Friday, February 14, 2025

Blue Ghost is in Lunar Orbit

On Monday we reported Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lunar lander had done its translunar orbit injection and was on the way to lunar orbit.  As planned, the lander had the engine burn to insert into lunar orbit yesterday and is now refining its orbit with landing scheduled for March 2nd.  

Firefly posted Thursday

The Firefly team nailed our most challenging burn to date! Starting at 7:51 p.m. CST on February 13, the team completed a 4 minute, 15 second Lunar Orbit Insertion burn with Blue Ghost’s RCS thrusters and main engine to enter an elliptical orbit around the Moon. Over the next 16 days, we’ll conduct additional maneuvers to circularize our orbit and get closer to the lunar surface.

The probe's onboard cameras captured several snapshots edited into this short video;

Firefly Aerospace posted to X (as if it was supposed to be from Blue Ghost):


Blue Ghost, as you know, launched on a Falcon 9 that also carried the Resilience lander from ispace, which will take another couple of months before landing.  ispace has been gearing up for a lunar flyby that will take place around Feb. 15, although landing looks to be around May.  That's not all of the moon landings for this year, though. 

Intuitive Machines, whose IM-1 was a successful mission although the landing was nothing like what was planned, is coming up soon, too.  I think I coined the term "first commercial crash landing" for IM-1 because the lander (officially Odysseus and quickly renamed Odie) broke a leg on the approach to its landing spot and tipped over upon landing.  Intuitive Machines will launch their IM-2 lander, called Athena, on February 26.  Athena will also ride a Falcon 9.  IM believes they've taken care of the cause of Odie's crash landing.

 

 

Thursday, February 13, 2025

Blue Origin Announces 10% Layoffs

Thursday morning, Feb. 13 and less than one month after the successful first flight of their New Glenn rocket, Blue Origin told workers that the workforce would be cut by 10%.   

The cuts were announced during an all-hands meeting on Thursday morning led by the rocket company's chief executive, Dave Limp. During the gathering, Limp cited "business strategy" as the rationale for making the cuts to a workforce of more than 10,000 people.
...
In a follow-up email to employees on Thursday morning under the subject "Difficult Org News," Limp said the decision was the result of the company's planning for 2025 and need for sustainable growth. Blue's primary goal for the coming year is to scale up its manufacturing output and launch cadence of the New Glenn rocket. Limp cited the scramble to complete the development of New Glenn and get the rocket into orbit as rationale for the cuts.

CEO Limp added: "We grew and hired incredibly fast in the last few years, and with that growth came more bureaucracy and less focus than we needed.  It also became clear that the makeup of our organization must change to ensure our roles are best aligned with executing these priorities." 

That sounds to me like they need more proportionally less forward-looking employees like systems or design engineers, and more people that can get the production work of various levels done.  

With the cuts, Blue Origin will seek to trim its management ranks. Of the cuts, Limp said, "This resulted in eliminating some positions in engineering, R&D, and program/project management and thinning out our layers of management."

He added that these difficult decisions will set Blue Origin on course for success this year and beyond. "This year alone, we will land on the Moon, deliver a record number of incredible engines, and fly New Glenn and New Shepard on a regular cadence," he wrote.

Rumors have been circulating that the company has had a hiring freeze in place for the past six months, and that they've let the majority of their contractors go.   

This difficult decision is part of getting the New Glenn operational, so it's worth noting that SpaceNews reported today that Blue is planning the second launch of the vehicle in "late spring" with the intent of cleaning up all the questions left hanging by the first flight - primarily the loss of the booster when they hoped to land and recover it. 

Speaking at the 27th Annual Commercial Space Conference here Feb. 12, Dave Limp, chief executive of Blue Origin, suggested a propulsion issue of some kind caused the loss of the New Glenn booster during its landing attempt on the Jan. 16 NG-1 launch.

“We had most of the right conditions in the engine but we weren’t able to get everything right to the engine from the tanks,” he said. “We think we understand what the issues are.”  [NOTE: "here" in the first sentence appears to refer to Washington DC - SiG]

Limp understandably doesn't want to get too specific about why they lost the booster but implies they believe they have a plausible explanation (or more than one).  He noted, though, that demonstrating the in-flight relight of the BE-4 engines was one thing Blue Origin could not demonstrate before the launch.  We've heard this before.  For example, we've read that some maneuvering of the rocket must be done to force fuel by inertia into a place in the fuel tank where it can be pumped to the engines. 

“It was a combination of a couple things,” he said. “This was our first attempt at it. I don’t want to go into too much detail because we’re still going through the anomaly investigation. I feel like the team has a really good handle to it and modifications are not complicated.”

Blue Origin's New Glenn lifts off on its first flight Jan. 16. Credit: Blue Origin



Wednesday, February 12, 2025

Vast's Haven-1 Private Space Station Looking Delayed

In a remarkable coincidence, the subject of the private space station being worked on by startup company called Vast Space came up in the comments to yesterday's post and today I stumbled across an update on their first launch, which will be the first module of their new, private space station. 

The story isn't surprising: it's that they're not going to meet their original schedule.  They were working to a launch this coming August and now expect their Haven-1 to launch No Earlier Than May 2026.  In my experience, it would be surprising if they met the first date they scheduled when they knew far less about the realities of building what they've been designing. 

Even with the delay, it's still an "ambitious timeline," the company said. But Vast remains optimistic: "If all goes as planned, we will have designed, built, and launched the world’s first commercial space station in three years — a pace never before achieved in human spaceflight."

Vast began building the Haven-1 module in July of '24 in their Long Beach, CA, headquarters. They transported the module to the company's test stand in Mojave, CA in January.  They've begun a long effort to measure the performance of the module against all of the specifications it was designed to.  The latest tests have passed on a very important performance requirement. 

Using dry nitrogen, Vast pressurized the module on the test stand twice — the first for a duration of five hours, and the second for 48 hours. According to the company's data, Haven-1's pressure sensors showed an "indiscernible" leak rate, exceeding the vessel's requirements and falling within compliance for NASA's crew-rated spacecraft qualifications.

This test module, currently still on the test stand, is not going to fly, but based on its performance to date, they've begun construction of the first flight-rated module.  

Vast's Haven-1 qualification article on the test stand in Mojave, CA. (Image credit: Vast Space)

As we've covered before, the International Space Station (ISS) is approaching retirement, with current plans to deorbit the ISS at the end of 2030.  NASA has been eager for companies to get commercial space stations up and running.  A handful of private contenders have voiced plans to construct their own LEO destinations — Vast Space, Axiom Space, Blue Origin, Sierra Space, Nanoracks, and others.

