Category: Behind The Black

Rocket Lab gets two-launch contract from Japan’s space agency JAXA

10:07 am

In what appears to be a significant slap at its own rockets (especially its delayed Epsilon-S rocket), Japan’s space agency JAXA this week signed a two-launch deal with the American rocket company Rocket Lab.

Launching from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand, the two Electron missions will deploy satellites for JAXA’s Innovative Satellite Technology Demonstration Program. The first launch, scheduled from December 2025, will deploy the agency’s RApid Innovative payload demonstration SatellitE-4 (RAISE-4) spacecraft, a single satellite that will demonstrate eight technologies developed by private companies, universities, and research institutions throughout Japan.

The second launch, scheduled for 2026, is a JAXA-manifested rideshare of eight separate spacecraft that includes educational small sats, an ocean monitoring satellite, a demonstration satellite for ultra-small multispectral cameras, and a deployable antenna that can be packed tightly using origami folding techniques and unfurled to 25 times its size.

Rocket Lab has previously won contracts from several private Japanese satellite companies (Q-Shu, Astroscale, ALE), but this I think is the first JAXA contract it has won. What makes it significant is that JAXA has always focused on using its own rockets, the large retired H2A and the new H3 as well as the smaller Epsilon-S. To go to an American company is somewhat unprecedented.

Though larger than Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket, Epsilon-S was being developed to compete for the same market. That development however has been plagued by failure, including explosions of engines during tests of both its upper and first stages in ’23 and ’24 respectively. After the second explosion JAXA announced in December 2024 the rocket’s first launch would not occur in the spring of 2025 as planned, but provided no additional information. Since then there have been no updates.

This Rocket Lab deal suggests the Epsilon program is in big trouble. In the long run however this might be a very good thing for both JAXA and Japan’s own nascent rocket industry. JAXA might finally be recognizing that building and owning its own rockets is not the best plan, that it would be better to use the capitalism model and simply be a customer buying the services from the private sector. At the moment Japan doesn’t yet have a viable commercial rocket sector, with only Mitsubishi having an operational commercial rocket, the H3 (mostly controlled by JAXA). There are a number of new startups however, including Interstellar, Honda, Space One, and Tispace, all of which have done tests of one kind or another. If JAXA is ready to abandon its own government rockets and buy the service from the private sector, those Japanese startups will start to prosper.

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China launches three satellites from ocean platform

1:53 pm

The Chinese pseudo-company Orienspace yesterday successfully placed three satellites into orbit, its solid-fueled Gravity-1 rocket lifting off from an ocean platform off the country’s northeast coast.

This was Orienspace’s second launch, both using its Gravity-1 rocket from the ocean. Of the three satellites, one was an Earth observation satellite, and the other two were part of the pseudo-company Geespace’s Geely constellation of satellites, though it is not clear if these are for its Internet-of-Things (IoT) constellation or for general communications. The IoT constellation already has 64 satellites in orbit out of a planned 240.

Another launch of China’s Long March 8A rocket was supposed to happen yesterday, but there is no indication in China’s state-run that it took place, nor any information about a rescheduled launch date. That state-run press also illustrated the pseudo nature of these Chinese companies by only mentioning Orienspace as an afterthought at the end of the article.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

129 SpaceX
59 China
13 Russia
12 Rocket Lab

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 129 to 99. The company will try again this evening to launch its third mission for Amazon, placing a set of Kuiper satellites into orbit. Weather has scrubbed the past two attempts in the previous few days.

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October 10, 2025 Quick space links

3:01 pm

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.

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New research confirms the steady decline of Martian ice with each glacial cycle

10:26 am

The obliquity cycles of Mars

Using orbital data from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) of glaciers inside mid-latitude craters, scientists have concluded that there was a steady decline in the growth of those glaciers with each new glacial cycle.

They focused on craters with indicative signs of glaciation, such as ridges, moraines (piles of debris left behind by glaciers), and brain terrain (a pitted, maze-like surface formed by ice-rich landforms). By comparing the shapes and orientations of these features with climate models, they found that ice consistently clustered in the colder, shadowed southwestern walls of craters. This trend was consistent across various glacial periods, ranging from approximately 640 million to 98 million years ago.

