The November fund-raising campaign for Behind the Black

8:13 pm

Scroll down for the most recent posts.

It is unfortunately time for another November fund-raising campaign to support my work here at Behind the Black. I really dislike doing these, but 2025 is so far turning out to be a very poor year for donations and subscriptions, the worst since 2020. I very much need your support for this webpage to survive.

And I think I provide real value. Fifteen years ago I said SLS was garbage and should be cancelled. Almost a decade ago I said Orion was a lie and a bad idea. As early as 1998, long before almost anyone else, I predicted in my first book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, that private enterprise and freedom would conquer the solar system, not government. Very early in the COVID panic and continuing throughout I noted that every policy put forth by the government (masks, social distancing, lockdowns, jab mandates) was wrong, misguided, and did more harm than good. In planetary science, while everyone else in the media still thinks Mars has no water, I have been reporting the real results from the orbiters now for more than five years, that Mars is in fact a planet largely covered with ice.

I could continue with numerous other examples. If you want to know what others will discover a decade hence, read what I write here at Behind the Black. And if you read my most recent book, Conscious Choice, you will find out what is going to happen in space in the next century.

This last claim might sound like hubris on my part, but I base it on my overall track record.

So please consider donating or subscribing to Behind the Black, either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. I could really use the support at this time. There are five ways of doing so:

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation. Takes about a 10% cut.

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription, which takes about a 15% cut:

4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman. What you give is what I get. Mail checks to:

Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

5. Finally, you can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.

This post will remain at the top of the page until the end of the month.

4 comments

Europe’s Trace Gas Orbiter circling Mars gets images of interstellar Comet 3I/Atlas

4:47 pm

Interstellar Comet 3I/Atlas
Click for movie.

Using Europe’s Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) that is in orbit around Mars, engineers have obtained images of the interstellar Comet 3I/Atlas.

The image to the right is a screen capture of the last image in a movie they created from all the pictures. I have added the arrow to indicate the comet, which underlines the fact that these images really don’t tell us that much about the comet itself. It is hardly more than a few pixels across, with no real detail resolved. However, the data has still been found useful.

Until September, figuring out the location and trajectory of 3I/ATLAS relied on Earth-based telescopes. Then between 1 and 7 October, ESA’s ExoMars TGO turned its eyes towards the interstellar comet from its orbit around Mars. The comet passed relatively close to Mars, approaching to about 29 million km during its closest phase on 3 October.

The Mars probe got about ten times closer to 3I/ATLAS than telescopes on Earth and it observed the comet from a new viewing angle. The triangulation of its data with data from Earth helped to make the comet’s predicted path much more accurate.

While the scientists initially anticipated a modest improvement, the result was an impressive ten-fold leap in accuracy, reducing the uncertainty of the object’s location.

All the data continues to confirm that 3I/Atlas is nothing more than comet, though like all comets unique in its own way. This refined location data will also improve the on-going observations of Europe’s Jupiter probe Juice, presently on its way to Jupiter and in the best position to see 3I/Atlas.

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Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

Two more SpaceX launches

1:15 pm

SpaceX yesterday completed two launches, placing a total of 58 Starlink satellites into orbit.

First, a Falcon 9 lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, carrying 29 Starlink satellites. The first stage completed its 8th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

Four hours later, a second Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral, carrying another 29 Starlink satellites. Its first stage completed its 24th flight, also landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

149 SpaceX
70 China
14 Rocket Lab
13 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 149 to 117.

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Conscious Choice cover

Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!

 

From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.

 
Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space, is a riveting page-turning story that documents how slavery slowly became pervasive in the southern British colonies of North America, colonies founded by a people and culture that not only did not allow slavery but in every way were hostile to the practice.  
Conscious Choice does more however. In telling the tragic history of the Virginia colony and the rise of slavery there, Zimmerman lays out the proper path for creating healthy societies in places like the Moon and Mars.

 

“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society.

 

All editions are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors, with the ebook priced at $5.99 before discount. All editions can also be purchased direct from the ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.

 

Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from the author (hardback $29.95; paperback $14.95; Shipping cost for either: $6.00). Just send an email to zimmerman @ nasw dot org.

November 11, 2025 Zimmerman/Space Show appearance

3:55 pm

David Livingston has now uploaded the audio of my appearance on the Space Show earlier this week on November 11, 2025.

You can download the audio of the program here.

To watch the zoom broadcast, go here.

The most important point I made during this show was at the beginning, as described by David Livingston’s summary of the show:

During the program Bob made some predictions about the future of space exploration. Zimmerman claimed that SpaceX, rather than NASA, is currently the most effective American space program. He predicted that in two years, everyone would recognize SpaceX’s dominance. Zimmerman also suggested that NASA’s role should become less significant, with its focus shifting to supporting private space endeavors rather than leading space exploration efforts.

