![]() ![]() (I've also found that the 6-oz Cup fits nicely under my espresso machine and helped my espresso shots stay warm.) The Mug 2 gives me a nice, three-finger grip with a spot for my thumb to rest on top for control. ✔️ Comfortable to hold: The circumference of the Cup is grippable for most hands, even though it doesn't have a handle. The Travel Mug 2 also aced the heat retention tests, but the Cup did come in under the set temperature for much of the 90-minute battery life. Even better: The mug itself does not overheat, so I have never burned my lips, as I have with some other mugs. In my daily life, I never felt a drop in temperature during regular use. One tester of the Mug 2 said, "I was especially impressed that it not only kept my coffee hot, but it also heated up lukewarm leftover coffee by 20 degrees in only five minutes." In my Lab tests, the Mug 2 held the set temperature for nearly its entire battery life, dropping only slightly in the last 15 minutes. Both the Mug 2 and Cup have been tested in our Lab and sent to consumer testers, and both got positive feedback, leading them to earn our 2021 Kitchen Gear Awards and 2022 Coffee Awards, respectively. With the Ember mug, I feel like I've granted myself a grace period because I know my drink will still be hot when I come back to it. only to realize I need to do something away from my desk. I use my Ember Mug 2 when I'm at the office, and apparently, I love to get a coffee and settle in. ✔️ Solid performance: It succeeds in its main objective: It keeps my coffee hot. When I pick up the mug, it's fully charged. The Ember charging coaster is a simple landing pad that's just permanently charging at my desk. I'm a coaster user, so I'm always putting my mugs down in a specified place anyway. ✔️ Simple to keep charged: I like that charging is easy. You can also use the app to choose the LED color that shows up on your Mug 2 and sync it with Apple Health if you want to track caffeine consumption. The app even includes recipes like "Chai Spiced White Hot Chocolate" and "Beet Latte" if you want to expand your warm beverage repertoire. There's also a tea timer that offers an up-to-10-minute countdown within the app and also suggests steep timers for green, black and herbal teas. ![]() Milk-based drinks get a gentler heat to help prevent scalding. It offers presets for latte, cappuccino, coffee, black tea and green tea. ✔️ Useful app: I do appreciate that you can go deeper with the app so that it earns its spot on your phone. push the large button on the bottom - fill it and sip from it. And that was it: Now I just turn my mug on - i.e. I set the temperature I wanted to keep my beverages. It is very easy to load more than one and then switch between them from your home screen of little mug avatars. I downloaded the app and paired it with my mug - and now, thanks to testing, multiple mugs. The good news: Ember felt set-it-and-forget-it to me. And I definitely didn't want to feel like I was on my phone when I wanted to be drinking coffee. I didn't want an Ember mug to add too much tech to a simple daily task. ✔️ Easy to use: A regular mug is inherently uncomplicated: You fill it you sip from it. ![]() The app will also send notifications when the set temperature is reached, but you can choose not to receive any. Out of the box, the default temperature is 135˚F (57˚C), but you can use the Ember app to set the temperature - in 1˚ increments - you prefer. ![]() Ember also offers the 6-ounce Ember Cup (a handleless variation designed for espresso drinks) and the 10- and 14-ounce Mug 2 (a traditional coffee mug with a handle).Įmber's products rely on sensors placed throughout the mug that monitor the temperature of the liquid inside and then turn on built-in heaters if the temperature drops below the preset temperature. The company is now on the second generation of the product - the Ember Travel Mug 2 - which has a longer battery life and a new LED touch screen. The first generation of the heated Travel Mug launched in 2010, and in 2018, the self-heating mug drew investors like Nick and Joe Jonas. According to the brand, Ember's founder and CEO, Clay Alexander, is an inventor who holds more than 200 patents wor ldwide. Ember, which falls into the built-in heating element category, is among the best-known. Heated mugs keep coffee hot via a hotplate or a built-in heating element. Up to 90 minutes for the 10 ounce up to 80 for the 14 ounceġ0 ounce: Black, white, red, stainless, copper, gold and rose gold 14 ounce: Black, white, red, gray, blue (available only from Best Buy), copper and rose gold ![]()
