Tag: international space station

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Boeing’s Starliner capsule took astronauts to space — now it needs to bring them back

The delays are not over for Boeing’s Starliner capsule. After years of delays, the aerospace giant finally launched the spacecraft earlier this month, but the two-person crew is currently due to spend more than double the planned amount of time in space due to continuing technical issues on orbit.  On Tuesday, NASA and Boeing officials […]

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Gitai’s autonomous robot installs panel outside the ISS, showing orbital repairs in action

Los Angeles-based Gitai said Tuesday that its autonomous robotic arm has nailed a tech demonstration outside the International Space Station. Gitai CEO Sho Nakanose told TechCrunch in an interview last year that the company aims to reduce in-space labor costs by 100 times, in the same way that SpaceX and other providers have dramatically reduced […]

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Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule will not be ready fly crew until March 2024

Boeing and NASA managers are now estimating that the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft will not be ready to fly astronauts until March 2024, one of the longest delays yet to hit this already very delayed space program.

Boeing’s Starliner capsule is part of NASA’s Commercial Crew program (CCP), one of two spacecraft – the other being SpaceX’s Dragon – the space agency selected in 2014 to carry astronauts to and from the International Space Station. But while SpaceX’s Dragon has conducting many astronaut ferrying missions, Boeing’s Starliner has been continually sidelined due to technical issues. To date, Starliner has completed just one uncrewed orbital test flight, which successfully launched last May.

A crewed Starliner mission with two NASA astronauts aboard was due to launch in April, until it was delayed to July; then the two firms announced at the beginning of June that the crewed test mission would be postponed yet again, this time due to issues with the capsule’s parachutes and the glass cloth tape that wraps around wire harnesses in the spacecraft.

Steve Stich, a manager with NASA’s CCP, told reporters Monday that the team has made a “tremendous amount of progress” since the June update. That progress includes redesigning the parachute “soft links,” or the connectors that attach the parachute to the capsule, and removing a “substantial amount” of the P-213 glass cloth tape had been removed from the crew module. 85% of the tape has been remediated in the upper dome of the craft already, he added.

But even as NASA and Boeing make headway on these problems, they’re proving to be very time-intensive. Mark Nappi, Boeing’s Starliner program manager, said that the new parachute would not be delivered until around the beginning of December, with a drop test occurring in mid- to late-November.

That means the spacecraft won’t be ready until early March – but that doesn’t mean that the test mission will occur in early March.

“We’re now working with NASA Commercial Crew Program, ISS, and [launch provider] ULA on potential launch dates based on our readiness,” Stich said. “It’s a complicated manifesto on ISS and the launch pad of ULA, so we’ll work that throughout the next several weeks and see where we can get that in and we’ll set a launch date.”

In spite of this late schedule, NASA and Boeing managers affirmed their confidence that Starliner will be able to fulfill all of the contracted missions under the CCP before the ISS decommissioning in 2030.

“There’s really no reason to change our plans,” Nappi said. “We’ve bought hardware for six flights plus [the crewed test flight]. It still fits us well in the window that we have. There’s additional flights are available outside of those six with other customers. So I think we are still committed, like we have been in the past, and will continue on.”

In the meantime, costs continue to mount. Boeing has incurred nearly $900 million in losses due to delays in Starliner development as of October last year; no doubt that number will continue to climb until the capsule’s maiden commercial flight.

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Gitai wants to build a robotic labor force for the moon and Mars

There is a groundswell of commercial space initiatives focused on the moon, with established companies and newer upstarts all seeking to transform that cold, grey rock into a thriving hub for scientific and industrial activity. But that future will likely be impossible without a suite of robotic helpers.

Tokyo-based startup Gitai thinks autonomous robots, instead of human labor, can and should be used to make this vision a reality. The company thinks robots could be used for many activities in space – from assembly to inspection to conducting routine maintenance. To that end, the company has developed a robotic arm and a robotic rover for in-space applications.