I was actually more blunt. I said that SpaceX is the American space program right now, and that SpaceX doesn’t need NASA or the U.S. government in any way to carry it out, as it is entirely funded from Starlink revenues. I also predicted that NASA and its Artemis program is now irrelevant, though no one yet realizes it.

I added that this is going to be one of my many predictions that everyone will claim they made, two years hence. I’m making it now. I am quite willing to bet I will be right.

Everyone should take a listen. You will find the discussion afterward most revealing.

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Leaving Earth cover

Leaving Earth: Space Stations, Rival Superpowers, and the Quest for Interplanetary Travel, can be purchased as an ebook everywhere for only $3.99 (before discount) at amazon, Barnes & Noble, all ebook vendors, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.

 

If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big oppressive tech companies and I get a bigger cut much sooner.

 

Winner of the 2003 Eugene M. Emme Award of the American Astronautical Society.

 
"Leaving Earth is one of the best and certainly the most comprehensive summary of our drive into space that I have ever read. It will be invaluable to future scholars because it will tell them how the next chapter of human history opened." -- Arthur C. Clarke

The orbital propulsion module for India’s Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander drifts back into lunar orbit

3:48 pm

When India’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft arrived in lunar orbit in August 2023, it separated into three units, the lander, a lunar orbiter, and a propulsion unit used to get everything to the Moon.

While the Vikram lander successfully touched down several hundred miles from the Moon’s south pole and the Chandrayaan-3 orbiter continues to make observations of the Moon, in October 2023 engineers had the propulsion module do a burn that sent it out of lunar orbit and into an Earth orbit that was close to one of the Lagrange points where the gravity of the Earth and Moon are balanced.

Now, three years later, that module has drifted back into lunar orbit, where it has since done two close fly-bys of the surface.

This intricate orbital dance culminated when the module once again entered the Moon’s SOI [sphere of influence] on November 4, 2025, an event marking the transition where lunar gravity dominates its motion.

The first recorded lunar flyby occurred on November 6, 2025, at a distance of 3,740 km from the lunar surface, though it was outside the Indian Deep Space Network’s (IDSN) visibility range. A second, closely monitored flyby took place on November 11, 2025, bringing the module within 4,537 km of the Moon and well within observation capabilities.

These events noticeably altered the satellite’s orbital parameters, expanding its orbit size from 100,000 x 300,000 km to a massive 409,000 x 727,000 km and shifting its inclination from 34° to 22°.

It is not clear what happens next. Having this module in lunar orbit could be an issue for present and later orbiters, as no orbit around the Moon can ever be stable. At some point India’s space agency ISRO needs to properly dispose of this unit, either by sending into the Moon or out of the Moon-Earth system entirely. I am of course assuming it has the fuel to do so.

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Bezos releases new video of the New Glenn first stage landing yesterday

3:35 pm

Jeff Bezos, founder of Blue Origin, today released on X new footage showing from a distance the full landing sequence of New Glenn’s first stage on a barge in the Atlantic.

I have embedded it below. It is quite spectacular, and suggests the Blue Origin team can match SpaceX’s team in controlling a landing spacecraft. The stage comes down several hundred feet to the side of the barge, hovers, and then slides sideways to touch down exactly on target. As Bezos notes:

We nominally target a few hundred feet away from Jacklyn to avoid a severe impact if engines fail to start or start slowly. We’ll incrementally reduce that conservatism over time.

This is not unlike the landing maneuver performed by Starship prior to capture by the tower chopsticks. If Blue Origin can do it also, it means it has capabilities it has been hiding for the past decade due to its slow and timid testing/launching pace.
» Read more

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Comet C/2025 K1 — NOT interstellar 3I/Atlas — breaks up as it passes closest to the Sun

12:10 pm

The broken apart nucleus of Comet 3I/Atlas
Click for original image.

CORRECTION: I originally posted this story thinking the comet imaged was the interstellar Comet 3I/Atlas. It is not. It is a different one. I have changed to post below to correct my error.

——————
Sometime on November 11, 2025, the nucleus of interstellar C/2025 K1 broke into three pieces as it passed through its closest and hottest point to the Sun.

The image to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, comes from images of the break-up taken by the Virtual Telescope project, which gathers data from many small telescopes remotely.

