THE NEW SPACE RACE: The SLS’s launch tower now costs far more than the world’s tallest building.

In 2019, NASA awarded Bechtel a contract to deliver a launch tower – a glorified steel truss far simpler than the booster catching towers SpaceX assembles in weeks – by March 2023 for a total cost of $383m.

As of today, the OIG reports that the tower will cost $2.7b and is to be finished by September 2027, but more likely 2029. For reference, the Burj Khalifa is seven times taller, contains paying tenants, hotels, and shops, and was built in five years for just $1.5b.

If you had $2.7b in 27 million $100 notes, and you piled them up, they would be so much taller than Bechtel’s non-existent launch tower that you’d need not one, not two, but 23 separate piles to exhaust the supply. Whoever wrote Bechtel’s side of the contract certainly earned their bonus. Whoever wrote NASA’s side should be made to paint the entire structure with a toothbrush – but I expect they’ve long since been on Bechtel’s payroll in some kind of advisory no-show job.

I’m out of words — and the launch tower failure is just one of several billion-dollar failures-by-design described in detail at the link.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Commercial space’s critical role in the race to outpace adversaries.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: NASA’s use of rover prototype on Earth will pave way for Artemis V lunar surface travel.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: U.S. faces stiff competition from China in satellite remote sensing.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: SpaceX pauses Falcon 9 launches after upper stage deorbit anomaly.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: China launches reusable Shijian-19 satellite for space breeding and technology tests.

THE NEW SPACE RACE:

Meanwhile, back in America, the @FAANews is smothering the national space program in kafkaesque paperwork! https://t.co/7sIpVu7zZ6

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 28, 2024

THE NEW SPACE RACE: China to launch near-Earth asteroid sample return mission in 2025.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Radian Aerospace begins tests of spaceplane prototype.

Radian Aerospace, a company with ambitions to develop a reusable orbital spaceplane, has started flight tests of a prototype vehicle.

The Seattle-based company announced Sept. 25 that it performed an initial series of taxi tests of a prototype flight vehicle it calls PFV01 at an unidentified airport in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. The tests included what it called “short hops” by the vehicle as it tested its handling characteristics for takeoff and landing.

PFV01 is designed to test the aerodynamics of the company’s proposed Radian One, a spaceplane that would take off horizontally using a rail sled system more than three kilometers long and reach orbit using rocket engines before returning to a runway landing. The vehicle, as currently designed, could carry up to five people and 2,270 kilograms of cargo to low Earth orbit and return with up to 4,540 kilograms of cargo.

Plus: “The company performed the tests in Abu Dhabi with the support of an unnamed partner there. The airfield where the tests took place was a ‘good, permissive environment,’ Holder said, that gave the company access daily.”

Was that a slap at the Biden-Harris FAA?

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Jielong-3 sea launch sends 8 satellites into orbit.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: For the first time, Blue Origin has ignited an orbital rocket stage.

Twenty days after it rolled out to Blue Origin’s launch site in Florida, the second stage of the massive New Glenn rocket underwent a successful hot-fire test on Monday.

The second stage—known as GS2 for Glenn stage 2—ignited for 15 seconds as part of the “risk reduction” hot-fire test, the company said. The two BE-3U engines, fueled by liquid oxygen and hydrogen and each producing 173,000 pounds of thrust, burned with a nearly transparent flame that approached a temperature of 6,000° Fahrenheit.

This marked the first time that Blue Origin, a space company founded by Jeff Bezos more than two decades ago, has integrated and fired an orbital rocket stage. After the test, Blue Origin said it is still tracking toward a November launch of the New Glenn rocket.

This vehicle is really big, standing 320 feet (98 meters) tall. By comparison, NASA’s titanic Saturn V Moon rocket was 363 feet tall. New Glenn’s first stage will be powered by seven BE-4 rocket engines, which burn methane and liquid oxygen. The performance of these engines has previously been demonstrated in flight on the debut of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket at the beginning of this year.

Although Monday’s test checked an important box for Blue Origin, there is still much work to do to prepare the New Glenn rocket for its debut. Crucially, the company must complete assembly of the first stage, and then roll this vehicle out from its assembly building a couple of miles to Launch Complex-36, along the Atlantic Ocean.

Then, the first and second stages will be mated. This is a complex endeavor, and as it will be the first time technicians and engineers from Blue Origin attempt the procedure, they will undoubtedly find some issues that need to be addressed. After the vehicles are integrated, the combined stack is due to undergo a short hot-fire test. Following a review of this data, the company is expected to launch the vehicle.

Godspeed.

While I love the work Elon Musk is doing with SpaceX — and fully appreciate how vital it is to our national security and the future of humanity — Musk himself would be the first to tell you it’s unwise to keep all your eggs in one basket.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: NASA’s cancellation of VIPER cedes leadership in lunar exploration.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Chinese commercial rocket firm Deep Blue Aerospace conducted a first-stage rocket hop test Sunday, experiencing a partial failure during the final moments of landing. Failures aren’t failures if you learn from them.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Electron launches second set of Kinéis satellites.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Saudi Arabia plans space industry transformation.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: NASA selects Intuitive Machines for lunar communications and navigation services.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: China prepares for 1st launch of new Long March 8A rocket.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Landspace hops closer to a reusable rocket.

