Alan Jackson – Summertime Blues
An evening pause: Performed live, but I have no idea when.
Hat tip Sayomara.
Year: 2025
August 28, 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.
- NASA seeks volunteers to passively track the first manned Orion mission around the Moon, presently scheduled for April 2026
It appears NASA wishes to find out if commercial communications systems can do the same as its government network of antennas.
- French startup The Exploration Company’s Nyx cargo capsule passes initial ISS safety review
The company is targeting its first cargo flight to ISS in 2028. Its longer range goal is to provide cargo and eventually manned service to the commercial stations that will follow. A successful docking in 2028 will strengthen its competitive position.
- German rocket startup Isar Aerospace secures launch agreements with European Space Agency
The deal is for two smallsat launches beginning in 2026, and will depend on Isar first achieving a successful launch, having failed in its first attempt in March 2025.
Another great hiking location on Mars
Click for original image.
In honor of our just completed visit to the south rim of the Grand Canyon, today’s cool image takes us to another location on Mars that to me appears a perfect place to install some hiking trails. The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on June 30, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
The image shows a two-mile wide canyon with a number of scattered narrow mesas within. The north and south rims rise about 550 feet above the canyon floor. The two mesas labeled “A” and “B” rise about 200 and 100 feet respectively.
The hiker in me immediately imagines what a great hike it would be to go up the western nose of either ridge and walk along its crest. The knife-edge nature of ridge “A” would mean that for a large majority of the hike you’d be at the north and south edges at the same time.
» Read more
Jools Holland & Doctor John – Boogie Woogie Twins
An evening pause: Performed live c2012.
Hat tip Doug Johnson.
August 27, 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.
- AT&T to Acquire Spectrum Licenses from EchoStar
Jay: “This is not Spectrum the cable company, these are radio spectrum rights that EchoStar owns, and I would be surprised if old AT&T leases them out.”
- Rocket Lab’s Neutron launch pad has been completed
The company is still targeting the first Neutron launch before the end of this year.
- Firefly Aerospace gets Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) clearance to resume Alpha rocket launches
This completes the investigation into the April launch failure.
- Chinese pseudo-company Galactic Energy signs agreement to launch Piesat’s satellites with its Ceres-2 solid-fueled rocket
This is for Piesat’s Nuwa radar satellite constellation.
- RKK Energia, Russia’s prime contractor in human space flight, publicly admits that the company is in dire financial straits, with debt eating its budget, demotivated staff and obsolete processes
The Russian invasion of the Ukraine cut Energia off from all its international customers. It no longer has any way to make money.
Sand dunes inside the Martian north polar icecap
Click for original image.
Today’s cool image returns to the Martian north pole. The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on July 3, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows the top of a ridge near the edge of that icecap, with dunes visible in the hollow several thousand feet below.
The angle of this picture does not show us the many layers on the cliff leading down to those dunes. It does show evidence, however, of the top few layers on the flat crest of that ridge. The white lines delineate those layers, each line marking the edge of a series of wide terraces.
The dunes in the canyon below are of interest because their source is likely the dust that is mixed into thick icecap’s ice. As that ice sublimates away on the face of the cliff, the dust falls into the canyon, where it is trapped.
» Read more
Both before and after its Starship launch yesterday, SpaceX also completed two Falcon 9 launches
The past 24 hours SpaceX did more than complete its stunningly successful tenth launch of its Starship/Superheavy rocket. The company also launched its Falcon 9 rocket twice from opposite coasts.
First it launched a commercial Earth observation satellite, built by the European company OHB Italia for Luxembourg, its Falcon 9 lifting off from Vandenberg in California. The first stage completed its 27th flight, landing back at Vandenberg..The launch also placed several smallsats in orbit as well.
Then this morning, ten hours after the Starship/Superheavy launch, another Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral, placing another 28 Starlink satellites in orbit. The first stage completed its second flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
After including all three SpaceX launches, this is the leader board for the 2025 launch race:
107 SpaceX
48 China
12 Rocket Lab
11 Russia
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 107 to 84.
