Historic Cornwall satellite launch ends in failure | The Week UK

The UK’s burgeoning space industry suffered a significant setback last night after the launch of the Virgin Orbit rocket ended in failure.

The LauncherOne rocket experienced an “anomaly” during its “horizontal launch” mission and failed to reach orbit. Carried under the wing of a modified Boeing 747 aircraft known as Cosmic Girl, it took off from the Cornish coastal town of Newquay and was subsequently released over the Atlantic Ocean.

Commenting after the initial lift-off, Virgin founder Richard Branson said of the company’s “Start Me Up” mission: “Like the song says once we start it up we’ll never stop.”

But “within less than two hours, the mission ground to a halt, when the rocket failed to reach the orbit needed to deploy its cargo of nine satellites”, said The Telegraph.

It was part of an ambitious attempt for the UK to become the first European nation to launch a satellite into space and had it been successful would have marked a “major milestone” for the fledgling UK space industry, said the BBC.

The converted 747, Cosmic Girl, took off to “whoops and cheers” from a crowd who had gathered at Spaceport Cornwall to watch the launch last night, said The Guardian, but the excitement soon turned to disappointment.

The LauncherOne rocket, and the nine satellites it was carrying, have been lost and are expected to break up safely over the North Atlantic, while the 747 returned to its Cornwall base.

Matt Archer, the director of commercial spaceflight at the UK Space Agency, said that it was not known what caused the “anomaly” that resulted in the rocket failing to reach orbit, but said that “a lot of positives have been achieved”, including a successful launch.

“Space is hard. We knew that this had a risk of failure. Launches don’t always work. We’ve created the conditions for launch here. We’ve shown we can do it and we’ll look to do it again,” he added.

It comes amid a series of European setbacks in the past year, said Reuters. The European Space Agency’s Ariane 6 launcher has been delayed, access to Russian Soyuz rockets is blocked by the Ukraine war and the Italian-built Vega-C rocket has been grounded.

Quiz of The Week: 7 January - 13 January | The Week UK

Virgin Orbit: The UK just took a step closer to space flight | CNN ...

London CNN —

The United Kingdom is one step closer to conducting its first ever satellite launch from its own shores.

The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), a regulatory body, said on Wednesday that it had granted the final licenses to Virgin Orbit to carry out the launch.

Virgin Orbit, a US subsidiary of Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, plans to launch a rocket into space off of a modified Boeing 747 jet, named “Cosmic Girl.” The rocket, which will be launched over the Atlantic Ocean, will carry nine satellites into orbit.

The company has already conducted four successful satellite launch missions in this way from California.

The development places the United Kingdom on track to become the first country in Europe to provide commercial launch services to small satellite makers, according to the government.

Britain has been working on commercial spaceports for several years in a bid to capture a bigger share of the rapidly growing space market, which Morgan Stanley estimates could be worth over $1 trillion by 2040.

“Today we are one step closer to opening the UK’s galactic gateway, with Virgin Orbit receiving an historic first license to allow the UK’s first ever spaceflight launch,” UK transport secretary Mark Harper said in a statement on Wednesday.

The satellite launch is expected to take place from Spaceport Cornwall, a spaceflight launch site located on the UK’s southwest coast, early next year.

Dan Hart, chief executive of Virgin Orbit, said in a statement that the company was “progressing towards the first launch from Cornwall — keeping a strong focus on a safe and successful mission for all.”

The government estimates that the country’s growing £16.5 billion ($14 billion) space industry will support around 47,000 jobs.

The CAA said it granted Virgin Orbit the final remaining licenses after it met all necessary safety, security and environmental tests.

Quiz of The Week: 31 December – 6 January | The Week UK

Astra's stock takes wild ride after rocket launch | CNN Business

New York CNN Business —

During his flight, “I just felt really charged up and energized about the idea that we just have to keep pushing and going further and further.”

Astra (ASTR) confirmed on Twitter that the rocket had made it to orbit, but it wasn’t immediately clear whether its payload — a group of small satellites for a variety of customers — safely deployed into orbit.

During a webcast of the launch, Astra’s director of product, Carolina Grossman, warned that the company wouldn’t know immediately if the satellites deployed safely, as the rocket wasn’t in a position to send ground readings in the minutes after it reached orbit.

Following the launch, 30 minutes of silence went by. Astra’s stock shed more than 10% of its value, and trading was briefly halted.

But then, another update came: “We can confirm the successful deployment of the satellites on Spaceflight’s Astra-1 mission today,” the company wrote on Twitter. But the company’s stock didn’t immediately reverse. Twenty minutes after confirming the success, its stock price was still down more than 3%.

The ordeal highlights how volatile it can be to invest in a rocket company — especially when they choose to set off a rocket during trading hours.

Astra in particular has been on a wild ride in recent months. The company had five failures attempting to put a rocket into orbit before its first success in November 2021. That caused a massive surge in trading, taking the stock price up more than 30%. But then, in February, it notched another failure.

Now, the company’s stock is consistently below the $4 per share mark, way off its high of more than $16 per share.

Astra is one of dozens of companies that plan to use relatively small, lightweight rockets to make frequent trips to space to drop off satellites — not to be confused with the far larger rockets launched by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, or the suborbital space tourism rocket developed by Jeff Bezos’ company, Blue Origin.

Astra, Rocket Lab and California-based Virgin Orbit are among the only startups that have now proven their rockets can get the job done.

And all of those companies have now gone public via SPAC, or “special purpose acquisition company,” which serve as investment placeholders on the stock market as the fund’s backers hunt for an acquisition target. The target company then takes over the SPAC’s trading symbol, allowing it to go public with little of the financial disclosure or scrutiny that comes with traditional IPOs.

That’s not to say Astra and the others can’t or won’t be successful. But the company is facing stiff competition.

When asked in a company Q&A posted online how Astra plans to stand out in such a crowded industry, Adam London, Astra’s founder and chief technology officer, said that “rockets are typically artisanal, crafted objects. You make one at a time, and they’re very complicated. But when you really get into it, they don’t need to be that complicated, particularly when you’re not flying people or critical national assets, and they don’t absolutely, positively have to work 100% of the time.”

In other words, Astra plans to mass produce rockets to make them cheaper, but it doesn’t put too much emphasis on having a pristine success rate.

And that means its stock is likely to continue to be a wild ride for the foreseeable future.

But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, said Micah Walter-Range, president of space consulting firm Caelus Partners.

“The stock swings related to Astra’s launch can be seen as a positive sign because investors are watching the company’s progress and are actively engaging with the space industry,” he said via email. “The market moves also indicate that this is still an emerging industry, and we look forward to the day when launches are viewed in the same routine way as airline flights, where investors monitor the overall trends but not each individual flight.”

Blue Origin successfully completes fourth space tourism mission ...

New York CNN Business —

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin just launched its fourth successful space tourism mission, putting yet another feather in the cap of the company that hopes to make these supersonic joyrides a mainstay of pop culture.

The six passengers, which include a Blue Origin engineer and five paying customers, boarded their New Shepard capsule Thursday just after sunrise at the company’s West Texas launch facilities. Boosted by a 60-foot-tall rocket, they soared to more than three times the speed of sound, or more than 2,000 miles per hour. Their capsule vaulted past the Kármán Line at 100 kilometers (or 62 miles) altitude, which is widely recognized as the altitude at which outer space begins. And at the peak of the flight, they experienced a few minutes of weightlessness and, out their window, sweeping Earthly views.

It’s not clear how much the trip cost the five paying customers. Blue Origin has not publicly disclosed a fixed per-seat price point, though it had auctioned off a ticket for $28 million. But that was for a seat to ride alongside Bezos himself, and the auction winner didn’t end up going. (He is slated to fly later this year, however.) Blue Origin’s direct competitor, Virgin Galactic, is currently selling seats for $450,000, up from its previous price point of around $250,000.

Blue Origin is conducting its fourth human spaceflight on Thursday, March 31. It includes Marty Allen, Sharon Hagle, Marc Hagle, Jim Kitchen, Gary Lai, and Dr. George Nield. Blue Origin

This flight had been slated to include Saturday Night Live star Pete Davidson, but he dropped out of the mission after Blue Origin announced a schedule change earlier this month. The company cited the need for additional ground tests on the New Shepard rocket as the reason for the delay.

Gary Lai, who has been with Blue Origin for 18 years and holds several patents related to the New Shepard rocket’s design, flew in Davidson’s place and was the sole non-paying customer on the flight. Lai’s crewmates included Marty Allen, an investor and the former CEO of a party supply store; Jim Kitchen, an entrepreneur and business professor; George Nield, a former associate administrator for the Federal Aviation Administration Office of Commercial Space Transportation; Marc Hagle, an Orlando real estate developer, and his wife, Sharon Hagle, who founded a space-focused nonprofit.

Blue Origin is conducting its fourth human spaceflight on Thursday, March 31. It includes Marty Allen, Sharon Hagle, Marc Hagle, Jim Kitchen, Gary Lai, and Dr. George Nield. Blue Origin

The passengers’ New Shepard capsule, which is fully autonomous, deployed plumes of parachutes after diving back into the thickest part of the Earth’s atmosphere and landed with a puff of sand in the Texas desert.

