reliable high-speed access. Like Tesla for electric cars and SpaceX for reusable rocket boosters, Starlink was an early mover for delivering Internet access from low-Earth orbit instead of geosynchronous orbit like ViaSat does. However, it could have been reaching its capacity limit during peak periods.

(Yes, ViaSat does complain, though maybe it’s not completely unwarranted. Tens of thousands of satellites are a lot to have in a single low-Earth-orbit constellation.)

SpaceX told the Pentagon that it spends $20 million a month to provide satellite Internet service to Ukraine – an expense that includes defending the constellation against sophisticated attacks from Russia. (“Military-grade” cybersecurity is not cheap. However, the Starlink team does a good job of it to earn kudos from the U.S. military.) The Pentagon is in talks with SpaceX to keep Starlink functionality up and running for Ukrainian forces. However, SpaceX did briefly suspend the service in Ukraine due to lack of payment.

Space

SpaceX Launches Falcon Heavy for First Time in Three Years

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

The Falcon 9 has been the workhorse of SpaceX’s operational rockets. On October 20, 2022, it made its 48th launch for 2022, setting a new record for number of launches made by a single rocket model in a calendar year.

The Falcon Heavy sees less use but can launch bigger payloads. It made its first launch in three years, sending up a classified payload for the USSF on November 1.

Public information on the payload indicates that it launched a prototype micro-satellite called TETRA-1 and another, larger satellite that is presumably the classified payload. The mission had originally been slated for 2020, but got delayed due to unspecified issues with the payload.

Naturally, SpaceX landed the first stage boosters on one of its drone barges, marketing the 150th and 151st recovery of boosters capable of sending payloads into orbit. This also marks SpaceX’s 50th successful launch for this year.

The Falcon Heavy is the most powerful operational rocket in the world with three times the thrust of the Falcon 9. The SLS and SpaceX’s Starship/Super Heavy stack are still in the testing phase.

The Falcon Heavy famously sent a Tesla Model 3 with a spacesuit in the driver’s seat toward Mars in 2018, though the Model 3 missed and is still floating around in space somewhere. Even so, the launch inspired comic books.

The Falcon Heavy also flew twice in 2019. However, there doesn’t seem to be as much demand for using it to launch payloads as the Falcon 9 gets. The Falcon 9 taps the market for small satellite launches with its dedicated Transporter missions and frequently launches Starlink satellites.

The Falcon Heavy may also be getting sandwiched between the Falcon 9 and the promise that Starship can deploy bigger satellites or bigger payloads of multiple small satellites. Elon Musk previously floated the idea of using Starship to send up more Starlink satellites with each launch. The U.S. military also expressed interest in using Starship for rapid deployment of supplies to disaster zones on Earth.

SpaceX plans for Starship being capable of sending people to the Moon or Mars. It has a contract with NASA to develop a Starship-derived lunar lander for the Artemis Program. SpaceX’s Human Landing System is slated to launch on Artemis III. Dennis Tito recently booked a flight to the Moon on Starship.

However, Starship has been getting delayed by regulatory red tape – which, of course, Elon Musk groused about. The planned orbital test of Starship could have happened during the summer of 2021, but kept getting held up by required environmental studies and the sheer number of comments that the FCC got.

The Falcon Heavy could launch again as soon as December with a commercial satellite on board. The boosters that SpaceX retrieved yesterday could also be used for another national security mission as soon as January.

SpaceX Plans to Reduce Number of V-Band Starlink Satellites

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

SpaceX filed a new application with the FCC describing a way to reduce the number of V-Band Starlink satellites by integrating them with its second-generation satellites.

It originally planned to launch 7,518 V-Band satellites into orbits ranging from 335 km to 346 km above Earth. Most of the 3,000+ Starlink satellites that are already in orbit operate at an altitude of 550 km.

The FCC had approved the V-Band satellites if SpaceX launched half of them by November 19, 2024, and the full constellation by November 19, 2027. After that, the license to deploy them will expire. Despite the frequent launches to deploy more Starlink satellites, SpaceX has not launched any of the satellites equipped with V-Band yet.

V-Band can increase the amount of bandwidth available to customers. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) defined V-Band as a section of the microwave portion of the electromagnetic spectrum between 40 and 75 GHz.

The U.S. military used the 60-GHz frequency to test V-Band communications between satellites with Milstar 1 and 2. (Milstar could’ve been part of President Reagan’s awkwardly-named “Star Wars” program.)

More recently, V-Band became part of newer Internet standards like the short-range Wi-Fi standard IEEE 802.11ad, which uses the 60GHz frequency to deliver up to 7 Gbps with a range of up to 10 meters. The IEEE 802.11ay standard is a similar but more capable standard that can deliver up to 100 Gbps using V-Band frequencies and newer technological advancements.

V-Band can also be used for wireless broadband and satellite Internet constellations. Besides SpaceX, OneWeb, Boeing, Telesat, O3b Holdings, and Theia Holdings have all applied to operate satellite constellations that include V-Band communications capability.

Competitors and skywatchers complained about the total number of Starlink satellites that SpaceX plans to watch.

SpaceX was particularly dismissive of ViaSat’s complaint in a letter to the FCC, calling the competitor’s concerns “baseless.”

The letter went on to say that SpaceX was working with scientists and regulators to “establish and implement best practices designed to preserve space and our environment for future generations.”

Astronomers say an increasingly crowded sky can interfere with the readings they get from ground-based instruments. SpaceX has tried to solve this problem by reducing the amount of sunlight that Starlink satellites can reflect. So it’s not entirely ignoring the problem even if it frequently pushes back against complaints from competitors like ViaSat.

SpaceX has not clarified how much its new plan to integrate V-Band with its second-generation Starlink satellites will reduce the number of satellites. Its current plans include launching as many as 30,000 Starlink satellites to deliver worldwide Internet access from low Earth orbit.

SpaceX to Offer Starlink Service in Philippines

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

It’s been a crazy week for Elon Musk as he closes his deal to acquire Twitter. However, for SpaceX, it’s business as usual as it partners with a Philippines-based business called Data Lake Inc. to offer Starlink service in the Philippines.

The deal with Data Lake Inc. is a first for SpaceX in the Southeast Asia market. Developing Internet access in the Philippines has proven difficult, considering it consists of 7,600 islands, some of which are difficult for “traditional” Internet service providers to reach. The Philippines also gets hit with an average of 20 tropical storms a year, which does damage to infrastructure and can cause communications between islands to drop out.

“The Philippines is an archipelago, and connecting our country to the wider world often requires extensive infrastructure,” Data Lake Chairman Anthony Almeda said.

The deal with Starlink can provide a backup to keep communications up and running as the archipelago tries to rebuild after each tropical storm. It can also provide Internet service for the 93% of the Philippines’ population that don’t have fixed broadband Internet subscriptions. According to the World Bank, the Philippines has lagged behind other countries in the region like Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand when it comes to reliable access to high-speed Internet.

With this deal, Starlink and Data Lake Inc. can more readily provide Internet access to the Philippines’ government and local businesses. The country’s information and communications technology ministry said Starlink could enter the market as early as 2023.

SpaceX Still Rocks Launching Satellites and Landing Rocket Stages

SpaceX launched more than 3,500 satellites for the Starlink constellation on its Falcon 9 rockets. On October 27, 2022, it launched 53 more of them.

The rocket it used for this most recent launch has now been reused eight times and the first stage successfully landed on the barge named “Of Course I Still Love You.” By this point, they make landing the first stage look easy. This first stage booster previously launched the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich Earth-observation satellite in November 2020 and NASA’s DART mission in November 2021.

(DART reached and smashed into its target asteroid on September 26, 2022. But don’t worry; it was supposed to do that. NASA explains in the below news conference.)

With that many Starlink satellites in orbit, SpaceX can now reliably blanket Earth with Internet access. It even piloted Internet service for science stations in the Antarctic.

Gaining licensing from governments has occasionally proven to be the tricky part. A French court revoked Starlink’s license in April. SpaceX had to issue refunds to Indian customers after India ordered it to stop “booking/rendering the satellite internet service” without obtaining a license.

This is one arena where Elon Musk may reasonably express frustration with regulations and government bureaucracy. In the wake of having to issue refunds in India, he wrote in a statement, “At Starlink, we want to serve the underserved. We hope to work with fellow broadband providers, solution providers in the aspirational districts to improve and save lives.”

However, other countries like the Philippines are more receptive due to the challenge of running “land lines” to remote or hard-to-reach communities and the need to keep communications up and running in the wake of natural disasters like the frequent tropical storms that hit the Philippines.

Elon Musk Officially Takes Charge of Twitter Ahead of Friday Deadline

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

Unconfirmed sources say that Elon Musk officially took charge of Twitter ahead of an October 28, 2022, deadline set by a judge. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and CFO Ned Segal joined the ranks of Twitter employees leaving the company as of October 27.