The most powerful rocket ever, built and financed by a private company, has a near perfect tenth test flight
Liberty quite literally enlightening the world
In the tenth test orbital flight of SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy rocket today, the company has what appeared to be a near perfect flight.
First the Superheavy booster worked as intended, completing a new return configuration to reduce stress, completing a soft vertical splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. During the landing the company tested using backup engines instead of the normal engines to see if this would work in future situations where an engine failed. This worked.
Next, Starship reached its low orbit, intended to end over the Indian Ocean. Unlike the last two test flights, the ship functioned as planned.
Starship completed a full-duration ascent burn and achieved its planned velocity, successfully putting it on a suborbital trajectory. The first in-space objective was then completed, with eight Starlink simulators deployed in the first successful payload demonstration from Starship. The vehicle then completed the second ever in-space relight of a Raptor engine, demonstrating a key capability for future deorbit burns.
Moving into the critical reentry phase, Starship was able to gather data on the performance of its heatshield and structure as it was intentionally stressed to push the envelope on vehicle capabilities. Using its four flaps for control, the spacecraft arrived at its splashdown point in the Indian Ocean, successfully executed a landing flip, and completed the flight test with a landing burn and soft splashdown.
Some burn through damage on Starship was seen, but relatively little, despite the decision to stress the flaps and the reduce the coverage of the heat shield. The landing was on target, an even more impressive achievement.
As must be repeated over and over, this was a test flight of prototypes. The final version of both Superheavy and Starship will not be the same. The flight tested preliminary designs and capabilities, the data obtained to then be used to redesign and revise both components of the rocket.
The most significant aspect of this test flight however is its funding. » Read more
Kiss – Black Diamond
An evening pause: Performed live on television 1975. Above these guys are musical showmen.
Hat tip Wamphyr.
August 26, 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.
- The Miura-5 rocket’s second-stage engine for the Spanish rocket startup PLD is now ready for qualification testing
The company had been targeting the first launch of Miura-5 before the end of 2025. It appears that launch will likely slip to early 2026.
- On this day in 1989, Voyager 2 made its closest approach to Neptune
It passed within 3,000 miles of the planet, and to this day is still the only spacecraft to get a close look.
- On this day in 2003, NASA launched the Spitzer Space Telescope, the fourth in the Great Observatory program
An infrared telescope, Spitzer was a precursor to the Webb Space Telescope. It was named after Lyman Spitzer, who conceived the Hubble Space Telescope and was central in getting it built.
The beauty of Mars’ many-layered northern icecap
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on July 1, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
The science team labels it clumsily as “North Polar layered deposits structural geology in icy layers”. What we see are the many layers that make up the north polar cap, produced by the red planet’s many climate cycles that scientists think Mars has undergone over the eons as the red planet’s rotational tilt, or obliquity, rocked back and forth from 11 degrees inclination to as much as 60 degrees. At the extremes, the ice cap was either growing or shrinking, while today (at 25 degrees inclination) it appears to be in a steady state.
These layers are a mixture of ice and dust. The variations from dark to light likely indicate changes in the amount of dust in the atmosphere. Dark layers suggest the atmosphere was more dusty due to volcanic eruptions. Light layers suggest the planet’s volcanic activity was more subdued.
At least that’s one hypothesis.
» Read more
On the road today
Diane and I are on the road today, leaving the Grand Canyon, which remains as grand as ever, and heading to Colorado to visit friends we haven’t seen since before the COVID panic.
Thus, I will likely not be able to watch today’s third attempt by SpaceX to complete the tenth launch of its Starship/Superheavy rocket, as it happens.. (Live stream can be found here.)
Once settled in Colorado I will catch up. Like you all, I have my fingers crossed that the launch will go off as hoped with a largely successful test flight.
One fortunate thing that has occurred during the previous two launch attempts in the past two days is that it appears the protest of boats proposed by a Mexico radical activist group to block the launch has so appeared to be a bust. There has been no indication of any boats entering the launch range in the Gulf of Mexico, and if any have tried, it appears they have been removed quickly.