On the livestream, the passengers could be heard cheering as the capsule made its touchdown, and moments later, they exited the capsule, smiling and waving.

“It was intense, and I did get a little bit of a feeling of vertigo,” Lai told Blue Origin’s Sarah Knights, who heads communications with the passengers during flight. “I did feel a little bit nauseous, for sure.”

Other passengers on the livestream described the view as “incredible.”

“Unreal, just unreal,” Allen said. “I can’t put it into words.”

“It was an out-of-body experience,” Kitchen said. He described outer space as the “blackest black I’ve ever seen,” adding that it was “breathtaking.” Nield called it “the thrill of a lifetime.”

“Pictures don’t do it justice,” he added.

What does this all mean?

Business activity in space — largely led by SpaceX — is booming. From building cheaper rockets and designing new uses for satellites to imagining futuristic space hotels, the industry has attracted record levels of investment, according to data collected by analytics firm Space Capital.

After years of quiet development, Blue Origin’s space tourism rocket made its crewed launch debut last year with Bezos, flying alongside a heroine of the space community, Wally Funk, as well as his brother Mark Bezos and a paying customer.

Since then, Blue Origin made headlines for flying other well-known names on two subsequent flights, including Star Trek star William Shatner and Good Morning America host Michael Strahan.

Strahan wrote a message for the passengers on Thursday’s flight that was read to them by ground control: “This is the best ride you will ever have, but it’s way too short.”

Blue Origin’s goal is to make these suborbital spaceflights a mainstay of pop culture, giving a 10-minute supersonic joyride to invited guests — who thus far have mostly been celebrities — and anyone else who can afford it.

Blue Origin is the first company to begin offering regular suborbital space tourism flights. Its chief competitor, Virgin Galactic, notably had its first crewed flight — which included founder Richard Branson — before Bezos’ flight last July. But Virgin Galactic has yet to follow up that flight with another crewed flight after it later became clear that the company’s space plane had traveled out of its designated flight path. The company now says it’s undergoing unrelated technology upgrades and may return to flight later this year.

Blue Origin is conducting its fourth human spaceflight on Thursday, March 31. It includes Marty Allen, Sharon Hagle, Marc Hagle, Jim Kitchen, Gary Lai, and Dr. George Nield. Blue Origin

SpaceX is the only private company that offers trips to orbit. The company completed the first-ever all-civilian flight to orbit last September, taking a billionaire and three of his chosen crewmates on a three-day trip. And next week, the company plans to take four paying customers on a flight to the International Space Station, which orbits about 200 miles above Earth.

Blue Origin does have plans to build a rocket powerful enough to reach orbit, called the New Glenn. And, in light of the news that Russia may no longer sell rocket engines to the United States, those plans are more pressing than ever. The engines Blue Origin plans to use for the New Glenn, the BE-4, will also be used on an upcoming launch vehicle designed by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing that is responsible for significant US national security launches. ULA currently relies on Russian RD-180 engines. Its new rocket with the US-made BE-4 engines is scheduled to make its debut this year.

Blue Origin did not have specific updates on BE-4 when reached for comment.

Virgin Galactic reopens space tourism ticket sales after a rough year ...

New York CNN Business —

During his flight, “I just felt really charged up and energized about the idea that we just have to keep pushing and going further and further.”

The company already has about 600 reservations from its first round of ticket sales, which priced a trip to suborbital space at about $200,000 to $250,000 per seat. The company announced Tuesday that the tickets will go back on sale February 16, requiring a $150,000 deposit with the full amount due before flight.

During Virgin Galactic’s latest earnings call in November, CEO Michael Colglazier said the company had been testing its sales process during the prior few months and had sold about 100 seats at the new $450,000 per-seat price point. The company is working to sell a total of 1,000 seats before it begins commercial operations.

Last July, the company appeared poised to begin commercial operations after it launched company founder Sir Richard Branson to the edge of space. But a report from the New Yorker later revealed that warning lights had gone off in the cockpit during Branson’s flight and the space plane had traveled outside its designated airspace for 41 seconds. The Federal Aviation Administration grounded all flights pending a review, which concluded in September and gave Virgin Galactic the all-clear.

The company then announced it was delaying the start of commercial services, citing unrelated technology upgrades. It isn’t expected to fly paying customers before this October. At the time Virgin Galactic went public in 2019, it had been touting plans to start commercial service in 2020.

Meanwhile, Virgin Galactic’s chief competitor in the suborbital space tourism game, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, has launched three successful crewed missions for celebrities and paying customers. (Blue Origin has not disclosed how much its tickets cost.)

The ticket sale news caused Virgin Galactic’s stock, which took a beating last year after a string of bad news, to pop — notching a more than 30% gain during trading hours Tuesday. Virgin Galactic also announced a logo change, replacing the former design featuring a human iris with a simple, purple outline of its rocket-powered space plane.

Beginning commercial operations, however, has been a moving target for Virgin Galactic. Since the company was founded in 2004, it’s faced numerous delays and hangups during its development and testing program.

The company’s stock was also battered in January by news that it was raising as much as half a billion dollars in debt. Its shares have been hovering at or below the $10 per share mark ever since — a far cry from its all-time high of $62.80, hit in early 2021.

All-private SpaceX astronaut mission is on its way home after a ...

New York CNN Business —

During his flight, “I just felt really charged up and energized about the idea that we just have to keep pushing and going further and further.”

The mission, called AX-1, was brokered by the Houston, Texas-based startup Axiom Space, which books rocket rides, provides all the necessary training, and coordinates flights to the ISS for anyone who can afford it.

The four crew members — Michael López-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut-turned-Axiom employee who is commanding the mission; Israeli businessman Eytan Stibbe; Canadian investor Mark Pathy; and Ohio-based real estate magnate Larry Connor — are slated to leave the space station aboard their SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on Sunday at 8:55 pm ET. That’s another 24-hour delay from what NASA and Axiom were targeting on Saturday.

NASA

They now plan to spend a day free flying through orbit before plummeting back into the atmosphere and parachuting to a splashdown landing off the coast of Florida at about 1 pm ET Monday, according to a tweet from Kathy Lueders, the head of NASA’s human spaceflight program.

AX-1, which launched on April 8, was originally billed as a 10-day mission, but delays have extended the mission by about a week.

During their first 12 days on the space station, the group stuck to a regimented schedule, which included about 14 hours per day of activities, including scientific research that was designed by various research hospitals, universities, tech companies and more. They also spent time doing outreach events by video conferencing with children and students.

The weather delays then afforded to them “a bit more time to absorb the remarkable views of the blue planet and review the vast amount of work that was successfully completed during the mission,” according to Axiom.

It’s not clear how much this mission cost. Axiom previously disclosed a price of $55 million per seat for a 10-day trip to the ISS, but the company declined to comment on the financial terms for this specific mission beyond saying in a press conference last year that the price is in the “tens of millions.”

The mission has been made possible by very close coordination among Axiom, SpaceX and NASA, since the ISS is government-funded and operated. And the space agency has revealed some details about how much it charges for use of its 20-year-old orbiting laboratory.

For each mission, bringing on the necessary support from NASA astronauts will cost commercial customers $5.2 million, and all the mission support and planning that NASA lends is another $4.8 million. While in space, food alone costs an estimated $2,000 per day, per person. Getting provisions to and from the space station for a commercial crew is another $88,000 to $164,000 per person, per day.

But the extra days the AX-1 crew spent in space due to weather won’t add to their own personal overall price tag, according to a statement from NASA.

“Knowing that International Space Station mission objectives like the recently conducted Russian spacewalk or weather challenges could result in a delayed undock, NASA negotiated the contract with a strategy that does not require reimbursement for additional undock delays,” the statement reads.

It’s not the first time paying customers or otherwise non-astronauts have visited the ISS, as Russia has sold seats on its Soyuz spacecraft to various wealthy thrill seekers in years past.

The 11-person crew aboard the International Space Station on April 9, 2022. Clockwise from bottom right: Expedition 67 Commander Tom Marshburn with Flight Engineers Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveev, Sergey Korsakov, Raja Chari, Kayla Barron, and Matthias Maurer; and Axiom Mission 1 astronauts (center row from left) Mark Pathy, Eytan Stibbe, Larry Conner, and Michael Lopez-Alegria. NASA

But AX-1 is the first mission with a crew entirely comprised of private citizens with no active members of a government astronaut corps accompanying them in the capsule during the trip to and from the ISS. It’s also the first time private citizens have traveled to the ISS on a US-made spacecraft.

The mission has set off yet another round of debate about whether people who pay their way to space should be referred to as “astronauts,” though it should be noted a trip to the ISS requires a far larger investment of both time and money than taking a brief suborbital ride on a rocket built by companies like Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic.

López-Alegría, a veteran of four trips to space between 1995 and 2007 during his time with NASA, had this to say about it: “This mission is very different from what you may have heard of in some of the recent — especially suborbital — missions. We are not space tourists. I think there’s an important role for space tourism, but it is not what Axiom is about.”