From the first link, translated by Google from the Italian:

Its trajectory led it, in early October, to pass through a point of minimum distance from the Sun (perihelion) quite close to our star, about 0.33 astronomical units, just outside the orbit of Mercury. Because of this “short” distance from the Sun, it experienced high solar irradiation, which caused a significant increase in the temperature of the surface and internal layers of the nucleus.

These are precisely the conditions under which a “breakup” event is expected: depending on the internal properties of the nucleus—namely, its porosity, its state of cohesion, its composition, and the percentage of ice—it is possible that the increase in temperature could cause significant “outgassing,” a sudden and violent outflow of gaseous and dusty material, and the consequent fragmentation of the nucleus, sometimes into a few pieces of roughly similar size, sometimes into a cloud of fragments and debris that spread along the trajectory of the original comet.

…”From an initial quick analysis of the images, we can confirm that there are certainly two fairly similar pieces, whose brightness maxima are separated by approximately 2,000 km (distance projected on the star field); “Furthermore, we can intuit the presence of a third, smaller and fainter fragment to the left of the pair,” observes Mazzotta Epifani.

It will be interesting to see if the same thing happens to interstellar Comet 3I/Atlas as it makes its own pass close to the Sun.

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China’s Shenzhou-20 crew on Tiangong-3 returns on Shenzhou-21 capsule

11:27 am

The Tiangong-3 station, as presently configured
The Tiangong-3 station, as presently configured

After about a week of analysis, China today announced that the Shenzhou-20 capsule was too badly damaged to bring its crew back from its Tiangong-3 space station.

In making that announcement China finally revealed some details about the damage.

Tiny cracks have been found in the return capsule’s viewport window, which are most probably caused by external impact from space debris, according to the [China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).]

To get that crew home, which had already spent almost seven months in orbit, China had them board the Shenzhou-21 capsule that had only launched two weeks earlier on October 31, 2025 and use it to return to Earth today.

This leaves the present three astronauts on Tiangong-3 without any way to get back to Earth should something go wrong with the station.

China apparently had limited options. It doesn’t have enough docking ports on Tiangong-3 to dock three Shenzhou capsules to it, so one capsule had to undock and leave the station to make room for a replacement capsule.

Undocking Shenzhou-21 however is puzzling. Why didn’t China instead undock the damaged Shenzhou-20 capsule and de-orbit it? Had it done so, the six astronauts would have had only one lifeboat for three, but the docking port would have been opened for a new rescue capsule. There have been indications that China is preparing the next Shenzhou-22 capsule and a Long March 2F rocket for launch, though China has not provided any information about when that launch will occur.

With Shenzhou-21 gone, the three remaining Tiangong-3 astronauts are truly stranded in space, with no way home.

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Amazon renames its proposed internet constellation from Kuiper to Amazon LEO

9:59 am

Amazon today announced that it has renamed its proposed internet constellation from the initial internal code name “Kuiper” to “Amazon LEO, to give “a simple nod” to its location in low Earth orbit.

Our long-term mission remains the same, and we’re making good progress against it. We now operate one of the largest satellite production lines on the planet. We’ve invented some of the most advanced customer terminals ever built, including the first commercial phased array antenna to support gigabit speeds. And we now have more than 150 satellites in orbit [154 to be exact], and customers and partners like JetBlue, L3Harris, DIRECTV Latin America, Sky Brasil, and NBN Co., Australia’s National Broadband Network operator, already signing up to deploy the service.

The company’s FCC license requires it to have 1,600 satellites in orbit by July 2026. To even get close to this number the three launch companies that have Amazon launch contracts, ULA (46 launches total), Arianespace (18 launches), and Blue Origin (27 launches) have got to start launching regularly. ULA has completed three launches, and promises to do many in 2026. Arianespace says it will begin launches in 2026. Blue Origin has said nothing, but the successfully launch yesterday of New Glenn suggests it will also begin Amazon launches in 2026.

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ULA’s Atlas-5 rocket launches Viasat communications satellite

8:40 pm

ULA tonight successfully launched a Viasat communications satellite, its Atlas-5 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

This was the fifth launch for ULA in 2025, matching its count from last year. For the past year the company has repeatedly promised a launch rate of once to twice a month, but as yet to do so. In fact, it hasn’t managed twelve launches in a year since 2016. Hopefully this will change in the coming year.

With this launch, ULA only has eleven Atlas-5s left in stock before the rocket is retired, with five of those launches for Amazon’s Kuiper constellation and six for Boeing’s Starliner manned capsule. While the Kuiper launches will almost certainly happen by the end of 2026, the Boeing Starliner missions are very much in limbo, as that capsule itself remains in limbo with it entirely unclear when it will carry astronauts again for NASA.