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9/17/2023 0 Comments Kfc fries![]() ![]() Now, I do have biases, in that I’m a McDonald’s fry loyalist. I started to think about how I prefer my fries to be much saltier than my poultry, and that, by diving too deeply into the smokey, multi-flavor world of fried chicken, KFC may have left the French fry essential - salt - behind. I noticed at first bite that the potatoes could use more salt, and about two seconds after the fried vegetable reached my taste buds I picked up on a flavor that was herby, but that ultimately left my body wanting more. Now, I didn't hate the fries' flavor, but for a while my roommate and I sat across from each other furrowing brows and deciding how to feel. (I'll also note that a taste test video by YouTuber Chris Frezza includes audible crunch, so I might have just been unlucky here.) Part of that is probably because of their mass - they weren't just a thin, oily starch strings each fry was almost as thick as my pinky finger. As I mentioned, they were warm upon delivery, but I was disappointed to find they lacked the crispiness of the chain’s famed chicken. ![]() The fries came in a familiar container with an opening about the size of a fist. 8 miles away and the meal was hot enough to suggest my fries arrived as intended. But while I’m sure the rep is being honest, I sort of feel like KFC threw away a good, stable potato in pursuit of a potato whose greatest value is its mystery.īefore I get into the details, I should note that, while I did get my KFC delivered, the restaurant was. “The rollout has been overwhelmingly positive,” the rep said in an email. I was upset to hear the news, considering that the wedges were arguably one of the best fast food sides in the game, but consumers have apparently enjoyed the secret fry overall. Last week, a KFC representative told Thrillist that it’s doing away with its potato wedges and going national with the Secret Recipe Fries. KFC started testing these fries, which are purportedly seasoned with the same 11 mysterious herbs and spices you’ll find on its chicken, in 2019. And I demand to know what this secret recipe is, because it is responsible for the single most confusing fast food dining experience I have ever had (besides Taco Bell’s Cap’n Crunch Delights). But I'm not as fond of KFC’s Secret Recipe Fry. The fried chicken chain holds up remarkably well during delivery, and its mac & cheese nearly ruined my relationship with my mother, who firmly disagrees with my claim that it's better than hers. He likened them to Popeyes cajun fries which, from the look of them, seems pretty spot on.I have no beef with KFC. Peter Pham at FOODBEAST recently tracked the fries down and gave them a pretty glowing review, though he did say that he could have used a bit more flavor. Ya know, the stuff that goes on your delicious fried chicken? These are apparently fries that have been dusted in the Colonel's iconic and secret 11 herbs and spices. Sure, there are potato wedges, but soon, you may very well be able to enjoy a crunchy (spicy!) French fry with your bucket of KFC.Ĭustomers have recently spotted Secret Recipe Fries being served at select KFC restaurants. Is it weird to call yourself mama? Unclear.įried chicken and French fries have long been enjoyed together in harmony, so that's why it's surprising that KFC has stayed out of the fry game so long. (Chicken) fingers crossed they become available everywhere soon because mama loves a spicy fry. Look for the words "Secret Recipe Fries" under the specific location. The fries are available in 200 additional locations, and you can see if your restaurant is participating here. Play icon The triangle icon that indicates to play ![]() 9/17/2023 0 Comments Organising photos on mac![]() ![]() ![]() Flickr lets you share photos if you want, and it also has iPhone and Android apps.įlickr provides 1TB of free photo storage with photo editing and management tools. During that time, many other services have disappeared, such as Everpix, or changed the way they work, often for the worse. For photos, I recommend Flickr, which has been one of the best solutions for a decade. Nowadays, it’s easy to get an off-site back up by uploading files to the cloud. (At your office, a friend’s house, a bank vault or whatever.)