As those companies tread water while they gauge market demand or continue their station developments in the background, Vast says it's on track to get Haven-1 to orbit in record time, and has begun actively seeking out customers and scientists with research they want to fly to space.



Tuesday, February 11, 2025

NASA Picks SpaceX to Launch New Exoplanet Mission

NASA announced on Monday afternoon (Feb. 10) that it has picked SpaceX to launch Pandora, a 716-pound (325-kilogram) satellite designed to help scientists better understand how our understanding of exoplanets' atmospheres are affected by changes in their host stars.  Launch is expected No Earlier Than (NET) "this fall." 

Considering that the 716 lb figure is a small fraction of the lift capability of the Falcon 9, I'll SWAG that it'll be part of a ride share mission of some sort.  Once in orbit...

...the satellite will observe at least 20 known transiting exoplanets — worlds that cross the face of their parent star from the telescope's perspective. It will observe these planets 10 separate times, staring at them for 24 hours on each occasion.

"The satellite will use an innovative 17-inch (45-centimeter)-wide all-aluminum telescope to simultaneously measure the visible and near-infrared brightness of the host star and obtain near-infrared spectra of the transiting planet," NASA officials said in Monday's statement.

This is much like the way the very first exoplanets were discovered in the early 1990s. When the planet transits (passes in front of) the star it orbits, that star dims proportional to the amount of the star's disk that gets blocked out (astronomers refer to this as occultation or being occulted).  As the star's light reaches the telescopes here on Earth, they frequently measure the spectrum of the starlight.  By measuring the spectrum when not occulted and comparing it to when the planet comes between us, the chemical composition of the planet's atmosphere can be deduced.  

Artist's depiction of the drop in measured light as the planet (black circle) occults the star.  The light curve is the bottom middle line with a big "notch" (dip in brightness) during the occultation.  Image credit: NASA

Pandora will be seeking out planets with atmospheres dominated by hydrogen or water.

However, this process depends on the star itself. If the star has regions that are particularly dark or bright, much like sunspot groups or plages seen on our own Sun, they can cause the star’s spectrum to vary over time in ways that can mimic or suppress features in the planet’s spectrum. 

Pandora aims to disentangle the star and planet spectra by monitoring the brightness of the exoplanet’s host star in visible light while simultaneously collecting infrared data. Together, these multiwavelength observations will provide constraints on the star’s spot coverage to separate the star’s spectrum from the planet’s.




Monday, February 10, 2025

Firefly's Blue Ghost has Left Earth Orbit

In an update for flight week three, we read Firefly's Blue Ghost lunar landing mission has completed its lunar orbit insertion engine burn on Saturday, Feb. 8, and is on its way to the moon.  The next phase of the mission is the four day journey to the moon, entering lunar orbit

In the coming days, Firefly will perform a series of burns—including a four-minute main engine firing on its four-day journey to lunar orbit. Blue Ghost will then attempt its Moon landing at the beginning of March. 

Firefly's mission to the moon is around six weeks long and that was planned after time studying the various options.  The launch was January 15th from the Kennedy Space Center side of the Cape, LC-39A, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 that was also carrying a lunar lander from ispace in Japan, which will take even longer to get to the moon.  

So why did they choose their six week voyage to the moon?  It wasn't simply to use a lower cost launch vehicle - they don't even mention that.

Firefly opted for a circuitous, month-and-a-half-long journey to the Moon, which allowed onboard payloads to gather more data—and gave the company time to check systems before the main event.

“If we were going just straight to the Moon, we wouldn’t really have time to fix anything that was coming up,” Ray Allensworth, Firefly’s spacecraft program director, told Payload. 

One by one, test by test, Blue Ghost has worked properly.  The first big test, actually "do or die" for the lander, was firing up the spacecraft’s engines on their first burn.  Everything during the burn - and the verification tests afterward, has been as desired.  They had scheduled three test burns but cancelled the third after seeing the results of the second one. 

After the four day trip to the moon, Blue Ghost will spend 16 days in lunar orbit calibrating itself and lowering its orbit gradually.  Once pronounced ready, the landing attempt will be in Mare Crisium (the "Sea of Crises") on the eastern limb of the Earth-facing side of the moon. That shows up as 45 days after launch, or around the end of February. The New Moon is February 27 and the exact landing time is probably to be around sunrise at the Mare Crisium landing site - to maximize the lander's time.  Their website says the landing will be March 2.

Firefly rendering of Blue Ghost descending to land on the moon.  Image credit: Firefly Aerospace.

Final words to Ray Allensworth:

“The US hasn’t had a fully successful lunar mission since Apollo. To be able to do that from a commercial standpoint would be really important.”



Sunday, February 9, 2025

The Side of DEI Nobody Talks About

There are many, many reactions to the DEI issues that we hear every day, but there's one drawback to it that's hardly ever mentioned. 

The basis for all the DEI talk is that hiring based on those aspects compensates for ages of discrimination; it somehow compensates people who weren't hired in the past by hiring someone today who has a superficial resemblance to the original person.  The reality is that hiring based on those superficial resemblances hurts the people who get hired based on them the most.  The victim of the DEI isn't really the one in the past, it's the less qualified person that gets hired today.  That person hired today hurts anyone hired after them. 

I retired just over nine years ago, and DEI was far less prominent in everyday use than it is today, but another term was used that had the same effects.  That was Affirmative Action.  At some point, everyone started to know what it meant to say someone was an affirmative action hire.  Everyone besides that affirmative action hire knew it meant taking extra time and effort to get the job done.  

The problem, of course, was that as it became apparent that all the affirmative action hires were part of the same ethnic or identity group every member of that group was assumed to be an AA hire until they proved otherwise - by being good at their job. 

Being a white dude of obvious European background, I never had to face this.  It was very simple: if you weren't considered the best applicant, you didn't get the job.  Working from the early 1970s through the mid 20-teens, I worked with very competent technicians and engineers of all backgrounds: black, white, men, women, as well as from many nationalities: Americans, various South American nations, Indians, Chinese, Japanese and more. Toward the latter years, a couple of the black engineers I knew would mention how much they hated hiring based on stuff like skin color and ethnic group because of the suspicion they were an AA hire. (One was a digital hardware engineer - designing gate arrays, while the other was a very high level software engineer).  So after climbing the ladder and accomplishment after accomplishment, or degree after degree, they felt they had to prove themselves over and over. 

If hiring were to openly return to being strictly based on merit, how long would it be before the last vestiges of suspicion someone was a DEI or Affirmative Action hire went away?   

While it's marginally related to the topic, it's just here because I find it funny:



Saturday, February 8, 2025

Boeing Tells Workers SLS May Be Cut

The biggest space news of the last few days is a report out of Boeing that they're preparing for NASA to terminate the Space Launch System or SLS program. 

