Behind The Black – Robert Zimmerman

SpaceX launches 29 Starlink satellites, uses 1st stage for record 35th time

June 8, 2026 3:37 am Robert Zimmerman

SpaceX early this morning successfully launched another 29 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force station in Florida.

The first stage (B1067) successfully completed its 35th flight (70 days after its previous flight), landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. This flight was a new record for the reuse of a Falcon 9 first stage, placing it only four behind the space shuttle Discovery in the rankings for the most reused launch vehicle:

39 Discovery space shuttle
35 Falcon 9 booster B1067
33 Atlantis space shuttle
33 Falcon 9 booster B1071
32 Falcon 9 booster B1063
31 Falcon 9 booster B1069
28 Columbia space shuttle
28 Falcon 9 booster B1077
28 Falcon 9 booster B1078

Sources here and here.

Expect these rankings to see some newer Falcon 9 first stages in the near future The older stages listed here seem to take about two months generally to turn-around after each launch. The younger stages are instead turning around much faster, in one month or less.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

68 SpaceX
34 China
8 Russia
7 Rocket Lab

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 68 to 59.

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NASA’s X-59 completes first no-boom supersonic flight, more than a year after a private company did it

June 7, 2026 10:28 am Robert Zimmerman

NASA yesterday made a big deal about the first successful supersonic test flight of its X-59 test plane, built by Lockheed Martin for $247.5 million to demonstrate quiet no-boom supersonic flight.

And as usual, our uneducated propaganda press played along, touting the wonders of this new NASA achievement. A few examples:

Scientific American: NASA’s X-59 plane goes supersonic for the first time
Aerospace America: NASA’s X-59 breaks sound barrier in first supersonic flight
Fox News: NASA’s ‘quiet’ supersonic jet completes first flight in potential breakthrough for commercial air travel
Space.com: Going supersonic! NASA’s X-59 jet breaks sound barrier for the 1st time

Poppycock. Not one of these news articles made mention of the fact that the private commercial company Boom Supersonic accomplished the same feat eighteen months earlier, its XB-1 supersonic airplane breaking the sound barrier with no boom three separate times. And it did so using private funds for significantly less and getting the job done faster and in a manner that it can quickly convert into its planned commercial supersonic planes.

The X-59 is a typical NASA test project, designed to test a technology in a manner that is generally too specific and expensive for commercial use. Without doubt the engineering and the data from these flights will be helpful to companies like Boom, but to use it will require major changes and revisions to bring the cost down. It is for this reason Boom did its own engineering and test.

That I appear to be the only news outlet aware of this important background information — that puts a significantly different light on this government project — illustrates the bankruptcy of our modern media. They don’t know anything, and can only rewrite press releases.

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Australia’s Southern Launch range gets another re-entry capsule customer

June 7, 2026 9:44 am Robert Zimmerman

Australian spaceports: operating (red dot) and proposed (red “X”)
Click for original image.

The Australlian spaceport Southern Launch, which also controls the Koonibba Test Range where a variety of government and commercial capsules have landed since 2020, has signed another American company building its own re-entry capsules.

Southern Launch has signed a new agreement with US-based SpaceWorks Enterprises, Inc. to host multiple re-entry missions at the Koonibba Test Range in South Australia.

The agreement enables SpaceWorks to advance its growing portfolio of atmospheric Re-Entry Devices (RED) and further demonstrates confidence in the Koonibba Test Range as the leading global location for the safe and reliable return of spacecraft and high-value payloads.

This is the third American re-entry capsule company to sign with Southern Launch. Varda has already landed I think five capsules at Koonibba, and has a deal to land up to 20 through 2028. In 2025 the American startup Lux Aeterna signed a deal as well.

Two take-aways from this story: First, SpaceWorks as a re-entry capsule company appears to be a new project, joining the host of other re-entry capsule companies that have obtained investment capital since Varda demonstrated its success, including three U.S. and five European startups. It really appears the financial community sees profits here, and are committing money to this effort.

Two, the red tape by multiple U.S. government agencies in 2023 that delayed the return of Varda’s first capsule to the Air Force’s test range in Utah for six months has driven all this business out of the U.S.

That red tape was part of the Biden administration’s general policy aimed at hindering private enterprise, but it also is systematic to the existing administrative state that dominates and impedes American industry across the board. The result here is the business went elsewhere.