By completing the deal before October 28, Musk avoided a court battle with Twitter’s board of directors. The board of directors initially hesitated to support Musk’s planned acquisition soon after regulatory filings revealed that Musk bought enough Twitter stock to equal a 9.2% stake in the company. Rumors swirled that he planned to make an offer to take the company private, which were quickly confirmed when Elon Musk made an offer.

The board of directors and Twitter stakeholders eventually approved the deal. Musk seemed to get cold feet over it soon afterward, sparking a months-long back-and-forth between legal teams for both parties that included a lawsuit filed by Twitter. However, he reversed course again earlier this months and allowed that he would go through with the deal.

Free Speech Important, but Not Everything Goes

Twitter employees have been departing for other Big Tech companies at a rapid rate since the deal was announced. 1,100 of them left since April, with 530 of them leaving in the previous quarter. Some of it could be normal employee churn. Some of them didn’t want to work for a demanding boss like Elon Musk and, anyway, he had expressed his intention to lay off up to 75% of Twitter’s 7,500 employees. Some of them expressed concern that unlikeable individuals who had been banned would get their Twitter accounts back after Musk declared himself a “free speech absolutist.”

But? Despite his previously expressed support for free speech, Musk posted an open letter promising advertisers that Twitter would not become “a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!”

Musk expressed concern that social media in general could devolve into a series of echo chambers. Gab.com, for instance, was accused of being a far-right echo chamber (and what I’ve seen of it does not indicate that they’re wrong). Musk planned to turn Twitter into a “town square” in which ideas could be freely (and preferably non-violently) debated.

“Crypto Twitter” going to extremes?

Musk floated the idea of integrating crypto and toyed with the idea of charging a small amount of Dogecoin per tweet, which could have amounted to a stopgap measure in his stated intention of stopping scams and spam on Twitter. In what could be a totally coincidental accident of timing, Twitter developers announced that they are working with NFT marketplaces to integrate direct buying and selling of NFTs with Tweets.

Elon Musk waltzed into Twitter’s headquarters carrying – of all things – a kitchen sink. While there, he made a stop at Twitter’s coffee bar.

The sink could be seen as Musk’s typical sense of humor, with a slight implication that he intended to do a bit of cleaning. It could also be a reference to his vaguely described “X App,” which he implied could include “everything but the kitchen sink.”

He is now officially in charge at Twitter now that the CEO and CFO are out and, by implication, the deal has closed. Twitter stock soared for the last time before what could be its final closing before its delisting from the New York Stock Exchange, ending at $53.83. (And, boy, what a roller coaster it has been since April.)

Space

SpaceX to Launch Scientific Missions for European Space Agency

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

Earlier this year, the European Space Agency (ESA) selected SpaceX as one of a few possible backup launch providers after sanctions against Russia forced it to scuttle agreements with Roscosmos to launch its hardware. Now SpaceX will launch two scientific missions for the ESA.

“In response to EU sanctions against our enterprises, Roscosmos is suspending cooperation with European partners in organizing space launches,” said Russia’s space agency.

The Euclid Space Telescope

The Euclid Space Telescope was originally slated to launch this year from French Guinea. However, when Roscosmos withdrew its employees from the launch site, the ESA was forced to delay the launch and consider alternatives.

Euclid will now launch on a SpaceX rocket in 2023 and orbit near the James Webb Space Telescope, which was launched in October 2021.

Euclid will provide data for scientists interested in studying dark matter and dark energy. Researchers call it “dark” matter and energy because they can’t be detected directly with existing instruments. However, scientists are refining techniques for detecting their presence and measuring their effect on the universe.

Euclid could provide clues about the early universe and even help researchers refine their models of conditions in the universe right after the Big Bang. The James Webb Space Telescope’s sensitive infrared instrument already detected three early galaxies that existed 11.3 billion years ago. The research team behind the discovery of these galaxies now believe that they are part of a newly discovered cluster of early galaxies. Euclid could provide more data on how large structures like these galaxies formed.

ESA’s Euclid telescope could also provide clues about dark energy’s role in the accelerating expansion of the universe. It might also provide clues about the relationship between dark matter and neutrinos and the nature of any other dark matter particles that are – so far – mostly hypothetical.

The Hera Mission

SpaceX will launch the Hera mission in 2024. Hera will provide a closer look at the results of NASA’s DART mission, which sent a small spacecraft to collide with an asteroid named Dimorphos. The collision tested a proposed method for redirecting potentially dangerous asteroids that could collide with Earth.

Dimorphos orbits a bigger asteroid named Didymos, making it ideal for testing an impact’s effect on its orbital path. Observations from Earth-based telescopes indicate that DART altered its orbit – maybe a bit more than intended due to a jet of air escaping Didymos after the impact.

Hera will also study the properties of Didymos and Dimorphos. It will also release six CubeSats that can take multi-point readings as part of a “mother-daughter” configuration. These CubeSats will be capable of communicating with one another to provide redundancy.

Redundancy is a good thing.

The European Space Agency has its own rocket, the Ariane 5, which can launch heavier payloads. It is still working on Ariane 6, which has faced multiple delays.

However, it prefers to have a fair amount of redundancy in the wake of sanctions against Russia, which put cooperation between the ESA and Roscosmos on hold. It also cited Japanese and Indian launch providers when announcing its selection of backup launch providers for medium-sized payloads.

ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher admitted that SpaceX is among the best private companies in the world for space launch services. He warned that the rest of the world was falling behind and SpaceX could end up “making the rules” in space if everybody else doesn’t keep up.

Roscosmos gave the ESA few enough options for launching important scientific missions like the Euclid Space Telescope and Hera, however. International relations can be a real headache sometimes. SpaceX is perfectly happy to pick up the slack and get stuff done even when Russia is aiming barbs at everybody else.

Researchers Find Way to Use Starlink as GPS Alternative

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

A research team led by Todd Humphrey of the University of Texas found a way to use SpaceX’s Starlink constellation for navigation. This could provide a backup for the current GPS satellite system.

The U.S. Army funds Humphrey’s research. It would like a backup for GPS in case it gets hacked or goes down. While the Space Force has launched new GPS satellites on SpaceX’s rockets recently, most GPS satellites have been in Earth orbit for several years.

His research team reverse-engineered signals from Starlink to stations and terminals on the ground. He says its regular beacon signals could be used for a space-based navigation system with a minimum of modification.

According to Humphrey, Starlink could provide that backup. Some SpaceX executives expressed interest at first when he presented his idea. However, Elon Musk turned it down.

Humphrey says Elon Musk told the executives, “We can’t afford any distractions.” Musk was apparently concerned about the number of LEO-based communications companies that had gone into bankruptcy in the past.

Musk’s concerns may not be unwarranted, considering that he recently made noise about spending $20 million a month on providing Starlink-based Internet service to Ukraine in the middle of Russia’s ongoing invasion. According to Musk, most of the costs involve fending off Russia’s attacks on the constellation, building hardware, and paying other telecommunications companies for gateways. In communications with the U.S. military, he said SpaceX couldn’t keep funding it.

Publicly, Elon Musk reversed course although he complained about other companies getting “billions of dollars” for similar things. However, the military said it is in talks with SpaceX to help fund it. The Pentagon has said that SpaceX’s work to make Starlink more resistant to cyberattacks and jamming is impressive.

Even with Musk’s concerns about financing, Grand View Research predicted that the GPS industry could be worth $146.4 billion a year by 2025. The market isn’t just GPS-enabled golf course rangefinders and the admittedly-sometimes-wrong Maps app on your phone. GPS is also used in road, aviation, marine, location-based services, and surveying and mapping applications.

Even though Musk wasn’t enthusiastic about the idea, Humphrey managed to plant the idea of using Starlink for navigation in his brain. It would be unsurprising if that becomes an optional add-on for Starlink’s Internet service for large vehicles like boats and RVs.

The U.S. Army could also dangle some money in front of SpaceX to implement Starlink for navigation services. SpaceX has more than 2,200 satellites in low Earth orbit – enough to provide coverage for nearly the entire planet. It’s even piloting Starlink services in Antarctica, which is about as remote as you can get on Earth.

And if SpaceX remains disinterested, well, OneWeb is already launching similar Internet satellites into orbit even if it had to use SpaceX’s rockets to get them off the ground. Amazon’s Project Kuiper is (finally) nearly ready to. The competition could give Elon Musk a little kick in the pants to get him interested in using Starlink for navigation services.

Space

Crew Dragon “Freedom” Brings Crew-4 Home

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

The Crew Dragon named “Freedom” nailed its first crewed mission while bringing Crew-4 in for a successful splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean, just off Florida’s east coast near Jacksonville.

Crew-4 spent six months on the International Space Station and returned to Earth on October 14, 2022. NASA and SpaceX officials say the splashdown went smoothly.

“From my perspective, watching the vehicle data those five and a half months was delightfully boring, while the crew got to do all the exciting work onboard ISS,” SpaceX Director of Crew Dragon Management Sarah Walker said during a post-splashdown news conference.