On Friday, with less than an hour's notice, David Dutcher, Boeing's vice president and program manager for the SLS rocket, scheduled an all-hands meeting for the approximately 800 employees working on the program. The apparently scripted meeting lasted just six minutes, and Dutcher didn't take questions.

During his remarks, Dutcher said Boeing's contracts for the rocket could end in March and that the company was preparing for layoffs in case the contracts with the space agency were not renewed. "Cold and scripted" is how one person described Dutcher's demeanor.

With Trump's pick for NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman, not having been approved by congress, all that can be said is that Boeing seems to be preparing for a worst case outcome.  There have been reports that the future of the entire Artemis program and ways to complete its goal to return Americans to the moon are being reviewed (in the often-quoted line of “...landing the first woman and first person of color...” or even the milder “first woman and the next man”).  

Multiple sources said there has been a healthy debate within the White House and senior leadership at NASA, including acting administrator Janet Petro, about the future of the SLS rocket and the Artemis Moon program. Some commercial space advocates have been pressing hard to cancel the rocket outright. Petro has been urging the White House to allow NASA to fly the Artemis II and Artemis III missions using the initial version of the SLS rocket before the program is canceled.  

Others have pointed out that the problem with the SLS has been the program was incentivized to be late and over-budget, and that keeping the program alive embodies the sunk cost fallacy so the smart thing to do is just drop it and cut the losses.  These critics point out that keeping the SLS around to make the first lunar landing could actually make things worse, arguing that large contractors (that is, Boeing) would be incentivized to slow down work and drag out their cost-plus contracts for as long as possible. 

On Saturday, a day after this story was published, NASA released a statement saying the SLS rocket remains an "essential component" of the Artemis campaign. "NASA and its industry partners continuously work together to evaluate and align budget, resources, contractor performance, and schedules to execute mission requirements efficiently, safely, and successfully in support of NASA’s Moon to Mars goals and objectives," a spokesperson said. "NASA defers to its industry contractors for more information regarding their workforces.

It's shocking how much the industry has changed since the SLS began.  As we've talked about before, NASA was directed by congress to start the program in 2011.  The joke that SLS stands for the “Shuttles' Leftover Shit” comes from the fact that the rocket is largely built from components of the space shuttle, including the Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSME) and side-mounted boosters.  Calling them SSMEs isn't just a name; the only SLS mission to fly used SSMEs that were actually flown on shuttle missions.  The SLS rocket was initially supposed to launch by the end of 2016. It did not make its debut flight until the end of 2022.

NASA has spent approximately $3 billion a year developing the rocket and its ground systems over the program's lifetime. While handing out guaranteed contracts to Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Aerojet, and other contractors, the government's rocket-building enterprise has been superseded by the private industry. SpaceX has developed two heavy lift rockets in the last decade, and Blue Origin just launched its own, with the New Glenn booster. Each of these rockets is at least partially reusable and flies at less than one-tenth the cost of the SLS rocket.

My view of this is the only reason to keep the SLS is if it has an insurmountable lead over SpaceX and a bigger lead over Blue Origin.  I have to wonder if Artemis keeps going with SLS and the Starship-based Human Landing System can they land astronauts on the moon before the Chinese do?  Is there any way to get a replacement for the SLS-based system in time for it to make a difference? 

The first Space Launch System rocket rolls toward its launch pad, LC-39B. This image is dated 3/17/22; it would be another eight months before it would fly - November of '22 Credit: Trevor Mahlmann



Friday, February 7, 2025

German Company to test Radical Reentry Design

Thanks to the weekday newsletter, Payload, we learn that a German-based space startup called ATMOS has received regulatory approval to fly the first test flight of its novel Phoenix reentry capsule.  It's an approach I haven't seen documented before and I'm expecting most of you will find it interesting.  It also makes ATMOS the first European company to attempt a reentry from space. 

During the mission, scheduled to launch on SpaceX’s Bandwagon-3 rideshare mission as early as April, Phoenix will complete two Earth orbits before blasting through the atmosphere and landing in the Indian ocean—without any parachute.

Like all of rocket science, the tradeoffs associated with reentry are brutal, and a higher orbit brings higher speeds which makes the trades harder.  In the case of the Orion capsule or other satellites returning from the moon, they come in much faster than something in Earth orbit.  Yes, if they did a longer retro rocket burn they could reenter at a lower speed, but that comes at the cost of carrying fuel to burn which reduces the payload that can be sent to the moon to start with.  Since the modifications to Orion's mission profile to prevent the kind of heat shield damage the first flight had, it's arguable that a lower speed could have prevented that damage.  

The ATMOS team has come up with totally different approach. 

Unlike other reentry capsules, which use ablative heat shields, Phoenix relies on an inflatable heat shield to protect its payloads from the shock and heat of reentry. It inflates using a two-stage system of nitrogen gas canisters and air intakes to suck air out of the atmosphere, reaching a full diameter of 6 m. The combination of light weight and large surface area make for a slower, cooler reentry. 

Altogether, the 250 kg-class reentry vehicle can carry 100 kg of cargo at full capacity, an order of magnitude more efficient than other reentry technologies.

“It’s a very risky approach, but if it works, then there’s pretty much no technology out there that is as lightweight as ours,” ATMOS CEO Sebastian Klaus told Payload.

Phoenix I is ready to ship to Florida for its first flight. Image: ATMOS Space Cargo

This is a prototype flight of the technology and will carry at least three payloads for paying customers - who will get a discount since it is a prototype flight.  Of the three that Payload describes, at least two seem that they may also be prototypes.  

The company is looking to fly two more missions in '26 and four in '27 with an ultimate goal of one launch every month.  They're also planning on scaling the vehicle up in size, talking about carrying up to 25 metric tons (55,000 pounds) per flight. 

“Think about what you can do with 25 metric tons. You can talk about factories in space. You can talk about catching a complete satellite and bringing it back down to earth. You can think about bringing back a rocket upper stage and making rockets reusable,” Klaus said.



Thursday, February 6, 2025

Update to The Butch and Suni Story

By now, I thought that story of President Trump asking Elon Musk to get Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams back down from the space station was well and truly over.  I did a piece last week, Thursday Jan. 30 and I thought it was over then.  

Until today.  

It's being reported that NASA is going to change the plans they've been working to and are moving the Crew-10 mission from early April much closer to the originally planned mid-March date.  That could conceivably have Butch and Suni - along with their two Crew-9 crewmates, NASA's Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov - return to Earth as early as March 19th, about two weeks ahead of the currently published date. 