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SpaceX launches 21 Starlink and 2 Starshield satellites

June 7, 2026 8:12 am Robert Zimmerman

SpaceX last night successfully launched another 21 Starlink and two Starshield satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

Starshield is SpaceX’s military version of Starlink. The first stage completed its 10th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

67 SpaceX
34 China
8 Russia
7 Rocket Lab

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 67 to 59.

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NASA clarifies air leak situation yesterday on ISS

June 6, 2026 8:27 am Robert Zimmerman

Figure 3 from September Inspector General report
Figure 3 from September 2024 Inspector General report, showing Zvezda’s location on ISS, as well as the station’s leak rate at that time.

According to a NASA update posted late yesterday, the agency had cause to order its astronauts to shelter in place within their Dragon capsule due to planned repair work proposed by the Russians.

The week of June 1, during Progress 95 spacecraft cargo operations, Roscosmos noted an increase of the previous leak rate to two pounds per day and identified new suspected leak areas in the PrK. Following this observation, Roscosmos made the decision to begin work toward a more extensive inspection and structural repair effort Friday morning. This revised approach involved cutting a bracket to better access an area identified as a possible leak source for further inspection, using a method that could have resulted in elevated risk to the structure in the area. In response, NASA directed the four SpaceX Crew-12 members and NASA astronaut Chris Williams, who flew to station aboard the Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft, to take a heightened safety posture, known as a safe haven, inside the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft during the procedure.

Later Friday morning, Roscosmos paused and did not perform the structural repair work in favor of conducting additional measurements and data assessments, which included inspection of suspected areas of interest and review of areas where sealant was previously applied. NASA strongly supported that decision, and as a result, following that decision, Crew-12 and Williams ended their safe haven activities and returned to normal operations aboard the orbiting laboratory.

In other words, the leak rate had increased to match the high rates seen from 2019 to 2025, and the Russians were planning work that threatened the structure of the module. It appears NASA objected, and eventually the Russians acceded to those objections.

What happens next however remains unclear. If the leak rate has suddenly jumped from one pound per day to two pounds a day, that suggests the situation is worsening, and doing so at an alarming rate. As this new leak occurred shortly after a Progress freighter docked at Zvezda, it suggested the docking instigated it. It also suggests any further dockings there are likely to worsen the situation even more.

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FCC grants waiver to Amazon Leo constellation, despite its failure to launch on time

June 6, 2026 8:07 am Robert Zimmerman

Amazon Leo logo

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) yesterday granted [pdf] a license waiver to Amazon, allowing it to continue deploying its Leo constellation even though the company will fail to meet its license requirement to get half its constellation (1,616 satellites) into orbit by July 2026.

While granting the waiver, the FCC also made it clear Amazon still needs to meet the license’s deadline for full deployment of all 3,232 satellites by July 30, 2029.

In the event Amazon Leo fails to satisfy the final milestone on July 30, 2029, this will result in reduction of the total number of Amazon Leo’s authorized satellites to the total number of satellites that are operational on that date.

In other words, the Leo constellation will be truncated if Amazon fails to get the full constellation up on time.

To further encourage Amazon to meet future deadlines, the FCC also stated that the satellites of Amazon’s first-half constellation that are launched late — after the July 2026 deadline — will lose certain spectrum rights for the next 20 months, “or until 50% of the constellation is launched and operational, whichever occurs first.” This order is expressly designed to encourage the company to accelerate its launch pace.

Finally, the FCC declared that Amazon will forfeit its surety bond for not meeting its July 30, 2026 launch obligation.

Launching almost 3,000 satellites in the next three years is still going to be challenging. Right now Amazon is dependent mostly on two grounded and as yet unproven rockets (Vulcan and New Glenn) and a third (Ariane-6) that cannot launch at a very quick pace for at least another two years. And its additional a ten-launch contract with SpaceX won’t be sufficient to get the entire constellation in orbit on time.

In other words, unless Vulcan and New Glenn get fixed quickly and resume launches, Amazon is going to have trouble meeting the FCC’s final deadline.

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June 5, 2026 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast

June 5, 2026 8:48 pm Robert Zimmerman

Embedded below the fold in two parts.

To listen to all of John Batchelor’s podcasts, go here.
» Read more

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Charles Laughton – The Gettysburg Address

June 5, 2026 6:01 pm Robert Zimmerman

An evening pause: A scene from the 1935 film, Ruggles of Red Gap. In the film he plays a British butler who has been won by a rich western family in a poker game. He comes to America, and is infected by its freedom.