In the aerospace world, boring is a good thing. Historically, adrenaline-inducing events can range from a false reading on a flight controller’s screen to the loss of a crew in an accident.

Past problems with the Crew Dragon included an incident in which the heat shield ablated away more than expected in some places during reentry. The problem has since been fixed.

SpaceX also previously looked into a parachute that delayed opening during reentry. The issue first showed up during the Crew-2 reentry and happened again during the reentry of a Cargo Dragon carrying valuable results of scientific experiments. The Dragons are typically equipped with four parachutes and one NASA official initially speculated that three of them could have gotten in the way of the fourth.

During the Demo-2 mission, some boats carrying curiosity-seekers got too close to the spacecraft after the Crew Dragon splashed down. Demo-2 was the first time that the Crew Dragon carried a crew into space and the final test flight before NASA declared the spacecraft operational. NASA has since worked it out with the Coast Guard to establish a better perimeter to protect the spacecraft after it splashes down.

Crew-4 included NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines and Jessica Watkins and ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti. They conducted 250 scientific experiments during their six months on the International Space Station. Just before they left the ISS, they spent a few days handling handover procedures with the newly arrived Crew-5.

Crew-4 returned home only five hours after departing the ISS, which is fast for a return from the space station.

“This was actually the fastest return we’ve done on a crew mission — on any mission — to date,” said Sarah Walker.

Crew-5 will continue conducting scientific experiments as part of Expeditions 68 and 69. Some of them are valuable biological and medical experiments that could improve treatments for serious health conditions on Earth. They will return home in Spring 2023, not long after Crew-6 arrives.

The International Space Station is also expecting a visit from Axiom-2 in Spring 2023. This second fully private mission to the ISS will feature retired NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson’s return to the space station. The Axiom missions are part of preparations for adding new inflatable modules to the ISS. These modules will eventually be spun off into a privately owned space station that NASA can rent space on.

Axiom Space is organizing the private Axiom flights. The Commercial Crew flights are part of a contract between NASA and SpaceX. The ULA has a Commercial Crew contract too, but it’s still working on getting the Starliner ready for crewed missions. NASA expanded SpaceX’s Commercial Crew contract due to delays in Starliner development and to ensure access to the International Space Station amid ongoing diplomatic tensions between the U.S. and NASA.

Space

Dennis Tito Books Trip on SpaceX Starship

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

Dennis Tito, a former aerospace engineer who later became a financial analyst, booked a trip for himself and his wife on SpaceX’s Starship. The trip will take them around the Moon.

Tito is best known for being the first private citizen to become a “space tourist.” He paid Russia $20 million for a flight to the International Space Station in 2001. The deal caused concern about Russia sending untrained “tourists” to the ISS until Tito agreed to pay for any damage he caused.

It would be natural to wonder if the trip around the Moon will ever happen. Tito is currently 82 years old. SpaceX has not even conducted a planned orbital test yet, though it would be easy to blame that on the FAA being the futz who is holding things up.

If the trip around the Moon goes through, it could carry as many as ten other as-yet-unnamed passengers. Tito’s trip could be the second fully private trip around the Moon with passengers on board, after Japanese fashion mogul Yusaku Maezawa’s “dearMoon” flight. The dearMoon flight was originally slated to occur as early as 2023, though it is likely to get pushed back due to delays in Starship testing.

While waiting, Yusaku Maezawa followed in Dennis Tito’s footsteps by going on a 12-day, privately funded trip to the International Space Station.

Tito did not disclose how much he might end up paying for the two seats. In an interview with CBS, he expressed enthusiasm about being among the first people to get a view of Earth from as far out as the Moon since NASA’s Apollo Program ended.

“We will be literally out of this world,” he said.

He sounded unworried about the challenges that a senior citizen might face during a multi-day space mission, mentioning that he had been focused on staying in shape since his 2001 trip to the ISS.

“I’ve taken up weightlifting in a serious way. And I wasn’t able then to manage the kind of weight I can manage now. So I think I’m in better shape,” he told CBS.

His wife, Akiko Tito, is a pilot and also trains for fitness competitions. She has a degree in economics and experience working on Wall Street. She married Dennis Tito in 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and joked about the flight around the Moon being a possible belated honeymoon.

The Starship stack will include a “Super Heavy” first stage booster capable of producing 16 million tons of thrust with a cluster of 33 Raptor engines. This is twice as much as NASA’s SLS booster. The Starship upper stage includes six Raptor engines and will be able to execute “tail-first” landings. SpaceX is currently working on a version of Starship that can land on the Moon like some of the “lunar landing rockets” that graced science fiction covers in the 1950s and 1960s.

Both stages will be fully reusable as part of SpaceX’s efforts to bring the cost of spaceflight down. Organizations that are interested in sending hardware into Earth orbit can already save money by opting for a previously flown Falcon 9 booster. SpaceX aims to use reusable SpaceX to make crewed journeys to the Moon and Mars more affordable (if not necessarily as cheap as buying a plane ticket).

Technology

PepsiCo to Get First Batch of Tesla Semis

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

According to a tweet from Elon Musk, Tesla is finally ready to start manufacturing its Tesla Semis. PepsiCo confirmed that it will get the first batch of them, with delivery expected in December.

PepsiCo reserved 100 of the Semi trucks in 2017 and is not the only company that has been waiting years for delivery. Walmart Canada more than tripled its reservation of Tesla Semis to 130 units in December 2020. UPS and the food distribution company Sysco Corp have also placed orders.

PepsiCo did not disclose how many Tesla Semis it would receive in December. However, its website says it will operate as many as 15 electric semi-trucks by the end of the year. It already has a Megacharger for the Semis installed at a Frito-Lay plant in Modesto, California.

The companies expect their fleets of Tesla Semis to help them become more environmentally friendly. Walmart Canada aims to cut its net carbon emissions to zero by 2040. PepsiCo ordered the trucks in an effort to cut fuel costs and emissions. PepsiCo says transportation accounts for 10% of its carbon emissions. Its trucks travel 1.2 billion miles per year.

The trucks will primarily be used for short hauls. Tesla CEO Elon Musk says they can travel up to 500 miles on a single charge and are “super fun to drive.”

The Tesla Semi can deliver merchandise from a Walmart warehouse to surrounding retail sites in less than a day and recharge overnight. PepsiCo aims to use it to deliver products from the Frito-Lay plant in Modesto and its PepsiCo beverages factory in Sacramento, California.

Although there’s no word on whether they will be equipped with Autopilot or Full Self-Driving, some people might remember that one episode of The Simpsons. While fully self-driving trucks don’t exist yet, it wouldn’t be the first time The Simpsons predicted something.

Tesla expected to start producing them in 2019. However, parts shortages forced it to delay production. A shortage of semiconductor chips, which are mostly produced in Taiwan, was especially concerning. Tesla briefly floated the idea of manufacturing its own chips to use in its vehicles.

Despite a string of good news in 2022 that includes the Tesla Semi finally going into production, Tesla stock is sliding. Investors expressed concern about Elon Musk’s upcoming $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, worrying that he might be spreading him too thin.

With the opening of Gigafactory Berlin and Gigafactory Texas, there was some concern that Tesla can now produce electric vehicles faster than it can deliver them. However, it reportedly still controls a 2/3 market share for EVs despite increasing competition from other vehicle manufacturing companies that didn’t take EVs very seriously before Tesla took off.

Tesla initially planned to manufacture the Semi at Gigafactory Texas. However, the Semi is being produced near the Gigafactory in Nevada.

NASA, SpaceX Launch Crew-5 Mission

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

NASA and SpaceX launched Crew-5 on the Crew Dragon named “Endurance” on October 5, 2022. Once it reaches the International Space Station, Crew-5 will join Expedition 68 on the International Space Station and spend the next several months conducting valuable scientific research.

Crew-5 is the fifth operational flight for NASA’s Commercial Crew program. The Demo-2 mission became the first to carry a crew and final test flight of the Crew Dragon when it carried Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station in May 2020.

Crew-5 Mission Commander Nicole Mann became the first Native American woman in space with this flight. Nicole Mann is a colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps whose previous experience includes working as a test pilot in the F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet. She joined NASA as an astronaut in June 2013.

Josh Cassada is the pilot for Crew-5. He also joined NASA as an astronaut in 2013.

JAXA astronaut Koichi Wakata and Roscosmos cosmonaut Anna Kikina also launched on Crew-5. Wakata is making his fifth trip into space and has now flown on three different types of spacecraft. Kikina is the first of two cosmonauts flying to the International Space Station on the Crew Dragon as part of a deal between NASA and Roscosmos.

Automated docking procedures are expected to begin at 4:57 pm EST on October 6, 2022. Crew-4 astronauts Bob Hines, Kjell Lindgren, Jessica Watkins, and Samantha Cristoforetti will return home after a handover period of a few days. During the handover, the International Space Station will be relatively crowded with eleven people on board.