The results show that Mars didn’t just freeze once—it went through a series of ice ages driven by shifts in its axial tilt, also known as obliquity. Unlike Earth, Mars’ tilt can swing dramatically over millions of years, redistributing sunlight and triggering cycles of ice build-up and melting. These changes shaped where water ice could survive on the planet’s surface. Over time, however, each cycle stored less ice, pointing to a gradual planetary drying. [emphasis mine]

You can read the paper here [pdf]. This result is not new. Based on the orbital data scientists have theorized now for almost a decade that as Mars’ rotational tilt (its obliquity) swings from 11 to 60 degrees, it produces extreme climate cycles on the planet. Those swings are shown on the graph to the right, taken from this 1993 paper [pdf]. When the obliquity is low, the mid-latitudes are warm and the glaciers there shrink, with the snow falling at the poles. When obliquity is high, the poles are warmer and its ice sublimates away to fall as snow in the mid-latitudes, thus causing those glaciers to grow instead.

The orbital data has consistently shown that with each new cycle, the glaciers grew less, suggesting that less global water was available on the planet. This new study further confirms these conclusions.

One last point: Though the amount of water ice on Mars has declined, we mustn’t think the red planet now has none. The orbital data shows that there is a lot of near surface ice on Mars, covering the planet from 30 degrees latitude poleward. As I’ve noted numerous times, Mars is a desert like Antarctica.

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Orbital tug company Momentus gets two NASA contracts

9:54 am

The orbital tug startup Momentus yesterday announced that NASA has awarded it two contracts worth $7.6 million total to fly two experimental NASA payloads on its Vigoride tug.

One payload will test “test the ability to make semiconductor crystals in microgravity”, while the second will “test a rotating detonation rocket engine, a propulsion system designed to provide higher efficiency than traditional engines.” In this case the propellants used will be nitrous oxide and ethane.

Both will fly on the same Vigoride tug on a mission to be launched no earlier than October 2026. Momentus also says there is room for additional payloads on that mission.

It appears the increase in the number and launches of rockets has actually hurt the orbital tug business:

Momentus is among several companies that developed orbital transfer vehicles, or OTVs, like Vigoride to ferry spacecraft between orbits. They are designed to provide last-mile delivery to specific orbits for spacecraft launched on rideshare missions such as [SpaceX’s] Transporter [launches]. However, demand for such services has been slower to materialize than expected. “Candidly, that part of the market has not developed as much as people thought, say, five years ago,” [said John Rood, Momentus’ chief executive] during a panel at World Space Business Week in September. “The reason is many small manufacturers are multi-manifesting satellites to deploy a single plane with a single launcher.”

As a result, Momentus has focused on getting technology demonstration contracts such as the two above, with the tug acting more like a service module.

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Astronomers take first radio image of the supermassive binary system OJ287

9:41 am

First image of OJ287

Using archive data from the now retired Russian orbiting radio telescope RadioAstron, scientists have now obtained the first image of the binary supermassive black hole system OJ287 that was previously detected flaring as predicted when the smaller black hole (150 million solar masses) circled near the larger (18 billion solar masses).

That image is to the right, cropped and annotated to post here. The cartoon in the lower right shows the theorized orientation of the system, taken from figure 2 of the published paper [pdf]. According to the paper the elongation of the three objects is an artifact of the data and is “not real.” From the press release:

In this latest study, the astronomers compared the earlier theoretical calculations with a radio image. The two black holes were there in the image, just where they were expected to be. This gave the researchers an answer to a question that has been open for 40 years: whether black-hole pairs exist in the first place. “For the first time, we managed to get an image of two black holes circling each other. In the image, the black holes are identified by the intense particle jets they emit. The black holes themselves are perfectly black, but they can be detected by these particle jets or by the glowing gas surrounding the hole,” Valtonen says.

The researchers also identified a completely new kind of a jet emanating from a black hole. The jet coming out of the smaller black hole is twisted like a jet of a rotating garden hose. This is because the smaller black hole moves fast around the primary black hole of OJ287, and its jet is diverted depending on its current motion. The researches liken it to “a wagging tail” which should be seen twisting in different directions in the coming years when the smaller black hole changes its speed and direction of motion.

This image is cropped from the full dataset. The jet continues upward and then curves to the right as it “wags” away.

This incredible black hole binary system, estimated to be about 3.5 billion light years away, has been posited since 1982, when one astronomer noticed that it repeatedly flared every twelve years. Since then scientists have successfully predicted several flares, based on the system’s theorized orbit. These images further confirm the system’s shape.