As this was only the fifth launch by ULA in 2025, the leader board for the 2025 launch race remains unchanged:

147 SpaceX
70 China
14 Rocket Lab
13 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 147 to 117.

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Historical proof that today’s public schools are nothing but indoctrination mills poisoning minds

4:57 pm

A typical classroom in 1909
Click for original.

You want to know why today’s kids know nothing about America’s past, and in fact in many cases actually believe falsely that America invented slavery and has always been an evil oppressive nation founded on that even more evil concept of capitalism, you need only compare pictures of two typical public school classrooms, one from 1909 and one from 2025.

The picture to the right was taken in 1909, showing an elementary classroom in the Washington, DC area. Note the picture of President Teddy Roosevelt on the wall, surrounded by American flags. Note the blackboard that covers two entire walls, its entire face filled with detailed information these children were expected to learn. Note how there is nothing else. Very clearly the focus is on learning the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic, with a lot of American history and science thrown in as well. As noted in the article of many such vintage classroom images from which this picture was drawn:

Students wear their best clothes for this formal photograph. The classroom features standard educational decor of the period—portraits of historical figures, maps, and instructional charts. Such photographs documented not just the students but the educational standards and resources of local communities.

As a child who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, I can say that the classrooms of my day were quite similar. There was almost always a portrait of George Washington and the Declaration of Independence on the wall, along with map of the world and the U.S. And above all, the focus was on learning basic facts and essential skills.

The next picture below was taken in 2025 by a parent of an 11-year-old boy while attending a parent orientation night. It is also typical of the classrooms one sees nowadays in the public schools, and the contrast is more than striking.
» Read more

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Sierra Space finally completes preflight tests of its Tenacity Dream Chaser mini-shuttle

2:56 pm

Tenacity undergoing recent tow tests
Tenacity undergoing recent tow tests.
Click for original image.

Sierra Space today announced that has finally completed the preflight ground tests of its Tenacity Dream Chaser mini-shuttle required prior to launch.

As part of its comprehensive testing campaign, Dream Chaser underwent Electromagnetic Interference and Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMI/EMC) testing at NASA’s Space Systems Processing Facility (SSPF). These tests verified the spacecraft’s ability to operate within expected electromagnetic environments throughout various missions.

The spacecraft also completed rigorous tow testing at KSC and Space Florida’s Launch and Landing Facility. For this phase, a Freightliner Cascadia truck, provided by Daimler Truck North America, towed the spaceplane at high speeds to simulate critical dynamics and validating autonomous navigational parameters during runway landing operations.

Additionally, Dream Chaser successfully demonstrated the ability to receive telemetry and distribute commands between the spacecraft and Mission Control in Louisville, Colorado over NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System network. This key milestone tested the spacecraft’s readiness for real-time command and control during flight operations.

The testing campaign concluded with a post landing recovery rehearsal, which demonstrated the safing of vehicle systems and timely access to sensitive payloads. [emphasis mine]

The electromagnetic and telemetry began more than two years ago — along with standard vibration test — and under normal conditions should have been completed in only a few months. In fact, when that testing began the company expected to launch Tenacity to ISS on a Vulcan rocket sometime in 2024. While the vibration tests completed as expected, the other tests did not. Instead, we waited, and waited, and waited, with no word on the results, suggesting strongly that something had been found that made that launch impossible without significant changes.

The description of the tow tests that I highlighted above add further weight to this speculation. Such tow tests should have been done long before those final electromagnetic, telemetry, and vibration tests. To have to do such tow tests now suggests strongly that those ground tests found something wrong that required changes and further tow tests.

Though NASA has canceled its ISS cargo contract with Sierra using Tenacity, the company says it still plans to launch the mini-shuttle on an orbital demonstration mission late in 2026, with it landing back on a runway at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

Don’t put much money on this. This mini-shuttle was first proposed in 2014, and has been repeatedly delayed over and over again. It remains unclear whether it will ever launch.

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November 13, 2025 Quick space links

2:49 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.

  • Op-ed touting the benefits of a spaceport in Yuma, Arizona
    This proposal has been bouncing around Arizona now for about six years, with little progress. Its biggest problem is that almost all launches would have to fly over Mexico, and based on conflicting reports it is unclear Mexico is willing to agree.
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New Glenn successfully launches Escapade orbiters AND lands 1st stage

2:29 pm

New Glenn first stage after landing
New Glenn first stage after landing

Blue Origin today successfully placed two the NASA Escapade Mars orbiters into space, its New Glenn rocket launching for the second time from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

More significantly, the company successfully landed the rocket’s first stage on a barge in the Atlantic. New Glenn is now the second rocket company capable of vertically landing and recovering an orbital first stage, after SpaceX.