įor more information, see my earlier answers: Which NAS should I buy to store files? and How do I set up a media server to share photos with phones and tablets? Cloud backup You can also back up the NAS to another external hard drive, which you can store somewhere else. This will provide a backup if one hard drive fails. Set up your NAS to use RAID 1, so you have two hard drives installed, and one is a mirror image of the other. As a Mac user, you will want AirPlay support. Look at Synology and QNAP devices to see what you need, and can afford. If you run out of space, you can replace the NAS hard drives with larger ones. You can buy a 2-bay, 4-bay or larger NAS and then install suitable hard drives. NAS boxes are usually supplied without any storage. NAS boxes can be accessed from any operating system including macOS (OS X), iOS, Windows, Android and Linux, and you can access them remotely. The NAS makes it easy to look at photos on smartphones and tablets as well as on PCs. You could both store all your photos on the NAS, and access them at any time via Wi-Fi. but it’s packaged as an appliance for storing and sharing files. A NAS is basically a small computer with its own processor, memory and operating system. Get a NASĪ more flexible, but more expensive, approach is to buy a NAS box. Each of you will have easy access to the other’s photos, as long as you’re at home. With this system, you will have at least two copies of each photo, and possibly more (if your PC or Time Capsule has copies). (A mirror sync will delete all the photos that are on one drive but not on the other.) ![]() Obviously this must be a two-way sync, so each drive ends up with both sets of photos. You copy all your photos to your EHD, your husband copies all his photos to his EHD, and then you sync the two drives. In your case, the cheapest solution is to buy his-and-hers external hard drives. Second, it doesn’t offer a simple way to share photos that are not on the PC. First, it doesn’t provide an off-site backup. This is synced to an identical external hard drive via FreeFileSync, but there are plenty of alternative programs. What I do is copy all the media files (photos, music, movies etc) on my desktop PC – the master database – to an external hard drive. You will need two external hard drives, so that one provides a backup. Estimate how much space you will need in, say, five years. It depends on the size of your photo collection, and how fast it’s growing. At the moment, 3TB drives are probably your best bet, but you can choose from 2TB to 5TB drives. Powered USB 3 drives are big, fast, reasonably priced, and generally reliable. The best option for individuals is an external hard drive, connected to your PC via a USB or Thunderbolt port. It depends how many photos you have, how often you need to access them, and how much you are willing to pay. These include SD cards, USB thumb drives, DVD or Blu-ray discs, external hard drives, NAS (Network Attached Storage) boxes, and online (cloud) services. There are lots of different ways to store photos. ![]() 9/17/2023 0 Comments Arizona unbridled![]() ![]() "If those requirements or certification process were to be changed, it would require a regular bill to be passed by the legislature and signed by the governor - which is not the case for this non-binding resolution."Ĭiting cybersecurity concerns, the resolution said voting systems couldn’t be used in federal elections in Arizona unless they were made in the U.S., accredited by the U.S. "That certification process is being followed in Arizona and all applicable election equipment being used in Arizona is certified," Fontes said in a May 22 statement. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)Īrizona election officials and the state’s attorney general said the resolution about voting machines is nonbinding and does not have the force of law.Īdrian Fontes, Arizona’s Democratic secretary of state, said the rules for election equipment are outlined in federal and state law and that federal and state officials certify it for election use. The clip was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. Constitution gives state legislatures "plenary, or absolute, authority over elections "with no limitations." Pool discussed Borrelli’s claims in the Facebook video, claiming that the resolution overrides state law and that the U.S. Hobbs said the election equipment "required by the bill, as well as the problem it purports to solve, does not exist."īut Arizona’s Republican Senate Majority Leader Sonny Borrelli sent a May 22 letter to all 15 state counties, telling them they were barred from using machines to administer future elections unless they met the requirements of the resolution, S.C.R. Katie Hobbs, a former secretary of state, vetoed similar, Republican-backed legislation, S.B. It "prohibits" counties from using electronic voting systems with any parts made or tested outside the U.S.