I posted this back in 2011, on the anniversary of Lincoln’s first presentation. Time to play it again, since so many Americans today — like the cowboys in the movie — don’t have a clue what Lincoln said.

Enjoy your weekends!

Hat tip Wayne DeVette.

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NASA admits mismanagement and human errors caused 2025 Goldstone antenna damage

June 5, 2026 4:53 pm Robert Zimmerman

NASA today released its completed investigation into the November 2025 incident that severely damaged its Goldstone antenna in California when workers allowed the antenna to “over rotate” beyond its acceptable limits, putting it out of commission.

In its final report, the board found the mishap primarily stemmed from software weaknesses, human error, and an undetected failure in the antenna’s hydraulic limit system. Investigators determined an electrical issue at the antenna the previous day caused the control system to misreport the antenna’s rotation state, an issue that went unnoticed and triggered multiple limit-stops during the Juno track on Sept. 16. While working to identify the limit-stop problem, operators performed several troubleshooting steps that inadvertently bypassed software and hardware safeguards, which ultimately led to the over-rotation incident. After flooding in the antenna base was observed, operators attempted to stow the antenna as a safety precaution, however, because the system had already passed the rotation limits, this action drove the antenna further into over‑rotation, causing additional damage.

Additionally, the investigation found the antenna’s hydraulic limit system, its final mechanical safeguard, was inoperable on Sept. 16 after being damaged in an undocumented prior incident. The system also had not been adequately tested for an undetermined period of time.

Investigators also concluded workplace culture pressured operators to work as expeditiously as possible, often stretching beyond their usual roles, expertise, and training, to keep the antenna operating. The board states the cultural conditions observed at Goldstone were not present at the network’s other sites, where roles and responsibilities are followed more consistently. Other contributing factors outlined in the report include inadequate procedures, reliance on undocumented practices and tacit knowledge, and gaps in the antenna’s control logic. [emphasis mine]

You can read that report here [pdf], but be warned that large sections are redacted, apparently in an effort to protect the identities of those responsible.

Nonetheless, it is very clear from the highlighted text above that the management and work situation at Goldstone was a mess, and that the mishap was caused not by faulty engineering but by faulty work practices and bad management. Unfortunately, nowhere in the report is it said that there will be any management changes. This fact might have been redacted, but I suspect not. It is typical of government agencies like NASA after incidents like this to whitewash the investigation, concluding simply that “we should have done better and we now we will!”

The repairs will cost NASA about $4.6 million, and will likely not be completed until 2028.

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June 5, 2026 Quick space links

June 5, 2026 2:50 pm Robert Zimmerman

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

Rocket Lab’s touts its new Gauss electric propulsion system for satellites
Developed in-house, once again demonstrating the company’s successful diversification beyond rockets.

Satellite-data-center startup Starcloud’s value just reached $1 billion
The valuation is part of a funding round bringing in $170 million in new investment capital.

Axiom signs a partnership deal with German aerospace company OHB
The deal appears aimed at providing OHB and German scientists access to Axiom’s space station for research.

On June 5, 1989, the Soviet’s showed off their Buran space shuttle, flown on top of an Antonov An-225 Mriya airplane, at the Paris Air Show
Total take-off weight was 1,234,600 pounds, a record at that time.

A Boeing video touting the June 5, 2024 Atlas-5 launch of the company’s first manned Starliner mission
The epic music and editing have certainly not aged well.

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Musk’s answer when asked, “Why SpaceX going public now?”

June 5, 2026 11:02 am Robert Zimmerman

In a JP Morgan public interview today about SpaceX’s upcoming initial public offering (IPO), Elon Musk was asked why the company was going public now, and gave a somewhat long-winded answer that included talking about the Sun as a major source of energy in the future, and then concluded very simply, to laughter: “We are embarking on a massive new growth phase and we need capital for that.”

I have embedded his response below. It is worthwhile watching because he does indicate much of what SpaceX wants to do, which not only involves an additional 100,000 communications satellites as well as a constellation of data satellites, it might also include possible solar power generation for use back on Earth. He also notes the company has been self-funding now for almost a decade.
» Read more

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China completes two more launches

June 5, 2026 9:55 am Robert Zimmerman

Since yesterday China has successfully completed two launches from two different spaceports using two different types of rockets, with both launches placing more satellites in orbit for its Qiafan (SpaceSail) internet constellation.

