Bing Crosby – Let’s Start the New Year Right
An evening pause: From the 1942 film Holiday Inn. Stay with this after the song for a truly spectacular dance number by Fred Astaire, dancing as a New Year’s Eve drunk with Marjorie Reynolds.
Year: 2025
December 31, 2025 Quick space links
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.
- Astronomers detect a three-galaxy merger, the third ever discovered
The headline at the link is utter garbage, designed as clickbait. The headline I have given you describes the story’s text accurately. One other detail: All three galaxies also appear to have active nuclei, suggesting the presence of supermassive black holes.
- SpaceX accounts for more than 70% of the world’s total payload mass launched in 2025
This graph is a nice additional data point I will use in my annual global launch report.
- On this day in 1924 astronomer Edwin Hubble announced that the spiral nebula Andromeda is a distant galaxy like the Milky Way
Thus proving that the Milky Way is just one of many galaxies in the universe.
Archeologists find what they think is evidence of fire-making by early Neanderthals
Archeologists have found a Neanderthal campsite from 400,000 years ago that shows strong evidence of the ability to make fire.
The researchers found two fragments of pyrite, a mineral that can produce sparks when struck against flint, indicating that the early Neanderthals used them as “a fire-making kit.” These ancient deposits mark the earliest known evidence of fire-making, roughly 400,000 years ago.
…The Barnham site lies in a disused clay pit in Suffolk, UK, preserving traces of the period around 427,000 to 415,000 years ago. In this area, the team found a small patch of reddened sediment, about the size of a modest campfire, surrounded by two pyrites, 19 flints, and four broken hand axes, showing clear signs of heating. Pyrites are rare locally, and the early Neanderthals likely carried them in from elsewhere.
Previously, the earliest known evidence of the ability to make fire had been dated from 50,000 years ago, and was done by homo sapiens, not Neanderthals.
Analysis of the sediment said the heat there matched that of a campfire, not a wildfire. The data also said the spot had been used repeatedly.
This one campsite suggests Neanderthals in general had the knowledge and tools to make fire, but it also could simply show the work of one particularly smart Neanderthal.
Turkey and Somalia confirm spaceport plans
In a public meeting of the presidents of Turkey and Somalia in Istanbul yesterday, Turkish President Recep Erdogan confirmed that Turkey has begun construction of a spaceport in Somalia.
Astrophysicist Umut Yildiz said the project, announced by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and detailed by Industry and Technology Minister Mehmet Fatih Kacir, offers Türkiye significant geographic and technological opportunities.
…President Erdogan said the first phase of the three-stage project has been completed and construction has begun under the Türkiye Space Agency, adding that the goal is to establish significant infrastructure in space launch and satellite technologies.
Minister Kacir said the spaceport will become a strategic, revenue-generating infrastructure for Türkiye through growing commercial satellite launch services, testing activities and integration processes, while also contributing to Somalia’s development.
This spaceport plan had first been revealed by Turkish officials two weeks ago, but yesterday’s press conference now makes it official.
No press release from Turkey’s state-run press however revealed the spaceport’s precise location in Somalia. Nor is it confirmed that any actual construction has begun. I suspect it will be a very long time before anything actually launches from the site.
Space Force requests proposals for new Vandenberg launchpad for heavy and super-heavy rockets
The Space Force on December 29, 2025 released a request for information (RFI) from the private sector for building a new launchpad at the southern-most tip of Vandenberg Space Force Base, for use by “new” heavy and super-heavy rockets.
The Space Force said it prefers to use the site for new vehicles rather than ones that already have launch sites at Vandenberg, to “increase launch diversity” at the base. The service is also interested in vehicles with “unique capabilities,” such as point-to-point transportation or the ability to return payloads.
The RFI emphasizes the need for “technically mature” vehicles capable of operating from SLC-14 within five years of signing a lease agreement. Companies must also provide details about their operations to address safety concerns and minimize impacts on other launch operators at the base.
You can read the actual RFI here. The map to the right, taken from the RFI and annotated to post here, labels the area under consideration as “Sudden Flats”. SpaceX’s two launchpads are indicated, with SLC-6 presently under development.
Though the description of the request appears to favor SpaceX, it could also apply to Blue Origin’s New Glenn as well as the company’s proposed larger versions of that rocket.
The request asks for proposals within 30 days.
China launches two satellites for “new technology verification for space target detection”
China today successfully launched two technology test satellites designed to do “space target detection”, its Long March 7A rocket lifting off from its coastal Wenchang spaceport.
China’s state-run press provided no other information. It also appears the drop zones for the rocket’s lower stages were once again in Philippino waters, requiring that government to warn its citizens to avoid those zones and subsequent any rocket debris.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
168 SpaceX
90 China (a new record)
18 Rocket Lab
17 Russia
SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 168 to 150.
At this moment no other launches are scheduled before the end of the year, thus closing out the 2025 year in rocketry. I will publish my annual global report in the next few days. Stay tuned.
Paolo Ercoli – Song for a winter’s night
A evening pause: A nice rendition of the Gordon Lightfoot song on an instrument called the squareneck dobro.
Hat tip Cotour.
December 30, 2025 Quick space links
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.
- Chinese pseudo-company Interstellor touts testing of the landing thrusters on its CYZ-1 crew capsule
It blurred the thrusters. Jay rightly asked “What’s there to blur? We all know it is a copy.” To my eye, it appears to be copying Stoke’s concept.
- Chinese pseudo-company Azspace touts absurdly ambitious plans for 2026
It says they will inaugurate a reusable suborbital capsule for tourists, a commercial space station, a larger orbital spacecraft, and a re-entry capsule. Wanna bet?