Bringing the two astronauts back to Earth next month will require some shuffling of spacecraft here on the ground and a delay of the privately operated Axiom-4 mission to the International Space Station to later in the spring.

When the Crew-9 return was delayed, the explanation was that problems with certifying the Crew-10 Dragon Capsule, designated C213 by SpaceX, were the cause.   

SpaceX and NASA are still working to resolve the C213 Dragon issue, which may be related to batteries on the spacecraft. NASA now believes the vehicle will not be ready for its debut launch until late April. Therefore, according to sources at the agency, NASA has decided to swap vehicles for Crew-10. The space agency has asked SpaceX to bring forward the C210 vehicle, which returned to Earth last March after completing the Crew-7 mission. 

The next flight of C210, named Endurance, had been assigned to Axiom Space for their next mission to the ISS, Axiom 4, which seems to have a date of No Earlier Than April penciled in.  The source material doesn't specifically say that they've swapped the two so that Axiom 4 gets the new C213 with Crew-10 getting the older C210 capsule.

Sources said SpaceX is now working toward a no-earlier-than March 12 launch date for Crew-10 on Endurance. If this flight occurs on time—and the date is not certain, as it depends on other missions on SpaceX's Falcon 9 manifest—the Crew-9 astronauts, including Wilmore and Williams, could fly home on March 19. They would have spent 286 days in space. Although not a record for a NASA human spaceflight, this would be far longer than their original mission, which was expected to last eight to 30 days.

I know this completely unrelated to reality but Crew-10 seems to go well with C210, and since 1+3 = 4, C213 seems to go better with Axiom 4.  Just kidding.

Neither C210 or C213, this is the Crew Dragon used for the Inspiration 4 mission in September of '21, simply because it's a pretty picture of a Dragon capsule.  Image credit: SpaceX



Wednesday, February 5, 2025

Indian Navigation Satellite Stuck in Transfer Orbit

Eight days ago as I write, Jan. 28, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) launched their version of a navigational satellite called NVS-02.  Their Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) Mk II lifted off at 7:53 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (0053 UTC) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre. 

As is common in satellites above the lowest, easiest to achieve orbits, once the launch vehicle delivered the NVS-02 payload to the desired deployment altitude, an engine onboard was then set to fire to transfer the satellite to the desired orbit.  On Sunday Feb. 2 the ISRO announced that due to a thruster failure on the satellite it was unable to reach its intended orbit. 

According to a statement posted on ISRO’s website but not otherwise publicized by the agency, “the orbit raising operations towards positioning the satellite to the designated orbital slot could not be carried out as the valves for admitting the oxidizer to fire the thrusters for orbit raising did not open.”

 ISRO goes on to say:

The satellite systems are healthy and the satellite is currently in elliptical orbit. Alternate mission strategies for utilising the satellite for navigation in an elliptical orbit is being worked out. 

The big problem facing the satellite is that it's in an orbit that's unstable.  The Space Track catalog maintained by the U.S. Space Force shows that the satellite remains in an orbit with a perigee of 165 kilometers and apogee of 37,582 kilometers.  That perigee is barely over 100 miles and that's a height where atmospheric drag is a concern, especially in periods near solar max as we are now in.  Solar storms can make the atmosphere expand which can increase drag a lot.  Remember back in 2022 when a solar storm cost SpaceX 40 out of 49 satellites it had just launched?  Those satellites had a perigee of approximately 210 kilometers, almost 50km higher than this one (or 130 miles) - and that wasn't even a strong solar storm. 

Later in the day Sunday ISRO posted to X:

The main Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) engine on the satellite remains in an unusable state, which is why ISRO is now going to attempt to use its Attitude Control System thrusters to slightly raise its perigee.

Any satellite with a perigee below 200 km is in a highly unstable orbit. The current perigee of NVS-02 is at 170 km.

ISRO will probably attempt to raise the perigee only somewhat above 200 km to put NVS-02 in a more stable orbit. It is highly doubtful whether they will be able to raise it all the way into a circular GSO orbit (which was the original destination).

The NVS-02 navigation satellite with its payload fairing before being encapsulated ahead of its Jan. 28 launch. Image credit: ISRO



Tuesday, February 4, 2025

Sometimes a Story is so Silly ...

Every now and then you run across a story that isn't so much news but something that you just have to pass on.  That story belongs to Eric Berger at Ars Technica this week for "Europe has the worst imaginable idea to counter SpaceX’s launch dominance."

The setup is not surprising: the European Space Agency is concerned about SpaceX and how far ahead of everyone else in the space industry they are.  The numbers are recognizable but still eye-popping when you read them.   

Last year, for example, SpaceX launched 134 orbital missions. Combined, Europe had three.

After this intro, Eric outlines several more legitimate reasons for the ESA to be looking for ways to regain some of their previous magic.  For one thing, Europe wants to launch something comparable to the Starlink satellites, but ultimately a smaller presence in space than Starlink to be available by the end of the decade.  

Sounds reasonable, right?  The issue is how they seem to be going about how to get there.

However, the approach being pursued by Airbus—a European aerospace corporation that is, on a basic level, akin to Boeing—seems like the dumbest idea imaginable. According to Bloomberg, "Airbus has hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. for advice on an effort to forge a new European space and satellite company that can better compete with Elon Musk’s dominant SpaceX."

The publication reports that talks are preliminary and include France-based Thales and Italy's Leonardo S.p.A. to create a portfolio of space services. Leonardo has hired Bank of America Inc. for the plan, which has been dubbed Project Bromo. (According to Merriam-Webster, "bromo" is a form of bromide, which originates from the Greek word brōmos, meaning bad smell.)

Project stink?  I swear I'm not making this up. 

While European companies have been playing catch up with the US for around 15 years, it's hard to imagine companies like Airbus, Thales Alenia Space and the others banding together to become nimble and more efficient operators in spaceflight.  But going to Goldman Sachs for advice? 

Two decades ago, the US military forced Lockheed and Boeing to merge their launch businesses to create a single company. Although there were several goals of this venture, which became United Launch Alliance, one of them was that by combining operations, the companies could avoid duplication and become more efficient. The opposite happened. Launch prices ballooned, and America consistently ceded the commercial launch market to foreign players into the 2010s, right up until when SpaceX got its Falcon 9 rocket flying frequently.

Europe's first Ariane 6 rocket takes flight for the first time on July 9, 2024. Credit: ESA - S. Corvaja



Monday, February 3, 2025

Americans on Mars By 2029?

I would say it's doubtful, but betting against Elon Musk has proven to be a pretty foolish thing to do.  The thing is, it doesn't seem to be Musk's idea, it seems to be President Trump's.  