Science During Expedition 68

“The International Space Station continues to serve a critical role in helping NASA and our partners understand and maximize the unique attributes of the microgravity environment,” said Kathryn Lueders, associate administrator for NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate.

The Canadian Space Agency sponsored a cardiorespiratory study called CARDIOBREATH. This study will provide valuable data on the effects of microgravity on the cardiorespiratory system and blood pressure during a long-duration space mission.

Project EAGLE will track heart muscle cells grown from stem cells, continuing work toward a fully functional 3D heart tissue model that scientists can use to test new drugs. Studies like this can lead to better treatments for heart disease, which is a leading cause of death in the United States.

The BioFabrication Facility (BFF) previously printed heart cells as part of a complementary study for Project Eagle and a partial human knee meniscus in 2019. Now it returns to the International Space Station to create 3D-printed knee cartilage tissue and cardiac tissue samples. Study of these samples can lead to improved implants and address the long waiting list for organ transplants. The BioFabrication Facility now includes upgrades to its printheads for improved temperature control, which can improve its ability to create useful samples.

Crew-6 will return to Earth in Spring 2022, not long after Crew-6 is scheduled to launch.

Technology

Elon Musk to Buy Twitter After All

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

In April, Elon Musk proposed buying Twitter for $54.20 a share. Twitter accepted the deal, sparking a months-long drama. Twitter employees quit because they didn’t want to work for the often-demanding Elon Musk, who also floated the idea of giving Donald Trump his Twitter account back. The media and Democrat politicians blasted the idea that Musk might control a major social media outlet – if one that’s riddled with bots and frequent crypto scams.

Then Elon Musk reversed course and decided that he didn’t want to take Twitter private after all. Some people may have breathed a sigh of relief even as Twitter took him to court in a bid to force him to make good on the $44 billion deal.

Now Elon Musk has reversed course again, saying that he will go through with it. Twitter shareholders already took a vote, overwhelmingly approving the deal amid the back-and-forth between Twitter’s legal team and Musk’s lawyers. Regulators tentatively okayed the deal. Now all that’s left is to close the deal. (Finally — maybe. If Musk doesn’t change his mind again.)

Musk’s change of tune caused enough price movements in Twitter’s stock (NYSE:TWTR) to force pauses in trading. On October 4 at 4:00 pm EST, it was trading at $43.01. Now it is trading at just above $51 as day traders try to get in on what could now be a lucrative deal.

Tesla’s stock (NASDAQ:TSLA) dropped a bit since the news broke, though not enough to justify the alarm sounded by some mainstream media outlets. Musk can take out a loan with his Tesla stock as collateral to fund the Twitter deal.

However, the deal doesn’t necessarily need to alarm investors very much now that Tesla opened two new Gigafactories this year. The new Gigafactories can help the company continue to set quarterly delivery records for its electric vehicles.

What does Musk plan to do with Twitter?

Musk may or may not give Donald Trump his Twitter account back, especially considering that Trump called him a “b-shit artist” in the wake of Musk initially trying to back out of the deal. Musk characteristically fired back, though maybe not as harshly as he has fired back at past critics:

Musk previously floated the idea of charging a small amount of Dogecoin per tweet. Dogecoin’s value jumped by a bit in the wake of the news that Musk reversed course again, though it is still nowhere near last year’s ATH.

He also suggested making changes to Twitter’s “blue check mark” verification system. He said he could add a different check mark to the Twitter members who pay the $2.99 per month subscription fee for the premium Twitter Blue. He suggested that it could cut down on the spambot problem that Twitter has.

Twitter got 90% of its revenue from advertising in 2021. Musk suggested that having Twitter depend on ads for revenue had its flaws: “The power of corporations to dictate policy is greatly enhanced if Twitter depends on advertising money to survive.”

How to get around it though? The charge-per-Tweet model might have its benefits for bringing in some money besides making it more costly to run a bot account. At least one of his followers also suggested that an additional Twitter “marketplace” might be an option, though Musk seemed to have no comment on that.

Musk mostly seems interested in doing some housecleaning with Twitter, with getting rid of bots and alleged bias in its algorithms as priorities. He also suggested that Twitter could provide the name recognition for an “everything app” that he calls X. He mentioned that it could accelerate the development of X by 3 to 5 years.

Right now, there aren’t many details on what the “everything app” will look like. With Musk in charge, it might wind up looking like Twitter with more features. And fewer spambots.

Space

NASA Considers Sending SpaceX Crew Dragon to Service Hubble Space Telescope

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

The iconic Hubble Space Telescope hasn’t been serviced since before the Space Shuttle was retired in 2011. Hubble has held up well but won’t last forever.

NASA, SpaceX, and Jared Isaacman — a businessman-turned-astronaut who is best known for commanding the Inspiration4 mission — are discussing a feasibility study to use the Crew Dragon to boost the Hubble Space Telescope into a higher and more stable orbit. The Crew Dragon could also perform some much-needed servicing.

NASA said that the mission is completely theoretical at this point and the study will give it a better idea of possible uses for the Crew Dragon besides ferrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station. It isn’t paying anything for the study.

The Hubble Space Telescope launched in 1990. The Space Shuttle’s first maintenance mission to the space telescope installed the Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement (COSTAR) instrument, which corrected the “nearsighted” problem caused by a faulty mirror. The last servicing mission in May 2009 installed new instruments and components designed to extend the Hubble Space Telescope’s life.

NASA plans to deorbit the Hubble Space Telescope when it reaches the end of its useful lifespan but may prefer to extend its lifespan at some point in the future. The study will use existing models of the Hubble Space Telescope and the Crew Dragon to test the feasibility of rendezvousing and docking with the space telescope and boosting it to a higher orbit.

“As our fleet grows, we want to explore a wide range of opportunities to support the most robust, superlative science missions possible,” said Science Mission Directorate Associate Administrator Thomas Zurbuchen.

Jessica Jensen, vice president of Customer Operations & Integration at SpaceX, seemed enthusiastic at the prospect of servicing the Hubble Space Telescope: “Missions such as servicing Hubble would help us expand space capabilities to ultimately help all of us achieve our goals of becoming a space-faring, multiplanetary civilization.”

NASA’s statement on the study indicated that the study is part of a partnership with the Polaris Program, a three-mission program that will include the first EVA conducted by a private crew if everything goes as planned. The Polaris Program will also conduct valuable scientific research, including a test of the effects of spaceflight on astronauts’ vision.

The first mission, Polaris Dawn, will fly a Crew Dragon to the highest altitude that it has ever reached and test Starlink’s laser communications in space. The third Polaris Program flight will hopefully be on a Starship spacecraft.

Jared Isaacman is organizing the Polaris Program and plans to command the Polaris Dawn mission. Polaris Program’s website seems to indicate that he is continuing the fundraising efforts for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital that he started with Inspiration4. The Polaris Program supports St. Jude’s efforts to expand its operations to treat children with cancer worldwide.

Space

Satellite Vu Taps SpaceX to Launch Second Thermal Data Collection Satellite

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

Satellite Vu signed a contract with SpaceX to launch a second satellite that can collect thermal data. The Mid-wave Infrared (MWIR) imaging satellite will launch on a Falcon 9 rocket as early as 2024, sooner than Satellite Vu had originally planned.

In a statement announcing the new contract, Satellite Vu CEO Anthony Baker said:

“Environmental issues are top of the agenda with the summer heatwave and the proliferation of wildfires over the past few months, reminding everyone of the urgent need to take action to provide a hospitable climate for all within our lifetimes. We are excited to have agreed our second deal with SpaceX to launch our thermal monitoring satellites which will guide the improvement and enforcement of environmental standards during this critical time.”

The new satellite is a twin of its first MWIR imaging satellite, which will begin monitoring natural and artificial heat sources after SpaceX launches it in May 2023. The satellites can monitor energy lost to heat in buildings like factories and industrial plants. Satellite Vu says the data can be used to refine manufacturing companies’ efforts to become carbon-neutral by increasing their energy efficiency.

The satellites can improve compliance with “green” standards like Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) and ESG standards. They will also combat “greenwashing” by providing more accurate measurements of companies’ impact on the environment.

Oil and gas companies have especially been a target of “greenwashing” accusations. Earth.org, for instance, accused them of making meaningless pledges to reduce their impact on the environment and then making very few actual changes. “Greenwashing” involves falsely advertising a business’ environmental sustainability while actually not making much effort to reduce the company’s impact on the environment.

SpaceX is no stranger to launching Earth-observation and climate monitoring satellites. Last year, it inked a deal with Planet Labs to launch a series of Earth-imaging satellites through 2025. These satellites will be capable of making a complete scan of Earth once every 24 hours and providing up to 25 terabytes of data daily. The data can be used to track a variety of conditions on the ground, ranging from natural disasters to illegal logging.

SpaceX also has a deal with MethaneSAT to launch its methane emissions monitoring satellite, which will be useful for tracking possible methane leaks. It launched an Earth observation satellite for the Royal Thai Air Force on the dedicated rideshare mission Transporter-2 in July 2021. SpaceX launched the Sentinel-6 satellite, which is used to monitor changes in ocean levels that may be caused by climate change, in November 2020.