The first all-private mission to the International Space Station finally made its way home Monday, making a splash down landing off the coast of Florida and concluding a mission that has lasted a week longer than expected.

What to know about Axiom Space, the company behind the first all ...

CNN —

In a historic first, a crew of four civilians are set to launch to the International Space Station this week as part of an inaugural mission for the commercial spaceflight company Axiom Space.

They’ll be riding on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, and docking at the station via a SpaceX Dragon capsule, but don’t get Axiom confused with Elon Musk’s private spaceflight company. It serves a different purpose entirely. Axiom is less focused on building rockets than re-thinking the future of space stations.

The four crew members – three paying passengers and a former NASA astronaut there to serve as commander – taking part in the mission, dubbed Ax-1, will taxi to the ISS via SpaceX vehicles as part of the 10-day trip. Axiom has arranged with NASA for them to spend eight days aboard the orbiting laboratory managed by a team of international government-backed agencies. While on the ISS, the civilians are slated to assist with more than two dozen scientific experiments, as well as help pave the way for the development of Axiom’s plans to build the first commercial space station.

Axiom, SpaceX and NASA announced Sunday evening that they are now targeting no earlier than Friday at 11:17 a.m. ET for the launch, which is set to lift off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. If the launch goes as planned on Friday, docking of the SpaceX Dragon capsule to the station is scheduled for early Saturday morning. Those interested in watching the launch can tune in via NASA and Axiom Space’s live coverage of the event on Friday morning.

The Ax-1 Crew (left to right): Larry Connor, Michael López-Alegría, Mark Pathy, Michael López-Alegría and Eytan Stibbe. Courtesy SpaceX

The commander of the first-ever private astronaut mission to the ISS is Axiom’s Michael López-Alegría, a veteran Spanish-American NASA astronaut with four previous spaceflights under his belt, and who now has the professional title of Vice President of Business Development for Axiom. He will be joined by three fee-paying crewmates – Larry Connor of the United States, Eytan Stibbe of Israel and Mark Pathy of Canada – who each dished out an estimated $55 million to Axiom in order to take the journey into orbit. (Axiom did not publicly disclose the specific financial details of the trip.)

Here is what you should know about the upcoming Axiom spaceflight, which comes as a handful of private companies are seeking to commercialize the space beyond our planet’s surface.

What is Axiom Space?

Axiom Space, the Houston-based company overseeing the entire mission, does not build launch vehicles or rockets like some of the other players in the emerging private spaceflight industry such as Blue Origin, SpaceX and Virgin Galactic.

The company arranges so-called “private astronaut” missions to the ISS, which includes seventeen weeks of training and custom itineraries based on the individual goals of those wealthy enough to afford the trip. Ax-1 is the company’s first of these planned trips to the ISS, and late last year NASA and Axiom announced Ax-2 is targeting to launch between fall 2022 and spring 2023. In addition to its human spaceflight services, Axiom also offers on its website opportunities for companies and individuals seeking to access space for research purposes.

The Ax-1 Crew during Zero-G flight training. Courtesy Axiom Space

NASA uses the term “private astronaut missions” to refer to “missions that are privately funded, fully commercial spaceflights on a commercial launch vehicle for the purpose of enabling tourism, outreach, commercial research, and approved commercial and marketing activities on the space station.” Referring to ultra-wealthy thrill seekers with the title of “astronaut,” however, has spurred heated debates over its definition online in recent years.

In January 2020, NASA selected Axiom to provide at least one habitable commercial module to be added to the ISS’s Harmony node in 2024. Axiom said it has plans to have its module be ready to detach from the station by late 2028, and operate as the first building block of a private commercial space station.

Axiom’s lofty plans to build the first private space station and pioneer the commercialization of low-Earth orbit are what it sees as setting itself apart from others in the budding private space industry. The company even touts the Ax-1 mission as “an important step toward Axiom’s goal of constructing a private space station in low-Earth orbit that can serve as a global academic and commercial hub.”

Building a commercial destination in low-Earth orbit

Axiom CEO Michael Suffredini, a 30-year veteran of NASA who served as the ISS program manager from 2005 to 2015, described Ax-1 during a pre-launch news conference last week as a “precursor mission” to the company’s plans of eventually assembling and launching its fully commercial space station in orbit.

While Axiom is partnering with SpaceX to launch its private astronauts, “SpaceX is just a taxi,” John Logsdon, a professor emeritus at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, told CNN Business of the role of Musk’s company in this Axiom mission.

Logsdon, who was the founder and longtime director of GW’s Space Policy Institute, added that he sees Axiom’s inaugural private astronaut mission as “the first step in a process that could result in one or more private space stations doing a variety of things in low Earth orbit.”

“We’ve had the International Space Station in orbit, with people aboard, since the year 2000,” Logsdon added. “NASA says it will de-orbit it in 2030 or so and turn over the use of low-Earth orbit to the private sector.”

Ax-1 Crew (left to right) Mark Pathy, Larry Connor, Michael López-Alegría and Eytan Stibbe in SpaceX Crew Dragon during training. Courtesy SpaceX

Axiom Space “is the first of the private sector ventures getting ready for that transition,” according to Logsdon. He noted that construction of the first Axiom space station modules are already underway abroad, and it is slated to be shipped to Houston for final assembly next year ahead of their tentative launch in 2024.

“Like all entrepreneurial investments, there’s a high risk of failure, but a possibility, a very real possibility, of success – success in terms of economic payoffs from doing things in space,” Logsdon said. In February 2021, Axiom said it raised some $130 million from investors, adding that the “new financing will accelerate the growth of Axiom’s workforce and construction of its privately developed space station.”

While private astronauts seeking to venture beyond Earth’s surface can potentially strike a launch deal directly with SpaceX – as billionaire Jared Isaacman did last year for his self-funded Inspiration4 mission – Logsdon says the purpose of Axiom’s mission is “fundamentally different than Inspiration4.”

Logsdon said these trips are the first step in the process toward Axiom’s primary goal of constructing a commercial space station to replace the ISS. The Inspiration4 mission was “basically a tourist ride,” he added.

While it will likely be years before opportunities to visit a commercial space station become available to more than just the wealthy, Logsdon notes that a private space station could provide benefits beyond vacations for the rich – especially if the ISS is retired as planned and scientists, engineers and other researchers look for alternatives.

The privatization of human spaceflight is becoming an increasingly crowded sector amid the rise of a handful of space tourism ventures. However, Axiom CEO Suffredini said during last Friday’s news conference that he thinks the company’s plan of creating the first commercial space station – and launching the first commercial module to be added onto the ISS in 2024 – gives the company a novel “business plan.”

“We think it does put us in a good place relative to the competition, but we’re happy that there are others that are going to help us grow the LEO [low-earth orbit] economy along the way,” Suffredini said.

Logsdon said he has been watching human spaceflight launches for decades and was at the Kennedy Space Center for the Apollo 11 launch that put the first humans on the moon back in 1969. While the private sector’s foray into spaceflight has muddled some of the initial intrigue, he said he’s still planning on tuning in for the launch.

All-private SpaceX astronaut mission splashes down successfully ...

New York CNN Business —

The first all-private mission to the International Space Station finally made its way home Monday, making a splash down landing off the coast of Florida and concluding a mission that has lasted a week longer than expected.

This mission was brokered by the Houston, Texas-based startup Axiom Space. The company books rocket rides, provides all the necessary training, and coordinates flights to the ISS for anyone who can afford it — and it hopes this is the first mission of many more to come. There were four crew members on this flight — Michael López-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut-turned-Axiom employee who is commanding the mission; and three paying customers: Israeli businessman Eytan Stibbe; Canadian investor Mark Pathy; and Ohio-based real estate magnate Larry Connor.

Recovery crews approach the Crew Dragon capsule after splashdown. SpaceX/Axiom Space

The splash down return is considered the most dangerous stretch of the mission. The Crew Dragon capsule was traveling at more than 17,000 miles per hour, and as it began the final leg of its descent, the Crew Dragon capsule’s exterior heated up to about 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit as it sliced back into the thickest part of Earth’s atmosphere. Inside the spacecraft cabin, the passengers were protected by a heat shield and the temperature should’ve stayed below 85 degrees Fahrenheit.

The Crew Dragon then deployed sets of parachutes as it plummeted toward the Atlantic Ocean. Rescue crews waiting near the splash down site hauled the spacecraft out of the ocean and on to a special boat, called the “Dragon’s nest,” where final safety checks took place before the crew disembarked.

An infrared shot of the recovery crew. SpaceX/Axiom Space

AX-1, which launched on April 8, was originally billed as a 10-day mission, but ultimately stretched to about 17 days, 15 of which were spent on the ISS.

SpaceX/Axiom Space

During their first days on the space station, the group stuck to a regimented schedule, which included about 14 hours per day of activities, including scientific research that was designed by various research hospitals, universities, tech companies and more. They also spent time doing outreach events by video conferencing with children and students.

The weather delays then afforded to them “a bit more time to absorb the remarkable views of the blue planet and review the vast amount of work that was successfully completed during the mission,” according to Axiom.