Its tech has attracted continued interest from investors, with the company announcing today that it closed $30 million (4 billion yen) in a Series B extension round from Japanese funds and venture firms. Those include Global Brain CVC Funds, DCI Venture Growth Fund, the Dai-ichi Life Insurance Company, Ltd, ANRI III Investment Limited Partnership, ANRI I-II-III Annex Investment Limited Partnership, NVC No. 1 Limited Liability Partnership, JIC Venture Growth Fund 2 Investment Limited Partnership, Electric Power Development Company, and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital IX Limited Partnership.

Gitai is planning on directing all of the new funding towards building out its U.S.-based workforce and expanding its U.S. manufacturing and testing capacity. It’s a mark of how seriously the startup is taking its American operations.

“We are going to invest in the U.S.,” Gitai CEO Sho Nakanose said in a recent interview. Nakanose, who just moved to the Los Angeles area, said that more than half of the Japanese workforce, including the engineers, have also relocated to the U.S. Gitai has already stopped hiring in Japan and will instead expand its U.S. headcount by 20 by the end of this year, and 40-50 by the end of next year.

The company is in the process of building out testing facilities for its robotics, including a mock lunar environment and a vacuum chamber.

The end goal is to boost the technological readiness level – a measurement system used by NASA and other government programs to assess the maturity of any given technology – of its two core robot products. The robotic arm has already spent time in space, when the company conducted a technology demonstration with it on the International Space Station in 2021. Gitai is currently gearing up for a second tech demo of the robotic arm next year – which will take place outside the ISS, a considerably more difficult endeavor – and hopes to send the rover to the moon as early as 2026.

Image credit: Gitai

These are big steps for the seven-year old startup, especially considering that the company’s initial aim was not necessarily to go into the space market. Nakanose explained in a recent interview that when he founded the company, the space industry was the last market on his list. “I was looking for more sound, practical opportunities,” he said.

But he quickly realized that Earth-based robots have to overcome a major market challenge: human labor. “It is so difficult for robotic capacity to overcome human labor, especially in terms of the cost,” he explained.

The space industry, on the other hand, presents unique opportunities for robotics developers. Right now, the robotic arms attached to the ISS are expensive – the multi-phase program to develop a third-gen “Canadarm” robotic arm that’s affixed to the outside of the ISS is valued at $1.2 billion. But astronaut labor isn’t the answer, either: it’s still very expensive, and dangerous, to send a single human to space, let alone sending them to conduct extravehicular activity outside the station.

Private companies that are developing private space stations – which include Vast, Blue Origin, Voyager Space and Axiom Space – will also likely be looking for cheaper alternatives to the legacy robotics on the ISS. Gitai could fill this impending market need with its robotic arm.

“While SpaceX and Blue Origin are reducing the cost of transportation to space by 100 times, we at Gitai are taking on the challenge of reducing labor costs by 100 times,” Nakanose said. “We will provide the most labor for the moon and Mars and build infrastructure such as solar panels, communication antennas, fuel generators and habitation modules.”

Gitai wants to build a robotic labor force for the moon and Mars by Aria Alamalhodaei originally published on TechCrunch

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Axiom Space gears up for second private human spaceflight mission to ISS

Axiom Space’s second private crewed mission to the International Space Station is now scheduled to launch in just ten days, with the four-person crew preparing to conduct more than twenty scientific experiments while in space.

The Ax-2 mission will now launch no earlier than 5:37 PM EST on May 21 from SpaceX’s Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The crew will travel to the station onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule, where they’ll remain for a roughly 10-day stint. This will mark the second fully private crew to visit the ISS; the first mission, also operated by Axiom Space, took place in April 2022.

The crew includes Peggy Whitson, the mission commander and Axiom’s director of human spaceflight; John Shoffner, the pilot; Ali Alqarni, mission specialist; and Rayyanah Barnawi, also a mission specialist. Alqarni and Barnawi are both members of Saudi Arabia’s first astronaut class, and will be the first people from that country to visit the ISS. Shoffner, an Axiom investor, is the only paying customer on the crew.

The foursome will engage in a ton of scientific research while aboard the station. The more than 20 payloads that will travel with the crew, which span the life sciences, biomedicine, and technology demonstrations, are sponsored by the ISS National Laboratory. Experiments include examining the impact of microgravity on stem cell production, studies on bioengineered human tissue, and a project that will help advance detection of a treatment for cancer on Earth. The crew will also undergo a battery of tests to better understand the impact of spaceflight and microgravity on the body.