Let me back up a little. 

Like every other government agency, NASA is in the throws of changes from President Trump's first weeks in office, along with Musk's department, DOGE.  The NASA folks are a bit rattled by it all.  Jared Isaacman, Trump's pick to lead the organization, hasn't been confirmed yet, and hearings are currently anticipated to be in the second half of February.  In the meantime, an interim administrator named Janet Petro was appointed, and like every other agency, has passed on the Executive Orders to remove diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility contracts and to "report" on anyone who did not carry out this order.  As I'd expect, there are people in NASA upset by that like every other agency we read about.

Isaacman's approval taking until nearly March seems to be more an issue of the large numbers that congress is having to approve and not a sign of likely disapproval.  In his last five years of funding orbital missions, Isaacman seemed to have come to be regarded as an earnest individual, genuinely interested in spaceflight and in advancing exploration for all.  He is seen as the kind of young, dynamic, pro-space leader with the potential to usher NASA into the 21st century and out of the Apollo era it has been stuck in for decades.  Most importantly, the idea of reaching Mars by 2029 is not his idea.  

January of '29 also happens to be the last days of Trump's term and many speculate that's why he talks of "men on Mars by the end of this decade." At this point, I find it hard to imagine the Artemis program will be successful in getting astronauts to the moon by 2030 and putting people on Mars is orders of magnitude harder.  

Artemis still depends on the horrific SLS, the Gateway station in a Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit near the moon and more.  It also depends a lot on Starship, and the setback of losing the Starship on Flight Test 7 impacts this schedule when the required numbers of Starship flights are seen.

Going to Mars puts enormous demands on Starship.  There's going to be a need to launch numbers of Starships unlike anything ever launched before.  In a posting on X, Musk said, "Mass to orbit is the key metric, thereafter mass to Mars surface. The former needs to be in the megaton to orbit per year range to build a self-sustaining colony on Mars."  A megaton to orbit?  The current Starship is the highest capacity ever built and the largest Version 3 Starship proposed carries 200 tons to LEO.  Musk calculates that he would have to achieve 5,000 Starships launches of this size per year to support a Mars colony. That's on the order of 14 Starship launches per day.  You think near Earth orbit is crowded now?

All that Musk has said that I can find is that he plans to start launching unmanned Starships to Mars in the next launch window (optimum planetary alignment) in 2026, and, if that goes well, perhaps manned flights by 2028/29.

As hard as 5000 Starship launches a year sounds, there are still many problems out there.  Many of them are related to the "couple of months every two years" launch windows and the problems of being in space that long for a crew.  Crews will be exposed to more radiation from the sun and deep space than any other crew ever has been, and it doesn't get much better than that once they're on Mars.  The planet's lack of a protective atmosphere and magnetic field creates that.  A nuclear engine that could get them to Mars in a very short order and reduced the dependence on those tiny launch windows would help exposure during flight but not on the planet.

Final words to the summary on Space.com

Generally, as laid out by Bob Zubrin in the last century, a Mars Direct approach would begin with successfully landing many uncrewed cargo ships in the same location on Mars with supplies including construction materials, consumables, mining & drilling equipment, electrochemical reactors for production of methane and oxygen, tankage, and the components of a nuclear power plant. Much of this would have to be done 2 years before the first humans were launched.

Actually, in theory, all of this could be done over decades, but 2029 is wildly unlikely, even for a one way, one astronaut suicide mission to plant a flag.

SpaceX first released this artist's conception of a settlement on Mars some years ago.  It shows a domed city surrounded by photovoltaic farms and four Starships. Image credit: SpaceX  I'd love to live long enough to see it, but seriously doubt that's possible.



Sunday, February 2, 2025

Japan Launches Navigation Satellite on H3 Rocket

The Mitsubishi Heavy Industries H3 is Japan's flagship rocket, and available in several configurations.  This morning at 3:30 AM EST or 0830 UTC, an H3 was launched from Tanegashima Space Center. 

Aboard was the 1,900-kilogram Michibiki 6 satellite, also known as the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZS-6), for Japan’s navigation satellite system. The system aims to provide Japan with positioning, navigation and timing services, while increasing the accuracy and reliability of GPS services in the region. 

The first Michibiki spacecraft for a four-satellite system was launched in 2010.  Since that time, an 11-satellite system, to provide redundancy, is being considered, according to a 2024 policy document from the Cabinet Office of the Government of Japan. 

You might recall that the H3 had a failure on its first flight in March of 2023 - due to a failure in the upper stage; leading ground controllers to issue a destruct command to destroy the stage and its ALOS-3 payload. It was over a year, July of '24, before they had a successful H3 launch, and they've had two more successes since then. This is vehicle number five.

The 63-meter-long H3 comes in configurations with no solid rocket boosters, two SRBs or four SRBs for higher payload needs. The latter pair of configurations can also utilize an elongated payload fairing. 
...
The expendable rocket was designed to be more cost-effective and therefore competitive on the international commercial launch market.

The H3 received a boost last year with the announcements that the H3 will launch an asteroid mission for the United Arab Emirates, currently scheduled for 2028, while Eutelsat signed a contract to use multiple H3 rockets from 2027.

This morning's launch from Tanegashima Space Center. Photo from The Mainichi (Image credit: Kyodo)  Studying the vehicle as best as I can, it looks like an SRB is facing the camera and in line with the booster's body, which makes this the two SRB version.  Watching the Japanese launch video confirms that.

This was Japan's first launch of the year.  The moon-bound lunar lander Resilience from Japanese company ispace is still said to be in excellent health and en route to the moon, after taking a ride on a Falcon 9 back on Jan. 15. 



Saturday, February 1, 2025

Small Space News Story Roundup 52

Largely from this week's Rocket Report from Ars Technica, but not only from there.

Space Force Has Big Dreams For 2025

The main emphasis in this section was launches on ULA's Vulcan, but it's not just Vulcan. The US Space Force is projecting 11 national security launches aboard the Vulcan rocket in 2025.  That's an aggressive schedule considering that Vulcan isn't certified for national security payloads yet.  

While ULA aims to ramp up Vulcan flights for military missions, SpaceX has maintained its dominance in the commercial launch market and even absorbed additional national security launches in 2024 that were originally slated for Vulcan, highlighting the Space Force’s growing reliance on SpaceX’s proven Falcon rockets to maintain critical military space access.

Add New Glenn to the mix.  The first mission of the New Glenn in January was deemed a success by the Space Force and it seems Blue Origin is going to do a second qualifying launch by the spring.  Space Force doesn't appear to be concerned about Blue's inability to land the booster for recycling and re-use.  Brigadier General Kristin Panzenhagen emphasized that booster recovery isn't a criterion for NSSL eligibility.  