It’s not clear how much this mission cost. Axiom previously disclosed a price of $55 million per seat for a 10-day trip to the ISS, but the company declined to comment on the financial terms for this specific mission beyond saying in a press conference last year that the price is in the “tens of millions.”

The mission has been made possible by very close coordination among Axiom, SpaceX and NASA, since the ISS is government-funded and operated. And the space agency has revealed some details about how much it charges for use of its 20-year-old orbiting laboratory.

For each mission, bringing on the necessary support from NASA astronauts will cost commercial customers $5.2 million, and all the mission support and planning that NASA lends is another $4.8 million. While in space, food alone costs an estimated $2,000 per day, per person. Getting provisions to and from the space station for a commercial crew is another $88,000 to $164,000 per person, per day.

But the extra days the AX-1 crew spent in space due to weather won’t add to their own personal overall price tag, according to a statement from NASA.

“Knowing that International Space Station mission objectives like the recently conducted Russian spacewalk or weather challenges could result in a delayed undock, NASA negotiated the contract with a strategy that does not require reimbursement for additional undock delays,” the statement reads.

AX-1 did not mark the first time paying customers or otherwise non-astronauts visited the ISS, as Russia has sold seats on its Soyuz spacecraft to various wealthy thrill seekers in years past.

The 11-person crew aboard the International Space Station on April 9, 2022. Clockwise from bottom right: Expedition 67 Commander Tom Marshburn with Flight Engineers Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveev, Sergey Korsakov, Raja Chari, Kayla Barron, and Matthias Maurer; and Axiom Mission 1 astronauts (center row from left) Mark Pathy, Eytan Stibbe, Larry Conner, and Michael Lopez-Alegria. NASA

But AX-1 was the first with a crew entirely comprised of private citizens with no active members of a government astronaut corps accompanying them in the capsule during the trip to and from the ISS. It’s also the first time private citizens have traveled to the ISS on a US-made spacecraft.

The mission has set off yet another round of debate about whether people who pay their way to space should be referred to as “astronauts,” though it should be noted a trip to the ISS requires a far larger investment of both time and money than taking a brief suborbital ride on a rocket built by companies like Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic.

López-Alegría, a veteran of four trips to space between 1995 and 2007 during his time with NASA, had this to say about it: “This mission is very different from what you may have heard of in some of the recent — especially suborbital — missions. We are not space tourists. I think there’s an important role for space tourism, but it is not what Axiom is about.”

Though the paying customers will not receive astronaut wings from the US government, they were presented with the “Universal Astronaut Insignia” — a gold pin recently designed by the Association of Space Explorers, an international group comprised of astronauts from 38 countries. López-Alegría presented Stibbe, Pathy and Connor with their pins during a welcome ceremony after the group arrived at the space station.

Jackie Wattles Jennifer Korn
Jackie Wattles
Jennifer Korn


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China's real estate crisis could be over with new rescue plan ...

Hong Kong CNN Business —

Chinese authorities are making their biggest effort yet to end a crisis in the country’s vast real estate sector that has weighed heavily on the economy over the past year.

Shares of China’s biggest property developer Country Garden soared as much as 52% in Hong Kong after Beijing on Friday unveiled a 16-point plan that significantly eases a crackdown on lending to the sector.

Key measures include allowing banks to extend maturing loans to developers, supporting property sales by reducing the size of down payments and cutting mortgage rates, boosting other funding channels such as bond issues, and ensuring the delivery of pre-sold homes to buyers.

“In essence, policymakers told banks to try their best in supporting the property sector,” according to Larry Hu, chief China economist for Macquarie Group.

Tao Wang, chief China economist at UBS, described the package of measures as a “turning point” for China’s property sector. Along with other policies announced earlier this year, it could inject more than 1 trillion yuan ($142 billion) into real estate, she estimated.

Chinese developers listed in Hong Kong jumped 11% on average on Monday, leading the broader market higher. Longfor Properties — another top developer — jumped 17% while shares of Dexin China, a Hangzhou-based developer, skyrocketed by 151%.

The rescue package is viewed by many analysts as the strongest signal yet from Chinese authorities that a two-year crackdown on the sector is now over. In August 2020, the government began trying to rein in excessive borrowing by developers to curb runaway house prices.

The problems escalated last year when Evergrande — the nation’s second largest developer — defaulted on its debt. As the property sector crashed, several major companies sought protection from their creditors. The cash crunch meant that work on many pre-sold housing projects across the country was delayed or suspended.

The crisis entered a new phase this summer when angry home buyers refused to pay mortgages on unfinished homes, roiling financial markets and sparking fears of contagion. Since then, authorities have tried to defuse the crisis by urging banks to increase loan support for developers so that they can complete projects. Regulators have also cut interest rates in a bid to restore buyer confidence.

But the property slump persisted, as buyers backed away from the market because of the weak economy and strict Covid curbs. In October, sales by the 100 biggest real estate developers contracted 26.5% from a year ago, according to a private survey by China Index Academy, a top real estate research firm. So far this year, their sales have fallen by 43%.

Along with a strict zero-Covid policy that has squeezed manufacturing and consumer spending, the property woes have dragged on China’s economy. In the third quarter, China’s GDP grew by 3.9% from a year earlier, putting overall growth for the first nine months at just 3%, far below the official target of 5.5% set in March.

While welcoming Friday’s measures, analysts remained cautious about the impact it would have on buyer confidence.

“The property market has yet to show signs of recovery,” said Nomura analysts in a research report on Monday, adding that the latest measures may have “little direct impact” on stimulating home purchases.

“Beijing’s zero-Covid strategy, despite some latest fine tuning, will continue to weigh on the property sector,” they added.


China's birth rate drops for a fifth straight year to record low | CNN ...

Editor’s Note: A version of this story appeared in CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter, a three-times-a-week update exploring what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world. Sign up here.

Hong Kong CNN Business —

China’s birth rate plummeted for a fifth consecutive year to hit a new record low in 2021, despite government efforts to encourage couples to have more children in the face of a looming demographic crisis.

The world’s most populous country recorded 10.62 million births last year, or only 7.5 births per 1,000 people, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics — marking the lowest level since the founding of Communist China in 1949.

The number of births was just enough to outnumber deaths, with the population growing by 480,000 to 1.4126 billion. The natural growth rate fell to 0.034%, the lowest since China’s great famine from 1959 to 1961, which killed tens of millions of people and led to a population decline.

New births in 2021 dropped 11.6% from 12.02 million in 2020 — a gentler decline than the 18% plunge that year, from 14.65 million in 2019. Chinese demographers have warned that if the downward trend continues, China’s population could stark shrinking soon.

Ning Jizhe, head of the National Bureau of Statistics, told state media Monday the decline in births stemmed from a combination of factors, from “a decrease in the number of women of childbearing age, a continued decline in fertility, changes in attitudes toward childbearing and delays of marriage by young people,” including due to the pandemic.

The plunging birth rate comes as the Chinese government ramps up efforts to encourage families to have more children, after realizing its decades-long one-child policy had contributed to a rapidly aging population and shrinking workforce that could severely distress the country’s economic and social stability.

To arrest the falling birth rate, the Chinese government announced in 2015 that it would allow married couples to have two children. But after a brief uptick in 2016, the national birth rate has been falling year on year, prompting authorities last year to further loosen the policy to three children.

Ning, the Chinese statistics official, said in 2021, 43% of the children born were the second child in a family. He said the three-child policy is expected to gradually add births, and that “China’s total population will remain above 1.4 billion for a period of time to come.”

For decades, local governments forced millions of women to abort pregnancies deemed illegal by the state under the one-child policy. Now, they are churning out a flurry of propaganda slogans and policies to encourage more births. The common incentives include cash handouts, real estate subsidies and extension of maternity leave.

Last year, more than 20 provincial or regional governments amended their family planning laws, including extending maternity leave for women. For example, eastern Zhejiang province offers 188 days of maternity leave for the third child; and in northern Shaanxi province, women can enjoy 350 days paid leave for having a third child, according to state media reports.

But the policies have failed to convince many women, who worry they’ll be further disadvantaged as companies seek to avoid the extra financial burden.

The high cost of raising children is also deterring parents from having more of them, especially among the country’s growing middle class.

China’s high property prices and rising education costs, especially in big cities, have frequently been cited in surveys as the top factors preventing couples from having more children.

Both sectors have been thrust into the spotlight this year, with the debt crisis surrounding property giant Evergrande and the Chinese government’s sweeping crackdown on the private tutoring industry.

Ten Things You Need to Know Today: 13 January 2023 | The Week ...

Chinese city offers cash for kids

Shenzhen, a city in the south of China, has become one of the first to propose cash incentives for people to have children. Under the proposals, the city’s 17.7 million residents “would be offered support worth about £900 for starting a family”, said The Times, with additional payments of around £1,300 and £2,300 if they have a second and third child. Despite a cap on Chinese families having more than one child being lifted in 2016, the country’s birth rate has continued to decline with India set to overtake China as the world’s most populous country this year.

China's harsh lockdowns could exacerbate population crisis | CNN

Editor’s Note: A version of this story appeared in CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter, a three-times-a-week update exploring what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world. Sign up here.

