May 13, 2026 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Embedded below the fold in two parts.
To listen to all of John Batchelor’s podcasts, go here.
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Year: 2026
The Warning – Enter Sandman
In 2017 I posted an evening pause of this band playing this same song, when Daniela (on guitar) was 14 years old, Paulina (on drums) was 12 years old, and Alejandra (on bass guitar) was 9 yrs old. This version is from their 2025 tour in Mexico (where they are from). To put it mildly, they are a bit older.
Hat tip Richard Reese.
May 13, 2026 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.
- Video of Japan’s HTV-X1 cargo capsule, still in orbit at an altitude of 376 kilometers
It launched in October 2025, docked with ISS, and then undocked in March 2026. It will be de-orbited later this month over the Pacific.
- China touts its dedication to climate by describing its carbon monitoring equipment launched recently to its space station
Pure propaganda. As Jay correctly notes, “China is the worst polluter in the world.”
- On this day in 1982 the first crew to visit the Soviet Union’s new Salyut-7 space station was launched
They completed a 211 day mission (a record at the time). I describe their mission extensively in my book Leaving Earth. Lots of drama.
- Video of the first carry flight of Russia’s Buran space shuttle copy, which took place on May 13, 1989
They used an Antonov An-225 Mriya strategic airlift cargo aircraft.
Corroding glacial features inside Martian crater
Glacier country in the Martian northern mid-latitudes.
Click for original image.
Today’s cool image gives us another nice example of the ample availability of near surface ice on Mars, even if it might take a bit of processing to extract it from the dust and soil. The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on March 31, 2026 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
The picture captures in detail most of the floor of a 5.8-mile-wide unnamed crater, located in the northern mid-latitudes of Mars, in a 2000-mile-long strip I like to call glacier country, because practically every image taken there shows extensive glacial features. The white dot on the overview map above shows the location within that strip, with the inset showing the full crater, as well as the surrounding terrain.
The softness of this landscape strongly suggests a topsoil well impregnated with ice. The crater’s rim is itself very soft and subdued, suggesting melting and sublimation over time.
The material in the floor of the crater resembles peeling paint, which in this case suggests the ice there has been sublimating away as well. Nonetheless, there remains a lot under the surface. Future Martian colonists will certainly come to this region to gather ice for their own purposes.
New cost estimate for Trump’s Golden Dome exceeds $1 trillion over 20 years
According to the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) new estimates, the cost to build Trump’s proposed Golden Dome defense plan will be about $1.2 trillion over the next 20 years, double what the CBO predicted last year and more than six times what the program’s head has predicted.
The Congressional Budget Office issued an updated estimate today of the cost of President Trump’s Golden Dome missile defense system. Lacking detailed data from the Administration, CBO based its analysis on the capabilities called for in Trump’s January 2025 Executive Order and concluded the total cost over 20 years is $1.2 trillion, about twice its estimate last year, with the bulk of it for Space-Based Interceptors.
Trump issued the Iron Dome for America Executive Order on January 27, 2025, seven days after his second term began. He soon renamed it Golden Dome in part to distinguish it from Israel’s Iron Dome system which has more limited capabilities. Trump appointed Gen. Michael Guetlein to lead the project and in an Oval Office meeting on May 20, 2025, said it would cost $175 billion and be completed in three years, before he leaves office.
By then CBO had estimated the cost at $524 billion based on information available at the time.
Guetlein has since raised his estimate to $185 billion, but it is widely viewed as far too low.
Several important points: First, the CBO’s cost estimates are usually wrong, in either direction, which means the cost could be a lot less, or a lot more. Odds are that in this case its estimate is trending in the right direction. Guetlein’s cost estimate is absurdly too low.
Second, the high cost helps explain why a lot of investment money is pouring into a lot of new space startups, for both rocket and satellite companies. Wall Street sees the federal government spending a lot of money on Golden Dome, and wants to get into the action. For the same reason this is why a lot of space companies have shifted their focus from civilian projects to the military.
Finally, the idea of Golden Dome is perfectly reasonable, as its concept has already been proven both by the U.S.’s Patriot missile system and Israel’s Iron Dome. The implementation however is going to be bad, because the people in Washington being asked to do it have a terrible track record. They routinely waste money and manage projects badly.
ESA announces new round of funding for new rocket companies
Capitalism in space: The European Space Agency (ESA) yesterday announced a new round in its Boost! program to provide new startup rocket companies funding.
The new round will accept new submissions through 2028. The program is designed to encourage the development of private and independent rocket companies, competing for market share, with the added ability to provide ESA its needed launch services. What makes this ESA program different than all its previous rocket programs is that ESA does not own or control the rockets. It is helping to get these companies started, and will simply then be a customer buying the product from them once operation. Ownership will belong to the companies, not ESA.
To emphasize the ownership point, to get funding under this program “requires private co-funding. For every euro invested by ESA in commercial space businesses, often more than five euros are leveraged from private investors.”
So far ESA has provided funding to eleven different European startups, including Isar Aerospace, Rocket Factory Augsburg, and PLD, all three of which hope to make their first orbital launch this year. This new round is being offered to these companies and any new ones that might come forward. Of the 110 million euros so far allocated 20 million euros remains available for distribution.
AST SpaceMobile reaffirms its goal to launch 45 Bluebird satellites by the end of ’26
Despite the launch failure last month by Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, causing the loss of its satellite, AST SpaceMobile in its most recent quarterly report this week reaffirmed its goal to get 45 Bluebird satellites into orbit by the end of 2026.