Chinese private space startup Landspace has completed a 10-kilometer (33,000-foot) vertical takeoff and vertical landing test on its Zhuque-3 (ZQ-3) reusable rocket testbed, including a mid-flight engine reignition at near supersonic conditions, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports. The 18.3-meter (60-foot) vehicle took off from the Jiuquan launch base in northwestern China, ascended to 10,002 meters, and then made a vertical descent and achieved an on-target propulsive landing 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) from the launch pad. Notably, the rocket’s methane-fueled variable-thrust engine intentionally shutdown in flight, then reignited for descent, as engines would operate on future full-scale booster flybacks. The test booster used grid fins and cold gas thrusters to control itself when its main engine was dormant, according to Landspace.

“All indicators met the expected design” … Landspace hailed the test as a major milestone in the company’s road to flying its next rocket, the Zhuque-3, as soon as next year. With nine methane-fueled main engines, the Zhuque-3 will initially be able to deliver 21 metric tons (46,300 pounds) of payload into low-Earth orbit with its booster flying in expendable mode. In 2026, Landspace aims to begin recovering Zhuque-3 first-stage boosters for reuse. Landspace is one of several Chinese companies working seriously on reusable rocket designs. Another Chinese firm, Deep Blue Aerospace, says it plans a 100-kilometer (62-mile) suborbital test of a reusable booster soon, ahead of the first flight of its medium-class Nebula-1 rocket next year.

SpaceX is trying to make Falcon 9 obsolete with Starship but the Biden-Harris administration keeps slowing them down. Meanwhile, there are several companies in China working to make Falcon 9 obsolete, presumably without hindrance from Beijing.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Report highlights severe infrastructure challenges at NASA.

“The extensive consultations, site visits, and interviews conducted in the course of the study lead the committee to conclude that NASA stands at a crossroads,” the report concluded. “The underpinnings of the unique and critical capabilities the agency provides to the United States are eroding and will be inevitably lost if certain trends are not reversed.”

The report highlighted problems in three key areas: infrastructure, workforce and technology development. They ranged from attracting and retaining a skilled workforce to aging facilities at NASA centers visited by committee members that were “some of the worst facilities many of its members have ever seen.” The report also highlighted a lack of long-term planning to guide investments in technology and infrastructure.

The report concluded that much of that had to do with budget pressures that forced the agency to prioritize spending on specific missions and projects at the expense of spending on mission support. The amount of NASA’s budget spent on mission support declined from 20% in 2013 to 14% in 2023.

That stems from having more projects on its books than funding for them, said Norm Augustine, retired chairman and chief executive of Lockheed Martin and chair of the committee, in a Sept. 10 webinar about the report. “NASA’s solution to the problem has been to underinvest in infrastructure and so on in the future. That tactic, frankly, has run out of gas.”

NASA has a budget of about $25.4 billion and requires a budget of probably no less than $30 billion to fully fund Artemis (and still get us back to the moon late) — and that doesn’t include delayed infrastructure spending.

The Biden-Harris Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (which has done little for infrastructure and less for private-sector jobs) cost more than 40 times what NASA needs.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: NASA’s $50,000 Reward: Help Map the Moon’s Mysterious South Pole and Win Big.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Biden Admin to SpaceX: Drop Dead! “Biden-Harris would have us lose the New Space Race — putting our entire national security at risk — in a fit of partisan pique against the man whose other company, X, had the temerity to restore free speech to just one social media platform.”

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Chang’e-6 orbiter turns up at Sun-Earth Lagrange point after moon sampling mission. I’m glad they picked L2. L5 would have felt like trespassing.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: China plans to build moon base at the lunar south pole by 2035. “The first phase will be completed around 2035 near the lunar south pole, and an extended model will be built by about 2050, according to Wu Yanhua, chief designer of the Chinese deep space exploration project, speaking to media at the event.”

THE NEW SPACE RACE: NASA Postpones Upcoming Mars Mission, Citing Delays With Bezos’s Big Rocket.

“The decision was made to avoid significant cost, schedule, and technical challenges associated with potentially removing fuel from the spacecraft in the event of a launch delay, which could be caused by a number of factors,” NASA wrote in a statement.

EscaPADE will use two identical spacecraft to study how solar wind interacts with Mars’ magnetic environment, and learn how it drives the atmospheric escape of the Red Planet, according to NASA.

NASA decided not to fuel the two spacecraft in case New Glenn isn’t ready for launch, avoiding the costly task of removing the fuel. The launch of the EscaPADE mission has to take place when Earth and Mars are aligned. “This is an important mission for NASA, and it’s critical we have sufficient margin in our prelaunch work to ensure we are ready to fly a tight planetary window,” Bradley Smith, NASA’s launch services office director, said in a statement.

Blue Origin has been developing its New Glenn rocket for more than a decade, with its inaugural launch initially planned for 2020.

The next launch window opens in March, assuming New Glenn is finally ready by then.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Crew Dragon launches on Polaris Dawn private astronaut mission.