Hong Kong CNN —

For generations of Chinese parents, the success of their children has long been one of their most important goals in life – and they are known to be willing to make great sacrifices for it.

And so when a Shanghai family refused to be taken from their home into government quarantine during the city’s sixth week of lockdown, a police officer warned them with what he thought would be a powerful threat to bring them to heel – their children’s future.

“If you don’t obey the orders from the city government, you will be punished, and the punishment will affect three generations in your family,” the hazmat-suited police officer said, pointing his finger at the camera in a video posted on Chinese social media.

“We are the last generation, thank you,” a young man, who is not seen in the video, replied adamantly, in an apparent suggestion he is not planning to have any kids.

The video ended there, with no indication of whether the family was eventually taken away. But it spread like wildfire on China’s internet, resonating with many young Chinese who are fed up with the increasing pressure on them to have children – from a society and government that many say has provided them with little of the material and emotional security they need to raise a child.

“I laughed at first but in the end I felt a sense of great sadness. He is resisting by giving up his reproductive rights,” said a user on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform.

Carrying on the family line has long been a filial duty in traditional Chinese culture. But in today’s China, not having children – or delaying it – has become a form of soft resistance and silent protest against what many see as the disappointing reality they live in, with deep-rooted structural problems stemming from a system that they have little power to change.

“It is a tragic expression of despair of the deepest kind,” Zhang Xuezhong, a human rights lawyer and former law professor in Shanghai, wrote on Twitter about the video.

“We’ve been robbed of a future that is worth looking forward to. It is arguably the strongest denunciation a young man can make of the era he lives in.”

Over the past decade, an increasing number of Chinese millennials have delayed – or outright rejected – marriage and childbirth, as they confront high work pressure, skyrocketing property prices, rising education costs and discrimination against mothers in the workplace.

Last year, just 7.6 million Chinese couples registered for marriage – a 44% drop from 2013 and the lowest in 36 years. At the same time, the country’s birthrate dropped to 7.5 births per 1,000 people, a record low since the founding of Communist China, with nine provinces and regions registering negative population growth.

The Chinese government is worried. For decades, it had strictly enforced a one-child policy that forced millions of women to abort pregnancies deemed illegal by the state. But as China’s birthrate plummeted, demographers warned of a looming population crisis.

Beijing scrapped the one-child policy in 2016 and relaxed it further last year to allow couples to have three children, with local governments churning out a flurry of propaganda slogans and financial incentives to encourage more births – but the birthrate has continued to nosedive.

Some officials and policy advisers have appeared tone-deaf to young people’s demands. Last month, a law professor and delegate to the Jinzhou municipal People’s Congress in Hubei province suggested that in order to promote marriage and childbirth, the media should reduce or avoid reporting on “independent women” and the “double-income-no-kids (DINK) lifestyle,” because they are not in line with the country’s “mainstream values.” The suggestion drew a backlash online.

As the pandemic drags on, the sense of disenchantment among many of the country’s younger generation has only grown.

Video Ad Feedback 'I want to die': Video shows scenes of desperation from Shanghai's lockdown 03:41 - Source: CNN

The increasingly frequent and stringent lockdowns – and the chaos and tragedies that arose from them – have made citizens realize how fragile their rights are in the face of a state apparatus that brooks no dissent and a callous bureaucracy trained to take orders from above with little flexibility.

That is especially so in Shanghai, which is reeling from seven weeks of stringent lockdown. In the country’s wealthiest and most glamorous city, residents have been subject to widespread food shortages, lack of medical care and forced quarantine in spartan makeshift facilities. Authorities initially separated young children from their parents in isolation – and only reversed course after a public outcry.

The mounting frustration and anger erupted on Chinese social media – and in some cases, censors struggled to keep up. Some residents protested from their windows, banging pots and pans and shouting in frustration. Others clashed with police and health workers in the streets – something rarely seen in a country where dissent is routinely suppressed.

Over the past week, local officials forced residents to hand over their keys after they were taken away to quarantine, so that health workers could go in and soak their personal belongings in disinfectant – with little scientific justification for their actions or regard for private property rights.

For many residents, that was the last straw. Even their homes – their private space and last refuge – could not be spared the zealous enforcement of the government’s zero-Covid policy. Some say their lives have become dispensable in the pursuit of what officials deem the “greater good,” with residents left powerless to protect their loved ones.

To many young people, the crisis unfolding in Shanghai is setting off alarm bells. If even China’s most developed city with the largest middle-class population, the supposedly most open-minded bureaucrats and the most cosmopolitan culture could not be spared such authoritarian treatment, will other cities fare any better?

“Who is willing to have children when things have come to this? Who dares to have children?” asked a user on Weibo.

“Your reign ends with me. And the suffering you have caused also ends with me,” said another.

The fast-spreading anger soon attracted the attention of censors. By Thursday evening, most of the videos had been scrubbed from the Chinese internet. On Weibo, several related hashtags, from “We are the last generation” to “Last generation,” have been censored after attracting heated discussions.

But suppressing what young people want to say will not help persuade them to have children. On the contrary, that is likely only to add to their disaffection.

China records fewest marriages since 1986, adding to fears of ...

CNN —

China last year registered the fewest marriages since its public records began more than three decades ago – adding to concerns the country faces a looming demographic crisis.

There were 7.6 million marriage registrations in 2021, data released by China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs last week shows.

That’s the fewest since 1986, when the ministry began publicly releasing the figures, according to state-run tabloid Global Times. It is a 6.1% decrease from the previous year and the eighth consecutive year marriage rates have fallen.

At the same time, the average age of newlyweds is inching up, with nearly half of those married last year age 30 and above.

The figures reflect a trend that is increasingly a cause for concern among officials in the world’s most populous nation, home to 1.4 billion: young people, especially millennials, are increasingly choosing not to get married or have children – and even when they do, they tend to do so later in life.

Experts say the knock-on effect on what is already a shrinking workforce could have a severe impact on the country’s economy and social stability.

In just six years, the number of Chinese people getting married for the first time fell by 41%, from 23.8 million in 2013 to 13.9 million in 2019, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics.

The decline is partly due to decades of policies designed to limit China’s population growth, which mean there are fewer young people of marriageable age, according to Chinese officials and sociologists.

But it’s also a result of changing attitudes to marriage, especially among young women who are becoming more educated and financially independent.

Faced with widespread workplace discrimination and patriarchal traditions – such as the expectation for women to be responsible for child care and housework – some women are growing disillusioned with marriage.

Statistics show both genders are delaying marriage. From 1990 to 2016, the average age for first marriages rose from 22 to 25 for Chinese women, and from 24 to 27 for Chinese men, according to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Global Times also pointed to increasing work pressures for young people, who face stagnating wages, a competitive job market and rising costs of living.

The decline in marriages adds to concerns over China’s looming demographic crisis as it struggles to raise a falling birth rate.

In 2014, the country’s working-age population started to shrink for the first time in more than three decades.

The following year, the Chinese government announced an end to its one-child policy, allowing couples to have two children, then increased that to three children in 2021 – but both marriage and birth rates continued to drop.

China isn’t the only country struggling with this problem.

Japan and South Korea have also faced falling birth rates and shrinking populations in recent years.

Governments in all three countries have introduced measures to encourage births – such as financial incentives, cash vouchers, housing subsidies and more child care support – with limited success.

China is caught in a zero-Covid trap of its own making | CNN

Editor’s Note: A version of this story appeared in CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter, a three-times-a-week update exploring what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world. Sign up here.

Hong Kong CNN —

It’s been little more than a week since Chinese leader Xi Jinping began his norm-breaking third term in power with a ringing endorsement of his relentless zero-Covid policy.

But the commitment to stick with it is already fueling scenes of chaos and misery across the country.

In the northwestern city of Xining, residents spent last week pleading desperately for food as they suffered through the latest of the country’s stringent lockdowns; to the west, in Lhasa, the regional capital of Tibet, angry crowds have been protesting in the streets after more than 70 days of stay-home orders.

In the central province of Henan, migrant workers have abandoned a locked-down Foxconn factory en masse, walking for miles to escape an outbreak at China’s largest iPhone assembling site. And, in the eastern financial hub of Shanghai, things are gloomy even at Disneyland – the park abruptly shut its gates on Monday to comply with Covid prevention measures, trapping visitors inside for compulsory testing.

In many other parts of the country, lockdowns, mandatory quarantines, incessant mass testing edicts and travel restrictions continue to cripple businesses and daily life, even as the rest of the world moves on from the pandemic.

A woman wearing a face mask walks past a mural depicting epidemic control workers in protective suits in Beijing, Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2022. Mark Schiefelbein/AP

Renewed zeal

Rather than relax Covid restrictions – as some had hoped for in the lead-up to the Communist Party’s five-yearly leadership reshuffle, Chinese authorities have ramped them up after Xi’s sweeping endorsement of the strategy.

“The 20th Party Congress didn’t provide a timetable for moving away from zero-Covid. Instead it highlighted the importance of sticking to the existing approach,” said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

The congress reinforced Xi as an unrivaled supreme leader, and saw him stack the Communist Party’s top ranks with staunch allies – including those who had loyally carried out his Covid policies.