“For our national security space launch missions, the primary measure of success is delivering the payload to its destination,” she said. 
 
The flight positions New Glenn to compete for Lane 1 of the NSSL Phase 3 program, which covers less complex missions. A second successful flight will likely be required for the rocket to qualify for the more demanding Lane 2 missions.

Blue Origin’s path to certification remains proprietary, with the company given the option to balance demonstration launches and detailed data reviews to meet Space Force requirements. ULA publicly disclosed that its plan to certify Vulcan would require two successful flights.

Vulcan is still under pressure with certification expected in late February.  If Space Force gets 11 NSSL launches out of the 10 months left in the year ULA is going to have operate at a pace we haven't seen them meet in years - if ever. 

Sorry, but this story makes me laugh

It's actually a headline in the Rocket Report that SpaceX expended a Falcon 9 this past Wednesday, Jan. 29.  You know, like virtually every other launch by every other launch service in the world, they used up every pound of payload to orbit they could get out of this system before letting it crash into the Atlantic ocean. That included taking steps like removing the landing legs and grid fins to add those few pounds to the payload it could put in orbit.  

The payload was the SpainSat NG-1 satellite launched from Kennedy Space Center's Pad 39A. 

The gigantic difference between SpaceX expending booster B1073 and every other example you can think of is that this was the 21st flight of B1073.  I'm unaware of any other launch provider that currently is able to recover and re-fly boosters over 20 times.

The Airbus-built satellite, known as SpainSat NG-1 (New Generation), is the first of two satellites for Hisdesat. It was developed under a partnership with the European Space Agency, making its launch on a Falcon 9 somewhat notable.

Apparently, the FAA is still being the FAA

Apparently enough people think that the FAA is just going to let SpaceX operate without doing their usual process on Starship's Flight Test 7 that it's news the FAA is going to follow FAA policies.

Within hours of the Starship's RUD, people were reporting finding debris, although there were no reports of any serious damages. 

The good news is there were no injuries or reports of significant damage from the wreckage that fell over the Turks and Caicos. "The FAA confirmed one report of minor damage to a vehicle located in South Caicos," an FAA spokesperson told Ars on Friday. "To date, there are no other reports of damage."

It's not clear if the vehicle owner in South Caicos will file a claim against SpaceX for the damage. It would the first time someone makes such a claim related to an accident with a commercial rocket overseen by the FAA. Last year, a Florida homeowner submitted a claim to NASA for damage to his house from a piece of debris that fell from the International Space Station.

A piece of what appears to be heat shield tile recovered in the Caicos, as shown on X



Friday, January 31, 2025

Several Interesting Space Missions Coming in February -

I stumbled across an interesting article on Space.com that contains more than the headline hints at.

The main part of the story is about NASA's new SPHEREx Infrared Space Telescope.  The James Webb telescope (JWST) is an IR telescope so that leads to asking “what's the difference?”  There are several, so let's start at the beginning:

It's an eggshell white, conical probe named SPHEREx, which (get ready for a mouthful) stands for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer. And, because it works with infrared light, SPHEREx is meant to reveal things even the trailblazing James Webb Space Telescope cannot.

The main difference optically is that the JWST is a multi-segment, large aperture mirror (best picture of the system here) that's what photographers think of as a telephoto lens.  SPHEREx, by contrast is a wider angle lens, which many users refer to as a panorama lens.  

To be fair, SPHEREx won't rival the JWST's ability to observe highly localized regions of the universe that are confined to the infrared section of the electromagnetic spectrum. However, unlike the JWST, it is an all-sky survey. Whereas the $10 billion JWST is great at observing things like specific nebulas and relatively narrow but tremendously dimensional deep fields, SPHEREx is intended to image the entire sky as seen from Earth.

"We are literally mapping the entire celestial sky in 102 infrared colors for the first time in humanity's history, and we will see that every six months," said Nicky Fox, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. "This has not been done before on this level of color resolution for our old sky maps."

NASA's web page on the mission adds important content. SPHEREx will map the entire celestial sky illuminating the origins of our universe, galaxies within it, and life’s key ingredients in our own galaxy. 

 Launch is presently scheduled for no earlier than Feb. 27 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket — and SPHEREx won't be the only payload. As part of NASA's Launch Services Program, which connects space missions with appropriate commercial launch vehicles, SPHEREx will share its ride with the agency's PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission, a constellation of four little satellites meant to study the sun. The duo will lift off from Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base in Central California.

NASA’s SPHEREx space observatory was photographed at BAE Systems in Boulder, Colorado, in November 2024 after completing environmental testing. The spacecraft’s three concentric cones help direct heat and light away from the telescope and other components, keeping them cool. Credit: BAE Systems

But wait!  There's more! (...as the commercials say)

The next moon lander from Intuitive Machines, the IM-2 or Athena moon lander arrived "just up the road" at Cape Canaveral, this past Tuesday (Jan. 28).  

Athena — which is Intuitive Machines' second lander — aims to validate resource prospecting, mobility, and communications infrastructure in the Mons Mouton region, a tall mountain near the moon's south pole. The region is a potential landing site for NASA's Artemis 3 crewed mission.

Athena's four-day launch window opens on February 26, or the day before SPHEREx's launch, and will also ride a Falcon 9 to its route to the moon.  The difference is that Athena is launching from Kennedy Space Center, LC-39A. 

Intuitive Machines' second moon lander, named Athena, arrived on Florida's Space Coast on Jan. 28, 2025. (Image credit: Intuitive Machines)

Payloads aboard Athena include a drill (The Regolith and Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrain, or TRIDENT) and the Mass Spectrometer observing lunar operations (MSolo). It also carries a Micro Nova Hopper, which will target a permanently shadowed crater and seek to detect hydrogen, and the Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform (MAPP) rover.

Once Athena touches down, the Micro Nova Hopper and MAPP rover will deploy to explore the lunar terrain. They will establish a connection using Nokia's Lunar Surface Communication System (LSCS), the first-ever 4G/LTE network on the moon. This is a move away from radio frequency communication and will enable real-time command and control, telemetry transmission, and even high-definition video streaming, in what could be a big step toward establishing sustainable lunar infrastructure.

Two interesting science missions scheduled for two successive days at the end of February.  Now that's a fun story!



Thursday, January 30, 2025

A Couple of Space Station Stories

NASA to President Trump and Elon Musk: "nope"

The big story that I think everyone has heard about is that (paraphrasing) President Trump told Elon Musk to go get the two astronauts stranded on the ISS - whom we've all come to be on a first name basis with: Suni Williams and Butch Wilcox.  

