THE NEW SPACE RACE: China unveils fully reusable Starship-like rocket concept.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Denmark becomes 48th nation to sign Artemis Accords for space exploration.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: SpaceX rolls Starship spacecraft to pad ahead of Nov. 18 launch.

Starship moved to the pad at Starbase in advance of our sixth flight test pic.twitter.com/u6Mbc35ARr

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 12, 2024

Godspeed…

THE NEW SPACE RACE: NASA dealing with aging ISS and spacewalk hardware: ‘None of our spacesuits are spring chickens.’

Add life support to one of these babies and you’re all set.

NEWS: SpaceX has unveiled their Extravehicular Activity spacesuit.

It will be used for their first ever spacewalk. It uses new materials & joint designs to provide greater flexibility. The helmet has a new visor to reduce glare and a Heads-Up Display. pic.twitter.com/G2v7TCuTOi

— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) May 4, 2024

CHANGE: Trump expected to move Space Command headquarters out of Colorado in his ‘first week.’

Space Command, separate from the Trump-created Space Force, has been the center of a years-long controversy about whether to put its headquarters in Colorado or Alabama. Trump has favored the deep-red Alabama, while Biden favored the deep-blue Colorado. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL) told Mobile radio FM Talk 106.5 that Trump would settle the dispute as one of his first moves in office.

“President Trump said in the campaign that he was going to reverse that decision if elected,” he said, referring to Biden’s decision to move the headquarters to Colorado. “But I knew he would because if you remember, not only did Alabama win two nationwide competitions, but President Trump’s secretary of the Air Force recommended Huntsville, President Biden’s secretary of the Air Force recommended Huntsville, and then Biden took it away for political reasons.”

“But it’s going to be a big point now because President Trump’s already announced it, and I think you’ll see in the first week that he’s in office, he’ll sign an executive order reversing Biden’s directive,” he continued. “And we will start construction next year in Huntsville.”

There’s a lot of Air Force history in Colorado Springs, and local USAF elements are now Space Force. But moving HQ out of Colorado is probably a smart move. At an event last year, a Space Force wife told me they were having an impossible time finding affordable housing — and she was the wife of a general.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Rocket Lab stock pops 25% after company reports strong revenue growth, first Neutron deal.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Chinese commercial Lijian-1 rocket launches 15 satellites.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Expending the Expendables: More launch companies are betting their future on reusability.

WE LIVE IN HISTORIC TIMES: Space policy is about to get pretty wild, y’all. “So it’s entirely possible that the sitting chief executive of SpaceX could be the nation’s most important adviser on space policy, conflicts be damned. Musk possesses flaws as a leader, but it is difficult to argue against results. His intuitions for the industry, such as pushing hard for reusable launch and broadband Internet from space, have largely been correct. In a vacuum, it is not necessarily bad to have someone like Musk providing a vision for US spaceflight in the 21st century.”

If he were a Democrat advising a Democratic administration, he’d be part of a “Brain Trust” instead of having a conflict of interest.

SPACE: NASA SpaceX Crew-8 astronauts to speak publicly for first time since return.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Virgin Galactic seeks to raise money to accelerate growth of spaceplane fleet.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Russia launches Soyuz in service of Iran.

Russia launched a Soyuz rocket Monday carrying two satellites designed to monitor the space weather around Earth and 53 small satellites, including two Iranian ones, Reuters reports. The primary payloads aboard the Soyuz-2.1b rocket were two Ionosfera-M satellites to probe the ionosphere, an outer layer of the atmosphere near the edge of space. Solar activity can alter conditions in the ionosphere, impacting communications and navigation. The two Iranian satellites on this mission were named Kowsar and Hodhod. They will collect high-resolution reconnaissance imagery and support communications for Iran.

A distant third … This was only the 13th orbital launch by Russia this year, trailing far behind the United States and China. We know of two more Soyuz flights planned for later this month, but no more, barring a surprise military launch (which is possible). The projected launch rate puts Russia on pace for its quietest year of launch activity since 1961, the year Yuri Gagarin became the first person to fly in space.

That’s quite the decline.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: SpaceX plans next Starship flight for mid-November.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS: SpaceX’s Starship Test, Weeks After the Last One, Highlights Rapid Changes in the Space Industry.