“The new political ecology also provided more incentive for local governments to impose more draconian Covid control measures,” Huang said.

A renewed zeal for the policy can be seen most clearly in smaller cities. While metropolises like Beijing and Shanghai can draw on their experiences of major flareups to implement more targeted lockdown measures, smaller cities with no such know-how tend to pursue zero-Covid goals in a more aggressive and extensive manner, Huang said.

‘It’s simply not working’

The repeating cycle of lockdowns, quarantines and mass testing is taking a heavy toll on the economy and society. Public patience is wearing thin, and frustrations are building.

On Monday in Baoding city, Hebei province, a father wielding a knife drove through a Covid checkpoint in a desperate bid to buy milk powder for his son. Video footage of the scene and his subsequent arrest sparked uproar online; the following day local police tried to soothe tempers by saying the man had been fined only 100 yuan ($13.75) and that his child’s “milk powder problem” had been “properly resolved.”

On Tuesday, the death of a 3-year-old in Lanzhou, Gansu province, sparked another outcry, after the child’s family said lockdown measures had delayed emergency responders. Police said later the child had stopped breathing by the time officers arrived, but did not address the family’s accusations that an ambulance had been delayed. CNN has reached out to Lanzhou authorities for comment.

In another sign of how sensitive the issue has become, Chinese stocks rallied on Wednesday following unverified social media rumors that China was forming a committee to prepare an exit from the zero-Covid policy.

Those rumors were quashed, however, when the Foreign Ministry said it was “unaware” of any such plan.

Meanwhile, experts say they see no signs of the Chinese government taking steps that would suggest it is rethinking its approach.

Chinese health officials maintain that changing tack now would risk a huge surge in infections and deaths that could overwhelm the country’s fragile health care system.

Beijing has so far refused to approve for use the mRNA vaccines developed in Western countries, which have been shown to be more potent than those made and used in China. Experts say China also lacks an emergency response plan to cope with surging infections.

But Jin Dongyan, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong, said such catastrophic scenarios could be avoided with proper preparation.

Instead of spending vast amounts of time and resources on testing, contact tracing, quarantining and imposing lockdowns, authorities should introduce more effective vaccines and antiviral therapies and boost the vaccination rate among the elderly, Jin said.

With boosted immunity, asymptomatic or mild cases could be allowed to recover at home – freeing up space at hospitals to treat more severe cases, he said.

“Using lockdown and containment measures to deal with an infectious disease with such a low mortality rate and high transmissibility is no longer appropriate. The whole world has abandoned this approach – nobody can stand the cost, it’s simply not working,” he said.

Fear of the virus

Another hurdle to pivoting from zero-Covid is a pervasive fear of the virus among large swaths of the public, instilled by the Chinese government to justify its harsh control measures, experts say.

“Authorities have demonized Covid, exaggerating its severity and mortality rate and talking up long-Covid symptoms. Many ordinary people are still very afraid of the virus, with recovered Covid patients suffering from severe discrimination and stigmatization,” Jin said.

It was partly such fears that drove thousands of migrant workers to flee in panic from the Foxconn factory in Zhengzhou, he said.

Videos of people traveling on foot, dragging their luggage on roads and across fields, went viral on Chinese social media over the weekend. Zhengzhou, a city of 12 million, imposed sweeping lockdown measures last month after identifying dozens of Covid-19 cases.

The Foxconn facility has been racing to control an outbreak since mid-October, though the company has not disclosed the number of infections among its workers. On Wednesday, the Zhengzhou Airport Economy Zone, where the Foxconn plant is located, announced new lockdown measures.

As the Foxconn exodus thrust the Zhengzhou outbreak into the spotlight, the city’s health authorities have tried to allay public fears. On Monday, the Zhengzhou municipal health commission published a WeChat article with the headline: “Covid is not that horrible, but preventable and treatable.”

Huang, the expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, said misconceptions about the virus would complicate matters if China did at some point decide to move away from zero Covid.

“Even if in the future, China wants to change the narrative and play down the seriousness of the disease, some people might not buy into the new narrative,” he said.

As the winter approaches, experts warn that China could be hit by a new wave of infections – and a new cycle of draconian lockdowns.

China reported 2,755 local infections for Tuesday, the highest daily tally since August.

“Judging from the situation in China, there will be a major outbreak sooner or later. China has deployed tremendous efforts and paid a heavy cost to prevent that from happening, but in the end, it won’t be able to stop such a highly infectious disease from spreading,” Jin said.

Donald Trump: Key takeaways from six years of former president's ...

CNN —

Six years of Donald Trump’s federal tax returns released on Friday show the former president paid very little in federal income taxes the first and last year of his presidency, claiming huge losses that helped limit his tax bill, among other revelations.

The returns, long shrouded in secrecy, were released to the public on Friday by the House Ways and Means Committee, the culmination of a battle over their disclosure that went to the Supreme Court. They confirm a report issued from the Joint Committee on Taxation that Trump claimed large losses before and throughout his presidency that he carried forward to reduce or practically eliminate his tax burden. For example, his returns show that he carried forward a $105 million loss in 2015 and $73 million in 2016.

The thousands of pages of documents from the former president’s personal and business federal tax returns – which spanned the years 2015 through 2020 – provide a complex web of raw data about Trump’s finances, offering up many questions about his wealth and income that could be pursued both by auditors and Trump’s political opponents.

Here are key takeaways from the documents reviewed by CNN:

Returns shed light on questionable tax claims

Trump’s returns also show the former president made several claims that auditors may question.

The Joint Committee on Taxation, which reviewed the returns, flagged that Trump claimed a large number of questionable items on his tax returns, including eyebrow-raising amounts of interest he claims to have received from loans to his children that the bipartisan committee said could indicate Trump was disguising gifts.

The JCT argued that an auditor should investigate the loan agreements Trump made with his children, including the interest rates. If the interest Trump claims to have charged his children was not at market rate, for example, it could be considered a gift for tax purposes, requiring him to pay a higher tax rate on the money.

In each year of his presidency, for example, Trump claimed he received exactly $18,000 in interest on a loan he said he gave his daughter Ivanka Trump and $8,715 in interest from his son Donald Trump, Jr.. In 2017 to 2019, Trump said he received exactly $24,000 from his son Eric Trump, and Eric paid him $19,605 in interest in 2020.

That raises the question of whether “the loans were bona fide arm’s length transactions, or whether the transfers were disguised gifts that could trigger gift tax and a disallowance of interest deductions by the related borrowers,” the JCT said in its report.

“It’s unusual to have interest in round numbers – very rare,” said Martin Sheil, former supervisory special agent for IRS’ Criminal Investigation unit. “An auditor would want to see payments, loan agreements and interest rates.”

There are also questions about Trump’s returns listing an identical amount of company expenses and income.

For example, in 2017, Trump claimed his business DJT Aerospace LLC, which operates Trump’s personal helicopter, claimed $42,965 in income. It also claimed the exact same amount – $42,965 – in expenses. In other words, every single dollar – to the dollar – that the company earned was negated by the company’s expenses, such as payroll, fuel and other items. That left the company with zero income – and nothing to tax.

“Total expenses equaling total income is a statistical impossibility,” said Shiel, who added that the figures are not evidence something illegal was done. “It just doesn’t happen.”

The JCT in its report raised several similar questions. For example, it noted IRS auditors were investigating multiple so-called large unusual questionable items on Trump’s tax returns for which the regulator wanted Trump to provide supporting evidence to back up his claims.

Release comes after years-long fight

The returns were obtained by the Democratic-run Ways and Means Committee only a few weeks ago after a protracted legal battle that lasted nearly four years. The committee voted last week to release the tax returns, but their release was delayed to redact sensitive personal information like Social Security numbers.

The release of the tax returns follows a pursuit for the documents that had typically been made public voluntarily by past US presidents. Trump and his legal team continuously sought to keep his returns secret, arguing that Congress had never wielded its legislative powers to demand a president’s tax returns, which Trump said could have far-reaching implications.

“The Democrats should have never done it, the Supreme Court should have never approved it, and it’s going to lead to horrible things for so many people,” Trump said in a statement following the release.

“The ‘Trump’ tax returns once again show how proudly successful I have been and how I have been able to use depreciation and various other tax deductions as an incentive for creating thousands of jobs and magnificent structures and enterprises.”

Other Republicans also criticized Democrats’ efforts in pursuit of the tax returns as political, with Texas Rep. Kevin Brady – the committee’s top conservative – saying the release would amount to “a dangerous new political weapon that reaches far beyond the former president and overturns decades of privacy protections for average Americans that have existed since the Watergate reform.”

During the committee’s closed-door meeting last week, Republicans warned that the release of Trump’s tax returns by Democrats could prompt retribution once Republicans control the House next year – like going after the taxes of President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.

“I had countless people tell me of things that they were concerned with President Biden’s family dealings and how they believed that him and his family is enriched because of his political power. And they are begging for oversight and accountability on that,” said Rep. Jason Smith, a Missouri Republican, according to excerpts the GOP released from the meeting. “Do we need to go down all that? Is that what you all are wishing to do?”