Private human spaceflight mission is just one part of Axiom’s plan. The company is also among a growing crowd of players aiming to operate a private space station. Their plan involves attaching modules to the ISS, and later operating these modules as a free-flying station once the ISS is decommissioned in 2030. The first module is scheduled to launch in 2025.

Axiom also announced last month that it signed an agreement to establish a joint venture with one of its investors: Korean pharmaceutical firm Boryung, who contributed $50 million in capital last December. The JV was announced last month.

Axiom Space gears up for second private human spaceflight mission to ISS by Aria Alamalhodaei originally published on TechCrunch

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Jed McCaleb’s private space station venture Vast might be more than just science fiction

Some of the biggest names in the space industry are billionaires: Elon Musk. Jeff Bezos. Richard Branson. The newest person to join this small cadre, at least by personal net worth, is Jed McCaleb. His space station company, Vast, is partnering with SpaceX to be the first private company to launch and operate a fully-commercial station in orbit.

The average American is likely unfamiliar with McCaleb, a software developer who was one of the creators of the now-infamous Mt. Gox Bitcoin exchange and a founder of the crypto protocol Ripple. According to some estimates, his fortune is estimated to be worth around $2.5 billion. When Vast emerged from stealth in the fall of 2022, it was greeted with more than a little skepticism. The company said it was launching with a mission to build the world’s first artificial gravity space station – and provided few other details.

“I don’t fault people for being skeptical,” McCaleb said in a recent interview. “I’ve clearly never done anything in aerospace before, so it is a leap.”

The public’s doubts about McCaleb are likely fading fast today, with news that the company is aiming to put the first commercial space station in orbit as soon as August 2025. It’s an aggressive timeline, one that outpaces other station developers – and it’s all being funded by McCaleb himself.

It’s something that makes Vast stand out from its competitors, Vast President Max Haot said. The unique aspect of the company is “Jed and his commitment, and the fact that we not only have a single founder that is our single investor, but that he has the resources and the commitment to see us through this whole flight – both the crew flight and Haven-1 launch – without [needing] any single outside investor.”

The majority of the other space station developers – notably Northrop Grumman and separate teams led by Blue Origin and Voyager Space – are seeking to partly fund their stations via contracts with NASA. Those three initiatives have already garnered a collective $415.6 million to develop their stations. The final major player in this space, Axiom Space, is also working with NASA to attach a module to the International Space Station, with plans to free-fly it once the ISS is decommissioned.

ISS’ decommissioning looms large over all these initiatives. The U.S. government’s commitment earlier this year to continue station operations until 2030 is now the de-facto deadline for these private operators – and for NASA itself, which has publicly stated its goal of maintaining a continual presence in low Earth orbit.

Haven-1, as Vast’s first module is being called, was designed for simplicity, McCaleb and Haot explained. The module will launch on a Falcon 9, and a crew of four will follow suit in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. Vast has the option of purchasing an additional four-person crewed launch at a later period. The crew, as well as the ticket price, have not been announced.

Vast is targeting three major customer bases: international space agencies, high net worth private individuals and firms that want to host payloads on the inside or outside of the module. Eventually, Vast is even looking to sell dedicated modules to companies that may want to turn it into an in-space factory or scientific platform, or to individuals or teams.

Haven-1 will have a three-year lifespan. As the company was looking to optimize for simplicity above other considerations, the module will have no resupply or refueling capabilities. The best case scenario, Haot said, is that the module will eventually mate with a second, larger station module that the company wants to launch on SpaceX’s Starship in 2028. If that second launch slips, however, Haot said that Haven-1 will be sent up with enough propellant to deorbit itself at the end of its useful life.

“We’re never going to learn how to do this until we start doing it,” McCaleb said. “SpaceX has shown that if you can move fast and be aggressive, that’s actually a good way to achieve these really great things with hardware.”