ĭemocratic Gov. In the clip, conservative commentator Tim Pool talks about a Senate concurrent resolution that House and Senate Republicans passed in March. "Arizona BANS Electronic Voting Machines, Dominion Voting Says THEY ARE GOING UNDER," the video’s title reads. ![]() That’s what a viral May 23 Facebook video claims about the state and Dominion Voting Systems, which manufactures voting equipment. Did Arizona, a hotbed for sketchy claims about elections and voting, ban the use of electronic voting machines for the 2024 presidential election? ![]() 9/17/2023 0 Comments Phage display antibody repertoire![]() ![]() Due to the completely in vitro selection system, phage display surpasses in vivo discovery approaches by enabling the discovery of antibodies against virtually any targets or epitopes, including those that are either toxic or nonimmunogenic for animal immunization. As the other approach, phage display technology has greatly advanced the therapeutic mAb discovery process by providing a highly versatile approach and overcoming many drawbacks present in in vivo antibody generation technologies. In addition, because the selection is entirely completed in vivo, there is limited control over properties, such as specificity and epitope. However, this process is time intensive and requires the antigen to be immunogenic and nontoxic. Antibodies with high affinity and developability are selected during the development of immune response. For in vivo animal immunization, antibodies are generated through repeated immunization of target of interest. 2 To date, approved fully human therapeutic antibodies were discovered from either in vivo animal immunization (including humanized mice and convalescent human donors) or in vitro phage display technology. 2, 3 The global mAb market size reached ~$150 billion in 2020 and is expected to double in the next five years. Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and their derivatives 1 represent a major class of therapeutics and have become the best-selling drugs in United States in recent years. This review will summarize the principles of antibody phage display and design of three generations of antibody phage display libraries. More recently, the new generation of phage display libraries have been optimized for discovery of mAbs with ”drug-like” properties. Since antibody phage display was first established over 30 years ago, phage display platforms have been developed to generate mAbs targeting difficult-to-target antigens and tackle the drawbacks present in in vivo antibody discovery approaches. The value of phage display technology has been proven by a number of approved mAbs, including several top-selling mAb drugs, derived from the technology. Phage display technology, originally developed for peptide directed evolution, has been extensively applied to discovery of fully human antibodies due to its unprecedented advantages. Antibody discovery, the most upstream stage of the antibody development pipeline, plays a pivotal role in determination of the clinical outcome of an mAb product. The success of mAb is due to their high versatility, high target specificity, excellent clinical safety profile, and efficacy. Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and their derivatives have emerged as one of the most important classes of biotherapeutics in recent decades. ![]() 9/17/2023 0 Comments Jq query![]() Select() will only pass on a subset of the input onto the next step of the filter. Normally jq repeats every filter operation for each line of input that it receives, passing each answer on to the following filter operation. This will return a list of every value at the key id within the artObjects array, separated by a line break. artObjects created 10 smaller JSON objects.Īny operator we put after the | will be repeated for each of these objects.įor example, try the following query. Therefore, while we started with just one big JSON object. What’s more, jq will repeat the filter for each JSON object provided by the previous step. The magic of jq is that you can connect, or pipe, several operators together to accomplish some very complex transformations of your data. Uncheck the “Compact Output” box again before continuing with the lesson. artObjects would return the second, and so on. This filter returns just the first element of the artObjects array. This is because JavaScript, like quite a few other programming languages ( though not all!), starts counting at 0. IMPORTANT: you access the first element of an array with 0, not 1. If you want to access just the first (or the n-th) item in an array, put a digit in the operator. When jq returns just one JSON object, the ‘Compact Output’ option will produce a one-line result. The results should now be just one line, as jq is now just returning one single JSON array: Keeping “Compact Output” checked, remove the from the filter, so it just reads. Jq’s ‘Compact Output’ option removes all cosmetic line breaks in a file, just leaving one JSON object per line. This removes the cosmetic line breaks in the results, returning one JSON object per line. To make clear what has happened, check the “Compact Output” checkbox in the upper right. Notice that the wrapping our results are now gone. artObjects returned one big array of JSON objects.