Returns show he held foreign bank accounts while in office

Trump reported having foreign bank accounts between 2015 and 2020, including a bank account in China between 2015 and 2017, his tax returns show.

Trump was required to report the accounts to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). The filings show that the former president maintained foreign bank accounts in countries such as the United Kingdom, Ireland and China.

The China bank account, which was reported by The New York Times in 2020, was tied to Trump International Hotels Management’s business push in the country, Trump Organization lawyer Alan Garten said at the time.

The 2020 disclosure of business dealings in China came as the Trump campaign sought to portray Biden as a “puppet” of China. Biden’s income tax returns and financial disclosures showed no business dealings or income from China.

The returns also show that Trump paid more in foreign taxes than in US federal income taxes in 2017, the first year of his presidency.

In 2017, Trump paid just $750 in US federal income taxes because of large carry-forward losses that he claimed in prior years, negating virtually all of his American tax liability. Yet Trump paid nearly $1 million in taxes to foreign countries that year.

The fact that Trump paid foreign taxes isn’t in itself surprising, but it shows how Trump’s companies and businesses interests span the globe, and how those businesses are subject to local tax laws and regulations.

On his tax return, Trump listed business income, taxes, expenses or other notable financial items in Azerbaijan, Panama, Canada, India, Qatar, South Korea, the United Kingdom, China, the Dominican Republic, United Arab Emirates, the Philippines, Grenada, US territory Puerto Rico, Georgia, Israel, Brazil, St. Maarten, Mexico, Indonesia, Ireland, Turkey, and St. Vincent.

Trump claimed no charitable deductions in 2020

During his presidency, Trump pledged he would donate the entirety of his $400,000 salary to charity each year. He frequently boasted about donating parts of his quarterly paycheck to various government agencies.

“While the press doesn’t like writing about it, nor do I need them to, I donate my yearly Presidential salary of $400,000.00 to different agencies throughout the year,” Trump tweeted in March 2019.

If he donated his 2020 salary, he didn’t claim it on his taxes. Among the six years of tax returns the House Ways and Means Committee released, 2020 was the sole year in which Trump listed no donations to charity.

Trump’s finances took a sizable hit in 2020, probably as a result of the pandemic and the lack of demand for vacations and lodging in his hotels. Trump reported large donations to charity in 2018 and 2019, helping reduce the amount he owed on millions of dollars in income he reported in those years.

But Trump posted a massive $4.8 million adjusted loss in 2020, a year, which alone wiped out his federal income tax obligation. Trump paid $0 in federal income taxes in 2020.

The Joint Committee on Taxation raised questions about the accuracy of some enormous charitable deductions Trump claimed in previous years’ tax returns, including large and unsubstantiated cash gifts. Trump also claimed a $21.1 million deduction in 2015 for donating 158 acres of his 212-acre property called Seven Springs in North Castle, New York. That donation, which was made to a land trust, is a focus of the Manhattan district attorney’s criminal investigation of the Trump Organization’s finances.

Trump’s own 2017 tax law appears to have reduced the amount he was able to deduct from tax bill

Trump claimed that the 2017 Republican tax plan he championed and signed would cost him and his family “a fortune.” It’s not clear that it did, but it does appear to have limited the amount that he could claim in one part of his complex tax return.

The 2017 tax law capped the state and local tax deduction, known as SALT, at $10,000 a year. In previous years, tax filers were allowed to deduct more of their SALT payments. Although the law was passed in 2017, it didn’t apply until the 2018 tax year.

In 2018, Trump listed $10.5 million in state and local taxes, but could deduct just $10,000 of that from his taxes. In 2019, Trump paid $8.4 million in SALT but was capped at $10,000. And in 2020, Trump said he paid $8.5 million in SALT but claimed the maximum allowable $10,000.

By comparison, in 2016 and 2017, Trump was able to deduct significantly more from state and local taxes. For example, in 2016 and 2017, he deducted $5.2 million each year in SALT payments.

Some Democrats criticized the 2017 tax law’s SALT cap for taking aim at residents in the Northeast and the West who have some of the highest property taxes in the country. The Tax Foundation found that property tax deductions capped in 2017 had previously accounted for about a third of all state and local tax deductions. But Trump defended the provision, saying the cap was necessary even if it would hurt his own finances.

It’s not clear how much the SALT cap hurt Trump, however. Although that particular deduction was capped, Trump claimed many other deductions that limited the amount of federal income taxes he had to pay.

Presidential audits

The Ways and Means Committee, which is responsible for overseeing the IRS and writing tax policy, requested the returns under the authority of section 6103 of the US tax code. Their report focused primarily on whether Trump’s tax returns during his time in office were properly audited under the IRS’ mandatory audit program for US presidents.

The committee found that the IRS opened only one “mandatory” audit during Trump’s term – for his 2016 tax return. And that didn’t take place until the fall of 2019, after Chairman Richard Neal, a Massachusetts Democrat, first sent a letter asking the IRS for Trump’s returns and tax information. The report characterizes the presidential audit program as “dormant.”

“The research that was done as it relates to the mandatory audit program was nonexistent,” Neal said last week following the committee vote.

Republicans on the committee argued that Democrats acknowledged it was “not necessary to publicly release the private tax information to change requirements on the presidential audit program.”

A Republican dissent issued Friday warned that, “Democrats’ dangerous precedent will lead the American public to demand other people’s tax returns to be released.”

Last week, the House passed a bill that would reform the presidential audit process in a largely symbolic vote before Republicans take the majority in the new Congress. The legislation is not expected to be taken up by the Senate before the new Congress is sworn in.

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

David Goldman Jeremy Herb Jeanne Sahadi Maegan Vazquez

Germany's leader and top CEOs are visiting Beijing. They need ...

Hong Kong/London CNN Business —

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz arrived in China on Friday with a team of top executives, sending a clear message: business with the world’s second-largest economy must continue.

Scholz met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People after landing in the capital Friday morning and was received by Premier Li Keqiang in the afternoon.

Joining Scholz for the whirlwind one-day visit is a delegation of 12 German industry titans, including the CEOs of Volkswagen (VLKAF), Deutsche Bank (DB), Siemens (SIEGY) and chemicals giant BASF (BASFY), according to a person familiar with the matter. They were expected to meet with Chinese companies behind closed doors.

The group entered China without undergoing a mandatory seven-day hotel quarantine standard for most arrivals. Images showed hazmat-clad medical workers greeting Scholz’s jet at Beijing’s Capital International Airport to test the official delegation for Covid-19 upon their arrival.

During the Friday morning meeting between the two leaders, Xi called for Germany and China to work together amid a “complex and volatile” international situation, and said the visit would “enhance mutual understanding and trust, deepen pragmatic cooperation in various fields and plan for the next phase of Sino-German relations,” according to a readout from state broadcaster CCTV.

Speaking at a press conference with Premier Li, Scholz said that Germany’s economic relationship with China had recently become “more difficult” because Beijing was making access to some of its markets more difficult.

“We are seeing discussions in China tending more towards autonomy and less economic ties. And these views are ones that need discussing,” Scholz said.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz arrives at Beijing Capital International Airport on November 4, 2022. Kay Nietfeld/picture alliance/Getty Images

Scholz’s visit — the first by a G7 leader to China in roughly three years — comes as Germany slides towards recession. But it has fired up concerns that the interests of Europe’s biggest economy are still too closely tied to those of Beijing.

Since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine this year, Germany has been forced to ditch its long dependence on Russian energy. Beijing has declared its friendship with Moscow has “no limits,” while China’s relations with the United States are deteriorating.

Now, some in Scholz’s coalition government are growing nervous about Germany’s ties with China.

The tension was highlighted recently by a fierce debate over a bid by Chinese state shipping giant Cosco to buy a 35% stake in the operator of one of the four terminals at the port of Hamburg. Under pressure from some members of the government, the size of the investment was limited to 24.9%.

The potential deal has raised concerns in Germany that closer ties with China will leave critical infrastructure exposed to political pressure from Beijing, and disproportionately benefit Chinese companies.

But Germany is hardly in a position to rock the boat with Beijing as it grapples with the challenge of reviving its struggling economy. Its consumers and companies have borne the brunt of Europe’s energy crisis, and a deep recession is looming.

If the European Union and Germany were to decouple from China, it would lead to “large GDP losses” for the German economy, Lisandra Flach, director of the ifo Center for International Economics, told CNN Business.

The Kiel Institute for the World Economy estimates that a major reduction in trade between the European Union and China would shave 1% off of Germany’s GDP.

Germany needs to shore up its export markets as ties with Russia, once its main supplier of natural gas, continue to unravel.

When it comes to China, Germany won’t want to “lose also this market, this economic partner,” said Rafal Ulatowski, an assistant professor of political science and international studies at the University of Warsaw.

“They [will] try to keep these relations as long as it’s possible.”

Pressure on Berlin

As Western countries have imposed swingeing economic sanctions on Russia, China has publicly maintained its “neutrality” in the war while ramping up its trade with Moscow.