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Canadian rocket startup Nordspace signs deal for its mission control center

9:01 am

Proposed Canadian spaceports
Proposed Canadian spaceports

The Canadian rocket startup Nordspace, which earlier this week signed a deal for another company to establish ground stations for its proposed Atlantic Spaceport, today signed an agreement with the company Kongsberg Geospatial to provide software for running its mission control center.

According to the news release TerraLens “will ingest data from multiple sensors to deliver real-time three-dimensional (3D) visualization of launch operations, range safety, decision support, and vehicle tracking. This will help streamline launch operations and enable deployment of critical space missions to orbit in under 48 hours.” Kongsberg said TerraLens builds on their “experience supporting range safety and mission-critical visualization for the Andøya Space and Defence project in Norway.”

Andøya is Norway’s new commercial spaceport that has been launching suborbital government rockets for decades.

Nordspace continues to move forward quickly, having been established only three years ago. It is putting the pieces together for its spaceport, and is testing both a small suborbital rocket and the engines for its proposed orbital Tundra rocket. Though the race is certainly not over, it does appear Nordspace will get to orbit ahead of the Nova Scotia spaceport that was first proposed in 2016.

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Is Trump considering re-nominating Jared Isaacman for NASA administrator?

9:59 pm

Jared Isaacman
Billionaire Jared Isaacman

According to a report late today (based on anonymous sources), President Trump has held several face-to-face meetings in the past few weeks with billionaire Jared Isaacman, and those meetings have raised the possibility of Trump re-nominating him for NASA administrator.

According to Bloomberg News, President Trump has reportedly met with Isaacman several times in recent weeks to discuss NASA’s operational plans and future plans. Isaacman is the founder of fintech company Shift4 Payments and a private astronaut at SpaceX who has had a longstanding relationship with Elon Musk.

Isaacman, who has flown two private missions in space (and done one spacewalk), had been nominated by Trump for NASA administrator in December 2024, and was only days away from a Senate confirmation vote when Trump suddenly withdrew the nomination on May 31, 2025. Though it has never been clear why Trump withdrew the nomination, Isaacman’s past support of Democrats and his close links to Musk have been raised as issues, especially because of the Trump-Musk kerfuffle in the spring. Isaacman has also expressed some opinions since then about NASA and what it should do that might not have fit with Trump’s plans.

At the same time, NASA is presently without its own administrator, with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy holding down the job as an interim head. It appears Trump might be reconsidering his earlier decision in order to get someone in charge of NASA who isn’t distracted by other responsibilities.

Note however that this report is solely from anonymous sources, and we all know how unreliable those are. The whole story could be fantasy cooked up by someone in DC for any number of devious political purposes.

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October 9, 2025 Quick space links

3:10 pm

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.

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Dominion Voting Systems purchased by American company run by Republican election reform activist

1:02 pm

Maricopa County election audit
The issues discovered in an audit of Maricopa County in Arizona
of 2020 election results. Note the problems found related to voting
machines, Dominion’s responsibility. The reason the “Ballots
Impacted” column is marked “N/A” (not available) is because
Dominion refused to cooperate. Click for full graph.

In what could be a major move towards election reform, the electronic voting system company Dominion — that many have suspected or have accused of either doing a bad job tabulating computer ballots or purposely manipulating them — has now been purchased by an American company dubbed Liberty Vote that is owned by Republican election reform activist Scott Leiendecker.

Leiendecker, former GOP election reform advocate, has officially become the sole owner of Dominion after making the deal contingent on dropping several remaining lawsuits against prominent conservatives and One America News Network (OANN).

Leiendecker further disclosed to the Caller that remaining litigation with MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Trump campaign attorney Sidney Powell will be dropped by Dominion Voting Systems as part of the acquisition agreement. Dominion also filed a lawsuit against Herring Networks, which owns OANN, in August 2021. The lawsuit remained unresolved, though Leinendecker further confirmed that future litigation will be discontinued following the acquisition.

None of the charges against Dominion have ever been proven, and many have become impossible to investigate because the company’s very successful lawfare campaign, suing anyone who said anything against it, including news organizations such as Fox and Newsmax, both of which settled with Dominion, paying it $787 million and $67 million respectively. Nonetheless, the allegations have been numerous, substantial, and alarming (see also here, here, here, and here). Audits found errors, fraud, and the ability for outsiders to hack Dominion’s machines.