īefore we can access the values inside those objects, we need to break them out of the array that they’re in.īy adding onto the end of our filter, jq will break up this one array into 10 separate objects: The significance of this will be discussed in the next section. ![]() ![]() In brief, a JSON object is a series of key/value pairs, where keys are the names for the values they are paired with. You may find a short and cogent primer on JSON here. Next, you will learn progressively more complex ways of connecting these operators together.īy the end of the lesson, you will understand how to combine basic operators to create queries that can reshape many types of JSON data. ![]() This lesson will begin with an overview of the basic operators of the jq query syntax. Working with data from an art museum API and from the Twitter API, this lesson teaches how to use the command-line utility jq to filter and parse complex JSON files into flat CSV files. CSV), and because JSON is such a flexible data format, often with many nested levels of data, there is no one-size-fits-all graphical user interface for transforming JSON into other formats. However, many tools for data analysis and visualization require input in flat tables (i.e. (On accessing APIs, see downloading structured data with wget and the series of lessons on working with APIs.) ![]() Many libraries, archives, museums, and social media sites expose their data through JSON-based APIs. JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a common data sharing format that can describe complex relationships. One-to-many relationships: Tweet hashtags. ![]() 9/16/2023 0 Comments Freedom riders mississippi![]()
![]() ![]() For example, the 2014 exhibition was scheduled to run from May 8 until August 10, 2014. Following the event, the exhibition runs for several months. The Met Costume Institute Gala is a highly renowned fundraising benefit that serves as an opening celebration for the Institute's annual fashion exhibit. Present day īarbadian entertainer and fashion icon Rihanna modeling haute couture fashion at the 2023 Met Gala in Manhattan, modeling a design by Valentino that year In 2022, the Gala returned to holding its traditional May ceremony. The Gala resumed in 2021, but was held in September rather than in May that year. The 2020 Met Gala was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since 1948, the Met Gala has occurred consecutively each year, except in 20. Her guest list grew to include celebrities globally from the worlds of fashion, entertainment, business, sports, and politics who would eventually grace the pages of Vogue. Anna Wintour, the chairperson of the event, assumed the chairmanship of the Institute in 1995. The Met Gala is one of the most notable sources of funding for the Institute, with total contributions surpassing $200 million for the first time after the 2019 event. It is also one of the biggest fundraising nights in New York City, with US$9 million raised in 2013, $12 million the following year, and then rising to a record $17.4 million by 2022. The Met Gala is widely regarded as among the most prominent and most exclusive social events in the world. It was during the Vreeland years that the Gala was first held at the Met and that Gala themes were introduced. The event started to become higher profile celebrity-oriented with attendees like Elizabeth Taylor, Andy Warhol, Bianca Jagger, Diana Ross, Elton John, Liza Minnelli, Madonna, Barbra Streisand, and Cher intermixing with the city's elite. When Diana Vreeland became consultant to the Costume Institute in 1972, the Gala began to evolve into a more global and glamorous affair, although one that was still aimed at the high-societal set. From 1948 to 1971, the event was held at various Manhattan venues, including the Waldorf Astoria, Central Park, and the Rainbow Room. ![]() Accordingly, the attendees of the early Galas were almost entirely members of New York high society or the city's fashion industry. Over the first few decades of its existence, the Gala was simply one of many annual benefits held for New York charitable institutions. The first gala comprised a dinner, and tickets were 50 dollars each. The Met Gala was established in 1948 by fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert as a fundraiser for the newly founded Costume Institute to mark the opening of its annual exhibit. Over time, the Met Gala has evolved beyond the New York fashion epicenter to become increasingly global and broad-based in its perspective. Global fashion icon Anna Wintour, who is the editor-in-chief of Vogue, has chaired or co-chaired the Met Gala since 1995, except for the 1996 Met Gala, which was chaired by Wintour’s successor at British Vogue, Liz Tilberis. ![]() Guests are expected to curate their fashion to match the theme of the annual exhibit, generally in haute couture. Each year's event celebrates the specific theme of that year's Costume Institute exhibition, which sets the tone for the formal attire of the night. Many of the attendees are depicted on the covers and pages of Vogue. The Gala is an event held annually on the first Monday of May, which marks the opening of the Costume Institute's annual fashion exhibit hosted on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Personalities who are perceived to be culturally relevant to contemporary society amongst various professional spheres, including fashion, film, television, music, theater, business, sports, social media, and politics, are invited to attend the Met Gala, organized by the fashion magazine Vogue. The Met Gala is popularly regarded as the world's most prestigious and glamorous fashion event and social gathering and is known as "fashion's biggest night" an invitation is highly sought after. The Met Gala or Met Ball, formally called the Costume Institute Gala or the Costume Institute Benefit, is an annual fundraising gala held for the benefit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute in New York City. The Gala was founded in 1946, and the first major event was held in 1948. ![]() Metropolitan Museum of Art, Costume Institute The Metropolitan Museum of Art on the Upper East Sideįundraising gala, contribution of $50,000 per seat to enter the 2023 Met GalaĪnnual, held on the first Monday of May ![]() 9/16/2023 0 Comments Charles rocket death photos![]() ![]() ![]() (Hagman had originally been approached to host the episode and when he passed the show reached out to Tilton, another Dallas cast member.) Of course, given that the answer to that question which dominated pop culture the previous summer had been revealed three months earlier on a November 1980 episode of the show, America had pretty much moved on, leaving the whole “Who Shot Charles Rocket?” premise feeling already dated. ![]() Finally, for it’s eleventh episode with guest host Charlene Tilton, someone had the bright idea to do a running bit through the whole episode parodying the shooting of Larry Hagman’s popular JR Ewing character on the popular prime time soap opera Dallas the previous year. Reviews were bad and the ratings plummeted as the cast and writers struggled to bring the show to the air each week. As Gottfried would later comment “It was like if in the middle of Beatlemania, you said, ‘Okay, John, Paul, George and Ringo are leaving and we’ve got these four other schmucks you’ve never heard of and they’ll be the new Beatles.'” Gilbert Gottfried, Ann Risley, Denny Dillion, Gail Matthius, Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo – was under a lot of scrutiny. Understandably, the new cast – featuring Rocket. In response, NBC promoted associate producer Jean Doumanian to oversee the show, a move that prompted the remaining NOt Ready For Prime Time Players – John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd have left the previous season – to quit en masse. After five years of it being the toast of the town, creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels decided he needed to take a year off from the show. The 1980-81 season of Saturday Night Live was a turbulent one for the show. But while he is probably the most famous of all the performers who said “fuck” live from New York on a Saturday night, Rocket wasn’t the first nor the last to say it. With that improvised line at the end of the Februepisode of Saturday Night Live, cast member Charles Rocket earned himself a rather infamous place in the show’s history with his utterance of the the dread F-bomb – fuck. “Oh, man, this is the first time I’ve ever been shot… I’d like to know who the fuck did it.” ![]() 9/16/2023 0 Comments Vector rocket stock![]() ![]() (“Rocket Lab” or “the Company”), a global leader in launch and space systems, and Vector Acquisition Corporation (Nasdaq: VACQ) (“Vector”), a special purpose acquisition company backed by leading technology investor Vector Capital, today announced that the two companies will participate in a webinar hosted by SPACInsider on Wednesday, Apat 2:00pm ET to discuss Rocket Lab and Vector’s proposed merger. “Starship is the elephant in the room,” Benhamou said.LONG BEACH, Calif.