Jed McCaleb’s private space station venture Vast might be more than just science fiction by Aria Alamalhodaei originally published on TechCrunch

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Blue Origin’s Shahir Gerges discusses a post-ISS orbital economy at TC Sessions: Space

NASA’s plan to decommission and deorbit the International Space Station (ISS) by 2031 creates another collaborative, multinational opportunity to provide a persistent orbital presence. Yet, the path to achieving that goal remains unclear.

Here’s the rub. No one knows exactly what that presence looks like, how it should be built, who would run it and how it would make money. These complex questions are why we’re thrilled that Blue Origin’s Shahir Gerges, director of business strategy for Orbital Reef, will join us for a fireside chat onstage at TC Sessions: Space on December 6.

These aren’t issues for engineers and astronauts to solve, although they must be involved in the discussion. Instead, it will take far-sighted business leaders who see where the market is headed. They’ll also need to build a compelling case for how a phenomenally expensive expedition, like a long-term space station, can reasonably be expected to pay for itself over a 10-year period.

What, who and how much will it take to build a safe, thriving commercial space economy? What can and should the world expect from privately operated successors to the ISS?

In a session called “Space Station Shake-up,” Gerges, an expert in the realm of commercial space stations, will share his perspective. Be in the room to hear what this space ace has to say about that and more.

Shahir Gerges serves as the director of business strategy for Orbital Reef, within Blue Origin. Orbital Reef is designed to be a mixed-use space station in low Earth orbit for commerce, research and tourism by the end of this decade. Focused on long-term financial sustainability for Orbital Reef, Gerges develops offerings to cultivate growth in new and emerging markets that would benefit from the on-orbit environment, including microgravity.

Before joining Blue Origin, Gerges worked as a strategy consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he advised industrial companies (including aerospace and defense) on market strategy decisions, internal operations strategy and multiple-deal due diligence. Gerges started his career at United Launch Alliance working in various engineering and strategy roles, as well as supporting government affairs.

Gerges holds a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology and an MBA from Georgetown University.

TC Sessions: Space takes place on December 6 in Los Angeles. Buy your pass today, join us to learn about the latest space economy trends, see cutting-edge technology, and network for opportunities to help you build a better, stronger startup.

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Space? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

Blue Origin’s Shahir Gerges discusses a post-ISS orbital economy at TC Sessions: Space by Lauren Simonds originally published on TechCrunch

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Max Q: Oh my gourd

Hello and welcome back to Max Q. Will every October issue have a Halloween/autumn pun as its title? I’LL NEVER TELL. In this issue:

  • Blast off for Crew-5
  • Russia’s rethinking on the ISS
  • News from Firefly, TK and more

By the way…We are a little over ONE WEEK away from TechCrunch Disrupt, which is returning live and in-person to San Francisco on October 18-20. Use this link to receive 15% off passes (excluding online and expo).

SpaceX had a busy week

SpaceX continues to set the industry standard for launch cadence, successfully completing three separate missions in the span of five days. The first was Crew-5 on Wednesday (more on that below), followed by a Starlink mission a scant eight hours later. To cap it all off, it launched two satellites for Intelsat on Thursday night.

Crew-5 was a milestone for a few different reasons. The mission (so named because it’s SpaceX’s fifth crewed mission with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program) took off from launch pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center. The crew of four — which includes American astronauts Nicole Mann, mission commander, and Josh Cassada, mission pilot; JAXA astronaut Koichi Wakata, mission specialist; and Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina, mission specialist — are traveling to the station in a Crew Dragon dubbed “Endurance.” It separated from the Falcon 9 rocket shortly after launch and arrived at the station on Thursday.

SpaceX has now delivered 30 humans to space across eight human spaceflight missions. It also marks the first time that a cosmonaut has flown on a SpaceX Crew Dragon and the first time a cosmonaut has flown on an American spacecraft since 2002. Cosmonaut Kikina’s spot on the spacecraft is part of a recent astronaut transportation deal between the U.S. and Russia. American astronaut Francisco Rubio flew to the ISS on a Russian Soyuz last month as part of the deal.

Looking ahead, SpaceX’s next CCP mission, Crew-6, will launch in February of next year. The Ax-2 mission, Axiom Space’s second private mission to the ISS, will follow in May.