Leiendecker, in announcing the purchase, said that the new company will move all operations to the U.S. and will make third-party audits standard. It will also make paper ballots a fundamental component of its electronic tabulating system, something that Dominion did poorly or not at all.

Even if Dominion had been completely honest in its work, its resistance to investigation or even any criticism helped fuel the growing belief that the 2020 election of Biden was tampered with and might even have been fraudulent. That much of the company’s operations were foreign-based further fueled those suspicions. This purchase should help ease those concerns, though the proof will be in the pudding.

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Saturn as seen by Cassini in 2004, four months before orbital insertion

12:18 pm

Saturn as first seen up close by Cassini
Click for original.

Cool image time! As most of the new cool images coming down from space seem mostly limited to Mars and deep space astronomy, I decided today to dig into the archive of the probe Cassini, which orbited Saturn from July 1, 2004 until September 15, 2017, when it was sent plunging into the gas giant’s atmosphere.

The picture to the right heralded the start of that mission, in that it was taken on February 19, 2004, a little over four months before the spacecraft fired its engines and entered orbit. I have rotated the image and cropped it to post here.

When Cassini snapped this picture it was just approaching the gas giant. The image itself is relatively small, with the resolution also relatively poor. You can see one of Saturn’s moons above the planet, but I can’t tell you which one. As noted at the webpage, this is a raw image that has not been “validated or calibrated.”

While not up to the amazing standard exhibited by Cassini’s images during its thirteen year stay at Saturn, it gave us a flavor of the wonders to come. Of all the planets, Saturn might be the most beautiful.

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Congressional budget action appears to just save two of seventeen on-going NASA missions

9:33 am

Though no final budget has yet been approved, based on the language in the budget the House has approved and sent to the Senate, only two of the seventeen on-going missions presently in space are specifically allocated money, thus allowing the Trump administration to zero out funding for the remaining fifteen.

The two missions saved are Osiris-Apex, on its way to the potentially dangerous asteroid Apophis, and the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission (MMS), four satellites in orbit that observe the Earth’s magnetosphere.

The article at the link is typical of our propaganda press. It clearly opposes any cuts to NASA, and lobbies repeatedly for all funding to be reinstated. This pattern has gotten quite boring and tedious. It would be so refreshing to see a more objective take, at least one in a while.

However, its reporting confirms my own reporting from mid-September, where I noted that the vague language in the House budget bill would allow Trump to cut these missions. Congress wants to preen itself as supporting all funding for NASA, while carefully allowing Trump to go ahead with large cuts.

It is a good thing these two missions have been saved, though it does appear their funding has been trimmed. Of the fifteen missions in limbo, the only two that seem worth keeping is the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and New Horizons, though the second should likely be set up similar to the two Voyager spacecraft, with a very small crew aimed mainly at keeping the spacecraft functioning and able to send back data periodically.

We are in great debt. It is time that the federal government make some real choices. We can no longer afford to buy all the candy in the store.

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New study claims the giant impact that created the Moon’s South Pole-Aitken Basin was oblique, from the south

9:14 am

South Pole-Aitken Basin
Click for original. Blue indicates the basin, red
the “thorium-rich and iron-rich ejecta deposit”

While previous work had suggested the giant bolide that had created the Moon’s South Pole-Aitken Basin came in from the north, a new study now proposes that the impact was instead oblique from the south. From the paper’s abstract:

The ancient South Pole–Aitken impact basin provides a key data point for our understanding of the evolution of the Moon, as it formed during the earliest pre-Nectarian epoch of lunar history, excavated more deeply than any other known impact basin, and is found on the lunar far side, about which less is known than the well-explored near side. Here we show that the tapering of the basin outline and the more gradual topographic and crustal thickness transition towards the south support a southward impact trajectory, opposite of that commonly assumed. A broad thorium-rich and iron-rich ejecta deposit southwest of the basin is consistent with partial excavation of late-stage magma ocean liquids.

These observations indicate that thorium-rich magma ocean liquids persisted only beneath the southwestern half of the basin at the time of impact, matching predictions for the transition from a global magma ocean to a local enrichment of potassium, rare-earth elements and phosphorus (KREEP) in the near-side Procellarum KREEP Terrane.

In other words, when this impact occurred, part of the impact site in the south was still a magma ocean.

This result, if confirmed, has research implications for the missions targeting the Moon’s south pole. It suggests the geology will have that KREEP materials readily available, which will provide important information about the Moon’s early geological history.

