This week’s image is a little more than an hour old. It shows the SpaceX Falcon Heavy’s launch of the USSF-52 mission from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida earlier today. The mission involves the Air Force’s top secret X-37B, which will stay in orbit for an undisclosed period of time doing whatever it does up there.
United Launch Alliance (ULA), a space rocket partnership between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, is now being offered for sale. Both Blue Origin and Cerberus are showing interest, which could upset the space business as Blue Origin takes a big step forward or Cerberus gets into the space business.
ULA, formed in 2006, has both a wealth of experience as well as the confidence of the US military, even though SpaceX has been eating into that business. ULA also has ready commercial customers, including a partnership with Amazon to launch 47 rockets to bring the Kuiper broadband constellation into orbit.
The ties to Mr. Bezos, owner of Amazon, go even deeper than that. The ULA’s new rocket, the Vulcan Centaur, will use engines built by Blue Origin, another one of Mr. Bezos’ companies. This may make a Blue Origin a natural new owner to ULA.
The potential buyers may want to wait until the test launch of the Vulcan on January 8th. At that time, the Vulcan rocket will be used to launch the Astrobotic Peregrine commercial lunar lander, the first of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative designed to deliver science and technology experiments to the lunar surface.
None of this means Boeing or Lockheed Martin are moving away from space altogether. Boeing is still working on its Starliner to bring individuals and cargo to low-Earth orbit as well as its Space Launch System, which serves as the backbone of the Artemis program. Lockheed Martin will be busy as well with its Orion capsule and human landing system (with Blue Origin and Boeing as well), additional key components of the Artemis program.
Any reshuffling is okay as long as it adds to the array of commercial options for NASA. A new player like Cerberus might be welcome, but I also see some value to pushing an experienced and involved Blue Origin to the top of its game a little quicker so it can go head-to-head with SpaceX.
This should be interesting. Stay tuned.
This is the time of year for lists, so I wanted to highlight one of the more important lists, at least in the opinion of this writer. That’s right, we need to remember the important space milestones from this year.
Fortunately, NASA recently summed up its successes in 2023 with a new video titled NASA 2023: Nothing is Beyond Our Reach. The video highlights many of the Agency’s accomplishments this year, including the launch of the Psyche mission, the announcement of a crew for the Artemis II mission, and the OSIRIS-REx capsule retrieval.
It is quite a list. Luckily, NASA provided a list of links so you can read more about the various efforts:
Time to read up on 2023 before we dive into more activities in 2024.
Note: You can read a more detailed list of accomplishments at this NASA site.
You can watch a holiday video from International Space Station astronauts associated with three space programs provide greetings in three languages. They are away from family during the holidays, yet on the job to keep our space program going.
NASA shared this image of NGC 2264, also known as the “Christmas Tree Cluster,” to brighten everyone’s holiday.
You can read more about this image on this NASA page. You will also find an animated version of the “Tree” on the same NASA page.
Merry Christmas to all!
Our Awesome Universe 