This was surprising to those of us who follow this stuff because we know they're now part of the Crew-9 mission after that mission was changed to two new ISS crew members instead of four, and were set to come back down around the end of February or start of March.  That was the story until about one month ago (last story at that link) when some issues with the (new) Crew-10 Crew Dragon capsule caused NASA to delay that February mission until late March.  The usual "week or two" overlap between the arriving and leaving crews is pushing that toward early April. 

At this point, I don't know that SpaceX could ready another Crew Dragon and go get them much sooner than that early April date.  A day or a week sooner out of a 10 month extended mission just doesn't mean much.

Later yesterday, NASA issued a reply sending essentially that statement to the President. 

In a statement to reporters Jan. 29, NASA stated it was proceeding with plans to return the Crew-9 astronauts “as soon as practical” and after the arrival of new astronauts on the upcoming Crew-10 mission.

“NASA and SpaceX are expeditiously working to safely return the agency’s SpaceX Crew-9 astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore as soon as practical, while also preparing for the launch of Crew-10 to complete a handover between expeditions,” the agency stated.

As of late today, neither Musk nor Trump have further elaborated on their earlier comments, or responded to NASA’s statement. 

Meanwhile, Butch and Suni are Having Fun

The two Starliner-turned-Crew-9 astronauts took a long spacewalk today to resolve a longstanding problem on the ISS.  As part of that 5-hour and 26-minute spacewalk, Suni Williams surpassed the record for the most time spent in spacewalks by a woman. The previous total of 60 hours and 21 minutes was set by now-former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson in 2017. Whitson still holds the record for the most spacewalks by a woman at 10. 

The extended spacewalk was needed to free the radio frequency group (RFG) a key component of the station's primary command and data antenna assembly, that has been down for nearly two years.  The first attempt to remove the RFG from its mount was in April 2023, when a central latching bolt refused to release. NASA astronaut Stephen Bowen, who was on that earlier spacewalk, was in Mission Control on Thursday to advise Williams and Wilmore on the renewed attempt.

A second spacewalk in October 2023 was also tasked with trying to retrieve the RFG, but only had enough time to inspect it. Two more attempts in June 2024 were cut short before the EVAs could even get underway due to spacesuit equipment issues.

“There it goes, it’s free,” radioed Williams as the RFG finally came free. “Holy moly!”

The RFG was "good and stuck" as we say.  The two needed to try several different approaches and “a little bit of brute force” to remove the unit, exceeding the three hours that Mission Control had originally allocated for the task. They two spent the rest of their time outside carefully moving the RFG back into the Quest airlock so it can be returned to Earth for refurbishment.

After that main goal was achieved, an interesting little experiment was carried out.  In a prior mission, the Russians had swabbed the outside of their side of the space station but the rest has never been tested. 

Since 2014, cosmonauts have gathered similar samples from the Russian side of the station, which scientists have later claimed included microorganisms capable of surviving in the vacuum of space. This was the first time NASA has conducted its own such study. 

The Russians said that the tests revealed bacteria that were absent during the launch of the ISS module.  "That is, they have come from outer space and settled along the external surface. They are being studied so far, and it seems that they pose no danger."

I think I saw that movie. Or one like it.

As seen from his helmet-mounted camera, NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore prepares to swab the outside of the International Space Station to collect potential microbe samples during the spacewalk on Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025. (Image credit: NASA)



Wednesday, January 29, 2025

NASA Unveils Bennu Asteroid Sample Results

Today, Jan. 29, NASA released more details on the analysis of the samples of asteroid Bennu, returned in September 2023.  Bottom line up front: of the 20 amino acids known to create the proteins required for life on our planet, Bennu scientists have now found 14 of them. 

Bennu was the target of the mission called OSIRIS-REx that launched in 2016.  The ambitious mission was to get to the asteroid, get close enough to retrieve some samples of its surface by slapping into it and capturing the dust and pebbles that crash kicked up, then return that debris to Earth. 

In other words, OSIRIS-REx was meant to deliver untouched asteroid chunks home to be analyzed in a lab. This brilliant plan worked. The samples landed in the Utah desert in 2023, and scientists have been wringing those priceless pieces of Bennu for data ever since.

When the first results of looking at the 250 grams of returned pebbles and dust were released in October of '23, Mission Scientist Dante Lauretta, principal investigator from the University of Arizona, said scientists hit the jackpot with a sample that is nearly 5 percent carbon by mass and has abundant water in the form of hydrated clay minerals.

However, that was more or less expected (or at least actively hoped for as corroborative evidence of scientists' Bennu theories). The team's latest discoveries, which NASA unveiled on Wednesday (Jan. 29), come as a bit of a surprise, and pose many exciting questions. The most notable parts are probably that researchers found those aforementioned 14 amino acids, a high concentration of ammonia, and the five nucleobases life on Earth uses to transmit genetic instructions within DNA and RNA.

"Their findings do not show evidence of life itself, but they do suggest that the conditions necessary for the emergence of life were likely widespread across the early solar system," Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington, told reporters during a Jan. 29 press conference. "This, of course, increases the odds that life could have formed on other planets."

Nicky Fox later added: "For me, the question is: Why didn't life form on Bennu?" A question that needs more work - probably more space missions to come close to answering.  Not that there's anything wrong with that. 

There's a lot interesting content in that Space.com article, including a great example of science as it should be done, but doesn't seem to be done anymore.  It's a little long to copy in its entirety, six paragraphs, but it concerns the chirality of the chemicals found on Bennu - a bit on the Chemistry geek side. Chirality is also known as optical isomers - most all of these compounds will rotate polarized light in a left or right handed direction: levo- or dextro- rotary in that order.  To drag in one quote:

A molecule is considered "chiral" if it can't be superimposed on a mirror image of itself no matter what you try to do. This means that there must be two versions of that molecule, a left-handed version and a right-handed version. (Think about your own left and right hands. If your palms are facing upward, they follow this principle, too).

One of the puzzles that biochemists face is that all life on Earth seems to be based on left handed molecules, and nobody has a good explanation for why that is. Furthermore, when pieces of meteors that have made it to the surface are examined, they're also left handed molecules.  One of the Bennu scientists has been working on the theory that the early solar system was biased to left handed isomers.  The results from Bennu completely invalidated his work.  

"I have to admit, I was a little disillusioned or disappointed," Glavin said. "I felt like this had invalidated 20 years of research in our lab and my career. But I mean, here's the thing: This is exactly why we explore. This is why we do these missions, right? If we knew everything in advance, we wouldn't need to do an OSIRIS REx to bring these samples back."