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AST SpaceMobile signs up Verizon to use its constellation for phone-to-satellite service

8:40 am

The startup AST SpaceMobile, which is building a constellation of satellites able to act as cell towers for smart phones, has now signed an agreement with Verizon to give its subscribers access to the service.

AST SpaceMobile’s shares closed up more than 8% Oct. 8 after Verizon joined AT&T in signing a definitive agreement to use its planned space-based cellular network, easing investor concerns about SpaceX’s aggressive push into the fledgling direct-to-device (D2D) market.

The deal enables Verizon to provide D2D connectivity to its customers from some point in 2026, building on a strategic partnership announced in May 2024 that included plans for a $100 million investment in AST.

As noted above, AST has now signed both Verizon and AT&T, two of the largest cellphone companies, strengthening its position considerably in its competition with SpaceX’s Starlink cell-to-satellite alternative. Both deals appear to allow these companies the ability to sign contracts with both AST and Starlink, so it is possible the competition won’t be as fierce initially as it appears. It is also possible that eventually they will pick one or the other, so neither company should be complacent.

AST presently has five of its BlueBird satellites in orbit out of its planned 45-60 satellite constellation, and hopes to have at least half the constellation in orbit by the end of ’26. So even if it wins its cellphone competition with SpaceX that rocket company will still likely make some money launching AST’s satellites.

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October 8, 2025 Quick space links

3:19 pm

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.

  • Hams confirm Juno is still operating
    It apparently transmitted a signal back to Earth. This however has no bearing on whether the mission will survive the budget process. Right now I remain very skeptical it will.
  • A detailed long article describing China’s government space program
    A very nice summary, though as Jay notes, “if a little alarmist.” It is part of the swamp’s tag team effort to convince Americans we need to give NASA and the Pentagon lots of money or else China will destroy us. Meanwhile, all we really need to do is clear the way for private competition and American ingenuity and China will be left in the dust.
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Martian winds are faster than expected

2:46 pm

According to an analysis of pairs of 300 hundred orbital images taken seconds apart, scientist have found that Martian winds can reach speeds of 100 miles per hour (160 kilometers per hours), much faster than previously expected.

The results show that the dust devils and the winds surrounding them on Mars can reach speeds of up to 44 m/s, i.e. around 160 km/h, across the entire planet, which is much faster than previously assumed (previous measurements on the surface had shown that winds mostly remain below 50 km/h and – in rare cases – can reach a maximum of 100 km/h). The high wind speed in turn influences the dust cycle on the Red Planet: “These strong, straight-line winds are very likely to bring a considerable amount of dust into the Martian atmosphere – much more than previously assumed,” says Bickel. He continues: “Our data show where and when the winds on Mars seem to be strong enough to lift dust from the surface. This is the first time that such findings are available on a global scale for a period of around two decades.”

You can read the paper here. The study also found dust devils favor the spring and summer in both the north and south hemispheres, and tended to be concentrated in the mid-latitudes.

What is most interesting about this data, which because it is somewhat sparse has a lot of uncertainties, is that it suggests the candidate landing zone for SpaceX’s Starship is a region with one of the most intense dust devil seasons every spring and summer. This is not really a threat to settlement, because the atmosphere is so thin even these high winds would hardly be felt, but it does indicate an environmental condition that must be considered for any future settlement there.

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Fresh slope streak on Mars

1:09 pm

Fresh slope streak on Mars
For original images go here and here.

Cool image time! One of the geological mysteries on Mars seen no where on Earth is something scientists have dubbed “slope streaks.” Though they at first glance appear to be avalanches, they do nothing to change the topography, have no debris pile at their base, and sometimes even travel up and over rises on their way downhill. They can also appear randomly throughout the year, can be bright or dark, and fade with time.

No theory as to their cause has yet been accepted, though recent research suggests they are dry events, dust avalanches triggered by dust devils, wind, or the accumulation of dust.

To better understand this geology, scientists repeatedly monitor known slope streak locations looking for changes. The two images to the right are an example, downloaded from the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) on July 2, 2024 and September 1, 2025. In the fourteen months that passed between the first and second images, two distinct and large slope streaks occurred next to each other, near the bottom of the picture. All the other streaks merely faded.
» Read more

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Canadian rocket startup Nordspace obtains expanded ground station contract

9:28 am

Proposed Canadian spaceports
Proposed Canadian spaceports

The Canadian rocket startup Nordspace has signed an agreement with the ground station company C-Core to establish more tracking and communication facilities in conjunction with Nordspace’s launch plans at its Atlantic spaceport in Newfoundland.