Several take-aways: First, this first stage recovery took place almost exactly a decade after Blue Origin successfully landed vertically its suborbital New Shepard rocket, and almost a decade after SpaceX successfully did it with its Falcon 9 orbital rocket. It is a shame that it took Blue Origin so long to get to this point. It is also magnificent that it has finally made it happen. The United States now has two reusable rockets, with two more (by Rocket Lab and Stoke Space) expected to launch by next year.

Blue Origin is not likely to reuse this particular first stage, but its recovery will make future reuses likely and soon.

Second, Blue Origin made one interesting broadcast choice that I like. It listed the rocket’s altitude and speed in feet/miles and miles per hour, not kilometers. The engineers might have been using metric, but the audience is American, so using the traditional Imperial numbers is smart. Good for Blue Origin.

Third, Blue Origin’s announcers were once again annoying, distracting, ignorant, and childishly emotional. And they simply would not shut up, preventing the audience from hearing critical reports from mission control. They also seemed oblivious to reality, bragging repeatedly about the ten year gap between the first New Shepard landing and this landing, as if this was somehow a good thing. It was embarrassing to listen to.

The company would do a far better job selling itself by hiring announcers who are more serious and professional. Sadly, I have noted this problem from Blue Origin’s announcers now for almost a decade, with little change.

Finally, this success is a very big deal, both for Blue Origin and the United States. The company is now primed to begin regular launches next year, including the 27 launches Amazon has purchased for its Kuiper constellation.

For the U.S., this finally gives us a solid competitor to SpaceX. And that competition is finally going to force launch prices to drop significantly. SpaceX dropped prices, but not as far as it could because there was no pressure to do so from anyone else. Now there is that pressure.

As this was only the second launch by Blue Origin in 2025, the leader board for the 2025 launch race remains unchanged:

147 SpaceX
70 China
14 Rocket Lab
13 Russia

SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 147 to 116. Note that ULA hopes to launch its Atlas-5 rocket tonight.

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France’s president puts forth a new national space policy

10:43 am

Capitalism in space: In a speech yesterday France’s president Emmanuel Macron proposed a new national space policy with increased spending for defense and an increased focus on encouraging France’s private space sector. According to his speech, the strategy has five main goals:

  • Maintaining autonomous access to space – ensuring France and Europe retain the independent capability to launch and operate missions without external reliance.
  • Reassessing the industrial and commercial model – promoting competitiveness, public–private cooperation, and the growth of dual-use technologies. [emphasis mine]
  • Expanding strategic and defence capabilities – reinforcing surveillance, secure communications, and the protection of orbital assets against emerging threats.
  • Adopting a more assertive approach to science and exploration – increasing participation in international research missions and developing new exploration technologies.
  • Revitalising European space cooperation – through enhanced competitiveness, a “European preference” in procurement, and new models of governance.

The highlighted point is the most important. Macron clearly wants France’s aerospace industry to lead Europe in space, and to do so he is now officially abandoning his country’s long reliance on doing everything cooperatively through the European Space Agency (ESA) and its commercial arm, Arianespace.

This change has been on-going for the past two years, but Macron has now made it official. France will now do what NASA has been doing for the past fifteen years, shift from the government-run model to the capitalism model, where instead of having ESA and Arianespace build and own everything for France, France will buy what it needs from private European companies, with a emphasis on giving those contracts to French companies.

To do this Macron proposed a 30% increase in spending on civilian space projects through 2030, and a 70% increase in France’s defense budget for that same time period.

France has always had the strongest aerospace industry in Europe, but it has been shackled badly by Europe’s desire to do everything in partnership through a government-run agency, just as America’s space industry was shackled by NASA prior to 2010. If Macron follows through with this policy change, expect some great things from France in space in the coming decade.

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Is China preparing to return its stranded astronauts in its damaged Shenzhou capsule?

10:00 am

According to reports from China, it appears they are preparing to return the three-person Shenzhou-20 crew on their damaged Shenzhou-20 capsule on November 14, 2025, rather than launch a replacement capsule as had been rumored previously.

China has issued a temporary airspace restriction over Inner Mongolia for 3:20 to 3:50 a.m. Eastern (0820-0850 UTC, or 4:20-4:50 p.m. Beijing time) Nov. 14, according to a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) published by the Hohhot Flight Information Region under the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).

The airspace closure notice matches an area covering the Dongfeng landing site, an area in Inner Mongolia roughly 60 to 90 kilometers to the east-southeast of the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, which has been used for all Shenzhou crewed spacecraft returns since 2021.