First China yesterday placed 18 Qianfan satellites in a polar orbit, its Long March 6B rocket lifting off from its Taiyuan spaceport in northeast China. The state-run press provided no information as to where the rocket’s lower stages (using very toxic hypergolic fuels) crashed.

Next, China today placed another batch Qianfan satellites into orbit, its Long March 8 rocket lifting off from its coastal Wenchang spaceport. Though the state-run press did not specify the number of satellites on this launch, based on past launches the total was likely 18 also.

The constellation presently has roughly 200 Qianfan satellites in orbit, out of a planned constellation of as many as 12,000. The first phase of the constellation however only requires 648, which China hopes to reach before the end of the year.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

66 SpaceX
34 China
8 Russia
7 Rocket Lab

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 66 to 59.

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Russia will charge about $27 million for future tourist flights

June 5, 2026 9:26 am Robert Zimmerman

According to Dmitry Bakanov, head of Roscosmos, it will likely charge about two billion rubles, about $27 million, to fly tourists in space in the future.

The cost of a space tourist trip will be approximately 2 billion rubles, Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Bakanov said in an interview with VK Video on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. “It’s still an expensive project. The costs include the rocket divided by the number of participants. There must be two professionals, because they can guide it, so it’s about two billion rubles,” Bakanov noted.

The report of his remarks in Russia’s state-run press is not entirely clear as to whether this number is the price per tourist, the price for the entire flight, or Roscosmos’ cost for the flight, excluding its mark-up. Assuming it is the price for the entire flight, it is about a quarter of what Russia was charging NASA during the last few ferrying trips to ISS before SpaceX’s Dragon capsules became operational. This makes sense, since Russia was milking NASA for as much as it could get during those last flights. Future private tourists won’t have as much money as a spend-thrift government, so Roscosmos is now forced to charge a realistic price.

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Astronomers measure weight of supermassive black hole 10 billion light years away

June 5, 2026 9:13 am Robert Zimmerman

In a new record for the farthest measurement yet achieved (10 billion light years away), astronomers have now used the Webb Space Telescope obtain a reasonably accurate measurement of the mass of supermassive black hole in the early universe, estimated to be six billion times the mass of our Sun.

The stars orbiting Sag A* at the center of our own
galaxy, the Milky Way. Click for original image.

The black hole’s mass is about 6 billion times that of the sun, and is being observed at a time when the universe was only about 3 billion years old, about a quarter of its current age, offering unprecedented details into black holes in the early universe.

To find this, the team used data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to track the motion of stars orbiting around the otherwise invisible black hole to measure its mass. Though the technique – known as stellar dynamics – has been used to measure dormant black holes in galaxies much closer to Earth, this is the first time it has been used to weigh one located such a great (cosmological) distance away.

For comparison, the Milky Way’s central super-massive black hole, Sagittarius A* (pronounced “A-star”), has been estimated at four million solar masses, using this same technique. The graphic to the right shows the various stars orbiting Sagittarius A* that have been tracked now for several decades in the infrared. As their orbits are refined, astronomers can use those orbits to determine the mass of the central object.

The scientists have now been able to do the same with this galaxy ten billion light years away. These observations however are certainly preliminary, and will be refined in the coming decades as more data is obtained.

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NASA astronauts ordered to shelter in Dragon while Russians repair air leak

June 5, 2026 8:53 am Robert Zimmerman

For somewhat unclear reasons that seem at first glance to be an over-reaction, NASA officials today ordered all five non-Russian astronauts on ISS to shelter in the Dragon capsule docked there while the two Russian astronauts did repair work on the new air leak in the Zvezda module on the Russian half of the station.

Following new leaks, Roscosmos has elected to proceed with a more extensive repair operation on Friday, June 5. Out of an abundance of caution, NASA has directed all four of the agency’s SpaceX Crew-12 members and NASA astronaut Chris Williams to assume an elevated safety posture in the Dragon spacecraft while the repair is underway.

As it turned out, the Russians only did “measurements” today, no actual repairs, and so NASA then canceled its “shelter in place” order.