In AST SpaceMobile’s 10-Q filed with the SEC on Monday, the company said the loss is expected to be in line with the carrying value of the satellite, in the range of $155 million to $160 million. The company plans for an asset write-off in the second quarter of 2026. The company also said in the 10-Q it had launch insurance coverage that covered a portion of the satellite and launch costs and has filed claims.
“At the end of the day, remember, we have 33 satellites in advanced stages of production at the factory. So it was a loss, we’re on to the next,” Wisniewski told investors. He added that the company is working closely with Blue Origin and is “optimistic” about New Glenn returning to the launch pad soon.
The company’s next launch is with SpaceX on a Falcon 9 rocket that will launch three satellites — BlueBirds 8, 9 and 10. Wisniewski confirmed the company has contracted launch capacity to meet its target of deploying 45 satellites by the end of this year. He also mentioned that five BlueBirds would fit in a United Launch Alliance Vulcan configuration, mentioning the company has been developing other heavy launch providers outside of SpaceX and Blue Origin.[emphasis mine]
The highlighted sentence suggests the company is also negotiating new contracts with both Arianespace’s Ariane-6 rocket and India’s LVM3 rocket. It has already used the latter on one launch successfully.
Nonetheless, the only company with the capability of ramping up enough launches quickly this year to meet this goal will be SpaceX. Expect that company to get more Bluebird launches in 2026.
The 12th Starship/Superheavy test orbital flight now scheduled for May 19, 2026
Starship/Superheavy (version 3) on launchpad
SpaceX yesterday announced that the 12th orbital test flight of its Starship/Superheavy rocket is now scheduled for May 19, 2026, with a launch window opening at 5:30 pm (Central).
The mission will be also be the first flight of what SpaceX calls Version 3 of both the booster and the spaceship, will include the first use of the Raptor-3 engine, and the first use of a completely redesigned launchpad.
The flight test’s primary goal will be to demonstrate each of these new pieces in the flight environment for the first time, with each element of the Starship architecture featuring significant redesigns to enable full and rapid reuse that incorporate learnings from years of development and test.
The booster’s primary test objective will be executing a successful launch, ascent, stage separation, boostback burn, and landing burn at an offshore landing point in the Gulf of America. As this is the first flight test of a significantly redesigned vehicle, the booster will not attempt a return to the launch site for catch.
The Starship upper stage will target multiple in-space and reentry objectives, including the deployment of 22 Starlink simulators, similar in size to next-generation Starlink satellites. The last two satellites deployed will scan Starship’s heat shield and transmit imagery down to operators to test methods of analyzing Starship’s heat shield readiness for return to launch site on future missions. Several tiles on Starship have been painted white to simulate missing tiles and serve as imaging targets in the test. The Starlink simulators will be on the same suborbital trajectory as Starship. A relight of a single Raptor engine while in space is also planned.
As an added potential test-to-failure, the company has also removed a single heat shield tile to test how Starship performs under this failure scenerio. The flight plan will be the same as the previous flights, designed to come down in the Indian Ocean.
A detailed description about the upgrades to Starship, Superheavy, and the ground systems can be found here.
The company will broadcast the launch live, which I will embed on Behind the Black once available.
SpaceX kind of confirms rumor it is considering purchasing 136,000 acres in Louisiana
In a tweet yesterday SpaceX sort of confirmed the rumor reported here last week that it is considering purchasing a giant 200-plus square mile plot (about 136,000 acres) on the south coast of Louisiana near the unincorporated town of Pecan Island.
It’s no secret that we intend to launch Starship a lot, targeting thousands of flights per year. That cadence will require the ability to launch from many different locations, so we are constantly exploring to find viable sites to expand Starship operations in the future, both domestically and internationally
This comment was in response to a tweet touting this rumor. Note that SpaceX’s comment is somewhat vague. It says the company is searching for additional launch locations for Starship, but does not say specifically if this Louisiana plot is one of them.
I suspect it is, based on all the known facts. The company is just being coy, likely because negotiations are still on-going. If so, the tweet tells us that if purchased SpaceX intends to use the site as a future spaceport. And because of its size, it will likely also install Raptor-3 engine test stands as well as its planned data-center satellite manufacturing, consolidating some operations in one location.
Hat tip BtB’s stringer Jay.
May 12, 2026 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast on so-called Moon race between the U.S. and China
John Batchelor asked me today to do bonus nine-minute segment on the eve of the Trump-Xi summit in China to discuss the “so-called Moon race” to get back to the Moon first. I have embedded that segment below. I start out by calling it “a fraud.”
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Canadian Brass – Bach’s Toccata & Fugue in D minor
An evening pause: Written for the organ, but it works I think even better in brass.
Hat tip Willi Kusche.
May 12, 2026 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.
- Second Angara official sentenced to seven years in absentia for fraud
The first was arrested. This guy is apparently still “a fugitive in Cyprus.”
- Viasat releases amazing photo of its ViaSat-3 F2 satellite with fully deployed large reflector
Taken 22,236 miles above the Earth, with the Earth in the background.
- On this day in 2009, the space shuttle Atlantis launched on the final Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission
At the time it was hoped the mission would extend Hubble for five more years. It is now seventeen years later and the telescope is still working, though it is increasingly on the edge of survival.