None of this is confirmed as yet, as China’s state-run press continues to be very secretive about this entire affair. It as yet not released any details about the damage to Shenzhou-20, nor has it been forthcoming with any details about the next steps it plans to take.

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The earliest observations ever of a supernova exploding suggest the blast was bi-polar

9:29 am

Figure 4 from the paper
Click for full graphic. CSM stands for the
circumstellar matter that surrounded the star
prior to eruption.

Using the Very Large Telescope in Chile, astronomers were able to observe a supernova in its very earliest moments after eruption, the earliest yet, and determined the eruption did not flow outward in all directions, but appeared to be bi-polar, as indicated by the cartoon to the right.

To capture the snapshot of the April 2024 supernova, astronomers used the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, which was able to look at the polarization, or orientation, of the supernova’s light. Using a technique called spectropolarimetry, the researchers used the light’s polarization to re-create the explosion’s shape in its first moments. Their results showed that the light emanated not uniformly, like the light from a typical star, but elongated, shaped like an olive.

You can read their paper here. The cartoon comes from Figure 4, and is their “most plausible” interpretation of the data.

This bi-polar shape suggests that in the initial stages of the eruption the material shot out the star’s poles, as seen routinely in planetary nebulae as well as other eruptive stars like Eta Carina. The data also suggests the initial explosion was shaped by the circumstellar material surrounding the star. Such material tends to concentrate at a star’s ecliptic, like our solar system, With less material at the poles, the initial blast favored those directions.

Theorists will now use this data point to better refine the models that attempt to explain how supernovae explode.

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German rocket startup Isar Aerospace is getting ready for 2nd launch attempt in Norway

9:15 am

Isar's first launch attempt fails
Spectrum falling seconds after its launch
in March 2025

The German rocket startup Isar Aerospace has now delivered the stages of its Spectrum rocket to Norway’s Andoya spaceport, in preparation for its second launch attempt following the first launch failure in March.

On 13 November, an Isar Aerospace update on its social channels revealed that, just over seven months after its first flight ended in a fireball, the company had returned to its launch facilities at the Andøya Spaceport in Norway in preparation for the rocket’s second flight. While brief, the update stated that the main and upper stages for the flight had arrived at the company’s launch pad and that it was “gearing up for pre-flight testing.” The update did not include an expected launch date.

The company in September had completed its investigation into the March failure, determining the failure was an inability of the rocket to maintain its proper attitude control.

Road closure announcements in Norway suggest that this launch will occur prior to December 21, 2025, but this is decidedly unconfirmed. If the launch takes place then and is successful, Norway’s Andoya spaceport will have become the first European-based spaceport to launch an orbital rocket, beating out the two spaceports in the United Kingdom and the Esrange spaceport in Sweden.

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Space energy startup Star Catcher successfully tests power beaming using lasers

9:02 am

StarCatcher laser transmitting to solar panel
StarCatcher laser transmitting power during Florida tests.

Space energy startup Star Catcher last week successfully completed a demonstration in Florida of its power beaming technology, transmitting energy using lasers to off-the-shelf solar panels used by satellites and spacecraft.

Using an advanced suite of multi-wavelength lasers, the team delivered more than 1.1 kW of electrical power to commercial off-the-shelf solar panels at Space Florida’s Launch and Landing Facility. … During the demonstration, Star Catcher delivered one to ten Suns of optical energy to multiple commercial off-the-shelf single- and triple-junction solar panels commonly used in space, confirming compatibility with standard spacecraft hardware, and validating the company’s approach to “supercharge” satellites with significantly more power via highly concentrated beams of light. Among them was an Astro Digital triple-junction solar panel — the same hardware used on the company’s flight-proven satellite buses — demonstrating readiness to power customer missions in orbit.

Star Catcher also delivered power to several customer payloads representing key market segments such as space data centers, in-space manufacturing, and remote sensing. The systems operated on beamed power as customers conducted live experiments, demonstrating both hardware compatibility and strong interest in this emerging power infrastructure.

Among the demonstrations, Star Catcher wirelessly transmitted energy to Intuitive Machines’ Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) and recharged its onboard batteries.

The company plans to fly an orbital power-beaming demonstration satellite next year. If successful, it will try to raise the investment capital to launch power-beaming satellites in both Earth and lunar orbits by 2030, where they can more efficiently provide power. It already has signed six preliminary agreements with a variety of space-based companies such as Intuitive Machines. In the case of rovers like Intuitive Machines LTV, this technology will be an excellent way to charge batteries in the permanently shadowed craters on the Moon, where direct sunlight will not be available.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay.