Satellite Vu will add to existing capabilities to accurately monitor activity that has an impact on the environment with its two MWIR imaging satellites. While it hasn’t said whether it will launch the satellites on an already-used Falcon 9 booster, it can reduce launch costs and its own impact on the environment by not having to manufacture an all-new booster. The Falcon 9 can launch up to 22,800 kilograms into low Earth orbit or 8,300 kilograms into geosynchronous transfer orbit for $67 million.

SpaceX Proposes Adding Starlink Internet Service to School Buses

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

Not very long ago, SpaceX received approval to add Starlink’s Internet service to large vehicles like RVs and buses. It has a couple of deals to do the same for a couple of airlines and a charter jet service. You can get Starlink for your boat, though it’s expensive. Now SpaceX filed a regulatory application to add Starlink’s Internet service to school buses with the FCC.

It’s a good idea in theory. Students can work on online homework that they forgot to do the night before or couldn’t do because they don’t have Internet access at home during their morning bus ride. Starlink’s application calls the proposed service suitable for “areas underserved or entirely unserved by terrestrial alternatives.”

SpaceX said in its filing, “Connecting school buses will afford students the ability to optimize their commute time for necessary educational internet use.”

SpaceX says that it is already piloting the idea of adding satellite Internet service for school bus routes that take more than an hour. It requested that school buses be added to the Eligible Services List.

Some observers did note that a Starlink terminal would have to be fairly rugged to survive service on a school bus. Starlink terminals would be lucky if the worst that happens is frequent trips down rough county roads out in farm areas.

Just don’t count on your kid doing online homework on the bus tomorrow. Regulatory red tape can slow things down. CEO Elon Musk occasionally expressed frustration over matters like German authorities and environmental groups slowing down the opening of Tesla’s Gigafactory Berlin with regulatory proceedings and legal challenges. The FAA repeatedly delayed Starship’s orbital test launch, which could have happened during Summer 2021 but now will likely happen as early as October 2022.

The FCC also rejected a $900 million grant to provide Starlink service for rural areas, saying that the service is still under development and has underperformed. SpaceX disputes the FCC’s claims and still has the option of appealing to the FCC’s commissioners. FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr called the rejection an improper decision that was made by a lower-level employee at one of the FCC’s Bureaus.

SpaceX’s aggressiveness with Starlink does seem to aggravate competitors. SpaceX can launch new Starlink satellites as often as a couple of times a month on its reusable Falcon 9 boosters – the most frequent of any satellite Internet provider. OneWeb, Amazon’s Project Kuiper, and ViaSat all seem to resent Starlink if one goes by the number of regulatory challenges to various applications for new things like Starlink’s Version 2 satellites.

Starlink currently has more than 2,000 satellites in orbit out of a planned constellation of at least 12,000 satellites. Its Version 2 satellites will improve performance and potentially even add mobile data service, something that it already has a deal with T-Mobile for. It can provide service for all seven continents, including Antarctica. From a technical standpoint, providing service for long school bus routes in rural areas won’t be any more of a challenge than providing service for an RV or boat in motion. The hard part is more likely to be gaining regulatory approval.

Space

SpaceX Set to Launch Lunar Exploration Missions for Japan, UAE in November

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

SpaceX will launch Japan’s Hakuto-R lunar lander and the UAE’s Rashid 1 lunar rover between November 9 and November 15, 2022. They will launch on a Falcon 9 rocket.

A Tokyo-based company called ispace built the Hakuto-R lander as a tech demo. Hakuto-R will perform lunar transportation or lunar data acquisition services for three Canadian companies. The lander will also carry a small rover built by the Japanese space agency, JAXA. Ispace plans to follow Hakuto-R up with Mission 2 in 2024 and Mission 3 in 2025.

Japan’s lunar exploration program also includes a small lander that will fly with NASA’s Artemis 1. This mission will launch as soon as next week, pending resolution of troublesome propellant leaks that already delayed Artemis 1’s launch twice this month.

Japan’s space agency, JAXA, is a partner in the International Space Station. JAXA astronaut Akihiko Hoshide previously flew on SpaceX’s Crew-2 mission as part of SpaceX’s contract with NASA to send ISS crews to and from the International Space Station.

Rashid 1 is a 22-kilogram rover that was built by Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center in Dubai and the smallest to have been built for lunar explanation. The rover is expected to operate for a single day once the combined lander and rover land on the lunar surface.

The UAE already has a deal with China to send Rashid 2 to the Moon’s south pole as part of China’s efforts to reach the Moon. It will fly with the Chang’e 7 mission in 2026.

The UAE has the most successful space program in the Middle East so far. It launched the “Hope” orbiter to Mars on July 19, 2020, and “Hope” reached Martian orbit on February 9, 2021. The UAE plans to establish a rudimentary crewed Martian settlement as early as 2117 and is working on a simulation of that settlement in the Metaverse.

A UAE astronaut, Sultan Al Neyadi, will fly to the International Space Station with SpaceX’s Crew-6 mission and will become the first Emirati to serve a six-month increment on the ISS. Emirati astronaut Hazzaa Al Mansoori previously visited the International Space Station in September 2019, during which he conducted 31 scientific experiments.

The teams behind Hakuto-R and Rashid 1 will take a low-powered route to the Moon that will take about five months to reach the designated landing site. NASA’s Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s took a higher-powered route that took about three days to get to the Moon.

Once Hakuto-R and Rashid 1 reach the Moon, they will land in Lacus Somniorum, a basaltic plain in the northeastern part of the Sea of Serenity in the Moon’s northern hemisphere.

Starlink Tests Service in Polar Regions

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

One of Starlink’s big selling points is that it can reach regions that don’t have reliable access to affordable high-speed Internet. Now it aims to connect one of the most remote regions on Earth: Antarctica.

The US National Science Foundation (NSF) announced a successful test of Starlink at McMurdo Station, a logistics station serving its US Antarctic Problem (USAP).

The NSF has not revealed financial terms of the deal. SpaceX also has deals with the U.S. Air Force and NASA to provide connectivity.

USAP relies on a variety of satellites operated by NASA, the Department of Defense, Iridium, and AirBus as a backup for communications. The NASA Tracking and Data Relay (TDRS) constellation provides connectivity for phone calls and web browsing through the S Band.

The NSF can use its Ku-Band connection to transmit scientific data. USAP conducts a wide variety of research in the fields of astrophysics, earth sciences, glaciology, and ocean and atmospheric sciences. Antarctica is is one of the best places on Earth for astronomical observations due to its distance from most artificial light pollution sources.

However, USAP has to share TDRS bandwidth with NASA programs like the International Space Station and Hubble Space Telescope, as well as NASA contractors like SpaceX and the United Launch Alliance (ULA).

“NASA makes a great effort to ensure South Pole Station is granted adequate access time to conduct science and operational communications, but cannot always provide a seamless and consistent access schedule,” says USAP.

Starlink could help fill in the gap with the more than 2,000 satellites it has in orbit. It has demonstrated an ability to resist jamming and can provide speeds that are nearly comparable to a “landline” broadband connection. Beta testers reported that its terminals perform well in frigid weather due to an internal heating unit. One Starlink user reported that it does come with the risk of attracting outdoor cats – maybe not such a concern on Antarctica, though there is the possibility that McMurdo Station’s terminals might get a visit from a curious penguin.

A researcher earned a bug bounty by demonstrating a vulnerability in Starlink terminals, but it requires physical access to the terminal and is unlikely to affect any other terminals – meaning that, on Antarctica, any messing with a Starlink terminal is likely to be an inside job.

With a dedicated Starlink connection, the NSF’s McMurdo Station can send and receive data over the Internet at any time instead of waiting for scheduled bandwidth with other constellations. With Starlink’s relatively low latency for a satellite Internet service, its crew might even find time to sneak in a little online gaming and video calls with family members back home.

Starlink now reaches all seven continents on Earth thanks to the NSF tapping it to provide Internet service for McMurdo Station.

Space

Russia Threatens Starlink Satellites

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

As the invasion of Ukraine continues, Russia threatened to shoot down Starlink satellites. It accuses the U.S. military of using them.

A Russian delegation made the remarks in a statement on record at the United Nations General Assembly. It accused the United States of allowing privately owned satellites to crowd Earth orbit. It says these satellites could be used against Russia. It called for the UN to condemn what it called “the provocative use of civilian satellites.”

The UN, of which the United States and European Union nations are important members, showed little interest in censoring Starlink or anyone who might use it. Both the United States and Europe continue to support Ukraine.

SpaceX provided Starlink terminals to Ukraine shortly after Russia’s invasion began. It has since beefed up Starlink’s ability to resist jamming, though it refused to block Russian propaganda websites.