SpaceX rocket launch

Image Credits: SpaceX

Russia debates staying on ISS past 2024 despite tensions

Russia is having internal discussions over continuing its participation in the International Space Station (ISS) beyond 2024, despite statements made earlier this summer that the country will pull out of the station program by the middle of the decade.

Sergei Krikalev, head of human space programs at Roscosmos, said Monday that the Russian space agency is in discussions to extend its “participation in [the] ISS program with our government and hope to have permission to continue next year.”

The about-face comes just a few months after Roscosmos head Yuri Borisov announced Russia’s plans to leave the station after 2024, and instead construct its own orbiting station. The ISS is operated in partnership between the space agencies of U.S., Russia, Canada, Japan and Europe. America has committed to operate the station through 2030.

However, Krikalev admitted that a new Russian station may not be ready by 2025. “We know that it’s not going to happen very [quickly], so probably we will keep flying [on the ISS] until we have any new infrastructure that will allow us to do continuous human presence on low Earth orbit,” he said.

satellit in orbit

Image Credits: NASA

More news from TC and beyond

  • ArianeGroup conducted a successful hot fire test of the Ariane 6 second stage, a key milestone in stage qualification testing. The European Space Agency is hoping to launch the Ariane 6 rocket sometime next year.
  • CAPSTONE, NASA’s orbit-charting satellite, has regained three-axis attitude control and remains on track to enter its target orbit around the moon on November 13.
  • Firefly Aerospace can now count itself amongst a small number of space companies to have reached orbit. The company launched its Alpha rocket from Vandenberg Space Launch Complex 2 on October 1 and declared the mission “100% successful” in achieving its primary objectives.
  • Inmarsat is collaborating with U.K. company Livewire Digital to create a “network of networks” for connectivity across Inmarsat’s geosynchronous satellites, terrestrial 5G and a new constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit.
  • Jared Isaacman, the billionaire who bankrolled and flew on the Inspiration4 mission last year, outlined his ambitious plans for the Polaris Dawn series of private human spaceflight missions. The first is expected to launch in partnership with SpaceX in March next year.
  • Redwire is buying QinetiQ Space, a Belgium-based supplier of small satellites and other space infrastructure, for €32 million ($31.1 million).
  • Rocket Lab’s punnily-named “It Argos Up From Here” mission blasted off from the company’s New Zealand launch site on Friday. The dedicated launch carried a General Atomics satellite bus carrying an environmental monitoring payload named Argos-4.
  • Skyrora’s head of government affairs, Alan Thompson, expressed concern over the ongoing vacancy of a key science minister position in the British government. “The new Tory administration has yet to recognize and prioritise the massive opportunities held within the UK Space sector, a truth echoed in 80 days of absence despite the previous incumbent’s commitment and readiness to champion UK Space and Science,” he said in a statement.
  • Space billboards could turn a profit despite costing up to $65 million, according to a new study from Russian researchers at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology and Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.
  • SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy will see its first launch in over three years. The mission, scheduled for October 28, will deploy two satellites to GEO for the U.S. Space Force.
  • SpinLaunch completed its tenth successful flight test using its suborbital accelerator. Unlike other tests, this one carried test customer payloads from NASA, Outpost and others. SpinLaunch said the test “demonstrated that SpinLaunch partners’ standard satellite components are inherently compatible” with the company’s unique kinetic launch system.
  • United Launch Alliance launched two SES satellites aboard its Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The mission is part of SES’ effort to collect almost $4 billion in government payouts to clear the C-band.
  • Virgin Orbit has completed a full launch rehearsal for its next flight from Spaceport Cornwall. It will be the first orbital space launch to ever take place from the United Kingdom.
  • York Space Systems is selling a 51% majority stake to AEI (Firefly’s owner) in a deal that values the company at $1.125 billion.

Rocket Lab’s “It Argos Up From Here” takes off at night from LC1 in New Zealand. Image Credits: Rocket Lab

Max Q is brought to you by me, Aria Alamalhodaei. If you enjoy reading Max Q, consider forwarding it to a friend. 

Max Q: Oh my gourd by Aria Alamalhodaei originally published on TechCrunch