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Uzbekistan signs deal to possibly fly astronauts on Vast’s Haven-1 space station

8:28 am

Haven-1 with docked Dragon capsule
Haven-1 with docked Dragon capsule

According to a press release earlier this week from the Uzbekistan government, it has signed an agreement with the American space station startup Vast to possibly fly its astronauts on Vast’s Haven-1 space station, scheduled for launch early next year for a three year mission that will include four two-week manned occupancies.

The parties discussed prospects for long-term cooperation with Vast, including participation in joint scientific research, personnel exchange programs, and the involvement of Uzbek specialists in upcoming missions following the successful launch of the Haven-1 orbital station.

Discussions also covered the potential involvement of Uzbek scientists and engineers in research on artificial gravity, life support systems, and orbital architecture within the framework of the Haven-2 project, the proposed successor to the International Space Station.

Neither Vast nor Uzbekistan apparently made any firm commitments to fly astronauts to Haven-1, but the agreement clearly laid the groundwork for doing so, if not on Haven-1 then on Vast’s follow-up much larger station, Haven-2. At the moment Vast has not yet announced any of passengers or crew for the four Haven-1 manned missions, so there clearly is room for an astronaut from Uzbekistan, assuming it is able and willing to pay the freight.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay.

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Firefly identifies cause of first stage explosion during static fire test in September

8:01 am

Alpha on the launchpad
The Alpha first stage, prior to September explosion

Firefly yesterday announced it has completed its investigation into the explosion during a static fire test in September that destroyed the first stage of the Alpha rocket during final preparations prior to launch.

Following a thorough review of the Alpha Flight 7 first stage ground test on September 29, Firefly identified a process error during stage one integration that resulted in a minute hydrocarbon contamination, which then led to a combustion event in one of the engines during the ground test. The test stand structure remained intact and no other facilities were impacted.

…Firefly immediately took action and implemented corrective actions, which included increasing inspection requirements for the fluid systems, optimizing the first stage sensors, and incorporating additional automated aborts. Firefly also implemented key process improvements following a daylong quality stand down where the production, integration, and test teams conducted exercises to review and optimize existing procedures. As part of Firefly’s effort to improve reliability and quality, the team will continue to hold regular exercises for sustained process enhancements.

The company also said the problem was not a design issue with the rocket.

It appears from the company’s press release that the contamination occurred because of a work force quality control issue, that required a major daylong review by all their employees to make sure their operations in building the stage would be more rigorous going forward.

The plan now is to pull another first stage from the company’s production line and stack that with the original upper stage. The target date for launch is late this year or early next year, “depending on range availability.”

Firefly had hoped to do five launches in 2025. At this moment it has only attempted one, in April, which failed. That investigation took until mid-September to complete. The next launch attempt was then delayed by the first stage explosion.

I imagine the company very much wants to get at least one launch off this year. I also imagine it is aggressively reviewing its rocket work force due to these issues.

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Saturn’s rings, warped by one of Saturn’s moons

3:09 pm

Daphne inside Saturn's rings
Click for original image.

Cool image time! Rather than post another Mars image, I decided today to dig into the archive left from the Cassini orbiter that circled Saturn from July 1, 2004 until September 15, 2017. The picture to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on September 13, 2017, only two days before the orbiter burned up in Saturn’s atmosphere. From the caption:

This image of Saturn’s outer A ring features the small moon Daphnis and the waves it raises in the edges of the Keeler Gap. The image was taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft on Sept. 13, 2017. It is among the last images Cassini sent back to Earth. The view was taken in visible light using the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera at a distance of 486,000 miles from Saturn. Image scale is 2.7 miles [per pixel].

The moon is traveling downward in this image. As it moves past the outer ring, its gravity causes that edge to ripple, producing the waves.

The scale will give you an idea of how big the rings of Saturn are. The Keeler Gap is at the outer edge of the A ring of Saturn, which is the outermost ring that is clearly visible using ordinary amateur telescopes. That edge however is more than 90,000 miles from Saturn. And grayish bands to the right of Daphne and the Keeler Gap are only the outer half of the A ring, which is by itself about 9,000 miles wide.

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November 12, 2025 Quick space links

2:57 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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The leftist protest at Berkeley this week: Feel the hate!

12:45 pm

All this guy wanted to do was selling
All this guy wanted to do was sell
“Freedom” t-shirts. Click for video.

While a lot of reports have done good work documenting the Antifa and leftist protests that attempted to shut down a Turning Point USA event on the campus of UCLA at Berkeley earlier this week (here, here, and here), I want to highlight one fundamental and truly ugly aspect of these protests that I think we no longer see because it has become so common.