I'd like to think that's the way all science is, but I've seen enough to convince me he's more like an exception to the rule.   

OSIRIS-REx touching down on asteroid Bennu. (Image credit: NASA)



Tuesday, January 28, 2025

From the No News is Good News Department

We can say it that way or say that a little news is also good news.  Whichever you prefer we got an update on Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lunar lander that was launched two weeks ago this morning (if you're reading this on Jan. 29).  A read of the mission profile graphic in that post will show you it's silly to be expecting big news when the lander is at day 14 of its 25 day Earth orbit, primarily spent raising the apogee of its orbit.  In other words, if we got big news, it would probably be a Bad Thing.

Instead we get this picture as a data point on how well the mission is going.  That bright circle just above the centerline of the picture is the moon as seen from the lander

Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lunar lander snapped this selfie with the moon in the background from Earth orbit. Firefly posted the image on X on Jan. 27, 2025. (Image credit: Firefly Aerospace)

"While Blue Ghost is in Earth orbit, we'll continue to keep an eye on our final destination! To the moon!" Firefly said in a Monday X post that shared the two images.
...
Everything seems to be going well for Blue Ghost so far. The lander remains healthy in orbit and has completed two engine burns on schedule, according to Firefly. In about 10 days, the spacecraft will conduct its most important engine firing yet — a translunar injection burn, which will set it on course for the moon.

The trip to the moon will take about four days, after which the Blue Ghost will spend 16 days in lunar orbit calibrating itself and lowering its orbit gradually.  Once pronounced ready, they will attempt to land the probe in Mare Crisium (the "Sea of Crises") on the eastern limb of the Earth-facing side of the moon. That shows up as 45 days after launch, or around the end of February. The New Moon is February 27 and the exact landing time is probably to be around sunrise at the Mare Crisium landing site - to maximize the lander's time.  That sounds like the landing will be in the first days of March.

Firefly has released other pictures from the probe in the last week.  There's a video from when the lander witnessed a solar eclipse and has captured beautiful "blue marble" views of Earth.

The other probe, launched on the same Falcon 9 as Blue Ghost was Resilience from ispace in Japan, and Resilience is also doing well, according to the company. ispace is gearing up for a lunar flyby that will take place around Feb. 15, but that's almost a tease.

Resilience is taking a longer, more circuitous route to the moon than Blue Ghost is; the Japanese lander won't reach lunar orbit until about four months after launch. It will attempt a touchdown about two weeks after that.

Four months after launch will be around May 15 and two weeks after that implies the new moon in May is the targeted landing time.



Monday, January 27, 2025

Things May Be Looking Up for Blue Origin

In the aftermath of the first successful orbital flight of the New Glenn, Blue Origin has finally become a real space company.  After all, a widely accepted standard in the space industry is that a rocket company isn't a real rocket company until it reaches orbit.  Now the company which was founded before SpaceX has finally achieved orbit and they feel like a new company.  

That Blue Origin has been far behind the company's goals isn't news, nor is the apparent real reason.  I recall writing about this years ago, wondering if it was too late for Jeff Bezos to save his company.  Blue's CEO at the time, and for most of the company's life by that date in 2021 was Bob Smith, an experienced industry executive who came from Honeywell.  The problem is Smith was too much of an "Old Space" or "Space 1.0" executive and brought much of that arguably obsolete mindset to Blue.  Smith was thought of poorly by his employees. and under his leadership, Blue was litigious, slow, and unproductive.  

In September of '23, Bezos finally took the proper step and brought in a manager from his Amazon days, Dave Limp.  It's worth mentioning that people were concerned he might not be a good choice either, because of little to no experience in aerospace.  I think time has shown he was a fine choice.

Back in May of '19, I did a story on Jeff Bezos' vision for Blue Origin's role in space.  Instead of settling on and colonizing Mars like Musk advocates, Bezos is an advocate of colonies in space.  Not International Space Station style; not even rotating wheel-in-space from the movie 2001-style.  Those are thousands of times too small.  Instead, he envisions "O'Neill Cylinders;" colonies of millions of people living in permanent colonies in space.  About a million people per colony.  This is as much a multi-generational commitment as colonizing Mars and establishing it as the "second home planet" of humanity. 

Apparently, Bezos and Limp have a very realistic view of how to move forward into the future.  The next steps are clear: get better at building engines and rockets while flying New Glenn regularly. 

At times during his remarks, Bezos sounded a lot like SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who has spoken about "building the machine that builds the machine" over the last decade with respect to both Tesla vehicles and SpaceX rockets.

Asked about Blue's current priorities, Bezos responded, "Rate manufacturing and driving urgency around the machine that makes the machine."

You've probably seen Musk's commitment in the way he refers to the launch towers at Starbase in Texas as being "Stage Zero" of the SuperHeavy.  Not just a launch tower but a properly designed part of the system; that is, anything that can be moved off the Starship to the tower to make the vehicle perform better or to improve its reliability is a target to be moved.  Remember his laws of engineering, like that the best part is no part. A very common mistake during designing a new product is to spend time and money to optimize a part or procedure that could be eliminated. 

It's just kind of rough to compare Blue and their track record to SpaceX.  Blue was founded in September of 2000, before SpaceX in March of 2002.  SpaceX has launched over 450 rockets into orbit; Blue Origin has launched one (in fact, SpaceX's launch number moves so fast, that 450 might not even be right)

It might be an insight to the Blue Origin mindset or approach to doing things is in this organizational motto.  The Latin phrase gradatim ferociter translates as gradually, fiercely.  They say Blue Origin prefers that as step by step, fiercely. 

The long-running joke in the space industry is that we'd all like to see a little less "gradatim" and a little more "ferociter" from Blue Origin. The company's coat of arms—yes, it has one—prominently features two turtles. A turtle logo is also stamped onto a New Shepard spacecraft after every mission. This is a reference to one of Aesop's Fables, "The Tortoise and the Hare," in which the slow and steady tortoise wins the race.

Bezos clearly believes Blue Origin is the tortoise that will win the space race.

Final words to Eric Berger at Ars Technica (which he translates from Latin as "the Art of Technology")

Days after New Glenn's first launch, Bezos attended the inauguration of Donald Trump, standing near Musk. The founder of SpaceX played a major role in getting Trump elected and has been advising him on space policy.

Bezos and Musk, the tortoise and the hare, appeared chatty and friendly in a way that has not been the norm for the rivals. More commonly, they have sniped at one another rather than chummed it up. Perhaps now, they'll team up to help America spread among the stars.

We'll see. Musk is interested in Mars, and Bezos is more fixated on the Moon. Ultimately, Trump may tell them both to follow their hearts, with the US government coming along for the ride.