NordSpace and C-CORE have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that will see the companies work together in developing new ground stations across Canada with initial locations planned for the Atlantic Spaceport Complex (ASX) in St. Lawrence, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Inuvik, Northwest Territories.

With C-CORE being based in St. John’s, Newfoundland, and already established in providing ground station services, it seems like a natural collaboration that could benefit both companies. For NordSpace, which owns and is developing the Atlantic Spaceport Complex, this collaboration provides the potential for another type of revenue source as the company tries to diversify.

Nordspace has not yet launched, though its first suborbital test launch several weeks ago was scrubbed twice due to ground equipment fuel leaks. It has not yet announced another date for that suborbital test, but plans a static fire test in October of the engine it is building for its orbital Tundra rocket.

This company is only three years old, and appears to have leap-frogged past Canada’s other spaceport operation in Nova Scotia, which has been trying to get off the ground for almost a decade.

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Stoke Space said to be raising as much as $500 million in private investment capital

9:17 am

Stoke's Nova rocket
Stoke’s Nova rocket, designed to be
completely reusable.

UPDATE: Stoke Space confirms the story, announcing today that it has raised $510 million in new capital.

According to anonymous sources, the rocket startup Stoke Space is in the process of raising as much as $500 million in private investment capital, with new $2 billion valuation for the company.

Stoke Space, one of the Seattle area’s up-and-coming space startups, is said to be raising hundreds of millions of dollars in a funding round that it hasn’t yet publicly acknowledged. A report about the round, based on two unidentified sources, was published today by The Information.

The Information quoted its sources as saying that the funding round could total as much as $500 million, and would value Stoke at nearly $2 billion. That figure would be roughly twice as much as the $944 million valuation that was cited by Pitchbook as of January. The round’s lead investor is said to be Thomas Tull’s United States Innovative Technology Fund.

Earlier this year Stoke raised $260 million, bringing its available capital to almost a half billion. If this story is confirmed, it means the company will have almost a billion in available cash on hand.

The design of Stoke’s Nova rocket is unique in that both the lower and upper stages will be reusable. The first stage will land vertically, like SpaceX’s Falcon 9. The upper stage meanwhile uses a radical nozzle design, a ring of tiny nozzles around the perimeter of a heat shield, to protect it during re-entry.

The company has said it plans the first launch in 2026, but has not been more specific as to when. If successful, this rocket will certainly become a major player, as it will be able to offer even lower prices than SpaceX because none of the rocket will be expendable.

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First image from Mars of interstellar Comet 3I/Atlas

9:02 am

Comet 3I/Atlas as seen from Mars
Click for original image.

Using the Europe’s Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) presently orbiting Mars, scientists have successfully obtained the first images from Mars of interstellar Comet 3I/Atlas using its Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS).

They have compiled a short movie of those images, with one of those pictures to the right, cropped to post here. As expected, the observation was difficult and somewhat limited in the data it could obtain.

CaSSIS could not distinguish the nucleus from the coma, because 3I/ATLAS was too far away. Imaging this kilometre-wide nucleus would have been as impossible as seeing a mobile phone on the Moon from Earth.

But the coma, measuring a few thousand kilometres across, is clearly visible. The coma is created as 3I/ATLAS approaches the Sun. The Sun’s heat and radiation is bringing the comet to life, causing it to release gas and dust, which collects as this halo surrounding the nucleus. The full size of the coma could not be measured by CaSSIS because the brightness of the dust decreases quickly with distance from the nucleus. This means that the coma fades into the noise in the image.

Typically, material from the coma is swept into a long tail, which can grow up to millions of kilometres long as the comet moves closer to the Sun. The tail is much dimmer than the coma. We can’t see the tail in the CaSSIS images, but it may become more visible in future observations as the comet continues to heat up and release more ice.

The science team for Europe’s Mars Express orbiter also attempted to get data of the comet, but have not yet been able to detect it. Both orbiters also tried to get spectroscopy, but no data was obtained because the comet is presently too faint and distant for these instruments.

More observations are planned, not only from these orbiters but also from Europe’s Juice spacecraft on its way to Jupiter but presently in the inner solar system somewhat near the Sun. It will make its observations in November, but won’t be able to transmit the data back until February, after it has gotten more distant from the Sun.