The U.S. Pentagon praised Starlink’s ability to resist attacks on its ability to provide communications. SpaceX may not have ruled out the possibility that the U.S. military could become one of many customers, but has not confirmed whether it already is or not.

Pundits like The Economist’s Shashank Joshi recognized Russia’s statement as a veiled threat against Starlink, which demonstrated its ability to function when other forms of communication might have been knocked out. Joshi called it an important part of Ukraine’s communications in its defense against the Russian invasion.

Russia demonstrated its ability to destroy satellites in orbit with an anti-satellite missile test that sprayed debris into orbits occupied by critical hardware owned by other countries. China conducted a similar test in 2007. Debris from both tests are probably still floating around.

The US Space Command says the International Space Station crew was forced to shelter in their return vehicles due to a nearby debris cloud that may have been a result of the Chinese test. The US State Department called the anti-satellite test “irresponsible behavior.”

Elon Musk previously considered the possibility of Russian retaliation, saying that “we can launch satellites faster than they can launch anti-satellites missiles.” SpaceX launches new batches of Starlink satellites as often as once every two weeks.

Before his removal as the chief of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin threatened Elon Musk over his support of Ukraine. From Elon Musk’s response to the threats, he seemed to think Rogozin was throwing around the word “Nazi” too lightly.

That wasn’t the first time Rogozin spouted bluster about Elon Musk, SpaceX, and NASA. He previously threatened to pull Roscosmos out of the International Space Station in response to sanctions against Russia and referred to American spacecraft like the SpaceX Crew Dragon as “broomsticks.” He also taunted NASA in 2014, saying that perhaps it could get its astronauts to the International Space Station on a trampoline.

Elon Musk, of course, had something to say about it in a 2014 tweet:

So Elon Musk may not be very concerned about threats from Russian officials or even about the slim chance that the UN will take Russia’s demands very seriously. UN officials from the United States and Europe may recognize it as just more bluster from a country that is starting to get pushed back to its border by Ukrainian forces. Russia’s insistence that the UN should condemn Starlink-like constellations is likely to go nowhere.

Space

SpaceX Criticizes FCC Rejection of Starlink Grant

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

The FCC rejected SpaceX’s bid for a $886 million grant from the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) on August 10. The grant would have paid for development of Internet access for 650,000 places that have not had adequate access to the Internet. This lack of access is frequently referred to as the “digital divide.”

The FCC claims that SpaceX has not demonstrated adequate capacity to deliver Internet to the target regions. It also rejected LTD Broadband’s bid for similar reasons.

SpaceX disputes the FCC’s reason for the rejection. Regulatory paperwork filed by SpaceX director of satellite policy David Goldman called the rejection “flawed as a matter of both law and policy.”

Goldman claims that the FCC allegedly cherry-picked information from the Internet to justify the rejection. He says it will leave Americans in remote or low-income areas “stranded indefinitely on the wrong side of the digital divide.”

FCC commissioner Brendan Carr also criticized the decision, calling the rejection a baseless reversal of a previous decision with no plan to replace it. He called it “without a lawful basis” and accused the FCC of exceeding its authority.

Carr did mention that the decision was made by one of the bureaus and it could be appealed to the full FCC Commission.

SpaceX has made numerous efforts to demonstrate Starlink’s ability to close the digital divide. These efforts include making deals with the Cherokee Nation and Hoh Tribe. It also made a deal with a school district in Texas to provide Internet access for low-income families with students in the district. Demand for access to Starlink has been so high that it previously had to push delivery of some terminals back to 2023.

SpaceX is working with the UK on access to Starlink in rural areas. It is also working with Brazil and Chile to bring Internet access to remote communities.

Starlink’s upload and download speeds are already nearly equal to “traditional” landline-based broadband Internet access. Beta testers reported that the terminals work well even in freezing weather, likely due to an internal heating unit. If your Starlink Internet service turns ratty in the winter, you may want to check your terminal for outdoor cats seeking a break from the cold.

The FCC had previously communicated with SpaceX about appropriate use of grant money. The communication primarily involved exactly where SpaceX planned to deliver the Internet access.

Technology

SpaceX Files for Spectrum Range for Mobile Starlink Service

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

In the wake of SpaceX’s deal with T-Mobile to provide data services for mobile customers, SpaceX filed for approval to use the 1.6 and 2.4 GHz bands for mobile satellite services.

The filing with the FCC will deliver Internet access to mobile devices in dead zones. SpaceX had previously hinted at interest in providing data for mobile devices with a filing for access to the 2 GHz spectrum.

“By granting SpaceX access to [the additional] spectrum, the Commission can provide Americans with more options for mobile satellite services in otherwise unserved areas of the country, as well as other parts of the world, and ensure that consumers everywhere are able to fully harness the growth and development of IoT applications and devices,” SpaceX said in the filing.

The additional spectrum for mobile devices will use SpaceX’s Starlink satellites, which it regularly launches into low-Earth orbit. The satellites are already nearly capable of keeping up with “traditional” landline broadband Internet when it comes to upload and download speeds.

Because they orbit at lower altitudes than the geosynchronous satellites used by some other satellite Internet services, Starlink satellites can provide lower latency, or response times. SpaceX claims that the proposed mobile service could get latency of less than 50 milliseconds.

Perhaps anticipating challenges from other competitors, SpaceX stresses that operating in the 1.6 and 2.4 GHz spectrums will not interfere with other satellite operators. Globastar already has approval to operate at those frequencies and is already by used by Apple for its Emergency SOS service. SpaceX emphasizes that the FCC has not granted Globastar “perpetual exclusive use of the bands.”

Competitors like ViaSat and Amazon’s Project Kuiper have filed regulatory challenges to Starlink, sometimes even going so far as to file a court case. In ViaSat’s case, a judge dismissed its request for a stay on Starlink launches on the grounds that “Viasat has not satisfied the stringent requirements for a stay pending court review.” Their challenges have, of course, sometimes gotten on SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s nerves.

Earlier this year, Tesla let information about its Mobile Pi phone leak. The Mobile Pi will reportedly be solar powered and capable of connecting with Starlink. Some people speculated that the Mobile Pi would primarily be used with Tesla vehicles to control locking, unlocking, temperature, and media. They also said that it might even be used with Neuralink, allowing people to control their phones with their thoughts.

There was some speculation that the Mobile Pi would even work on Mars. Elon Musk has made no secret of his ambitions for SpaceX and Mars, including the possibility of establishing a significantly sized settlement on Mars.

Elon Musk denied reports that Tesla was working on a Smart Watch. He has not denied that Neuralink would be useful for controlling personal devices even if someone doesn’t have the use of their hands, though.

By connecting with Starlink, mobile devices like the possibly upcoming Mobile Pi could eliminate annoying mobile service dead zones. T-Mobile did mention that some of its cheapest plans would require an upcharge for access to Starlink but it would solve the problem of “dead zones” and unreliable service.

Space

NASA Adds Five More Flights to SpaceX’s Commercial Crew Contract

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

NASA will pay $1.4 billion for five more flights to the International Space Station on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. The deal is part of the Commercial Crew program, which pays for flights to the International Space Station on privately owned spacecraft.

This extension will provide flights on the Crew Dragon through 2030. This is the third time this year that NASA extended SpaceX’s contract. In June, it called the extensions necessary to maintain a regular rotation on the International Space Station.

It also expressed confidence in Boeing’s progress with its competing spacecraft, Starliner, after a successful test in which it flew to and from the space station. However, Starliner has experienced significant delays, leaving the Crew Dragon as NASA’s only option for launching astronauts from U.S. soil – at least for now.

Space station crews typically spend five to six months on the space station, with individual astronauts and cosmonauts occasionally spending up to a year on the International Space Station.

NASA anticipates retiring the International Space Station in the 2030s as it ramps up for the Artemis program. It had to delay the uncrewed test flight, Artemis I, last Monday due to an issue with an engine but set a new launch date for September 3.

Some pundits have doubted whether the International Space Station would even make it to 2030, given the current geopolitical climate. Russia has threatened to deorbit the station amid diplomatic tensions over its invasion of Ukraine.

Dmitry Rogozin even went so far as to threaten Elon Musk, though he has since been ousted as chief of the Russian space agency Roscosmos. Rogozin had especially become known for his bluster, previously referring to American-built spacecraft as “broomsticks” and suggesting that the United States could send its astronauts to the space station on a trampoline. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk was characteristically quick to retort.

However, NASA seems confident that the partnership will continue at least until it is ready to retire the International Space Station. It even finalized deals with Roscosmos that include launching cosmonauts on the Crew Dragon. Cosmonaut Anna Kikina will fly with Crew-5, with launch currently slated for October 3.

The $1.4 billion for the additional five Crew Dragon launches represents a cost savings for NASA over launches on the Russian Soyuz. These savings are possible because SpaceX reuses its fleet of four Crew Dragons and the first stage boosters of its Falcon 9 rockets.