That has triggered a backlash in Europe, where some companies are already becoming wary of doing business in China because of its stringent “zero Covid” restrictions.

Pressure on Berlin is also mounting over China’s human rights record. In an open letter Wednesday, a coalition of 70 civil rights groups urged Scholz to “rethink” his trip to Beijing.

“The invitation of a German trade delegation to join your visit will be viewed as an indication that Germany is ready to deepen trade and economic links, at the cost of human rights and international law,” they wrote in the memo, published by the World Uyghur Congress. Based in Germany, the organization is run by Uyghurs raising awareness of allegations of genocide in China’s Xinjiang region.

It suggested Berlin was “loosening economic dependence on one authoritarian power, only to deepen economic dependence on another.”

In an op-ed published in a German newspaper on Wednesday, Scholz said he would use his visit to “address difficult issues,” including “respect for civil and political liberties and the rights of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang province.”

A spokesperson for the German government addressed wider criticism last week, saying at a press conference that it had no intention of “decoupling” from its most important trading partner.

“[The chancellor] has basically said again and again that he is not a friend of decoupling, or turning away, from China. But he also says: diversify and minimize risk,” the spokesperson said.

Last year, China was Germany’s biggest trading partner for the sixth year in a row, with the value of trade up over 15% from 2020, according to official statistics Chinese trade with Germany was worth a combined €245 billion ($242 billion) in 2021.

A new flashpoint

Still, the furor surrounding the Hamburg port deal is a reminder of the tradeoffs Germany has to confront if it wants to maintain close ties with such a vital export market and supplier.

A spokesperson for Hamburger Hafen und Logistik (HHLA), the company operating the port terminal, told CNN Business on Thursday that it was still negotiating the deal with Cosco.

Flach, of the ifo Center for International Economics, said the deal warranted scrutiny because “there is no reciprocity: Germany cannot invest in Chinese ports, for instance.”

A container ship from Cosco Shipping moored at the Tollerort Container Terminal owned by HHLA, in the harbor of Hamburg, Germany on Oct. 26. Axel Heimken/AFP/Getty Images

However, it is easy to overstate the impact of the potential agreement, said Alexander-Nikolai Sandkamp, assistant professor of economics at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

“We’re not talking about a 25% stake in the Hamburg harbor, or even the operator of the harbor, but a 25% stake in the operator of a terminal,” he told CNN Business.

Jürgen Matthes, head of global and regional markets at the German Economic Institute, told CNN Business that critics were no longer simply weighing the business benefits of Chinese investment in the country.

“Politics and economics have to be looked at together and cannot be taken separately any longer,” he said. “When geopolitics comes into play, the view of China has very much declined and become much more negative.”

China’s recent treatment of Lithuania has also deepened concerns that Beijing “does not hesitate to simply break trade rules,” Matthes added. The small, Eastern European nation claimed last year that Beijing had erected trade barriers in retaliation for its support for Taiwan.

China has defended its downgrading of relations with Lithuania, saying it is acting in response to the European nation undermining its “sovereignty and territorial integrity.” This year, after a Lithuanian official visited Taiwan, Beijing also announced sanctions against her and vowed to “suspend all forms of exchange” with her ministry.

What’s on the table

As the German delegation touched down on Friday, they were faced with another issue, which has become the single biggest headache for companies across China.

“The biggest challenge for German businesses remains China’s zero-Covid policy,” said Maximilian Butek of the German Chamber of Commerce in China.

“The restrictions are suffocating economic growth and heavily impact China’s attractiveness as a destination for foreign direct investment,” he told CNN Business.

An aerial view of the urban landscape in Shanghai on Sept. 25. The city underwent a months-long Covid lockdown earlier this year. CFOTO/Future Publishing/Getty Images

He said the broader restrictions were so stifling that some companies had moved their regional headquarters to other locations, such as Singapore. “Managing the whole region without being able to travel freely is almost impossible,” he added.

In a brief statement, Volkswagen told CNN Business that its CEO was attending the trip since “there have been no direct meetings for almost three years” due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“In view of the completely changed geopolitical and global economic situation, the trip to Beijing offers the opportunity for a personal exchange of views,” the automaker said.

End of a golden era?

Despite Beijing’s Covid curbs and geopolitical tensions, Germany has every economic incentive to stay close to China.

Its dependency on China can be seen across industries. While about 12% of total imports came from China last year, the country was responsible for 80% of imported laptops and 70% of mobile phones, Sandkamp said.

The automobile, chemical and electrical industries are also reliant on Chinese trade.

“If we were to stop trading with China, we would run into trouble,” Sandkamp added.

China made up 40% of Volkswagen’s worldwide deliveries in the first three quarters of this year, and it’s also the top market for other automakers such as Mercedes.

Wariness among some German officials over the country’s closeness with China could filter into a more restrictive trade policy, though economic cooperation is still in both parties’ interests.

In September, Germany’s economy minister Robert Habeck told Reuters that the government was working on a new trade policy with China to reduce dependence on Chinese raw materials, batteries and semiconductors.

Unidentified sources also told the news agency that the ministry was weighing new rules that would make business with China less attractive. The ministry did not respond to a request for comment from CNN Business.

But “despite all odds and challenges, China remains unrivaled in terms of market size and market growth opportunities for many German companies,” said Butek, of the German Chamber.

He predicted that “the large majority will stay committed to the Chinese market and is expecting to expand their business.”

Companies appear to be toeing that line. Last week, BASF CEO Martin Brudermüller was quoted in Chinese state media as saying that Germans should “step away from China-bashing and look at ourselves a bit self-critically.”

“We benefit from China’s policies of widening market access,” he said at a company event, according to state-run news agency Xinhua, pointing to the construction of a BASF chemical engineering site in southern China.

— CNN’s Simone McCarthy, Chris Stern, Lauren Kent, Nadine Schmidt, Claudia Otto and Arnaud Siad contributed to this report.

Michelle Toh Anna Cooban
Michelle Toh
Anna Cooban

Japan wants young people to drink more alcohol. It's just not sure ...

Tokyo CNN —

The Japanese government has been hit in the pocket by an unusual problem – its young people aren’t drinking enough.

Since the pandemic began, bars and other premises selling alcohol have been hit hard by Covid-19 restrictions, causing sales – and liquor tax revenues – to plummet in the world’s third-largest economy.

The government’s solution? Launch a contest to find new ways to encourage young people to drink more.

The “Sake Viva!” campaign, overseen by the National Tax Agency, invites participants to submit ideas on how to “stimulate demand among young people” for alcohol through new services, promotional methods, products, designs and even sales techniques using artificial intelligence or the metaverse, according to the official competition website.

“The domestic alcoholic beverage market is shrinking due to demographic changes such as the declining birthrate and aging population, and lifestyle changes due to the impact of Covid-19,” said the website, adding that the competition aimed to “appeal to the younger generation … and to revitalize the industry.”

The contest includes promotional ideas for all types of Japanese alcohol, with applications open until September 9. Finalists will be invited to an expert consultation in October, before a final tournament in November in Tokyo. The winner will receive support for their plan to be commercialized, according to the tax office.

But not everyone is on board, with the competition and tax agency receiving criticism from some people online.

“Are you kidding me?” one Twitter user wrote. “Staying away from alcohol is a good thing!”

Others pointed out that it seemed inappropriate for a government agency to encourage young people to drink, and it appeared the campaign had not considered health risks or sensitivity toward people dealing with alcoholism.

Japan’s Health Ministry has in the past warned of the dangers of excessive drinking. In a post on its website last year, it called excessive alcohol consumption a “major social problem” that persisted despite a recent slowdown in consumption. And it urged people with unhealthy drinking habits to “reconsider” their relationship with alcohol.

A ministry spokesperson declined to comment on the tax agency’s competition when contacted by CNN.

Declining sales

Japan, along with several other countries in Asia, maintained tough restrictions throughout much of the pandemic, closing public spaces and reducing business hours for restaurants.

Izakayas – Japan’s version of a pub or tavern – were particularly hard hit, with the latest available figures showing sales halved from 2019 to 2020, according to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

With fewer opportunities to drink in public, the rate of “household consumption” – drinking at home – “increased significantly,” the ministry said.

But young adults have stood out as the exception. About 30% of people in their 40s to 60s drink regularly, meaning three days or more per week, the ministry said – compared to just 7.8% of people in their 20s.

“In this way, the decline in drinking habits year by year is thought to be having an effect on the shrinking of the domestic market,” the ministry said.

In a 2021 report, the tax agency said duties on liquor had been a major revenue source for the government for centuries, but had declined in recent decades. Japan received 1.1 trillion yen ($8.1 billion) in alcohol tax in 2021 – 1.7% of overall tax revenue, compared to 3% in 2011, and 5% in 1980.

Japan lifted its state of emergency in October 2021, allowing restaurants to sell alcohol again and stay open later – but restrictions in some parts of the country remained in place until March this year.

The country’s recovery since then has been slower than expected, hindered by rising inflation, the economic impact of the war in Ukraine, and recent surges in Covid cases that have led to prolonged restrictions.

Jessie Yeung Junko Ogura
Jessie Yeung
Junko Ogura