Year: 2025

NASA cancels Sierra Space’s contract for Dream Chaser cargo missions to ISS

8:01 am

Tenacity grounded in a warehouse
Tenacity grounded in a warehouse, with the
Shooting Star small cargo capsule attached to
its aft port.

NASA today announced it has modified its fixed-price cargo contract with Sierra Space, canceling the planned seven cargo missions as well as a demo docking mission, replacing this with one test flight that will simply go into orbit and then return to Earth.

After a thorough evaluation, NASA and Sierra Space have mutually agreed to modify the contract as the company determined Dream Chaser development is best served by a free flight demonstration, targeted in late 2026. Sierra Space will continue providing insight to NASA into the development of Dream Chaser, including through the flight demonstration. NASA will provide minimal support through the remainder of the development and the flight demonstration. As part of the modification, NASA is no longer obligated for a specific number of resupply missions, however, the agency may order Dream Chaser resupply flights to the space station from Sierra Space following a successful free flight as part of its current contract.

The first launch of Tenacity, the only Dream Chaser so far constructed, has been repeatedly delayed for the past two years, with no explanation from either the company or NASA. Those delays started in 2023 as engineers began the final ground testing before launch, so though we do not know what the issue is it is likely that testing found something fundamentally wrong with the spacecraft that Sierra could not afford to fix.

According to Sierra’s own press release, the company will target a late 2026 launch for that free flyer mission. The company still hopes that mission will make further flights possible, either purchased by NASA or by others wishing to use Tenacity for in-orbit manufacturing, something it first proposed last year.

In the past two years, Sierra has shifted its focus away from commercial manned space and more towards winning military defense contracts. Part of that decision might have come from the problems with Dream Chaser. The decision might have also been fueled by the company’s generally unsatisfactory experience working with Blue Origin on their proposed Orbital Reef space station. While Sierra committed cash to develop and test its LIFE inflatable module, including a full scale prototype, Blue Origin appeared to do nothing at all. As early as September 2023 there were rumors the partnership was falling apart.

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SpaceX launches 24 more Starlink satellites

12:13 am

SpaceX this evening successfully placed 24 additional Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage completed its 28th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific, moving it up into the top rankings for the most reuse by a rocket:

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

Sources here and here.

As for the 2025 launch race, this is the present leader board:

125 SpaceX
55 China
13 Russia
12 Rocket Lab

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 125 to 95.

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Elvis Presley – Burning Love

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Taken from the album Viva Elvis, which is the soundtrack remix of Presley’s Cirque du Soleil show. From the youtube webpage:

Viva Elvis features new backing instrumentation on each track in an attempt to modernize the arrangements. This has met with a mixed critical response, with some reviewers praising the production quality and others opining that Elvis’s music is best left untampered with.

Hat tip Cotour.

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On the radio tomorrow with Robert Pratt of Pratt on Texas

3:41 pm

For those interested in hearing Robert Pratt and I discuss the non-stop ugliness we are presently seeing from the left side of the political spectrum, I will be on his show, Pratt on Texas, starting tomorrow at 5 pm (Central).

We taped the show today. Three out of the four segments focused on that tragic and very horrible madness that seems cool with the idea of killing people because of their opinions. The last segment focused on the space industry.

You can listen live at either the “listen live” button at the website of the country station KORQ 96.1, or here, or at the Pratt on Texas website.

If you can’t listen live, the podcast is now embedded below.
» Read more

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September 25, 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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A Martian landscape of volcanic pimples

1:17 pm

A Martian landscape of volcanic pimples
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and downloaded on August 3, 2025. Labeled as a “terrain sample,” such images are usually taken not as part of any specific research request but because the camera team needs to fill a gap in the camera’s schedule so as to maintain its proper temperature. When they do this, they always try to pick interesting targets within the time window, and usually succeed.

In this case, the camera team picked a location in the middle of Isidis Planitia, one of Mars’ four biggest basins thought to have been formed from a major impact several billion years ago, focusing on an area covered with these strange knobs that have craterlike depressions at their peaks.

According research published in 2010 [pdf], it is believed these cones — all of which are only a few feet high — are the result of volcanic activity following the impact that formed Isidis four billion years ago. In a sense, they are leftover pimples from that impact and the subsequent volcanic activity within that melted basin.
» Read more

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European engineers develop a tumbling rover design moved by the Martian wind

10:15 am

Tumbleweed being tested on sandy ground
Tumbleweed being tested on sandy ground. Click for video.

European engineers at Aarhus University in Denmark have now developed and tested a tumbling rover design that is propelled solely by the Martian wind. You can read their most recent paper here.

Not surprisingly, they call it “Tumbleweed.” The screen capture to the right comes from a video of a wind tunnel test proving the Martian atmosphere could move a prototype on sandy ground. The engineers also did similar tests successfully on rocky and coarse ground.

In July 2025, Team Tumbleweed conducted a week-long experimental campaign, supported by Europlanet, at Aarhus University’s Planetary Environment Facility. Using scaled prototypes with 30-, 40- and 50-centimetre diameters, the team carried out static and dynamic tests in a wind tunnel with a variety of wind speeds and ground surfaces under a low atmospheric pressure of 17 millibars.

Results showed that wind speeds of 9-10 metres per second were sufficient to set the rover in motion over a range of Mars-like terrains including smooth and rough surfaces, sand, pebbles and boulder fields. Onboard instruments successfully recorded data during tumbling and the rover’s behaviour matched fluid-dynamics modelling, validating simulations. The scale-model prototypes were able to climb up a slope of 11.5 degrees in the chamber – equivalent to approximately 30 degrees on Mars – demonstrating that the rover could traverse even unfavourable slopes.