You’d think that a high-tech space company, in an industry known for painstaking research and vastly costly hardware development, would sit on its laurels for a while and carefully consider its next steps. Nope. It seems SpaceX’s engineers have already done that, and are so satisfied with the progress of the rocket’s development they just set a date for the next test flight, now scheduled for Nov. 18.

That’s about a month between the fifth and sixth flights of the world’s most powerful rocket. It means that SpaceX has the rocket and engine hardware for the next flight ready and waiting, and that it’s dealt with any issues like damage caused to the launch tower and the miles of complex fuel pipes, electrical wiring and mechanical systems needed to fuel the rocket up and get it flying into space. It’s a furious pace of development.

SpaceX’s post also notes that the next flight won’t merely be about replaying the previous mission. Instead the test will try to “expand the envelope on ship and booster capabilities and get closer to bringing reuse of the entire system online.” Reuse is a critical goal for the program, based on the company’s successes in reducing the cost of flying satellites to orbit achieved in its existing, much smaller, Falcon 9 rocket.

The biggest hurdles remaining are orbital refueling and safely bringing the upper stage into Mechazilla’s tender embrace. Mexico likely won’t allow reentry through their airspace until Starship has made a few safe landings elsewhere.

There’s much left to do but the results have been impressive.

HOW’S THAT SPACE PROGRAM COMING ALONG?

NEWS 🚨: NASA continues to monitor an asteroid that could collide with Earth on Valentine's Day in 2046

Now has 'a 1 in 607 chance' pic.twitter.com/SBBmkzK0Fl

— Latest in space (@latestinspace) November 7, 2024

Those odds are down from one in 400 so they’re moving in the right direction.

WE CAN HOPE:  Freedom: What Trump’s election will mean for America’s space policy.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: China’s new rocket for crew and moon to launch in 2026.

SPACE: After 31 cargo missions, NASA finds Dragon still has some new tricks.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Rocket Lab confirms plan to bid for Pentagon launch contracts with new medium rocket.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: China reveals a new heavy lift rocket that is a clone of SpaceX’s Starship. We’ll see if they can make it work.

MADDOW AND STANCIL: US SHOULD CANCEL SPACEX CONTRACTS BECAUSE MUSK SUPPORTED TRUMP. For the left it always seems to come down to the same question, ever since Lenin: Who, whom? If that means canceling the future, too bad.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: NASA seeks continuity in human spaceflight programs in next administration.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: China reveals a new heavy lift rocket that is a clone of SpaceX’s Starship.

When Chinese space officials unveiled the design for the country’s first super heavy lift rocket nearly a decade ago, it looked like a fairly conventional booster. The rocket was fully expendable, with three stages and solid motors strapped onto its sides.

Since then, the Asian country has been revising the design of this rocket, named Long March 9, in response to the development of reusable rockets by SpaceX. As of two years ago, China had recalibrated the design to have a reusable first stage.

Now, based on information released at a major airshow in Zhuhai, China, the design has morphed again. And this time, the plan for the Long March 9 rocket looks almost exactly like a clone of SpaceX’s Starship rocket.

Based on its latest specifications, the Long March 9 rocket will have a fully reusable first stage powered by 30 YF-215 engines, which are full-flow staged combustion engines fueled by methane and liquid oxygen, each with a thrust of approximately 200 tons. By way of comparison, Starship’s first stage is powered by 33 Raptor engines, also fueled with methane and liquid oxygen, each with a thrust of about 280 tons.

The new specifications also include a fully reusable configuration of the rocket, with an upper stage that looks eerily similar to Starship’s second stage, complete with flaps in a similar location. According to a presentation at the airshow, China intends to fly this vehicle for the first time in 2033, nearly a decade from now.

Yeah, the Communist Chinese are copycats — but they’re smart enough to ditch old ideas and steal our best stuff.

Meanwhile, Congress insists on saddling NASA (and taxpayers) with the outdated and unaffordable SLS.

SCHEDULED FOR 9:29 EST: Watch Live: NASA SpaceX 31st Resupply Launch to International Space Station. Routine, but not boring.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Chinese launch startup Cosmoleap secures funding for rocket featuring chopstick recovery system. “The company also plans a 126-meter-long rocket, capable of carrying 100 tons to the same orbit when expended, or 36 tons when reused. The first launch is targeted for around 2030.”