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SpaceX launches 28 Starlink satellites, reuses 1st stage for 29th time

8:31 am

SpaceX last night successfully launched another 28 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage, B1071, completed its 29th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. The present rankings for the most reflights of a rocket:

39 Discovery space shuttle
33 Atlantis space shuttle
30 Falcon 9 booster B1067
29 Falcon 9 booster B1071
28 Columbia space shuttle
28 Falcon 9 booster B1063
27 Falcon 9 booster B1069

Sources here and here.

Note also that SpaceX was able to refly this stage only 24 days after its previous flight. Even after 28 flights, the booster appears so robust the company can get it back in the air only weeks later.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

129 SpaceX
58 China
13 Russia
12 Rocket Lab

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 129 to 98. SpaceX has another launch scheduled for this evening, placing another set of Amazon’s Kuiper satellites into orbit.

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Japanese satellite company extends its launch contract with Rocket Lab

8:01 am

The Japanese satellite company Q-shu Pioneers of Space, Inc. (iQPS) has purchased three more launches from Rocket Lab, for a total of seven planned.

The multi-launch contract includes three dedicated Electron missions that will launch no earlier than 2026 from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand. With four dedicated missions already booked by iQPS on Electron, these three additional missions bring the total number of upcoming launches for iQPS to seven.

Each dedicated launch will deploy a single synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite from a Rocket Lab Motorized Lightband separation system – demonstrating Rocket Lab’s vertical integration across launch and space systems that improves reliability and streamlines the launch process for its customers.

Rocket Lab has already completed four successful launches for iOPS, so with this deal means that it will complete eleven launches total for the satellite company. Essentially iQPS has made Rocket Lab its prime launch provider.

This is also the second major launch contract for Rocket Lab in the past week. On September 30, 2025 Synspective purchased its second multi-launch contract with the company, buying ten more launches. Its first contract was for eleven launches, with six already completed. Synspective hopes to have its entire radar constellation of 30 satellites in orbit by the late 2020s.

Both contracts tell us that Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket is going to have a very busy launch schedule for the next few years, even as the company initiates its larger Neutron rocket.

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October 7, 2025 Quick space links

3:02 pm

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.

  • SpaceX registers the trademark “Starfall” at the U.S. Patent Office
    No real information beyond that. The tweet adds this tantalizing tidbit, stating that this action is “through the island nation of Tonga covering: launch, on-orbit, and reentry services, spaceflight travel, in-space manufacturing services, custom manufacturing & processing of pharmaceuticals.” Tonga is east of Australia in the Pacific. Is SpaceX planning Starship landings there?
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Is the fate of the independent live streams in Boca Chica uncertain?

12:52 pm

My headline paraphrases this interesting, very detailed, and largely accurate article today from Texas Monthly. It outlines how the newly formed town of Starbase there has the power to block the many independent lives streams and tourist operations that have sprung up since SpaceX opened its facility in Boca Chica.

This proxy government also has the power to create zoning rules and enforce them. In July the city adopted a plan that leaves those with the closest views of the launchpads in violation of new zoning designations. The mainstay launch-day ticket sellers here—Rocket Ranch and a few others—operate in what’s now officially a residential area, near newly built homes for SpaceX executives. The same violation applies to the spots where the streamers have mounted their video cameras.

These cottage industries aren’t doomed. Texas law has grandfathering provisions that allow existing businesses to remain open after zoning changes. But Starbase city attorney Andy Messer raised eyebrows during a recent city commission meeting by saying that the grandfathering would be considered on a “case-by-case basis.” Hearing this, some property owners expressed hesitation to approach the city to ask if their status was in question. “I don’t want to poke the bear,” as one put it.

Will SpaceX force the town of Starbase to shut these independent operations down? The article describes the possibilities in great detail. The very nature of SpaceX and its founder, Elon Musk, suggests it won’t happen. The company thrives on openness and straight talk. Musk himself is a proven supporter of free speech and competition. It would be shocking if his company suddenly took a different position. Moreover, SpaceX, Starbase, or its residents (almost all of which are SpaceX employees) generally benefit from the good publicity of these independent operations, publicity that the company’s own employees enjoy.

Yet, Starbase is a company town, and the long history of such places is that with time, the company takes over and rules everything, allowing nothing that it does not control.

Stay tuned. Above all things won’t be dull in Boca Chica.

Hat tip Robert Pratt of Pratt on Texas.

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