Their concept is to send a swarm of Tumbleweeds to Mars, where they could cheaply document prevailing wind and speeds globally. More sophisticated versions could act as full weather stations, as well as provide in situ data about the landscapes they traverse.

The concept is still in its development stage. The next stage of testing will see if Tumbleweed will work with some science sensors attached.

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Axiom hires Redwire to build the solar panels for its first station module

9:18 am

Axiom's new module assembly sequence
Axiom’s assembly sequence for its planned station, initially attached to ISS but subsequently detached

The space station startup Axiom today announced that it has signed an agreement with the space hardware company Redwire to build the solar panels for its first station module, now under construction.

The companies announced Sept. 25 that Redwire will provide a version of its Roll-Out Solar Array, or ROSA, to Axiom for use on Axiom Station’s Payload Power Thermal Module, known as AxPPTM. AxPPTM is the first module Axiom plans to launch for its commercial station. Under a revised assembly schedule announced last December, AxPPTM will berth with one of two ports on the International Space Station used by Cygnus cargo spacecraft.

It would remain there until Axiom launches a second module, called Hab1. At that point, AxPPTM would unberth from the ISS and dock with Hab1, forming the initial station that can support four-person crews. Axiom would later add more modules.

At present Axiom is targeting a 2026 launch of the AxPPTM module. The hull, built by Thales Alenia, is presently being tested in Europe, and is expected to shipped to Houston for integration later this year.

The four commercial stations under development, ranked by me based on their present level of progress:
» Read more

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Two launches this morning

8:43 am

In the last six hours two different American companies successfully completed launches from the same spaceport.

First, SpaceX placed another 28 Starlink satellites in orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida, with the first stage completing its 22nd flight by landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The company also has another Starlink launch for this evening.

Next, ULA placed 27 more of Amazon’s Kuiper satellites into orbit, its Atlas-5 rocket also lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Amazon now has 129 Kuiper satellites in orbit. It needs to get another 1,471 in orbit by July 2026 in order to meet its licence requirements by the FCC. While ULA appears to be ramping up regular launches for Amazon, having a contract for 46 launches (having so far completed three in 2025), the contracts for Blue Origin’s New Glenn (27 launches), and ArianeGroup’s Ariane-6 (18 launches) are more uncertain. Neither company has achieved any launches on their contracts, and it is not clear when either company, especially Blue Origin, will ever begin regular launches.

This was ULA’s fourth launch in 2025, so it does not yet qualify for the leader board in the 2025 launch race. The company says it hopes to launch about eight more times this year, but based on its present launch pace of about one launch every three months, that seems unlikely. As for the Atlas-5 rocket, ULA now has twelve rockets in left in stock before the rocket is retired for good. Most I think are reserved for Kuiper launches.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

124 SpaceX
55 China
13 Russia
12 Rocket Lab

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 124 to 95.

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Starlab selects Vivace to build the primary structure of its proposed space station

8:25 am

The American space stations under construction
The American space stations under development

The Starlab consortium today announced that it has chosen the Louisiana space hardware company Vivace to build the primary structure of its proposed space station, designed to launch as one very large module inside SpaceX’s Starship.

The aluminum-based structure, one of the largest single spaceflight structures ever developed for launch, will be built at Vivace’s facility in New Orleans, La., with additional development and testing support from [NASA’s] Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) in Louisiana.

…The program will use Vivace’s New Orleans facility at MAF for fabrication, with support from U.S. government partners for subject matter expertise, structural analysis and potential test infrastructure. MAF will also support specialized large-scale manufacturing and assembly operations.

It appears Starlab chose this subcontractor because of its extensive ties to NASA, likely in the hope this will increase the chances it will win the upcoming station construction contracts NASA is expected to issue in the next year or so.

The four commercial stations under development, ranked by me based on their present level of progress:
» Read more

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NASA awards orbital servicing startup Katalyst contract to save the Gehrels Swift space telescope

8:04 am

Katalyst's proposed Swift rescue mission
Katalyst’s proposed Swift rescue mission.
Click for original image.

NASA today announced that it has awarded the orbital servicing startup Katalyst a $30 million contract to use a robotic servicing satellite to rendezvous and attach itself to the Gehrels Swift space telescope and raise its orbit.

Right now the telescope’s orbit is decaying, and it will burn up sometime in 2029 if something isn’t done. As one of the most successful low-cost astronomy space telescopes ever launched — central to the study of gamma ray bursts — spending this small amount to save Gehrels seems a no-brainer. In mid-August NASA had awarded Katalyst and a second company small contracts to study whether they could do this mission. Today’s announcement means NASA liked Katalyst’s proposal.

Whether this startup can do it however remains unknown. It appears from its own press release today describing this contract award that the company decided to add Gehrels to its already planned first demo servicing mission planned for next year.

The schedule is also unprecedented: while satellite servicing typically takes years to plan, Katalyst must be ready to launch in eight months, with docking operations scheduled for mid-2026, to save Swift before it burns up.

…Katalyst was already on schedule for an in-space demonstration of its rendezvous, proximity operations, and docking technology for June 2026. The demonstration would buy down technical risk ahead of the planned launch of Katalyst’s multi-mission robotic spacecraft, NEXUS, in 2027. When NASA raised the alarm about Swift, Katalyst seized the opportunity to pivot to a live rescue operation which would demonstrate similar capabilities.

The mission is even further risky in that Swift has no grapple or docking port for Katalyst’s satellite to attach to. Instead, it “will rely on a custom-built robotic capture mechanism that will attach to a feature on the satellite’s main structure–without damaging sensitive instruments.”

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