-( BUSINESS WIRE)-Rocket Lab USA, Inc. But the percentage of insured satellites is dropping, thanks in part to SpaceX Starlink.īenhamou left his audience with what some might see as a nightmare scenario: A super-heavy-lift rocket that launches at high frequency, and at prices so low as to be difficult to believe. Insurers attending the conference were treated to multiple speaker graphics showing the sharp growth in the space sector. And what if Amazon’s Kuiper faces substantial service delays because one of the three new, untested rockets it has selected fails? But SpaceX’s main customer in the past year has been its own fleet of 4,000-plus Starlink satellites, which are not insured.Īnd what happens if SpaceX one day were to decide to refuse to launch a Starlink competitor? The UK and US governments put their thumbs on the scale to encourage SpaceX to launch the final OneWeb satellites, grounded because they had been booked on Russian Soyuz rockets. A large portion of their current premium income is coming from SpaceX. (Source: SpaceX)įor satellite insurers, there are no premiums unless there are launches. Starlink satellites here are ready for launch on a Falcon 9. SpaceX increased their prices significantly last year, and if tomorrow they do the same thing, no one will be able to push back on that.” And not one of them is insured. “Having no competition gives them price leverage. For the first time, they are now obliged to accept whatever price SpaceX charges. But if there is a launch failure at SpaceX that grounds them for several weeks, there would be a cascading impact on everyone.”Ĭommercial satellite fleet operators have gone for several decades with a launcher supply that gave them significant negotiating room. Who would have thought we could see SpaceX launch 100 times per year,” Benhamou said. It poses a real question for other operators. “But on the other side, SpaceX is doing amazingly well. “Rocket science is still rocket science,” Benhamou said of the delays encountered by Ariane 6, H3, Vulcan and New Glenn. Like most everyone else in the industry that looks at SpaceX, Benhamou’s remarks were a mix of trepidation and admiration. The answer: Very little until perhaps 2027 or 2028, when the pressure on these vehicles’ manifests will start to ease - assuming that these rockets are in service in 2024 and that Kuiper is on time.īenhamou said Viasat continues to scout market possibilities for the third Viasat-3, but there appears to be no alternative. Japan’s H3, the Ariane 6, ULA’s Vulcan and Blue Origin’s New Glenn will provide relief from the all-roads-lead-to-SpaceX situation.īut when? And with Amazon’s Kuiper constellation of broadband satellites having made bloc purchases of Ariane 6, Vulcan and New Glenn launches, how much latitude will operators have? (Source: Viasat/Inmarsat) India’s GSLV Mark 3 has still not yet ramped its launch rate and is mainly devoted to Indian national satellites, and would be hard-pressed to lift a 6,000-kg payload to geostationary transfer orbit.Ī new generation of medium- and heavy-lift rockets is on the way, but they are not yet qualified for flight. Viasat would like to launch the final Viasat-3 model, likely to weigh 6,000 kilograms at launch, in 2024. The second Viasat-3 is scheduled for launch later this year aboard a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas 5 vehicle. With Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket unlikely to make its inaugural flight before early 2024, and then only in its lighter version, Viasat was obliged to pull its Viasat 3 Asia-Pacific satellite from the Arianespace manifest. (Source: Viasat/Inmarsat)įor satellite operators, it’s an uncomfortable situation to be hostage to a single supplier, even one as reliable, and who launches with such frequency, as SpaceX. It has been exacerbated since early 2022 by the removal of Russia’s Soyuz rocket from the commercial rotation following the Ukraine invasion. And when he referred to “dependency,” he meant not just satellite owners, but insurers as well. ![]() In a June 20 presentation here to the Seradata Space Conference, a conference in which insurance underwriters and brokers are heavily represented, Benhamou described a situation that has been true for several years. This is how Marc Benhamou, head of Inmarsat’s satellite and launcher procurement division, now part of Viasat Inc., summarized the current market for medium- and heavy-lift rockets. LONDON - “Today, we are all dependent on SpaceX.” ![]() |
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