This new air leak, first detected in May, has been estimated to be equivalent to the loss of about one pound of air per day, which is relative low compared to the loss rates seen from 2019 through 2025, as shown in the lower right corner of the graphic below, taken from a 2024 inspector general report. In late 2025 the Russians were able to stop those leaks, only to have this new one return last month.
Figure 3 from September Inspector General report
Figure 3 from September 2024 Inspector General report, showing Zvezda’s location on ISS, as well as the station’s leak rate at that time.

Unless the Russians planned some radical repair plan (unlikely), sheltering in Dragon seems overkill. For several years NASA’s policy has been to simply close the hatch between the American and Russian sections of ISS during dockings to Zvezda. It likely also did this during earlier repair work. For the agency to now escalate its safety precautions suggests either the repair work was more risky, or NASA administrator Jared Isaacman wanted to make a political and engineering point that would be noticed by the mainsteam press.

If the latter, Isaacman got what he wanted, as there have been numerous stories today from many mainstream outlets, with some misreporting the story as if the leak was suddenly new and required an emergency evacution (see here, here, here, and here).

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Sade – Is It A Crime

June 4, 2026 6:01 pm Robert Zimmerman

An evening pause: Performed live 1985.

Hat tip Rex Ridenoure.

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June 4, 2026 Quick space links

June 4, 2026 2:52 pm Robert Zimmerman

BtB’s stinger Jay reported no links worth posting. Below is one link that reader Nate P. posted in the comments earlier today. This post remains an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

France’s The Exploration Company is teasing a new, reusable, Heavy-lift launch vehicle called Yrene
Expect further details in about a week.

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Sutherland spaceport in the UK liquidated

June 4, 2026 2:15 pm Robert Zimmerman

Proposed or active spaceports in north Europe

After years of fighting bureaucratic red tape, environmental restrictions, and the unending opposition from a local billionaire, the assets of the proposed Sutherland spaceport on the north coast of Scotland are now being liquidated, as part of the liquidation of the bankrupt rocket company Orbex that had originally hoped to launch from this site.

The spokesperson also said: “One of the proposed transactions relates to assets associated with Sutherland Spaceport. As the proposed transaction is structured as an asset sale, a decision has been taken to place Sutherland Spaceport Limited, a Scottish subsidiary of Orbex, into liquidation. “A winding-up petition has therefore been lodged with the court and it is anticipated that the transaction will complete following the appointment of liquidators.”

The administrators “remain hopeful that the disposals will maximise returns for creditors”.

The spokesperson added that the administrators “continue to engage constructively with preferred bidders, secured creditors and other stakeholders, including the UK and Scottish Governments, as the process moves forward.”

Because almost £26 million was invested in this spaceport by the government of the United Kingdom, it is still possible the government itself will buy the assets and attempt to resuscitate the spaceport. If it does, do not count on much actually happening. There is practically no interest in the rocket industry to launch from the UK because of its odious red tape, that has already bankrupted two rocket startups.

Note that the spaceport shown on the map in North Uist is merely a proposal. Almost nothing real has happened so far to establish it. The SaxaVord spaceport hopes the German startup Rocket Factory Augsburg will do its first orbital launch this July, but there is no guarantee, as it appears the company is still awaiting launch approval from the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority, which in its slow-walking of license approvals was a main cause for the bankruptcy of those two rocket companies.

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Martian glacier flowing around a recent small crater impact

June 4, 2026 12:37 pm Robert Zimmerman

Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on May 3, 2026 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The science team labels this a “crater on debris covered glacier.” The crater, the dark spot in the upper center, is only about 450 feet across. The impact apparently took place onto this glacial slope, and since then the glacier has continued to flow downhill (as indicated by the arrows), flowing around the denser material pounded down by the impact.

The elevation loss within this image is about 300 feet, along a distance of just under two miles. How long it took this glacial material to flow this much however is unknown. Nor is it known when this happened. The orbital data so far of all Martian glaciers suggests they are at this time inactive, neither growing or shrinking.
» Read more

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SpaceX launches 29 more Starlink satellites

June 4, 2026 11:07 am Robert Zimmerman

SpaceX this morning successfully placed another 29 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force station in Florida.

The first stage completed its 12th flight (78 days after its previous flight), landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

66 SpaceX
32 China
8 Russia
7 Rocket Lab

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 66 to 57.

China has two launches scheduled for today, with one supposedly having already taken place. When both are confirmed I will post a new launch update.

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