- Typical mainstream propaganda piece opposing White House proposal to close the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado
Mainstream outlets (in this case Space News) always oppose all government budget cuts, blindly and without any thought. This is just another example. I have become very bored with their empty-headed predictability.
- NASA touts Perseverance’s excellent health, bragging it can function until at least 2031
This story was from a week or two ago. It is just NASA lobbying for cash. Perseverance was always expected to last that long, if not longer, especially as it has upgrades that Curiosity lacks. And yet Curiosity is still going strong after more than a dozen years.
- A nice summary of what was learned when Voyager 1 and 2 passed through the boundary of our solar system, the heliopause
Voyager 1 crossed in 2012. Voyager 2 did it in 2018. Both are still functioning, though their lifespan is only another few years.
The up and down tale of two rocket startups, Vector and Phantom
Jim Cantrell at Vector in 2017, shown in front of
one of his side businesses, fixing and refurbishing race
cars and rare luxury sports cars (located then at Vector).
The tales of rocket startups are often fraught with ups and downs of all kinds, often traveling in circles that no one can ever predict. This is one such tale.
In the mid-2010s there was a rocket startup called Vector, based here in Tucson, founded by a guy named Jim Cantrell. At that time Cantrell pushed the company in the style of Elon Musk, going very public for publicity and to raise investment capital.
He was remarkable successful at both. Unfortunately, his engineers were not as successful at engine building. After years of effort they all realized that their rocket engines were under-powered, and wouldn’t be able to get the rocket into orbit. In 2019 the company’s biggest investor backed out, Cantrell left the company, and new owners took over, hoping to rebuild.
Flash forward to 2021, and Jim Cantrell has reappeared with a new rocket company, Phantom Space, also based in Tucson, raising $6 million in seed capital. In the next four years he obtained a small development contract from NASA, completed two more investment rounds raising first $22 million and then around $37 million, and began development of a new orbital rocket, dubbed Daytona. The company also began work on its own small satellite constellation, PhantomCloud (more on this later).
As for Vector, there was little to report during those four years. The only update said the company was buying engines from the rocket engine startup Ursa Major, the same company Phantom was using.
It is now the end of 2025, and the fate of these two companies has once again intertwined, in a most ironic manner. Last week I learned from Jim Cantrell that Vector had closed shop, and that its last remaining assets, some of which Cantrell himself had helped develop when he headed Vector, had been bought by Phantom. This includes several unused rocket stages, the vertical rocket test stands, a lot of computers, and hardware.
» Read more
Colliding galaxies, as seen in the infrared and X-rays
Click for original image.
Today’s cool image illustrates how beautiful images of heavenly objects don’t always have to be in wavelengths our eyes can see. With the wonders of modern technology, we can now see wondrous things in wavelengths that are invisible to us.
The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, is a perfect illustration. It was released on December 1, 2025, and combines X-ray data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory with infrared data from the Webb Space Telescope. From the caption:
This view of NGC 2207 and IC 2163 takes a James Webb mid-infrared image (white, gray, and red) and adds the X-ray view from Chandra (blue). Together, it is quite an eye-catching result.
…Here, both spirals are shown face on, with the smaller of the two galaxies, IC 2163, at the upper left of the larger galaxy, NGC 2207, which dominates the center and lower right of the image. Both galaxies have long, spiraling, silver blue arms, dotted with specs of blue and red. Toward our upper left, the curving arms overlap, and bend toward their neighbors’ core.
In optical wavelengths the gossamer lines of structure would be lost, overwhelmed by the light of each galaxy’s stars.
European Space Agency hacked
It appears some of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) servers have been hacked, with some of its internal data placed for sale on the web.
On 26 December, reports began to emerge on X claiming that ESA had suffered a significant data breach, with a hacker using the alias “888” offering more than 200 gigabytes of data for sale. According to the hacker’s listing, the allegedly compromised data included source code for proprietary software, sensitive project documentation, API tokens, and hardcoded credentials.
ESA has since issued a statement claiming the data breach was limited, but according to information posted on X, the breach included “Confidential internal documents (Airbus Defence & Space, Thales Alenia Space)” and “sensitive technical information related to space programs.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if China is bidding for this information right now. Then again, Europe’s space effort is so unimpressive compared to China that China might not see the information worth much.
Russia’s early warning satellite constellation is apparently no longer functioning
The satellites in Russia’s constellation for giving its military early warning of missile attacks, dubbed EKS, have been one-by-one failing in recent years, and it now appears the last one has now experienced a malfunction as well.
After the launch of the 6th Tundra satellite in 2022, the Russian military seemingly gave up on the effort to deploy the EKS early warning constellation or, possibly, the industry was simply unable to build new satellites due to technical problems associated with the Western sanctions and/or financial problems. No fresh satellites were launched into the network in the following three years, while, according to an analyst of the Russian strategic nuclear forces Pavel Podvig, the orbital tracking indicated that from March 2025 to December of the same year, the number of operational Tundra satellites fell from three to just one, possibly as a result of in-orbit failures.
…As of December 2025, Kosmos-2552 (EKS-5) was the only satellite within the EKS system which did not show a clear sign of failure, according to Podvig, but the spacecraft did miss a maneuver expected in November 2025, based on the usual pattern of its detectable orbit adjustments.
None of this is a surprise. Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine has not only isolated the country, it has crippled it in numerous ways, both financially and technologically. It no longer has access to many western high tech components it had relied on, and the loss of all its international launch customers has left its rocket industry devoid of hard currency.
Thus, when Russia makes any grandiose claims about its future space plans, it is wise to harbor great doubts.