While it is clear these leftist protesters have nothing positive to propose, it is their hate and anger that stands out above all. All they can do is vent hate, pure and simple.

The screen capture to the right is a typical result of this hate. It comes from video whereby this guy had set up a table outside the event, attempting to sell a variation of the “Freedom” t-shirt that Charlie Kirk was wearing when he was assassinated. A crowd of leftist mask-wearing protesters soon surrounded him, shouting obscenities and threatening him. Finally, one protester named Jihad Dphrepaulezz grabbed the t-shirts as well as a chain necklace from the man and ran. The man chased him and they got into a fight, resulting in this man’s bloodied face.

Dphrepaulezz has now been charged with assault and robbery. The t-shirt seller, who remains unidentified, was initially arrested but then released when the police determined he was the victim.

This violence however is typical now of the left at these protests, so typical we are no longer even shocked by it. It stems from blind angry emotions, driven further by an utter ignorance that embarrasses them if challenged in any way. If you were to ask them to give any examples proving that Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA supported bigotry or “fascism”, their response would be incoherent or confused, because they clearly have never listened to even one nanosecond of any Turning Point USA event, with or without Charlie Kirk. I have, and I can say unequivocally that Kirk or his organization were and are the exact opposite of these false slanders. Kirk and his organization have always stood for individual rights, freedom, and open debate. They also stand for an end to bigotry, for not ranking people by their skin color or religion but solely based on their character and actions.

And above all, Kirk and his organization have always stood for bringing the two sides of the political debate together to talk as civilized rational human beings about the issues everyone so passionately cares about.

The left however can no longer debate anyone rationally. Instead, we have these protests, designed to silence debate. And to do so they scream obscenities and insults, chanting “Fascists out of Berkeley!” repeatedly as if that means anything. And if that doesn’t work, they next turn to violence, as happened above to this t-shirt vendor.

This tactic — of screaming and disrupting events to silence them — isn’t news, as this kind of violent protest behavior has been standard leftist tactic to silence speech now for more a decade. At Berkeley in 2017 it prevented then-Breibart editor Milo Yiannopoulos from speaking there. Since then it has been used in numerous campuses nationwide to shut down conservative events.

What is different now is the level of emotional hate exuded by these protesters. They are literally so filled with this venom that they now almost routinely lose control of themselves, resulting in violence and vandalism of the sort seen above, that even a decade ago was rare.

Below are two more clips. All I see is hate. Hate for the right. Hate for debate. Hate pure and simple.
» Read more

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First Soyuz-5 rocket arrives at Baikonur

9:50 am

According to Russia’s state-run press, the first Soyuz-5 rocket has arrived at the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan, with a targeted maiden launch scheduled for December.

Soyuz-5 is designed to replace Russia’s soon-to-be retired Proton rocket, as well as the Ukrainian Zenit rocket that is no longer available because Russia invaded the Ukraine. It was first proposed in 2016, with its development proceeding in fits and starts since then. Part of the problems has been Kazakhstan, which demanded (and apparently received) a larger cut from Russia before it would allow Soyuz-5 to launch at the planned launchpad at Baikonur.

A larger factor in the delays has been a shortage of cash in Russia itself, as well the generally slow culture of its aging aerospace industry. However, in the case of Soyuz-5, it appears Russia managed to speed things up, as previous reports in 2024 suggested this first launch would be delayed until 2026.

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SpaceX signs Starlink deal with major African telecommunication company

9:28 am

In a major deal that will make Starlink available across a wide swath of Africa, SpaceX has now signed an agreement with the African telecommunication company Vodacom, which operates in 47 African countries.

Vodacom will market for SpaceX its Starlink terminals, aimed specifically in rural areas where traditional land lines are not available.

The African company [Vodacom, majority owned by Britain’s Vodafone, has been seeking to ‍close connectivity gaps across the continent through low-earth orbit satellite technology which can help provide internet even in tough terrains. Vodacom will ​integrate Starlink’s satellite technology for data relay into its ‌mobile network and will be authorized to resell equipment and services from the SpaceX-owned firm to customers in Africa, the company said in a statement.

The parent company Vodafone has also signed deals with the satellite constellations being launched by AST SpaceMobile and Amazon, so it is aggressively seeking numerous avenues for getting service to customers in those rural areas.

It appears that Vodafone will have to obtain government permission from each country, but except for South Africa the company does not see this as a serious problem. South Africa however is presently run by communist bigots who are demanding SpaceX impose racial hiring quotas on its operations before approving Starlink, and SpaceX quite rightly is telling it to go pound sand.

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