Royal Caribbean Connects to Starlink Internet Service

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

Cruise operator Royal Caribbean plans to add Starlink’s satellite Internet service to all its cruise ships. It recently ran a pilot program on one of its cruise ships, “Freedom of the Seas,” and received good feedback from both passengers and crew.

Royal Caribbean is one of the biggest cruise companies in the world and operates three brands, Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, and Silversea Cruises. It plans to complete installation of equipment by early 2023.

Royal Caribbean is the first major cruise company to sign a deal with SpaceX for Starlink Internet service. Although it has not said whether the deal would improve Internet speeds during a cruise, Starlink can already provide Internet speeds that are nearly comparable to “land line” broadband to individual customers – even ones who live in areas that usually don’t have very many good Internet service options.

Despite Royal Caribbean being closed-mouthed about the terms of the deal, SpaceX released Internet access plans for businesses in February 2022 and added plans for seabound assets like ships and oil rigs in August 2022. Starlink’s maritime plans typically run $5,000 per month with a one-time fee of $10,000 for two terminals with enhancements that can survive harsher sea conditions.

In June 2022, the FCC approved Starlink’s use for large vehicles. SpaceX was quick to announce discussions with major airlines to provide in-flight Internet access and has signed deals with some airlines like the charter flight service JSX since then.

Most cruise lines rely on satellite Internet service using satellites that are in geosynchronous orbit. These satellites can provide access to a specific region on Earth’s surface, but perform poorly on latency, or the amount of time it takes for a device to send a request for data over the Internet and get a response. This happens due to satellites residing in an orbit that is more distant than the Moon, so it can take several seconds to get a response.

Because Starlink satellites operate in low Earth orbit with an altitude of only a few hundred kilometers, latency is much faster. Internet access at sea hasn’t been as fast as “land line” broadband access, but Royal Caribbean has boasted that it has the fastest Internet of any cruise company even before it signed its deal with SpaceX.

However, SpaceX’s launching of thousands of Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit has already come with concerns about possible collisions between orbiting assets owned by different businesses and organizations. SpaceX signed a memorandum of understanding to share data about its satellites’ orbits with NASA to help reduce this problem.

Royal Caribbean previously used a competing satellite Internet service provided by the satellite operating company SES. SES operates an Internet-providing satellite constellation that it acquired from OB3. These satellites operate in an Earth orbit that is higher than Starlink’s but still much lower than a geosynchronous orbit. SES says that Royal Caribbean remains a customer and it welcomes competition, since it drives innovation and better service for customers.

T-Mobile Selects Starlink to Improve Service

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

If have T-Mobile for your mobile phone and hate dead zones, you may be happy to learn that T-Mobile is hoping to eliminate some of these dead zones starting in 2023 with a new deal with SpaceX. SpaceX will open up its Starlink satellite constellation to provide connectivity for T-Mobile customers – even ones who live in areas where service can be ratty.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert made the announcement at a live event with mock-ups of SpaceX’s Starship in the background.

The deal will provide services for text, SMS, and MMS messaging apps. Voice and data will come later. T-Mobile plans to run a beta program in the continental United States, parts of Alaska, and Puerto Rico before rolling it out for all customers. T-Mobile and SpaceX say they would be willing to partner with other carriers to make the service global.

“The important thing about this is that it means there’s no dead zones anywhere in the world for your cellphone,” Elon Musk said on August 25.

SpaceX is equipping its Starlink Version 2 satellites with hardware that can relay signals for mobile phones. This primarily means that T-Mobile customers usually won’t have to upgrade their phones to access its signal.

Elon Musk indicated that he would like to add the ability to route emergency calls and texts from Tesla vehicles through the new Starlink capability. Tesla owners indicated that this feature would be very helpful in remote areas where they would normally lose their signals.

T-Mobile and SpaceX did not indicate that they would collaborate on providing at-home Internet service. T-Mobile did indicate that it may be willing to work with other carriers for reciprocal roaming and the “most popular plans” won’t have to add an additional fee to get the new service. T-Mobile’s lowest-cost plans may still have to pay an additional monthly fee for access to the Starlink-based service.

Although T-Mobile is the first mobile service provider to make a deal with SpaceX’s Starlink, AT&T has shown interest in a similar deal with competing satellite Internet provider OneWeb.

Yes, OneWeb did have that spat with SpaceX over an alleged close encounter between two satellites. Competitors getting into it with SpaceX and Elon Musk over Starlink is nothing unusual, especially considering that SpaceX plans to launch Starlink satellites into orbits that are among the lowest for a satellite-based Internet service. This allows for better latency. However, SpaceX said it would treat OneWeb like any other customer when it signed up to launch satellites on a SpaceX rocket in the wake of diplomatic tensions with Russia, which led to Russia nixing plenty of agreements for Roscosmos to launch European-built hardware.

SpaceX announced the Starlink Version 2 plans in August 2021. This new version will include faster laser communications, which can bypass the need for ground stations. It recently shelved a backup configuration for the Version 2 satellites as unnecessary, though it may have been a matter of learning how to choose its battles in the wake of a brief spat with Amazon’s Project Kuiper.

T-Mobile indicated that it would like to spread its coverage to more parts of the United States, including remote areas that normally don’t get much coverage. Satellites like Starlink’s constellation can make that possible in areas like mountain ranges and large national parks that would be difficult for cell phone towers to provide service for.

Space

NASA Pushes Next Commercial Crew Flight Back to October 3

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

NASA and SpaceX are pushing the next Commercial Crew flight, Crew-5, back to October 3 at 12:45 pm EDT. It had originally been scheduled for September 29. The delay will allow for better timing with other spacecraft going to and from the International Space Station.

The Crew Dragon “Endurance” will carry Mission Commander Nicole Mann, Pilot Josh Cassada, and two Mission Specialists, JAXA’s Koichi Wakata and Roscosmos cosmonaut Anna Kikina. Kikina is the first of two Russian cosmonauts who will fly on the SpaceX Crew Dragon as part of a deal between NASA and Roscosmos.

After a brief handover period on the International Space Station, the Crew Dragon “Freedom” will bring Crew-4 back to Earth.

Crew-5 had previously been delayed due to damage to the rocket that occurred when it hit a bridge while SpaceX was transporting it from a test site in Texas to the launch site in Cape Canaveral. The damage has now been repaired to NASA’s and SpaceX’s satisfaction.

According to NASA’s blog, Crew-5 also wrapped up training. Like all space station crews, they will have a period of quarantine before launch to avoid infectious illness. During the Apollo Program of the 1960s, NASA had learned that even having a cold in space can cause aggravation.

Fully privately owned, flight-rated crewed spacecraft are a relatively new concept. SpaceX became the first company to have one rated for trips into orbit and the International Space Station. Companies working on their own versions include Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, and Boeing.

Boeing recently completed an uncrewed test of its Starliner, sending it to the International Space Station and back to Earth. However, it delayed its first crewed flight to as early as 2023. It also has a Commercial Crew contract with NASA, though the space agency had to reassign astronauts and add flights to the SpaceX contract due to delays in the Starliner. Once the Starliner is fully operational, it will “take turns” with the Crew Dragon to ferry crews to the International Space Station.

The Crew Dragon can also send private crews into orbit and to the International Space Station. It already flew the Inspiration4 mission and the Axiom-1 mission. NASA requires that private missions to the International Space Station be commanded by retired astronauts like Michael Lopez-Alegria and Peggy Whitson, both of which are working with Axiom Space and have previous experience on International Space Station crews.

The regular space station crews normally serve 5- to 6-month rotations called “Expeditions.” Crew-5 will join Expedition 68 and carry over to Expedition 69 with the next handover. While on board, Expedition 68/69 will conduct valuable engineering, material science, and life science experiments that are likely to have valuable applications on Earth.

Scientists Consider Missions for Heavy-Duty Starship Rocket

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

Scientists are considering scientific missions for SpaceX’s Starship/Super Heavy stack once it becomes operational. Possibilities include sending heavier and more complex robotic missions that can use Starship’s promised future ability to launch up to 100 tons of payload.

Proposed missions could include using a Starship-derived lunar lander to return a sample of lunar ice from the Moon. Unlike the lunar lander that SpaceX is designing for NASA’s Artemis program, this mission would not have a crew. NASA Ames scientist Jennifer Heldman proposed this mission to study how this ice could have been deposited over billions of years and whether the landing site that the sample return mission returns ice from would be suitable for a future lunar base.

Jennifer Heldman was previously the lead author of a whitepaper on Starship’s potential for lunar and Mars exploration. Elon Musk’s ambitions for Starship include sending cargo, and eventually people, to Mars. Heldman backed that up by saying that launching hardware on Starship could lead to a greater scientific “return on investment” for every dollar spent.

Heldman’s previous experience includes helping plan Mars missions like the Perseverance rover. Perseverance weighed 2,260 in Earth gravity. Starship could launch far heavier scientific packages.

Daniel Baker, director of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder, proposed a probe to Mercury. Missions to Mercury require additional shielding from the intense solar heat and radiation in Mercury’s vicinity. Unlike Venus, Mercury doesn’t have a permanent, highly corrosive atmosphere, but the additional protections would still require additional mass that needs to be launched. A more powerful rocket like the Starship/Super Heavy stack would allow probes to have that additional protection without having to eliminate proposed scientific instruments.

Starship could also launch larger probes into interstellar space. While it may be a while before a probe can make the Voyager probes’ “Grand Tour,” it may still be able to make a close pass of one or two of the outer planets on its way to interstellar space. The Voyager probes did make some surprising finds about the nature of interstellar space that scientists can now plan for.

While SpaceX did recently land a contract to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope on a Falcon Heavy, Starship could launch even bigger telescopes. NASA scientists are also discussing a possible follow-up for the Europa Clipper (which SpaceX will also launch) tentatively called the Europa Lander.

SpaceX plans to charge $10 million a launch for uncrewed missions on Starship. One downside is that hardware may have to refuel before going on to its final destination — something that SpaceX is taking a closer look at with a planned refueling demonstration for NASA. It also has a contract to launch at least one refueling depot into space.

SpaceX keeps costs down by reusing hardware whenever possible. Some Falcon 9 first stage boosters have already been reused several times. It also reuses its Crew Dragon and Cargo Dragon spacecraft. It plans to make Starship equally reusable with a quick turnaround to help keep costs down.

Technology

Tesla Virtual Power Plant Successfully Responds to Emergency Event

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

Tesla’s Virtual Power Plant (VPP) in California responded to its first real test: an emergency event that put a strain on California’s power grid. Southern California is currently going through its third consecutive year of drought. California has also had to implement rolling blackouts and encourage residents to save power whenever possible to deal with high energy demands over the hot summer.

2,342 Tesla Powerwall owners contributed power to the Pacific Gas and Electric Company grid. 268 Powerwall owners sent power to the Southern California Edison grid. The Powerwalls contributed as much as 17.5 MW of power to the grids. Powerwall owners could earn as much as $2 per kWh if they did not opt out of providing power during peak periods and received between $10 and $60 during the event.

Power grids in hot climates like southern California can experience peak periods that put a strain on their ability to provide power as air conditioning units struggle to keep building interiors cool. Utility companies and local governments often ask customers to conserve power during these periods. Power producers can attempt to spin up “peaker” power plants, which typically to the pollution problem.

Powerwall batteries can store as much as 13.5 kWh of power as a backup in case of a power outage. Powerwalls are typically bundled with Tesla’s solar power products like the solar roof, though they can also be sold separately.

Tesla also sells “industrial sized” batteries called the Powerpack and the Megapack, which is typically used for large-scale applications like a solar farm in California. A Powerpack installation helped provide power to the grid when a coal-fired power plant in Australia suffered a catastrophic failure in May 2021. Tesla cited the incident in its response to Australia’s Energy Security Board’s request for recommendations to make the energy grid more flexible.

(Yes, the Megapacks have caught fire before. However, a Virtual Power Plant with lots of Powerwalls in separate locations is less likely to completely go down if one Powerwall fails. This is one of the perks of having a less centralized system.)

Tesla announced the Virtual Power Plant in California in July 2021. It also worked with Australia on a similar program that could connect as many as 4,000 homes in South Australia to a Virtual Power Plant. It was touted as a way to help provide power during periods of excessive strain on the power grid without having to spin up a centralized power plant.

Tesla also proposed establishing “Tesla Energy” in Texas in an apparent response to the failures of Texas’ power grid in the winter and summer of 2021. Initial plans included installing a 250-megawatt battery near its Gigafactory in the Austin area.

It was already constructing a battery capable of storing 100 megawatts in Houston, which it registered with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.

U.S. Air Force Awards Contract for Satellite Internet Access to SpaceX’s Starlink

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

The U.S. Air Force’s Special Operations Command awarded SpaceX a $1.9 million contract to use the Starlink satellite Internet service in Europe and Africa for one year.

The Air Force will use Starlink to support airlift operations at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, as well as locations that are still to be determined. It cited Starlink’s ability to cover most of Europe and Africa as an important factor in its choice. Competing satellite Internet service OneWeb was one of the contenders but doesn’t have the capacity to serve locations south of 50 degrees latitude.

The ability to operate in contested zones was an important factor. The U.S. military has 750 bases in 80 other countries, some of them close to conflicts. The contract also cited Starlink satellites’ ability to provide low-latency communications from their positions in low-Earth orbit (LEO), which is important for environments that require fast response times.

The Pentagon recently complimented Starlink’s ability to resist Russia’s attempts to jam or hack it during its invasion of Ukraine. SpaceX provided Starlink terminals to Ukraine to assist with communications after a request from Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, some of them paid for by the U.S. government.

SpaceX also offers a $25,000 bug bounty to individuals who find security vulnerabilities in the Starlink system and recently complimented one researcher who hacked a Starlink terminal with $25 in equipment.

The Air Force’s contract award came hard on the heels of the FCC’s rejection of bids from Starlink and LTD Broadband to develop broadband Internet services for rural areas. A successful bid would have brought in nearly $1 billion for Starlink. The FCC had previously warned SpaceX about improper use of funds for developing Internet accessibility in underserved areas.

On the plus side, SpaceX’s Starlink was included in a round of contracts awarded by NASA to develop communications in space. NASA is interested in supplementing the Deep Space Network it uses to communicate with uncrewed spacecraft throughout the solar system. Starlink has until 2025 to complete its demonstration.

Starlink currently has 2,287 satellites in orbit out of a planned 12,000-satellite constellation. The constellation could grow to 42,000 satellites for extra redundancy. SpaceX frequently launches new Starlink satellites, with the most recent launch having occurred on August 19.

SpaceX President Gwynn Shotwell said in a May 2021 interview that the total addressable market for satellite Internet service could reach $1 trillion, which could help fund SpaceX’s ultimate goal of funding trips to Mars if it can snag a respectable market share. From a more practical, down-to-Earth standpoint, Starlink can be used by anything from regions that have previously been ignored by ISPs to countries like Ukraine that are defending against invasions. The U.S. Air Force recognizes its capability with the award of a new $1.9 million contract to provide satellite Internet service to its bases in Europe and Africa.

Space

SKY Perfect JSAT to Launch Satellite on SpaceX’s Starship

Written By: Heidi
Heidi

SKY Perfect JSAT signed a contract with SpaceX to become one of the first organizations to launch hardware on the heavy-duty Starship. It will launch the broadcast and broadband satellite Superbird-9 as early as 2024.

Superbird-9 will be a High Throughput Satellite (HTS) capable of handling broadband transmissions over the Ku and Ka bands for Japan and Eastern Asia. Once launched, it will maneuver into a geosynchronous orbit.

SKY Perfect JSAT primarily delivers multi-channel subscription TV broadcasting services and communications for the Japanese market through its 16 existing satellites. Its Sky PerfecTV! has three million subscribers. Its communications satellites also provide services for government, military, and maritime applications.

SKY Perfect JSAT and SpaceX gave few details on how big Superbird-9 will be or why the satellite operator chose Starship. SKY Perfect JSAT published this Japanese-language overview of Superbird-9.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has indicated that Starship will be capable of launching more satellites than the Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy can – and, presumably, bigger satellites as well.

He previously hinted that it could be used to speed up the launch of SpaceX’s Internet-providing Starlink satellites. SpaceX already conducts dedicated rideshare missions for small satellites that would otherwise have to wait for a chance to “piggyback” on launch of larger payloads.

However, it abruptly ended a relationship with Spaceflight, Inc., which acts as a broker for launches of small satellites. Although neither company gave an official reason, a series of issues that included problems with the Sherpa tug may have been a factor. SpaceX also works with similar companies like D-Orbit and ExoLaunch.

2024 is very much a tentative date for the Superbird-9 satellite launch due to delays in planned Starship-related testing. A planned orbital test has been repeatedly delayed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) due to bureaucratic red tape that includes plowing through a large number of public comments and required environmental studies.

Elon Musk has frequently expressed frustration with regulators and floated the possibility of moving Starship testing from Boca Chica, Texas, to Cape Canaveral in Florida. Activists also seem to give him occasional headaches, with the latest being a lawsuit over allegedly excessive beach closures for SpaceX-related activities. Boca Chica residents also complained of allegedly heavy-handed tactics that could indicate that SpaceX intends to turn it into a company town, something that SpaceX denies.

Musk has proposed improvements like having The Boring Company create a traffic tunnel directly to SpaceX’s test launch facility to help reduce congestion from SpaceX employees commuting to the site. He also made donations for community improvement projects and education to attract qualified engineers to the area. Musk did joke about making the Shiba Inu, a dog breed made famous by the Doge meme, Boca Chica’s mascot.

Once Starship is operational, however, SpaceX plans to use it for a wide variety of applications that range from rapid point-to-point transportation on Earth to journeys to Mars. It already has a contract with the Air Force to study possible use of Starship for point-to-point transportation of urgently needed cargos.